f13.net

Just did my first M11 draft, felt like I mostly was making smart picks but I failed to open a single true bomb (I ended up w/ zero rares) and my only partial bombs were Sleep and a Air Servant.  My only major error was a big time overvalue of Stone Gargoyle and a slight undervalue of Forsee (I took a foil Jace's draw 3 instead at one point). All told though I never got the Lich I hopped would drop to me (I picked up a couple of artifacts over other slightly better cards hoping one would drop to me in pack 3) and nothing big and scary presented itself.

This was because I misread the fucking signals though somehow. In pack 1 I felt like I was cutting black hard enough to send a strong signal but it completely dried up on my in pack 2 but I didn't get out in time and so ended up in a way overdrafted color. I had literally nothing of value from my Black which was a real shame given how good my Blue was (sleep, air servant, decent control, decent draw, some evasion) if the packs I had opened had provided me with a clear "take this other color here's an amazing card!" I think I could gotten an extra prize pack.

I still think White is the best color (armored ascension is easy to find and safe passage even easier + good commons + several good bombs) but I'm less sure Red is the weakest. I saw some fairly unimpressive Red cards do big damage and show off their synergy and I think that I have highly underestimated how easy it is to combo off of the 1-turn red mind control esp if you go B/R.


NEWB QUESTION:
How should I sell back the uncommons to try to regain some of my lost $$$? I really don't want to waste a ton of time or effort doing this and I believe you can sell them via automated means these days so where do I get the current pricelists and how do I set that up?

Thx in advance + post your M11 draft thoughts here?

Also is there a way to look through my drafting? I know how to access the game replays but what about the draft itself to see where I might have gone wrong?

Not sure you can really get much value back on uncommons.

Frankly I like drafting ROE better, the synergies are a little more interesting and reliable I think. The 'best' sealed pools I've seen have been white/black and white/blue, with an occasional fast green monster pull. White is just ridiculous in M11 though.

I've no interest in investing money or time learning a set that is rotating out. I doubt I'll even play a lot of M11 but at least I'm not more equal footing in terms of experience with the set compared to playing something like ROE this late in the game.

ROE isn't going to rotate until like Oct 2011, its Alara block that is rotating out soon (+ M10).

...I should double check that though. Your point about being behind on the strategy with it is reasonable though yeah.

EDIT: Yeah the only stuff rotating out in October is M10 and Alara block. Rise and the rest of Zendikar block will rotate in October 2011, along with M11, unless they change it all again.

ROE is in for the entirety of the next block (which is a return to Mirrodin block), so ROE is in for a solid year.  ROE is a very low value set, though, with the only things worth any money being the mythics (especially Vengevine and Gideon, but All is Dust, the giant Eldrazi, etc worth some).


I never sell back.... but uncommons outside of chase uncommons are virtually worthless.  There are quite a few money cards in M11...  mythics (Baneslayer, Titans, Planewalkers), some rares (Fauna Shaman is big money, Obstinate Baloth, etc.)

Check out the www.mtgsalvation.com

The rumor mill (new cards subforum) usually has an updated price list done by various online sellers, to give you an idea on values.  There also is a Magic Online subforum which might be useful.


White is pretty solid.  Good mix of utility critters, efficient fliers, removal or pseudo-removal (pacifism, condemn), and some real solid bombs.  Even Whites filler cards tend to be efficient weenies.  Goes well with B (for the removal) or U (more fliers, card draw).

Blue is also solid.  Lots of decent evaders, good bounce and card draw, disruption, some "I win" bombs like Sleep, good utility critters.  Mixes well with W (lots of fat back end for dee on the ground, with fliers to score) or green (efficient creatures combined with bounce and counters).  Even pseudo removal, with Ice Cage.  Mind Control is broken.

Green is lackluster.  Efficient creatures, little evasion.  Combos well with B (if heavy removal), U (disruption and draw), or W (utility, cheap beats).  Makes a great second color, since even Green's filler is usually better than other colors critters.

Red has a bunch of strong cards, but it has a pile of chaff.  Good burn, some good bombish big guys, some decent mid range.  Piles of bad cards if someone is already in it.

Black.  Removal, always removal.  Black has aggressive critters, with heavy front ends and low back ends.  


-Scry is fucking ridiculous.  I've seen Crystal Ball single-handedly win games, because you can shove all of your lands to the bottom of the deck so draw nothing but gas.
-Very bomby format.  A titan drop early can turn games into routs.  The new green "overrun" type card single-handedly wins games.  Sleep does the same.

Unless you get a real bomby red rare or a few of their good uncommons, red is basically looking like a splash color to me. The red common creatures are quite bad so it can really be hard to get enough out of it to make up a whole half deck. Luckily act of treason, lightning bolt, and fireball are all pretty easily splashable, if you can snag a terramorphic expanse or two. You'll need to be in green otherwise to have any kind of reliable color fixing (cultivate, sylvan ranger). Scry can help.

I'll second that crystal ball is a great, great card.

EDIT: On the topic of sleep I've now seen it slip through to me as a 7th or 8th pick several times, people seem to be undervaluing it.

There is a setting in your options where you can record your drafts and it will tell you the available cards and mark the one you picked.  You can see this is my ROE draft thread (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=19216.0) below

I'm in no rush to get all the way back into mtg, I'll happily just play limited and if that is fun I'll eventually play block constructed when/if I'm still around after the next block is all the way out. Magic is fucking expensive enough without trying to get into sets that are already out. Thanks to Cee for making the point about the low value of the set. Compared to that I think M11 has pretty good value if I can get some decent pulls and start winning.

I agree with most of what you are saying but I think you are heavily overestimating how strong Black is. It just doesn't have bombs for shit. There are caveats to almost every good card in black besides doom blade and most of them are basically, you better be running lots of black for this to work. Also the creatures are weak without certain combos to make them good. Ditto Red which has just so many shit awful creatures, does it have any common creature that is maindeck worthy? Seriously I'm trying to think of one and coming up empty. Most of the uncommons are good though and fling and act of treason can essentially hand a game to you for free though if you get an early lead.

I had lots of scry+draw in my draft today and while it gave me wins (I went 1-2 but I was never 2-0'd I won games in both losing series) that I couldn't have finished without the card advantage it couldn't turn around a bad game because I had no bombs to scry to.

***

Seriously though, I realize people are saying uncommons have no value but I might as well sell them right? I need a full set to turn virtual cardboard into cardboard still no? Which is not going to happen so where is the value in keeping them beyond feeling like I 'gotta catch em all?

Agreed Ingmar.

Red has some great cards.  Fling is a bomb with the guy that doubles instant/sorcery damage, or with green fatties.  The two dragons are both amazing...  Hoarding Dragon is broken if you have another artifact creature in deck.  Fireball is the original Limited Bomb.  The problem is it has no depth.


Blue and White seem to have the most depth.  

- Blue is just filled with crazy.  Frost Titan, Conumdrum Sphinx, etc.  Mind Control seems to be completely busted open in this format.  Good card draw.  Great utility creatures (augury owl, with scry 3, is actually a great later pick).  The counters are actually really solid, and help games from sliding away from you due to a lucky opponent bomb/top deck.

- White is all around solid, with semi-bombs.  Serra Angel at uncommon is rough.  Ajani is a beating in your typical white deck.  Sun Titan recurs the huge number of weenies.

Black is always good in Limited, though it seems to be heavier towards monoblack.  Nantuko Shade is a house.  Royal Assassin, another Original Limited Bomb.  Assassinate, Doom Blade, Quag Sickness, etc. etc. all good.  Deathmark is a great sideboard card.  Sign in Blood even gives you tempo friendly draw.  

3 or 4 toughness seems to be the average, so even Black's high front end critters are pretty useful for chumping or swinging in.

For Hoax:

Linky to set value thread on M11.  Rancored Elf is the original rumor-monger (who was sued a few years ago for dropping an entire set months in advance) and sells cards through an online store.  Jeffbcrandall is also a brick & mortar/ebay store seller, who has some great commentary.

Still good value, but it will fade a bit as time goes by:  http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=254520


If you can't really get anything for uncommons now, I'm always of the opinion you sit on them.  The way it goes now is people crack packs/draft the shit out of sets to get the mythics, flooding the market with even the rares....  which are now mostly all low value.

As far as main-deck worthy red common creatures, uh... the firebreathing doggie can be worth it if you're heavy in red from your rares/uncommons as he combos well with the goblin that can make him unblockable.

EDIT: ...hasn't serra angel always been uncommon? I know it was when I played before!

She started as uncommon waaaaaaay back in history, went to rare for like 15 years (when she was arguably one of the best creatures in the game), then was bumped back to uncommon last year.

We're old.   :uhrr:

Wonder if we have the people to do an all F13 casual draft.  I'd be up for it I think.

Just drafted a deck with 5 x Quag Sickness (-1/-1 for each swamp) and 2 x assassinate.  :awesome_for_real:

I played some guy yesterday or the day before who got passed 4 doom blades.  :oh_i_see:

On Red:

I had a good couple runs with Red (U/R burn, counter/disrupt, and bounce; G/R with fire servant and fling).  Red is very, very dependent on drafting a couple of cards to make it work, but luckily those are commons/uncommons.  You need a fire servant, and you need fling. 

Fling and Fire Servant, especially combined with the fire breathing dogs that you can pump, is ridiculous.
Fling and Act of Treason is also crazy.  Steal their most bad ass guy, swing, fling it to kill another critter or put the guy away.


Combos well with blue because you can burn bounce to clear a path for attackers, and use the card draw to refill your hand.

Just about the signaling, there are always going to be games where it looks like a color is opened but you end up boned. You may think you're cutting a color but the guys to your left may have both gotten chase rares in the same color.

Geez, managed to fo 2-1 in my first M11 draft with a totally craptacular Black Green deck.  Horrible draft.  My best cards were Nantako Shade, 2 Doom blades, Juggernaut and Warlords Axe.  I didnt draft enough critters.  Game 1 i attempted pure BG, but typically games 2 and 3 i was splashing Blue for my Preordain, Mana Leak, Unsummon and Diminish.  Primarily almost all of my opponents were also in black which made the doom blades not nearly as effective.   Played a BU guy who had 2 Leylines of the Void in his deck,  Why, i have no idea.

And of course, the best card a drafted i couldnt use - pack 3 first pick Inferno Titan. /faceplam.

To sell your shit (minimum effort)...

Firstly set everything to tradable in your collection window.

Then go to the home screen and hit the trade button.

You'll see adverts for trade bots. Pick one that says it buys. Right click and 'TRADE'. Follow instructions.

Most of the sales will be less than a dollar - so you are better off using a group of bots that tracks sub-dollar credit (you trade in tickets). I use the 'Cardbot' series (Cardbot1-6 and CardBuyingBot1-6). I'm sure there is better value out there - but suspect it requires more effort.

Thanks el, that was what I was looking for but I had found the bots and the amount they sell for is so staggeringly low that I decided I would see if I could get into some paper drafting at some FNM's instead. Better than nothing or hanging onto virtual cards for the sake of who knows what though considering my timetable for playing constructed in years from now if ever.

Anyone else have sell bots they recommend I saw a ton of them and really didn't feel like figuring out which ones were giving best rates though I guess I could do my homework this one time and be done with it.

Bot rates will always be low, people will sell to them for the convenience and the bots just compete with each other lower and lower.

The only way you will make out really well trading is to get good at trading person to person which will take a lot of time and research.

I have hit just an absolutely awful streak of failure, I think I need to go back to the newb room or do casual drafts or something for a while. The most annoying thing is I am still making interface errors*, but that's not really the root of my problems I don't think.

*Most egregious one: I had a completely filthy R/G ramp deck with good amounts of removal in a ROE draft, plus an Emrakul that I could actually consistently cast. I hit some guy with a rapacious one for 5, spawning the last few spawn tokens I needed to cast Emmy. So I tap out and sac all the little dudes, only to realize, hey, I'm still in the combat damage step. Needless to say you can't 'undo' on sacrificing a spawn token. :facepalm:

Take a break for a while.  When your concentration/interest wanes, you can tend to make bad drafting calls and follow it up with bad plays.  Or at least that's me, the guy who can have a limited rating between mid-1700's and 1600.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-draft-simulator/

We should do a weekend f13 mock draft, the bots for this are shaky and it can lag out a bit but it gives you deck construction and hand generator options afterwards I think just started fucking about w/ it today.

So.

1st pack, 1st pick:  Primeval Titan, the 30 tix heavyweight for M11.
2nd pack, 1st pick: Baneslayer Angel.  A house and still worth 17ish tix.

Even if I go 0-3, my next couple drafts are paid for.

Just won a 4-3-2-2 draft with a BW weenie fliers deck; i was sure was dead meat.  I didnt see any bombs drafting and was very concerned a bout even winning 1 round.  Fortunately, no one else seemed to be drafting black so i picked up 2 doom blades, 1 quaq sickness and an assassinate.  Hell i was reduced to using things like roc egg and ornithoper with warlords axe most games, but it was a weird but fun set of games.  My first round opponent was playing mono green?! with lots of wurms, mana elves, a Protean Hydra, and other fatties, i just managed to out race him.  Second round i played UR, had to mulligane to  5 in game 1 which was the end of that, and game 2 managed to come back from nothing to beat him after he had played Inferno titan and i nad nothing on the board.  That was fun.  Last round played a UW deck that actually was milling people out - defense, 2 jace's earasure, temple bell, preordaints and tomb scour.  I got game 1 quickly, he milled me out game 2, game 3 i had bumped up my deck to 42 cards and managed to win the game with 1 card left in my library.

Well.

I just drafted all the Black in an 8 man.  All of it. 

3 x quag sick
2 x doomblade
3 x assassinate
3 x Liliana Spectre
2 x Sign in Blood
Corrupt
bunch of high power cheap critters
Royal Assassin
3 x Gravedigger
Shade as well

Nice.

I've pulled Inferno Titan in 3 out of my last 4 M11 drafts, I am getting tired of playing red.

A favorite new easy to pull off combo:

BR:  Draft a couple of sac critters, like the 1/1 Viscera Seer (sac creature, scry 1) and Bloodthrone Vamp (sac to get +2/+2).  Draft Act of Treason, which now becomes hard removal.

Yeah, I like fling a little better as a combo, but the seer works out pretty well - I like it a little better than the bloodthrone for that combo since you can use it for a benefit after combat.

I like fling too.... but it's harder to pull off.  Bloodthrone combos well with the reanimating skeleton too. 

The big thing is now your opponent needs to blow removal on mediocre cards.

Oddly, i have also had two drafts pulling him; he's the only titan I've ever seen.  First draft i took him (since he's worth 5 tix now) but couldnt play him.
Second time I ended up with a sick Rw deck with him, Ancient Hellkite, Magma Phoenix (as a 7th pick no less), fireball, lightning bolt, lava axe, chandras outrage, a couple of hell hounds, arc runner, 2 acts of treason, etc.
Sadly, lost 1 round to a mana screw game one followed by a mana flood game two, but the other rounds were fun blowing everything to flaming bits.

Spoke too soon; just drafted a Sun Titan, together with a Fauna Shaman and BoP.  We shall if i get to actually play it.

Edit: Yep. worked well; won the whole draft. :)

Going to try a Thursday Night Magic sealed event (6 booster) at 6PM est, if any are interested.  The payouts look pretty good, and should be interesting:  http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/07282010e


Won 2 4-3-2-2 drafts yesterday, so I have a bunch of packs begging me to use them.  :grin:

I am probably going to try this tonight as well but I can't get in that early.

I really hate the concept of sealed since you either draft the nuts or you don't especially in M11 where there is just such a huge swing in the power between a titan pack and a jinxed idol/dual land/leyline pack.

I would enjoy living vicariously though so please post details of how it goes.

Yeah, i lost to someone doing this exact thing in my last draft.  He was able to at least get decent answers until he hit his bombs.  2-3 turns of scrying 4-5 times is just too much.

I would love to do some of the TNM stuff, but the start times are just akward: 6pm EST and 11pm?  Neither works for me.

On the whole, cant complain about my M11 draft experience thus far; i bought 6 packs at the beginning of Aug, and have managed to run 9 drafts so far without having to spend any more cash due to packs won and rares sold off.  I can live with that sort of monthly expense.

I tried to make a post about Sealed strategy once or twice, but I don't think I ever have...


Sealed does have luck involved, but really the big thing it tests is your deck building skill from a known and small pool of cards.  Most bombs don't matter unless they are in colors you are strong in.  The biggest mistake people make is playing a color for the bombs:  that makes games revolve almost completely on drawing them.  Meanwhile, the guy playing a bunch of mediocre cards and following a good curve will curve out every game while the Bomb Deck Guy mutters about land/mana screw.

Making a deck in 2/3 colors around the colors you are strongest in will (generally) beat any deck that revolves completely around getting the one or two bombs into play.  Consistency > bombs, 90% of the time.

Really, draft has as much emphasis on luck:  Bombs get drafted first pick most of the time, so you need to open a bomb or get one passed to you as a 2nd pick.  If you don't open anything, then it's all down to how well you have drafted the rest of your deck.  That's why you can have those drafts where it feels like your deck is awful but you wreck it:  curve and consistency in the "filler" of your deck generally beats someone who is playing bad cards with one or two amazing bombs.


Leagues were a little different.  Due to their setup, you could "save" your point games until you felt you had a good cardpool.  A popular strategy in League was to sit out weeks in which you had weak packs or when you didn't have support for your good cards, and plan on making it up in the later weeks.  I know I did it regularly, especially if I had a couple bombs but the color was weak.

That also lead to the fact that, in general, after the first day a new pack is opened the only people playing games were the guys who knew they had the nuts.

Sealed has always treated me pretty well, though.  When I still played paper, I think I won every Sealed tourney the local store had for almost 2 years.


On TNM:

6 booster sealed the payout is 2/4/8, based on wins and only three rounds no matter how many join.  Seems like it should be really very easy to get 4 packs, and 8 packs should be pretty doable.

Start times do seem awkward.  I live 5 minutes from work, so no issue for me, but I can see alot of EST folks excluded do to the commute.

11PM is...  8PST?  Either 7 or 8PM seems about the perfect time to run this, if you count on a Sealed event taking about an hour a game.

Well.  My cardpool is pretty funny.  I built a UWB deck, then went ahead and built a RG deck.  I'll switch hit the decks in depending on the matchup, though I think I'll start with the RG.

Rares all sucked... heh. 

Also, Irony bites me squarely on the ass since I lost a game 3 to my opponent sitting on critters than casting Overwhelming Stampede, which is a ridiculous bomb.

My rares:

Dragonskull Summit
Haunting Echoes
Traumatize (with no real other mill stuff to support it)
Silence
Dark Tutelage

...and Platinum Angel :)

A few good spells in each of R/G/B so I'm running 3 colors without enough fixing but a decent amount of removal. No real bombs other than the angel really (the only other rare I'm playing is the land), but I won the first match going away against a weak r/g/w mishmash.

EDIT:

Won round 2, 2nd game I won entirely because I had platinum angel out and he was out of removal, I actually decked him (that's what he gets for having card draw)

Lost round 3 - my removal draws dried up and I ran headfirst into Ajani Goldmane too.

Whoo hoo, going to cube draft at a buddies tonight who has a very impressive cube.  Less then 10 proxies I think now and tons of altered or extended art cards.

How could you not like a format where you can go -
First pick - Sol Ring
Second pick - Library of Alexandria
Third pick - Top
Etc....

Cube sounds pretty cool. I've thought about putting one together but with what I have the power level would be a lot lower than the normal ones - I kind of hate proxies. The big problem is I don't have 8 magic playing friends locally, most of them have moved on.

Cube is tons of fun, I an opening hand with Balance and Black Lotus once.  Just sat back and let my opponent play out his hand while I didn't even play land.  Played Balance off Lotus and wiped his entire board (and half my hand).  May not of been the smartest way to play it but it sure was fun.  :drill:

Draft I am about to start round 2 in today:


I guess nobody else was drafting black. Pack 2 picks 8 and 10 are  :uhrr:. I thought at first I might go u/b but I just kept getting handed black card after black card. Won the first round, we'll see if I die to the hellkite I passed at some point.

EDIT: Not too surprisingly won the tournament - did drop one game 2 to a blackwhite knight and a hand full of black removal with no creatures.

Great deck Ingmar.  You did have some amazing Blue there as well (Mind Control and a Sphinx), but can't argue with 3x Quag, Corrupt, Skellie/Seer/Bloodthrone package, 3 x Spector.


Just won an M11 draft playing RB:
4 x Act of Treason
2 x Viscera Seer
1 x Bloodthrone
Skellie
3 x Chandra's Outrage
2 x Fling
2 x Quag Sick
Standard black and red filler (barony vamp, etc.)

Massively, massively explosive.  A package of Act plus sac outlets meant that I could grab their best creature, pound home damage, then fling it at another creature or sac it out.

Won a couple games after the mull to 5.

I didn't like all the additional Corrupts you picked up Ingmar, I really have a hard time imagining playing two let alone more than two. The second one you passed up a Quag Sickness for example, which I don't think you can possibly have too many of under normal circumstances. Not that I'm questioning  the p1p1 Corrupt but once you have it the value is way down surely?

Monoblack is the only time that many corrupts make sense.  In monoblack, 3 corrupt is either removal or a headshot...  and a late game corrupt is likely to be fatal.  In most 2 color decks, 2 corrupt is pushing it.

I think I'd rather have 3 quags and 3 corrupts than 4 and 2 in limited, simply because once you hit 6 mana, which you do in most games, the corrupt is a lot more versatile. It was the top end of my curve so I felt pretty comfortable running 3 of them (with the 3 quags and one doom blade for earlier game removal). The lifegain from them (and to a lesser extent the 2 Children of Night) was really really nice for offsetting the 3 life lost every time I cast a banshee, too (I ran all 3 of those).

I think almost every game I played ended with a corrupt to the face, running only 1 of them I couldn't count on consistently drawing one every game.

In monoblack, 3 corrupt is in no way excessive....  Especially because of Sign in Blood/Banshee.  It fills you back up to avoid red "oops, I win" shenanigans, and it is a viable win condition.  Black tends to curve out pretty low, as well, so Corrupt isn't fighting for a spot on the curve with win-con creatures.

In 2 color, I'd much rather have the excess quag sick to clear a path for my early game beats or to remove pain-in-the-ass creatures like Blinding Mage. 

Yeah I was speaking from a mono-black standpoint, if I had been drafting a 2nd color the quags would be preferable.

So.  Had a message waiting for me on my account.  A buddy drafted:

Pack 1, pick 1 = Primeval Titan
Pack 2, pick 1 = Baneslayer
Followed by fauna shaman and obstinate baloth picks.

Talk about your money picks....

I've hit a rash of baneslayers in losing decks lately, which I guess is a nice consolation prize. I haven't seen a primeval, sun, or grave titan yet, sadly.

So.  Drafting in UB.  When you get Mind Control first pick, Royal Assassin second what the hell?  UB is getting cut to hell by everyone, and the second pack is winding down with very little from other colors.  I do a "wtf?  why not" when I pick up a Mind Reversal.  Three Jace's Erasure and a Tome Scour later...

I have UB aggro (with Assassin, removal, Mind Control, Air Servant and Sleep supporting aggresive critters) with a secondary win condition of mill.  Milled out a guy all in one turn with Mind Reversal (with 2xJace on the field), into Jace's Erasure, 2x Sign in Blood, and a Tome Scour.

Edit:

And WOW, took that draft.  Mostly through UB beats.  To be frank, I was the luckiest lucky luck-luck McLuckerson Lucksack in the world.  There is no way I should have walked through that, if the shuffler hadn't curved me out each game.

It's funny.  Last night I drafted with Schild, also in UB, with what was a much stronger deck.  And I got pounded.  This time, with 5 cards that were basically dead, I get the win.

Man I am reading through the Draft Viewer up on the WotC Daily MTG page today and JFC some of these drafts are inexplicable.

First pick Shiv's over Armored Ascension? First pick Sign in Blood over Corrupt, Condemn, or Cyclops Gladiator? 2nd pick Diminish over Cyclops Gladiator when you already first picked a Chandra's? (And that last one was also over the aforementioned Condemn and Corrupt).

Hmm.

I think Cyclops Gladiator, unless you are near to mono red, is actually a bad pick.  Honestly, the last few times I've picked him he's sat lonely in my hand while I finished the game with beats or he didn't even make my deck.  Too red mana intensive for too little effect.

Corrupt, which I will first pick all day, can also be a really bad card if you have a temp/aggro strategy.  Too pricey for not enough effect in a dual or tri color decks.  If you are running Bx aggro, I'd debate taking Sign over Corrupt too.  Sign is either card draw or a finisher (nothing better than killing an opponent with Sign!)

Condemn should be a first pick unless you aren't in white.  Probably the second or third best removal in the format, after Doom Blade and Quag Sickness (but many people undervalue that card).  Some drafts, Condemn is just plain superior to Doom if there are lots of black decks running around.

Well, my latest draft has been weird to say the least.  I drafted a pile of great R/B removal, but there are few if any R/B creatures to speak of.

3 x Quag Sickness
1 x Doom Blade
2 x Lightning Bolt
1 x Corrupt
1 x Chandra Outrage

Also 1 x Combust and 1 x Deathmark that I can swap in.

2 x Fire Servant, a Howling Bainshee, and 2 x Nightwing Shade are "good" creatures, with a some filler.


Even standard late picks like Hell Hounds and Barony Vamp/Nether Horror were nowhere to be found.

I just got called "horrible" by some dude I beat for splashing red for lightning bolt and volcanic strength (with 3 sacred wolves).  :oh_i_see:

Just started another draft.

This is going to be sick.

Those guys are tools.  It hasn't happened to me too much lately, but last week a guy called me a newb and congratulated me on my draws after I used Mind Reversal and 2xJace Erasure to mill him.


I'll admit I undervalue auras, but even to me 3 x Sacred Wolf and a pump aura is ridiculously good.  Sacred Wolf and Shiv's or Armored Ascension is pretty much a "good game" moment.

Running a 4322 now with a green fatty deck.  4! Llanowar elves, cultivate a bunch worms and the pack leader to draw cards off, Armored ascension to make fat into FAT and a fireball with lots of mana for the finisher.  Crushed my first round opponent; 2 wins in 9 minutes.  Course with no real removal or tricks to speak of the fattys better come out fast and furious. :)

That was a fun one  Came in 2nd overall mainly b/c not enough flying defense and drawing like 4 lands in a row when drawing 1 of 6 other spells would have won me game 3.  Some games went like

1: forest, elf
2: forest, elf, garruks companion
3: plains, spined wurm, attack for 3
4: another land attack with everyone for 10

The forces of good win again!  Won a 4322 with a BWr deck.  The relevant picks were below, and the nice thing was i got to use almost every card to help me win some way or another.  Actually pulled off the Lich + Ornithoper combo on turn 3 and thought i had that game in the bag until my opponent played Day of Judgement (but still won).  Another match had my opponent run out 5 flyers in a row (3 hawks, a pegasus and cloud elemental) but i kept drawing quag sickness, doom blade and stabbing pain to fend them off until i could play some critters of my own.  Had a cloaked lion go all the way for 20 damage, killed a guy with sign in blood and fling for exact...it was just a fun variety of games.
Oh, and i hate drafted a Frost Titan :)

 Serra Angel
 Lightning Bolt
 Doom Blade
 Quag Sickness x3
 Fling
 Sign in Blood x2
 Terramorphic Expanse x2
 Infantry Veteran
 Diabolic Tutor
 Tireless Missionaries
 Armored Ascension
 White Knight
 Reassembling Skeleton
 Liliana's Specter
 Prodigal Pyromancer
 Safe Passage
 Celestial Purge
 Nether Horror
 Silvercoat Lion
 Solemn Offering
 Whispersilk Cloak
 Nightwing Shade
 Siege Mastodon
 Phylactery Lich
 Assassinate
 Stabbing Pain
 Ornithopter

Came in second in a 4322 with this suboptimal GR brew.  Removal lite to be sure, and tough to deal with flyers which was ultimately my undoing, but many decks just can't deal with dropping 3 power plus guys turn after turn.  My opponent in round 3 had 4! Squadron Hawks, 2 infantry vetrans and a fireball or lightning bolt finisher.  He was all in suicide white weenie flyers since the odds of him having a hawk in his opening hand were nuts, so turns 2-5 were always hawks.  Wish i had been able to find a giant spider, pyroclasm, or another plummet b/c each game was close.  My fattys were slower but by turn 4 I was putting out 5 power guys or hasters and doing massive swings, but after taking 3+ turns of damage from multiple pumped hawks was low enough to get fireballed out.  In one game he was at 15 life, I had a 6/4 Wurm, 5/5 hydra, and cast act of treason on his only 2/2 blocker, and thunder strike on one of my guys; would have killed him when i attacked for 15 but he had the bolt for his 2/2 guy.  These were games were inferno titans would have been gold but never saw him.

Didnt play but watched another match where a guy tried to run a full on mill deck with multiple Jace's Ingeunity, 3-4 Tome Scours, 2 traumatize and some card drawing and a few counters.  He might have actually been creatureless.  I may try that in a Swiss draft just for fun.

(http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/1859/m11gr091710640x480.jpg) (http://img838.imageshack.us/i/m11gr091710640x480.jpg/)

Question:
When can you use a tap ability on an artifact? Not during your turn on the turn you played it due to summoning sickness right? But can you use it during your opponent's turn or not until your turn after the turn on which you summoned it?

If it's an artifact and not an artifact creature, you can use it the turn you cast it. Artifacts do not have summoning sickness (whereas artifact creatures do).

Contagion Engine is even more rediculous then I thought. Fuck that card is stupid in limited.

By itself it doesn't seem that great to me, but I'm assuming the set has lots of counters to make it good?

All the set has is counters. I don't know why I thought a return to Mirrodin would be any better than the last visit there. Set sucks. It feels like they mashed Fallen Empires and like, I don't know, The Dark together. It's terrible.

Ha ha, Fallen Empires and The Dark, yikes.

The idea of an artifact-centric block just seems dumb to me. Magic is 5 colors and a splash of artifacts, elevating artifacts to the main attraction is like an all-dessert restaurant.

I dunno, Zendikar was a land-centric block and that worked out fine.

It's not the artifact part that's annoying. It's the poison counters and any other counter you can recur due to proliferate that makes it feel like Fallen Empires. Might as well be making spore and thallid crap.

I say The Dark just because it's full of dumb overcosted crap with a shining card here and there like Maze of Ith was way back when.

You saw that it puts -1/-1 on every creature the opponent has for 6 and if you untap with it gives all those creatures -2/-2 for 4 next turn and if they have a poison counter on them gives your opponent +2 poison counters right? Its playable without playing an infect deck if only to eat up one of their artifact removal spells.

I was only talking about the card standing by itself which is nothing special then.  I wasn't aware how counter heavy scars was so I'm guessing its amazing in the set, possibly first pick good.

Its not constructed material but its first pick in draft I'd say if you are going anything but rush down aggro/tempo. Schild overstates how many counters are in the set I'd say. Blue gets proliferate and Green and Black get infect and there are a few artifacts for both mechanics. Also at this point neither infect or proliferate are going to make standard though after the rest of the block comes out that will likely change.