went to SCG 5k in Minneapolis(and PTQ the next day)

played faeries and didn't play long lol

r1 start with: thoughtseize, bitterblossom, scion, mistbind, cryptic, island, sunken ruins but miss the t3 land drop and get conclave the next turn(obv the only cip tapped land)

g3 i have to mull into 2sunken, deathmark, terror, plumeveil, puppeteer on draw vs jund and fail to hit a 3rd land, lose a mirror match round 2

repeat the same for the PTQ

so drafts right, open Rafiq sweet, pack 2 open Cliffrunner behemonth in already good WG deck(and get passed 2Wild Letaou), pack 3 open Finest Hour ... the most ******ed set of pulls I've ever had in a draft, but in 5 games I draw Behemoth once, Rafiq twice(only 1 attack lol) and Finest 0times, and lose in r2

next draft I get a very good fast UWb deck but double mull only play 2 lands g1 and lose a close game 2

2-8 in my last 10 matches I'm a total failure

Well I finally won a draft. It was swiss so no great accomplishment, but still it's a first since I've only just started in the ways of drafting. Here's the build - Artifact Heavy Esper. Game count was 6-3 so it was far from dominant.

Should I have run the Trailblazer and maybe Kathari maindeck. It drops my artifact count, but they are both useful. Perhaps replacing the Yoke and well I don't know what else.

Here's the deck

Tried Duels of the Planeswalkers on Xbox 360 Live Arcade this weekend.

It's pretty tragic. They invested all this effort into meaningless whizbang graphics (although I actually read some review that said they're weren't enough special effects - ****ing idiot), having cards slide around in a marginally attractive fashion, etc., meanwhile generally dumbing the entire experience down by using the simplest cards possible. And then they followup these non-benefits with having the massive epic fail of not allowing you to really edit your deck. All you can do is expand your existing poorly built deck with cards you unlock. There's no way to take the ****ing Wall of Woods out of my green beatdown deck! Also, you have to wait for the timer to expire through every phase; there's no click through. Even though it's only 3-5 seconds, it's still constantly frustrating/boring.

Last, but not least, the AI sucks. I could forgive the "lack of foresight" decisions, like "I should wait until I make another dude to gangblock and kill the attacker, rather than futilely chump block now", or the fact that it doesn't take into account what I might do. But it also makes on-the-board combat decisions that are plainly terrible. Like it doesn't take into consideration "Hey, it I don't block with this guy now, I can take the damage and swing for the win next turn". The AI for Spectromancer owns this game.

Generally, the PC game from like 1990 is much better, both in it's RPG elements, and its hey-I'm-playing-real-MTG-elements. In fact the PC game is what got me into M:tg in the first place, however many years ago. I'm having a hard time imagining this game having that same effect.

Just thinking about it tilts me. Like, if they let you unlock Overrun to replace the terrible gain 8 life sorcery (Natural Spring?) and unlock Llanowar Elves to replace the Wall of Wood, it would at least be a fairly straight-forward lesson in how putting better, thematically cohesive, cards in your deck makes your deck work better. At least that would have mtg-newbie-teaching-esque purpose. And would give you that RPG feeling of your character's power increasing. Whereas now, they unlock cards, you add them to your deck, and your deck often gets worse and/or has mana ratio trouble, due to now being out of balance and loaded with expensive crap.

Very nice-Some thoughts: Id run 17 lands and the plowbeast. I know that means 2 land cyclers + sphere but 17 lands should be where you want to be especially with your megabomb being martial coup. Id also want to fit the ethersworn page in. I havent played with it much but itd help you filter excess lands and find bombs. Id start by moving yoke of the damned and zombie outlander to the board. This in turn allows you to make UW more of your main color.

I agree except he has titanic ultimatum.

My roommate and I unlocked this POS on our xbox the other day, played for 20 minutes and haven't booted it up since. I was kind of excited b/c I thought it might be an OK way to teach somebody how to play the game but in reality it's epic fail.

Thanks for the feedback. I think this deck is sort of disfunctional as most of my decks are. Yes the colors are the same, but it's neither aggro nor control. There's a mix of both with the Squire/Darklit and the removal/tempo cards.

I really hate running the plowbeast, but it probably would have been worth it since I only have 3 fixers (Sphere, Gleam, and Arcane). It would have given me more consistency. Honestly the shuffler was kind as I don't remember mulliganing. I was debating between 16 and 17 lands and just struggled with the cuts. I looked at my cost and figured it could work. You way would be more likely to reach the 7 mana needed.

I've played with the Page a couple of times. I have very mixed feelings on it. It can help turn games, but the card it's replacing is often just as relevant to the match - perhaps more. I felt like I had more than 1 playable to cut which is rare for me.

I did side out the Outlander in the matchup didn't include green creatures. I liked the Trailblazer alot more when I didn't need the protection (Protection was relevent in 2 of my 3 matches - Naya based - so I got a little lucky there)

Yoke I didn't figure out how to use effectively, so I should have used something else. Yoke seems best when you have the removal for a second creature in hand, which I seldom did, or a useless chump blocker/attacker. I still had 4 (well) 5 removal spells w/o it which seems like enough.

I really like Ethersworn Page in 5CC and Esper Control when you have bombs you need to get to, like Filigree Angel.

Also, while Yoked Plowbeast is no Jungle Weaver, it's pretty solid. Especially since you have Martial Coup - you want to get to that **** ASAP.

yeah martial coup for 5 is so broken

So, I played my first sealed in awhile (urza block maybe?) after someone mentioned there were sealed swiss queues. I ended up winning this one but thought the potential builds were pretty interesting, any thoughts?

I totally forgot to draft removal, but a 5th pick finest hour seemed so good

Why does it seem like no block naya decks run blitz hellion? It's a 5 drop but easily can be a game finisher on turn 5 with how fast some of the decks come out and can be good if someone plays an early elspeth or something to blast over the 1/1s.

I'd like to hear what people think about this too. I haven't tried alara sealed yet but I have a feeling I'd be pretty lost as to how to start figuring things out with so much overlap between colors. I guess look at bombs and then see what 3 colors have the most strong playables?

I go with GBr. Putrid leech on turn 2 can win sealed games by itself. Try to set up the mana base so that you can consistently cast it if you get it in your opening hand. This means light on the red mana, so try to minimize the early game red spells which means likely cutting stuff like dragon fodder and Naya Hushblade. This is the list I came up with quickly.

Blister Beetle
Cylian Sunsinger
Elvish Visionary
Putrid Leech
Ember Weaver
Pestilent Kathari
Infectious Horror
Marisi's Twinclaw
Rhox Brute
Rhox Charger
Wild Leotau
Bloodpyre Elemental
Carrion Thrash
Skeletal Kathari
Monstrous Carbide
Vengeful Rebirth
Fiery Fall
Grixis Slavedriver
Vein Drinker
Valley Rannet
Absorb Vis
Banefire
Rupture Spire
Firewile Boderpost
Obelisk of Grixis
2x Mountain
7x Forest
6x Swamp

do people not know what that card does, there was a draft on SCG where it wheeled and Oliver had to counterdraft it like 10th

i mean it does suck a little to splash in UW and GW(better here since you often have less incentive to get a 3rd color)

that said it'll probably be fairly rough to cast in your deck with just 16 lands and 2ziggurats

I've picked up 1 finest hour in draft and it was at #5 in a GW aggro deck that I had going. If this card hits and you have evasion, it's just gamebreaking - Turn 2 clock typically. My deck was nice with Sigiled Paladin, Aven Squire, Court Archers, Qasali Pridemage, A*****n Squire, Trailblazers, etc. Round 1 loss of course -- mana flood - not screw. lol

Any advice for getting cards to build a Cube for a group that has no magic players. I think I can get a few people interested as a change from poker. There's lots on ebay of 3000+ common/uncommons for $45. Should I just pick up one of these and go from there? I thought about buying a booster box of each SCR, but that may be a bit expensive since I'm not sure they would buy into the idea.

Totally agree. I don't know how the AI got past play-testing. The AI opponent will always attack if they can get away with it unblocked, even if it means a huge counterattack.

Example:
AI has drudge skeletons (1/1 that regenerates for B), I have an enchanted guy that is a 12/12 (no evasion or trample). If my guy is tapped, the AI will swing with his drudge skeletons leaving himself no blocker.

To top it off, during my attack phase with my un-blocked 12/12, the AI will activate regeneration on his tapped skeletons.

I mean, the painfully slow interface and lack of deck construction would stop me from playing against a perfect AI, but how does this crap see the light of day??

While we are piling on, the fact that every single card in play is unreadable unless you select it and 'zoom in' is also ridiculous. Heck, you can't even read the cards IN YOUR HAND without zooming in on them. Rather than including brief details in a larger font when the cards are small (like MODO), they just scale down the entire card so it is a blurry mess.

Click for full-screen terrible:

My friends printed off full card images and put them on basic lands, then sleeved the whole cube. It works really well and lets us use power/etc. Very time consuming though.

Thoughts on this alara block constructed deck?

I'm trying to play faster than most naya netdecks seem to play. I'm thinking possibly take out a shrine for another mountain for the wild nacatls and possibly try to get another naya charm in, it's so good for a 4th-5th turn finisher tapping their creatures or to bring back a bloodbraid or thoctar that ends up in the graveyard. I'm also thinking maybe sarkhan vol>>>elspeth in this deck and maybe I should just run 2 sarkhans and no elspeth?

Thornling blows. So does wild leotau. You should play Cylian Sunsinger. I'd play path to exile and magma spray. I'm not really crazy about steward of valeron

Steward of valeron is good here, its a good turn 2 play that can attack and accelerate mana in the same turn.

I have exile in the sideboard if I need to remove something huge like sphinx of the steel wind or even if they run vedalken outlanders (pro red 2/2) but its just a waste main deck. Magma spray seems even less useful. I'm trying to go as fast as possible and keep spamming creatures, I don't care about controlling the board pretty much at all.

I don't hate wild leotaus, especially since they can come out with a bloodbraid, the more 5/4s the better, but there probably are other creature options for that slot. The thornling is more of my last attempt at winning before slow decks stablize, if it stays in it can be a 7/1 trample, indestructible which is good. I'm thinking about switching them for blitz hellion which is a bit faster but it doesn't help much if they can stall me somehow. I could also possibly just main deck the urils over the thornling?

I don't think the sunslinger works because i'm constantly playing creatures, especially on turn 2 and 3. It's ability wouldn't get used until late game, then it could be ok especially with multiple in play, but I don't think it's worth it when I'm trying to go so fast.

RGW

wat

Ya I'm dumb thought cascade was equal or lesser, that does make them significantly worse. I want to try and weight the cascades to larger creatures, are there any other good ones that cost 3?