I agree that the limited format is blistergly fast, but that doesn't necessarily make it bad. It's just different. If you go into a draft or sealed tournament with this in mind, you can definitely take advantage of this by playing a much lower curve, cutting "do-nothing" cards to a minimum, and playing a more tempo-oriented, beatdown gameplan.
I can see why some people may not like Kaladesh limited due to the speed, but that doesn't mean that the format is bad. I kinda like the change of pace myself. You either adapt or wait for a new set.
By far the stupidest thing about this format is that someone can completely blank all your blockers and sorcery speed removal going turn 2 Smuggler's Copter into turn 3 Sword of Fire and Ice into turn 4 bear, crew, equip, smash you for 5 flying on turn 4, draw 2 and discard 1, and nuke your 2-drop. What is this, Cube?
Come on now. How often is that gonna happen? You need a specific rare AND a masterpiece and you have to draw them both within 2 turns.
I agree. Copter on its own sucks, and Sword sucks on its own, and broken situations could not happen with the other Sword masterpiece either. These cards are only a concern if the two of them curve out perfectly together on turn 4. It's not like people playing Swords or Sol Ring or 0cc mana in other games is going to do stupid things.
Clearly the only rational response is "that will never happen, who cares" and not "hey, maybe letting some of the most powerful artifacts in the history of Magic be legal adds unnecessarily stupid variance to the format".
You know what's better than a 0.001% chance of that happening? A 0% chance of that happening, like the previous 20 limited formats.
By far the stupidest thing about this format is that someone can completely blank all your blockers and sorcery speed removal going turn 2 Smuggler's Copter into turn 3 Sword of Fire and Ice into turn 4 bear, crew, equip, smash you for 5 flying on turn 4, draw 2 and discard 1, and nuke your 2-drop. What is this, Cube?
Come on now. How often is that gonna happen? You need a specific rare AND a masterpiece and you have to draw them both within 2 turns.
I agree. Copter on its own sucks, and Sword sucks on its own, and broken situations could not happen with the other Sword masterpiece either. These cards are only a concern if the two of them curve out perfectly together on turn 4. It's not like people playing Swords or Sol Ring or 0cc mana in other games is going to do stupid things.
Clearly the only rational response is "that will never happen, who cares" and not "hey, maybe letting some of the most powerful artifacts in the history of Magic be legal adds unnecessarily stupid variance to the format".
You know what's better than a 0.001% chance of that happening? A 0% chance of that happening, like the previous 20 limited formats.
I think the rational response is "Masterpieces bring enough value to the game as a whole that it's worth one particular person getting an obscene limited card in one out of every thirty six drafts".
By far the stupidest thing about this format is that someone can completely blank all your blockers and sorcery speed removal going turn 2 Smuggler's Copter into turn 3 Sword of Fire and Ice into turn 4 bear, crew, equip, smash you for 5 flying on turn 4, draw 2 and discard 1, and nuke your 2-drop. What is this, Cube?
Come on now. How often is that gonna happen? You need a specific rare AND a masterpiece and you have to draw them both within 2 turns.
I agree. Copter on its own sucks, and Sword sucks on its own, and broken situations could not happen with the other Sword masterpiece either. These cards are only a concern if the two of them curve out perfectly together on turn 4. It's not like people playing Swords or Sol Ring or 0cc mana in other games is going to do stupid things.
Clearly the only rational response is "that will never happen, who cares" and not "hey, maybe letting some of the most powerful artifacts in the history of Magic be legal adds unnecessarily stupid variance to the format".
You know what's better than a 0.001% chance of that happening? A 0% chance of that happening, like the previous 20 limited formats.
I completely disagree. You can't play Magic for very long without realizing that variance is going to decide a large chunk of games. So if that's going to be the case regardless, there might as well at least be some variety to the exact manner in which that variance presents itself. If this somehow ever actually happens to you or anyone you know (fantastically poor odds of that ever happening, btw), you should be giving the opponent a high five, not complaining that you lost to an epic sequence of rares instead of to mana screw.
You are far, far more likely to get blown out by someone playing a random Giant Spectacle in their deck than you are to a Sword, if you want to complain about variance.
The Masterpiece replaces the rare, right? I don't actually think it's trivial to prove that there is at least one Masterpiece whose added variance exceeds that of all past rares. And I don't think it's trivial to conclude the gains from overall possibility space impact variance versus skill. There was a guy who wasn't familiar with Steel Overseer's interaction with vehicles and didn't realize he could use a vehicle to crew another vehicle and place counters on both of them with the Overseer. Having even more cards to be familiar with gave him more opportunities to play well or misplay and win or lose games based on his skill instead of variance.
To me it reminds me of Rise of the Eldrazi, which I thought was a little overrated in a similar way - you draft really interesting decks, there's lots of distinct cards to build around...but then the games themselves are not very interesting because they usually come down to one player drawing their synergy cards and the other player not drawing theirs. There also feels like a lot more mana issues in this format because of the complete lack of mana sinks/viable late game cards.
I don't think that's true either. I've had more sequencing errors that I realized after the fact in this format than I've had in a long time, which means the format is definitely giving me lots of room for improvement. It's true the format is light on mana sinks but I'm not convinced that the format actually needs them.
It's a fast format. That by itself is going to make a lot of people hate it. Fast formats tend to punish people more for having mana problems or failing to pick up enough low drops in the draft, which are largely outside of the players' control. It's also a synergy format, which *also* is going to make people hate it, because all the players who just want to draft goodstuff and not think super hard about deck construction are often going to get run over.
The combination is a little bit weird, and it's not one I think we've seen before to this extent. So far I'm enjoying figuring things out (4 events under my belt, now), but I can absolutely see why people are going to be down on it. That said, I kinda suspect this format is going to be one of those that goes down in history as one of the best ever, exactly because it is so unforgiving and complex. The people who put in the work to understand this format are going to do far better than average, I suspect.
I've played three events and I like it so far. I agree with most of what you said except for one thing.
I don't think a format can go down in history as one of the best ever from the perspective of the masses if it's perceived as unforgiving and complex. I could see pros and other Spike-y players feeling that way though.
That's not true. The three formats that are always cited as awesome and amazing are 3xROE, 3xISD and TPF.
TPF is an absolute nightmare for anyone not familiar with it. Trying to learn it will just end up with you getting frustrated while you get farmed by people that know the set inside out. While I can see it being superfun if you know what's going on, it's probably the least fun drafting experience I had when I gave it a shot during flashbacks.
3xISD and ROE are considered great because they're slower formats with a plethora of build-around strategies and neither set punishes you too hard if you draw too few or too many lands. What makes these sets great is that you actually get to play your deck's synergies and plan without getting run over by creature creep.
That's part of my point - my understanding is that 3xROE is beloved by many experienced drafters, but its reception among the Magic community as a whole was mixed. To be clear, that means everyone from LSV to the 12-year-old kid opening boosters at his kitchen table and trying to teach his mom how to play. Same with TPF for the reasons you mentioned. All three of those formats came out at times when I was playing off an on (went to all three prereleases) but not super regularly (didn't draft each more than once or twice) so I don't have a fully formed opinion of my own.
What I know about public perception is what I've taken away from snippets I've heard on the subject from people like MaRo and Marshall Sutcliffe.
"...this format is just terrible. Way, way too many games are completely one sided, mostly due to vehicles or creatures that grow without bounds every turn. You're either blown out early or you enter a holding pattern while you want to see who draws their bomb."
In draft I have experienced this, but also I am experiencing something worse. Because there are almost no mana sinks, games are often decided by who draws more lands. More than one out of two games I have played has either been decided by mana screw (which can happen in almost every format) or mana flood (which is much more painful here due to not having mana sinks).
It’s very unfun for me so far. I have enjoyed all of the recent sets back to M14 but KLD so far is very unfun for me. I imagine it will get better as variance “evens out” and my record improves but it is not promising.
Six (paper) drafts in and I'm already taking a serious disliking to the format. It's Origins 2: Energy Boogaloo.
Beatdown formats are rarely fun when it comes to the gameplay portion, and Kaladesh is no different. Too many games feel extremely lopsided, with little to no meaningful interaction, or at the least an illusion thereof. And while I hope my early impressions are wrong, there are a lot of endemic design flaws.
Fast formats, with low curves and an emphasis on two-drops are highly opening-hand (plus the first 5 or so draws) dependent. Your bears are great early on, but can be quickly made irrelevant against bigger beaters. Further compounding this are all of the creatures capable of "snowballing", like the Thriving cycle or Longtusk Cub; playing these cards early, when attacks are more open, increases their value dramatically.
If you keep a 2-3 land hand, you might not reach 5-6 mana and that bomb or Tidy Conclusion could easily be a dead card. It feels awful having to mulligan hands that would be keepable, if a little sketchy, in other formats only to get a worse six or five.
Drawing too many lands feels bad too. For the past year, with BFZ and SOI blocks, extra-land sinks have been abundant whether it was to trigger Landfall, be used as Awaken fodder, power up Stonefurys, be discarded to play abilities, or to pay for numerous mana-sinks. These formats did a decent job mitigating one of MtG's most controversial gameplay elements, but Kaladesh pretty much throws this out the window.
And even the draft portion is none-too-interesting. It's a BREAD format with a few synergies that you might run into here and there, a la Origins. Just like you weren't [i]really[/] building around netting +1/+1 counters on Blessed Spirits when you cast a Suppression Bonds, you aren't [i]really[/i] building around curving out into efficient Energy-dudes (e.g. Grubs into Rhino, into Tiger); these are all good cards on their own. It's not like picking Mist Intruder over, say, a more generically good Cloud Manta because the Devoid Storm Crow feeds your processors, pumps your Aggregate, and is buffed by Ruination guide.
Again, I hope I'm wrong about this set...it's what my local stores are going to be drafting for the next three months. But it sems like a low-synergy, low-interaction swingfest. Not very fun (even if I'm "good" at it).
I don't disagree that Magic's biggest flaws are at their most obvious in aggro formats. Mana screw/flood never feels good. But this is also the first time in a very long time that they've made an aggro format where it felt like it was on purpose. The synergy stuff is tuned to actually compete with aggro curve-outs, and it feels really great to be able to turn the corner against a deck that had a fantastic aggressive start.
We're not going to get away from this being the kind of format that is high on coin-flip, who-drew-the-better-number-of-lands games. That's just the reality of this kind of format. And yeah, that can kill excitement. But I think the games that go right have a lot more ability to go *very* right - be real nailbiters - than a format like EMN ever will.
KLD aligns with my draft style, so I can't hate it. I almost always draft aggro strategies backed by removal. (In fact I'm known to 'take all the removal' at my LGS.)
I think the format was risky from the start. They like to push innovation so that they have an impact and vehicules being very close to equipment had the risk of being too pushed inadvertently. Energy has the same problem as it being too close to free mana. Unfortunately, it seems both scenarios came true: the common train is a bit too strong and the free growth of energy creatures eschew the normal balance of having to use up mana to get a benefit.
So, though, I've had fun in my matches thanks to aggro-on-aggro matchups with plenty of plays and counterplays. (Then waiting 20 minutes for the UG energy mirror match to finish...)
I've never played a format where "who goes first wins" is true a larger percentage of the time though. It's so common for an entire game to pass with the player who went second constantly trying to stabilize and never getting there.
I have seen some interesting decks though, some people really know how to put stuff together. I'm too scared to go out on a limb and try wacky things, but last night I played a dude who dropped 2x Ovalchase Dragster, 2x Aradara Express, and then built up a defensive board while he waited for his 2x Start Your Engines. That sort of thing isn't always going to work, but it got him a 2-1 against me (guess which two he won? The two where he went first, of course!).
I'm pretty curious about how the draft experience of this set varies with the skill of the players playing it. When I'm next to that guy who hasn't been to FNM since June, I get 3 Renegade Freighters, and I replace the Renegade Freighter that gets combat-trick blocked with another one and just beat down and yeah that's brainless gameplay. I think it's plausible the format gets a much different texture when the aggressive elements are very evenly spread, though. If your Renegade Freighter blocks mine because we've come to realize it's something too good to be passing all the times, then it can actually matter whether Eager Construct or Sage of Sheila's Claim is the name of the 2 drops we were each tapping for beatdowns and things might be a little more likely to be interesting.
Lack of mana sinks is for real a huge issue though. I almost want Clues to be evergreen.
It's more likely that no one can draw two trains because no one got two trains, that was the main point. I guess it is probably more likely that both player's trains follow the Plated Geopedeish encouragement to attack.
I've been pretty disappointed with the format so far. Between mana screw/flood being extra punished and turn 3 trains rolling for the win, the are far too many non-games for the format to be enjoyable. I'll probably do some more paper drafts with friends, but I'm definitely sitting out MTGO for the rest of the format.
I think the rational response is "Masterpieces bring enough value to the game as a whole that it's worth one particular person getting an obscene limited card in one out of every thirty six drafts".
What value do they bring to the game as a whole? It's just a cash grab to sell packs.
Is it worth it? This is the first time they've really done it. In BFZ, the Expeditions were just lands, had a minor impact on game play aside from color-fixing. In original Zendikar, the Hidden Treasures were not legal to play in Limited. This is the first time they're using nonlands that can be played. And they've included some of the most broken artifacts ever printed for Limited (e.g. Sol Ring).
Variance is a part of Magic, but it's generally agreed that adding more sources of variance makes a format worse. People are complaining about the lack of mana sinks (making mana flood more punishing), increasing variance. People are complaining about how the format requires you to be the one attacking, making the die roll more important, adding variance. People are complaining because adding more sources of variance makes a format more unfun. While Masterpieces will impact a smaller percentage of games, it's still the same principle - adding an unnecessary extra source of variance that doesn't need to be in a Limited format.
If they included the premium cards but they were not Limited-legal (just as they are not Standard-legal), would that not accomplish the same goals of selling packs and printing a run of premium in-demand cards? What value do they add to the Limited format by being legal to play?
By far the stupidest thing about this format is that someone can completely blank all your blockers and sorcery speed removal going turn 2 Smuggler's Copter into turn 3 Sword of Fire and Ice into turn 4 bear, crew, equip, smash you for 5 flying on turn 4, draw 2 and discard 1, and nuke your 2-drop. What is this, Cube?
Come on now. How often is that gonna happen? You need a specific rare AND a masterpiece and you have to draw them both within 2 turns.
You'll open both cards about 1 in 25,000 drafts, meaning that about once in every 3,125 drafts, someone will open them.
If the draft is 4 rounds (assuming it's not elimination) and the average round is 2.5 games, you'll play 10 games. If you're running a 40-card deck, the chance of you having boh cards in hand by turn 3 (let alone having one on turn 2) at least once in those ten games is just under 50%, so the chance of the above scenario (assuming that the 2-drop or 1-drop with at least 1 power is a given and that the opponent fails to respond) happening to you are about 1 in 50,000. When you've drafted Kaladesh 50,000 times, come back and complain.
I think the rational response is "Masterpieces bring enough value to the game as a whole that it's worth one particular person getting an obscene limited card in one out of every thirty six drafts".
What value do they bring to the game as a whole? It's just a cash grab to sell packs.
Is it worth it? This is the first time they've really done it. In BFZ, the Expeditions were just lands, had a minor impact on game play aside from color-fixing. In original Zendikar, the Hidden Treasures were not legal to play in Limited. This is the first time they're using nonlands that can be played. And they've included some of the most broken artifacts ever printed for Limited (e.g. Sol Ring).
Variance is a part of Magic, but it's generally agreed that adding more sources of variance makes a format worse. People are complaining about the lack of mana sinks (making mana flood more punishing), increasing variance. People are complaining about how the format requires you to be the one attacking, making the die roll more important, adding variance. People are complaining because adding more sources of variance makes a format more unfun. While Masterpieces will impact a smaller percentage of games, it's still the same principle - adding an unnecessary extra source of variance that doesn't need to be in a Limited format.
If they included the premium cards but they were not Limited-legal (just as they are not Standard-legal), would that not accomplish the same goals of selling packs and printing a run of premium in-demand cards? What value do they add to the Limited format by being legal to play?
/rant Why did Wizards get rid of core sets? Cash grab to sell packs: core sets didn't sell as well. Why does Wizards even release ANY new sets? They're just trying to do a cash grab since if no sets are released, then they can't make any money. I've seen that argument being applied in other games to so many arbitrary things that were clearly good for the health of the game, and while this topic is a bit more tricky, it still greatly triggers me as it's such a cop-out response that you could use against literally any new product or feature that a company releases. /endrant
Mtggoldfish has a good article here on why Masterpieces are good for the game (or at least Standard, which is a big part of the game): https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/the-masterpiece-series-and-the-redistribution-of-magic-wealth. As for your concerns, I completely agree from a competitive limited perspective that masterpieces are a net negative. However, there are definitely some benefits in having these around in limited, as I could totally see someone opening one of these things, having a blast in the draft, and becoming a longer term player simply due to the existence of the cards. Hell, even my playgroup full of jaded veterans is always excited when someone opens a masterpiece, and it adds some more excitement to opening your packs while drafting. You can call that a cash grab, but I see it more as getting more players excited for playing limited, and growing the playerbase and magic as a whole.
I will say that for competitive level of events, it would probably be ideal to just prohibit the masterpieces that are clearly better than any other card in the set (sol ring, the swords, etc) since those are the only cards that will greatly frustrate players as opening a Gearhulk masterpiece is the same as opening a normal gearhulk and maybe put the competitive integrity of the game in question. However, I get the logistical issues that arise from doing something like this, so I don't mind them just keeping the current solution as is since the odds of this happening are just so low.
I think the rational response is "Masterpieces bring enough value to the game as a whole that it's worth one particular person getting an obscene limited card in one out of every thirty six drafts".
What value do they bring to the game as a whole? It's just a cash grab to sell packs.
Is it worth it? This is the first time they've really done it. In BFZ, the Expeditions were just lands, had a minor impact on game play aside from color-fixing. In original Zendikar, the Hidden Treasures were not legal to play in Limited. This is the first time they're using nonlands that can be played. And they've included some of the most broken artifacts ever printed for Limited (e.g. Sol Ring).
Variance is a part of Magic, but it's generally agreed that adding more sources of variance makes a format worse. People are complaining about the lack of mana sinks (making mana flood more punishing), increasing variance. People are complaining about how the format requires you to be the one attacking, making the die roll more important, adding variance. People are complaining because adding more sources of variance makes a format more unfun. While Masterpieces will impact a smaller percentage of games, it's still the same principle - adding an unnecessary extra source of variance that doesn't need to be in a Limited format.
If they included the premium cards but they were not Limited-legal (just as they are not Standard-legal), would that not accomplish the same goals of selling packs and printing a run of premium in-demand cards? What value do they add to the Limited format by being legal to play?
/rant Why did Wizards get rid of core sets? Cash grab to sell packs: core sets didn't sell as well. Why does Wizards even release ANY new sets? They're just trying to do a cash grab since if no sets are released, then they can't make any money. I've seen that argument being applied in other games to so many arbitrary things that were clearly good for the health of the game, and while this topic is a bit more tricky, it still greatly triggers me as it's such a cop-out response that you could use against literally any new product or feature that a company releases. /endrant
Mtggoldfish has a good article here on why Masterpieces are good for the game (or at least Standard, which is a big part of the game): https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/the-masterpiece-series-and-the-redistribution-of-magic-wealth. As for your concerns, I completely agree from a competitive limited perspective that masterpieces are a net negative. However, there are definitely some benefits in having these around in limited, as I could totally see someone opening one of these things, having a blast in the draft, and becoming a longer term player simply due to the existence of the cards. Hell, even my playgroup full of jaded veterans is always excited when someone opens a masterpiece, and it adds some more excitement to opening your packs while drafting. You can call that a cash grab, but I see it more as getting more players excited for playing limited, and growing the playerbase and magic as a whole.
I will say that for competitive level of events, it would probably be ideal to just prohibit the masterpieces that are clearly better than any other card in the set (sol ring, the swords, etc) since those are the only cards that will greatly frustrate players as opening a Gearhulk masterpiece is the same as opening a normal gearhulk and maybe put the competitive integrity of the game in question. However, I get the logistical issues that arise from doing something like this, so I don't mind them just keeping the current solution as is since the odds of this happening are just so low.
They got rid of core sets because players didn't like them. Of course when your player base doesn't like your product ,you make less money. But It was mainly for newer player, and new players bought expert sets instead, and veterans alreay had most of the core set cards so they didn,t care either.
It was a bad product that was still around purely out of habit. The same way they kept *** around out of habit, without stopping to wonder about its impact.
I totally agree the game would be better if masterpieces were Limited illegal, but it's a downer if a first time drafter takes the shiny card and doesn't realize he can't play it. Prohibiting them only at higher levels of play is tempting but has some downsides too.
I wouldn't mind some kind of middle ground solution that mitigated their impact.
I'm bored at work so I'll edit this post with some crazy solutions I can think of
-When you open a masterpiece, you reveal it. A masterpiece cannot be drafted without taking the entire pack, adding it to pool,and forfeiting future picks. This allows players not to drop after pulling a masterpiece alongside a chase mythic and makes it so that at a high table the player who eventually accepts it took a certain number of off color cards as a penalty to get it.
-Masterpieces must always start in your opening hand, but each one reduces your opening hand size by 2. In addition they are revealed after drafting but before deckbuilding and you declare whether you will main deck it and invoke that plenty each game one of the draft. also you could play your masterpiece in a top loader which is cool.
-Masterpieces increase you minimum deck size to 55. This is still high variance in terms of actually drawing and getting a crazy game, like option one, but is probably crippling enough that it's not correct to do it at a top table.
-A player with a main board masterpiece starts with it in his opening hand, but whenever he loses a game during the set, he immediately is awarded an additional loss. The masterpiece is revealed after drafting but before decks are built (I like this timing because a store manage can casually ask if anyone got a masterpiece and point out the rule during that time)
But this is also the first time in a very long time that they've made an aggro format where it felt like it was on purpose. The synergy stuff is tuned to actually compete with aggro curve-outs, and it feels really great to be able to turn the corner against a deck that had a fantastic aggressive start.
I'm honestly curious, no snark/sarcasm, as to why you think:
-Kaladesh was purposely designed to be an aggro format
-Synergy decks can compete with well-drafted aggro peers
Regarding the latter point, I suppose you could merely define "synergy decks" differently than I do. When I think synergy, I think decks that turn otherwise sub-optimal cards into outstanding role-players. Think how Spider Spawning decks got a lot of value out of the otherwise worthless Runic Repetition. Or how pick order changed a lot once you were locked into U/R Spells in EMN.
Most "synergies" in Kaladesh are already good cards (e.g. the Thriving cycle) playing extremely well off one another. Sure, these are fine against the typical beatdown deck, but that's because these pretty much are the typical beatdown deck. The rest of the synergies, the ones that fit a more traditional mold, tend to be much too slow. U/R and U/G Energy, if built around "big" energy sinks (e.g. Aethersquall Ancient), seem incredibly fragile and prone to being run over. I've gotten U/W self-bounce to work quite well in one draft, but I doubt most drafters will be lucky to have a Cloudblazer, much less the Dovin Baan and Torrential Gearhulk I had; the typical common/uncommon core has little to turn the game around in a hurry.
And one the first point, I'm none too certain this was designed as an aggro format. Building off of my previous points, there's a lot of built-in mechanical interactions that simply don't fit in with the pace of the format, as though the 3x Kaladesh draft format we are playing is a bit different than the one R&D tested. Like Origins, there are plenty of archetypes, payoffs/enablers, and whatnot hat feel a mana or a turn too slow. I think, once again, WotC underestimated the power of creatures that snowball on attack. We know they miss stuff in Construced all the time, it's not a stretch to believe that Develpment flubbed up somewhere in Limited testing.
But I think the games that go right have a lot more ability to go *very* right - be real nailbiters - than a format like EMN ever will.
I suppose that's a fair point, that the increased number of non-games can be balanced out by the higher quality gameplay experienced in select matches. It all depends on one's, I don't know, risk-preference; some people are more willing to roll the dice for a bigger payoff while some would prefer a more uniform experience of even, if somewhat muted, quality. I dig it, even if I'm not in the former camp.
I'm honestly curious, no snark/sarcasm, as to why you think:
-Kaladesh was purposely designed to be an aggro format
-Synergy decks can compete with well-drafted aggro peers
Regarding the latter point, I suppose you could merely define "synergy decks" differently than I do. When I think synergy, I think decks that turn otherwise sub-optimal cards into outstanding role-players. Think how Spider Spawning decks got a lot of value out of the otherwise worthless Runic Repetition. Or how pick order changed a lot once you were locked into U/R Spells in EMN.
Most "synergies" in Kaladesh are already good cards (e.g. the Thriving cycle) playing extremely well off one another. Sure, these are fine against the typical beatdown deck, but that's because these pretty much are the typical beatdown deck. The rest of the synergies, the ones that fit a more traditional mold, tend to be much too slow. U/R and U/G Energy, if built around "big" energy sinks (e.g. Aethersquall Ancient), seem incredibly fragile and prone to being run over. I've gotten U/W self-bounce to work quite well in one draft, but I doubt most drafters will be lucky to have a Cloudblazer, much less the Dovin Baan and Torrential Gearhulk I had; the typical common/uncommon core has little to turn the game around in a hurry.
And one the first point, I'm none too certain this was designed as an aggro format. Building off of my previous points, there's a lot of built-in mechanical interactions that simply don't fit in with the pace of the format, as though the 3x Kaladesh draft format we are playing is a bit different than the one R&D tested. Like Origins, there are plenty of archetypes, payoffs/enablers, and whatnot hat feel a mana or a turn too slow. I think, once again, WotC underestimated the power of creatures that snowball on attack. We know they miss stuff in Construced all the time, it's not a stretch to believe that Development flubbed up somewhere in Limited testing.
I'd like to answer this question by posting the full sequence of a game I played in draft two days ago. My deck wasn't what I would call good, and I'm dead certain there are misplays on both sides (the fact that the game leaves room for this to be true is part of my point, actually!) but I think it demonstrates how this format can be interesting.
I go first, with a hand of Salivating Gremlins, Pressure Point, Welding Sparks, 3x Plains, 1 Mountain, which I keep.
Turn 1: Plains
Opponent: Spirebluff Canal
Turn 3: (Draw Plains) Plains, Salivating Gremlins
O: Island, Era of Innovation
Turn 4: (Draw Revoke Privileges) Plains, Welding Sparks at Aether Theorist, attack with Gremlins (20-18)
O: Island, Prophetic Prism, paying for the Era trigger
Turn 5: (Cathartic Reunion) Cast Reunion discarding 2x Plains, (Impeccable Timing, Eager Construct, Mountain), Mountain, cast Eager Construct triggering Gremlins, scry away a Mountain, attack for 4 (20-14)
O: Swamp, Aerial Responder (getting white from Prism)
Turn 6: (Cloudblazer) Attack with both creatures, no blocks, pass turn (20-10).
O: Plains, attack with Responder, I kill it with Impeccable Timing, Multiform Wonder paying trigger on Era (opponent has 10 energy at this point)
Turn 7: (Spontanteous Artist) Revoke Privileges on Wonder, attack for 4 (20-6) Opponent sacs Era for 3 cards.
O: Island, Restoration Gearsmith retrieving Responder, play Responder.
Turn 8: (Prophetic Prism) play Prism triggering Gremlins, draw a Plains, play Plains, play Spontaneous Artist, giving it haste, attack with the Gremlins and Artist, opponent trades the Gearsmith with the Gremlins (20-2).
O: attack with Responder (18-4) play Shrewd Negotiation to give me Multiform Wonder (under Revoke) taking my Artist. play Aether Theorist.
Turn 9: (Glint-Sleeve Artisan) Play Cloudblazer (20-4, Island, Spireside Infiltrator), play Island.
O: Janjeet Sentry, go to attacks, I tap the Responder with Pressure Point (Fragmentize), he passes combat and plays a second Sentry. He's at 9 energy.
Turn 10: (Impeccable Timing) Fragmentize the Revoke on Wonder, go to attacks, opponent gives Sentry haste and taps Wonder, I attack with Cloudblazer, opponent gives his other Sentry haste and untaps Responder to block, and I Impeccable Timing it. Post-combat, play Artisan with a +1/+1 counter and pass. Opponent scries with Theorist.
O: Prakhata Pillar-Bug and pass
Turn 11: (Mouontain) Play Spireside Infiltrator, go to attacks, opponent taps Wonder (2 energy left) and lets me attack with Cloudblazer (20-2).
O: Whirlermaker!
Turn 12: (Plains) go to attacks, opponent taps down Wonder and makes a Thopter to chump Cloudblazer.
O: Opponent chump attack with Pillar-Bug to gain life. I block with Artisan and it dies. Gearseeker Serpent.(20-4)
Turn 13: (Built to Last) attack with Cloudblazer to kill another Thopter. Pass.
O: Prophetic Prism, Prophetic Prism, pass.
Turn 14: (Depala, Pilot Examplar) play the Mountain finally, and Depala, kill another Thopter by attacking with Cloudblazer.
O: Dovin Baan, gain 2 and draw (2 loyalty, 20-6). pass
Turn 15: (Chandra's Pyrohelix) Plains, attack Baan with 'Blazer, kill the Thopter made in response and ping opponent, kill Baan (20-5).
O: Malfunction on 'Blazer, Gearseeker Serpent #2, and Aethertorch Renegade (4 energy)
Turn 16: (Mountain) Mountain, attack with everything (Eager Construct, Wonder, Artisan, Infiltrator, Depala). Depala triggers, I pay 5, and get a Ninth Bridge Patrol and a Fairgrounds Warden. Infiltrator pings the opponent (20-4). Opponent blocks Construct with a Sentry, and Infiltrator with the other, Artisan with a Serpent and Depala with the other, and Artist blocks Wonder to trade. I use built to last on the Artisan to kill a Serpent. Opponent uses his energy to give his Renegade haste and then ping the Artisan to kill it. Post-combat play Warden to remove the other Serpent. Opponent uses his last energy to scry.
O: attack with Sentry and Theorist, I block the Sentry and take 1 (19-4). Then Cataclysmic Gearhulk, keeping Whirlermaker, Gearhulk, and Malfunction. I keep the Warden and Prism.
Turn 17: (Plains) play Plains, Ninth Bridge Patrol. Opponent makes a Thopter.
O: Attack for 6, no blocks. play a second Whirlermaker.
Turn 18: (Welding Sparks) pass, opponent makes a second Thopter.
O: attack with everything, I block with Patrol and kill the Gearhulk with Sparks.
Turn 19: (Reckless Fireweaver) play Fireweaver. Opponent makes 2 Thopters.
O: Attack with Thopters
Turn 20: Thopters
Turn 21 infinite Thopters (I'm dead)
Now come on, that was a great game, even if I lost, and I lost to infinite nonsense. So while maybe that particular game consisted of a mediocre aggro deck facing up against a deck with multiple Mythic control cards (albeit played for minimal impact), it gives me a lot of hope to think the format is capable of supporting those kinds of decks. I've seen plenty of games go long in this format, mostly by playing to get into board stalls, and once you get into that situation you ought to have plenty of ways to force interaction in your favor, and make good use of lower picks.
All people need to do is figure out how to build decks that keep the board stable, rather than keeping the board clear. If they can do that, then they can control the game to their hearts' content, I think.
Hello, I have just signed up to concur with the original thread title and express my views as to why Kaladesh is a poor draft format in my opinion.
I have been drafting since the Theros block and regard myself as a slightly above average player. To be honest over the last year or so I have become increasingly disillusioned with drafting as with each new set the same problems and design flaws remain; the same spells with slight variations but different names and art. With waning mechanics and repetitive gameplay you begin to realise you are playing the same game in a different set with a slightly different shell. These issues are then compounded by the usual mana flood/screw and huge variance in luck limiting your ability to affect a game via skill.
The above is more of a general feeling to the game as of now as I realise I am just a number in what is essentially a gambling machine. I find my enjoyment levels are becoming increasingly overshadowed by frustration. Going through the motions, cracking packs and rolling the dice has just lost appeal for me. Anyway on to Kaladesh specifically.
I think Kaladesh is the worst set for punishing mana issues. If you are not doing something every turn you are most likely going to lose, especially if you are on the draw. There is practically nothing worth playing above cmc 4, which destroys the ability to play anything of a controlling or long game and with no mana sinks drawing more than 5/6 lands is absolutely pointless. This leads to a bottleneck at 4 mana in my experience and I have never been forced to play so many 4 drops before. All I seem to be doing/hoping for is to go play 2 drop, play 3 drop, play 4 drop, play 4 drop, play 4 drop preferably with energy attached and repeat.
Energy is horribly unbalanced and gimmicky and too prevalent on the attack and snowballs with huge unpredictability very fast. There really needed to be a few more viable defensive energy outlets as regardless of what is going on you feel terrible if you are not attacking with energy and all spells without energy feel inferior. Energy makes mana flood painful as you have no big spells to play or ways to use up excess mana.
Vehicles are outright bad and yet again unbalanced and difficult to interact with. Anything with crew 3 or below feels obnoxiously overpowered due to the prevalence of how easy it is to attain 3 power on one body, which leads to weird situations where you can't favourably interact with the opponents board. You can remove the creature but it will just crew a vehicle in response and then likely dump another crewable creature the following turn. There are ways around this but I don't think there are enough and I think crewing in response is a design flaw when most of the vehicles are above the curve for their cost.
Also I don't know if it's the new draft league format or an increased power level or something else but my opponents have certainly had stronger decks in general. I keep asking myself how did you get all those cards? In a normal draft I always feel as if I can read signals, cut cards etc to end up with a better deck than 50% of the draft pod but that seems to have been removed with the league format. You can end up playing a mirror match with two strong decks, which would probably not be supported in a normal draft. I'm not a fan of single elimination so the entry options are limited (pun intended).
In conclusion i think games are decided by who goes first, who can create and use energy first and who can drop a strong vehicle first. I don't think I have won a game without doing one of these.
Thanks for your time.
The leagues lead to better decks because you don't play with your draft pod. This means that people are less likely to fight over colors as they know that even if it weakens the whole pod that's not going to help them (think of 4-5 people fighting over RB dash in dragons. That worked because diluted Dash was still pretty good and you'd face a weakened table since everyone else has the same problem, and only 1 or two people who managed to put together a strong deck in the other colors). In leagues, you should jump ship to the colors not being taken because you'll get a more consistently strong deck, and you'll be facing people who drafted outside your pool. Secondly, there is no incentive to hate draft, and far fewer people do it. You just aren't going to face whatever you passed, so there is no temptation to do it. Because of this, you are more likely to get decent cards for your deck late, which means you can be a bit more aggressive in drafting synergies, and you are less likely to get bit in the butt at the end of the draft by getting passed fewer creatures than you were counting on, because you probably picked up one or two OK ones that you got passed late, or you were able to get passed a good card that would have normally been hate drafted by mid pack in 1 or 2 and so you could focus on filling holes earlier in pack 3.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
I'm a little bummed to see so many people down on this format. I've been enjoying it a good bit, although maybe it's just because I've been crushing it so far (14-1 match record all together). But I have not been finding it as one dimensional as some people are making it out. It's certainly a bit more aggressive than some of the other limited formats we've had recently, but you can still build a solid grindy deck as well. My first draft was a sweet UW energy control build where my MVPs were Fabrication Module and Padeem, Consul of Innovation, and I went 3-0 with that deck with two of my matches being against very aggressive Boros builds. So it's not like you need crazy bombs to make such a deck work; those two cards are just solid build-arounds.
As for some of the complaints, I don't think they're invalid but they seem a bit overblown. Sure, Freighterhoof is a beating, but every color has multiple answers at common for it. And, worse comes to worst you can always double-block it. It opens you up to getting blown out by a combat trick and it never feels GOOD to 2 for 1 yourself, but I've won multiple games after just biting the bullet and doing this. The thriving cycle encourage attacking and CAN get out of hand, but outside of rhino they're mostly pretty easy to trade with early or just bounce off of. The lack of mana sinks is probably the biggest issue with the format, although there are a few such as the modules and Whirlermaker. And the decks that aren't running such cards often don't care because they just want to curve out and beat down quickly.
One thing I've found is that while decisions do matter in this format, with the faster pace and more explosive starts it often just comes down to a single right or wrong call that determines the outcome of the game. For example, one game I chose not to pump my Thriving Ibex because I wanted to blink it with the angel and get more energy. But valuing the additional ability to pump later over that single point of immediate damage cost me the game and eventually the match when I came up one damage short of lethal a few turns down the line. This makes games less forgiving than some other recent formats where you could make a mistake but make up for it in a protracted battle. Overall I find this change of pace fun as each decision feels very high stakes, since you never know when you could make a slight blunder that could cost you the entire game.
I can see why some people may not like Kaladesh limited due to the speed, but that doesn't mean that the format is bad. I kinda like the change of pace myself. You either adapt or wait for a new set.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
I agree. Copter on its own sucks, and Sword sucks on its own, and broken situations could not happen with the other Sword masterpiece either. These cards are only a concern if the two of them curve out perfectly together on turn 4. It's not like people playing Swords or Sol Ring or 0cc mana in other games is going to do stupid things.
Clearly the only rational response is "that will never happen, who cares" and not "hey, maybe letting some of the most powerful artifacts in the history of Magic be legal adds unnecessarily stupid variance to the format".
You know what's better than a 0.001% chance of that happening? A 0% chance of that happening, like the previous 20 limited formats.
I think the rational response is "Masterpieces bring enough value to the game as a whole that it's worth one particular person getting an obscene limited card in one out of every thirty six drafts".
I completely disagree. You can't play Magic for very long without realizing that variance is going to decide a large chunk of games. So if that's going to be the case regardless, there might as well at least be some variety to the exact manner in which that variance presents itself. If this somehow ever actually happens to you or anyone you know (fantastically poor odds of that ever happening, btw), you should be giving the opponent a high five, not complaining that you lost to an epic sequence of rares instead of to mana screw.
You are far, far more likely to get blown out by someone playing a random Giant Spectacle in their deck than you are to a Sword, if you want to complain about variance.
That's part of my point - my understanding is that 3xROE is beloved by many experienced drafters, but its reception among the Magic community as a whole was mixed. To be clear, that means everyone from LSV to the 12-year-old kid opening boosters at his kitchen table and trying to teach his mom how to play. Same with TPF for the reasons you mentioned. All three of those formats came out at times when I was playing off an on (went to all three prereleases) but not super regularly (didn't draft each more than once or twice) so I don't have a fully formed opinion of my own.
What I know about public perception is what I've taken away from snippets I've heard on the subject from people like MaRo and Marshall Sutcliffe.
In draft I have experienced this, but also I am experiencing something worse. Because there are almost no mana sinks, games are often decided by who draws more lands. More than one out of two games I have played has either been decided by mana screw (which can happen in almost every format) or mana flood (which is much more painful here due to not having mana sinks).
It’s very unfun for me so far. I have enjoyed all of the recent sets back to M14 but KLD so far is very unfun for me. I imagine it will get better as variance “evens out” and my record improves but it is not promising.
Beatdown formats are rarely fun when it comes to the gameplay portion, and Kaladesh is no different. Too many games feel extremely lopsided, with little to no meaningful interaction, or at the least an illusion thereof. And while I hope my early impressions are wrong, there are a lot of endemic design flaws.
Fast formats, with low curves and an emphasis on two-drops are highly opening-hand (plus the first 5 or so draws) dependent. Your bears are great early on, but can be quickly made irrelevant against bigger beaters. Further compounding this are all of the creatures capable of "snowballing", like the Thriving cycle or Longtusk Cub; playing these cards early, when attacks are more open, increases their value dramatically.
If you keep a 2-3 land hand, you might not reach 5-6 mana and that bomb or Tidy Conclusion could easily be a dead card. It feels awful having to mulligan hands that would be keepable, if a little sketchy, in other formats only to get a worse six or five.
Drawing too many lands feels bad too. For the past year, with BFZ and SOI blocks, extra-land sinks have been abundant whether it was to trigger Landfall, be used as Awaken fodder, power up Stonefurys, be discarded to play abilities, or to pay for numerous mana-sinks. These formats did a decent job mitigating one of MtG's most controversial gameplay elements, but Kaladesh pretty much throws this out the window.
And even the draft portion is none-too-interesting. It's a BREAD format with a few synergies that you might run into here and there, a la Origins. Just like you weren't [i]really[/] building around netting +1/+1 counters on Blessed Spirits when you cast a Suppression Bonds, you aren't [i]really[/i] building around curving out into efficient Energy-dudes (e.g. Grubs into Rhino, into Tiger); these are all good cards on their own. It's not like picking Mist Intruder over, say, a more generically good Cloud Manta because the Devoid Storm Crow feeds your processors, pumps your Aggregate, and is buffed by Ruination guide.
Again, I hope I'm wrong about this set...it's what my local stores are going to be drafting for the next three months. But it sems like a low-synergy, low-interaction swingfest. Not very fun (even if I'm "good" at it).
We're not going to get away from this being the kind of format that is high on coin-flip, who-drew-the-better-number-of-lands games. That's just the reality of this kind of format. And yeah, that can kill excitement. But I think the games that go right have a lot more ability to go *very* right - be real nailbiters - than a format like EMN ever will.
I think the format was risky from the start. They like to push innovation so that they have an impact and vehicules being very close to equipment had the risk of being too pushed inadvertently. Energy has the same problem as it being too close to free mana. Unfortunately, it seems both scenarios came true: the common train is a bit too strong and the free growth of energy creatures eschew the normal balance of having to use up mana to get a benefit.
So, though, I've had fun in my matches thanks to aggro-on-aggro matchups with plenty of plays and counterplays. (Then waiting 20 minutes for the UG energy mirror match to finish...)
I have seen some interesting decks though, some people really know how to put stuff together. I'm too scared to go out on a limb and try wacky things, but last night I played a dude who dropped 2x Ovalchase Dragster, 2x Aradara Express, and then built up a defensive board while he waited for his 2x Start Your Engines. That sort of thing isn't always going to work, but it got him a 2-1 against me (guess which two he won? The two where he went first, of course!).
Lack of mana sinks is for real a huge issue though. I almost want Clues to be evergreen.
What value do they bring to the game as a whole? It's just a cash grab to sell packs.
Is it worth it? This is the first time they've really done it. In BFZ, the Expeditions were just lands, had a minor impact on game play aside from color-fixing. In original Zendikar, the Hidden Treasures were not legal to play in Limited. This is the first time they're using nonlands that can be played. And they've included some of the most broken artifacts ever printed for Limited (e.g. Sol Ring).
Variance is a part of Magic, but it's generally agreed that adding more sources of variance makes a format worse. People are complaining about the lack of mana sinks (making mana flood more punishing), increasing variance. People are complaining about how the format requires you to be the one attacking, making the die roll more important, adding variance. People are complaining because adding more sources of variance makes a format more unfun. While Masterpieces will impact a smaller percentage of games, it's still the same principle - adding an unnecessary extra source of variance that doesn't need to be in a Limited format.
If they included the premium cards but they were not Limited-legal (just as they are not Standard-legal), would that not accomplish the same goals of selling packs and printing a run of premium in-demand cards? What value do they add to the Limited format by being legal to play?
You'll open both cards about 1 in 25,000 drafts, meaning that about once in every 3,125 drafts, someone will open them.
If the draft is 4 rounds (assuming it's not elimination) and the average round is 2.5 games, you'll play 10 games. If you're running a 40-card deck, the chance of you having boh cards in hand by turn 3 (let alone having one on turn 2) at least once in those ten games is just under 50%, so the chance of the above scenario (assuming that the 2-drop or 1-drop with at least 1 power is a given and that the opponent fails to respond) happening to you are about 1 in 50,000. When you've drafted Kaladesh 50,000 times, come back and complain.
/rant Why did Wizards get rid of core sets? Cash grab to sell packs: core sets didn't sell as well. Why does Wizards even release ANY new sets? They're just trying to do a cash grab since if no sets are released, then they can't make any money. I've seen that argument being applied in other games to so many arbitrary things that were clearly good for the health of the game, and while this topic is a bit more tricky, it still greatly triggers me as it's such a cop-out response that you could use against literally any new product or feature that a company releases. /endrant
Mtggoldfish has a good article here on why Masterpieces are good for the game (or at least Standard, which is a big part of the game): https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/the-masterpiece-series-and-the-redistribution-of-magic-wealth. As for your concerns, I completely agree from a competitive limited perspective that masterpieces are a net negative. However, there are definitely some benefits in having these around in limited, as I could totally see someone opening one of these things, having a blast in the draft, and becoming a longer term player simply due to the existence of the cards. Hell, even my playgroup full of jaded veterans is always excited when someone opens a masterpiece, and it adds some more excitement to opening your packs while drafting. You can call that a cash grab, but I see it more as getting more players excited for playing limited, and growing the playerbase and magic as a whole.
I will say that for competitive level of events, it would probably be ideal to just prohibit the masterpieces that are clearly better than any other card in the set (sol ring, the swords, etc) since those are the only cards that will greatly frustrate players as opening a Gearhulk masterpiece is the same as opening a normal gearhulk and maybe put the competitive integrity of the game in question. However, I get the logistical issues that arise from doing something like this, so I don't mind them just keeping the current solution as is since the odds of this happening are just so low.
They got rid of core sets because players didn't like them. Of course when your player base doesn't like your product ,you make less money. But It was mainly for newer player, and new players bought expert sets instead, and veterans alreay had most of the core set cards so they didn,t care either.
It was a bad product that was still around purely out of habit. The same way they kept *** around out of habit, without stopping to wonder about its impact.
I wouldn't mind some kind of middle ground solution that mitigated their impact.
I'm bored at work so I'll edit this post with some crazy solutions I can think of
-When you open a masterpiece, you reveal it. A masterpiece cannot be drafted without taking the entire pack, adding it to pool,and forfeiting future picks. This allows players not to drop after pulling a masterpiece alongside a chase mythic and makes it so that at a high table the player who eventually accepts it took a certain number of off color cards as a penalty to get it.
-Masterpieces must always start in your opening hand, but each one reduces your opening hand size by 2. In addition they are revealed after drafting but before deckbuilding and you declare whether you will main deck it and invoke that plenty each game one of the draft. also you could play your masterpiece in a top loader which is cool.
-Masterpieces increase you minimum deck size to 55. This is still high variance in terms of actually drawing and getting a crazy game, like option one, but is probably crippling enough that it's not correct to do it at a top table.
-A player with a main board masterpiece starts with it in his opening hand, but whenever he loses a game during the set, he immediately is awarded an additional loss. The masterpiece is revealed after drafting but before decks are built (I like this timing because a store manage can casually ask if anyone got a masterpiece and point out the rule during that time)
I'm honestly curious, no snark/sarcasm, as to why you think:
-Kaladesh was purposely designed to be an aggro format
-Synergy decks can compete with well-drafted aggro peers
Regarding the latter point, I suppose you could merely define "synergy decks" differently than I do. When I think synergy, I think decks that turn otherwise sub-optimal cards into outstanding role-players. Think how Spider Spawning decks got a lot of value out of the otherwise worthless Runic Repetition. Or how pick order changed a lot once you were locked into U/R Spells in EMN.
Most "synergies" in Kaladesh are already good cards (e.g. the Thriving cycle) playing extremely well off one another. Sure, these are fine against the typical beatdown deck, but that's because these pretty much are the typical beatdown deck. The rest of the synergies, the ones that fit a more traditional mold, tend to be much too slow. U/R and U/G Energy, if built around "big" energy sinks (e.g. Aethersquall Ancient), seem incredibly fragile and prone to being run over. I've gotten U/W self-bounce to work quite well in one draft, but I doubt most drafters will be lucky to have a Cloudblazer, much less the Dovin Baan and Torrential Gearhulk I had; the typical common/uncommon core has little to turn the game around in a hurry.
And one the first point, I'm none too certain this was designed as an aggro format. Building off of my previous points, there's a lot of built-in mechanical interactions that simply don't fit in with the pace of the format, as though the 3x Kaladesh draft format we are playing is a bit different than the one R&D tested. Like Origins, there are plenty of archetypes, payoffs/enablers, and whatnot hat feel a mana or a turn too slow. I think, once again, WotC underestimated the power of creatures that snowball on attack. We know they miss stuff in Construced all the time, it's not a stretch to believe that Develpment flubbed up somewhere in Limited testing.
I suppose that's a fair point, that the increased number of non-games can be balanced out by the higher quality gameplay experienced in select matches. It all depends on one's, I don't know, risk-preference; some people are more willing to roll the dice for a bigger payoff while some would prefer a more uniform experience of even, if somewhat muted, quality. I dig it, even if I'm not in the former camp.
I'd like to answer this question by posting the full sequence of a game I played in draft two days ago. My deck wasn't what I would call good, and I'm dead certain there are misplays on both sides (the fact that the game leaves room for this to be true is part of my point, actually!) but I think it demonstrates how this format can be interesting.
Turn 1: Plains
Opponent: Spirebluff Canal
Turn 2: (Draw Plains) Mountain
O: Plains, Aether Theorist
Turn 3: (Draw Plains) Plains, Salivating Gremlins
O: Island, Era of Innovation
Turn 4: (Draw Revoke Privileges) Plains, Welding Sparks at Aether Theorist, attack with Gremlins (20-18)
O: Island, Prophetic Prism, paying for the Era trigger
Turn 5: (Cathartic Reunion) Cast Reunion discarding 2x Plains, (Impeccable Timing, Eager Construct, Mountain), Mountain, cast Eager Construct triggering Gremlins, scry away a Mountain, attack for 4 (20-14)
O: Swamp, Aerial Responder (getting white from Prism)
Turn 6: (Cloudblazer) Attack with both creatures, no blocks, pass turn (20-10).
O: Plains, attack with Responder, I kill it with Impeccable Timing, Multiform Wonder paying trigger on Era (opponent has 10 energy at this point)
Turn 7: (Spontanteous Artist) Revoke Privileges on Wonder, attack for 4 (20-6) Opponent sacs Era for 3 cards.
O: Island, Restoration Gearsmith retrieving Responder, play Responder.
Turn 8: (Prophetic Prism) play Prism triggering Gremlins, draw a Plains, play Plains, play Spontaneous Artist, giving it haste, attack with the Gremlins and Artist, opponent trades the Gearsmith with the Gremlins (20-2).
O: attack with Responder (18-4) play Shrewd Negotiation to give me Multiform Wonder (under Revoke) taking my Artist. play Aether Theorist.
Turn 9: (Glint-Sleeve Artisan) Play Cloudblazer (20-4, Island, Spireside Infiltrator), play Island.
O: Janjeet Sentry, go to attacks, I tap the Responder with Pressure Point (Fragmentize), he passes combat and plays a second Sentry. He's at 9 energy.
Turn 10: (Impeccable Timing) Fragmentize the Revoke on Wonder, go to attacks, opponent gives Sentry haste and taps Wonder, I attack with Cloudblazer, opponent gives his other Sentry haste and untaps Responder to block, and I Impeccable Timing it. Post-combat, play Artisan with a +1/+1 counter and pass. Opponent scries with Theorist.
O: Prakhata Pillar-Bug and pass
Turn 11: (Mouontain) Play Spireside Infiltrator, go to attacks, opponent taps Wonder (2 energy left) and lets me attack with Cloudblazer (20-2).
O: Whirlermaker!
Turn 12: (Plains) go to attacks, opponent taps down Wonder and makes a Thopter to chump Cloudblazer.
O: Opponent chump attack with Pillar-Bug to gain life. I block with Artisan and it dies. Gearseeker Serpent.(20-4)
Turn 13: (Built to Last) attack with Cloudblazer to kill another Thopter. Pass.
O: Prophetic Prism, Prophetic Prism, pass.
Turn 14: (Depala, Pilot Examplar) play the Mountain finally, and Depala, kill another Thopter by attacking with Cloudblazer.
O: Dovin Baan, gain 2 and draw (2 loyalty, 20-6). pass
Turn 15: (Chandra's Pyrohelix) Plains, attack Baan with 'Blazer, kill the Thopter made in response and ping opponent, kill Baan (20-5).
O: Malfunction on 'Blazer, Gearseeker Serpent #2, and Aethertorch Renegade (4 energy)
Turn 16: (Mountain) Mountain, attack with everything (Eager Construct, Wonder, Artisan, Infiltrator, Depala). Depala triggers, I pay 5, and get a Ninth Bridge Patrol and a Fairgrounds Warden. Infiltrator pings the opponent (20-4). Opponent blocks Construct with a Sentry, and Infiltrator with the other, Artisan with a Serpent and Depala with the other, and Artist blocks Wonder to trade. I use built to last on the Artisan to kill a Serpent. Opponent uses his energy to give his Renegade haste and then ping the Artisan to kill it. Post-combat play Warden to remove the other Serpent. Opponent uses his last energy to scry.
O: attack with Sentry and Theorist, I block the Sentry and take 1 (19-4). Then Cataclysmic Gearhulk, keeping Whirlermaker, Gearhulk, and Malfunction. I keep the Warden and Prism.
Turn 17: (Plains) play Plains, Ninth Bridge Patrol. Opponent makes a Thopter.
O: Attack for 6, no blocks. play a second Whirlermaker.
Turn 18: (Welding Sparks) pass, opponent makes a second Thopter.
O: attack with everything, I block with Patrol and kill the Gearhulk with Sparks.
Turn 19: (Reckless Fireweaver) play Fireweaver. Opponent makes 2 Thopters.
O: Attack with Thopters
Turn 20: Thopters
Turn 21 infinite Thopters (I'm dead)
Now come on, that was a great game, even if I lost, and I lost to infinite nonsense. So while maybe that particular game consisted of a mediocre aggro deck facing up against a deck with multiple Mythic control cards (albeit played for minimal impact), it gives me a lot of hope to think the format is capable of supporting those kinds of decks. I've seen plenty of games go long in this format, mostly by playing to get into board stalls, and once you get into that situation you ought to have plenty of ways to force interaction in your favor, and make good use of lower picks.
All people need to do is figure out how to build decks that keep the board stable, rather than keeping the board clear. If they can do that, then they can control the game to their hearts' content, I think.
The leagues lead to better decks because you don't play with your draft pod. This means that people are less likely to fight over colors as they know that even if it weakens the whole pod that's not going to help them (think of 4-5 people fighting over RB dash in dragons. That worked because diluted Dash was still pretty good and you'd face a weakened table since everyone else has the same problem, and only 1 or two people who managed to put together a strong deck in the other colors). In leagues, you should jump ship to the colors not being taken because you'll get a more consistently strong deck, and you'll be facing people who drafted outside your pool. Secondly, there is no incentive to hate draft, and far fewer people do it. You just aren't going to face whatever you passed, so there is no temptation to do it. Because of this, you are more likely to get decent cards for your deck late, which means you can be a bit more aggressive in drafting synergies, and you are less likely to get bit in the butt at the end of the draft by getting passed fewer creatures than you were counting on, because you probably picked up one or two OK ones that you got passed late, or you were able to get passed a good card that would have normally been hate drafted by mid pack in 1 or 2 and so you could focus on filling holes earlier in pack 3.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
As for some of the complaints, I don't think they're invalid but they seem a bit overblown. Sure, Freighterhoof is a beating, but every color has multiple answers at common for it. And, worse comes to worst you can always double-block it. It opens you up to getting blown out by a combat trick and it never feels GOOD to 2 for 1 yourself, but I've won multiple games after just biting the bullet and doing this. The thriving cycle encourage attacking and CAN get out of hand, but outside of rhino they're mostly pretty easy to trade with early or just bounce off of. The lack of mana sinks is probably the biggest issue with the format, although there are a few such as the modules and Whirlermaker. And the decks that aren't running such cards often don't care because they just want to curve out and beat down quickly.
One thing I've found is that while decisions do matter in this format, with the faster pace and more explosive starts it often just comes down to a single right or wrong call that determines the outcome of the game. For example, one game I chose not to pump my Thriving Ibex because I wanted to blink it with the angel and get more energy. But valuing the additional ability to pump later over that single point of immediate damage cost me the game and eventually the match when I came up one damage short of lethal a few turns down the line. This makes games less forgiving than some other recent formats where you could make a mistake but make up for it in a protracted battle. Overall I find this change of pace fun as each decision feels very high stakes, since you never know when you could make a slight blunder that could cost you the entire game.