Magic: The Gathering C/D

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?

And yes, the part about no good commons or uncommons is pure challops

guildmages 4 example

@frogs sure, and even the stuff i think is more objectively true in my critique can still seem like a virtue depending on your own reaction to the set. its a very fluid and difficult and interesting set to draft, card evaluation seems to me to be heavily contextual which is good!

i think the fact that this has been a challenging set to draft has made it less interesting to draft in some ways? because the value of most cards fluctuates widely enough to make it difficult to really establish a consistent pick order i felt like ppl on mtgo ended up really trying to force the 'proven' good archetypes like populate and fast rakdos. which meant that the best counter strategy was first a tempo izzet build and then, as people started to actually take frostburn wierds, a midrange golgari one. like the more linear and archetype-driven other drafters are the more it narrows your own best draft strategy?

idk the guildmages suck, theyre powerful but not exciting to me. but thats just my own reaction to the cards. i think there are more polarized cards in this set than im used to tho

To me that's what makes a good and interesting format. Being high on Frostburn Weird since day 1 has led to a lot of my early success on RTR and then learning how to play Golgari when nobody would take it is what's getting me by now. Formats where there is a consistant pick order are the ones that get dull in my opinion.

I had similar thoughts to Lamp about Shadowmoor, which was a very fluid set, and one I didn't like drafting. IIRC a lot of people defaulted to one-color decks because it was easy and consistent, myself included (also there was a cycle that rewarded it). Playing two colors was a head trip because you could play about 50% of the set (!) but had to carefully balance power vs. having a decent manabase. Haven't felt that way about RtR though, something about it is easier to get my head around.

signal reading seems paramount w/ the guild distribution and so I think the set rewards good drafting more than luck

but I have been winning a lot so I would think that

I think it also punishes you for forcing a guild.

I honestly think there are very few commons and uncommons in this set that can't find a viable slot in one of the major limited archetypes. Percentage-wise, there are probably more rares that I'd pass on because they are either too situational or too complex to provide any dependable value.

As far as guildmages go, the azorius, izzet, and rakdos ones are all pretty powerful, selesnya is ok, and the golgari one is the weakest because it doesn't synergize well with a golgari strategy.

i don't think this set is nearly as difficult as innistrad, which i found difficult to the point of frustration for the first 30-40 drafts. that set really heralded the limited game's shift from card advantage strategies to board advantage ones and for an old player returning to the game it was hard to grasp. M13 was more 'old-fashioned' in regard to this spectrum and unsurprisingly i did a lot better with it.

i think there's a reasonable balance in RTR between the linear 2-color guild strategies and the more modular midrange/control decks you can make, though the former definitely have the advantage. i understand why that is though, because they want to give the single-guild strategies a chance to shine since the full block draft format is likely going to shift the default number of colors from 2 to 3+ like in the old ravnica block.

As far as guildmages go, the azorius, izzet, and rakdos ones are all pretty powerful, selesnya is ok, and the golgari one is the weakest because it doesn't synergize well with a golgari strategy.

crazy talk, it goes

1. selesnya
2. rakdos
(small gap)
3. azorius
(gap)
4. golgari
(big gap)
5. izzet

Moodles you're crazy, the selesnya guildmage is like a top 10 card in the set, better than most of the rares. the only way to beat it is to kill it or be well ahead on board already.

the azorius one has played weakest for me, it's very mana hungry and essentially plays out as an expensive Blinding Mage a lot of the time. izzet is okay but is designed more for the slow izzet deck which is the hardest of the 10 'guild archetypes' to draft. playing the rakdos one is like turning on godmode when you're curving out in an aggro deck but it's not as impressive elsewhere. golgari one is my favorite, its very flexible, its abilities play on both offense and defense, and it gives much-needed evasion to the golgari decks.

yeah rakdos as a 2 drop is just unfair

i'd rank them
selesnya > rakdos > golgari > izzet > azorius

biggest gap there is between golgari and izzet

but it also has value late game w/ its damage ability. can do damage in large increments. xp

My problem with the Selesnya one is that the abilities are a bit too redundant with other selesnya cards rather than complemenatary. The first ability is very expensive and only makes sense in emergency situations while the second is reasonably costed but doesn't end up getting used a whole lot.

I'm surprised at the lack of love for the izzet and azorius ones. I've definitely seen both izzet abilities and the azorius flying ability have a major impact.

6 mana to make a 3/3 is not expensive when a) it doesn't cost you a card and b) it allows you to make a free 3/3 for 4 mana from then on

don't think of the selesnya guildmage as a 2-drop like the other ones, think of it the same as, say, archon of the triumvirate, it's something you play mid-to-late game that turns your mana into an unbeatable board presence

by selesnya guildmage i mean vitu-ghazi guildmage of course, but the old selesnya guildmage was a similarly unbeatable card in the long game