Magic: The Gathering,GO TEAM MS!

[creampuffeater]

Its on MTGS and the thread is unlocked, so its like 99% real (that and it came from WotC facebook)

In my opinion, the most interesting thing is that Av is the #6th card in the set, at a cost of 8 it doesnt do anything not expected, and honestly, I like akroma and the haste + pro red/black more. I will lose multiple limited games to it though, and thats frustrating.

[creampuffeater]

Netdraft is still around and you can get the up to date patch in their IRC channel.

Does netdraft allow for Rochester draft?

Also Reck, if you want to practice drafting (not that these sites are great when you know 100% what your doing, as the bots dont take the best card 100% of the time, but it cant hurt).
try something like http://draft.bestiaire.org/index.php
or
http://www.magicdraftsim.com/

[creampuffeater]

Unfortunately no, which is why I personally use netdraft the most. As if you have that and magic workstation (a free way to play magic online, but literally one of the shittiest made programs ever) you are able to play other people in a 8 person tournament.

[creampuffeater]

People, but that can create problems when you are sitting in the Irc channel (#Draft4you on Solidirc.com) waiting for more people to show up (it seems as though you are always stuck with either 5 or 7 people)

Based on personal experience, I can say that while its real people, most netdrafters dont know what they are doing anyway.

[creampuffeater]

I would be in, but I want a few days notice.

[creampuffeater]

fucking malta and its time differences.

[creampuffeater]

Ahh, your first experience with how tiebreaks work.

Gamma sadly did finish higher than you in the Wizards official tie-break methods as they over-emphasize byes. Its frustrating as you did beat him R1.

[creampuffeater]

It was a worse format in my opinion than Alara shit with Jund, and that was in my opinion the least unfun format we have had (I am biased in that I like control, so when Caw blade dominated, I found that atleast more engaging then who gets luckier on cascade). So ya, I did not like Miroden-Kami standard. I personally loved Kami-Rav, but I only played like 2 months of it due to not finishing my deck until like July with the sets rotating in october.

[creampuffeater]

You can make it a copy of their creatures too, which allows you to then pick off their creature with the ability. However, in that case it would likely not be a Zombie.

[creampuffeater]

I think the devil is fine because in the deck its being played in, the options work themselves out. Even the arguments that late game a 4/3 are worthless isnt too bad as thats a risk you take when playing any form of cheap creature (I have never seen people complain that nacatl is terrible because it sucks on like turn 5). However, since its a choice card, it will never do the thing that you want it too, but the abilities seem good enough to warrant playing. Especially in an older format where burn was running lavaspike, this seems much better, even if its not as guarenteed on the damage.

[creampuffeater]

I personally like browbeat, and if it cost less it would be completely playable. The problem with brow beat is that at 3 mana it often means thats your full turn, and in any form of RDW you cant waste a turn purely drawing cards. The difference here is the 1 cost.

Shea was right that I was thinking of Legacy burn or some form of RDW that wants to be insanely fast. I understand that theres tons of downside to the card, however the cost of 1 makes it seem good to me in the right deck.

[creampuffeater]

With soul bond being able to trigger on the second creature entering the battlefield, you dont even lose the effect playing this turn 2, which increases its versatility. I personally think it is very good, but I highly doubt I take it before 4th. What we need to properly judge the set is knowledge of the formats speed, availability of removal, and overall strength of creatures in general.

I also would love to set up a draft.

As far as your predictions greyIce, you dont want multiple 6 drops, thats typically the whole point of the mana curve, especially when these 6 drops are good but not a crazy bomb.
Thunderous wrath is good, but gets placed as top tier removal, albeit slow. I would say it probably goes in the 2nd-4th pick range with other removal.
Blink is terrible without damage stacking, and unless your whole deck is come into play triggers, the blink thing looks like a wasted card.

A card I really like so far is the 1WW 3/3 Angel that bounces a permanent. Seems very good in limited.

As far as this whole set thing goes, I started relatively late then, around Mirroden (original, not scars). Not actually important though

[creampuffeater]

And even if it kills a creature for 1 (which is something you typically want to wait on even if you draw it turns 1-like 6) it still isnt better than a bomb. The problem I see is that assuming it costs 1 is silly for a removal spell, as I often do not like playing where I need to topdeck removal to win.

[creampuffeater]

I would also like to /in for the sealed thingy if it ever happens.

[creampuffeater]

RTR Sealed, and I dont care if its mws or cockatrice

[creampuffeater]

Went 3-2 won 2 packs with a very mediocre Azorious deck. It was set up to be skies perfectly, I had a ton of detainers and was pretty good at getting to the late game, where my pool had basically nothing aside from the Promo card.

I liked the guild packs and everything, but wished you werent allowed to play with your promo, that pushed it over the edge as everybody was guarenteed a bomb, and it was so much harder to play a deck outside of your chosen guild (lost to a guy who did that though).

@Shea: Having netdrafted this format a bit, I think that RRR is quite a good format, but not yet close to the level that RGD was. However, it still has two packs to make up for that. One thing I like about it, is all the guilds should be playable via the way colors are divided, and you dont have a situation like GW in Rav being mostly ignored due to GP and DIS. However, it is netdraft, and people are quite dumb, so I am not sure if any of my drafts will look like real drafts at all (I know the one where the guy passed a P1P1 Armada wurm to me is very likely not going to happen )

[creampuffeater]

Netdraft had RTR like 2 days after the set was spoiled, but you have to lurk for a while and wait for 7 other people to be willing to draft. The hosts were also failing considerably, and only like one of the 5 drafts I did had more than one round.

[creampuffeater]

Kamigawa block gets extremely shafted due to timing. While Betrayers and Saviors were awful sets, and I am not going to defend them (jitte in limited....), CHKx3 was a very good draft format, and even CCB wasnt too bad (again, Jitte), however with Saviors being one of the worst sets ever (honestly, I think its way worse than AVR), and Rav block being the best limited environment, it gets continually shafted. I mean, I dont think Shards block gets the hate it deserves (conflux was terrible, and ARB doesnt save it).

RGD drafts still remain the best draft format I have drafted, though I will say that triple innistrad was quite good, and I enjoyed that a lot (DKA was meh). I have very high expectations for this blocks limited, that I hope will be met.

[creampuffeater]

I dont know modern that well, but 6 wraths seems a bit excessive, especially with thragtusk and resto angel to put you pack in the game (before the sphinxs revelation life swings). Im thinking -1 terminus, and + 1 dissipate/sphere. Seems like you could use a bit more spot removal, so the mass removal doesnt feel wasteful.

[creampuffeater]

Laughing at people in the Rumor mill on MTGS is by far the best thing to do during spoiler season.

[creampuffeater]

I have no idea how many cards I have, but a number like 30k would not surprise me at all considering that I have been playing for 11 years now, even if I only really draft. This shit adds up, 1 draft a week is 42 (45 if you count lands) new cards, do that for a year, which is probably my average and you get 2300 new cards a year minimum, as that does not include prereleases, prizes, or random drafts with friends that would increase the number.

I also completely disagree on the the splits being boring. For a limited point of view, they are all playable (even the R/W anti art/enchant is sideable) and present the interesting decisions of not only how high do you pick them (the guild ones force colors very fast) but in game, do you play them early or wait to get maximum advantage out of them and try to get a 2 for 1. Much more interesting in my mind than the very linear and typically overpowered champions. I mean, if Teysa hits its a 5 turn clock (7 mana is not impossible in draft) and its relatively hard to kill at 4 toughness and procreatures. That in my opinion is much more boring than Turn and Burn, which is all sorts of interesting decisions

Edit: In naming a card, you would name either turn or burn, reducing its cost of the half down to either U or R. The other half would still be full cost however.

[creampuffeater]

My problem with AVR was that there were too many uncommon creatures that just seemed unbeatable. Like oh, your opponent dropped a golden night commander and its only a 2/2? wait you only have 2 pieces of removal to possibly kill it before you die. Or oh, your opponent curved perfectly in UG soulbond to now have massive creatures? Cant even try to stabilize. That said, I agree that it was not as bad as everybody has said.

That said, I think RTR was better than you give it credit for, with the fixing available in green, GWB and 5color green were both moderately viable, but the dominance of Selesyna's late game did hurt the format, as if a GW deck stabilized, you likely lost. But I think thats the problem with multicolored sets to begin with. Shards block had 5 viable decks (or hope that 2 color works out with Alara Reborn) and even original Rav only had 7 real color pairs, with URG being frustrating with none of its guilds in Rav. The best formats were those where any 2 color combo is reasonable, like Inninstrad or Time Spiral as they just leave the potential for a multitude of decks.

I am looking forward to DGM draft though, as I feel as though there should theoretically be a ton of viable decks. With the help Izzet has gotten from its commons, control seems decently viable, and both aggro and midrange got some help.

[creampuffeater]

While we do not know their exact distribution, I think its highly likely that it will follow wizards standard print run. That means that the land sheet is 121 cards, of this since we know its been said to be incredibly unlikely to pull a maze's end, I am putting its chances at 1/121. As for the shocks, there being 10 of them means that if they make the sheet 11 of each guildgate, 1 of each shock, and maze's end, we come to 121 cards, with the odds of pulling a shock in a pack at 10/121 or 8.26%

Compare that with the odds of pulling a shock (5 rares) out of the 53 that are in gatecrash or return to ravnica, and you get 5/53 = 9.43% of gatecrash/rtr packs contain shocks, a higher rate than DGM, yet really not that far off. The real difference comes in pulling specific shocks, as in DGM you have only a .826% chance of pulling a specific one of the 10, where as in GTC/RTR you have 1.89% chance of getting the one you want.

As mentioned the price of shocks will go down, especially since magic prices are largely determined by perception, and the notion that they are flooding the market will continue, despite the fact that this "3rd" printing is in a spring small set, and will not be opened in anywhere near the quantities of the other two sets, so it cant possibly flood the market.