I think you race well because you have so many ways to push through blockers...i think seats 4/5/8 have the best shot against you because of lifegain and removal.
I think I am most afraid of seat 4, then 8, then 5, against our deck in particular. And I think we win versus 5 more often than not because it's a bit clunky. but i would pay to see lightning strike 4 times in that deck.
Deck #4 has a lot of good cards but some very awkward mana. I'd like our chances there. I have a hard time evaluating Deck #5: it's like a UR deck with a bunch of blanks in it. The green makes up a big chunk of the deck but doesn't seem like it adds much. Deck #8 seems like the best deck at the table, and Deck #7 has some very powerful draws it can get. Decks #2 and #3 would both be awful matches for us. I'd guess we'd end up 1-2 with the deck we drafted.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
I don't like our chances. 2x Anax and Cymede are very nice, but we are playing an awful lot of filler (Celebrants, the third Pegasus, Sable, Ray of Dissolution) to make it work. Not sure why we're not playing a singleton Priest of Iroas in the maindeck either... we need cheap drops if we are to have any hope of racing. No Akroan Crusader, Wingsteed Rider, Favored Hoplite, or Phalanx Leader makes us feel awfully clunky. 2-1 is only possible if we get lucky draws, 1-2 is more likely.
I don't know that this draft is a great lesson against picking multicolored cards early. I mean, yes, our deck might have ended up better if we had chosen blue stuff early, but if you look at the colors of the other players, our seat should have been getting a ton of really amazing black, and we just weren't. Green was right out, too (four consecutive drafters before us were in that color).
There was only ever really an option, if we're trying to stay out of other people's colors as much as possible, of going W/R or going W/U. The W/U deck might have turned out better, but I'm not super convinced of that. Look at the #2 deck: it's U/R, but there's hardly any actual blue in it, and most of it is stuff we didn't see. I don't really feel like passing on A&C would have necessarily given us a better deck even in this case, let alone as a general rule.
EDIT: Just for fun, I assumed cross-pairings (1-5, 2-6, 3-7, 4-8) to guess at the outcome of the draft. 1-5, I'd say we'd be favored, considering how inconsistent #5 seems. I'd say 6, 3, and 8 would be favored to win their matches. Second round, 1-3, and 6-8, #3 should beat us handily and #8 seems favored to win the other. Last round, assuming Swiss, we play #6, which we probably lose, and #3 goes on to win the event, most likely.
Obviously I'm just taking shots in the dark, but that's my guess for how the games would most typically play out with these decks and pairings. If we lost the first round, we'd end up playing #7, which we'd likely lose, while I think the 2-4 match would go to #2. That'd leave the final match between us and #4, which I think we'd probably actually lose, for 0-3.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
LOL at the guy who drafted 4! Lightning strikes as splash cards. Seems we got hosed big time on red and white here, with both colours being incredibly overplayed. Seriously, did red suddenly become playable when I wasn't looking?
I definitely don't think we drafted the best deck at the table, but I don't think we did things horribly wrong either.
Black is usually a fine color in this format, but there wasn't much of it to go around at this table. Seat 4 got the good stuff, but even there it's not ridiculous. So I'm glad we weren't in black.
As for the other four colors, our neighbors were split pretty evenly across all four. We didn't miss any obvious signals or anything like that -- I think we were honestly just in a really mediocre spot for this draft. We were getting okay blue cards sometimes, but taking blue cards wouldn't have served us any better. It's easy to say we should have taken the Naiad at the beginning, but we just as easily could have been cut out of blue and never played the Naiad.
I don't think UB was ever an option here.
I don't know if or when I'll have time, but I'd like to play some test games with our deck and the other ones. It's probably worse than most of the others, but I think it would have a chance to 2-1 with a good pilot and some luck.
OK, I take it back, UB would have been fine. Not saying that makes the Naiad the right pick in a vacuum, but it would have worked out pretty well in this particular draft.
OK, I take it back, UB would have been fine. Not saying that makes the Naiad the right pick in a vacuum, but it would have worked out pretty well in this particular draft.
Well, okay, I totally forgot to account for the wheeled picks here, but still, it would have been off to a decent start.
I think I am most afraid of seat 4, then 8, then 5, against our deck in particular. And I think we win versus 5 more often than not because it's a bit clunky. but i would pay to see lightning strike 4 times in that deck.
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There was only ever really an option, if we're trying to stay out of other people's colors as much as possible, of going W/R or going W/U. The W/U deck might have turned out better, but I'm not super convinced of that. Look at the #2 deck: it's U/R, but there's hardly any actual blue in it, and most of it is stuff we didn't see. I don't really feel like passing on A&C would have necessarily given us a better deck even in this case, let alone as a general rule.
EDIT: Just for fun, I assumed cross-pairings (1-5, 2-6, 3-7, 4-8) to guess at the outcome of the draft. 1-5, I'd say we'd be favored, considering how inconsistent #5 seems. I'd say 6, 3, and 8 would be favored to win their matches. Second round, 1-3, and 6-8, #3 should beat us handily and #8 seems favored to win the other. Last round, assuming Swiss, we play #6, which we probably lose, and #3 goes on to win the event, most likely.
Obviously I'm just taking shots in the dark, but that's my guess for how the games would most typically play out with these decks and pairings. If we lost the first round, we'd end up playing #7, which we'd likely lose, while I think the 2-4 match would go to #2. That'd leave the final match between us and #4, which I think we'd probably actually lose, for 0-3.
So going 1-2 might actually be optimistic for us.
Black is usually a fine color in this format, but there wasn't much of it to go around at this table. Seat 4 got the good stuff, but even there it's not ridiculous. So I'm glad we weren't in black.
As for the other four colors, our neighbors were split pretty evenly across all four. We didn't miss any obvious signals or anything like that -- I think we were honestly just in a really mediocre spot for this draft. We were getting okay blue cards sometimes, but taking blue cards wouldn't have served us any better. It's easy to say we should have taken the Naiad at the beginning, but we just as easily could have been cut out of blue and never played the Naiad.
I don't think UB was ever an option here.
I don't know if or when I'll have time, but I'd like to play some test games with our deck and the other ones. It's probably worse than most of the others, but I think it would have a chance to 2-1 with a good pilot and some luck.
P1P1 - Naiad, passing A&C
P1P2 - Naiad, passing Griptide
P1P3 - Baleful Eidolon, passing Spearpoint Oread
P1P4 - Prescient Chimera, passing Akroan Hoplite
P1P5 - Coastline Chimera
P1P6 - Breaching Hippocamp
P1P7 - Baleful Eidolon
P1P8 - Pharika's Cure
P1P9 - Opaline Unicorn, best card in the format
P1P10 - Fleshmad Steed
P1P11 - Mnemonic Wall
P1P12 - Scourgemark
P1P13 - Coastline Chimera
P2P1 - Agent of the Fates
P2P2 - Nimbus Naiad is almost certainly still passed to us
OK, I take it back, UB would have been fine. Not saying that makes the Naiad the right pick in a vacuum, but it would have worked out pretty well in this particular draft.
Well, okay, I totally forgot to account for the wheeled picks here, but still, it would have been off to a decent start.
But yes, then we make the picks for the other players while doing our best to ignore the fact that we have perfect information.
I'm running BNG/THS/THS come February. Public and 8-Way.
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