The Limited thread

[tamaness]

since we seem to be doing this a lot in the General MTG thread, I figured I'd make a new thread to post and discuss limited-format play and decks, specifically.

I'll start off with my draft deck from tonight while I wait for everyone else to submit decks.

[Drecon]

You're playing a lot of borderline playable cards in there. Although cheap spells + extort can win games by itself of course. How did the deck actually do? Won it?

[tamaness]

I lost to decking myself in the first game, then he boarded in a ton of lifelink and I didn't get good draws in the second game. So, kinda meh. Stacking extort triggers when you've got 10 or 12 creatures on the board with Pontiff out is really time-consuming. I had 10 minutes left for game 2.

[ZePancakes]

Again! Now why can't I get this luck with IRL boosters! I took the Return but would anyone hold Jarad higher?

Here's the deck submitted for my 8-4:

[tamaness]

Round 2: went super-aggro, because I kept drawing fliers, and didn't have much extort up. Won 2-0.

Round 3: game 1: punted. I didn't block 3 trample damage, opponent was at 3, and I had 2 fliers.
game 2: should have taken a mulligan.

overall, the deck worked pretty well, but it lost because I didn't pilot it well.

edit:

that's the end of match 1, game 1. I lost to sage's row denizen triggering on his second main.

[Fantazme]

If you're having time issues with Extort triggers, you can right click to auto-yield to reduce some of that time I think.

Rakdos Return vs. Jarad? Taking out money consideration, I'm still slamming the Return. It's disruption + a win-con. Jarad is very good, but he can take time to turn the game towards you and sometimes he'll arrive too late to make an impact. Plus, BBGG is very hard to cast unless you're straight Goal Garry.

[Lord Hosk]

I agree, I think Rakdos return is the better card, its a lot easier to cast unless you can manage BG and even then as Rantazme said, It might be too late. I cant count the number of games when I have had only one red or green source and been like "well I would like to play these two three drops but I have 5 and 1...

[tamaness]

If you're having time issues with Extort triggers, you can right click to auto-yield to reduce some of that time I think.

It's not a matter of responding to triggers or priority; it's just placing all of the triggers on the stack every time a spell goes off; there's no way to automatically stack triggers as far as I know. Storm has the same issue.

[Drecon]

I'm pretty sure there's a hotkey for automatically stacking triggers....
F7 or something?

*searches*

Ah, got it.

F7 – Until the end of the current game, put all triggers with the same text that trigger at the same time on the stack automatically if they do not target. For example, if you have three creatures with bushido that all are blocked at the same time, this will place all the bushido triggers on the stack without having to click to choose the order.

So, as extort does not target, clicking F7 should stack them automatically.

[JQuill]

This was my most recent DGR draft deck. Went kind of deep although the mana ended up being quite good, to the point that I almost always ended up siding out a forest for a spell (either a Gruul War Chant or Maze Behemoth usually). I ended up losing in the finals in game 3 when my opponent tapped out for an X=5 Debt to the Deathless.

[AdmiralMemo]

there's no way to automatically stack triggers as far as I know. Storm has the same issue.

There's an option in right-click to automatically stack triggers, AFAIK.

[Drecon]

there's no way to automatically stack triggers as far as I know. Storm has the same issue.

There's an option in right-click to automatically stack triggers, AFAIK.

Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure that's one of the things they implemented in the new client.

[Lemegeton]

had my best draft in quite a long while at the LGS last night. RTR block.
pack 1 was meh, took a gruul war chant and then get 'passed' a steam vents. pick up some solid green cards like thrashing mossdog so was sticking with RUG. open pack 2 , friggin Boros Reckoner took him but didn't want to splash white cos 4 color decks have not worked for me in this format ever. so what do i open in the RTR pack.... Loxodon Smiter. so yeah ran RUG with a splash for W.
Finished 4th overall, and was oh so close to a 3-0. and won some boosters so i was pretty stoked going home last night.

[Fantazme]

I have to admit I'm getting increasingly frustrated in DGM when I cut off two colours very well, then get cut in both of them next pack.

[Fantazme]

Feeling quite happy about this one. Pack 1 I opened Pontiff and then tried to cut all White and Black and the only thing I passed was Profit//Loss (Which wheeled!) and got insane picks, Tithe Drinker 5th and 6th. Felt great going into Pack 2...opened Gideon, felt Giddy and then promptly got cut hard on Orzhov and never saw any extort outside of the Knight of Obligation and a Kingpin's Pet that was in the Gideon pack. So had to use some blue to fill it in. Not sure about the mana, thoughts?

Just finished Game 1- lost 0-2 to a 4-color aggro deck that seemingly had the guy who cut out all my Orzhov in Pack 2. His deck was pretty poor- unfortunately after keeping a 3 lander with some creatures, I never saw white and eventually got outdrawn. Game 2 I mulliganed into oblivion. Wondering if I've misbuilt the manabase, but I have to admit I'll be very frustrated if I don't 2-1 from here, as I think this deck is very solid outside of missing some hard removal. Sadly never saw a Grisly Spectacle, Edict or Judgement though.

[Fantazme]

Mana went okay and crushed the other two games. Turns out Tithe Drinker > Tithe Drinker > Knight of Obligation > Gideon is a nice curve.

[Lurkon]

So, I drafted pretty much randomly, ended up with a deck I didn't think would ever work. I won my first game, but lost the match, then I faced Graham and James and my deck just freaking DESTROYED them. I don't even know what happened there. Finally I won the last game, coming out 2-1.
I don't know how this ever worked.

[Drecon]

Lurkon: Well, your deck actually has very good card quality. It's the mana base that's iffy. I'm guessing that if you actually happen to hit all your colors that deck is gonna pay off usually.
Let's call it high-risk-high-reward drafting?

Also, playing against Graham and James is always cool. Maybe I'll do it some day...

[Drecon]

Well, another weird draft. I started out drafting Izzet, picked up a third pick Trostani's Summoner... some other random spells and then a sixth pick Trostani's Summoner...
I ended up with Simic, splashing white and red. The deck seemed pretty okay, although I'm not sure if my build was actually correct.



Then game 1 happened... I had a perfect curve, going Turn and Burn into double Trostani's Summoner and I was pretty much on autopilot the entire game...

Which is where it went wrong. I lost horribly as my opponent also had a great deck, with Tithe Drinker, Alms Beast and Far and Away, among some other really great spells.
I made multiple big mistakes and lost because of it. I really gotta go back to that game one of these days as I'm sure there are some great lessons there.

[Drecon]

Another draft:
I first picked a Dragonshift (probably not correct, but I really wanted to play with that card), followed by two guildgates, since there were no clear signals in the packs and I really wanted to try a multicolor deck.
I got a fourth pick Far and Away (don't know what people picked over it, but it must've been the best pack ever?) and picked up a few gatekeepers.
I picked up some more random stuff, not really settling on any color combination but keeping multiple options open.
Then in RTR the Rakdos came flowing and it knitted the deck together. This the result:
Some nice removal, good curve and some really great cards so I felt okay.

I tried to submit but it wouldn't work... Had to log out, log back in and when I came back I had 30 seconds to completely rebuild my deck!



This the result. 41 cards, but I really didn't have tome to check (was already glad it wasn't 39...) If I had the time I would cut either Way of the Thief or the Thunderfist, probably the former.

So... things worked out.
With a beating heart I looked at my first hand... 1 land.
Mulligan... 1 land...
Mull into a hand with 2 mountains and some black stuff... had to keep.

I took me a few turns before I found a third land and I finally had a defensive Hellhole Flailer up on turn 5. Trading happened, but I found another land and got an Ubul Sar Gatekeepers to stabilize at 4 life.
Here I believe my opponent started drawing marginally, and I was going perfectly. Got a Bane Alley Broker going and eventually buried my opponent in card advantage.
Game 2 was also a double mulligan but I had an aggressive draw (and the right amount of mana), and beat him without too much of a hassle.

Alright... a failed deck submission, four mulligans... the magic gods weren't with me. Time for round 2 then.

I played against a UWb deck, I don't remember the specifics, but I beat him with better cards.
Game 2 I kept a hand with five lands and two expensive spells. I figured I had pretty good odds of getting out of that one.
Sadly I drew lots of lands and when he got his Scion of Vitu-Ghazi online I could only watch as the birds were soaring over my head and killing me.
Game 3 was the big one. I had a good start and the game was very tense. For each threat from one of us there was an answer from the other. He again got his Scion online and had a big army of birds.
I had many aggressive creatures and eventually it came down to him having lethal flyers in play and on 1 life, versus me with a few creatures and needing one of 3 to 5 outs (not sure how many exactly). I drew a swamp and had to accept the final beats.

So all in all I got unlucky a few times but as far as I can tell played pretty well. The strategy of staying open by picking lots of gates is pretty powerful and I will soon try it again.

[ZePancakes]

WOOT WOOT WOOT.

I've been in such a slump in my drafts lately, coming second alot and others not so well. Decided to do an 8-4 to turn my luck around and what do you know? I won the event! I know it isn't much but it is the little things that count.

For any that care:

[JQuill]

My first attempt at an RoE draft. Now I wasn't playing Magic when this was out, so it was completely new, although I did do a bunch of research before, reading some articles, checking out LSV's complete set review, and watching Kenji do a couple drafts. I thought this deck was really bad (I tried to go in big on the Kor Spiritdancers but just wasn't getting very many Auras), although pulling a Vengevine in pack 3 made it much less depressing.

And I did manage to win 1 round and get a couple packs, thanks to an insane game 3 where my opponent slammed Drana on curve (luckily she didn't show up in the first 2 games) and I was able to Oust her and then steal her with the Manticore for lethal. But after that bit of luck I got beat pretty soundly in round 2.

Hoping the next draft I do goes better though...

[CaptainEnder7]

So I did a pair of drafts today. First one was an ROE draft. Did ok in the first round against a UW Leveler deck, but got out-aggro'd in the second round.



Second one was a Cube Swiss. First round won handily against an agrro deck. Second round won against a counter-heavy UR control deck. Third round was against a UW heavy board-wipe deck and lost. Overall, a very fun deck to pilot.

[Lord Hosk]

I have been playing a lot of the phantom sealed events, I ran one for giggles, and won it, off a game one time out and a game two drop. I didnt play until the third match which was irritating so I played another and lost the first, bye the second time out on the third.

Apparently if people get bad pools, they just dont play, and if they dont do well they just quit. I have never been without one pack and won three out of the 10 I have done, the second time I got a bye round one, then the third time I won, then my opponent didnt show up.

Which means each event at most costs me 1.3-1.6 tickets depending on the draft. and I am up overall. WEEEEEEE!!

This was my pool this time.

[Kapol]

I went to a draft today. We only ended up having 5 people, so it was one of those really kinda awkward drafts. I ended up drafting a pretty good Simic deck. Those 4/4 for 5 that become 8/8 tramples are nuts late-game, especially with Hunt The Weak. And I had a bunch of fliers.

But this story isn't meant to be about me. This is about a person in my draft who makes me facepalm. He ended up getting good pulls... an Ajani and Jace I think, maybe a Ajani and Lili. But during the rest of the draft, he picked up every land. It's important to note this was an M14 draft. And he was picking them fairly highly. From the sound of it, he just made everything he got into his deck... 15 land and 30 other (mostly) sub-par cards. And then he got pissed off because he lost.

Here's a pro-tip, if you pick the non-foil basic land in a pack, unless everything is just utter crap (and even then really), you're likely not making a good pick. :/