I'm definitely considering Gamble right now. We tested for a few hours last night, and while Burning Wish is very powerful, it's slow and clunky. Gamble is on the short list of other builds to test.
We're also considering a living wish build, which will probably be just as clunky, but might be a little faster. We can put Azusa, Lost but Seeking or Oracle of Mul Daya in the board, with maybe a Primeval Titan for acceleration, but we can also move things like the Tabernacle to the board so we don't draw it when we don't need it, and put the 4th Valakut in the board.
Thoughts.
Thanks for the comment!
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- JeffDerek
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You and I have very different experiences with Sower against aggro decks. I'm willing to concede that you don't want a ton of 6 drops against aggro, but I've never found Sower to be that good against aggro decks. The body is virtually irrelevant, it's just a worse Control Magic. Silumgar, on the other hand, comes down later, but is more likely to actually end the game when he comes down, taking their best creature and providing a wall that 2 and 3 power creatures can't get through. Sower always feels like a bump in the road that wasted my fourth turn when I could've been playing something that actually made a difference.
I'm actually considering bringing in Willbender, Voidmage Prodigy, and Stratus Dancer together. Their abilities are different enough that you can't really depend on knowing exactly what you're facing, which seems interesting to me.
I'm interested in hearing more about this world where 3/5 fliers for 6 are worthless against aggro but 2/2 fliers for 4 aren't. Seems to me that Sower is going to come down earlier, then get immediately removed by almost anything, and you're going to wish you had your 4 mana back. Silumgar isn't going to win you anything if he's the first thing you do, but if you're controlling the board and then you play him, he actually stops many of their attackers (unlike sower) and is much harder to kill.
In all seriousness, with 550 cards, do you really believe that the balance of the draft will be negatively affected if you include both Soulfire Grand Master and Lightning Angel and don't also include 2 of every other wedge?
What I learned from the experiment I linked above was just how little an imbalance in colors actually affects the draft. As a result, I'm not trying to be perfectly balanced at the top end, which lets me just play the hybrid/wedge/shard cards that are good enough to play without forcing myself to play bad ones. I'm definitely going to slot the new green one drop into this section, and probably Soulfire Grand Master as well. Not sure about the black hellrider variant, I think he might actually just be a black card.
I expect that by the time my Fate Reforged update is finished I'll have gone down to 60 cards of each color to buy myself 5 more cards worth of space in the multicolor section, since I have a few tricolor cards I'd like to fit in anyway.
The problem, though, is that red is the only color I can get people to do that in. Isamaru and friends are almost always last picks. White has a lot of tokens tools, but also a lot of good aggro tools too, and I think the tools for aggro are available, although maybe I'm wrong. It's just that my playgroup prefers to play midrange. Black aggro cards only get played when someone goes into pox.
So what to do? Keep fighting human nature and try to find ways to make people play white weenie and black aggro? Give up entirely and make the few aggro drafters we have who can't be as regular as everyone else less interested in coming? Find some way to entice people into aggro decks?
We're a spikey bunch of legacy players, so aggro doesn't really exist in our format of choice. How can I convince people it's good here, or should I just give up?
Consider it more of a thought exercise, I just figured knowing exactly what some ideal lists would look like might make it easier to evaluate what cards are important. I'm primarily a combo or control player in Legacy (the only other format I play), so I admit I know very little about drafting a good aggro deck.
1UU - Prowess-Eyed Selkie
Prowess
When Prowess-Eyed Selkie deals combat damage to a player, draw that many cards
1/1
Anything that triggers based on how much damage the card does and has prowess to give ita built in way to boost itself could be good. There will also possibly be something that grants Prowess to all of your creatures, like they've done with Exalted and Unearth, and that could be particularly nutty in a deck with Young Pyromancer and Talrand if the creature is appropriately costed.
The key, I think, is what wtwlf said, the card has to be playable without it. W 2/1 Prowess would totally work, R 2/1 Prowess would make me the happiest of pandas. I'd probably play Welkin Tern with Prowess, although I'd have to think about it a little more.
Jeskai Elder
1U
Creature - Human Monk
Prowess (Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, this creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn)
Whenever Jeskai Elder deals combat damage to a player, you may draw a card. If you do, discard a card.
1/2
Obviously this card by itself isn't particularly great. It's probably gonna be great in Khans limited but not cubeworthy. However I'm super excited to see the Prowess mechanic, which should go well with those cubes that play Talrand, Young Pyromancer, Guttersnipe, and Kiln Fiend. Hopefully they'll push something with the mechanic and we'll get to give the U/R guild a little more definition.