Man do I hate Ethereal Absolution in draft. Play a long game, get a dominant board position against a hell bent opponent. They top deck Ethereal Absolution and now they can't lose and no cards in my deck matter. It's best of three so now I get to play another exciting game of "did my opponent draw EA and six lands?"

Gold scrub having fun deckbuilding

Random brag, I'm 34-4 in traditional draft with the new set.

Also Ethereal Absolution carried me hard in the last one :P

AZORIUS 4-2
Gruul 5-1
ORZHOV 5-0
RAKDOS 5-0
Esper 5-1
Esper 5-0
ORZHOV 5-1

P1P1: Do we just slam Guardian Project? (I haven't tried it yet, and it supposed to be good, and nothing else in the pack really)

Wow, crazy results, congrats.

I am too nervous to drop 1500 gems and possibly go 0-2 so just did a few Sealed pools with very average results. Ended up dead even 12-12 over 4 events.

Looking forward to a ladder reset and Bo1 draft of the new set.

Some of the resources for drafting the new set, I don't agree with everything but it is a solid foundation for anyone trying to improve

This one is great for an overview:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...utQM/htmlview#

The two next ones don't have the same simple sorting, but they are probably better players.

https://www.channelfireball.com/arti...review-rakdos/ (Links to other colors and other guilds at the beginning)

https://www.channelfireball.com/arti...ca-allegiance/

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Guardian Project was pretty good, ended up 4-2.

Another p1p1

Made it to Mythic with a red deck built around Cavalcade of Calamity.

4 Cavalcade of Calamity (RNA) 95
20 Mountain (RIX) 195
4 Fanatical Firebrand (RIX) 101
2 Shock (M19) 156
3 Torch Courier (GRN) 119
4 Tin Street Dodger (RNA) 120
3 Goblin Instigator (M19) 142
3 Runaway Steam-Kin (GRN) 115
1 Tilonalli's Summoner (RIX) 121
4 Light Up the Stage (RNA) 107
2 Skewer the Critics (RNA) 115
3 Legion Warboss (GRN) 109
3 The Flame of Keld (DAR) 123
3 Footlight Fiend (RNA) 216
1 Experimental Frenzy (GRN) 99

Gets destroyed by chainwhirlers but theyve mostly fallen out of the meta atm.

So ****ing sick of playing against "counter all your spells and eventually Teferi wins" decks

Yeah what even is the counter to this? Even when I run a super aggro deck they still T4 settle and then I'm back with an empty board.

I mean there are ways to play around it, but ones I lose are the most unfun games. It doesn't help that I just picture some 47 year old fat neckbeard with long-hasn't-been-washed-in-weeks hair sitting behind his computer in a 20 year old t-shirt that hasn't fit in 17 years with this smug ****ing grin on his face.


*edit* I really shouldn't post at 8am when I've been up all night lol

Monoblue aggro, burn.

UW dies very horribly to carnage tyrant and they really don't run enough path's to kill them all if you run a playset (most carnage lists run 3 for what it is worth, but if you run 4 with wildgrowth you can just bin them early game with explore). UW also does not like turn 2/3 jadelights with a counter or two and that is generally enough pressure to put them on a clock. Aggro cannot really win against wildgrowth + jadelight. So like in my opinion if the metagame is red aggro and UW control, I would try GBr or Gr. I think the black is worth it for chupacabra alone, which solves a lot of midrange and aggro matchups. Red can't really deal with the blocker and a loss of a steamkin. Soooo... I think its worth trying the 'wildgrowth shell' and adding black just for chupacabra and find/finality. Add red for just Rhythm of the Wild, banefire in the sideboard. I'm playing GBu right now and I lose a fair number of games to landscrew, but the lifeloss from taplands never really seems to be an issue.

i play GB explore splashing blue for playsets of thought erasure and hydra

can generally beat anything but annoying when the mana doesn't work out

skyguard seems like the best followed by consign

edit: rakdos guildmage might be better than consign in the right deck

Have you tried Vannifer? I'm playing that as my casual deck and she is big fun.

no. she doesn't really seem that useful in a typical explore list since you want to have creatures whose value come from their cast and not size. upgrading from a branchwalker to jadelight isnt all that useful and there aren't any 5 drops to sac a chupacabra for. plus its a nonbo with hydra

I'm playing the ooze and Tatyova in the 5. The ooze is definitely relevant in all matchups, because it makes removing Vannifer harder against burn and is board in a box against control. I actually think I have the saproling ascend dude too but I'd be ok with replacing him with another ooze. Upgrading branchwalker into jadelight is fine, espesh if there is a wildgrowth in play. Singleton Muldrotha makes binning all non-lands with explore relevant. I'm running 3 hostage taker which is pretty much a win if you can steal something, cast it then sac to Vannifer.

Heres the deck I based mine on, but I'm solidly in Sulti, no white.

http://www.streamdecker.com/deck/rcj...sqqkpQCeJinGKk

Any tips on using gates in limited? I'm not sure how to decide when the color fixing is worth the tempo loss (assuming it's not a t1 gate).

This set's draft bots are probably the worst yet.

You can just force the gates deck every time. The bots don't want the five uncommon gates payoffs so you should end up with several of them. They're all insane bombs if you have 10+ gates and the bots don't want the gates either.

mtga needs to stop ****ign around and make us draft against humans.

also new set is 2nd in DOM in the last 2 years. eberything you play you can compete with

They announced a 64 player million dollar event at PAX for arena. Top 8 ladder players get invited. Rest are the 32 MPL participants and 24 invitees like streamers and former champions. Seems pretty cool.

yeah not bad. kinda weird how they came up with their streamer list and didnt have caleb, hoogland, jim davis (maybe they declined?).

obviously as a pleb I wish there were more ladder spots open and I could play my way in more realistically like the first hearthstone blizzcon

Im intrigued by the best of 3 but with two decks format

Hoogland specifically asked not to be invited to bo1 events here:



Though I think he forgot or something because he raged on twitter about there being a wotc conspiracy stonewalling him after the invite list came out? Dude seems a bit unhinged.

I'm not sure on Caleb or Davis.

Format seems interesting. I also wish there were more slots open because top 8 is way too much of a grind for me.

Hahaha, wow. I saw his big rage post on Twitter and actually felt a bit bad for him at the time. I bet when he was grand-standing over Bo1 he didn't realize a 1/4 million dollars was on the line.

Reddit also going bonkers over this.

I think the format is a weird choice but I am not a long-term player to have formed any kind of attachment to sideboarding. I do think however if they were going to go the HS route, why not go all the way with the "Bring 3 decks" Bo5 format. This seems like it's going to be wide open to variance being a bigger factor than it should be in a competitive tournament. I realize it's just an exhibition though, basically an grand Ad for arena.

Hoogland is 100% unhinged. So is Caleb D. Jim Davis is the only one seminormal one, but the guy asked me every turn how many cards I had during a paper tournament so I'm not really sure about him either.

magic subreddit hates it, so most likely a good event overall

bunch of whiny idiots there