Magic: The Gathering C/D

I do agree with a lot of this - splashes have really never worked out for me unless it's a late game splash, and Orzhov never really works out for me as it feels overdrafted. The two I'm 3-0'ing with the most often are Dimir and Boros. I'm with Lamp on the first point, I only really go Dimir when it's open, but it seems to be open pretty much every time. Simic has produced a lot of what look like quality decks but I usually just 2-1 them, losing a match because either I needed removal (Pit Fight is really, really important for that deck), or I just drew things out of order. It really feels like a 'win-more' guild - when your Evolve stuff curves out and all your dudes are as big as your opponent's biggest guy, you win pretty easily. If your late drops and early drops come at the wrong time, you get hosed pretty bad. Something like an Adaptive Snapjaw can be great, because even if it just falls to a Mugging, you can usually get 2 or even 3 evolve triggers off it. If it's just a 6/2, though...

i still think it's good! it's wide open a lot less now, though people are still passing bane alley broker which just isn't right

I think it's playable and can win but the history books are not gonna remember dimir as king and it's not just this thing that's happening en masse w/o nobody noticing

Is the win rate graph by game, match, or draft?

well it's happening in the samples of draft matches that dude watches to do his articles, at the least.

though i'm taking the fact that my unexpected results deck was 1 point of damage short of making the finals of its draft as a good sign that the format isn't quite as punishing to loose decks as people make it out to be. i also won fnm a couple weeks ago with a pile of bad simic cards by splashing 2 dinrova horrors.

moodles it's by match

I'd like to know what's winning drafts overall. If Dimir is going 2-1 a lot but not 3-0, that isn't so exciting.

iatee and i talk about this a lot but i dont think dimir is particularly good in and of itself but i think it can routinely be the correct choice. like 'dimir is the best guild' is an obviously untrue statement if we are talking about a situation in which the ideal guild deck has been drafted, otherwise it wouldnt be the worst or second worst performing sealed deck archetype. what always worries me about dimir is that the line between 'correct' and 'incorrect' is so wide, and salvaging a dimir draft that's going badly is more difficult than salvaging a boros or gruul draft that isn't panning out. i think these game theory-style drafting decisions are really important in gatecrash, which is interesting to talk about but tiresome to play with online because i hate losing.

just found out today that my arch-nemesis from my LGS works in the same office as me. We've routinely split first and second place in our weekly draft these past couple months and I've played against him way more than anyone else there. Wondering if this means some lunchtime MTG might happen.

living the dream

I'd be psyched to be the nerd playing Magic in the corporate cafeteria. There was a time several months ago when I saw some folks I didn't know playing a game in the cafe, probably should have struck up a convo with them.

Well one thing in Dimir's favor is that it really prioritizes removal - while a guild like Orzhov needs those Kingpins and Syndics, Dimir generally wants stuff like Devour Flesh, or Dimir Charm, or Killing Glare, or Spectacle...which in turn powers up Death's Approach, a card that you should get 2-3 of every time. So Dimir is the one guild that can really capitalize on an opponent's creature-light draw and just win with whatever. It's good at nerfing batallion, keeping off the extort dudes that Orz needs, blowing up Simic's enablers, etc.

all i can say is that i'm looking forward to having a format with more fluidity of archetypes again, which the full block draft should necessarily be. i also have this strange feeling that dragon's maze is going to be an incredibly strong set power-level-wise and i'd be willing to buy a box of it blind right now

why do you think that?

i am certainly looking forward to DGM for limited. i've given up on GTC for now and am only playing M13 which has def helped my winrate

finding out that the guild champions which are the flagship legendary creatures of the set aren't even the mythic rares kind of set off alarm bells to me

also lots of hints dropped previously by wotc people about 'the block isn't over yet' when people asked about old hits like putrefy, helix, etc not being reprinted from old ravnica

at the very least i think it will be a high value set for the long term due to having a bunch of guaranteed legendary creatures and the third-set effect.

also WoTC frequently mentions that the "3rd set" is where they tend to take the most chances since it stays in Standard for the least amount of time (see: Apocalypse, Future Sight, Rise of the Eldrazi, plus mechanics like Storm, the Wishes, Phyrexian mana, etc). DGM needs to do so much in the span of 150 cards or so - I'd imagine that they want to give every guild new toys, find ways to make the mechanics intersect and give 3-color pairings an identity, plus the hints that we may get some powerful reprints; all this leaves very little room for the unplayable junk that usually fills like 20-30% of the booster.

well. that's probably the "third set effect". anyway.

third set effect just refers to small third sets having a shorter print run since they're only drafted for a couple months and only at 1 pack per draft

oh. I hadn't even thought of that. Plus keep in mind that you're going to get like 2 shocks per box too so that's like a free 15 bucks.

http://www.examiner.com/article/ruric-thar-the-unbowed-from-dragon-s-maze

so this got spoiled. looks... really good. eager to assemble zoos around him. i'm kinda hoping yeva becomes standard playable, mostly just cuz i think the card is cool.

reckoner becomes more important with this d00d kicking around i think

6 mana is a weird number for this guy, it's hard to picture the deck that would want him. Most of the time, he'll eat a removal spell and the opponent will take six, but what deck wants that outcome? Maybe a midrange deck, but they'd usually rather play something that can get card advantage, or a cheaper creature with the chance to attack more than once. If he was scaled down to a 4/4 for 4 with a 4 damage clause, maybe, but even then there are a lot of cards in that slot to choose from.

The other card that got spoiled, Maze's End, is hilarious.

problem is he's fighting for space with aurelia in the decks that play mostly creatures and still want a 6-drop. aurelia is better in a vacuum.

hm, i dunno if aurelia is better in a vacuum. aurelia can be blocked/removed fairly easily and there isn't really any way to deal with this one outside of countermagic.

time will tell if there's a deck for him though. i think the existence of reckoner really messes this dude up.

but i think 6 mana is not really a weird number for him. i think he plays a similar role to aurelia just in being a finisher for midrange-aggro decks.

I don't know if Aurelia is better in a vacuum, but she's a lot more explosive in the decks that would play her atm. She's capable of doing 10+ damage the turn she's played, and that's what an aggro deck wants. Ruric-Thar's biggest problem is that he does no damage and gives you no card advantage the turn he's played. There could be a deck for him eventually, but I don't see it happening in this environment. I agree with Reckoner being around, he might be a liability.

seriously considering mono-red for ptq this weekend. someone talk me out of this please

haha decided against xMiMx's geistflame + relentless deck? i looked at his list after you suggested it and was like 'this is not for me' and moved on to four color midrange decks. curious about your reasoning for mono-red - i can understand the pyreheart wolf/better against junk and midrange thing i guess but im not sure its better than blitz anyway? idk

are you playing the bonus ptq tonight? i'm playing bant delver in the daily that's happening in 15 min so maybe don't follow my deck advice

nah not playing tonight, i don't care about ptqs enough to sit at home all weekend. i'll just be playing the sunday ones when they're convenient. i still like mim's deck and i've historically done well with his lists but other than the first 6 rounds of the ptq last week, it hasn't been performing well for me lately so i was looking for other options. i'd like to just play naya midrange because it's the most comfortable deck for me in the format, but it doesn't beat the card angel of serenity so if those are still out in full force it's not a great idea.

did you see this delver deck that won the first paper ptq of the season last weekend?
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/events.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/theros13ptq/0323tucson

yeah i decided to go with the bant/geist version since it had fewer awkward draws and a slightly improved aggro match-up

My friend is planning on playing that UG deck in a PTQ here next weekend for budget reasons, with some mods (Wolfir Avenger slotting in for Think Twice). Quirion Dryad is one of my favorite-ever cards, going way back to when it was first released, but this deck doesn't look that hot to me. Seems ok against midrange, but how does it beat control or aggro? And any hand without Delver or Dryad is basically a mull, right? Deck looks a lot like a weaker version of UW Flash across the board.

Yeah the Bant version is way more solid.

can't imagine you can cut think twices for a 3-drop without adding lands and then your delver flips get worse in a deck that's really dependent on flipping it, and it seems like that would snowball over the course of a long event

Yeah I'm skeptical the replacement works straight up too, but I also think Think Twice is not very good in this deck. Or Rapid Hybridization for that matter. Maybe there's just not better options. This deck feels like one of those limited decks where you've got 17 good cards and then like Furious Resistance and Tin Street Market to fill it out.

i have chosen to play both of those cards in limited before

they both go in the same archetype (gruul control) which is not something you should end up in if you're drafting the set normally but the cards exist for it

contruul

Furious resistance really isn't that much worse than Smite but Tin Street Market, god damn does that card blow hard

yeah i generally wouldn't maindeck it but if your red control deck needs some card selection in a control mirror, don't rule it out...

i still haven't gotten the crackling perimeter deck yet, i'm such a failure at this set

even vs. control it's kinda crap. Rummaging Goblin in m13 was pretty bad but if you needed a 23rd...whatever. the fact that you have to tap 6 lands just to activate it once makes it terrible even in matchups you'd think it would be okay in. i have been forced to maindeck this card and it never does anything for me.

Right, they're both playable cards but you're just like... I didn't draft anything better than this? I see Hybridization in that deck and think, "huh, I guess there's only 1 Unsummon effect in standard."

So disappointed I haven't seen a Crackling deck yet! Maybe after Dragon's Maze floods us with Guildgates. I did have a game loss in Charlotte to a guy running Hold the Gates and 6 or 7 Guildgates. Have never seen the card played before or after that, but it was surprisingly good for him.

i have seen hold the gates do good work, actually. mostly in sealed though

which doesn't actually make sense to me since i'd think it would be better in draft but oh well

yeah hold the gates is totally playable in the right context

i love rummaging goblin, that card is awesome

i tried the crackling perimeter deck, it was a total bust, now i just draft M13

i never managed any fun corner case decks w/GTC except kinda izzet aggro and even that was sorta boring

i've just done the unexpected results deck i mentioned a couple of times upthread, plus some other 3-5 color ramp decks that all tend to sputter out and die in the 2nd round. the format's really just too fast to build around the non-creature gimmick cards though like razortip whip or frenzied tilling/structural collapse.

crackling perimeter is like a worse razortip whip

not really, it's only 1 card and doesn't have an activation cost,if you draft enough gates it's way better than the whip

one potentially viable gimmick deck is the all-in gruul deck where you just play spire tracers and madcap skills and the 5 power bloodrush guys and such. i actually won a draft once with a failed version of this where i was playing 3 riot gear because i didn't get enough of the good pump effects, so i think there's something there

yeah i have yet to try the ramp deck. i can't bring myself to bother, my perimeter deck was an easy 0-1 and i was losing enough playing the format regularly i had no appetite for intentionally handicapping myself