The Limited thread

[Phi]

Went 3-1 on a launch day draft with this U/W deck. Was really fun, and as it is my 10th draft ever, I can see I am improving in my plays. Lost in the finals to a U/G deck that had Desolation Twin as the finisher, although the games were very close.

[JQuill]

Been drafting a bunch since it hit MTGO, I've tried most of the archetypes (including 5 color Prism Array) and I've had some incredible luck (2 Expedition Fetches in my first 3 drafts), but so far this has easily been my favorite and best performing deck. Molten Nursery is just insane in multiples. Never got to live the dream of all 3 in play, but several times had 2 of them out.

[MisterDee]

So...

I won my first 8-4. Off a round 2 concession because of RL intrusion on my opponent's side, but still.

The big improvement in my game lately? Good mulliganning decisions. I'm getting a lot better at dodging the "but this hand is so powerful if I only draw the right land/I only need a two or three drop and this hand is awesome" trap. I'm not close to perfect play level (and I could use a good way to evaluate five-cards-and-less hands, since I do think I hit the mull-to-4-3-2-concede death spiral more often than I should), but tonight's win was really in large part due to correctly throwing back sketchy hands vs my opponents keeping marginal 7s.

[korvys]

3-0 Vintage Cube.



It didn't seem that powerful, for the Vintage cube. Like, Thrun doesn't really stack up against Ulamog, but some almost unconditional removal does a pretty good job of bringing everyone else's power level back down to a reasonable level. And once they've done what ever they were doing, and you've dealt with it, a million fairies or a hypnotic specter can end the game pretty well.

Disappointed I never got to cast Eureka, though. only 4 non-permanent cards in the deck.

[abanytar]

Here's a scenario for you:

It's pack 2, pick 1 in your OGW draft. You're Black and Colorless, having picked up several Black Devoid creatures and a few Colorless curvetoppers in pack 1. You also snagged a few Red Devoid and Blue Devoid creatures, leaning toward Red as your second color to go B/R Aggro.

You open both Fall of the Titans and Oblivion Strike. What do you take, and why?

[AdmiralMemo]

As a bit of a Timmy, I'd slam that Fall hard and just be like "BR Aggro Eldrazi is a thing. Let's go for it."

I could see someone making a case for the Strike, though, and I wouldn't fault them.

Questions to ask yourself: How likely is it that you would be able to pick up Processors in the BFZ pack, and would you want to? The two advantages of Strike over Fall are that it is arbitrary and can just hit anything, and that it exiles rather than sends to the graveyard. So do you need something to just die really hard that might be harder to kill with the Fall (such as Breaker of Armies, Felidar Sovereign, heck even Fortified Rampart)? And can you synergize with that exiling? If either of those is yes, the Strike is the pick. If not, Fall all day, erry day.

[Lycodrake]

I got to participate in my first draft last night at FNM! P1P1 was Chandra, Flamecaller. Red-Blue wound up as my deck - kind of a tempo aggro deck, I guess it would be called? I went 2-2-0 and got 5th place out of 12 people. : )

[Kapol]

Here's a scenario for you:

It's pack 2, pick 1 in your OGW draft. You're Black and Colorless, having picked up several Black Devoid creatures and a few Colorless curvetoppers in pack 1. You also snagged a few Red Devoid and Blue Devoid creatures, leaning toward Red as your second color to go B/R Aggro.

You open both Fall of the Titans and Oblivion Strike. What do you take, and why?

It depends on the quality of the cards in each color. But I'll assume they're about equal in strength going into pack two with a lean towards B/R aggro. Playing competitively, I'd grab the piece of unconditional removal without a doubt to me. Surging isn't the easiest thing to do in this format. And there are a number of targets that Fall just won't be able to kill in a timely manner. Strike gets rid of anything and doesn't really push you into one of the two possible colors.

Plus, I don't think that Fall is that great in an aggressive deck while Strike fits in fine. In an aggressive deck, you don't want to reach the amount of mana where Fall would outshine Strike in terms of quality. It is nice as a fireball effect to the face. But it's an expensive one. You're generally either paying 2-3 mana extra or doubling X. I don't think that's more impressive than just getting rid of a problem creature.

That said, in reality, I would snap up the Fall and play it anyways. It seems more fun.

[Phi]

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/draft-19-150216/

This is the deck I drafter today. It was fun to play, but I went 2-1 because I drew no swamps and only black cards in one game.

[counterjockey]

I am done drafting Oath, my run was ended round one of my last draft by the person who played both Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Kozilek, the Great Distortion in both games. I saw the luck sack, I was slapped with it, and will try drafting again come SOI.

This is what I get for feeling awesome about the previous draft where I pulled a foil expedition...

[MowDownJoe]

SEALED LEAGUES ARE HERE!!

Oh, god, I love these leagues. I've done 2 already, with mixed results. First league was 0-3 with this pool:

Click to Expand

Thought I had a solid deck with the R/W build. You can see my opinion for the different decks I've made just by reading the names. I found my later decks just full of meh, even with the Nissa. Maybe I was too focused on the curve to be lured into the siren's song of R/W's simple painful curve. Ah, well.

League 2? To quote Adam: EASIEST GAME I EVER PLAYED! 5-0 with this beast of a pool:

Click to Expand

Yes, I've pulled another Nissa. I'm a freaking lucksack. It's funny how my initial read was U/G, then I noticed the Displacer. Never touched the U/G deck and just rode the W/G deck to victory. Counter shenanigans, easy ways to go wide along side Inspired Charge, plenty of ETB effects to go with Displacer, and just solid beaters. I just could not lose. (Though I did not go 10-0 in games. R1 had me lose G1 and my opponent timed out when I was close to winning G1. Also, most of my matches went to game 3. So, not really the easiest game ever.)

[Kapol]

Honest question, what's a stronger limited card than Pack Rat in a vacuum?

[phlip]

Pack Rat seems like it'd be really strong in a vacuum, because it's big enough to get stuck in the hose and block the suction...

[Kapol]

Doesn't suction have 'can't be blocked' though?

[abanytar]

As an Irishman, I celebrated St. Patrick's Day the only way I know how...with vampires!



Went 2-1. I think there was another B/W deck going around the table, but it must not have been near me. Pick 1 Ondu War Cleric into pick 2 Vampire Envoy into pick 3 Isolation Zone.

[Phi]

I am organizing a RTR block throwback draft at my LGS, since someone apparently has a full unopened draft set. However, I started playing at FRF, and I don't know much about the RTR block. Ayn advice for the draft?

[eostby]

I am organizing a RTR block throwback draft at my LGS, since someone apparently has a full unopened draft set. However, I started playing at FRF, and I don't know much about the RTR block. Ayn advice for the draft?

Try and get yourself settled into at least one color, if not a full guild(two color pairing), by the end of Dragon's Maze (since the "official" draft order is DGM-GTC-RTR); it'll make it easier for you to prioritize what things you'll want in the next two packs. Other than that, money cards of note include Voice of Resurgence from Dragon's Maze, the shocklands from pretty much any pack, and Abrupt Decay and Chromatic Lantern from Return to Ravnica. Good luck!

[unpronounceable]

On Friday I opened what may well have been my first three magic packs for my first draft. I made a green-white token generating mess, and somehow I went 1-1-1. It was enough to win 2 packs at any rate.

Looking at my deck, there are a lot of problems with it. In particular, I really needed removal. I probably should have splashed some blue or something, but considering it was the first deck I've built for myself, I did better than I thought I would.
http://i.imgur.com/qRyjPPy.jpg

[fantôme]

On Friday I opened what may well have been my first three magic packs for my first draft. I made a green-white token generating mess, and somehow I went 1-1-1. It was enough to win 2 packs at any rate.

Looking at my deck, there are a lot of problems with it. In particular, I really needed removal. I probably should have splashed some blue or something, but considering it was the first deck I've built for myself, I did better than I thought I would.
http://i.imgur.com/qRyjPPy.jpg

Three-colour decks in SoI Limited seem like they're going to be very difficult to do, there is very little common fixing. White has probably my favourite removal of the set: Angelic Purge.

The Heirloom and Gloom are slightly awkward, but otherwise your deck looks really sweet.

And welcome to drafting, hope you had fun!

[Lycodrake]

Had a really bad time at FNM drafting SOI. Only my 2nd draft and barely had any fun. Went UB because my P1P1 was Elusive Tormentor. I could've gotten a Duskwatch Recruiter or Fortified Village. But no.

The person to my left took forever to pick and the person to my right was entirely new to drafting - and Magic in general. One of the people at my table is a regular, 8-9 years old and can't read and just went for the rare or $ cards because he knows the pictures. Messed up some of the signaling.

Went 1-4-0. Dropped out at the end of round 4. Was stupid and bought 3 packs rather than spend the 10 on singles.

Doing better today, at least...not sure I want to draft ever again, though...and my friend who was Drafting with me, at a different table, didn't have much fun or luck either. That and it seemed like, of the 28 people who drafted, only a handful stuck around until round 4 - which ended at about 30 til midnight.

[unpronounceable]

Does anyone have any rules of thumb for when to splash a third colour/make a tri-colour deck in a draft? I've had a couple drafts where I'm part way through my second pack, and my colours don't seem to advance my deck at all. Maybe it's because I just don't know how to properly evaluate cards, but I often feel like my best option is to change gears. It's scary to go into a third colour without mana fixing though.

[AdmiralMemo]

Only go 3-color in a set with low fixing if you're only splashing like 1 or 2 cards. This ain't Khans. You can't go full wedge or shard here.

[Phi]

Honest question, what's a stronger limited card than Pack Rat in a vacuum?

Jitte.

[fantôme]

@unpronounceable: I absolutely agree with Memo here, a third colour splash is usually only sensible if you find an exceptionally good card in a third colour and if you're in a set with common fixing (or happen to have already picked up some fixing). If one of your colours is very much obviously not open, then consider cutting your losses and moving into a colour that is open. But if you're unsure, then have a little faith in pack 3 as the table will be going to the left again.

@Phi: in an absolute vacuum, Jitte has nothing to equip to. I guess it depends on how vacuum-y your vacuum is. I would have said a large creature with evasion that doesn't die to removal: Sagu Mauler.

[Kapol]

@Phi: in an absolute vacuum, Jitte has nothing to equip to. I guess it depends on how vacuum-y your vacuum is. I would have said a large creature with evasion that doesn't die to removal: Sagu Mauler.

That's kind of my feeling on Jitte. Realistically, it's likely stronger. But you do need some kind of board presence for it to do anything. Pack Rat just requires three land and to survive one turn in the biggest vacuum. Ideally, you have five mana and another card in hand. After that, only a board wipe or a multi-kill/multiple kill effects will deal with it.

Sagu Mauler might be better in an absolute vacuum though. I guess it's how you define a vacuum. Sagu Mauler can still be double or triple blocked. Once you have three or four Pack Rats, you can't just multi-block to deal with the problem.

That said, I still would agree Jitte is likely stronger. Though I feel Pack Rat is up there. What else is famously powerful in a limited environment? Both in terms of environment and just generally powerful? Like Invisible Stalker is one, though I'm not sure if it's due to environment or if it'd be good anywhere.