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Pulled two fetches and Sorin at the prerelease, so wasn't really committed to trying to win a ton of games (he was my only bomb). Had a good time anyway, this set looks real fun.
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Sep 22, 2014 16:41
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Entropic posted:Yeah, there a couple keen MGD players at my shop who have been playing it since M15, and the only important cards it loses are Burning-Tree Emissary and 6-mana-Garruk, which can probably be replaced. Right now I'm playing with RG Rabblemonsters. Rabble is so good, he just demands an answer, takes the pressure off Polukranos/Stormbreath by being an earlier threat. 9 Forest 2 Mana Confluence 5 Mountain 4 Temple of Abandon 4 Wooded Foothills 4 Elvish Mystic 4 Genesis Hydra 4 Sylvan Caryatid 4 Courser of Kruphix 4 Goblin Rabblemaster 2 Chandra, Pyromaster 4 Polukranos, World Eater 2 Stoke the Flames 2 Xenagos, the Reveler 4 Stormbreath Dragon 2 Xenagos, God of Revels #60 Sideboard: 3 Mistcutter Hydra 1 Setessan Tactics 3 Anger of the Gods 3 Reclamation Sage 2 Fated Conflagration 1 Polis Crusher 2 Arbor Colossus
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Sep 22, 2014 16:49
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Given the way everyone swooped in on Abzan at apparently every prerelease ever, I gotta say the plan of adding more promo rares failed to cut into metagaming the event. Is there a way to do it? I can't imagine they'd ever get rid of the choose-your-pack system because it's really popular and speaks to a variety of people -- folks who want to maximize their economic value, people who want to boost their chances of winning, people who just like a certain play style, people who feel like the choice expresses something about themselves, etc. But yeah I think it's a problem. At my shop you could pretty much guess what you were going to play against based on your record or guess what somebody had based on where at the tables they were. There were exceptions of course but Abzan clumped at the top while Sultai and Jeskai pulled up the back.
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Sep 22, 2014 16:51
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Given the way everyone swooped in on Abzan at apparently every prerelease ever, I gotta say the plan of adding more promo rares failed to cut into metagaming the event. The only way to do it would be to perfectly balance each color/clan/guild against each other or to not release the complete spoiler until after the event, and then people will gravitate to the pack that seemingly has the best spoiled rare. So unless they have perfect balance (which isn't going to happen, nor would it necessarily be good if they did) the only way to stop it is to NOT release spoilers.
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Sep 22, 2014 16:58
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Sickening posted:How the hell can you guy stand keeping your life total on dice? That would drive me crazy. I play Storm in modern, the dice are useful for keeping track of stormcount, red and blue mana. Plus, I just like them.
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Sep 22, 2014 17:05
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jassi007 posted:Right now I'm playing with RG Rabblemonsters. Rabble is so good, he just demands an answer, takes the pressure off Polukranos/Stormbreath by being an earlier threat. At what point do you consider playing Nykthos? I'm still seeing a lot of green mana symbols, but maybe not quite enough? Also, it's a shame that Xenagos, God of Revels doesn't quite work with Rabblemaster.
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Sep 22, 2014 17:05
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Icy Blast with ferocious trigger followed by an act of treason next turn to take their only untapped creature was my favorite thing to do at the pre release. Still went 1-4 cause three color decks are dumb and I don't know how to build them properly but I wanted to try to get it to work. Had a lot of fun and I am looking forward to drafting this set a lot.
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Sep 22, 2014 17:05
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Madmarker posted:The only way to do it would be to perfectly balance each color/clan/guild against each other or to not release the complete spoiler until after the event, and then people will gravitate to the pack that seemingly has the best spoiled rare. So unless they have perfect balance (which isn't going to happen, nor would it necessarily be good if they did) the only way to stop it is to NOT release spoilers. It's a different kind of balance though, too. There's all sorts of factors that balance things out in draft that just don't exist in sealed -- being rewarded for finding what's open, being hobbled by people sniping your removal as a splash, everybody fighting over the consensus "best" deck, and that some powerful decks might only be possible in a draft (e.g. I think Temur will be really fierce with tempo in draft but it requires more pick discipline than sealed can give you.) I shudder to think about how you'd create a set that's balanced in draft AND sealed. I think if clan packs included off-color stuff at about the same frequency as the single-color seeded packs that would help. Knowing you're getting a pack with maybe 7 guaranteed white cards plus the rare isn't nearly as likely to let you hoard all the good stuff in a color as getting a pack where maybe 10 of your cards are in The Removal Colors and the rest is efficient beaters. Nehru the Damaja fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Sep 22, 2014 |
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Sep 22, 2014 17:07
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Considering how much people were up on Abzan and Mardu, they weren't that much better than the other clans, just more poplar. A strong deck of any clan piloted by a good player is what will usually win. Blue mostly sucks but happens to be very good against Abzan and their theme of putting +1/+1 counters on things slowly. I played Jeskai last night and was glad to start out against 2 Abzan decks, it felt like I was outtempoing them to death really hard. It was funny watching Abzan mirror matches, and by funny I mean 40 minute game ones. There are just so few stall breaking cards and so many defensive guys and so much removal for that one stallbreaking creature in WGB that the games drag out forever.
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Sep 22, 2014 17:07
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Given the way everyone swooped in on Abzan at apparently every prerelease ever, I gotta say the plan of adding more promo rares failed to cut into metagaming the event. Simple: Don't make all of the best promo rares the same watermark. The list of Abzan promo cards is a decent start to a "top 10 limited bombs" list. High Sentinels of Arashin, Abzan Ascendancy, Anafenza, Siege Rhino, Duneblast.. these cards are all absurd, and only one clan pack has them as rares. e: I mean, there will always be color imbalance, but you probably shouldn't be guaranteed* a bomb with only one of the clans' packs. *Unless you open that B enchantment Niton fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Sep 22, 2014 |
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Sep 22, 2014 17:11
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Not releasing the spoilers just means you have to go to the midnight release to do well on the Saturday event. In any case, it'll be solved by Sunday anyway. I miss the old prereleases where it was just 6 packs and a mythic rare that was actually worth something. RIP wurmcoil, good times.
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Sep 22, 2014 17:11
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Lets Pickle posted:It was funny watching Abzan mirror matches, and by funny I mean 40 minute game ones. There are just so few stall breaking cards and so many defensive guys and so much removal for that one stallbreaking creature in WGB that the games drag out forever. I played the Abzan mirror twice and we were done with the match in less 40 minutes both times, even with really grindy games. All it takes is playing at a reasonable pace, because even the grindiest Abzan on Abzan action is nowhere near as slow as constructed control decks. It's way more that some people just play slow when they're at a prerelease, unfamiliar with the cards and not confident in a new environment: I saw a Jeskai versus Mardu match go to time.
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Sep 22, 2014 17:14
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Chill la Chill posted:Not releasing the spoilers just means you have to go to the midnight release to do well on the Saturday event. In any case, it'll be solved by Sunday anyway. Yeah I think six packs and a nonplayable promo would solve it and also ease faction/clan/guild/color imbalance anyway because if something is stronger than the rest you're not going to have 20%+ of the player base not only running it but going deep on it. But I think there's no way in hell they get rid of the choose-your-X gimmick.
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Sep 22, 2014 17:16
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odiv posted:Thanks for the list. I might use it as inspiration. My friend is running an almost all green list, he is using nykthos. https://deckbox.org/sets/750558 The choices in his deck are budgetary, but his list is a little more devotion to green. The fanatic is a decent early beater, and Xenagos is just a house. His deck has some fun interactions, Roar of Challenge with Heir to the Wilds is a board wipe basically.
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Sep 22, 2014 17:27
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Chill la Chill posted:No. I am only using the $120 figure to describe the $15 drafts that are run in the mainland. The point is: even if we take that as a baseline why is it an accepted thing to continue purchasing prerelease product from stores that are pocketing the extra packs? I'm sure stores use the fact that not many people know of the free product they are given by wizards specifically for a prerelease to their sole advantage instead of giving more generously. A) Prerelease kits cost more than six packs, because they are Fancy B) If a store is prizing at least the 2 packs per player allocated, they're not pocketing any extra packs -- they're just charging more for the prerelease kit than they normally charge for six packs from a box. MTG retailers almost always sell boxes below MSRP, so it's more like they're discounting it less C) SCG appears to only prize out 2 packs/player for their prereleases? They do give out a free mat, which is cool, though. Want that penguin mat.
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Sep 22, 2014 17:27
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Given the way everyone swooped in on Abzan at apparently every prerelease ever, I gotta say the plan of adding more promo rares failed to cut into metagaming the event. The order of popularity at our events seemed to be (from most to least popular): Abzan, Temur, Mardu, Jeskai, Sultai. However, the first three were fairly even in popularity. There was a large gap between Mardu and Jeskai. I noticed that the type of player determined what clan they picked. The Spikes all took Abzan or Temur, while it was mostly the unskilled newbies who took Jeskai or Sultai because they liked the flavor of the clans. You'll never have five different colors/factions that look equally good to all kinds of players. I think they can do it if there's ever a two-faction event in the style of Mirrodin Besieged.
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Sep 22, 2014 17:30
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You prevent people completely gaming it by the numbers it keeps getting gamed by having powerful promos for all colors. You'll never get it perfect but its certainly possible to make several powerful options that all get played highly. I think RTR proved that R&D can do a multicolor set well, just don't expect much out of the Dimir or Simic colors. 
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Sep 22, 2014 17:32
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I think they really want the promos to be playable in the event though, which limits how powerful they can make them. They don't want to give a new player a shiny rare and then tell them no, you can't put it in your deck. Mainly, I think they're just not designing it as a Spikey sort of event. I think one of the Temur promo card possibilities was Trail of Mystery, which just seems awful, but they want to appeal to new players and let them try to do cool janky stuff with the set's mechanics. It's a one-time event, not a lasting format, so I don't think Wizards actually cares very much if the spikey hardcore players 'solve' which box is going to be best and all pick that one. They're more concerned with making sure that new players can have fun building and playing their decks. I do think this one was pretty unbalanced with Abzan or Mardu on top and Jeskai / Sultai way at the bottom, but I think that's more to do with the overall design of the set than anything about which promo rares you got. I'm interested to see if Jeskai or Sultai is a good strategy in draft. It mostly just seems like Blue is comparatively underwhelming in this format and it hurts all the clans it's part of.
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Sep 22, 2014 17:36
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Which boxes get taken the most tells you more about your local player-base than they do about the actual power of the cards. Spikes mostly went straight for Abzan or Mardu. Everyone else went to the other three in roughly even numbers.
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Sep 22, 2014 17:37
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I would probably say do guild/clan/whatever themed boxes for prereleases, but make the focus of that choice something that you'll use later on in standard or whatever instead of the prerelease itself. Pack in a themed spindown, a button or some other trinket thing, and then do a promo of some sort that's expected to be standard playable and that is also obviously tuned to the theme of the pack, but don't allow it in the prerelease. Wasn't it M14 where they just gave everybody a Megantic Sliver but it wasn't actually usable in your sealed deck? If not I know one of the recent prereleases had a promo you couldn't use, so it's not an unreasonable idea I don't think. If people were picking boxes solely based on theme you'd probably have a more even split and a lot less disappointment when on Sunday or even Saturday after the midnight release all the "best" boxes are gone and there are piles of everything else.
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Sep 22, 2014 17:39
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Went 2-1-1 with Azban, 3-0-split with Mardu, 1-3 Temur (bad pool and build), and 2-2 with Sulti. Prereleases are 25 bucks and payout is: 4-0 = 23 Packs 3-0-1 = 15 packs 3-1 = 7 Packs e - I actually managed to deck someone after casting nemesis wave for 8 and then we just entered a giant board stall. Bugsy fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Sep 22, 2014 |
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Sep 22, 2014 17:57
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I've been keeping up on results on various boards and considering the extremely disproportionate number of Azban and Mardu players those decks are not actually representing more 1st place or even top 8 finishes than you would expect based on the number of players. From what I've experienced and read the clans seem extremely close in power levels and while Azban has better guaranteed rares and way more people playing it, it's finishing at about the same ratio as there are people choosing it at prerelease. That said it's a prerelease, it doesn't really have anything to do with the set in limited outside of that prereleases are janky and silly.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:16
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I Love You! posted:I've been keeping up on results on various boards and considering the extremely disproportionate number of Azban and Mardu players those decks are not actually representing more 1st place or even top 8 finishes than you would expect based on the number of players. From what I've experienced and read the clans seem extremely close in power levels and while Azban has better guaranteed rares and way more people playing it, it's finishing at about the same ratio as there are people choosing it at prerelease. The counter lords are kind of overpowered in sealed. Whether that's true outside of pre-release is up for debate.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:31
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I haven't seen any particular prerelease pack choice dominate 4-1 or better standings at any local prerelease as long as we've had the gimmick going around, not really even Gatecrash. Not that it's very relevant anyway: the sample sizes are very small, and and the different packs aren't equally distributed across the players of different experience. I'm sure someone will be bored enough to go through Magic Online prerelease events and actually crunch enough numbers to get around the first issue. I have seen pretty much the same folks dominating the 4-1 or better standings though, whatever the hell they choose to go with. Odd, that.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:43
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Bugsy posted:Went 2-1-1 with Azban, 3-0-split with Mardu, 1-3 Temur (bad pool and build), and 2-2 with Sulti.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:45
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Prerelease chat: went Mardu and ended up going 0-3 with 1 draw, which I'm personally fine with considering I'd only been playing Magic a week and had never played physical or built a deck before. The draw would've been a win, though the opponent in question just sat there and stalled until time with his Temur chunkies while on 1 health. He was also the only guy who was fairly unaccommodating and unpleasant even when I explained I was new, which if anything shows how nice everyone else I met and played was (even the guy who opened 2 Sarkhans and railed me super hard in the 2nd game was helpful!). Made some friends and got some cards so once again cheers for the recommendation, whoever that was. Also, is the general consensus that Ankle Shanker is good for aggro? It was my promo and through buying the Mardu intro deck too and prize packs I now have 3 of them, so between that and all the other cards I was going to try to cobble together a Reddish aggro deck (especially if I can get my hands on some Rabbles).
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Sep 22, 2014 19:04
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neetengie posted:Dude, that is some awesome payout! so you got 15 packs for the entire thing based on your record? Yeah, that's nuts. My LGS only gave out 10 for 4-0, 4 for 3-1, and 1 for 2-2.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:08
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The Wicked Wall posted:Prerelease chat: went Mardu and ended up going 0-3 with 1 draw, which I'm personally fine with considering I'd only been playing Magic a week and had never played physical or built a deck before. The draw would've been a win, though the opponent in question just sat there and stalled until time with his Temur chunkies while on 1 health. He was also the only guy who was fairly unaccommodating and unpleasant even when I explained I was new, which if anything shows how nice everyone else I met and played was (even the guy who opened 2 Sarkhans and railed me super hard in the 2nd game was helpful!). Made some friends and got some cards so once again cheers for the recommendation, whoever that was. Its good in limited, but its too expensive for a constructed aggro deck. You're looking for stuff with converted mana cost at 4 or less (and generally in the lower ranges).
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Sep 22, 2014 19:15
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I got 12 packs for my 4-0, but it only cost $20 to sign up. (Also, miraculously, none of my matches went to time, not even the Abzan mirror.)Shovelmint posted:I've been testing a new mono red deck that uses monastery swiftspear that makes sligh's curve look steep. I can't decide if 15 or 16 lands is right. Swiftspear is definitely insane, though. Between the haste, 2 toughness, and adding 1 damage to all the burn and heroic enablers, it really makes the deck way more viable. And, aside from Firedrinker Satyrs it uses no rares, so I kinda just want to play it unsleeved to add to the rage inducing factor. I like the sound of this. Keep us posted on how your testing goes?
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Sep 22, 2014 19:19
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To update on clan popularity, at my 30 playee event with 8 boxes of each, Mardu disappeared after about 12 picks, then Abzan. 6 Sultai left, I think 1 Jeskai and 3 Temur.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:21
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BizarroAzrael posted:To update on clan popularity, at my 30 playee event with 8 boxes of each, Mardu disappeared after about 12 picks, then Abzan. 6 Sultai left, I think 1 Jeskai and 3 Temur. At my Saturday event there were NO Mardu packs from the midnight event, 4 Abzan and plenty of the other 3 guilds. NO ONE at the midnight event grabbed anything other than Mardu or Abzan. By the end of the Saturday event, all the store had left were Jeskai and Sultai.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:24
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Did the japanese player who posts early pictures of his deckbuilding ideas to twitter do a set for khans? I'm spacing on his name.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:27
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bagrada posted:Did the japanese player who posts early pictures of his deckbuilding ideas to twitter do a set for khans? I'm spacing on his name. https://twitter.com/TomoharuSaito and no he hasn't yet.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:32
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Lunsku posted:I have seen pretty much the same folks dominating the 4-1 or better standings though, whatever the hell they choose to go with. Odd, that. I doubt anyone's going to say play skill doesn't matter, but one big way that skill can be leveraged is in picking a stronger likely pool. The best players at my events routinely dominate, too, but look at what they picked: Selesnya, Orzhov, Boros, Theros blue, Born of the Gods green, M15 white, Khans Abzan (falling back on Temur or Mardu when it ran out.) (ps: In thinking back, holy hell blue has been middling to bad in a lot of limited formats lately).
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Sep 22, 2014 19:33
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Maro's article says Tombstalker didn't get a reprint because Tarkir doesn't have non-cat demons. Instead they apparently replaced it with Necropolis Fiend, a different Delve non-cat Demon. 
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Sep 22, 2014 19:36
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Nehru the Damaja posted:I doubt anyone's going to say play skill doesn't matter, but one big way that skill can be leveraged is in picking a stronger likely pool. The best players at my events routinely dominate, too, but look at what they picked: Selesnya, Orzhov, Boros, Theros blue, Born of the Gods green, M15 white, Khans Abzan (falling back on Temur or Mardu when it ran out.) Wizards has had a Hate-On for blue for a while now. Newer players dislike losing to blue for some reason.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:36
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Angry Grimace posted:Maro's article says Tombstalker didn't get a reprint because Tarkir doesn't have non-cat demons. Instead they apparently replaced it with Necropolis Fiend, a different Delve non-cat Demon. Maro explains in more detail on his Tumblr: "What actually happened was at the time of the decision to remove Tombstalker there were zero demons. Then later in development Erik talked with the creative team about how we were a little low on iconics and the decision was made to add demons but no one at the time thought about the earlier decision to not do Tombstalker so it never got revisited."
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Sep 22, 2014 19:40
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Angry Grimace posted:Maro's article says Tombstalker didn't get a reprint because Tarkir doesn't have non-cat demons. Instead they apparently replaced it with Necropolis Fiend, a different Delve non-cat Demon. Also Butcher. And cripes larger places running multiple events should assign equal stock of each clan to each event, surely thats obvious from previous prereleases? For some early feelbads you can have later events that dont suck.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:41
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Nehru the Damaja posted:I doubt anyone's going to say play skill doesn't matter, but one big way that skill can be leveraged is in picking a stronger likely pool. The best players at my events routinely dominate, too, but look at what they picked: Selesnya, Orzhov, Boros, Theros blue, Born of the Gods green, M15 white, Khans Abzan (falling back on Temur or Mardu when it ran out.) uh blue was strong in m15 and fine in theros block. the mono colored blue cards are lacking in khans but there are plenty of blue multicolored cards that make up for it
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Sep 22, 2014 19:44
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A big flaming stink posted:uh Blue was also strong in m14 - the set where you would first pick opportunity
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Sep 22, 2014 19:50
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