Magic: The Gathering C/D

i have yet to meet anyone with a better plan than mine: 'open aetherling'

you can thank with a cut off all the sweet gatecrash packs this simple advice is gonna win you

somebody out there has drafted the aetherling-pack rat draft already, I wonder if people beat him up outside the store afterwards

ps what happened at the end of that lol dyzl draft last night

i beat a pack rat deck last night with the one i posted up there

i think i have a winning record overall vs pack rat in limited, i've been very lucky

also a losing record with pack rat in my deck

wait no that part isn't true nevermind

yeah i beat a really bad pat rack deck this week in an 8-4 with a mediocre gruul beat down deck

i don't think i've lost yet with an aetherling in play though #skillgame

do you guys still disagree w/ me that aetherling is better than pack rat

i would be willing to believe aetherling is a better card in limited, the rat does get significantly worse the later you draw it in the game

well i have lost a few games with aetherling in my hand so it kinda balances out

i think the biggest advantage aetherling his in full block draft is that you get to open it pack one rather than pack three. like my opponent had a bad pack rat deck because he was probably some combination of bant colors before pack three and had a really hard time casting it on turn two, or developing a real board presence to try for the turn five play. also pack rat doesnt block that well at first

so lets say dgm packs were fucked up and instead of a shock there was an aetherling and a pack rat. how long does it take you to make a decision.

yeah i have already passed pack rat at least once and i would do it again - i think it is actually a poor splash because it's often mediocre late and if you draw it late you want multiple black sources to double up and catch it up with the rest of the board

i would take aetherling since it's worth a few bucks and i have the whole draft to pick up anti-pack-rat cards

whereas there are no anti-aetherling cards except pithing needle, a rare

i guess debtor's pulpit is too, and new prahv guildmage, but none of these take it off the table still

as someone who has consistently managed to draft aetherling the only thing it really loses to is 'dying before i have seven mana'

i think in a situation where card prices have no bearing, i would take the pack rat over it but i think they're about equally good

I think 6 lands + Aetherling will usually lose the game. 6 lands + Pack Rat will usually win the game. Going with the Rat but it's close.

Well Pack Rat is one of the three most broken Limited cards of all time while Aetherling requires seven mana to get going; for that you get Gruul Ragebeast which is almost always a win too

gruul ragebeast is not almost always a win. i have cast it followed by giant adephage and still lost to a removal-heavy deck

also you're allowed to play aetherling on turn 6 which is a pretty big difference from 7 in terms of the probability of getting there in any given game

err on 6 mana i mean, not turn 6

It has been an auto-win for me! and yeah I guess you can chance it with Aetherling (not a whole lot of cards take out a 4/5 anyway) but I still feel like once you get into the 6-7 mana range there are a lot of real bomby rare/mythic creatures that are tough to lose with. Aetherling may be near the top of the list but it doesn't inspire the type of helplessness that Pack Rat does. You can still power through it or win with flyers. It's a card that wins on turn 9-10 most of the time.

also is that article above suggesting you need to stick with 2 colors in DGR drafts? I did that once (with Azorious) and actually swept the draft even though my deck was pretty awful (my first round opponent played 4 colors and could have easily won the match with that dude that lets you sac something to give all your creatures +1/+1 but I think he just didn't see it). I think 3-color decks can be excellent but you need fixing badly.

aetherling inspires just as much helplessness. it cannot be killed, cannot be blocked, attacks for 8.

my best decks have all been 3 colors

just like any deep limited format, there's no 'right' way to construct decks, just make sure you have a plan and then execute on that plan

xp yes but you get at least 5 turns before it lands and more often something like 6-8. whereas the Pack Rat is already a huge problem on turn five.

my stronger decks have been closer to two colors, although they usually splash a third for one or two bombs

I'm onboard for a strategy that sticks reasonably close to two colors. You may end up with a slightly dull deck, but casting spells on curve is a huge asset in this format when so many decks aren't able to do that.

someone i know whose opinion i trust says he's done well in this format just by playing a bunch of cluestones and 5-drops and just slamming 5-drops from turn 4 on until his opponent runs out of disruption. which is about the opposite of how i've been approaching things, so who knows, i think pretty much everything is viable if your deck is focused

yeah my initial strategy was to try to stay two colors although unlike BenS i wanted to force an rtr guild although i can see the sense in setting yourself up for a good pack two by forcing gtc guilds early. in my last three or four drafts i've been experimenting with taking guildgates really high and looking to go 4-5 colors.

i definitely don't think i've got a great handle on this format though - i've only managed to 3-0 a small % of my mtgo drafts (i've also done way fewer than i had with rtr and gtc at the same point) and while my win % in paper has been really good i've also opened bombs p1p1 almost every paper draft i've done. i'm really interested to start working though some of the different approaches tho, i had thought about the cluestone + 5-drop plan simply because the cluestones are so open rn

the good thing about taking an RTR guild is that your deck is more defined by that point so if you go into the last pack looking to fill 8-9 slots you have a much clearer idea of what you need. it is risky though in that if the pack just doesn't work out then your deck could wind up weak. whereas if you go for a GTC guild and it doesn't work you can always try to luck into a decent 3-color splash.

have now managed to have two planeswalkers in play in a limited game

surely I get a badge of some sort

still went 1-2 w/ the deck :(

yeah none of the RTR block walkers are unbeatable in limited, they've been a bit better about that lately

it was actually jace and ajani in m13

I lost 3 games to tricks of the trade and had bad mulls

ajani pretty eh, I mean it takes 3 turns before that's a better spell than common bond

jace is one of the better ones but ajani isn't insane nor does he protect jace

i had a nutty game at FNM back during M13 draft where i ultimated my ajani for one (1) cat token in order to chump block to stay alive, then won the game like 5 turns later after an insane series of draws

I had a board stall w/ ajani out and that itself was kinda more fun than the actual win because you could feel my opponent getting more and more nervous

one of my opponents last night ultimated ral zarek against me, and i think i would have won the game if he had got 0 or 1 turn (he got 3)

was that in limited? I've still never seen it happen

isn't m13 jace like an auto win

it's a 2-3 turn clock but doesn't interact w/ the board at all so if you're losing by a lot it's not gonna help

tis true but it's definitely one of those cards I haven't won against or lost with

what is the most ridiculous Limited planeswalker? I'd say Gideon

vraska and m13 jace are both better than gideon I think

gideon jura is on the pack rat shortlist for sure. basically if you play it with blockers up and aren't way way behind, you win. at least M12 had oblivion ring, but in ROE apparently there were basically 0 outs to it.

new gideon is pretty mediocre in comparison

yeah the old Gideon was just a nightmare

Vraska is very good but definitely not on that level. it's just a Lux Cannon that starts with some counters.

o I thought you were talking about new gideon

my magic knowledge between urza's destiny and m13 is pretty spotty

iatee go read gideon jura and then try to imagine beating it ever

i think its probably better than pack rat

haha yeah that seems pretty good