Board 8 > Magic the Gathering: Kaldheim spoiler season etc

(+) Yeah! (+)

The Mana Sword posted...

I don't bother too much with Standard these days, but it seems like Sultai is still probably the "best" deck right now.

Sultai is probably the deck I've played most in Best of 1 (And by played most, I mean I've played the deck in probably 20 games total)

But its also probably a harder deck to pilot? Trying to weigh the pros and cons of playing a deck I want to play versus just jamming mono red or something

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There are definitely a lot of decision points, but I haven't found it excessively difficult the times I have played (my play rate is probably similar to yours).

But I also have a natural inclination towards more controlling decks and personally have harder time piloting aggro, so YMMV.

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Imo the best standard decks right now are Sultai Ramp, Temur Adventures, and Dimir Rogues. Cycling, mono red, and mono white are also definitely playable, although I'd put them below the other 3.

Personally I think rogues is the strongest deck, but it's also probably the hardest one to play and definitely requires a solid understanding of the meta as a whole. (You need to know what spells in each of the top decks you need to counter) Temur is probably the easiest to pick up of the top 3. Never played mono red but I'd guess they're in a similar category in terms of difficulty. Cycling might also be worth looking into. I know sometimes it just wins by cycling a bunch and casting Zenith Flare which is pretty easy, but overall I don't really know where it falls in terms of difficulty since sometimes you'll have to make decisions between using your mana to cycle or to put out threats.

Really just play what you want though I think because there isn't a clear best deck and there's tons of things (even some I didn't mention like Naya) that are in the category where it wouldn't really be surprising to see them do well in a tournament setting,
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Although I will also say I would watch your rank carefully on the final day. In constructed you'd drop a lot more on the final day than on previous days and #766 with 2 days left probably wouldn't be safe, though again I have no idea how limited compares
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Based on what I've heard from others, I wouldn't be surprised if just getting to mythic at all in limited is enough to be in top 1200, since the number of players getting to mythic in limited is much less than in constructed. (ie. If there are less than 1200 players who get to mythic in limited it doesn't matter how much you play now since you can't drop out of mythic)

Im currently ranked 1360 in mythic playing against someone whose rank is 90%, so theres gotta be at least 1500, probably like 2000 people in mythic right now.
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Played exactly one best of 3 sultai control match last night to practice and it took an hour.

I honestly think Im both not going to try to make top 1200 if I slip or actually practice for it, because I would probably drive myself crazy trying to find enough time.

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Mythic always shows top 1500 and below that percentages. 90% is a pretty extreme low for Mythic, though.

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Well darn.

I fell to 1130 and figured that wasn't quite good enough, then had my opponents top deck lethal two games in a row and now I'm basically out of it.

Oh well. Was pretty meh about practicing standard anyways

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masterplum posted...

Oh well. Was pretty meh about practicing standard anyways

Yeah I can see this. I've never really gone out of my way to practice for these qualifier events, but on the other hand I'm also mostly playing constructed anyways just because I enjoy it much more than limited.
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oh, it didn't end at midnight. It ended earlier than that.

I probably could have held pat and made it then. Darn.

Oh well. Once again, standard.

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Curious what people with more experience than I think of this draft deck:

https://i.imgur.com/2Z2RTZn.png

The lessons on the right are not actually in the main deck itself but I moved them in for the sake of including everything relevant easily in an image.

My general take is that overall the deck is not quite there. However the presence specifically of Crackle in Power (which I picked up like...Pack 3 Pick 5???) allows me to "cheese" games with somewhat more consistency than that terms suggests by stalling out the game and eventually casting a huge Crackle in Power.

That said I also just won a game with relative ease against what was apparently another 3-0 deck without ever drawing Crackle in Power by just playing straight Quandrix tempo, and I've been somewhat bad at evaluating deck power level in this format before.
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pyresword posted...

Curious what people with more experience than I think of this draft deck:

https://i.imgur.com/2Z2RTZn.png

The lessons on the right are not actually in the main deck itself but I moved them in for the sake of including everything relevant easily in an image.

My general take is that overall the deck is not quite there. However the presence specifically of Crackle in Power (which I picked up like...Pack 3 Pick 5???) allows me to "cheese" games with somewhat more consistency than that terms suggests by stalling out the game and eventually casting a huge Crackle in Power.

That said I also just won a game with relative ease against what was apparently another 3-0 deck without ever drawing Crackle in Power by just playing straight Quandrix tempo, and I've been

somewhat bad at evaluating deck power level in this format before.

I think the deck would be better not playing Red at all. Crackle with power is fine, but not worth destroying your mana over.

Also reject is very bad, but if that is really the best you got I would cut the 3 red cards

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I'm not particularly happy to play 2 Reject (or 2 Soothsayer Adept for that matter...), but my on-color alternatives are like--Strategic Planning, Devouring Tendrils, and Witherbloom Pledgemage.

Strategic Planning is fine but I felt the way the deck loses is by falling too behind in the early game, and the presence of Reject specifically was intended to mitigate that.

Devouring Tendrils is also fine but I felt I was already toeing the line of having too many fight-like effects for the number of creatures I have. This could be a misevaluation.

Witherbloom Pledgemage is not much better than a 5 mana 5/5 in this deck which I guess is passable but also doesn't seem great.

The draft phase itself did not go that well for me I think. Might have tried to go into an archetype that wasn't as open as it seemed originally. I should mention there was a long period in pack 2 where I just wasn't seeing strong Quandrix cards at all and was hedging my bets by picking up some good Witherbloom cards over mediocre blue/green cards.
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I think Crackle is worth stretching your mana a bit, but probably not to this degree. If those Quandrix Campuses were Prismari Id be more hopeful about it. Spectacle Mage should definitely not be in here, and as plum said Reject is actively bad. I think Soothsayer sucks too.

I think youre probably better served just playing two colors because that mana base is -really- stretched to accommodate Crackle, even if the card is extremely good.

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You should 100% be playing Tendrils if you have one.

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If you have tendrils 100% cut a reject and red cards

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After season reset, I am in a draft game against a guy who has played two first day of class with no follow up and a resculpt

this is definitely a win or quit magic forever game

Edit: Despite him fractal summonings for an 8/8 and a 9/9 I won

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Are there more 80%+ spell decks in this format than I realize? In a generic draft format I'm pretty confident saying that the effect of Reject is reasonable albeit not great. But obviously if there's format specific things making it bad here that's another story. (This is only my third time playing Strixhaven limited)

Cutting Spectacle Mage and Elemental Masterpiece is reasonable and in fact those already would have been the first things I would cut.

I definitely don't agree with cutting Crackle in Power for the reason that I don't know how my deck consistently wins without it. I think my deck is weak in the early game and solid but not great in the middlegame, but without red I don't really think it has much lategame strength either. Obviously the deck will be more "consistent" but I think it would have to be so close to its peak power level in order to have a fighting chance that it just doesn't matter. I think Crackle in Power at least gives me something to play for other than what I see as a poor deck with a very narrow window to press any advantage. (ie. Consistency improves the strength/frequency of your average draws but if your average draws aren't good enough than it doesn't matter. My impression is that with Crackle in Power my average draws are good enough but without it they aren't. Again I could be misevaluating the strength of just the blue/green core though)
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pyresword posted...

Are there more 80%+ spell decks in this format than I realize? In a generic draft format I'm pretty confident saying that the effect of Reject is reasonable albeit not great. But obviously if there's format specific things making it bad here that's another story. (This is only my third time playing Strixhaven limited)

Cutting Spectacle Mage and Elemental Masterpiece is reasonable and in fact those already would have been the first things I would cut.

I definitely don't agree with cutting Crackle in Power for the reason that I don't know how my deck consistently wins without it. I think my deck is weak in the early game and solid but not great in the middlegame, but without red I don't really think it has much lategame strength either. Obviously the deck will be more "consistent" but I think it would have to be so close to its peak power level in order to have a fighting chance that it just doesn't matter. I think Crackle in Power at least gives me something to play for other than what I see as a poor deck with a very narrow window to press any advantage. (ie. Consistency improves the strength/frequency of your average draws but if your average draws aren't good enough than it doesn't matter. My impression is that with Crackle in Power my average draws are good enough but without it they aren't. Again I could be misevaluating the strength of just the blue/green core though)

You cant splash double red cards. You will lose more games drawing the wrong lands than you will win by crackle and power being your 24th best card.

And yes, there are some decks where reject will never be good against

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just lost a game where I cast blot out the sky and Lorehold command twice because my opponent magma oppused down every single inkling token

Followed by a game where my opponent played two elder dragons and the ghost forge mythic

Sometimes all you can do is laugh

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After that hillarious 1-3 performance, I expect an 0-3 after this start



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in before you get cut out of Prismari in pack 2 and 3

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I am no joke currently 0-2 with this deck after being one mana short from the kill game 1 and drawing lands 4 turns in a row game 2

I am done playing magic for the day

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I lied, played more. Went to 3-2 then lost because of a bug. Not joking. Actually lost because of a bug (Though its arguable I would have won had it not bugged, but it would have been close)



This was an amazingly bad day of magic for me

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counterspell in modern, baby, get hyped!!!

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land saga what the fuck
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I'm very happy with that teaser, weird shit like that land are exactly what I want from the set

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Counterspell in modern hype!

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Urzas saga is some pure yugioh shit

which Im ok with in a modern horizons set.

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https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/welcome-summer-legend-2021-05-06

A lot of pretty cool announcements.

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I have crafted a blue green deck that across 30 matches has a w/l rate of 75% of the time absolutely dominating, and 25% mana flooded embarrassing dunks, with no inbetween.

I do not know how to fix it, lol

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What is there to fix, is 75% not a good win rate?

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I am so curious what rebalanced Oko looks like

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IfGodCouldDie posted...

What is there to fix, is 75% not a good win rate?

I mean, yeah I guess so, but the losses feel totally out of my control, which feels terrible.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I mean, yeah I guess so, but the losses feel totally out of my control, which feels terrible.

If you think this this is something that can be completely avoided in Magic, Ive got bad news for you.

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Yeah, mana ramp up to big creatures that also let me draw more for the steamroll.

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Are you playing Bookwurm?

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UltimaterializerX posted...

How do you not get run over by the aggro decks?

Maybe he's only run into aggro decks 25% of the time.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

How do you not get run over by the aggro decks?

Im not kidding, I consistently gets 8 mana in 4 turns, so aggro isnt the biggest threat. The problem is accidentally having 14 mana and no creatures on turn 8, lol.

I dont have Bookwurm, but I need him.

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Signed up for the arena open. Kind of need to play UR as I have prismari command, electrolyze and rootha

But my fixing isnt fantastic and Im short on playables.

Hmm

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Pics of your pool?

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That's what I ended up going with. Went 3-1 then lost to a turn 4 natural order for bookwurm, then kept a 3 lander and didn't draw a land for 5 turns.

Oh well. Happens

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Deck looks pretty good, shame it didn't work out.

I keep thinking about taking a shot at it, but 4.5k gems is a lot and I don't really like sealed all that much, so ehhhh.

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The Mana Sword posted...

I keep thinking about taking a shot at it, but 4.5k gems is a lot and I don't really like sealed all that much, so ehhhh.

Yeah this is the same boat I'm in. I was planning on grinding Standard Events for a while so that I could get enough coins and/or gems without paying anything, but then I got distracted by New Pokemon Snap and haven't been playing much MTGA lately.

As is, I don't like Sealed enough nor trust my ability to get a good reward enough to want to buy in.
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I think that's going to be the least of the problems with the next set. At least the flavor text on lands is just going somewhere that'd be left blank anyway.

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ok just made day 2 with an agressive Silverquill deck that had Dramatic Finish and 3 copies of study break which was pretty funny

just constantly tapping fools
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