Wow. I've never even been to this forum before, but yesterday I was trying to sleep and thought up two cards with a very similar mechanic. I was thinking of the word "infiltrate" too.
Demonic Infiltrator 1BB
Creature - Demon
Flying
When Demon Infiltrator enters the battlefield, target opponent gains control of it.
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice a non-Demon creature.
3/3
At the beginning of enchanted opponent's upkeep, he or she puts a 3/3 black Demon creature token with flying on the battlefield, and then sacrifices all non-Demon creatures he or she controls.
Not sure about the costs and the P/T's of the "reward" Demons the opponent gets. The first creature would be great with some kind of on-board removal, like Paralyze or Pacifism, etc.
The latter enchantment would be a fun and challenging card to build around - can you kill your opponent before he kills you with his growing army of 3/3 fliers? It'd have to only enchant opponents, unlike other Curses, because enchanting yourself would be too strong in a Demon tribal deck. Of course it would be terrible against control decks!
It takes more than this for me. I have to have two convincing bombs in two different wedges, ALONG with at least 1 triland and some duals, before I go 5C. For example, in the draft I'm in now, I P1P1'ed Armament Corps, and after going Azban all of pack 1, P2P1 I had the option of taking Butcher of the Horde. Some players would take it and try to play at least 4 colors based off of BW, but because I only had one dual land at that time, I chose to pass it.
I think when the set just came out, dual and even tri-lands were more easily available in later picks. Now this is no longer true. While the situation isn't quite as bad as RTR full block, where you'd have to first or second pick Gates in GTC and RTR or risk not having them at all, drafters are beginning to correctly valuate the lands in KTK. And since you need at least, say, 5 or 6 dual/tri lands to play 5C effectively, and green doesn't have any common choices for fixing, you may have to sacrifice too much power to get the fixing you need in early packs to make it worth it.
To answer your question, overall I love this set. I think it rewards creativity and smart play more than Theros, and I personally like the fact that you can come back from a bad position instead of just dying every time to the Hopeful Eidolon-bestowed-Wingsteed Rider. Further, for a variety of reasons it has been consistently my highest win-rate set since I joined MTGO last spring during GTC. I've won a net 200 packs of KTK since it came out, both because I'm a better player than I used to be and because there's a lot of ways to exploit less experienced drafters in this set. I think as the format matures and everyone has the morphs and combat tricks memorized my win rate will go down, but until then I am enjoying the early edge I have a lot.
I agree that morphs are important, but I think with every great strategy in limited there is a great counter-strategy. It's my style to go for the counter-strategy when it's open - and here it is aggro, specifically Jeskai and Mardu aggro, which both have ways to beat the player who is playing Grey Ogres on turns 3 and 4.
I draft *a lot*, like several 8-4's a day, and my win rates have been consistently highest with Jeskai. Usually Jeskai plays few morphs, other than the odd Efreet Weaponmaster or Mystic of the Hidden Way, and relies on attacking before (with 2 drops) or over (fliers like Jeskai Windscout and Alabaster Kirin) or through (with combat tricks like Efreet's unmorph) the mass of 2/2 morphs, with a high-toughness guy to hold the ground. Mardu is all about setting up 2-for-1's in the early game, whether with Mardu Skullhunter or Mardu Hordechief or its uncommons, and getting opponents' life totals below 10 so they are forced to defend or lose to a swarm assault. I actually believe these two archetypes have higher win-rates than the morph-heavy slower decks, at least until they become more popular.
I agree about going mostly 2 color - usually I am RW heavy for Jeskai and BW heavy for Mardu - especially in your 1 and 2 drops.
Here's one I wasn't sure of until I flipped it on MTGO yesterday: there is NO trigger on the stack for the 5 +1/+1 counters that Hooded Hydra gets when it is turned face up, because it happens at the same time as the card is turned face up.
I was afraid of a Throttle or 1 to 4 damage burn spell killing it as it's unmorphed, but that's impossible.
I think 18 vs 17 depends slightly on clan. In Abzan, Sultai, and Temur I'm at 18 lands nearly always. In Mardu I'm 50/50 depending on how many 2-drops and 3-drops I have vs. card draw, Outlast creatures, and high CMC morphs. In Jeskai I'm about 75% 17 lands, 25% 18 lands, because most good Jeskai decks rely on a lot of low drops and not so many morphs.
It also depends slightly on how many dual/trilands I drafted, and how color-intensive my spells are. With less fixing and more color-intensive cards (double or triple colors in casting cost), I'd go 18 every time even with Mardu and Jeskai. If somehow I've drafted almost no fixing, usually because someone is going 5C and loving the dual lands like they're gates in RTR block, I will go 18 plus a banner, but usually I feel bad putting a banner in.
It's harder to identify these trends for multicolor sets, but I'm beginning to observe the following in 8-4 KTK drafts:
1) BW is highly overdrafted
2) Temur is (likely correctly) highly underdrafted
3) BG and RW are moderately overdrafted
4) UG and UR are moderately underdrafted
5) Dual and tri-lands are now drafted much more highly than when the set came out, though not yet as highly as Gates were in full RTR block (shudder)
From my experience, Jeskai is probably the best clan to take advantage of these trends. UR is generally underdrafted because Temur is so bad, and that is making good removal and tempo cards like Winterflame, Force Away, and Burn Away go later than they should; along with aggressive low-drops in UR like Jeskai Windscout or Monastery Swiftspear. Tri-color Jeskai cards like Warden of the Eye and Jeskai Charm are also going later than I believe they should.
Abzan, despite being probably the strongest clan overall, is way overdrafted from my observations. And Temur is the odd clan out, with often only 1 Temur drafter per table. I think for good reason too, I have not seen many strong or synergistic Temur decks - the few winning Temur decks I've seen seem to rely on their rares a lot. But if someone can figure out how to "break" Temur, it could be very rewarding.
Grimclaw, fantastic work on that chart. I do love it when real mathematicians apply their skills to this game, it's fun to watch.
Just my 2 cents, I've only ever played 8-4's in every format they're available since I started on MTGO last spring. I'm a gambler by nature, and feel that a large 8-pack win is more than 2.66 times more "happiness" than a 3-pack break-even win in Swiss, if that makes sense. And I don't mind getting 0 packs when my decks don't make it into the finals - I'm constantly trying to refine my drafting skills, and I think 8-4's, at least for me, encourage me to improve more than playing Swiss would.
But I do have to say, at first I lost *hard*, like over $1000 down the drain through hundreds of triple Gatecrash and later DGM drafts. Even as I got better as a player through the Theros formats, I was still periodically adding money (the "slow leak" as some call it), even while selling all my valuable cards. Of course I draft more than anyone I know, so my leak was relatively low per draft, but it was still there. Only after Journey into Nyx came out have I been "infinite" over a long span of time, and a good deal of that is due to playing and placing in large sealed events like PTQ's and MOCS finals. I find my EV for those events is much better than 8-4 drafts, and the difficulty / competition lower. Since my last buy in of $100 in July, I've accumulated over 1,400 tickets from Limited alone, after selling most of the packs and cards I won. And I still have saved two VMA Moxes and a Black Lotus, about 40 packs of M15 and 50 packs of KTK. I don't plan on bottoming out anytime soon, although I know with a long run of variance it could still happen.
I'm still not sure if I'm "infinite" at 8-4 as of now, nor if I can sustain my current win rate. I know I've won a net ~120 packs from KTK 8-4's, and 108 packs from sealed KTK events, but a lot of my wins were against people who were still learning the set - I draft a lot more frequently so I tend to learn sets more quickly than the average drafter. I expect my win-rate to go down as the format matures. The prizes and card values are so low on MTGO that going truly infinite on 8-4 drafts alone seems very difficult even for the most skilled drafters over a large sample size of say 1000 drafts.
For me, it's barely a 23rd card as a one-of in Mardu and Jeskai decks if I don't have enough 2 drops.
It's both better and worse than Riot Piker from Dragon's Maze - haste vs. no first strike. It reminds me of Piker in that it helps to have a lot of combat tricks with these forced-attackers, both for value and as a "reverse" bluff of sorts (many times in DGR drafts people would be afraid of blocking the Piker with their better 3 and 4 drops). But there's fewer good combat tricks in KTK than in DGR, so I have to rate it as below playable.
I'm curious why you wouldn't change your mulligan standards, in either direction, knowing your opponent could be keeping ANY good or bad hand.
For example, if I won game 1 and he chose to play first in game 2 and kept, and I'm looking at a 5-land hand with a 3-drop and a 5-drop, I may be more likely to keep because his hand could be even slower or not have the right mana. On the other hand, I may be more likely to mulligan knowing his hand won't necessarily be able to punish me for the card disadvantage just because he kept at 7.
Like for a normal player, a keep on the play at 7 may be broken down such as: 20% God-Hand; 40% good hand; 40% mediocre hand with some problems. With the "Always Keep" player, it may be: 10% God-Hand; 30% good hand; 30% mediocre hand; 30% unplayable hand (1 landers, 6 landers, etc.). So does the fact that he may be keeping a horrible hand matter at all in your decision-making for keeping or mulliganing a marginal/mediocre hand of your own? It may depend on the speed of the set also and other factors, but I think this is an interesting topic for debate.
Say you know your opponent will always keep at 7 unless it's a 0-land hand. Maybe you've noticed he kept bad/slow/1-lander hands in the first game or two, or maybe you've played him before and you know he never mulligans. Should you be more likely or less likely to mulligan yourself?
I think we can agree that Murderous Cut is high quality and leaves you open, but I'm curious if there's anyone who would prefer a Charm, a strong uncommon creature like Mardu Roughrider, or even a common (Treasure Cruise?).
I can't explain why (it's still early in the format), but my highest win rate in 8-4's has been with Jeskai. My guess it's because it's underdrafted, even though Abzan and maybe Mardu are stronger. Agree with the consensus that Temur is weak. I've also become wary of picking tri-color gold cards first pick, unless they're of the quality of a Butcher of the Horde or something. I never first-pick charms, and I almost never first pick Ascendancy's except for Jeskai Ascendancy, which I think is just amazing in an underdrafted wedge.
I won't post who I sold to, but I think it was a fair deal. The Ebay seller were selling a paper foil set for $385 at "buy now" price, with free shipping. I figure with the $25 fee, plus the hassle of posting on Ebay, it was worth it just to get ~$290 now.
Thanks for the help, if anyone in the future wants to know who I sold it to just PM me.
So I checked with MTGOTraders, and they are willing to give me 220 tix for the foil set.
Do you think I could get more than $245 (220 + $25 redemption fee) by redeeming and selling the foil paper set? Any suggestions on what paper dealers I could contact to get an idea of how much I could get? Thanks in advance!
Demonic Infiltrator 1BB
Creature - Demon
Flying
When Demon Infiltrator enters the battlefield, target opponent gains control of it.
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice a non-Demon creature.
3/3
Curse of Demonic Possession 2BB
Enchantment - Aura Curse
Enchant opponent
At the beginning of enchanted opponent's upkeep, he or she puts a 3/3 black Demon creature token with flying on the battlefield, and then sacrifices all non-Demon creatures he or she controls.
Not sure about the costs and the P/T's of the "reward" Demons the opponent gets. The first creature would be great with some kind of on-board removal, like Paralyze or Pacifism, etc.
The latter enchantment would be a fun and challenging card to build around - can you kill your opponent before he kills you with his growing army of 3/3 fliers? It'd have to only enchant opponents, unlike other Curses, because enchanting yourself would be too strong in a Demon tribal deck. Of course it would be terrible against control decks!
I think when the set just came out, dual and even tri-lands were more easily available in later picks. Now this is no longer true. While the situation isn't quite as bad as RTR full block, where you'd have to first or second pick Gates in GTC and RTR or risk not having them at all, drafters are beginning to correctly valuate the lands in KTK. And since you need at least, say, 5 or 6 dual/tri lands to play 5C effectively, and green doesn't have any common choices for fixing, you may have to sacrifice too much power to get the fixing you need in early packs to make it worth it.
I draft *a lot*, like several 8-4's a day, and my win rates have been consistently highest with Jeskai. Usually Jeskai plays few morphs, other than the odd Efreet Weaponmaster or Mystic of the Hidden Way, and relies on attacking before (with 2 drops) or over (fliers like Jeskai Windscout and Alabaster Kirin) or through (with combat tricks like Efreet's unmorph) the mass of 2/2 morphs, with a high-toughness guy to hold the ground. Mardu is all about setting up 2-for-1's in the early game, whether with Mardu Skullhunter or Mardu Hordechief or its uncommons, and getting opponents' life totals below 10 so they are forced to defend or lose to a swarm assault. I actually believe these two archetypes have higher win-rates than the morph-heavy slower decks, at least until they become more popular.
I agree about going mostly 2 color - usually I am RW heavy for Jeskai and BW heavy for Mardu - especially in your 1 and 2 drops.
I was afraid of a Throttle or 1 to 4 damage burn spell killing it as it's unmorphed, but that's impossible.
It also depends slightly on how many dual/trilands I drafted, and how color-intensive my spells are. With less fixing and more color-intensive cards (double or triple colors in casting cost), I'd go 18 every time even with Mardu and Jeskai. If somehow I've drafted almost no fixing, usually because someone is going 5C and loving the dual lands like they're gates in RTR block, I will go 18 plus a banner, but usually I feel bad putting a banner in.
1) BW is highly overdrafted
2) Temur is (likely correctly) highly underdrafted
3) BG and RW are moderately overdrafted
4) UG and UR are moderately underdrafted
5) Dual and tri-lands are now drafted much more highly than when the set came out, though not yet as highly as Gates were in full RTR block (shudder)
From my experience, Jeskai is probably the best clan to take advantage of these trends. UR is generally underdrafted because Temur is so bad, and that is making good removal and tempo cards like Winterflame, Force Away, and Burn Away go later than they should; along with aggressive low-drops in UR like Jeskai Windscout or Monastery Swiftspear. Tri-color Jeskai cards like Warden of the Eye and Jeskai Charm are also going later than I believe they should.
Abzan, despite being probably the strongest clan overall, is way overdrafted from my observations. And Temur is the odd clan out, with often only 1 Temur drafter per table. I think for good reason too, I have not seen many strong or synergistic Temur decks - the few winning Temur decks I've seen seem to rely on their rares a lot. But if someone can figure out how to "break" Temur, it could be very rewarding.
What do other MTGO'ers think?
Just my 2 cents, I've only ever played 8-4's in every format they're available since I started on MTGO last spring. I'm a gambler by nature, and feel that a large 8-pack win is more than 2.66 times more "happiness" than a 3-pack break-even win in Swiss, if that makes sense. And I don't mind getting 0 packs when my decks don't make it into the finals - I'm constantly trying to refine my drafting skills, and I think 8-4's, at least for me, encourage me to improve more than playing Swiss would.
But I do have to say, at first I lost *hard*, like over $1000 down the drain through hundreds of triple Gatecrash and later DGM drafts. Even as I got better as a player through the Theros formats, I was still periodically adding money (the "slow leak" as some call it), even while selling all my valuable cards. Of course I draft more than anyone I know, so my leak was relatively low per draft, but it was still there. Only after Journey into Nyx came out have I been "infinite" over a long span of time, and a good deal of that is due to playing and placing in large sealed events like PTQ's and MOCS finals. I find my EV for those events is much better than 8-4 drafts, and the difficulty / competition lower. Since my last buy in of $100 in July, I've accumulated over 1,400 tickets from Limited alone, after selling most of the packs and cards I won. And I still have saved two VMA Moxes and a Black Lotus, about 40 packs of M15 and 50 packs of KTK. I don't plan on bottoming out anytime soon, although I know with a long run of variance it could still happen.
I'm still not sure if I'm "infinite" at 8-4 as of now, nor if I can sustain my current win rate. I know I've won a net ~120 packs from KTK 8-4's, and 108 packs from sealed KTK events, but a lot of my wins were against people who were still learning the set - I draft a lot more frequently so I tend to learn sets more quickly than the average drafter. I expect my win-rate to go down as the format matures. The prizes and card values are so low on MTGO that going truly infinite on 8-4 drafts alone seems very difficult even for the most skilled drafters over a large sample size of say 1000 drafts.
It's both better and worse than Riot Piker from Dragon's Maze - haste vs. no first strike. It reminds me of Piker in that it helps to have a lot of combat tricks with these forced-attackers, both for value and as a "reverse" bluff of sorts (many times in DGR drafts people would be afraid of blocking the Piker with their better 3 and 4 drops). But there's fewer good combat tricks in KTK than in DGR, so I have to rate it as below playable.
For example, if I won game 1 and he chose to play first in game 2 and kept, and I'm looking at a 5-land hand with a 3-drop and a 5-drop, I may be more likely to keep because his hand could be even slower or not have the right mana. On the other hand, I may be more likely to mulligan knowing his hand won't necessarily be able to punish me for the card disadvantage just because he kept at 7.
Like for a normal player, a keep on the play at 7 may be broken down such as: 20% God-Hand; 40% good hand; 40% mediocre hand with some problems. With the "Always Keep" player, it may be: 10% God-Hand; 30% good hand; 30% mediocre hand; 30% unplayable hand (1 landers, 6 landers, etc.). So does the fact that he may be keeping a horrible hand matter at all in your decision-making for keeping or mulliganing a marginal/mediocre hand of your own? It may depend on the speed of the set also and other factors, but I think this is an interesting topic for debate.
I won't post who I sold to, but I think it was a fair deal. The Ebay seller were selling a paper foil set for $385 at "buy now" price, with free shipping. I figure with the $25 fee, plus the hassle of posting on Ebay, it was worth it just to get ~$290 now.
Thanks for the help, if anyone in the future wants to know who I sold it to just PM me.
Do you think I could get more than $245 (220 + $25 redemption fee) by redeeming and selling the foil paper set? Any suggestions on what paper dealers I could contact to get an idea of how much I could get? Thanks in advance!