You also have to keep in mind that players are constantly cycling through, so even if you did something 5-10+ years ago a good portion of the current player base won't have actually experienced it yet.
Ah, I didn't think of that. Good point. Yea, I guess magic will be fine for a long time. I'll probably someday lose interest in it long before it dies . . . although I've been playing on and off since Mercadian Masques back in 1999.
I'm already a bit concerned that Wizards is revisiting planes at a faster and faster pace. I feel like one of the motives for this is because they can reuse a lot of the mechanics from the first time they visited the plane. Well, what happens when we've gone through that?
I love this game, but I wonder how many more ways you can add counters, tap creatures, increase power/toughness, ect. until the well is dry?
Dampening Pulse is one of those cards I will splash an Island and a mana fixer in just to show it on a non-blue deck. It gives you great defense, and makes creature combat absolutely horrible for your opponent.
Green's power cards in this set definitely tend to be more ramp than fatties, but like Golden said, it's still a very strong color due to it. Just pretend the colorless fatties are green fatties and use all the green Scion-generators to power them out quickly and you'll smash people.
Also, like Golden said, Snapping Gnarlid is savage beats for a 2 drop, if you are looking for more traditional "I'm just a creature that's fatter than it should be" green dudes.
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Also, I'm having a bit more trouble with card evaluation this set since so many of the cards have huge variance in power based on what deck they are in.
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I think this describes BFZ limited pretty well. Card evaluation is pretty complex with all the synergies going on here, rewarding early dedication during the draft, punishing 'conservative' picks.
I think that's exactly my problem. I usually go with the draft mentality of "pick something that will always be good, no matter what the situation/synergy." In other formats I get lots of wins by making "good stuff" decks. In this format, my "good stuff" decks are really "mediocre stuff decks" or "23rd card decks" and they get destroyed by decks that capitalize on synergy.
I have to take more risks with committing earlier to an archetype that looks open otherwise my deck will never be good enough to 3-0.
Edit: Oh, and I appreciate everyone's feedback. I have read all the posts carefully on here and I'll keep them in mind the next time I play. Thank god for cockatrice . . . it makes it easier to crawl up the learning curve when I'm not spending $15 for draft for each "lesson."
Completely disagree.
I already disagreed with the scry rule in the first place since the mulligan is in fact the payoff for bad hands. You sacrifice 1 card for new combinations.
Now here's the kicker as to why scrying more than 1 card is absolutely broken and should never be implemented: you can rearrange your top library into favorable draws regardless of the hand.
By OP's logic, the best idea would be to mulligan down to 2 and make sure that the next 5 draws give us what we need. In some decks, this is beyond broken.
If you have issues with your deck's starting hands consider the following:
1. Learn how to shuffle properly.
2. Learn to build your deck in a way where you do not have to mulligan.
3. Learn what are keepable and unkeepable hands.
4. Play with cantrip/scry/looting cards.
These are all ways to get around the issue.
I play a ton of draft, and I can tell you that a lot of mulligans happen due to only getting a 1-2 lander (or a 6-7 lander which is also awful), and then having to mull a 2nd-3rd time because you only got a 1 lander again. The best deck building, shuffling, and mulliganing strategy in the world still won't prevent this from happening to people more than it should.
I strongly believe a better mulligan scry rule like the one I suggested should be implemented by Wizards, if not for all formats, then at least for Limited.
I'm not a great player, but I haven't gotten nearly as many losses in BFZ draft as I have since . . . triple Gatecrash.
Even when I try to take advantage of all the synergies and archetypes, my decks end up stumbling. I think my problem is I still am in the mentality of just try to draft traditional aggro or mid-range, so I get blown apart by decks that utilize synergies better than mine. Also, I'm having a bit more trouble with card evaluation this set since so many of the cards have huge variance in power based on what deck they are in.
Anyone else struggling to get wins in BFZ draft? For those who are doing well in BFZ, any advice on how to draft BFZ better?
Instead of only getting to scry 1 after you keep a hand you mulliganned, what if you get to scry x, where x is the number of cards in your hand fewer than 7.
So as an example, if you mull to 5, you get to scry 2.
I think it would make things less back-breaking for those games where you have to mull 2+ times in a row because you get 0-1 land in your opening hand.
After reading all the comments, I believe those arguing for and against the Tempo version aren't even on the same frequency - we may as well have Grixis Control and Twin players argue about whether Deceiver Exarch is a good card. For the most productive discussion on the Tempo version, I would encourage the creation of a new thread, where the mindset and focus will be on tempo, and tempo alone - that will stir people to actually think of ways to improve the deck along those lines, instead of forever critiquing it in the shadow of an existing deck that just so happens to be in the same colors and share staple cards with it.
I agree. Unless everyone prefixes their posts with 'In X version of Grixis, how about Y card(s)?' we will keep returning to this issue and make very little progress to advancing the deck. I'd follow the new thread. I'm interested in playing both (all?) versions of the deck.
In my never ending quest to find hidden jank and work it into otherwise fine decks, I present my latest finding: Mystic Speculation. I am unsatisfied with only 4 cards that have scry to help flip Delver. I've been looking at Condescend but that's pretty bad for us. Mystic Speculation has synergies with both Delver and YP, but it's probably pretty bad otherwise? What do you think?
I ran a single Mystic Speculation in my list a while back. It is good in top-deck wars, especially if you have a prowess creature or Young Pyromancer to benefit from the repeat casts. You do sometimes have to just bite the bullet though and cast it without buyback when you need to find something early, usually removal. Pretty much a fun-of.
Even Sleight of Hand is better than this card, and in that case you'd better have maxed out on Probe and Thought Scour already. The answer to increasing Delver reliability lies with increasing your I/S count, not running bad scry effects. As far as a late-game card, Faithless Looting trumps all three.
My card selection and cantrip engine is fine. I don't find myself want for looting effects. I presently run 4 Probe, 4 Visions, 4 Scour with a total of 28 instants and sorceries. I'm looking for a way to guarantee flips. Visions is the only way right now. Heck, I've even been thinking about cards like Magma Jet.
There are zero 'put a card from your hand on top of your library effects' available in modern, correct?
How have you guys done against Lantern Control? What do you try to sideboard in, and what is the general strategy?
I played against it for the first time last night on Cockatrice.
Game 1 he had to mill to 4 so I easily won.
Game 2 I didn't board out my removal (I didn't realize his deck had no creatures) and I lost.
Game 3 I resolved and Ashiok and won by milling him out. He would have won otherwise because he had me in complete lockdown with Ensnaring Bridge on the board, 0 cards in hand, and no way to ever draw anything useful for the rest of the game. I was extremely lucky that he sided out his Pithing Needles otherwise Ashiok wouldn't have saved me.
For sideboarding I did
- 2 Terminate
- 1 Murderous Cut
- 1 Lightning Bolt
- 2 Spell Snare (I didn't see any targets in his build)
+3 Thoughtseize
+1 Ashiok
+1 Blood Moon (I only have one IRL otherwise I would be boarding in two)
+1 Countersquall
The boarded in Thoughtseizes plus the 2 maindeck Rise/Fall allowed me to rip his hand to shreds and basically remove his disruption before he could disrupt me too bad.
If I owned Engineered Explosives, I would DEFINETELY put them in since most of his artifacts cost 1.
The deck is really good at making sure you don't find your answers if they get lantern + 2nd or more mill effect. My current sideboard strategy vs Lantern is:
I remove the creature removal because the only target they have is spellskite, and we can get around it so its not the major problem. I also side out snare because the only cmc 2 card they run is spellskite, pyroclasm, and abrupt decay. Personally i want to focus on removing roadblocks and their library manipulation spells like lantern, ensnaring bridge, and grafdiggers cage. Spell pierce is the all star in the matchup, countering the important spells at a low cost, and helps protect your hand against inquisition of kozilek. The key is to hold onto your draw spells for as long as you can if you are already locked from lantern + mill card, especially instant speed card draw. I love cards like rise/fall here since they run very little lands and that removes 2 random pieces from their hand to make it a lot worse, and revives snapcaster mages to snap back Kommands and recalls. You have to be aggressive, but save your counter magic for the cards: lantern of insight, ensnaring bridge, gravedigger's cage, and inquisition of kozilek. Without those pieces, they cannot outrace you and your creatures get too out of control for them. I don't worry as much about pyroclasm this match as i do for tron since tron can slam karn or ugin and just win through those, lantern doesn't exactly have an answer to gurmag angler and tasigur other than ensnaring bridge. Surgical extraction can get rid of 1 key piece of their deck, preferably one of the aforementioned, but it doesn't hurt getting a spellskite or other problems. We are favored here since we can manipulate our deck well and provide enough pressure to keep our opponent busy on multiple fronts.
Thoughtscour is definitely good since you get still grab a quick spell that they can't mill from you . . . but once they get the lantern + mill lock, doesn't Serum Visions and Gitaxian Probe become useless? They can always respond by milling the top card you were going to draw, so you end up just getting a land. I suppose you have the chance of having two non-land relelvant cards in a row so you still grab something, but if they have 2 or more mill effects on the board, you're boned.
Excellent advice about keeping Thoughtscour handy until absolutely necessary though, thank you. I didn't think of that.
Edit: Oh, and regarding the folks who were saying the Delver vs. Jund matchup is actually in Delver's favor. I agree. I thought this deck had a lot of unfavorable matchups, when really it was just that I didn't know how to play it optimally so I made a lot of suboptimal plays that cost me games. There is a steep learning curve with this deck, but once you overcome that, your win % increases by a lot. I'm still learning a lot about how to play this deck optimally, because the decision tree is so large every turn.
How have you guys done against Lantern Control? What do you try to sideboard in, and what is the general strategy?
I played against it for the first time last night on Cockatrice.
Game 1 he had to mill to 4 so I easily won.
Game 2 I didn't board out my removal (I didn't realize his deck had no creatures) and I lost.
Game 3 I resolved and Ashiok and won by milling him out. He would have won otherwise because he had me in complete lockdown with Ensnaring Bridge on the board, 0 cards in hand, and no way to ever draw anything useful for the rest of the game. I was extremely lucky that he sided out his Pithing Needles otherwise Ashiok wouldn't have saved me.
For sideboarding I did
- 2 Terminate
- 1 Murderous Cut
- 1 Lightning Bolt
- 2 Spell Snare (I didn't see any targets in his build)
+3 Thoughtseize
+1 Ashiok
+1 Blood Moon (I only have one IRL otherwise I would be boarding in two)
+1 Countersquall
The boarded in Thoughtseizes plus the 2 maindeck Rise/Fall allowed me to rip his hand to shreds and basically remove his disruption before he could disrupt me too bad.
If I owned Engineered Explosives, I would DEFINETELY put them in since most of his artifacts cost 1.
Hi there - ive been wanting to build a Grixis deck for awhile now, and delver seems the most "fun" iteration to me. Dont have Snapcasters atm, should I wait until I have snaps before constructing the rest of the deck (the deck doesnt function without him), or would I be ok building the deck then getting the snaps as I can afford them (the deck is handicapped without them, but will still function)?
Unforunately, you will just lose too many matchups without Snappy Snappy is the best card in Delver, and it allows you to access to all the cards you've already played or dumped into your graveyard via Thought Scour. It's like having 10-14 cards in your hand instead of 7 max. Also, the card advantage of throwing an instant speed 2/1 into play plus a spell is amazing.
Is it worth it to frequently go 18 lands for this sealed to make your manabase better?
Ah, I didn't think of that. Good point. Yea, I guess magic will be fine for a long time. I'll probably someday lose interest in it long before it dies . . . although I've been playing on and off since Mercadian Masques back in 1999.
I love this game, but I wonder how many more ways you can add counters, tap creatures, increase power/toughness, ect. until the well is dry?
I would call BFZ draft a lot of things, but boring is definitely not one of them!
Also, like Golden said, Snapping Gnarlid is savage beats for a 2 drop, if you are looking for more traditional "I'm just a creature that's fatter than it should be" green dudes.
I think that's exactly my problem. I usually go with the draft mentality of "pick something that will always be good, no matter what the situation/synergy." In other formats I get lots of wins by making "good stuff" decks. In this format, my "good stuff" decks are really "mediocre stuff decks" or "23rd card decks" and they get destroyed by decks that capitalize on synergy.
I have to take more risks with committing earlier to an archetype that looks open otherwise my deck will never be good enough to 3-0.
Edit: Oh, and I appreciate everyone's feedback. I have read all the posts carefully on here and I'll keep them in mind the next time I play. Thank god for cockatrice . . . it makes it easier to crawl up the learning curve when I'm not spending $15 for draft for each "lesson."
I play a ton of draft, and I can tell you that a lot of mulligans happen due to only getting a 1-2 lander (or a 6-7 lander which is also awful), and then having to mull a 2nd-3rd time because you only got a 1 lander again. The best deck building, shuffling, and mulliganing strategy in the world still won't prevent this from happening to people more than it should.
I strongly believe a better mulligan scry rule like the one I suggested should be implemented by Wizards, if not for all formats, then at least for Limited.
Even when I try to take advantage of all the synergies and archetypes, my decks end up stumbling. I think my problem is I still am in the mentality of just try to draft traditional aggro or mid-range, so I get blown apart by decks that utilize synergies better than mine. Also, I'm having a bit more trouble with card evaluation this set since so many of the cards have huge variance in power based on what deck they are in.
Anyone else struggling to get wins in BFZ draft? For those who are doing well in BFZ, any advice on how to draft BFZ better?
So as an example, if you mull to 5, you get to scry 2.
I think it would make things less back-breaking for those games where you have to mull 2+ times in a row because you get 0-1 land in your opening hand.
Thoughts?
That doesn't put the card onto of your library, it shuffles it into it. No bueno.
Thoughtscour is definitely good since you get still grab a quick spell that they can't mill from you . . . but once they get the lantern + mill lock, doesn't Serum Visions and Gitaxian Probe become useless? They can always respond by milling the top card you were going to draw, so you end up just getting a land. I suppose you have the chance of having two non-land relelvant cards in a row so you still grab something, but if they have 2 or more mill effects on the board, you're boned.
Excellent advice about keeping Thoughtscour handy until absolutely necessary though, thank you. I didn't think of that.
Edit: Oh, and regarding the folks who were saying the Delver vs. Jund matchup is actually in Delver's favor. I agree. I thought this deck had a lot of unfavorable matchups, when really it was just that I didn't know how to play it optimally so I made a lot of suboptimal plays that cost me games. There is a steep learning curve with this deck, but once you overcome that, your win % increases by a lot. I'm still learning a lot about how to play this deck optimally, because the decision tree is so large every turn.
I played against it for the first time last night on Cockatrice.
Game 1 he had to mill to 4 so I easily won.
Game 2 I didn't board out my removal (I didn't realize his deck had no creatures) and I lost.
Game 3 I resolved and Ashiok and won by milling him out. He would have won otherwise because he had me in complete lockdown with Ensnaring Bridge on the board, 0 cards in hand, and no way to ever draw anything useful for the rest of the game. I was extremely lucky that he sided out his Pithing Needles otherwise Ashiok wouldn't have saved me.
For sideboarding I did
- 2 Terminate
- 1 Murderous Cut
- 1 Lightning Bolt
- 2 Spell Snare (I didn't see any targets in his build)
+3 Thoughtseize
+1 Ashiok
+1 Blood Moon (I only have one IRL otherwise I would be boarding in two)
+1 Countersquall
The boarded in Thoughtseizes plus the 2 maindeck Rise/Fall allowed me to rip his hand to shreds and basically remove his disruption before he could disrupt me too bad.
If I owned Engineered Explosives, I would DEFINETELY put them in since most of his artifacts cost 1.
Unforunately, you will just lose too many matchups without Snappy