Magic: The Gathering C/D

heh. looks like those pesky chinese hackers got to MTGO too. none are safe!

(that was supposed to be comical speculation. the server had a big fizzle out is all)

im happy cuz my draft was going p badly

Feel very underprepared for this GP I'm going to today, and we're getting there late enough that we won't have time to play in the last-chance grinders for practice either. Sometime between now and tomorrow, I need to at least memorize all the dang Bloodrush tricks.

lately I've been forcing Dimir every draft and getting a lot of 3-0's because it's stupidly underdrafted right now. hope that helps

what are the highest picks iyo?

dinrova horror, grisly spectacle, basilica screecher, death's approach, killing glare, undercity informer, wight of precinct six, dimir charm, bane alley broker. also balustrade spy and call of the nightwing to a lesser extent.

grisly spectacle and basilica screecher are probably your highest non-rare picks because they're the only ones that the orzhov decks also take high. everything that's specific to dimir goes surprisingly late. you can get as many death's approaches as you want practically (and they get better in multiples). a lot of the key roleplayers for the archetype like sage's row denizen or shadow slice will frequently wheel.

oh i forgot devour flesh but that's pretty high too of course. there's like a feedback loop with death's approach where the more removal you get, the more removal you get.

yeah I agree with all that. I don't like Shadow Slice much and really love Call of the Nightwing. Thats a card I seem to get every draft and draw frequently. You also definitely want Devour Flesh. It's a card that combos well with other removal and I think Dimir has a strength in that it can deal with other creatures in so many ways. Also don't forget the 2/2 that can't be blocked except by Rogues. by the way there ARE some Rogues in this set so dont just assume he's unblockable. I blocked one with a Bane Alley Broker and I think it blew the dude's mind. then again I've attacked into some 2/3 Rogue too and also had my mind blown so basically - pay attention.

Haha assuming I make day 2 (I have done this but once in my life), I'll force Dimir for you guys.

i wouldn't ever force dimir though - the gold cards in this format are mostly very good and act as strong signals, so it's important to be willing to just slip into whatever's coming your way, if you see a drakewing krasis or a skarrg guildmage or something like that 5th or 6th pick.

the fact that this open guild has happened to be dimir in almost all my drafts so far does not change the concept

I think in almost every draft I've done, either Dimir or Simic has been ridiculously open. Boros seems to get eaten up quickly, the good Gruul stuff gets splashed around a lot, and I think a lot of people try to build the Extort deck because it's really quite easy to play and win with. So lately I've gone in with the intention of playing one of those two and it's worked out so far. I'm guessing things will "normalize" somewhat in the next few weeks.

and you certainly may not see the same sort of imbalance at a GP

yeah i'm kind of bummed at the imbalance, i just haven't gotten to play with half the cards in the set yet because they're never available

Actually, based on previous GPs I've been to, the draft competition on day 2 can be easier than MTGO 8-4s. I think there's a lot of players who make day 2 on the back of an insane sealed pool, or maybe have a lot of prior Magic experience but not much experience with the set being drafted. In the one GP where I made day 2, I was boggled by what cards were going late in the drafts, and I've had friends who had similar experiences.

I mean, if I make day 2, I will be that horrible drafter probably.

i think a lot of people look to force a deck they're comfortable with in GP drafts. this is awful and leads to things like the GP London top 8 which was probably the worst display of drafting i've ever seen at a premier level event. only 1 person in that top 8 had a deck that made any sense, and they unsurprisingly won.

When I played online poker a lot the following statement really blew my mind: "the average online grinder probably plays more hands in a week than Doyle Brunson ever did in an entire year". I think for most formats, I don't really feel comfortable knowing what's all good and bad until I've drafted it about 7-8 times. Your average non-MTGO player may only do one draft a week. Just saying. I never really understood say, the original Ravnica draft format in its entire lifespan as much as I did RTR after only two weeks of online play.

7-8 times is not even enough for me, i need like 10-20. i try to draft every format ~50 times before it's gone, which is usually just enough for me to go through the whole "learning -> competence -> expertise -> fucking around drafting gimmick decks" cycle.

i think 15-20 is around when I start to feel like I can start giving advice. the 7-8 number is when I stop feeling lost. like when a format is new and you try hard to build something good but you really have no idea what kind of decks you're going to play against and what cards you'll see. like that's how many drafts it would take people during AVR season to realize "wait a sec, Boros humans isn't really what you want, G/U is way better"

I'm definitely a once per week drafter and I feel like I just haven't had enough exposure to GTC so far, especially since my LGS often does other random non-GTC drafts instead. I'm sorely tempted to start drafting on MTGO, but I'm worried that it will end up bankrupting me.

if you're decent and just do the Swiss ones I don't think you wind up spending that much. I probably spent about $80 on tix during RTR season and I'm still riding that into Gatecrash. then again I did get 3 Jaces in my first 5 RTR drafts

http://magiccards.info/chk/en/277.html

so this card randomly shot up to $10 from bulk rare price in the past day or 2 for no apparent reason

mtg secondary market is very strange sometimes

some people were playing it in their modern decks at the pt iirc

there was no modern pt, not since october. no modern GP lately either

no, i meant the modern pt last fall. it was featured on camera and none of the commentators knew what the card did.

Sometime between now and tomorrow, I need to at least memorize all the dang Bloodrush tricks.

i think the only really scary ones are at rare or uncommon - the rampager is g/r for +4/+4 and trample, the +3+/+3 and double strike for 3rr and the +9/+9 and trample for... i think 4gg.

also general theory qn: how willing are you to play into bloodrush? i feel like if im willing to trade in the first place im almost always willing to trade for a potentially better creature in hand, esp in the early turns of a game. there are times when i haven't been able to recover a board presence but more often you can get people to play out their hand killing your 2/3 drops and then not have anything left after turn 5.

I'm sorely tempted to start drafting on MTGO, but I'm worried that it will end up bankrupting me.

i put $50 in at the beginning of each new set and have earned enough during the release queues to draft and play standard for the rest of that season. the release sealed events in particular are both excellent practice and tend to be easier than the regular events. i was also lucky enough to win one of the 64-man events so i'm way up on packs for gtc.

i try to play around the 2/1 goblin since it's usually a worse creature than whatever i'm blocking with, but otherwise i'm fine playing into bloodrush if i have a blocker that's not too important to my board state.

I almost always play into bloodrush w/ the assumption that I'm trading for the midsize creature in their hand

i do too. even the 2/1 goblin. if you get hit with it, at least you know they have the crappy 2/1 goblin in their deck

sadly that card isn't even crappy in this format, or at least it's better than i thought it was going to be

yeah i feel like slaughterhorn and skineater golbin are the ones i least like to play into partly because they only cast one mana so your opponent isnt losing as much tempo to kill yr 2/3 .

i really want the ruination wurm deck to be good but there's just no good ways for gruul to protect its large creatures from smite etc. which is such a blowout on a 6 mana creature even if it's a 1 for 1 trade

alpha authority is the only card i see that does this but it feels too narrow since you can only run a few of the types of creature it's good on

yeah iatee and i were trying to come up with viable niche/corner draft strategies and RUG ramp was the only thing that really came to mind, and even that seems really bad because you just aren't doing enough turns 1-3 to stop half the decks in the format. and then you can still get blown out by a single grisly spectacle or smite

i am going to make contaminated ground work though, i swear to god

what about alpha authority in a cipher deck?

it's not worth a card just for the hexproof if that's what you mean

yeah I just meant as a nichey strategy, let's say you got two and had strong evasion and some of the more powerful cipher stuff?

I want to discover a viable BUG deck

shadow slice on drakewing krasis

crackling perimeter is probably my favorite gimmick card in the set

so
unblockable rogues
drakewing
raptor
shadow slice
call of the nightwing
nimbus swimmer
the 2/2 flying artifact

+ removal / crocs / walls

that seems viable. is it draftable?

sure, you just draft simic and scoop up some of the splashable dimir cards that slip through due to underdrafting. simic cards are less splashable so i wouldn't do it the other way around

that makes sense

i've really had no luck splashing anything in this set. RTR was so much different.

it's more dangerous since the format's like half a turn faster but it's still doable

lamp, contaminated ground has a distinct and useful place, and that is versus the verdant haven deck. i will happily pick it when the unplayable piles start coming around, and will happy side all of mine in against those decks.

isn't the card generally stronger if you drop it turn one or two tho vs 'making two mana more expensive'

the card is always good. always

i would rather play the frenzied tilling/structural collapse deck

i want frenzied tilling to be better than it is. i still like it tho. land destruction is by far one of my favorite magic strategies and i really wish i could've played when sinkhole was legal. i actually traded for judge foil sinkhole cuz i really just like that card so much

also general thread qn: do any of you collect magic cards, apart from playing them?

i keep a 'collection' of all my old cards from mirage/tempest/urza's blocks because i love that era of the game a lot, but it's all commons/uncommons/junk rares. i never had many money cards and the ones i did got traded away for standard stuff a couple years ago when i started playing more competetively.

i don't think legacy has a bright future as a format and i don't enjoy it as much as modern, so if i ever buy/trade for old cards it's for nostalgia value and not utilitarian value.