I'm pretty sure this confirms Tezzeret as the head of the Azorius, not Dovin.
Dovin is not an artificer. Putting him in charge of the Azorius wouldn't suddenly let them develop them Thopters. He knows all about their regulations, of course, but that's not the same as having the technical know-how.
Tezzeret makes way more sense. In fact I was thinking along these lines before seeing that art:
1) It makes sense that Tezzeret would be one of the five planeswalkers taking over a guild, he's basically Bolas' best known pawn so it would be weird to leave him out.
2) A Tezzeret card would necessarily be mechanically related to artifacts. You can't just print a Tezzeret card without that connection. However, having a (gold) card that cares about artifacts while none of the mechanics in the set do is strange. And you can't just put a bunch of extra artifacts in the set because it's already a gold set so there's no extra space. Therefore, the guild he takes over must have a connection to artifacts.
3) Tezzeret has always been blue, so he would either need to be Azorius or Simic. Simic doesn't make sense for caring about artifacts, leaving Azorius. I did consider Rakdos as an outside option, as black and red have had artifact-related abilities in the past, but it would be weird to have Tezzeret shift away from blue (although to be fair, the way he was portrayed in the AEther Revolt stories, he seemed way more black/red than blue to me).
4) All that would mean that Azorius (most likely) would care about artifacts. This is actually foreshadowed in M19, where the UW combination has a lot of artifact-matters cards. Seeding a theme is something they like to do to make cards from different sets in Standard play well together, and let decks develop over time.
From this I suspected strongly that Azorius would have an artifact-related mechanic, and Tezzeret would be its leader. The Thopters in the artwork pretty much confirm this for me.
If anything, her closing statements make her sound more UB than BR, with all this manipulating people and carefully crafting her oath to be just perfect.
To clarify, I meant specifically during the time she is using the Veil in a "new" way. At the end of the story she isn't using the Veil. It was just my impression that the way she used the Veil in this story, she seemed very BR, with all the focus on immediate gain, anger, recklessness and passion (in addition to/combined with black traits). What I mean is, at this point she's still just B - this was just her first taste of going "all-in" on the power of the Veil. I think her hunger for power will mean she will do this more often (permanently?) and this will make her BR. I felt the choice of words in the story was hinting at this, but it's entirely possible that I read too much into it.
I don't regularly post in this section but this story was awesome. The best I've read so far. Full of interesting developments: potential insight into what the Eldrazi are, the hook to several future stories about Eldrazi (not too soon, of course, we're all a bit tired of them) and Tamiyo's scroll. But also something I haven't seen mentioned here much, I think Liliana changed in this story, regarding her "deeper" use of the Chain Veil and her actually learning to master it. And what really struck me about that is that I think Liliana is becoming black-red. I felt the way her "new" use of the Veil was described had a lot of elements of red: rage, reckless abandon, happiness, and also short-sightedness (she revels in the power without realizing she will get tired). Some of the descriptions in the story to illustrate this point:
Liliana's blood was on fire, her mind in shreds. One force kept her coherent—rage.
Without conscious thought she drew deep on the power of the Chain Veil,
somehow this time her rage inoculated her from the worst of the Chain Veil's injuries.
This power. It is a revelation. All it had taken was Liliana's will. Her desire. For so long she had thought herself utterly pragmatic and driven to her cause. To not die. To kill her demon tormentors. But now she knew she had been unwilling to take that final step, to cross over the last barrier. I had restraint. How foolish.
Liliana's scorn draped each word she thought back in reply. Do not seek to contain me with your small expectations, little man. Today is the day I destroy an Eldrazi titan. Why? Because I dare.
I emphasized some adjectives/phrases that are typically associated with red. So I'm calling this now, next Liliana will be BR.
Ok, so what combos do you see doing silly things? Let's exclude rares and mythics, keep it only to the combinations which are likely to turn up in a limited game.
I actually disagree with this premise. Combos with rares and mythics are clearly less likely to come up, but they're also, for the same reason, much more likely to be unknown. Combos between rares/mythics are a bit obnoxious, I'll agree with that, but knowing synergies between a rare/mythic and a common/uncommon is useful, because chances are you will at some point draft that rare and then it's good to know a combo with it without having to figure it out on the spot. I see no point in listing Nantuko Husk + Act of Treason. Everybody knows about that. But I noticed Rogue's Passage is a great enabler for Willbreaker - I think that's a more useful observation even though it will come up much less frequently.
1) How much have you played with the format, roughly?
20-30 drafts I think? And a fair amount of Team Sealed.
2) Which common was better than you expected?
Custodian of the Trove, Palace Familiar (which I didn't mind first-picking at the end - and my decks weren't even focussed on exploit usually)
3) Which common was worse than you expected?
Ojutai Interceptor, Guardian Shield-Bearer, Lightwalker
4) What's the most underappreciated card?
Monastery Loremaster, Enhanced Awareness
Edit: I forgot Rakshasa's Disdain! By far the most underrated card in the format. I even got it last pick once.
5) What's the worst common that people still play?
Dromoka Warrior. Every card that couldn't beat Palace Familiar was unplayable in the format, because of the large amount of similar cards that punished them.
6) What was your favorite archetype?
UB/UR control. After about 5-10 drafts I learned to ignore all green and white cards and only draft Grixis control decks. Things went much better after that point.
7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?
GW counters. Honestly Exploit and Bolster were the only things that really looked like "archetypes" (GR is just a good-creatures-deck, RB a good-cards-deck, and UW not-a-deck) and bolster or counter-based decks were really rare. So Exploit was the only synergy-based deck that actually worked.
8) Which colors were the best and worst?
Black > blue > red >> green >> white.
9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?
Pretty unexciting. I had some fun with Grixis control, but there wasn't much variation because everything else was boring and sucked. It wasn't terrible but I won't miss it.
I wouldn't say I know that much about the format (I haven't played it apart from the GP), but it felt really powerful. Proliferate is just incredibly strong with Graft - I think people underestimate it because Proliferate wasn't that strong the first time. Everybody knows it "works together" but I don't know if they realize just how strong it is. For example, if you play 1 Graft creature, 1 normal creature you graft onto, and 1 Steady Progress, you get two power and toughness plus a card for three mana, at instant speed. That's already a pretty sweet deal (compare to Burrenton Bombardier which was very good), and it's almost the low end of what you usually get. And Steady Progress was a very low playable in its format!
For the same reason, I think Inexorable Tide is actually strong in a dedicated deck. Everyone told me it wasn't playable, but that's because it wasn't playable in its format. Here it pretty much give my entire team +1/+1 or even +2/+2 each turn. It generally prompted concessions within two turns of being played, and won me a long game vs Affinity by allowing me to draw my entire deck with Novijen Sages.
I finished 16th at GP Utrecht with a 13-2 record (7-2 Sealed, 6-0 Draft). I was at no point in t8 contention so I was just having a good time and drafting sweet decks and incidentally winning. It's still a bit of a mixed feeling to get that record and not even getting a PT invite out of it (since I was already q'ed). But I'm still happy with my result, and especially happy for some other people who qualified for Vancouver at the tournament.
Back from GP Florence. It was a great trip, though the Magic-playing part didn't go particularly well. It served as a blunt reminder of how incredibly awful I've become (and to an extent, have always been) at Magic, and I definitely didn't deserve to win any more than the little I did. But the other team from our house made the top 4, and as always it was fantastic to see my friends doing well. In any case, these trips have become less about Magic and more about everything else surrounding the event (sightseeing, food, meeting old friends, talking), and in that regard the trip certainly delivered. Looking forward to the next one!
I had no idea you were there! We went a disappointing 6-1 into 6-3, with some pretty extreme series of manascrews in both r1 and r9. I had a mono blue aggro deck that I really enjoyed playing, but it clearly wasn't meant to be. Unfortunate, cause basically everyone in day two got money. The trip was enjoyable though. Next will be the monster-GP in Utrecht.
Your opponent getting impatient with you choosing your blocks only increases the likelihood that he doesn't think his play through properly and might make a mistake. Other than that, given that the important decision you have to make is a card that he has no way of knowing about I wouldn't read too much into it.
BTW: what did you get back with Loremaster? If it was the reach of shadows as I've been assuming my previous post stands. If it was either Pyrotechnics or Flatten that would given him enough information to make it much less likely that he misplays, in which case flattening in combat might be safer because the 6/6 is easier to deal with in the long run? Not sure.
It was Reach of Shadows, so he doesn't know about either card in my hand.
I had not figured everything yet when my opponent typed '...', but I had figured a way to win if he misplayed badly (Flatten SRQ, he doesn't pump in response and attacks with both). My hope when seeing his impatience was that he would be certain of the win and therefore more likely to do this bad play, so I went for it. If I had completely figured out the alternatives I wouldn't have done this, because I think now that the best play is Flattening the Shorecrasher after declaring blockers (2/3 chumps, deathtoucher blocks Shorecrasher) and this gives a decent enough shot at winning (even if it's still not great, considering he has almost certainly two spells in hand and draws 2 more cards) that hoping for this misplay isn't needed. Luckily for me, my opponent did exactly that and I won the game. Despite the win, I almost immediately had second thoughts about my play there.
Flatten Shorecrasher immediately.
If he lets it die, quartermaster can be double blocked and you survive at 1 life, with both your opponents creatures dead, a 4/3 in play and pyrotechnics in hand. If he exiles, shorecrasher comes back as a morph, gets 2 counters and trample but has summoning sickness, so you can safely single block the quartermasters with aven if he attacks and have lethal if the shorecrasher doesn't chump on the swing back, though safer is probably to double block and make sure both your opponents creatures are dead by the end of your next turn. If he double pumps the toughness of shorecrasher, it becomes a -1/3 until eot, and again you can block the quartermaster safely like above. It does bring shorecrasher out of pyrotechnics reach the next turn though, which is not an amazing spot to be in, and your best chance then might be to swing and hope for the block, finishing it off with the pyrotechnics. But being at 1 life in topdeck mode vs a Monastery Siege would suck.
Worst case is if he double pumps toughness and doesn't attack, in which case you're definitely behind and just have to pray that he continues to play conservatively while Aven chips away at him.
Waiting with flatten lets him attack with both and gives him much more freedom in how to use his mana along the way. You would still be in a reasonable spot if you chump quartermaster with Aven (take 3 trample) and shorecrasher with Hand, then flatten. He can either exile and lose the +1/+1 counters, or just lose the elemental to hand without doing any damage. You then have hand and the 4/3 left on a board with tapped quartermaster, morphed shorecrasher and pyrotechnics in hand, which is 1 damage short of killing him outright and leaves quartermasters in play to deal with afterwards (unless he gets greedy), so doesn't seem optimal.
Flattening the Quartermaster now makes it a 4/4, shorecrasher a virtual 5/1, both with trample, and you with 4 toughness, so you die on the spot.
Flattening the Quartermaster later doesn't kill it, and again leaves him with 9 trampling power vs your 4 toughness.
So you have to flatten the elemental to survive, but the timing determines whether it as a 5/5 or quartermaster as a 6/6 survives to bother you later. Either is not great, but immediately flattening makes it easier for your opponent to screw up, so I would chose that.
All these scenarios ignore anything relevant in his hand, but if he does have anything else this turn I think you lose whatever you do.
I think this is the most accurate answer.
Now, there's one tiny bit of extra information. After I was thinking for a while, my opponent typed "..." in chat. Does this change your play?
Dovin is not an artificer. Putting him in charge of the Azorius wouldn't suddenly let them develop them Thopters. He knows all about their regulations, of course, but that's not the same as having the technical know-how.
Tezzeret makes way more sense. In fact I was thinking along these lines before seeing that art:
1) It makes sense that Tezzeret would be one of the five planeswalkers taking over a guild, he's basically Bolas' best known pawn so it would be weird to leave him out.
2) A Tezzeret card would necessarily be mechanically related to artifacts. You can't just print a Tezzeret card without that connection. However, having a (gold) card that cares about artifacts while none of the mechanics in the set do is strange. And you can't just put a bunch of extra artifacts in the set because it's already a gold set so there's no extra space. Therefore, the guild he takes over must have a connection to artifacts.
3) Tezzeret has always been blue, so he would either need to be Azorius or Simic. Simic doesn't make sense for caring about artifacts, leaving Azorius. I did consider Rakdos as an outside option, as black and red have had artifact-related abilities in the past, but it would be weird to have Tezzeret shift away from blue (although to be fair, the way he was portrayed in the AEther Revolt stories, he seemed way more black/red than blue to me).
4) All that would mean that Azorius (most likely) would care about artifacts. This is actually foreshadowed in M19, where the UW combination has a lot of artifact-matters cards. Seeding a theme is something they like to do to make cards from different sets in Standard play well together, and let decks develop over time.
From this I suspected strongly that Azorius would have an artifact-related mechanic, and Tezzeret would be its leader. The Thopters in the artwork pretty much confirm this for me.
To clarify, I meant specifically during the time she is using the Veil in a "new" way. At the end of the story she isn't using the Veil. It was just my impression that the way she used the Veil in this story, she seemed very BR, with all the focus on immediate gain, anger, recklessness and passion (in addition to/combined with black traits). What I mean is, at this point she's still just B - this was just her first taste of going "all-in" on the power of the Veil. I think her hunger for power will mean she will do this more often (permanently?) and this will make her BR. I felt the choice of words in the story was hinting at this, but it's entirely possible that I read too much into it.
I emphasized some adjectives/phrases that are typically associated with red. So I'm calling this now, next Liliana will be BR.
I actually disagree with this premise. Combos with rares and mythics are clearly less likely to come up, but they're also, for the same reason, much more likely to be unknown. Combos between rares/mythics are a bit obnoxious, I'll agree with that, but knowing synergies between a rare/mythic and a common/uncommon is useful, because chances are you will at some point draft that rare and then it's good to know a combo with it without having to figure it out on the spot. I see no point in listing Nantuko Husk + Act of Treason. Everybody knows about that. But I noticed Rogue's Passage is a great enabler for Willbreaker - I think that's a more useful observation even though it will come up much less frequently.
Worst pairs: BR - the most controlling color and the most aggressive color; and UG where there is actual zero synergy.
Apart from every single other black common in the set, certainly.
20-30 drafts I think? And a fair amount of Team Sealed.
2) Which common was better than you expected?
Custodian of the Trove, Palace Familiar (which I didn't mind first-picking at the end - and my decks weren't even focussed on exploit usually)
3) Which common was worse than you expected?
Ojutai Interceptor, Guardian Shield-Bearer, Lightwalker
4) What's the most underappreciated card?
Monastery Loremaster, Enhanced Awareness
Edit: I forgot Rakshasa's Disdain! By far the most underrated card in the format. I even got it last pick once.
5) What's the worst common that people still play?
Dromoka Warrior. Every card that couldn't beat Palace Familiar was unplayable in the format, because of the large amount of similar cards that punished them.
6) What was your favorite archetype?
UB/UR control. After about 5-10 drafts I learned to ignore all green and white cards and only draft Grixis control decks. Things went much better after that point.
7) Which archetype wasn't as good as you'd expected?
GW counters. Honestly Exploit and Bolster were the only things that really looked like "archetypes" (GR is just a good-creatures-deck, RB a good-cards-deck, and UW not-a-deck) and bolster or counter-based decks were really rare. So Exploit was the only synergy-based deck that actually worked.
8) Which colors were the best and worst?
Black > blue > red >> green >> white.
9) Thoughts on the format as a whole?
Pretty unexciting. I had some fun with Grixis control, but there wasn't much variation because everything else was boring and sucked. It wasn't terrible but I won't miss it.
For the same reason, I think Inexorable Tide is actually strong in a dedicated deck. Everyone told me it wasn't playable, but that's because it wasn't playable in its format. Here it pretty much give my entire team +1/+1 or even +2/+2 each turn. It generally prompted concessions within two turns of being played, and won me a long game vs Affinity by allowing me to draw my entire deck with Novijen Sages.
I played my first two drafts at day 2 of GP Utrecht yesterday, and went 6-0 with these two decks:
1 Selesnya Sanctuary
4 Forest
3 Mountain
2 Swamp
2 Island
1 Plains
2 Dimir Guildmage
1 Spellskite
1 Dragonsoul Knight
1 Matca Rioters
2 Etched Oracle
1 Worldheart Phoenix
2 Skyreach Manta
1 Horde of Notions
1 Aethersnipe
2 Rampant Growth
1 Sphere of the Suns
2 Nameless Inversion
1 Repeal
1 All Suns' Dawn
1 Bestial Menace
1 Spread the Sickness
2 Fiery Fall
7 Island
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Evolving Wilds
3 Thrummingbird
2 Aquastrand Spider
1 Nest Invader
2 Vigean Graftmage
1 Algae Gharial
1 Kozilek's Predator
1 Wolfbriar Elemental
2 Helium Squirter
2 Novijen Sages
1 Kavu Primarch
2 Tumble Magnet
2 Steady Progress
1 Repeal
1 Scatter the Seeds
1 Inexorable Tide
I had no idea you were there! We went a disappointing 6-1 into 6-3, with some pretty extreme series of manascrews in both r1 and r9. I had a mono blue aggro deck that I really enjoyed playing, but it clearly wasn't meant to be. Unfortunate, cause basically everyone in day two got money. The trip was enjoyable though. Next will be the monster-GP in Utrecht.
It was Reach of Shadows, so he doesn't know about either card in my hand.
I had not figured everything yet when my opponent typed '...', but I had figured a way to win if he misplayed badly (Flatten SRQ, he doesn't pump in response and attacks with both). My hope when seeing his impatience was that he would be certain of the win and therefore more likely to do this bad play, so I went for it. If I had completely figured out the alternatives I wouldn't have done this, because I think now that the best play is Flattening the Shorecrasher after declaring blockers (2/3 chumps, deathtoucher blocks Shorecrasher) and this gives a decent enough shot at winning (even if it's still not great, considering he has almost certainly two spells in hand and draws 2 more cards) that hoping for this misplay isn't needed. Luckily for me, my opponent did exactly that and I won the game. Despite the win, I almost immediately had second thoughts about my play there.
I think this is the most accurate answer.
Now, there's one tiny bit of extra information. After I was thinking for a while, my opponent typed "..." in chat. Does this change your play?
For completeness: it's game 1, and this is the decklist I'm playing:
4 Mountain
2 Plains
1 Island
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Dismal Backwater
1 Scoured Barrens
1 Hand of Silumgar
1 Kolaghan Skirmisher
1 Marang River Skeleton
1 Qarsi Sadist
2 Dutiful Attendant
1 Merciless Executioner
1 Minister of Pain
1 Custodian of the Trove
2 Vulturous Aven
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Pilgrim of the Fires
1 Goblin Boom Keg
1 Flatten
1 Reach of Shadows
1 Ire Shaman
1 Monastery Loremaster
1 Ruthless Deathfang
1 Harsh Sustenance
1 Tail Slash
1 Pyrotechnics