Played a bunch of games yesterday. Removed slips for bone splinters. Also put in Bloodgift demon as a 2 of. Still having problems with running out of gas
Pros: You can discard it with impunity to your draw effects.
Cons: 21 Mana required to kill, 24 if flashing back.
This is usually my first pitch after a Faithless Looting.
Burn at the Stake:
Pros: 7 creatures required to kill, which is, in my theorycraft, significantly less than 21 mana.
Cons: Can't toss it at will.
Thoughts?
From just fishbowling this I'm almost always using Past in Flames to go off so I have no issue discarding Burn at the Stake. If I don't have a Past in Flames in the GY then it's a harder decision.
I'm still wondering if mono-red would work better than RW. My problem is running out of white mana when I go off, all those Gather the Townfolks just end up dead cards either in my GY or my hand.
One addition I'm thinking of making is Liquimetal Coating in place of Myco Wellspring. Liquimetal allows me to ensure I have an artifact I can sacrifice to Kuldotha Rebirth (often just the land I use to cast Kuldotha Rebirth) and a second artifact (the Liquimetal Coating itself) for a second Kuldotha. If you go off that turn sacrificing a tapped mountain isn't too much of a cost.
I love BG pod but I'm not sure you actually need a birthing pod in this deck. Without mana dorks you're not activating it until turn 4 and you'd be better off just curving out with creatures.
If you absolutely want to run Birthing pod run Phyrexian Metaporph. Their interaction with Geralf's is incredible. You can hard cast them if you don't have an active pod. So I would cut the 2 Slimes and the Harvester for Metamorph.
But then if my highest effective cost for a creature was 3 mana I'd cut the pods for Demonlord of Ashmouth.
Assuming a Binomial distribution (I consider it a very good approximation in this case) of Booster packs within a booster box, 3 Mythics is the third most likely result (~17%) and 2 Mythics is the 5th most likely (~10%).
The probability of getting 5 Mythics in 2 boxes comes in at just around 5.5% so even considering both boxes we're not talking crazy outlier stuff here.
Fair points all. It's just disappointing - especially after the 3 Mythic box previously. Plus, as a newer player, this is the kind of thing that I could see really annoying someone with less patience than I have for the randomized aspect. In that case, they might just say "screw it" and give up the game (sounds silly to me, that particular reaction, but I can see that happening). Losing players because the collation isn't so great can't be a good thing, I don't think.
But anyway, lesson learned, and I appreciate and respect everyone's advice and thoughts on the subject. I meant no offense by my grumblings, certainly.
I'm quite pleased with the Rares at least (got Vexing Devil, Zealous Conscripts, Revenge of the Hunted, Wolfir Silverheart and 2 Wolfir Avengers, so it's not a total wash - plus I was excited to get a 2nd Bonfire of the Damned AND Big Daddy Griselbrand!)
Honestly Anthony the number of mythics aside I'd say you pulled some decent cards. Considering mythics none of your mythics are going to be $1 junk mythics in a few months so that's also good.
The only reason I buy sealed is to draft with my brother or brother in law and the value I get from those drafts makes up for the lost EV of opening packs.
Skaab Ruinator isn't a build around card. He's too difficult to reliably cast early so at best he's a plan b. I like him as a plan b because he does a lot of neat things. I think he'll improve when Scars block rotates (Vapor Snag and Nihil Spellbomb are major headaches for this guy).
The problem with removing Bloodgift is that I have very few flyers :S and only a few ways to deal with flyers, just general creature removal if someone lands Sigarda against me I can't kill it.
Scrape together $18 and get yourself 2 Phyrexian Metamorph. Let them deal with Sigarda.
Been lurking for a while and I really like how this deck seems to work. I have been toying around with it and I think the new Tibalt planeswalker would be a perfect fit and so would Chandra.
The random discard on Tibalt isn't a problem as Chandra's Phoenix, Kuldotha Phoenix, Faithless Looting, Ancient Grudge can all be discarded. If we get the Liquimetal on board and we hit their lands Tibalt's -4 is going to be significant and will also return our Chandra's Phoenix.
I like Chandra as well for her +1 to get us back our Chandra's Phoenix and her -2 works great once we get two liquimetal on board, or just as a win condition doubling up Galvanic Blast.
I'd probably run two of each planeswalker to begin with.
Griselbrand. He'll give you gas.
This is usually my first pitch after a Faithless Looting.
From just fishbowling this I'm almost always using Past in Flames to go off so I have no issue discarding Burn at the Stake. If I don't have a Past in Flames in the GY then it's a harder decision.
I'm still wondering if mono-red would work better than RW. My problem is running out of white mana when I go off, all those Gather the Townfolks just end up dead cards either in my GY or my hand.
One addition I'm thinking of making is Liquimetal Coating in place of Myco Wellspring. Liquimetal allows me to ensure I have an artifact I can sacrifice to Kuldotha Rebirth (often just the land I use to cast Kuldotha Rebirth) and a second artifact (the Liquimetal Coating itself) for a second Kuldotha. If you go off that turn sacrificing a tapped mountain isn't too much of a cost.
If you absolutely want to run Birthing pod run Phyrexian Metaporph. Their interaction with Geralf's is incredible. You can hard cast them if you don't have an active pod. So I would cut the 2 Slimes and the Harvester for Metamorph.
But then if my highest effective cost for a creature was 3 mana I'd cut the pods for Demonlord of Ashmouth.
The probability of getting 5 Mythics in 2 boxes comes in at just around 5.5% so even considering both boxes we're not talking crazy outlier stuff here.
Honestly Anthony the number of mythics aside I'd say you pulled some decent cards. Considering mythics none of your mythics are going to be $1 junk mythics in a few months so that's also good.
The only reason I buy sealed is to draft with my brother or brother in law and the value I get from those drafts makes up for the lost EV of opening packs.
Scrape together $18 and get yourself 2 Phyrexian Metamorph. Let them deal with Sigarda.
The random discard on Tibalt isn't a problem as Chandra's Phoenix, Kuldotha Phoenix, Faithless Looting, Ancient Grudge can all be discarded. If we get the Liquimetal on board and we hit their lands Tibalt's -4 is going to be significant and will also return our Chandra's Phoenix.
I like Chandra as well for her +1 to get us back our Chandra's Phoenix and her -2 works great once we get two liquimetal on board, or just as a win condition doubling up Galvanic Blast.
I'd probably run two of each planeswalker to begin with.