Question: If you have no life can you pay for stuff that requires life? I apologize if it sounds retarded just curious. Just want to know if I can pay life through something until something stupidly huge in the negatives to play a big Death's Shadow.
That's correct, if you have 0 or less life you cannot "pay life" such as using the phyrexian mana symbols' alternate cost.
However, stuff like Ad Nauseam doesn't require you to actively pay the life, but merely causes you to lose life, which is perfectly fine, and you can draw your entire library with it without dying.
I would go phyrexian, have one player play the obv b/g infect deck, and then have the other player play w/u with the white infect cards and proliferate, removal and bounce. seems like it would be good.
Hmm, that's a pretty good idea actually, concentrate all the infect cards and maybe a couple of things like Morbid Plunder into one deck, and use bounce, removal, counter, etc from the other colours to support the infect deck, because all you need is just 10 poison counters anyway, and one deck should definitely be able to deal that.
I finally found some time off work so that I can play in the pre-release, but it's going to be the 2HG one. Which is kind of a bummer, but 2HG is still quite fun.
But apparently, for 2HG, you only get 4 SoM packs, and 4 faction packs, and you have to build 2 decks out of that pool.
Poison in 2HG is pretty darn powerful, since you still only need to deal 10 poison counters, but have to chew through 30 life. But with 4 SoM packs, and only 4 Phyrexian packs, I don't think the math works out for 2 even decent Infect based decks.
Battlecry also works for your partner's creatures, which is a boost for the Mirran side, but still, 30 life to chew through might be a bit tough.
So question, which is probably better? Mirran or Phyrexian for 2HG sealed play? I'm thinking Mirran right now, but maybe the math for Phyrexian is not as bad as I thought?
Just get better at reading the game state and try to make plays with better EV.
I've only really gambled twice when it comes to Untamed Might, and luckily, both times it worked in my favour. But the countless number of times I've played against decks with Untamed Might in it, I've made the safer play, and so to this date, I haven't really been blown out by it.
Just try to play safe, and only gamble when you absolutely have to. I mean, if there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, like you haven't drawn a single removal or flier to block that Plague Stinger, then well, that's just variance, but the majority of the time, you can maneuver yourself correctly and not get blown out by it.
leave the red cards to your left, take the good and only blue one in the pack, continue to dry blue in P1, and enjoy the blue goodies that are coming at you P2...
Yeah...most drafts don't generally work like that. You could very easily have someone upstream from you opening a blue bomb rare and decided to cut blue, in which case, you just got screwed if you decide to force blue straight from pack 1.
Scrapmelter on the other hand is perfectly splashable, so even if you got cut from red, you could always try splashing for it.
P1P1 you shouldn't considering sending signals anyway. Just take the best card that you think will complement your final deck.
Pretty sure I'm just gonna go with Mirran since it's like an 80/20 split of Mirran/Phyrexian in SoM. And the Mirran cards in SoM don't really play well with Phyrexian cards from what's spoiled so far.
I'd rather get a reliable number of bears and hill giants and build a deck then hope for some busted infect deck.
Anyone tried Sinkhole + Stone Rain and all the land d shenanigans in their pauper cubes yet? My cube doesn't have any pure land destruction cards yet, but I'm contemplating adding more, as well as maybe adding an affinity theme once all of Scars is released and I can put enough playable artifacts in it.
Also, another question, what's a clear cut first pick for you guys in pauper cubes (like in regular cube, it's Sol Ring/Library)? I get a lot of varying answers from seasoned cube drafters, but mostly because they haven't played a lot of pauper to begin with. Personally I'm thinking it's either some sort of an engine card (like Grim Harvest), or ultra hard to deal with card like Rancor. But it's kinda hard to pick out the "Sol Ring" in a pauper cube.
SCV: If I recall, SCV's had a higher threat priority than the thing they're repairing before (well with my millions of dead SCV's lying around in the outmatched thing, I think that's the case anyway).
SCVs have a lower targeting priority right now, that's why you can see people getting away with 1 Thor with 5 SCVs repairing it, because unless you manually attack the SCVs, attack moved units will only focus on the Thors. Same thing with Planetary Fortresses (actually, it's a even bigger problem with PFs).
Zerg:
Infestor: Do medivacs have the ability to pick up growthed units? In any case, the fungal growth thing makes sense from a logical standpoint, but not being able to trap medivacs for easy kills might be an issue in ZvT. Guess this means protoss can use phoenixes more against zerg, with this and the build-time decrease.
Medivacs couldn't pick up FGed units in one of the most recent patches (I think same patch as 4 range Roaches?), and this nerf has made Medivac harass even more potent against Z.
I don't like this nerf. I mean, I understand the "lore" part of it, but it just makes gameplay a bit too awkward for Zerg players.
Yeah, that's one of the reason why they implemented the "reveal everything" rule, because people used to pylon/supply depot hide, and if the game was really only finished when you've "finished" your opponent, it would be pretty frustrating to play, so it's considered good mannered to gg as soon as it's clear that you've lost, and save your opponent the time to manually kill all your buildings.
But every single one of those, except Bonds of Quicksilver, is a pretty high pick, and you can't count on getting those all the time. Bonds also isn't a very good removal spell, so the one removal you can reliably get, also isn't very good, and you WILL be hurting for removal in UG, this is pretty much the case for every single UG archetype ever in like Magic history. Instead, UG usually wins through some mixture of tempo and card advantage.
I would take it high in Infect, because it shuts down the way most people tries to counter your deck: subbing in creatures. The first strike is really good.
Other than that, I don't like it that much either.
Seriously I don't think curve is an issue either, since Sylvok Replica can very easily block 1 and 2 drops, and blow up 3+ drops, you practically always come out ahead (well, unless you are facing down some Molder Beasts).
So I would definitely play as many as you can get your hands on.
That's correct, if you have 0 or less life you cannot "pay life" such as using the phyrexian mana symbols' alternate cost.
However, stuff like Ad Nauseam doesn't require you to actively pay the life, but merely causes you to lose life, which is perfectly fine, and you can draw your entire library with it without dying.
Hmm, that's a pretty good idea actually, concentrate all the infect cards and maybe a couple of things like Morbid Plunder into one deck, and use bounce, removal, counter, etc from the other colours to support the infect deck, because all you need is just 10 poison counters anyway, and one deck should definitely be able to deal that.
But apparently, for 2HG, you only get 4 SoM packs, and 4 faction packs, and you have to build 2 decks out of that pool.
Poison in 2HG is pretty darn powerful, since you still only need to deal 10 poison counters, but have to chew through 30 life. But with 4 SoM packs, and only 4 Phyrexian packs, I don't think the math works out for 2 even decent Infect based decks.
Battlecry also works for your partner's creatures, which is a boost for the Mirran side, but still, 30 life to chew through might be a bit tough.
So question, which is probably better? Mirran or Phyrexian for 2HG sealed play? I'm thinking Mirran right now, but maybe the math for Phyrexian is not as bad as I thought?
I've only really gambled twice when it comes to Untamed Might, and luckily, both times it worked in my favour. But the countless number of times I've played against decks with Untamed Might in it, I've made the safer play, and so to this date, I haven't really been blown out by it.
Just try to play safe, and only gamble when you absolutely have to. I mean, if there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, like you haven't drawn a single removal or flier to block that Plague Stinger, then well, that's just variance, but the majority of the time, you can maneuver yourself correctly and not get blown out by it.
Yeah...most drafts don't generally work like that. You could very easily have someone upstream from you opening a blue bomb rare and decided to cut blue, in which case, you just got screwed if you decide to force blue straight from pack 1.
Scrapmelter on the other hand is perfectly splashable, so even if you got cut from red, you could always try splashing for it.
P1P1 you shouldn't considering sending signals anyway. Just take the best card that you think will complement your final deck.
I'd rather get a reliable number of bears and hill giants and build a deck then hope for some busted infect deck.
Also, another question, what's a clear cut first pick for you guys in pauper cubes (like in regular cube, it's Sol Ring/Library)? I get a lot of varying answers from seasoned cube drafters, but mostly because they haven't played a lot of pauper to begin with. Personally I'm thinking it's either some sort of an engine card (like Grim Harvest), or ultra hard to deal with card like Rancor. But it's kinda hard to pick out the "Sol Ring" in a pauper cube.
SCVs have a lower targeting priority right now, that's why you can see people getting away with 1 Thor with 5 SCVs repairing it, because unless you manually attack the SCVs, attack moved units will only focus on the Thors. Same thing with Planetary Fortresses (actually, it's a even bigger problem with PFs).
Medivacs couldn't pick up FGed units in one of the most recent patches (I think same patch as 4 range Roaches?), and this nerf has made Medivac harass even more potent against Z.
I don't like this nerf. I mean, I understand the "lore" part of it, but it just makes gameplay a bit too awkward for Zerg players.
Other than that, I don't like it that much either.
Though I'm trying it out in my pauper cube :p.
I consistently bring in those 1R or 1B for 2/1 creatures just so they can trade with "better" infect creatures.
Sometimes, depending on my hand/deck, I wouldn't even hesitate to trade a Myr for a Vector Asp.
Also, try playing around Untamed Might if you can, as you want to minimize the chances of it randomly stealing games from you.
So I would definitely play as many as you can get your hands on.
At the rate we are going, watch we open a Skittles on pack 2 or 3 too :p.