voyages end basically laughs at the ****ty enchantments like ordeals

is having 1 format in the history of the game about making giant dudes without getting lol blown out a bad thing?

I just had this deck that was a "slower" UW deck (for this format at least). I wanted to try out the colossus with the 2 Burnished Hart's and 2 Coastline Chimeria's to give me some time. It ended up being better than I expected - winning two different games that I'd lose otherwise - but it's possible that was just an outlier as even the RW deck I played wasn't very fast.

I am unimpressed with Vanquish. I never had the opportunity to cast it, yet frequently stared at it in my hand wishing it was a last breath. Sided out both for last breath + glare vs RW in round 1, one out for a glare vs BW in rd 2, and both out for a last breath and gainsay vs UR in rd 3.

I think if I could rebuild I'd -1 Vanquish (side in vs G), -1 Colossus, -1 Hart and +1 Last Breath, +1 Benthic Giant, +1 Stymied Hopes.


The overall point being that even a mediocre U/W deck in this format that doesn't really have a heroic build is still quite good. I'm getting more and more convinced it's the best pairing in this format.

Yeah, it's one of those things where as it happened I thought "well this is cool, I've never done this before", but any subsequent times it happens are just going to be "meh, lame".

Are we having fun yet Wizards?

Voyage is a bomb in this format, but fwiw, the ordeals are anything but ****ty.

Having a format that makes giant dudes isn't a bad thing (See: ROE limited). Having games where both players are just trying to push nut draws and not interacting with each other, sucks (See: AVR limited).

In all fairness, I did just 3-0 a swiss draft with this pile:



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with the basic plan of playing a dork or two and then bouncing or countering everything like it's 1999. I still don't think the deck is that great though - I had a lot of positive variance on my side in the actual games, and I got the impression (from stuff like grabbing a Voyages End 11th pick, wheeling it after I took the 3rd pick Sea God's Revenge in the same pack, also saw a Dauntless Onslaught get to be on something like pick 10, which should just lol never happen) that the pod I was in wasn't filled with the brightest crayons in the MTG box.

Deck is missing a few key components it really should have had (namely, effective finishers) but still dies to a resolved Nessian Asp, among other things.

Steam Augury is legit. It's no Fact or Fiction, but it's still pretty strong.

Also, Thassa's Emissary does pretty much everything I want a magic card to do.

Brant. I accept.

I don't really think that the main point of bestow is to prevent getting 2 for 1'd. The bestow costs are expensive enough that by the time you bestow, the extra 2/2 or 3/3 isn't really that effective. I think if there was a lot of good removal we wouldnt get to voltron with bestow as effectively as we do now and the card would be useless because the little turd that drops off wouldn't be able to do anything.

This set doesn't look that deep but I am only about 5 drafts in and it's pretty fun. Today I had a wing steed with +1 from fire breathing enchantment. White ordeal plus red ordeal plus one fire breathing activation and I take him from 12 to 0 and gain 10 just for kicks. Lulz, theros.

Newb question: How common is chopping the packs in the last round of an 8-4. Are people trustworthy?

I rarely chop if opponent suggests it since then their deck is likely weak. Most people are trustworthy though.

Won a local large-ish standard mtg tournament for 600€. Played MonoU which to me is pretty clearly the best deck in format even after everyone knows it.

Got a decklist? Thinking of building a standard deck but don't really know where to start.

It's not uncommon. I've never had someone scam me on a split, and I've done it plenty of times.

4 Cloudfin Raptor
4 Judge´s Familiar
4 Tidebinder Mage
4 Frostburn Weird
1 Omenspeaker
4 Nightveil Specter
4 Thassa, God of Sea
4 Master of Waves
3 Jace, Architech of Thought
1 Bident of Thassa
2 Rabid Hybridization
21 Island
4 Mutavault
SB
2 Bident of Thassa
2 Gainsay
1 Jace, Architecht of Thought
2 Rabid Hybridization
2 Domestication
1 Aetherling
2 Jace, Memory Adept
2 Dispel
1 Cyclonic Rift

My list. Just dump the large Jaces in sb into Omenspeakers.

Do you still like Tidebinder Mage in the main or would you suggest something else? I guess online with all the mono red he is probably still good but live people are mostly just playing Mono U, Mono B, and BW IME.

Congrats Anssi... pity I couldn't join you in top 8 How did you find Bident? Seems like 3 is overkill?

Deorum: Imo tidebinder is too good at turning on devotion to cut, but I haven't played the deck only against it.

There just isn't anything better than Tidebinder. Sometimes he is amazing, sometimes a bear. I side few of them out vs non green/red decks but you need to get devotion from somewhere.

And yes, Bident is crap. I think you "can" cut them all, although it is ok vs those monoblack decks.

I've been completely underwhelmed with bident. The list I've been running only had one. It might become another Rapid Hybridization.

Feeling kind of sexy for "calling" Thassa during the preview season.

HYCHAHAHAHAHA


0-2 bye

I started drafting in M14 and really enjoyed it. Drafting Theros frustrates and confuses me so much. I'll admit that it's probably because I'm doing much worse in Theros drafts than I did in M14 (approx. 55-60% winrate to 45-50%). I really want to improve my drafting skills, as I think my inexperience leads me to make awful mid-pack decisions.

Those of you who draft well in general: What would you recommend I do to improve my drafting decisions? Would posting an MTGO draft history (or a link to one) work alright? Should I put up some images of recent draft decks I made? Is anyone willing to chat about some basic draft strategies and concepts?

Anyone playing Hearthstone beta? I've been watching M Jacob stream it a bit. The interface makes me drool, but the game itself seems a bit underwhelming.

I'm always happy to lend my two cents to drafting thoughts/strategy, although while I'd say I'm pretty good in general, I'm definitely not a professional.

One thing to keep in mind when it comes to Theros is that if you were to look at all draft sets, and try to come up with "general advice" a lot of that advice just would not apply to Theros drafting.

Theros is very fast and skewed toward aggression, this means slower cards, even good ones, lose value. It also means that control cards lose a lot of value as well. For example, take Shipwreck Singer. In a slower format or a format that encouraged long, drawn out board development, I think this card would be an all star. In Theros limited it is (in my opinion) mostly a flop. The format is just too fast for you to want to be investing 4+ mana on intricate board disrupting control plays.

It's also a draft format that really rewards tight and synergistic deckbuilding - in most sets there's typically just an optimal or close to optimal pick order - white card A is better than white card B, and white card C is worse than both, and so on, and if you pick according to that, 95% of the time, you'll make the right pick.

Theros draft is different in that it really punishes missing spots on the curve, and a lot of the cards (like heroic) interact with other cards in your deck in ways that can drastically change pick orders.

I don't envy anyone who is getting used to the game with Theros. Like it or hate it, Theros limited deviates pretty heavily from "conventional wisdom" imo.

in my experience it isn't nearly as fast as you make it out to be

1drop into ordeal is about the only truly brutal fast start, ordeals are uncommon and the 1drops are pretty limited, only 1 good common(w lifelink bestow). The Crusader is pretty bad, especially without ordeals.

I guess a bit of clarification is in order. Games might not end on turn 4, but there are a lot of games where, by turn 3-4, one player has a significant enough tempo advantage that they are extremely unlikely to lose the game. There's a lot less "back and forth" where it's not clear who is winning, or one big spell shifts the course of the game, and a lot more "one player establishing an advantage early and maintaining it with ease until the game is over." Maybe "fast" is the wrong word in the M:tG sense, but I do think it's fair to say the set is far more tempo oriented than most. Assuming your opponent has built their deck properly, it's going to be very difficult to find cards that swing the game back your way once you start falling behind.

Kind of off topic, but Sedge Scorpion is at one drop as well and is pretty amazing. The other one drops might not be fantastic, but any of them will do in a pinch if your deck warrants having one drops. When Triton Shorethief is seeing any play whatsoever, that's a pretty good indicator to me that the format is too damn fast.