Gatecrash - first impressions

[MisterDee]

So, since I started playing, I've been drafting mostly RTR, figuring that I'd use the huge backlog of accumulated videos by LR and LRR as guides.

I tried my hand at Gatecrash a couple of times, and there're a few things that really bother me.

First, there seems to be an unusually high ratio of completely useless commons. In RTR and even in M13, you can usually still get something vaguely playable, or worth hate-drafting except for the very last two or three picks per pack. In Gatecrash, it seems like I hit the "oh, this Mountain looks nice" stage much earlier.

In the same vein... it really seems like there's a lot of Shit Dogs-level cards. Stuff like Slate-street Ruffians, Nav-Squad Commandos and the like that you pick up basically to fill out your deck, but don't really serve any other purpose.

Or maybe I just suck. That's also a possiblity. I do like that it's a format that seems to REALLY reward reading signals properly, a weakness I have to train out of myself

So, am I just wrong?

[AdmiralMemo]

I think some of those cards were designed for things other than Limited.

[MisterDee]

Sure, I get that. But it seems there's more of those completely unplayable in Limited cards in GTC than in RTR or M13.

I'm not saying that it's a problem, either. I'm all for having formats not being the same

[Lord Hosk]

So many clue stones!

We had a pod of 8 and opened 16 clue stones, it was like. Ok I pick my card, pass it left... Get my first pack back OK, there are the two stones I opened and ... last three picks ok which clue stone do I want...

[Drecon]

One thing about Gatecrash draft is that since it is so fast, a lot of cards are a lot more narrow that others. Some of these cards (like Nav Squad Commandos) are perfectly fine in most draft formats, but the fact that it's five mana means it's not often relevant in limited.

But actually, almost all cards in GTC draft are actually playable, but some are narrow, meaning they only go in a few decks.

With a format like M13, every card is playable in almost every deck. This is cool, as it's very easy to play every card. In GTC though, the strategies are more diverse and a lot of the cards are playable, but only in a few specific decks.

Actually I'm pretty sure the power level of the cards is rather high. While drafting though it's easy to get tunnel vision and only look at the cards that are relevant to you. The cards you named are both playable and even good in certain situations (I've actually been wrecked by Slate Street Ruffian).

So... You're not really wrong, but I think your view of this is kind of narrow.