Magic: The Gathering C/D

i won't pick either of those Moodles - Armory Guard, Ogre Gatekeeper, and Trestle Troll are all good 4+ toughness guys that go with Green's "friendly" RTR colors

lived the dream today, and beat a pack rat deck. it helped that i had both supreme verdict and detention sphere.

had a strange draft tonight, was well into azorius when I opened a pack rat. ended up with:

lyev skyknight
new prahv guildmage
azorius keyrune
seller of songbirds
2x trostani's judgment
azorius justiciar
avenging arrow
armory guard
skyline predator
paralyzing grasp
isperia's skywatch
voidwielder
2x inaction injunction
2x inspiration
syncopate
cyclonic rift
stealer of secrets
tower drake
soulsworn spirit
transguile promenade
+pack rat and one swamp
.
dnp
blustersquall
x2 cancel
armory guard
azorius arrester
rogue's passage

looks good, i think i like cancel better than paralyzing grasp though and i'd consider keeping it real and playing azorius arrester over pack rat, i dont think this deck needs the rat

I like that Search the City and Sphinx of the Chimes belong in the same currently undiscovered deck (it is probably not a very good deck)

I seem to like grasp more than most people...has saved me against a lot of bombs, tho I guess I had the white removal too. only drew the rat twice in ten games, it helped win one and was killed immediately in the other. it was def an aspirational inclusion and maybe would slightly hurt this deck's win percentage over a hundred games.

one card I really underrated until recently is inaction injunction.

i dunno, i'm okay with Pack Rat splash there, more concerned with Syncopate over Arrester

won a sealed tournament yesterday for a Commander's Arsenal. i don't play commander nor do i care about any of the cards in it but it's a very limited print run thing and seems to be selling for $200+ on ebay already, so i guess i'll just stash it in my closet and hope it builds value as a collector's item or something.

my top8 draft deck was pretty silly and really demonstrates what you can do in multicolor formats if you're willing to take mana fixing over decent spells:

1 archon of the triumvirate
1 sphinx of the chimes
1 isperia's skywatch
1 rubbleback rhino
1 towering indrik
1 ogre jailbreaker
1 korozda monitor
1 runewing
1 trestle troll
1 axebane guardian
1 drudge beetle
1 doorkeeper
1 centaur's herald

1 rakdos's return
1 syncopate
1 explosive impact
1 launch party
1 inspiration
1 stab wound
2 ultimate price

1 selesnya keyrune
1 azorius keyrune

2 transguild promenade
2 izzet guildgate
1 rakdos guildgate
1 azorius guildgate
5 forest
4 swamp
2 island

i had no idea if this was any good when i finished drafting it but it won out surprisingly easily so i think i'm going to try it more often

rufus had a Pizza: The Gathering party for his 10th birthday. him and 10 magic-loving friends.

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/68868_10151939698352137_245334417_n.jpg

the game store here in town is magic central and that place is PACKED on friday nights for tournaments. i'm happy for them. its a crazy scene there.

when I was a 10 y/o all of my magic cards were in piles exactly like that one

I also ate a lot of pizza

but I eat more pizza now, because I can buy myself pizza

things went exactly as planned

Awesome job Ciderpress!

I'm definitely warming up to the Axebane Guardian multicolor strategy. I dipped my toe into this during my last draft a couple weeks ago although it was more of a Golgari deck splashing red. The bonus ramp from Axebane + defenders really helped a lot.

Also, I wish my son would have a Magic pizza party. I'm the big dork in the house who has to twist his arm to play a game or two with me, even though he usually beats me.

xxxp - overall I think this deck can definitely work, but you're really vunlerable to bad draws, especially with no Vines. either you don't get the color you need or the opposite happens and you get too much mana and your opponent removes the few creatures you do draw. this kind of deck seems to really rely on stalling out early to get the big stuff to work. I guess I'd have to see it in action but I'm guessing you had enough to stall out (lots of x/4s there) until the Archon dropped? (which is such a stupid card, really)

yeah it seems like if you make it to late game you are prob in a very good place cause your average card is better than their average card, but it's gonna have way more variance than a solid rakdos deck

exactly. I'm noticing the same with going 2 colors as opposed to 3. with 3 colors I don't really lose too many matches without getting color-screwed at least one game. with 2 I don't have the mana problems but my average card isn't as good and the deck lacks depth. I think there are ways around this - I'm starting to get really good with Golgari and balls-out Izzet, while being more mindful of "if you're going to splash a 3rd color, try to not go below four-drops or powerful three-drops for that color"

I almost always end up w/ a pretty traditional 2 color guild deck. prob due to my risk aversion on some level.

i honestly don't think there's much variance introduced from playing 5 colors if you actually draft enough fixing. a normal 2 color draft deck has 9 sources of one color and 8 sources of the other. my deck has 8-9 sources each of green, black, and blue, and 5-6 sources each for red and white. even on the 2 'splash' colors that's much better mana than you normally get splashing a card or 2 off of 2-3 off-color sources or whatever

i think the solid rakdos deck has at least as much variance, since if you get behind on board to another aggressive deck at all then suddenly your deck is full of wimpy on-curve creatures that can't block a 3/3 instead of over-curve creatures that attack well. this has happened to me a lot and it feels awful

Ciderpress, how many people attend your tournaments? The prize support at my LGS seems pretty weak by comparison.

our normal prize support isn't anywhere near as much as a commanders arsenal is worth, they've just been running these tournaments each weekend to 'give away' the 5 commanders arsenals they got since it's a better community thing for them to make the money on tournament entry fees than just to mark them way up and sell them for $300 to some rich kids or whatever

FNM here usually draws like 35-50 people for draft and 20-30 for standard, it varies a lot depending on how new the set is. prize pool is usually $5 store credit per entrant, like i said this tournament was an unusual one

I see what you're saying cider but the opportunity to get color screwed is still very present. The Promenades obviously are very important; many of those "5-6 sources" you have are really the same cards. I do agree that 4-5 color is very possible with the right cards and you *shouldn't* get color hosed often if you're prioritizing the right fixing. At the same time I wonder what cards you passed on to get those. I don't think Doorkeeper, the Rhino, Launch Party (what exactly is good to sacrifice here), the Beetle, or the Monitor are really ideal for this kind of deck. Also, a deck with four gates and two Promenades seems liabile to really slow starts on the draw. Like if you don't play Promenade on turn 2 it can really wreck your development and sometimes force you to essentially skip a turn in the name of fixing. I mean just looking at it I'm guessing the 2 Ultimate Prices and Stab Wound + Troll and Indrik helped you stall enough leading up to a hand-clearing Rakdos's Return or one of your two big boppers. I've definitely drafted decks like this. As I said even if your fixing is so good that you easily have access to all your colors, part of that is playing two Keyrunes and the Axebane, which gives you 20 mana sources, and that has its own problems.

beetle and monitor are actually ideal in this sort of deck, it's important to have mana sinks when you're playing 20 mana sources. doorkeeper is fine too, it blocks okay and can be another win condition in stalled games. agreed on launch party not being ideal, i just wanted another out to problematic multicolor creatures, and saccing a beetle or excess wall to it is acceptable.

did you open any powerful cards that did not end up in your deck?

yes, i had a palisade giant and a rix maadi guildmage in my sideboard due to mana considerations

surely getting that many a-level cards sorta depends on luck + having some lousy/nothatedrafty people nearby? like your deck has more bombs than I typically see throughout a draft

It was sealed

The problem with the Beetle and Monitor is that they both get outclassed really quickly, the Beetle doesn't really trade with any 3-drop and there aren't a lot of 2-drops that people play outside of Guildmages and stuff like Chainwalker. The Monitor is almost always going to be useless because your opponent should always have a 4-toughness guy. The Scavenge costs are huge, yes that's a mana sink but I think if you're just looking to dump mana you've only got a handful of creatures that could actually use the counters. I prefer the black scavengers really - Shambler is a big problem for black decks, and the Scorpion (which is B/G) at least trades for another creature. Plus the scavenge costs won't take up all your mana. In fact I think Zanikev Locust is quite underrated, as a 3/3 is usually going to be the biggest flyer, and 2BB for +3/+3 is really great value in itself.

oh that makes a lot more sense xp

yeah I agree about the locust

this was the top 8 draft, not sealed - my sealed deck was a much more straightforward azorius deck

one thing i didn't mention is that i wouldn't ever go into a draft looking to force this type of deck from pick one, you really need to pick up a knock-out finisher like the archon early on at which point you can give it a try. this set doesn't really have any uncommons that qualify as that other than vitu-ghazi guildmage, so the archetype is pretty rare-dependent. if you want to play something like this no matter what, you can force the long-game golgari deck and then pick up splashes later if they show up, and if they don't you'll at least have a cohesive golgari build.

and yeah i'm definitely down on korozda monitor in general, i often cut it from my actual golgari base-green decks. i just wanted another body and it was the weakest card in the deck. i still think beetle is fine though, it trades with most 2-drops and some 3-drops and having late-game value on your 2-drop is really nice upside

I just feel like you can't count on the fixing coming to you

i do think the locust is super underrated right now

maybe people at the store you draft at take gates/promenades higher? i never have any problem getting the right amount if i prioritize them correctly for the deck i'm trying to build

it's possible. lotta hate drafting too.

xxpost

Golgari in general is underrated. I think people balk at a strategy that relies on the long game rather than pure aggression.

xpost

I am also kind of surprised that you ended with so many gates and transguild promenades. I definitely don't see that much in my drafts. How early are taking them?

even the best golgari decks I've seen just don't dominate very well imo. I really try to avoid it.

i've first-picked gates before but that's always from a weak pack. usually i get them around 5-7th pick or so?

what i see a lot with golgari is that people don't have enough win conditions. there's plenty of ways to gum up the board, you can pick those up later, but there's very little evasion in green/black. prioritize korozda guildmage, stab wound, rogue's passage, daggerdrome imp, the black scavenge guys, etc. green scavenge guys are fine but they're filler, you can get them late or not at all.

yeah I've seen the same thing. golgari's always in the game, but only dominating the board position if there's a bomb around.

I think if you play a stall out and ramp strategy, you shouldn't be afraid to take some of the big dorks like Axebane Stag. Folks are avoiding these like the plague, but they are pretty unstoppable if you are able to cast them.

yeah horncaller's chant actually seems more playable in golgari than selesnya for that reason

horncaller's chant actually seems... playable

man oh man do i fucking hate this draft format

haha why

i like that they actually stuck in a common that's a passable finisher in the ramp deck

it's also a fine sideboard card if your opponent is playing the x/4 walls deck

I'm bummed that they didn't include 1 or two more walls that could ensure that the walls deck was viable in every draft

i don't think they were trying to push it that much since they already did a walls deck in rise of the eldrazi which was just a couple years ago.

oh that makes sense

I have a limited perspective w/ recent sets

haha why

i never seemed to get very good at it before i got bored of it. like i started doing things like forcing b/w enchantments or psychic spiral or like mono civic saber (not an archetype it turns out) before i really had that great a handle on the format since i dont like the way the guilds warp and limit draft strategies and most of the guild-based archetypes are really terrible and unfun. also i just kinda dont like most of the non-rares and was never excited to open packs the way i was in even avacyn when itd be like 'sweet kruin stirker' or w/e rtr just feels like 'shock for value?' because none of the commons or uncommons are that good.

also i hate losing and was barely above 50% in rtr drafts when i quit

not saying I could convince you otherwise but I pretty much disagree with every single part of that

I guess we could concede that most draft strategies are guild-centric, but there are multiple ways that each guild can play out. I guess the thing I'm wondering is what exactly is unfun about those strategies? Are they just too predictable?