I think I take Battlewise Hoplite P1P1 although this draft illustrates the downside of that as UW dries up really fast in pack 1. Still, Phalanx Leader, Wavecrash Triton, Aqueous Forms is an unexciting start but could have gotten there.
Nighthowler is defensible as well. It's not a particularly good rare but the 4 cost bestow can be pretty powerful.
P1P1 - Hydra for me. cast it for 6 and Sip of Hemlock is about the only way you can deal with it below rare. I want to cast it for x=5 on T4 with Satyr Hedonist at some point.
Phyrre56 said the rest, although I probably take at least one Griptide over one of the Triton Tactics after first-picking Hydra. UG looked really good given your draft.
Emissary or Naiad. Heroic seems overdrafted to me -- Rider is probably a slightly higher power-level, but the WW combined with Heroic's popularity is a pass for me.
I've had two UB decks that were pretty good despite not being wide open. Both of them were heavy black with Returned Phalanxes, black flyers/intimidate and with 3-4 Gray Merchants to finish, and using counterspells/bounce for interaction. both were extremely light on actual removal which wasn't ideal, but otherwise that's another powerful way to use UB.
Here we have a card that takes two effects (piker + ritual) which are typically mediocre to bad in limited, and staples them together. So, he looks mediocre to bad on paper. In practice though, stapling these two effects together actually somewhat remediates what's bad about them. Pikers aren't great because they are quickly outclassed. But the ritual effect means that you can still get value out of Hedonist in the mid to late game by ramping into fatties, monstrifying, or otherwise using that +2 mana. Rituals aren't great because they are card disadvantage and lousy topdecks. Hedonist lets you get a card's worth of value by punching in for early damage, and in topdeck mode at least lets you stave off some damage by chump blocking or trading. It's not an amazing card, but it's a solid role-player in a RG ramp deck, mainly because it's a versatile card that can be useful at any point in the game.
great summary, and a good evaluation principle to remember when looking at these kinds of cards.
I turned him into a T4 5/5 hasty Mistcutter Hydra once. I only included Satyr Hedonist in the deck to fill out the curve (especially because I had an Ordeal or two I wanted to drop as early as possible) but his ability was relevent to many of the cards in my deck. Generally you don't want to have to sacrifice a creature for mana but at times it can make a big difference in a game.
forgot about Hydra. that's a fantastic reason to run a couple Satyrs.
Since Satyr Hedonist is essentially RG, it's limited to very specific decks. To me, the ramp has two different functions:
1) Get out a 5 CMC fatty on Turn 3. or possibly 6 CMC on T4. Paying an extra card to do this seems bad, but I can see this kind of play being useful if you have something like T2 Satyr, T3 dude, T4 play a 6 CMC bestow. For just playing a creature, Stormbreath Dragon is about the only creature I'd want to go all-in on at 5 CMC. Interestingly, you can easily play Nemesis of Mortals T3 with Satyr because he goes to the graveyard immediately... for a 5/5 I could maybe see doing this as well although you can get punished very easily vs blue.
2) Monstrous activations. If you have one or more creatures with game-ending monstrous activations at 7 or 8 mana, getting there much earlier seems to be where you really get your value from the Satyr. I'm specifically thinking of Ember Swallower here, playing that T4 and activating monstrous T5 seems unbeatable by anything except Voyage's End. Stoneshock Giant is the other major one to mention with his Seismic Stomp activation being possible on T6 with just one Satyr to ramp.
All this to say -- it's pretty much useful only in R/G monsters, but how many do you really want in that deck? Any other interesting applications of the ramp that I'm missing? What are your experiences with it so far?
Instant speed enchantment removal is crazy awesome against bestow, netting a 2-for-1 in combat a lot of the time.
Any enchanted creature that you can interact with in combat is potentially vulnerable to this, and I would guess that's going to be the only way to deal with certain fatties. one possibility: an enchanted Benthic Giant that's juuust making it past your 5/5, say.
Not to sound like a cold turd, but this is nothing new. One common black Morbid Plunder variant and one admittedly sweet uncommon black Rise from the Grave is not "a lot of graveyard interaction." We had self-mill themes in DGR block, INN block (for reals, yo,) not so much ZEN or SOM blocks (as I recall,) big in ALA block... there are a few uncommons that will certainly want you to self-mill, but I think it's often going to be the correct play to mill your opponent for extra information/a little stall insurance.
No worries. 'decent amount of graveyard interaction' is probably more accurate, although the rare support is important too. So yeah, I know it's nothing new, but I've read multiple set reviews that didn't mention this benefit when evaluating Centaur. To pick on the mod for a second (bad idea? :o)
Returned Centaur
3b
Creature — Zombie Centaur
When Returned Centaur enters the battlefield, target player puts the top four cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
2/4
Filler
Odd a mono black card mills. Seems weak.
Another set review I read even said 'we're certainly not self-milling with this card' which is just flat out wrong. So it's certainly possible that some folks are missing the interaction here before the prerelease.
I have a hypothesis that one of the later sets in the block (whichever one has Pharika, the GB god) is going to have a small self-mill theme in those colors, and we're seeing some seeding for it in Theros.
Yup, good call, was about to add those in. Commune with the Gods is self-mill only, which hopefully should reinforce it. We may see more support for milling your opponent in later sets, but it's pretty much just self-mill for Theros-only limited.
Quite a few of the set reviews I've seen so far seem to be misunderstanding or ignoring milling in this set. Black has a lot of graveyard interaction in this set, guys.
I like mono-red with a splash for air servant only for the mainboard, although you can definitely side in some extra blue if needed.
the 12-5 mana base is interesting. I would typically go 11-6 with that spell count (16 R spells vs 6 u spells.)
so I broke out HYPGEOMDIST in excel, and given those numbers, going to 11-6 reduces your chances of having 1 or more blue cards with no islands in your opener by 5.2%, and reduces your chances of having 2 or more blue cards with no islands by about 1.7%, but increases your chances of no-mountain openers by 2%. I think 11-6 is slightly better, but 12-5 is a lot closer than I thought at first glance.
Not a mono-black deck, but instead Bond is basically combo-piece redundancy in a pretty sweet Angelic Accord deck: one Accord, Demonic Tutor, 4 Child of Nights, Cauldron, Post. We also see the main-deck Congregate which I think is overkill although it's arguable.
Match Notes:
M2G2 is probably my favorite, as he keeps a mono-black hand, draws a swamp and 5 white spells running, and still had another draw step or two before the Plains came in to win the game. Plus, 'Congregate for 14 and lethal'.
However, I think running congregate instead of another dude was pretty costly in M3G2. Think it's just too win-more, personally, although I suppose it could have stolen a game out of nowhere. but that didn't happen this draft.
sometimes you're just dead in limited, and it looks like you were here when he got online.
cards that help:
Tenacious D + damage-dealing sac outlet. Young Pyromancer and Molten Birth help here too.
multiple Lava Axes or maybe a Corrupt. the Volcanic Geyser you had could win you the game out of nowhere if you get any decent damage in.
Accursed Spirit is unbeatable if it sticks. it's at common and one of thes best reasons to be black.
Nighthowler is defensible as well. It's not a particularly good rare but the 4 cost bestow can be pretty powerful.
Phyrre56 said the rest, although I probably take at least one Griptide over one of the Triton Tactics after first-picking Hydra. UG looked really good given your draft.
I've had two UB decks that were pretty good despite not being wide open. Both of them were heavy black with Returned Phalanxes, black flyers/intimidate and with 3-4 Gray Merchants to finish, and using counterspells/bounce for interaction. both were extremely light on actual removal which wasn't ideal, but otherwise that's another powerful way to use UB.
great summary, and a good evaluation principle to remember when looking at these kinds of cards.
forgot about Hydra. that's a fantastic reason to run a couple Satyrs.
1) Get out a 5 CMC fatty on Turn 3. or possibly 6 CMC on T4. Paying an extra card to do this seems bad, but I can see this kind of play being useful if you have something like T2 Satyr, T3 dude, T4 play a 6 CMC bestow. For just playing a creature, Stormbreath Dragon is about the only creature I'd want to go all-in on at 5 CMC. Interestingly, you can easily play Nemesis of Mortals T3 with Satyr because he goes to the graveyard immediately... for a 5/5 I could maybe see doing this as well although you can get punished very easily vs blue.
2) Monstrous activations. If you have one or more creatures with game-ending monstrous activations at 7 or 8 mana, getting there much earlier seems to be where you really get your value from the Satyr. I'm specifically thinking of Ember Swallower here, playing that T4 and activating monstrous T5 seems unbeatable by anything except Voyage's End. Stoneshock Giant is the other major one to mention with his Seismic Stomp activation being possible on T6 with just one Satyr to ramp.
All this to say -- it's pretty much useful only in R/G monsters, but how many do you really want in that deck? Any other interesting applications of the ramp that I'm missing? What are your experiences with it so far?
Any enchanted creature that you can interact with in combat is potentially vulnerable to this, and I would guess that's going to be the only way to deal with certain fatties. one possibility: an enchanted Benthic Giant that's juuust making it past your 5/5, say.
No worries. 'decent amount of graveyard interaction' is probably more accurate, although the rare support is important too. So yeah, I know it's nothing new, but I've read multiple set reviews that didn't mention this benefit when evaluating Centaur. To pick on the mod for a second (bad idea? :o)
Another set review I read even said 'we're certainly not self-milling with this card' which is just flat out wrong. So it's certainly possible that some folks are missing the interaction here before the prerelease.
Yup, good call, was about to add those in. Commune with the Gods is self-mill only, which hopefully should reinforce it. We may see more support for milling your opponent in later sets, but it's pretty much just self-mill for Theros-only limited.
They did mention it, which I appreciate. I don't think I've see any amateur set reviewers get it though.
---
At common/uncommon:
March of the Returned: CA if you have two creatures in the yard.
Pharika's Mender: More card advantage from creatures in the yard.
Rescue from the Underworld: Cheating creatures from the yard into play.
At rare/mythic:
Nighthowler: Pumps based on creatures in yard (either one in this case)
Tymaret, The Murder King: Milling this guy is straight card advantage due to his second ability.
Underworld Cerberus: Every creature in your yard goes into your hand if this guy dies.
Whip of Erebos: Unearth every guy in your yard.
---
It should be fairly obvious what to do with Returned Centaur's ETB trigger by now if it isn't already.
tl;dr: Mill yourself if you have cards that generate CA from graveyard interaction.
the 12-5 mana base is interesting. I would typically go 11-6 with that spell count (16 R spells vs 6 u spells.)
so I broke out HYPGEOMDIST in excel, and given those numbers, going to 11-6 reduces your chances of having 1 or more blue cards with no islands in your opener by 5.2%, and reduces your chances of having 2 or more blue cards with no islands by about 1.7%, but increases your chances of no-mountain openers by 2%. I think 11-6 is slightly better, but 12-5 is a lot closer than I thought at first glance.
Deck Notes:
Match Notes:
However, I think running congregate instead of another dude was pretty costly in M3G2. Think it's just too win-more, personally, although I suppose it could have stolen a game out of nowhere. but that didn't happen this draft.
cards that help:
Tenacious D + damage-dealing sac outlet. Young Pyromancer and Molten Birth help here too.
multiple Lava Axes or maybe a Corrupt. the Volcanic Geyser you had could win you the game out of nowhere if you get any decent damage in.
Accursed Spirit is unbeatable if it sticks. it's at common and one of thes best reasons to be black.