correct, the monstrous trigger is separate from the monstrous activated ability so if the creature isnt in play it can't trigger
― ciderpress, Monday, 23 September 2013 18:21 (ten years ago) link
really enjoying theros limited so far in my small sample size of 3 events. aura stacking is less of an issue than i thought it would be, since the bestow costs are so high and there are enough good tempo plays to punish it. colors seem reasonably well balanced. i'm happy for now.
― ciderpress, Sunday, 29 September 2013 22:56 (ten years ago) link
also a strategy tip: ive run 18 lands in all my decks so far and been very happy with it even in the aggressive decks, the set has more ways than usual to get more out of your mana late, plus scry to help keep you find late action, so i think it's much more likely to lose from screw than from flood in this format
― ciderpress, Sunday, 29 September 2013 23:37 (ten years ago) link
I lost a game from flood while playing 16 lands tonight. drew 12...
main decked 4 dragon mantle and would do so again
― iatee, Monday, 30 September 2013 00:22 (ten years ago) link
so ftr ars arcanum predicted:
4. I think that blue is the best color in the format, and I’m torn between black and green for the second best color. However, both red and white could be quite surprising, because Heroic is such a difficult mechanic to evaluate. It feels like blue, black, and green are best equipped to deal with the highly variable tempo of the format. The lynchpin commons that I see defining these colors are Nimbus Naiad, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, and Leafcrown Dryad.
which is already lol (I mean not on blue)
― iatee, Monday, 30 September 2013 18:08 (ten years ago) link
explain for the slow kids plz
― Roberto Spiralli, Monday, 30 September 2013 18:14 (ten years ago) link
white-based heroic decks are probably the best archetypes, red aggro is good in all its forms
green/black are fine in the right decks but neither of them is the 2nd...or 3rd best color
― iatee, Monday, 30 September 2013 18:19 (ten years ago) link
i'm all for trying to prove the guy wrong but it seems way too early to try to figure out what the best color is - at this point in RTR season everyone was convinced that Rakdos Unleash aggro trumped all
― frogbs, Monday, 30 September 2013 18:20 (ten years ago) link
I just want him to be wrong faster
― iatee, Monday, 30 September 2013 18:25 (ten years ago) link
in any case doing the opposite of what he says seems like a good strategy given his 'data-based' takes on the last few sets
― iatee, Monday, 30 September 2013 18:26 (ten years ago) link
Don't worry, he'll be proven wrong soon enough, but I agree with frogbs that before a format hits MTGO it's basically impossible to tell how things will shake out
― Vinnie, Monday, 30 September 2013 18:28 (ten years ago) link
his M14 article was good! but yeah it definitely seemed like he drew some pretty dodgy conclusions about the last block, as I recall he named perennial 10th-pick Runner's Bane as one of DGR's best commons
― frogbs, Monday, 30 September 2013 18:41 (ten years ago) link
runner's bane was pretty good in my experience but yeah not a premium removal
i think the colors are pretty balanced in theros, white has the lion's share of nut draw decks though which tend to perform best early in the format before people realize they need to actually interact before turn 4
― ciderpress, Monday, 30 September 2013 19:41 (ten years ago) link
see also people thinking rakdos was best early on
― ciderpress, Monday, 30 September 2013 19:42 (ten years ago) link
and gw aggro in innistrad
black and green have terrible options for the first 4 turns. aggro black doesn't even get its vanilla bear to be a vanilla bear.
― iatee, Monday, 30 September 2013 19:43 (ten years ago) link
I feel like the 3/3 for 1GW that draws a card if you have any +1/+1 counters on anything is gonna be nuts
― frogbs, Monday, 30 September 2013 19:46 (ten years ago) link
green has reach bear and mana guy which are both fine, and the scorpion if you're planning to go long. agree that black is lacking in early game though the 1/1 deathtouch is reasonable in this set, and pharika's cure is actually pretty important there i think
― ciderpress, Monday, 30 September 2013 19:46 (ten years ago) link
1GW guy not particularly nuts from what i've seen so far. its fine though
― ciderpress, Monday, 30 September 2013 19:48 (ten years ago) link
yeah small deathtouch dudes are always good, especially if the set revolves around building up your dudes. I remember the 1/1 deathtouch for B in Innistrad being really underdrafted.
― frogbs, Monday, 30 September 2013 19:48 (ten years ago) link
xp well it seems like both colors have a lot of things to add counters so the trigger should almost always go off, plus a 3/3 for 3 seems solid here
― frogbs, Monday, 30 September 2013 19:49 (ten years ago) link
1/1 deathtouch is pretty good value when you can bestow him, but that still doesn't help you early game. cure is good.
― iatee, Monday, 30 September 2013 19:49 (ten years ago) link
1gw is a good card in a weak color pairing
― iatee, Monday, 30 September 2013 19:50 (ten years ago) link
the white heroic deck is also kind of shallow at common, theres only so many wingsteed riders in a draft pod whcih will cap its effectiveness a bit since everyone wants those
― ciderpress, Monday, 30 September 2013 19:51 (ten years ago) link
yep and if you flame out w/ heroic and don't get the triggers your deck is pretty shallow and can't deal w/ a 4/5 on turn 5. but when someone has all the pieces it's almost as fast as gtc-boros.
― iatee, Monday, 30 September 2013 19:54 (ten years ago) link
like one drops are highly relevant in this set
yeah i was surprised at how reasonable the 1/1 lifelink bestow guy is
set feels a lot like innistrad in how curving out well is a huge advantage
― ciderpress, Monday, 30 September 2013 19:55 (ten years ago) link
yeah the bestow guy seems always playable, the 1/1 token maker and the 1/2 white dude are all easy maindeck choices. the black 2/1 gravecrawler and satyr are both also easy includes if you get them.
― iatee, Monday, 30 September 2013 19:58 (ten years ago) link
already bragged to lamp about this but opened xenagos *and* elspeth in last night's draft
had a funky 'play lots of walls and bounce and the trojan horse card until you draw elspeth' deck
― iatee, Wednesday, 2 October 2013 13:35 (ten years ago) link
sending the trojan horse on a rescue mission to the underworld is fun since when it comes back your opponent gets it back and is stuck with it
― ciderpress, Wednesday, 2 October 2013 14:12 (ten years ago) link
I'm a big fan of the card even tho it's bad in most decks
― iatee, Wednesday, 2 October 2013 14:46 (ten years ago) link
seems really good to me in any deck that wants to go long
― ciderpress, Wednesday, 2 October 2013 15:24 (ten years ago) link
well it discourages you from attacking on the ground so a lot of green monstrous decks, despite wanting to go long, aren't gonna be getting much value from trojan horse into asp. but it's really good in basically any base blue deck - stalling til you get your bounce cards / smashing w/ vaporkins etc.
― iatee, Wednesday, 2 October 2013 15:34 (ten years ago) link
it seems pretty terrible, you skip your 4 drop in order to instead give your opponent a blocker that will, by turn 7, have produced three 1/1 creatures. play it any later than that and it gets even worse. plus it stops you from attacking with any ground creature bigger than a 3/3. at least there aren't a lot of sac effects.
that said, my Zedruu EDH deck loves it :)
― frogbs, Wednesday, 2 October 2013 15:36 (ten years ago) link
first two winning THS draft decks:http://i.imgur.com/xPLaaXd.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/d54LrkP.jpg
― ciderpress, Saturday, 5 October 2013 20:56 (ten years ago) link
Do people just not read the card Time to Feed? Because I'm getting them 11th pick, not only is it a Prey Upon w/ upside (for 2G), but it also triggers Heroic
― frogbs, Saturday, 5 October 2013 22:09 (ten years ago) link
theres a pretty big difference between G and 2G, which 3 life and heroic triggers doesn't really make up. its still a fine card and can be straight up good if you have a bunch of the green heroic guys but not every green deck needs the effect
― ciderpress, Saturday, 5 October 2013 22:28 (ten years ago) link
for a fight effect (which doesn't get played early anyway) the extra 2 mana doesn't seem to matter much. I dunno - I drafted 4 in my prerelease deck online and they've done a lot of work.
this set is playing really well so far. Scry is such a great limited mechanic.
― frogbs, Saturday, 5 October 2013 23:32 (ten years ago) link
here's another 3-0 draft deckhttp://i.imgur.com/F6JzkmT.jpg
been doing well with these BUG decks so far, this one's not abusing the graveyard really but it's possible to do some fun stuff with that in these colors
― ciderpress, Sunday, 6 October 2013 03:39 (ten years ago) link
actual lol @ those draft decks
― Lamp, Sunday, 6 October 2013 04:00 (ten years ago) link
they are pretty loose yes if that;s what you're loling about
― ciderpress, Sunday, 6 October 2013 05:01 (ten years ago) link
this last one was actually good though i think
haha thats the one i like the least. but it was mostly that you got triple searing spear. i've had triple searing spear once in this format, idk why people keep passing it, it is the best.
i went 2-1 twice today with so so decks. i have been forcing u/r tempo decks because lightning w/e and voyage's end have been consistently amazing for me in paper drafts and i cannot seem to pass either of those cards or the uncommon chimera. iatee keep trying to convince me that u/w is a way better tempo deck but im not having it.
― Lamp, Sunday, 6 October 2013 05:23 (ten years ago) link
i like UR tempo too but haven't won out with it yet. its better than white if you get 3 searing spears though!
― ciderpress, Sunday, 6 October 2013 05:38 (ten years ago) link
I feel like a lot of red creatures are bad in the ur build. but yeah searing spear is insane in this format.
― iatee, Monday, 7 October 2013 14:09 (ten years ago) link
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/limited/analysis/draft/theros-theros-theroshttp://www.mtggoldfish.com/limited/cards/draft/theros-theros-theros
color ranking fits my views on the format but the fact that these numbers are all within 1% of each other - and even the strongest performing deck, boros, is only at 54% - does suggest that this format is very balanced
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 October 2013 16:30 (ten years ago) link
i'm a bit surprised at how low UW is in the color pairs since that seems to be the thing i most consistently lose to, but the margins are so small that it's probably not significant yet
― ciderpress, Wednesday, 9 October 2013 03:03 (ten years ago) link
yeah UW heroic with a zillion combat tricks and lots of scry seems nearly impossible to beat sometimes
― frogbs, Wednesday, 9 October 2013 03:17 (ten years ago) link
3 color seems really doable in this format
yesterday I had a rad 4c 2 polis crusher, 2 chained to the rocks, 2 horizon chimera deck w/ tons of fixing
― iatee, Monday, 14 October 2013 17:15 (ten years ago) link
also my last 4 drafts have involved opening: 2 elspeths, xenagos, thoughtseize
I didn't open a single voice despite playing dgm all the time so this makes up for it
― iatee, Monday, 14 October 2013 17:17 (ten years ago) link