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Sigma-X posted:Putrefax is a good card to have if you're already in infect, but if its early and you're trying to pick up infect you want better dudes than him, dudes that actually stick around. If you're drafting infect, you should already be in infect after your first few picks. If someone passes you a Putrefax within your first few picks, though, that's a pretty good sign that you'll be getting plenty of poison dudes in pack 3. On the other hand, if the guy you're passing to gets a late Putrefax, he'll probably take that as a sign that infect is open, which spells bad times in pack two.
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# ? Nov 14, 2010 06:15 |
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# ? Apr 25, 2024 13:36 |
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Vanilla Bison posted:If Ball Lightning was a 10/3, I'd be pretty comfortable taking it second pick and pushing myself towards an aggressive red deck. The real question about Putrefax is, how lovely does the rest of your infect strategy have to be that you wouldn't play him? Probably lovely enough that taking a Corpse Cur, Plague Stinger or Cystbearer out of the pack instead wouldn't have saved your draft. The issue is P1 P2. The only card that is going to make me go infect that early is skittles, and he's so good you don't have to commit to infect to play him. P1 P5-6 is a nice place to see Putrefax because it means poison is open, for a strategy that really requires you to get a lot off specific cards, he isn't strong enough to make me want to go there that early.
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# ? Nov 14, 2010 06:17 |
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Karnegal posted:The issue is P1 P2. The only card that is going to make me go infect that early is skittles, and he's so good you don't have to commit to infect to play him. P1 P5-6 is a nice place to see Putrefax because it means poison is open, for a strategy that really requires you to get a lot off specific cards, he isn't strong enough to make me want to go there that early. I have never seen a Putrefax go that late. I can't imagine going into infect any later than pick 3; after that point, you've usually passed enough infect cards that someone close to your left is likely to read infect as being open and gut you in the second pack. Edit: In other words, the need to have a critical mass of infect cards is exactly why I move in early.
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# ? Nov 14, 2010 06:25 |
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ok I exaggerated, and I apologize. Putrefax is not terrible most of the time. Putrefax second pick is terrible most of the time. Especially since apparently infect was not as open the guy thought if he tanked with an infect deck. Also anyone who compares an infect guy to a 2x power dude is loving retarded, I'm sorry Vanilla Bison, but there is a huge difference between a hypothetical 10/3 trample haste sac@eot for 5 and Putrefax. One of those decks can run lightning bolt, and the other is relying on 1/1s for 2. I posted a bunch of poo poo about infect earlier, but here's the pick order: Skithyrix, Tangle Angler, Plague Stinger, Cystbearer, Necropede, Ichorclaw Myr, Ichor Rats, Contagious Nim, Corpse Cur, Tel Jilad Fallen, Blight Mamba, Carrion Call, Black Cleave Goblins, Trigon of Contagion. You almost always want to grab dudes that aren't 4 drops, because even though the 4 drops are all pretty playable, you will wind up with a billion of them, and dropping the curve is a necessity with infect. Putrefax wildly runs up and down that spectrum based on when you see him, but he's usually around Ichorclaw Myr. To make me want to play infect, I need to see those top 4 in the first 3 picks, and I can take necropede during those picks unless there is something juicy in those packs because he's very similar to perilous myr in a non-infect deck. Putrefax doesn't do it for me. Also I played infect tonight in a draft and went 2-1, losing 1-2 in the finals to the triple furnace celebration deck that pretty much was built entirely to wreck my deck (I taught the dude the value of the deck last time we played and he went nuts with it tonight). Was missing a lot of my regular favorites (plague stinger triple blight mamba for my 2 drops, double cystbearer nim for 3s, and double tel jilad double black cleave for my 4s) but had a throne of geth, trigon of rage, and untamed might, plus double fume spitter to kill the annoying early dorks and a grafted exoskeleton to make dudes huge. pro play of the night was bouncing a sylvok lifestaff and grafted exoskeleton around my dudes to keep my life total up against my opponent's flyers.
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# ? Nov 14, 2010 06:40 |
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Vanilla Bison posted:I have never seen a Putrefax go that late. I can't imagine going into infect any later than pick 3; after that point, you've usually passed enough infect cards that someone close to your left is likely to read infect as being open and gut you in the second pack. My issue is that poison is a mediocre deck unless you have the critical cards. Putrefax, while nice, is not a workhorse. He's a closer, and one that can be hosed if they're ready for him. If I'm going into poison in my 1st 2-3 picks I want to see Skithyrix or Tangle Angler. Without them, I'm not that excited about the archtype.
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# ? Nov 14, 2010 06:44 |
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Karnegal posted:My issue is that poison is a mediocre deck unless you have the critical cards. Putrefax, while nice, is not a workhorse. He's a closer, and one that can be hosed if they're ready for him. If I'm going into poison in my 1st 2-3 picks I want to see Skithyrix or Tangle Angler. Without them, I'm not that excited about the archtype. You're wrong and bad at limited because you don't draft you just play sealed where infect is the bad deck An 8 man pod can support about 2.5 infect decks on average, and if only two people get into infect they can both have quite nice decks. To get into it though, you have to cut loving hard on infect guys specifically. You pretty much have to ignore anything that isn't a Carnifex Demon or artifact bomb until picks 6+.
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# ? Nov 14, 2010 06:55 |
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Sigma-X posted:Also anyone who compares an infect guy to a 2x power dude is loving retarded, I'm sorry Vanilla Bison, but there is a huge difference between a hypothetical 10/3 trample haste sac@eot for 5 and Putrefax. One of those decks can run lightning bolt, and the other is relying on 1/1s for 2. You're honestly the first person I've talked to who felt that the infect archetype had a problem with reach. It potentially has access to Tumble Magnet, Untamed Might out of nowhere, proliferation, Neurok Invisimancer or Bellowing Tanglewurm preventing blocks, Infiltration Lens doing its thing, and the only common graveyard recursion in the format. The only reason the 10/3 comparison suffers is because you don't need to put as much toughness in front of Putrefax to prevent it from immediately ending the game. But with the exception of Wall of Tanglecord, there are enough fragile creatures running around (and little enough instant-speed removal) that it's still really difficult to throw a good block in front of Putrefax. I would still take a Tangle Angler over it, but I just don't see how passing it over for Plague Stinger or Cystbearer in your early picks makes sense.
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# ? Nov 14, 2010 07:16 |
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Sigma-X posted:You're wrong and bad at limited because you don't draft you just play sealed where infect is the bad deck I just don't draft in paper. On MODO I still don't see infect as the deck I want to be playing. I mean I can get forced into it if there are no good cards except infect guys in P1 P1-2, but I really am not a fan.
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# ? Nov 14, 2010 08:16 |
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On another note: They just started nixtix Coldsnap-Coldsnap-Coldsnap drafts on MTGO. Is it actually worth hunting down Coldsnap packs for?
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# ? Nov 14, 2010 08:35 |
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Vanilla Bison posted:You're honestly the first person I've talked to who felt that the infect archetype had a problem with reach. It potentially has access to Tumble Magnet, Untamed Might out of nowhere, proliferation, Neurok Invisimancer or Bellowing Tanglewurm preventing blocks, Infiltration Lens doing its thing, and the only common graveyard recursion in the format. A 10/3 combos with cards that aren't part of a small linear mechanic. 2 drop infect dudes are better than 5 drop infect dudes. I will take plague stinger over everything that isn't Skithiryx or Tangle Angler, and that's only because one is a Regenerating Haste Dragon and the other one has loving lure and 5 toughness in a format where something like 3 spells deal with 5 toughness. Neurok Invismancer in infect means you hosed up because you don't want to be playing UU in infect. Bellowing Tanglewurm is decent but not great and he's a 5 drop. Infect has a billion dudes at the expensive side, but not many in the early drops, and it needs early drops. Infect wants to go turn 2 evasion guy, turn 3 hit you with the first poison counter and drop an infect dude, turn 4 force you into unfavorable blocks via removal and now you're completely behind the clock. My chief complaint with Putrefax is that he's just a ball lightning in a deck that frequently needs to be able to pose a threat across several turns. Infect isn't red deck wins, and simply put you need as many plague stingers as possible because they're the only loving flyer that isn't a mythic. you need as many Ichorclaw myr as possible because they're quasi-evasion. And Tangle Angler is the ultimate evasion. Also, in games 2 and 3 Putrefax is easy to play around and plenty of people side in cards that completely blank him - I don't want to spend 5 mana to get hosed by some lovely combat trick like Soul's Parry.
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# ? Nov 14, 2010 08:50 |
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Sigma-X posted:A 10/3 combos with cards that aren't part of a small linear mechanic. Invisimancer was just an extreme example, not a serious argument. The point was that there's a lot of ways to get poison counters through. and not all of them hinge on the frontloaded aggro strategy that you favor drafting. That said, your experience with infect is clearly very different from mine and is making me re-evaluate my assumptions. I still think you're looking at Putrefax in a very strange way, though. He's so much more potent than Ball Lightning because it's much harder to take 5 poison counters than 6 damage on the chin; Putrefax forces the opponent to either clear some of their board away and enable more pressure from your other infect creatures, or put themselves in a position where anything getting through is going to be lethal. And it's easily repeatable with Corpse Cur. Regarding sideboarding, if an opponent is boarding in lovely combat tricks, then they're effectively blanking their own cards just to stop one of yours. There's not much reason to worry about it any more than you should avoid Plague Stinger because of Ezuri's Archers. Worst case scenario, you board Putrefax out and they'll still have Blunt the Assault or whatever crap.
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# ? Nov 14, 2010 09:28 |
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Counterpoint: you made them put Soul Parry in their deck. That said, I really don't have reach issues with Infect decks that I draft. The biggest problem is trying to figure out whether the 2-3 packs that come by empty around pack 1 pick 4-5 are because there are two other people drafting it, or because there just weren't any cards in that slot. Also live drafting is infinitely more fun than MODO - we did an 8-person over at a friend's house this afternoon and while the general level of play and draft saavy was somewhat lower, everyone put together interesting decks and had fun with the experience. We had one guy doing Infect (ended up with a nutty-good deck minus someone hate-drafting Skithyrx), U/r metalcraft, B/w metalcraft, W/g metalcraft, Mono-W skies, W/r equipment, B/R Removal/aggro (me), and U/G Invismancer semicombo (4 Invismancers, 3 Molder Beasts, 3 Untamed Might, Livewire Lash/Strata Scythe). Lots of trashtalking, chatting, and general lively good time that really reminded me why I got so hooked on Magic in the first place.
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# ? Nov 14, 2010 09:34 |
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Sigma-X posted:ok I exaggerated, and I apologize. Putrefax is not terrible most of the time. Putrefax second pick is terrible most of the time. Especially since apparently infect was not as open the guy thought if he tanked with an infect deck. No I got plenty of the good infect guys too, I just played like an idiot.
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# ? Nov 14, 2010 14:45 |
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Starting to believe that it is physically impossible for Cerebral Eruption to hit land in MTGO. Nah, joking. Probably will see the odds evening out the moment I play it for the first time.
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# ? Nov 14, 2010 18:37 |
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Lunael posted:Starting to believe that it is physically impossible for Cerebral Eruption to hit land in MTGO. Then there was the time my opponent played it and hit memnite. He was not thrilled.
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# ? Nov 14, 2010 19:46 |
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I'd like to have some feedback on this: http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=1xm69 I feel that I was absolutely correct in hitting Infect here. Very likely someone close downstream forced Infect, which cut my pack 2 pretty badly. What I am less sure about is should I have tried to make some UG Infect plan work? I just have not seen that plan work at all yet, and if I feel that I should get stuff in pack 2 and 3 I'm pretty confident in staying on target.
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# ? Nov 14, 2010 20:10 |
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If it were me I would have been going for WR metalcraft because goddamn there were a ton of great picks for that through all 3 packs. You could have ended up with barbed battlegear and accorder's shield in multiples for either a spikeshot goblin or goblin gaveleer along with a handful of removal to push either through.
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# ? Nov 15, 2010 00:33 |
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So what's the cool draft queue to play in these days?
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# ? Nov 15, 2010 01:06 |
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I hit a volition reins on a CE before, that was pretty bitchin' Another game I hit a 3-drop that allowed my bloodshot trainee to kill an engulfing slagwurm. It's pretty drat good.
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# ? Nov 15, 2010 01:09 |
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Lunael posted:I'd like to have some feedback on this: http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=1xm69 p1p1 Pretty deep pack with lots of nice removal, and you picked the best card. Something great has to wheel out of this pack and will tell you what is 100% open. p1p2 what a crap pack. Palladium Myr is a very decent pick, however. Doesn't match the Spikeshot, otoh. p1p3 Red myr is calling to you. Committing to a second color for a defensive card is not what you want to be doing. p1p4 I think Untamed Might is actually a more interesting pick for a pool with Asceticism; meh pump is still pump, and can get you wins out of nowhere no matter what the deck, especially with mana myr. p1p5 The better pick with your current pool. Horizon Spellbomb is a good choice to go into R/G Revel/Molder Beast that should wheel from pack 1. p1p6 either infect is WAY open or the guy two or three downstream took a Tangle Angler or better from the pack. p1p7 Good pick, I would have gone Revel and try for that deck, but I like the odd ally pair decks more than I should. p1p8 obv p1p9 So blue is WAY open, probably take the Lumingrid to go with your currently mono-green infects P1p10 Good pick. I DO like flight spellbomb's interaction with Lumingrid and sending basic infect dudes into the air. p1p12 I would have taken the blue flying dude for the rewards for cutting in pack two. p2p1 agree p2p2 with 0 actual black cards, thrumming bird is the pick to take. p2p3 Invisimancer here p2p4 Your infect is obviously getting cut by this point. Committing to U/G is the better play p3p1 Tumble Magnet, w/ Proliferate and aggro cards it seems to be the pick, especially if I was drafting out of this pack p3p2 agreed p3p3 Soliton, hope to wheel the other half of the machine gun p3p4 Volition Reins, Slice, or Tumble Magnet... its a hard choice p3p5 This probably passed through at least one infect player's hands, might even have been the open p3p6 Twisted Image p3p7+ obv Committing to black only in pack 2 was the weaker choice once you committed. The trap was going infect when a on-target red drafter could have picked up some picks otherwise to go with the early pool - Blade-tribe, Vulshok replica, good green secondaries.
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# ? Nov 15, 2010 01:58 |
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My first 8-4 of SOM: http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=1xf8a Went BG non-infect. There were three other BG decks in this draft!
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# ? Nov 15, 2010 03:23 |
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Vanilla Bison posted:If Ball Lightning was a 10/3, I'd be pretty comfortable taking it second pick and pushing myself towards an aggressive red deck. But if you're looking to force the archetype and there are no better picks for that deck (of which there are many) then yeah, go nuts. Last time I drafted a Putrefax I got it 5th I think.
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# ? Nov 16, 2010 00:13 |
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Lone Goat posted:Not sure if you drafted during Ravnica, but would you take Glimpse the Unthinkable second pick? Milling was a very viable archetype in Rav/Rav/Rav draft, but I'd normally only take Glimpse as a finisher card in an already established mill deck. I'd be looking for more nuts and bolts cards first to make sure I was playing the Dimir deck before I use a 2nd pick on a very narrow card that doesn't go in 75+% of decks. I was going pretty deep into a post about how even though they're similar in the vein of "strong Ball Lightning/Lava Axe that only does something if you draft a certain way," I think the math and the nature of the formats make Putrefax strong enough to be worth an early pick, but after enough thought I realized I didn't believe it anymore. To revise my thoughts: Putrefax is outstanding if you have a deck that either A) is good at slipping poison through by evasion or proliferation, B) is so solid and puts on so much pressure that poison counters are going to pile up, or C) has multiple Corpse Curs. But none of those are guaranteed, and if you can achieve them, your deck is probably going to be really good without Putrefax. So Putrefax is worth letting slide in the early picks of the first pack if there are really good infect options like Tangle Angler and Plague Stinger or really good non-infect options to move towards instead. Despite this personal change of opinion, there are plenty of people who think that a passed Putrefax is a huge signal to draft infect and will dive in, so you have to think carefully about what influence you're having when you pass one. Still, big thanks to all of you and Sigma-X in particular for changing my mind on this one.
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# ? Nov 16, 2010 01:19 |
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Lone Goat posted:Not sure if you drafted during Ravnica, but would you take Glimpse the Unthinkable second pick? Milling was a very viable archetype in Rav/Rav/Rav draft, but I'd normally only take Glimpse as a finisher card in an already established mill deck. I'd be looking for more nuts and bolts cards first to make sure I was playing the Dimir deck before I use a 2nd pick on a very narrow card that doesn't go in 75+% of decks. I like this analogy for Putrefax a lot. I think it make it a lot clearer than the Ball lightning analogy. Vanilla Bison posted:Despite this personal change of opinion, there are plenty of people who think that a passed Putrefax is a huge signal to draft infect and will dive in, so you have to think carefully about what influence you're having when you pass one. This never bothers me much on pack 1. I figure anything they get in the first 3 picks is going to have to be semi-hopeful. If the guy to your left gets the putrefax because you took an angler and then gets cut from poison for the rest of the packs, he's not going to be poison come pack 2.
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# ? Nov 16, 2010 01:38 |
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Vanilla Bison posted:Despite this personal change of opinion, there are plenty of people who think that a passed Putrefax is a huge signal to draft infect and will dive in, so you have to think carefully about what influence you're having when you pass one. Still, big thanks to all of you and Sigma-X in particular for changing my mind on this one. I personally don't give a gently caress if the guy to my left gets into poison off a weak signal of an early putrefax, preceded and probably followed by nothing impressive. Sure, he'll cut me a bit in pack 2, but I'll still get the better cards in pack 3, and since usually you're choosing between infect dudes and removal/equipment/tricks, you'll wind up picking up more removal/equipment/tricks in pack 2, letting you continue to pick the choice infect dudes in pack 3. Sending signals is definitely part of drafting, but its possible to over-value that. I'm not going to take an blue evasive dude over a red bomb and red removal in the same pack to avoid sending bad signals, for example. Reading signals is much more important than sending them. And to be clear, I'll almost always run a Putrefax if I get him, but he won't put me into infect, just like I'll almost always run Ghalma's Warden but he won't put me into white.
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# ? Nov 16, 2010 02:27 |
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Had a weird draft tonight. My first two picks were basically throw aways but I picked up on w/r being available. Then I was passed two bombs (Horde Smelter and that double strike/life link card). I won and only lost a game because my opponent misrepresented something (new player).
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# ? Nov 17, 2010 05:32 |
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Pretty Hat Machine posted:Had a weird draft tonight. My first two picks were basically throw aways but I picked up on w/r being available. What do you mean exactly by "misrepresented"?
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# ? Nov 17, 2010 05:54 |
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GottaPayDaTrollToll posted:What do you mean exactly by "misrepresented"? misinterpreted?
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# ? Nov 17, 2010 08:14 |
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It's a long story I'm not gonna tell it!
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# ? Nov 17, 2010 13:48 |
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Pretty Hat Machine posted:It's a long story I'm not gonna tell it! oh come on, it comes down to he said it was an X/X when it was really a Y/Y, tell the story. So who else is going to GP Nashville? I'm eager to drive 6 hours and get a hotel to find that I'll open a poo poo pool more shallow that the puddle in the men's and will get to play side events all day until I do the same for the Sunday PTQ.
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# ? Nov 17, 2010 16:03 |
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Sigma-X posted:oh come on, it comes down to he said it was an X/X when it was really a Y/Y, tell the story. Have you been going to the same PTQs I have? Those puddles in the men's rooms are scarily deep.
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# ? Nov 17, 2010 23:21 |
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I wish MTGO would add Winston Draft and/or Solomon Draft queues. It sucks to end up with packs of sets other then the current one and waiting forever for a queue to fire, if it does at all. It seems like it would be a good deal for them too, since you have to get a draft pack for a single match.
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# ? Nov 21, 2010 02:32 |
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Has anyone else simply not been impressed with Matteo Orsini-Jones's draft videos over on Starcity? Lose in the finals with a shapeless U/W flies deck Lose in the finals with an only 10 infect creature deck w/ Horizon & Panic Spellbomb + Embersmith Tries to draft green metalcraft and doesn't realize that he is cut and cutting himself into a white metalcraft deck by picking up infi Sunchasers Punts his way out of round 2 because getting a second bad Certarch is somehow worth more in the mono-U metalcraft deck than Rust Tick I mean obviously he is making more playing and talking about magic than I ever will, but he simply can't chew the bubble gum of MTGO 8-4 at the same time as walking us through his thought process.
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# ? Nov 21, 2010 02:51 |
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The only drafts I've really enjoyed are merl2perl's over on draftmagic.com. He often makes the pick I see as correct and I enjoy his style. Some of the other writers like MOJ and Conley seem absolutely lost and make numerous picks in each draft that I would say are incorrect. They don't often misplay their hands after drafting, but it doesn't really matter when they build poo poo decks and lose out in the first or second round.
hmm yes fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Nov 21, 2010 |
# ? Nov 21, 2010 06:55 |
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Yeah I watched a couple of Conley's drafts and I feel has a habit of saying "I don't really like this card" about a couple solid cards in a pack and then picking something bizarre. I thought LSV's M10 draft videos were decent.
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# ? Nov 21, 2010 07:30 |
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LSV's draft videos are generally great, although I haven't watched his Scars videos. edit: I guess it would help if he would make some.
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# ? Nov 21, 2010 08:22 |
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I don't think Conley Woods is happy unless he's doing something out of the ordinary; he was certainly very pleased with a Furnace Celebration deck he drafted that lost in the second round. All the Channel Fireball videos are great, though, because those guys are very good about explaining their thought process. I've learned quite a bit from how he and Luis Scott-Vargas think about their plays, and it's a lot of fun to watch the Tristan Shaun Gregson videos after and try to spot mistakes. gently caress the haters in the comment section. In contrast, the videos at Draftmagic.com are a perfect storm of bitching about bad luck, calling their opponents retarded, and sounding like they'd rather be doing anything else. drat good entertainment.
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# ? Nov 21, 2010 08:25 |
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LSV has 2-3 SOM drafts posted now on Channel Fireball.
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# ? Nov 21, 2010 17:26 |
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Welp I think I'm done with Scars limited. I'm tired of getting cut off any one of three different ways every time I draft. I'd like more than two archetypes to work with. I don't ever again want to have to take a boring and nearly useless card like nihil spellbomb just because I need more artifacts. I wish sealed were actually playable. Thanks for killing my desire to play magic, MaRo
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# ? Nov 22, 2010 20:57 |
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# ? Apr 25, 2024 13:36 |
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tgijsola posted:Welp I think I'm done with Scars limited. I'm tired of getting cut off any one of three different ways every time I draft. I'd like more than two archetypes to work with. I don't ever again want to have to take a boring and nearly useless card like nihil spellbomb just because I need more artifacts. I wish sealed were actually playable. There's way more to Scars drafting then G/B poison and R/W metalcraft. Just like in any draft format, good removal like Arc Trails, Tumble Magnets, Contagion Clasps, and the like are going to be snatched up quick, but there's quite a few other viable archetypes, like: -R/B beatdown (a number of quality non-infect mid- to late-pick guys that black and red have to offer such as Necrogen Scudders, Bleak Coven Vampires, Moriok Reavers, Flameborn Hellions, Blade-Tribe Berserkers...) -G/R Ferrovore/Molder Beast (in which Trigons, Tumble Magnets, and Necrogen Censers are your best friends) -W/x Glint Hawk recursion (see above) -U/W evasion (Neurok Invisimancers, Sky-Eel Schools, Darkslick Drakes, Kemba's Skyguard, etc.) and while G/B poison and R/W metalcraft are ostensibly the strongest permutations of their respective archetypes, I've had a lot of success playing stuff like B/R poison (burn their guys and swing in with pumped and Assault Strobed Plague Stingers), G/U "poison" (swing in with early poison guys and Cystbearers, proliferate the rest and if you're not going to get there, smash face with fatties like Alpha Tyrranax) G/R Metalcraft (Carapace Forgers and Tel-Jilad Defiances!) and W/U metalcraft (Vedalken Certarchs and Lumengrid Drakes!) Give it another try; the format isn't as shallow as you think. If you draft online, toss up a Raredraft link and I'm sure there'd be a lot of people willing to comment and critique.
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# ? Nov 22, 2010 23:36 |