The Limited thread

A place to talk about standard, casual, limited and everything in between.
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Lord Hosk
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby Lord Hosk » 10 Jan 2015, 16:52

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First game I keep Taylor, War Named, HordeCheif, Trumpet blast Plains plains mountain. Drew 7 more lands before losing.

Second Game I keep Taylor, Seeker, Expert, Feat, Arc Lightning plains mountain, draw 9 lands

(sigh)
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby ZePancakes » 11 Jan 2015, 03:51

So, I really LOVE that MMA drafts are on atm. End of the day I have 19 packs in reserve from wins and splits.
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby korvys » 30 Jan 2015, 20:26

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Playing all my rares. Seems decent.

EDIT: 2-2, lost to the clock in the last round.
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby KyleJRM » 31 Jan 2015, 01:16

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Late night M15 swisses aren't exactly the pro tour, but I'm pretty bad too, and I never used to win them. 3-0'd with this deck, and it's so weird to be drafting again but going to bed feeling good instead of tilting.

I kept hoping for some decent low-drops and instead getting passed more good higher-cost cards without even an option. I don't think Carrion Crow or the green Paragon necessarily belong in this deck, but I didn't have anything I liked more. Love all the graveyard synergy.

The critical was R3G3, where I got Swamp, Mountain, Forest, Undergrowth Scavenger, Accursed Spirit, Living Totem and Blastfire Bolt. Nothing to do until turn 4, but all my colors and it's not like this deck is gonna give me lots of smaller stuff on a mulligan anyway.

By turn 5, he's got three smaller creatures but I drop a 5/5 Scavenger, which feels really good until he immediately Heat Rays it on turn 6. I play Kird Chieftain, but I have to let an attack through with an Elvish Mystic + 1/1 token + Inferno Fist and I'm down to 7 life against 19 with 4-on-1 on the board.

The next few turns go:

Hunt the Weak to 2-for-1
Unmake the Grave to get Satyr Wayfinder and Undergrowth Scavenger, play the Wayfinder to chump and feed the graveyard (down to 2 life after his attack)
Scavenger as a 7/7 for 4 and a Living Token to give me just enough blockers. attack with my now 6/6 Kird Chieftain.
Topdeck Rotfeaster Maggot to give me a blocker and some breathing room on life (up to 6 vs. 12)

And now everything's stable and it's flipped so that I'm laying the beats and he's chumping to survive, which only lasts a couple of turns.
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby KyleJRM » 02 Feb 2015, 16:19

Well that was fun. I think this is the first time I've ever won a draft without losing a game. Final, second game, on the play. A nice solitaire curve-out, opponent plays just a forest each of turns 1-4.
Turn 1: Plains, Soulmender
Turn 2: Island, swing with Soulmender for 1, Welkin Tern
Turn 3: Plains, swing with Soulmender and Tern for 3, Soulmender
Turn 4: Plains, swing with Tern for 2, tap everything to convoke Triplicate Spirits
Turn 5: Island, Swing with Tern, 2 Soulmenders, 3 spirit tokens, cast Sanctified charge to up attack to 16
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby Atifexe » 13 Feb 2015, 13:01

Just had a very interesting Round 3 Game 3 against a Faeries & Merfolk deck in the Lorwyn phantom event. My opponent wound up conceding on his turn 4 in response to my Gilt Leaf Ambush. He wasn't off land, so my only thought is that he must have had no creatures in hand, but even then he was still at 20 life. I'm not sure why he decided he'd had enough.

First round was a loss, followed by two wins against a deck that was almost identical to mine, just running more colours.
Second round was two straight losses to a deck that was roughly blue-black fliers with an Evoke and Reanimation/return to hand from graveyard subtheme.
Third round was a loss (in under five minutes following a mulligan to 4 to get a hand with more than one land), followed by two wins. Game two started out poorly but I stabilized fairly quickly and then pushed back with a solid showing from my elvish contingent.

My deck was Red/Green Elementals and Elves, with a couple Changelings bridging the gap. By far the star players were my two copies of Nath's Elite and one copy of Epic Proportions, with honorable mentions to Ashling the Pilgrim (Burn with me) and Imperious Perfect. Also, in the only game where it didn't just trade off, Soulbright Flamekin giving the gift of Trample was quite helpful.
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Robert Merlow
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby Robert Merlow » 15 Feb 2015, 14:08

So, I'm sure some of you have had that problem when MTGO crashes in the middle of deck building and you weren't able to submit your deck. Well, I went into FRF-KTK-KTK, round one of my matches with my 80 card limited deck.

And one game one of rounds one and two.

That wasn't supposed to happen. I have more lands than spells! I had to essentially rebuild my deck every time I played round two! I was defeated in match 3, but with a costly error like that I should have been the severe underdog to win those matches in rounds 1 and 2.

I just couldn't even.
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ZePancakes
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby ZePancakes » 15 Feb 2015, 14:37

Make sure to fill in a form for compensation - these sorts of cases are why it is available.
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JQuill
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby JQuill » 03 Apr 2015, 17:17

First MTGO DTK draft in the books and it turned out to be both good and disappointing. I went 3-0 with this R/B list, that's the good. The bad is I only played the finals as both of my opponents in the first 2 rounds didn't show. That was disappointing because I liked the deck and wanted to play with it more. I first picked the foil Zurgo and started on an aggressive plan, maybe even the Dash deck. By pack 3 though I picked up the Archfiend and Pyrotechnics and some late Typhoid Rats and shifted to a more controlling build. I had a lot of decent enough cards in the board so I felt like there were several variations I could have went with. In hindsight I think I would have cut one Outrider for a 2 drop, likely Dragon Fodder, just to lower the curve a bit and give a bit more to do early on.

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Re: The Limited thread

Postby Duckay » 03 Apr 2015, 18:50

I also 3-0ed my first MTGO Dragons of Tarkir draft, which was a little weird because I drafted it and thought that it looked fine but not great. There were some sweet cards but the curve seemed wonky and it seemed weak to big flyers. I 2-0ed my opponents in all three rounds. I really underestimated things like having 3 copies of Epic Confrontation.

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Re: The Limited thread

Postby korvys » 04 Apr 2015, 02:41

Well, it seems like it's been a good day for Runners. I just went 3-0 myself. MTGO got a bit screwy, and doesn't seem to have saved my deck, but let me tell you, Student of Ojutai can gain you a ton of life when you have 2 Artful Maneuver, and 2 Ojutai's Breath, among other non-creature spells. And I had 3 of them.
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Asthanius
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby Asthanius » 08 Apr 2015, 12:31

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This was my first DTK-DTK-FRF draft on MTGO and I have to say, I absolutely LOVE Atarka decks, especially when I get Atarka in the deck (either copy's fine with me). Now, I never got to cast her, since whenever I had her in hand I had already won, but it's the principle of the matter!

I did end up losing in the last round to an Ojutai deck, but that's mostly because Sage-Eye Avengers is still really good.

Also, it's worth noting that this format is a lot faster than FRF-KTK-KTK.
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby Keab42 » 08 Apr 2015, 13:51

It's kinda odd that it's faster, because you'd think those Megamorphs would make people more cautious, but it seems to be the opposite. But I've done a couple of MTGO and RL drafts now and I'm really enjoying the new set. I particularly like how it's warped the FRF pack.

My best result so far is only a 2-1 but that's because I'm terrible at Magic.
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby MowDownJoe » 08 Apr 2015, 14:59

I think it's mostly because there's so few megamorphs that fit the Rule of 5 that Khans block had. Meanwhile, there's a bevvy of 2/1s with megamorph that happily trade with all the pikers and bears in the format, if you want to waste your mana on that. 6 is the new 5, really. And 6 is a lot less scary, since you could just be dropping a dargon on that turn.

[Edit:] Speaking of aggressive, guess what I didn't do when I drafted:
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Why hello there, Exploit Deck. A P1P1 Icefall Regent followed by a Rakshasa Gravecaller will push you in a certain direction. Blue was wide open (like tabling Aven Surveyors wide open), but black was pretty glommed. But that was fine. Opening Big Sil's favorite jewelry in P3 was pretty sweet, too. As was getting a P3P3 Pyrotechnics and a Swiftwater Cliffs next pick. There was also a surprising number of Gurmag Anglers going around for the amount of black I had to face.

You know what seems good to sacrifice? Marang River Prowler. You know what got boarded out every game? Marang River Prowler. That "no blocking" clause is just dangerous when you're dealing with all the dash and bolster decks out there. My round 2 and round 3 were both against R/B. I ended up boarding in some very durdly dudes to slow them down while my fliers pecked away. Almost went 3-0... but he dropped a turn 4 Palace Siege against me in game 3. That's hard to race. Especially when they have multiple Sarkhan's Rages to burn you out. Ojutai Interceptor almost did, but then you remember this is R/B and they can just kill it. Oh, well.
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Duckay
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby Duckay » 09 Apr 2015, 00:50

My experience with this format so far can be summed up thus: for the third time so far this format, I opened Citadel Siege in pack 3. I was already sighing in disappointment when I remembered that I am actually in white this time.
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby abanytar » 10 Apr 2015, 20:07

Let's play "Build a Better Deck!"

So this is my pool from a Sealed event I did tonight on a whim.

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And here's the deck I made from it.

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My goal was to go 2-2. I ended up 1-3. :( So, as a novice of the game, I ask the wise and learned: was there a better deck I could have built? How do you go about evaluating a Sealed pool?
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby Duckay » 10 Apr 2015, 20:26

Personally, from that pool I would have built a controlling UB deck, using:

Gudul Lurker
Anticipate x 2
Mirror Mockery
Palace Familiar
Sultai Skullkeeper
Reduce in Stature
Whisk Away x 2
Zephyr Scribe
Coat With Venom
Duress
Sultai Emissary
Ultimate Price
Vulturous Aven
Wandering Tombshell
Reach of Shadows
Silumgar Assassin
Sidisi
Marsh Hulk
Ruthless Deathfang

For the remaining couple of cards, you can decide for yourself among Battle Brawler (Still a fine body), Ojutai's Breath (not quite right for a control deck, but still fine), Rite of Undoing, or maybe splash for Alesha or Atarka Efreet from the two dual lands.

Personally I like to evaluate sealed pools simply by sorting each colour into three piles - good, fine, and bad. Then I look at the colours that have the highest numbers of playable cards and look for the synergies. So for example, I don't think white or red have enough playables, and while green does, I think black's synergies with blue are stronger.
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby abanytar » 10 Apr 2015, 21:24

I considered UB, but I got scared off by what seemed to me a low number of creatures, and maybe just the concept of the control deck in general. It was easy for me to imagine how the BR deck would play - jam creatures into the red zone, deal damage, ???, profit.

For a control deck (like the suggested UB) I have a harder time seeing the plan. In a Limited setting, what would a good opening hand look like? Am I relying on card draw all the time in order to get the answers I need? When building the deck, how do you make the judgment call about putting in fewer than, say, 15 creatures?
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Duckay
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby Duckay » 10 Apr 2015, 22:32

Those are, unfortunately, difficult questions for me to answer. I make the judgement call on running fewer than 15 creatures based on roughly how good I feel my noncreature spells are. In this case, I feel like the noncreature spells are strong enough that I could run fewer creatures.

And yes, you are looking to use draw spells in order to maintain card advantage, the goal of which is to have more answers than your opponent has spells.
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby Kapol » 11 Apr 2015, 00:33

So, as a question I'd pondered for the last few days, what is the 'ideal' pack layout for a KTK-block sealed. You can use any mixture of KTK-block packs. So you could go 2-2-2, or 6 of any given set, etc. What do you guys think would allow for the strongest pool?

My answer is: 6x FRF. I wasn't sure about this, but I think FRF has the best mix of bomb rares and solid commons. I was hoping to hit a few Bathe in Dragonfires, Reach Of Shadows, and maybe a Siege or something.

I ended up getting 3 Heelcutters, Whisperwood Elemental, 2 Reach of Shadow, Archfiend of Depravity, Temur War Shaman, and Alesha (Plus a Monastery Mentor I didn't use). I ended up Junding my opponents out. I had a good amount of removal, three on-color fixing, and solid bombs to back it up. I nearly went undefeated. But some poor luck and opponent getting an on-curve Atarka to kill my Archfiend killed me. And I lost a top-deck war game 3. I still ended up getting first thanks to tie-breakers and weird matches, though.
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby abanytar » 11 Apr 2015, 08:20

Duckay wrote:Those are, unfortunately, difficult questions for me to answer. I make the judgement call on running fewer than 15 creatures based on roughly how good I feel my noncreature spells are. In this case, I feel like the noncreature spells are strong enough that I could run fewer creatures.

And yes, you are looking to use draw spells in order to maintain card advantage, the goal of which is to have more answers than your opponent has spells.


This has been helpful. Thanks! I'm just glad I'm asking the right questions, even if they are difficult. That in and of itself helps me know how to look at my pool of cards to know how to put a deck together, which I think will help me make better draft decisions as well.
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby MowDownJoe » 11 Apr 2015, 08:35

abanytar wrote:Let's play "Build a Better Deck!"*snip*

2 things: Shadowspear isn't as good as she appears. Yeah, you think "as damaging as a 2/1 for 1", but then she just gets blocked by a random bear or morph and then you're sad-pants. Even worse when drawn after turn 1. She just isn't a good thing to dash out. Also, I feel like splashing for Ruthless Deathfang in your deck wasn't ideal. Two exploit cards to trigger it... generally a bad idea to play a card for the sake of one or two other cards.

Now for evaluating the pool... The big thing you should be looking at is the number of high-quality cards in a given color. Your red had just Alesha and the Warbrute. That, and the small pool of red cards just doesn't give you anything to work with there. I mean, Alesha's extremely strong, but you shouldn't let one bomb pull you into a weak color.

Now as for me? Green seemed sweet. Tread Upon, 2 Beastbreakers, Stampeding Elk Herd, Wildcall, Rising Dragon Punch... those are all really high quality. And I'd still probably play black. It's tempting to splash white with the monument, and I wouldn't hold it against you for trying, but I'd avoid it. So, my build:

Creatures:
Wildcall
2 Atarka Beastbreaker
Ainok Artillerist
Formless Nurturing
Stampeding Elk Herd
Herdchaser Dragon
Battle Brawler
Silumgar Assassin
Sultai Emissary
Sibsig Icebreakers (or maybe Ancestral Statue? This is really just filler.)
Wandering Tombshell
Vulturous Aven
Sidisi, Undead Vizier
Marsh Hulk

Spells:
Tread Upon
Epic Confrontation
Sudden Reclamation
Sunbringer's Touch (never tried it... it seems like it could be strong)
Hunt the Weak
Coat with Venom
Ultimate Price
Reach of Shadows

Lands to taste
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abanytar
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby abanytar » 13 Apr 2015, 09:03

MowDownJoe wrote:I mean, Alesha's extremely strong, but you shouldn't let one bomb pull you into a weak color.


Aha! I get it. There's an amount of self-control needed to not just say, "Stronk rare, better play this color."

Regarding Green, I guess my weakness in my knowledge of the format hurt me. How often are folks triggering Formidable in Limited? Also, I'm still learning to appreciate Fight cards. It seems chancy to rely on it as removal, since my opponent could just bounce or destroy the creature I control in response (or even before I play the Fight card).
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JQuill
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby JQuill » 15 Apr 2015, 20:39

A few more drafts in the books, the first 2 I opened Dragonlord Dromoka in both pack 1's. In one of the drafts I followed it by opening Ojutai Exemplars and then FRF Dromoka. Both decks went 2-1 (the 2nd one obviously a disappointing 2-1 given the power level) and the Dragonlord decided to only show up in a couple games total.

Then I just drafted this U/B list that was honestly one of the easiest 3-0s I can remember. Nothing about the deck was insanely strong (Silumgar was the only bomb-level card), but it just seemed to all work incredibly well. I guess this is that whole synergy thing people talk about :lol:

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MowDownJoe
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Re: The Limited thread

Postby MowDownJoe » 16 Apr 2015, 18:55

abanytar wrote:Regarding Green, I guess my weakness in my knowledge of the format hurt me. How often are folks triggering Formidable in Limited? Also, I'm still learning to appreciate Fight cards. It seems chancy to rely on it as removal, since my opponent could just bounce or destroy the creature I control in response (or even before I play the Fight card).

I mean, that is a thing to consider with Fight cards, but the fact that Savage Punch and Epic Confrontation let you beef up a guy, kill a guy, and smash in for extra damage is so worth it. And people tend to tap out more in limited, so you have less to worry about on that front (especially if the fight is instant speed, like Dromoka's Command).
As for formitable? It's not hard, especially if you're in R/G. You get plenty of nice beefy guys. 2 Morphs and a 4/x is relatively realistic board state in this format, honestly.

Anyway, I'm still on airs from winning my first 8-4. I thought my deck was just OK (besides the huge bomb that was the Regent). Not the best Exploit deck, but a reasonable one with 2 Avens. But it got there. Clogged up the ground and the air. Smashed in. Lucked out that I got 2 Encase in Ice and faced either red or green in all my matches. (My finals was R/G. Easiest sideboard ever.)
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