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[Magic: The Gathering] Our House, in the Middle of Our House, in the Middle of Our House

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  • Sir FabulousSir Fabulous Malevolent Squid God Registered User regular
    edited June 13
    Peewi wrote: »
    I tried drafting MH3. I was pretty happy with my decks right up until I went 2/3 and 1/3.

    I tried using 17Lands and I'm a little confused about what it actually offers. There's a bunch of data that seems difficult to read, and it logs your drafts. Does it not offer hints on what to pick during the draft?

    17 lands offers a ton of data. It does not offer it in a nice little GUI or anything but it's there if you know how to look for it.

    First of all, it's very very early in the set, so I wouldn't trust the data entirely yet. Sometimes a card looks good during previews and underperforms and the reverse is true as well. Innocuous cards that over perform. These are the types of cards that 17 lands will eventually help people figure out, but at this stage it's all pretty chaotic. If you're not confident enough in your draft skills to go in without an outside resource (which is totally fine), you might want to wait at least a week for the trends to appear.

    Secondly, as with all data, there is no one statistic that will tell you the best card. You'll have to use multiple stats to try to figure out what you're looking for, and every statistic you use will be biased in some way or another.

    Here are some of the more helpful sections of 17 lands to get used to. These are all found in the analytics tab.

    1. Deck colour data:
    This will give you a rough idea of the metagame. It tells you how many decks of which colours have been drafted, and their winrates. Only useful for a broad look but it can tell you some important things: a) if there are colour combinations that are really weak or really strong, (for example if most colour combinations have like 20,000 decks but W/G has 12,000 and a 47% winrate, it means that that colour pair is probably very weak and you should value white and green cards a little bit lower than normal) and b) how good colour fixing is in the format. Usually draft decks perform best if they are two colours, often splashing for one or two off-colour bombs. But the triple colour sac lands in MH3 are probably going to lead to a lot more 3-colour decks. You can use this tab to get an idea of whether 3 colour decks are doing better or worse in general than 2 colour decks.

    2. Card Data:
    This is like the meat and potatoes of 17 lands. Lists every card in the format and a bunch of stats for each of them. If you are looking for a *rough* idea of which card to first pick, the best stat to use is probably ALSA (Average Last Seen At). This tells you how likely a card is to be passed to you. An ALSA of less than 1.5 means that the *majority* of the time it is opened in a pack, it is immediately chosen. Game-winning bombs have ALSAs of <2, good cards will have ALSA of <5, and once you start getting into around ALSA of 7 is when you're getting to cards that are cut from the deck more often than not. You can also check winrates for specific cards being in your deck and a few other specifics. Some people like to look at IWD (Improvement When Drawn). A high IWD means that drawing a card makes you significantly more likely to win the game if you draw it, while a negative IWD means you actually become *less* likely to win if you draw it (it's a bad card). Don't base your whole draft on IWD, though, it can be misleading.

    Card Data Comparison:
    My favourite tab. Lets you graph the data found in the card data table. Go wild with visualizing data. I would say my favourite graph is a graph of Card In Deck Win % v. Game In Hand Win %.
    This usually makes it pretty clear the relative strength of each colour and also lets you visualize specific cards that are way over- or under-performing relative to their own archetype.
    Right now for example I can see that the early data is pointing to Writhing Chrysalis way outperforming every other common. Which means it will likely start to be more contested in the future.

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  • Sir FabulousSir Fabulous Malevolent Squid God Registered User regular
    edited June 13
    yx8jgg5gbfef.png

    See, here's the above graph with the commons of the set. Like I said, it's early days so take this with a grain of salt. But here you can see that decks which run Writhing Chrysalis are winning a lot compared with decks that aren't. AND in addition to that, if you actually draw your Writhing Chrysalis, your chance of winning goes up way higher than usual for a common.

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  • milskimilski Poyo! Registered User regular
    Writhing Crysalis is so, so cracked, it's nuts.

    I ate an engineer
  • Evil MultifariousEvil Multifarious Registered User regular
    @Zavian here's the list I'm tinkering with

    https://archidekt.com/decks/7965946/corams_gravehammer

    I think it's just splashing red and I want more red cards in there, but I'm basing it on my existing Kagha deck so it's very black/green right now

    Some other notables:
    - Chainer, Nightmare Adept is excellent recursion for this deck. You're putting stuff in the graveyard already, and sometimes you WANT to discard since an expensive beefy boy in your hand would do you more favours in the graveyard. And, crucially, any creatures you reanimate or cast from the graveyard with him, Kagha or Coram will have haste. A must-include, imo.
    - Gravebreaker Lamia is a graveyard tutor, so it's very strong in this kind of deck — since it comes from your library, Coram lets you cast it right away, and the Lamia offers you a discount on that cast. Might be too much for very casual decks since you can grab a wincon.
    - Feldon of the Third Path loves full graveyards and is another way to get a scary hasty creature out. Since it's a copy, it won't remove a creature who's currently granting Coram a high power, either.

    If you go for the heavy mill strategy like I have, you can also throw in an Angel of Suffering, who will keep you from dying and prevent people from attacking you. But she will also potentially lead to you milling your whole deck. As long as you have some dredge cards in the yard, that's okay, because you can't deck out from mill, and you can replace your draw with the dredge, but still.

  • SonelanSonelan Registered User regular
    Are MTG Arena Zone tier lists and stuff considered ok? Doing a quick draft and trying to figure out if its a decent site since i think the 17lands tier lists are made by random people so I am just looking at whatever joe bob thinks is good there.

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  • milskimilski Poyo! Registered User regular
    Sonelan wrote: »
    Are MTG Arena Zone tier lists and stuff considered ok? Doing a quick draft and trying to figure out if its a decent site since i think the 17lands tier lists are made by random people so I am just looking at whatever joe bob thinks is good there.

    If you're talking about Limited, then 17lands data is what you'd want to look at on that site, not the user created tier lists.

    MTGAzone has pretty good written articles ranking all cards for the draft format and uses those rankings to put together a tier list, and it's usually written by somebody who is pretty good at draft. I like them a good bit, and Channel Fireball is probably your gold standard for "articles written by people who actually play Limited really well".

    I ate an engineer
  • never dienever die Registered User regular
    I find it a bit odd that to use the MH3 market at all, you need to purchase into it on Arena. However, you earn the tickets through daily rewards.

    I feel like I have no incentive to engage with it until near the last day when I can look at what all tickets I have and cash it in if I feel it is worth it.

  • Munkus BeaverMunkus Beaver You don't have to attend every argument you are invited to. Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    never die wrote: »
    I find it a bit odd that to use the MH3 market at all, you need to purchase into it on Arena. However, you earn the tickets through daily rewards.

    I feel like I have no incentive to engage with it until near the last day when I can look at what all tickets I have and cash it in if I feel it is worth it.

    Unless you really want one of the avatars, it’s not.

    Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
  • admanbadmanb unionize your workplace Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited June 13
    Sonelan wrote: »
    Are MTG Arena Zone tier lists and stuff considered ok? Doing a quick draft and trying to figure out if its a decent site since i think the 17lands tier lists are made by random people so I am just looking at whatever joe bob thinks is good there.

    Deathsie's tier lists are generally very good.

    I exclusively Premier draft so overlaid data is really important for me, so I use the Untapped.gg companion on set release, which shows LSV's ratings. Those are pre-release ratings so they don't reflect how the format shakes out, but they're great for guiding your eyes towards cards you might otherwise pass over, like mythic commons as early picks.

    Through untapped you can also use Draftsmith, which gives more specific data based on win rates and takes your current deck into account. It costs money but you can do five drafts for free to try it out. I don't bother because while I like it in a format I'm unfamiliar with it ends up feeling way too guided once you know what you're doing. And that's the same thing I get out of LSV's ratings.

    admanb on
  • SonelanSonelan Registered User regular
    edited June 13
    Anyone want to comment on the draft and deck? And yes I fucked up picking Sharea. I was trying to see what she did and picked her on accident. https://www.17lands.com/user_history/924fbd005d514e71abdbf1349dd9fd3e

    Sonelan on
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  • VyolynceVyolynce Registered User regular
    never die wrote: »
    I find it a bit odd that to use the MH3 market at all, you need to purchase into it on Arena. However, you earn the tickets through daily rewards.

    I feel like I have no incentive to engage with it until near the last day when I can look at what all tickets I have and cash it in if I feel it is worth it.

    Unless you really want one of the avatars, it’s not.

    Yeah I can pay 2800 gems to trade tix for a draft token that only costs 1500. At least with the Mastery Pass I get other things.

  • admanbadmanb unionize your workplace Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    Sonelan wrote: »
    Anyone want to comment on the draft and deck? And yes I fucked up picking Sharea. I was trying to see what she did and picked her on accident.

    I don't think you posted one.

  • SonelanSonelan Registered User regular
    edited June 13
    admanb wrote: »
    Sonelan wrote: »
    Anyone want to comment on the draft and deck? And yes I fucked up picking Sharea. I was trying to see what she did and picked her on accident.

    I don't think you posted one.

    Oh god dangit fixed it. EDIT: Also I figure I should probally drop the witch but not sure what else to drop to 40.

    Sonelan on
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  • Sir FabulousSir Fabulous Malevolent Squid God Registered User regular
    edited June 13
    I would take out a Disdainful Stroke and an Apple.

    You're trying to bleed them out with fairies, and 4 counterspells is a lot. You probably want to have them dead to rights before the second disdainful stroke would come into play.

    Apple is one of your finishers but it's a bit clunky. You don't want to be in a situation where you have two 4-cost-deal-3's in your hand.

    But I also haven't played WOE in a long time so I could be missing something.

    Edit: And I'd cut Sugar Rush before your witch. You only have two 3 drops and even though the witch isn't great in this deck, two mana for +3/+0 is rough, even if it does replace itself.

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  • milskimilski Poyo! Registered User regular
    edited June 13
    Sonelan wrote: »
    Anyone want to comment on the draft and deck? And yes I fucked up picking Sharea. I was trying to see what she did and picked her on accident. https://www.17lands.com/user_history/924fbd005d514e71abdbf1349dd9fd3e

    Thoughts:
    • I like how open you're keeping yourself in the early part of the first pack, grabbing good cards in a variety of colors. I think that maybe Totentaz could have been the ratcatcher since that's a bit more self-contained and only red, but otherwise no real issues here.
    • That said, I do think you've given yourself two very different lanes between RB go-wide aggro and UB faeries, so you've got to keep that in mind going into the next pack.
    • At the end of Pack 1, you pick Sleight of Hand over Beluna's gatekeeper. I think this is pretty incorrect; you definitely aren't in UR spells, so sleight of hand is pretty useless, while gatekeeper is still early interaction and can top-end a deck (not well, but it's there).
    • Pack 2 Pick 1, I think Curiosity is simply the wrong pick. It's a terrible card for Limited and it's not rated highly, and you passed up good black and red aggro creatures and removal to grab it.
    • I think as you go through pack 2, not narrowing things down is hurting you. You're definitely in blue and looking towards a faeries plan, with some spells to keep things open for BR. you either need to be taking strong white cards and pivoting or taking black cards for the faeries plan or taking strong red cards to make UR faeries/spells work, but doing all three is leaving you with a lot of cards that are going to be dead in one build or the other.
    • I think in Pack 2 Pick 10, you should have looked at your curve; you have three counterspells already and no 3 drops, so while Dimisher Witch isn't incredible for your build it's probably the pick.
    • Pack 3 Pick 1, you're waaaaay out of your lane trying to pick a GR card at this point. The pack isn't amazing for you but there's no way you're running Picnic Ruiner in your build.

    I think you kind of have to stick to the plan you've got but cut a disdainful stroke (less good early, spell stutter should catch most big stuff) and an apple and sort of hope to fly over them or stall for time. Curiosity also feels like an obvious cut here since it's really unlikely to pay off for you even with your fliers, and you don't actually have that many creatures to begin with.

    milski on
    I ate an engineer
  • SonelanSonelan Registered User regular
    Thanks for the advice and tips! Yea I have a hard time figuring out when to go in and when to keep my options open.

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  • SonelanSonelan Registered User regular
    Welp got to 4 wins that time. I always top out at 4 or 5 wins lol.

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  • VyolynceVyolynce Registered User regular
    Sonelan wrote: »
    Welp got to 4 wins that time. I always top out at 4 or 5 wins lol.

    Winning more than you lose is always good. Especially in Bo1, where any number of random things completely out of your control can cost you 3 games easily.

  • Sir FabulousSir Fabulous Malevolent Squid God Registered User regular
    Yeah I took a look at the games, too.

    Putting aside the first loss, which you were mana screwed something fierce which is beyond your control, your losses came about from your lack of good creature quality. You had a bunch of counterspells just bogging down your hand every game and if 2 or 3 of those counterspells had been 2 or 3 drops, you'd have been in a much better place.

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  • BadablackBadablack Registered User regular
    A couple mana screws in a row definitely gets me to go angrily do something productive instead.

    Muttering and gnashing my teeth as I wash the car or do my taxes.

    FC: 1435-5383-0883
  • Munkus BeaverMunkus Beaver You don't have to attend every argument you are invited to. Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    I have lost almost every brawl I played today.

    Some because of mobile controls, some bad draws/bad beats, and a couple because I am bad.

    Then I bust out the rats and get a win.

    Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
  • jmcdonaldjmcdonald I voted, did you? DC(ish)Registered User regular
    Vyolynce wrote: »
    Sonelan wrote: »
    Welp got to 4 wins that time. I always top out at 4 or 5 wins lol.

    Winning more than you lose is always good. Especially in Bo1, where any number of random things completely out of your control can cost you 3 games easily.

    This 100%

    I’ve had cracked drafts go 0-3 and had mediocre decks win out. Sometimes you hit a streak of opponents who curve every game. Sometimes you never draw any gas. Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you.

  • akajaybayakajaybay Registered User regular
    I usually try not to get stressed about the Arena rankings beyond like Platinum to get some packs each season. But it's tough when you hit that one pip away from Mythic end of things and then slowly backslide away from it.

  • SLyMSLyM Registered User regular
    edited June 13
    yeah so I think Nadu should 100% be one off the 1800 point commanders. There are so many 1 cost blue or green instants that give protection that trying to remove him with anything outside of a wrath effect is just going to give your opponents free value. He's also a 3/4 flying body for 3 which is harder to deal with using combat damage than you might expect, particularly because a lot of those protection spells also leave +1/+1 counters and royal role tokens on him. After playing a decent number games with a deck that is probably like 60% optimized, I basically only lose if I'm on the draw against aggro, or he gets countered the first 3 times I try to play him.

    SLyM on
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  • SonelanSonelan Registered User regular
    Aw just realized I am 30 gems away from getting to try a sealed MH3 thing.

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  • VyolynceVyolynce Registered User regular
    akajaybay wrote: »
    I usually try not to get stressed about the Arena rankings beyond like Platinum to get some packs each season. But it's tough when you hit that one pip away from Mythic end of things and then slowly backslide away from it.

    Yeah my ranked play stops at constructed Gold and limited Platinum, although I do allow that to naturally creep into Diamond if there are formats I can tolerate playing Bo1. Chasing Mythic is for people who are willing to spend money (or have better winrates).

  • SonelanSonelan Registered User regular
    I have no idea how the ranks work. Is plat2/1 good? Thats where I am bouncing between this season. Highest was 1 win away from what ever is after plat.

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  • Munkus BeaverMunkus Beaver You don't have to attend every argument you are invited to. Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    edited June 14
    It goes bronze to mythic

    Edit: I think plat is roughly average? Somewhere between gold and plat

    Munkus Beaver on
    Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
  • SonelanSonelan Registered User regular
    Woo I am not terrible!

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  • SonelanSonelan Registered User regular
    If you use a kicker does it affect if a spell is affected by protection from color?

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  • Munkus BeaverMunkus Beaver You don't have to attend every argument you are invited to. Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    Sonelan wrote: »
    If you use a kicker does it affect if a spell is affected by protection from color?

    No, additional costs do not effect color.

    Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
  • VyolynceVyolynce Registered User regular
    edited June 14
    Sonelan wrote: »
    If you use a kicker does it affect if a spell is affected by protection from color?

    No, a spell's color is solely determined by the colors of mana in its cost*. Any additional costs will affect color identity (used to determine legality in Brawl/Commander), but not color.

    *Or sometimes its color indicator, for spells/card faces without costs.

    Of course, if you're playing MH3 there's devoid to deal with, which is actually relevant in a few ways, but for the most part just look at the upper corner.

    Vyolynce on
  • Munkus BeaverMunkus Beaver You don't have to attend every argument you are invited to. Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    To add to what Vyo said, you look at two spots. The first is just the mana symbols on the top of the card. Like here with Sorin
    p6mscn2bscmc.png

    But he has no cost area after he transforms
    6c35xp93472p.png

    So they have a little circle to tell you what colors he is
    zu7uas1a3tzf.png
    He's black/white

    Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
  • SonelanSonelan Registered User regular
    Ah gotcha thanks yall. Also unrelated but woo just hit diamond 4.

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  • IlpalaIlpala Just this guy, y'know TexasRegistered User regular
    edited June 14
    Couple of 7-X decks. Ulalek is not a meme.

    Orzhov modified
    1iq4008le56e.png

    Eldrazi
    34kvi35ac5ni.png

    Eldrazi are so cracked. Ulalek and the Nantuko of course led to shenanigans, but my filthiest game went t2 Sage of the Unknowable, t3 Writhing Chrysalis, t4 Writhing Chrysalis and an island, sac all the tokens for Unfathomable Truths, swing in for 6, t5 Suppression Ray to tap their board, sac the token for lethal. The opponent promptly proceded to spam "Nice!" non-stop until they timed out, and I honestly could not blame them.

    Edit: There is an important note to play with Ulalek, though. Turn OFF Automated Trigger Ordering in gameplay settings. It frequently put Ulalek's trigger at the bottom of the stack and it needs to be as close to the top as possible (ideally on top but if you have a spawn trigger you need to pay for it, that can go first)

    Ilpala on
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  • admanbadmanb unionize your workplace Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    7-2 with this nutso pile. The two games I lost were against pretty aggressive decks when I had no drops until turn 4.
    7iqev304ky8a.png

    Grist was amazing for gumming up the board and Shilgengar just won games. In one game between Victimize (which also brought in Grist) and Gravedig I played Shilgengar three times. The third time I put Strength of the Harvest on him and he was eventually a 17/17. Territory Culler was prolly my next best card.

    The Psychic Frog was my last add when I realized I could easily have three land sources, and my curve felt low enough that I could risk the card. I only ended up casting it once, but my opponent did concede on the spot so it seemed good.

  • admanbadmanb unionize your workplace Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    Collective Resistance is cracked btw. There’s a lot of Enchantment and Artifact creatures running around even aside from non-creature bombs, and the worst case being a save vs a trade or removal is fantastic. The card was a 2-for-1 every time I played it, and I played it at least four times.

    (Including against one opponent who had four Cranial Rams!)

  • never dienever die Registered User regular
    I’m glad my patience is being rewarded with the MH3 precon. With release this weekend the price is already down to almost normal levels.

  • milskimilski Poyo! Registered User regular
    7dqbo543pmbd.png

    This deck wasn't the most powerful sealed deck I've had in this format, and it went 5-3 (the last loss was 100% my fault for miscounting), but my god was it the most fun sealed deck I've had in the format. Everything just clicked to keep the counters plan rolling. Evolving Witnesses could loop themselves or find mana, Eldrazi Ravager was a recurring draw engine with an Evolving Witness out, and the spawn gummed up the ground and presented a real win condition with either Fangs of Kaldonia or letting me just use KCommand as a combined Vampiric Tutor+++ and exile spell in the lategame if needed. The curve of broodscale into adapt + evangel + aerie auxiliary to have a 5/5 and a 5/3 and two spawn T4 was also just brutal.

    I ate an engineer
  • SonelanSonelan Registered User regular
    Ok I found my first reason to hate alchemy. Slimes against humanity. Fuck that broken ass card.

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