Board 8 > Magic the Gathering: Kaldheim spoiler season etc

(+) Yeah! (+)

Verdant Mastery is gross.

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Congrats, plum.

I've only had time to do one sealed since the weekend, and I went 2-3. Silverquill with tons of removal and good uncommons/rares, but only three creatures at 1 or 2 mana meant I couldn't go very aggressive and I lost out on the value game.

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My biggest train wreck of a draft was when my first 4 picks were something like closing statement, flunk, flunk, Lash of malice

And I was feeling great because in a normal draft set 4 straight solid removal spells would be awesome.

Deck did not come together at all. Turns out with so many 2 for 1s due to learn cards removal is just not as good this set. It's still fine when paired with pressure, but an all black removal control deck can not win in this format.

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That's a really good point, yeah. I thought I'd be golden with all that removal, but inefficient lesson summons are enough advantage to go around that if you don't have sufficient low drops for going aggro

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Is there any point in getting to mythic in limited? I'm up to Diamond 2 and I am wondering if I should be tempted to buy gems for drafts just to try to get there once

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Well top 1200 in Mythic for limited will qualify you for the Strixhaven May Qualifier tournament if you're into that. Other than that really the only thing I know of is an extra booster pack at the end of the month which I can't imagine means anything.
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That's a constructed tournament though right?

Don't think I really care to spend the time actually trying for that

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Same reason as ranked in general

Bragging rights and personal satisfaction

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masterplum posted...

That's a constructed tournament though right?

Yeah it's Standard if I'm remembering correctly.
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this is the dumbest thing in the world and I kinda love

https://twitter.com/MTGSecretLair/status/1385310016593272832?s=20

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That's amazing.

I wish they were just commons in the next un-set though.

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Diamond 1,

WILL I MAKE IT

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Back to back 7 win prismari decks puts me 2 wins away, but I've played too much magic today.

MAYBE TOMORROW

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Hooray

Protip: I think Prismari Tempo is the best draft deck in the format. Its not so much better than other decks that its like RW Cycling from Ikoria, but it is so good both at playing the short game and the long game

I'm getting to the point were I think Arcane Subtraction might be the best blue common over bury in books

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I'm #401, does this mean I should stop playing

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masterplum posted...

I'm getting to the point were I think Arcane Subtraction might be the best blue common over bury in books

I don't know this format very well, being as I have never played a game, but are those really the contenders over Frost Trickster? I guess magecraft is just that good?

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masterplum posted...

I'm #401, does this mean I should stop playing

go for #1

also, grats

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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)

The only meaning the numbers have right now beyond bragging rights though is just that 1200 is the cutoff for entry to that one (constructed) tournament, so if you don't care about that then just play as much as you want. (It is free entry though, and if nothing else you'll get gems if you win a match)
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Also as far Arcane Subtraction goes--I don't know the format very well yet, but I feel pretty confident in the assessment that any cheap spell that says Learn on it and does anything is already quite good. The mechanic seems really good in limited especially when some of the lesson cards just give you relatively on-curve creature tokens.
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Sceptilesolar posted...

I don't know this format very well, being as I have never played a game, but are those really the contenders over Frost Trickster? I guess magecraft is just that good?

It's less mage craft, and more that learn is an absurd mechanic. I think if learn cards were just called "Combat trick command" and had all the options written out people would realize how good it is.

I have both used arcane subtraction to pull an environmental sciences to hit my 5th land for a pivotal pigment storm, and cycled it to get a fractal summoning to slam a 6/6 the next turn.

Staple that on to you are playing a tempo deck so the opponent can't just not block and it's a 2 for 1 that gives you both tempo and card advantage at the same time

Bury in books is great because of mage craft, and it's great targeting crappy creatures because it forces your opponent's to redraw them and it's great targeting huge fractal tokens because it just kills them

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Grats on mythic!

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pyresword posted...

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)

The only meaning the numbers have right now beyond bragging rights though is just that 1200 is the cutoff for entry to that one (constructed) tournament, so if you don't care about that then just play as much as you want. (It is free entry though, and if nothing else you'll get gems if you win a match)

My friend tried to get top 1200 not too long ago, for entry into the last tournament (around the Sealed Open that did the same I think?). Despite the less populated limited ladder, there were still enough people for it to become VERY competitive in that last week. Rank decays pretty aggressively, and you have to maintain pretty high WR to make the cut. They fell out of ranked trying to maintain 1200 status from 800 and couldn't do it.

I dont know the tournament schedule so that could change if it's a lower-stake one. And 400 is a pretty high starting rank. Things could be different, idk.

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The stakes are the exact same but this one is constructed (Standard) and not Sealed. I could potentially see that more limited players were shooting for mythic during the month when the qualifier was a limited event, but that's just speculation and I don't have any experience with getting to mythic in limited.

I have gotten top 1200 mythic several times in constructed, and at least there it's definitely true that rank decreases a lot* especially during the final couple of days. I kept track of it a few times and if I'm remembering right I think I dropped like 400 places in the final 24 hours once. 400 this far out probably wouldn't be safe in constructed. I'd probably want like 200 or something, and even then I'd be watching my rank pretty closely as the season end came nearer. But again I expect there's less people competing for limited and I don't know how it would work there.

*I should mention that my understanding is that there's nothing like ELO decay or anything. I believe all that happens is that other people are playing and passing you to get to a higher rating than you, which makes it look like you're dropping when you look at your rank.
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in 4 hours I decayed 14 spots

On that pace I would decay to mid 1000's by seasons end, but that will probably pick up as we get closer.

I'll probably take a break for a few days and then start playing again if it looks close

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Yeah I expect a hockey stick effect as the deadline draws nearer

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UltimaterializerX posted...

So should I value Learn and Lessons highly tonight over removal? This set makes removal seem pointless outside of Bury in Books.

I do think removal is worse than usual in this set, though the red removal is still good.

I think the biggest suggestion I can give is this set is the most cube like set in a decade. The BEST decks are going to look nearly constructed

If you are silverquill you need to go balls to the wall 4X tragic poet aggro. If you are witherbloom you need to basically be a combo deck. If you are quandrix you should be making multiple 8/8 fractals.

Prismari Tempo is my favorite deck because you can win without doing something stupid because you lock down the ground with the hybrid 3/3s and fly over the top burning everything that can block you.

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Drafted a pretty silly deck with 2x Returned Pastcaller, Time Warp, Lorehold Command and Prismari Command. The mana base was jacked up, so I only got 3 wins, but looping Pastcallers forever is fun.

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Every PW poll on this board, my brain reads as "favorite p1p1?"

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#459 without playing since yesterday. Dropping only 58 spots over 24 hours on a weekend makes me think I might be safe. Well see I suppose

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Just lost to someone playing 3 mainboard Tangletraps.

Deleting my Arena account.

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modal cards are OP

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I lost to someone who basically drew his whole deck and I thought I was going to win because I wiped the board and then it turned out one of the last cards he had was Blue Suns Zenith which he cast targeting me to make me draw the rest of my deck instead.

wild stuff happens in this format
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If he beat you with those three Tangletraps who's the crazy one? Okay, probably still him for playing three of them main deck, but sometimes even a bad plan is going to work out.

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I mean, theres a lot of flyers in this environment.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

Tangletrap is 100% worth mainboarding with all the Inkling tokens flying around, not to mention laughably broken limited artifacts like Poets Quill and the flag.

Please kill my inkling token with tangle trap. I am so happy if you trade cards one for one with my lesson from the side board

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.... LSVs job is working for a subscription site that produces magic articles, not playing magic.

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This format is so crazy. My last draft run I beat someone who took 3 turns in a row by recurring Time Warp! I've never seen a format like this.

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I still don't know much about Strixhaven limited, but I felt Broken Wings was able to be maindecked in both Zendikar Rising and Kaldheim.

3 in the maindeck is...quite suspect though I would think.
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pyresword posted...

I still don't know much about Strixhaven limited, but I felt Broken Wings was able to be maindecked in both Zendikar Rising and Kaldheim.

3 in the maindeck is...quite suspect though I would think.

Its worse in this format. You can get obliterated by decks that never play a flier too easily

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

This format is so crazy. My last draft run I beat someone who took 3 turns in a row by recurring Time Warp! I've never seen a format like this.

How did you win?

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masterplum posted...

Its worse in this format. You can get obliterated by decks that never play a flier too easily

Yeah, Kaldheim specifically had a lot of targets for something like Broken Wings with all the sagas and viable equipment running around. In best of 1 you were definitely able to make a case for running a narrow card like that in the main.

This set has almost zero artifacts worth mentioning, so that half of the card is entirely worthless in 98% of your games. There are a few good fliers even at common in the format, but it's still too narrow for my tastes to spend a slot in the 40 in a best of 1 match.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

How did you win?

It's probably less cool than it sounds. The board had stalled out but theirs was geared to win the long game with two 7/7s that kept growing. I had a solid defense with one of the 1/1 deathouch fliers and some medium-sized creatures but also a Vortex Runner that eventually put them on a clock. When it finally forced them to attack me and take extra turns I had an Arcane Subtraction that gave me insane blocks so on the second and third turns they had no follow up.

Edit: Oh they had also tried to go off earlier on me which probably would have won it for them, but I had Divide By Zero to stall a turn and was able to stall harder afterwards (I think by making a huge fractal with the Lesson they had to get rid of first, which they did, but wasted time)

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Man I absolutely love beating Sultai Ultimatum decks by sideboarding in Lullmage's Domination and I don't know why.

Nice Koma you brought in. Would be a shame if something happened to it. (Usually it's meant for Polukranos, but whatever I'll take it...)
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With 2 days to go, still #766.

On one hand, yay.

on the other, dammit Im going to have to start playing standard best of 3 to practice. I dont even know where to start

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

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