Magic: The Gathering C/D

I think a strong (sole drafter, reasonable card pool) dimir deck might be better than a strong golgari deck but building it is gonna require some nuance

the prob is the drop off from decent dimir to compeltely unwinnable dimir seems like it's gonna be sharp

well there seems to be fewer 3-power dudes that come out on turn two or three, for one. I think outside of a fast Boros start (especially with the 3/2 RW dude) you should at least have a chance to establish your deck.

that said - with Izzet you really do risk getting a terrible deck if the right cards don't come in pack two and three, a risk you don't really have with Selesnya because it has so many good commons that work in a vacuum. with Izzet you can go Electromancer/Stealer of Secrets/Runewing as your "curve" and totally get blown up by a Centaur/Dread Reveler + a combat trick. Dimir looks about the same way, you really need the synergy, and probably really really need Hands of Binging

whereas even gruul at its worst is just some lame R/G dudes, still can win a game against a bad deck / draw

so yes basically what iatee said. I've built Izzets that struggled mightily to win vs. 5-color decks with Aquus Steed. again I don't think this format is going to be so fast that you just get run over - three guilds play for the long game, and Gruul isn't exactly quick either.

haha i dont think theres a dimir uncommon as strong as dreg mangler. but i strongly encourage everyone to continue drafting dimir and trying to make it work

Gruul isn't necessarily quick but it can blow you out from nowhere if you aren't careful. Wrecking Ogre can be absolutely devastating.

dinrova horror maybe xp

i think the gruul and dimir drafters should just try opening M13 boosters tbh... think of all the playable creatures youll get, i mean nothing on the level of 1/1s for three but theres some decent stuff in there.

i'm basically just gonna go with what's open but with a preference towards non-red decks

all I'm saying is that I would expect Development to try really hard to make sure all 5 guilds were somewhat balanced in Limited which is why I can't believe right now that Dimir is that much worse than Golgari or whatever the worst RTR guild is now (to be honest, I don't think Golgari's that bad??)

golgari is objectively the worst

haha, Golgari is my favorite, maybe I need to reassess my priorities...

i always did well with golgari, the trick is to take cards that aren't black or green

golgari was great for me because it was underdrafted so I would get passed all kinds of insane cards.

i think development might simply have been really worried about cipher in constructed - free spells are often a problem and i think they had to overcost a bunch of stuff to help avoid it getting out of hand when put on invisible stalker or w/e.

that seems likely but you'd think they'd balance that w/ more strong-in-limited-useless-in-constructed cards

Golgari and Izzet are the two that seem to rely more on good uncommons and rares but I dunno about "objectively the worst". It plays a good long game through Scavenge and commons like the Scorpion are pretty excellent because you can trade for an attacker and get a Common Bond later. Trestle Troll shuts down Azorious pretty well. I love playing Gatecreepers in there too because you can sac 'em to Slum Reaper or Launch Party. I think it's a deeper guild than most realize, maybe because nobody drafts Grisly Savage which is really good if you've got Shamblers and Scorpions. IMO Izzet is the one where you walk a real fine line between a contender and not having a chance.

anyway as far as Dimir goes I think the deck would work so much better if Frilled Oculous's +2/+2 was 1B instead of 1G. actually I think that's been brought up before.

i think gruul is more uncommon-dependent than izzet or golgari. i;ve won so many games just with gore-house chainwalker and pursuit of flight, or sewer shambler onto daggerdrome imp, but the common gruul cards just seem super unimpressive, while the uncommons are all nuts (guildmage, trample guy, ground assault, charm)

also the card Death's Approach may be seriously overlooked here; I've heard people argue "other drafters snap up all the good blue and black stuff anyway" which I think is a silly argument but here's a card that seems only good in Dimir

I think a super strong golgari deck still loses games at a higher rate than a super strong anything else deck

like it's not like the guild never wins games or matches or tournaments, but there's no equivalent to having 3 call of the conclaves or the perfect azorius deck etc

xp I say "uncommon dependant" not necessarily because they have the best ones (actually, Izzet's uncommons are pretty weak), but because it's real hard to wind up with 19-20 playable commons in either of those guilds. I agree that Gruul looks to be similar.

that 2RG dude is the mangler-o-gruul

I think a super strong golgari deck still loses games at a higher rate than a super strong anything else deck

there's some truth here, no equivilent to the turn 5 Rakdos kill or Selesnya vomiting out Centaurs or Azorious playing flyers every turn and detaining your Reach guy. super strong Golgaris tend to clog up everything with Jailbreakers and Trestle Trolls then start dominating with Longlegs or a big Daggerdrome Imp

the equivalent is having lots of stab wounds which realistically never happens

when your best threat is a removal spell, you get cannibalized pretty quickly

I've seen golgari decks w/ 3 stab wounds only doing okay

it mighta been better to price that card at GB tho so golgari got it to itself, its not like rakdos needed it

not really in green's flavor I guess

I had a Golgari deck with 3 Stab Wounds, 2 Manglers, 2 Dreadbridge Goliaths (!) and Pack Rat - I only lost one game because I'm an idiot and forgot to submit my deck so I had to play three games with an 80 card deck. Also got 3 shocklands that draft.

Stab Wound is good in Rakdos yeah but for Golgari it really pulls double duty

haha okay well that deck would be fine without the stab wounds and manglers probably

yeah that was a rare combo of getting playable bomb rares AND getting money rare AND having your guild completely open

the only izzet uncommon that i always really wanted was teleportal. rally and charm were good but izzet was so good when it was open because its strongest cards were at common

I'm pretty fond of Nivix Guildmage and Hover Barrier for that deck as well. Teleportal takes a good Izzet deck to great but it can actually make a bad one worse.

yeah I think when izzet is open and you have as many weirds/stealers/voids/crews as your heart desires you only need a few other things to round out your deck

sorta true w/ azorius but on their own the good commons aren't as good

Weilders get snapped up quick by Azorius and Lobber Crews tend to go quick too. Stealer is a good card with the right support but it can also be an expensive bear that does nothing. Taking them early seems to be a bad idea all around.

The thing about Azorious is that there are just so many 2/3 mana flyers - Pegasus, Griffin, Vassal Soul, and Tower Drake are all common, and outside of Troll and Indrik, decks really have a problem holding off so many. That's when Detain really gets good because you can wipe out a blocker and/or prevent the swing-back.

oh yeah - Runewing too. basically there are no 3/3 flyers for less than 6 mana at common or uncommon which means those 2/x guys are hard to negate.

sadly I'm noticing Rakdos players taking Frostburns now too. I guess the secret is out.

Here are my resolutions for tonight's draft:

Make an effort to stick with 2 colors only.
Don't try to force a guild, take what is open.
Make sure to have some legit closers, don't expect to win by getting a bunch of small hits in.
If the strategy calls for playing defense in the early game, make sure to have enough defenders and removal to actually support such a strategy.

somehow fell into a big pit of gruul but had some good simic cards to balance it out. went 2-1. I think I was alone in gruul. lost to a fast boros deck 2-1, mana screwed both times, but I don't think my deck was worse.

wasteland viper
burning-tree emissary
2 crocanura
2 crowned ceratok
cinder elemental
ghor-clan rampager
viashino shanktail
ruination wurm
giant adephage
gruul ragebeast
nimbus swimmer
gruul keyrune
simic keyrune
gruul charm
simic charm
urban evolution
arrows of justice
aetherize
rapid hybridization
2 homing lightning

stomping ground
simic guildgate
2 island
7 forests
6 mountains

dnp:
2 ruination wurm (sometimes sided one in)
alpha authority
act of treason
massive raid
skinbrand goblin
slaughterhorn
adaptive snapjaw
warmind infantry
2 towering thunderfist
clinging anemones
foundry street denizen

would you guys build this differently? my deck was more fun to play than my prerelease gruul deck (and better) tho I'm not sure I'm any less skeptical of gruul. ragebeast is fun to play.

I broke my resolutions after opening Domri Rade p1p1 and then trying to force my way into Gruul. The draft was fairly chaotic and I ended up going 3-0 for the first time. Folks were passing me all kinds of rares.

Here's my deck:
Smite
Spire tracer
2 greenside watcher
Disciple of the old ways
Madcap skills
Martial glory
Gruul charm
2 verdant haven
Ember beast
Warmind infantry
Act of treason
Domri rade
Viashino shanktail
Crowned ceratok
Ivy lane denizen
Nav squad commandos
Angelic edict
Rust scarab
Zhur tar swine
Foundry champion
Molten primordial
Boros Guildgate
4 plains
6 mountain
6 forest

Also picked enter the infinite and lazav (who I traded to a lucky individual for boborygmos). Pulled a godless shrine in my prize packs and got both promo cards, so overall quite a good night.

so after my resolution to avoid the presumably-overdrafted boros, i opened p1p1 firemane avenger, successfully cut white, and ended up with a sick boros deck which did not lose a game despite me never drawing the avenger or my hellkite tyrant

then somehow ended up in a 4 on 4 team draft where i was probably the worst player at the table, drafted a decent simic deck feat. master biomancer, and promptly went 0-3. luckily the pro player on my team bailed us out and i got a bunch of undeserved rares

yeah i had vowed to avoid boros got passed ordun minotaur followed by ordun minotaur p1 picks two and three, got cut packs two and three, drafted a really terrible orzhov deck went 1-2 and dropped. not the best start to the format. also think i probably misplayed a couple of games but i got blown out by aurelia's fury in three games :/

i don't think that minotaur is too good, not enough to be a signal at least

i think hes fine, not that strong a signal p1p2 but seeing him again seemed like a sign. im probably overrating how high he should go though. he was also the strongest card in both packs i think - i really wanted to take a black card cuz i took the double black four mana kill spell p1p1 but there wasnt anything except cipher spells - not even the 'good' ones. i do regret passing a cartel aristocrat for the two mana tap a creature red uncommon. and i probably passed some other ok orzhov stuff that pack, or at least better stuff than i ended up running.

also if you have any good ideas for standard id like to hear them - i have three byes for the upcoming gp + a place to stay + its reading week so id really like to go but i want to start testing soon if im gonna bother

I'm starting to ponder a way to pull together my golgari, Rakdos, and Gruul decks into some kind of deadly rgb deck with a haste and trample theme. Not exactly sure the best way to make it work.

i don't have any brilliant ideas yet - there's the angel of glory's rise combo deck i mentioned previously which isn't really 'public' yet but i know a few people who are planning to test it. there's probably some UB aggro-tempo deck with duskmantle seer but i don't know exactly what support you want for it. delvers probably?

i think jund and naya midrange will still be fine, esper and bant control will still be fine, mono-red will still be fine. there'll be some boros aggro decks, probably one that's the current mono-red deck splashing white stuff and another that's a champion of the parish/silverblade paladin deck. the UWR deck will probably shift back from controlling to aggro with boros charm playing nice with geist of saint traft and snapcaster. there's a way to combo off with immortal servitude returning blood artists and bloodthrone vampires and such but it probably sucks. there's crypt ghast into huge demonic revelations but i don't know if that's good. i'd like to try playing domri rade and 32 creatures but i don't know if that's good either. basically i'm going to try everything but it'll mostly be on modo and we'll have decklists from the pro tour by the time the new cards become reasonably priced on there.

guys i don't think gutter skulk is a maindeckable card

i just wanted to tell you this

cool art though

gift of orzhova wins the art award from this set i think