Board 8 > Magic the Gathering: Crimson Vow of the Neon Dynasty

(+) Yeah! (+)

6th Draft: UB ninjas (4-3) - This could be my bad, but I don't think ninjas are very good. Not only did I barely get above even, my win rate against UB is 9-4. Either too many people are trying draft it (untapped does say it's the most played archetype, if only by 1-2%) or it's just not good. I had the same problem with this deck as the U/R deck from my phantom draft - too many small creatures.

7th Draft: RW always read your signals (2-3?) - Things went pretty bad for me here because I did not read the signals well. I got several good green cards early in pack one then it dried up completely. I thought I could still get some good green in pack 2 so I picked up white cards that would work well with W/G and it was even more dire in pack two. By the time I realize I need to move into red I've passed too many cards that would would have worked in the deck. I also got mana screwed in 2 out of 3 loses, but I don't think I'd have done much better regardless. I need to give R/W Samurai Warriors a real chance.

8th Draft: UG something? (4-3) - I have to be honest, unlike most of the other color pairs in the set I don't know what blue-green wants to do. I'm also unclear with B/G as well. Both seem to be value oriented in some way? I don't think I want to find myself in either in the future since all of the others haver a clear game plan that I understand.

9th Draft: WURG shrines (1-3) - I shouldn't have tried this, I didn't quite have enough of the right parts to make it work. But early in the draft I got multiple Shrines early and I got the mana fixing but by the end I was coming up very dry. Can a shrines deck win? I don't know, but it's not going to work often. I almost quit after this one.

10th Draft: R/B artifact (sacrifice) (7-2) - Wow, what a ride. After starting 0-2 I thought I botched this. There is so much great synergy with the Oni Helm, Reinforced Ronin, and Dragonspark Reactor. Throw in the dopeness of Heiko Yamazaki and I managed the most nerve wracking but also satisfying 7 win run.

I also hit platinum for the first in limited. For those that can't tell I love this draft format, and it doesn't hurt that my overall W/L still has me at a profit since I started. Here's hoping I go infinite!

Draft is definitely really good right now! I hit a rough patch after hitting platinum, but my last 4 drafts have been 5/3/6/5 wins and I think I can probably hit diamond this month (currently at plat 2). I think this is definitely a format where you can get a feel for it and see your results improve.

I think BG is supposed to care about value/recursion? Either picking up from your graveyard or by getting value from your ETBs off of ninjas. I don't think I've drafted UG yet but it doesn't seem like there's any particular theme to it.

I was planning on getting invested in draft but I've been decently busy, and with elden ring on Friday i think I'll probably miss out on most of kamigawa

Hit diamond off the back of this 7-2 GW deck:
https://i.imgur.com/KIpC5I5.jpg

Tamiyo won 2 games and the splashed lands had no effect otherwise; 3 imperial oaths meant I drew one basically every game and then established control upon playing it.

Yeah... I can't believe you got 3 imperial oaths, I understand how it was underrated during preview season but I assumed it was well known now that in practice that it's worth every mana you spend on it.

This set has so many cool but not busted rares for draft. I feel like almost all the rares are fun to play but dont just win the game on the spot.

I do wish the deck variety was a bit better. I feel like the RG modified creature deck, the UW vehicle deck, and the RW attacking alone deck dont really exist, and the grixis artifact colors all kind of run together.

But still the best set since strixhaven

I think Season of Renewal is my favorite card in the set.

Which is wild given in most sets a 2G double regrowth instant would be good, but not amazing, but holy crap there are so many combos with it.

I drafted a deck with Shigeki the card with Chanel XXGG return X cards back from your graveyard to your hand and beat my opponent who had reality chip future sighting themselves 10 extra cards. It was just infinite value looping them over and over again.

But even the common combos of the hot tub kami that returns enchantments to your hand and random ass sagas is awesome

So, can people give me the rundown on draft strategy? Particularly things like "how late is too late to pivot from a color(s), is it ever worth doing so for a single card, is 16 lands usually too few?"

I did my first neon draft last night and I ended up with 4 wins which for me is a good day, but during rd 1 I got the red shrine and white shrine so was like "okay I'll do r/w." Pack 2 I pulled U/B Kaito and was like "man do I switch?" So I started picking up some U/B cards here and there but just ended up going R/W anyway. Most of my cards were 3 or fewer mana, so I went with 16 lands, but every single game I opened with 2 land, my final game with 1. I also saw quite a few people going 3 colors so I'm wondering if they just got lucky getting the non-basic lands they needed or if it's usually fine to do? Granted this was like very bottom rank as well.

Switching colours in draft is a pretty hard one, I don't think there's a hard rule on what you should do since there's a lot of factors coming into play. In your specific example if you went R/W and opened up a U/B card in pack 2, I honestly might not considering playing it. The card needs to be really good for the switch to be worth it since you wont be able to splash two other colours normally. Plus, one thing to consider with drafts is that if you spent pack 1 picking R/W, it meant a lot more U/B cards were going left, so the people that will pass to you in pack 2 might be picking those cards more than R/W.

For lands, I normally do 16 or 17 lands depending on the mana cost of my cards, the randomness is part of the game though so sometimes you'll just end up with too much or too little land regardless.

Emeraldegg posted...

So, can people give me the rundown on draft strategy? Particularly things like "how late is too late to pivot from a color(s), is it ever worth doing so for a single card, is 16 lands usually too few?"

I did my first neon draft last night and I ended up with 4 wins which for me is a good day, but during rd 1 I got the red shrine and white shrine so was like "okay I'll do r/w." Pack 2 I pulled U/B Kaito and was like "man do I switch?" So I started picking up some U/B cards here and there but just ended up going R/W anyway. Most of my cards were 3 or fewer mana, so I went with 16 lands, but every single game I opened with 2 land, my final game with 1. I also saw quite a few people going 3 colors so I'm wondering if they just got lucky getting the non-basic lands they needed or if it's usually fine to do? Granted this was like very bottom rank as well.

This is a really hard question.

I think a general safe rule is pick the best card for your first 4 picks, then try to stick to your most open color through pack 1, then commit to your second color by p2p3 or so.

Of course it's almost never that clean. Sometimes the open color isn't clear, sometimes your color dries up etc, but that's where I would aim

masterplum posted...

I think a general safe rule is pick the best card for your first 4 picks, then try to stick to your most open color through pack 1, then commit to your second color by p2p3 or so.

As dumb as it sounds I never actually considered this line of thought, I will try that next time. Usually as soon as I pick my first color I get tunnel vision.

Yea keep it kinda fluid in the first couple picks, you don't wanna lock yourself in that quickly.

Unless if your rare is A+, but then it might still be worth switching if the uncommons and commons can't support it.

Unless you get an incredible bomb p1p1 the first few picks are too open to really know where you're going and frankly even a bomb might not be enough if you're cut off hard. You dont want to try to force a color in this draft format if you can help it. There are so many playable in every color that you shouldn't be taking c tier cards midway through pack 1 just to stay on color.

Also keep in mind each color pair has a theme (some more obvious than others) so be aware of those synergies. Say for example white doesnt seem that open but a lot of red samurai and warriors are coming your way, R/W is therefore still likely open and the white cards that aren't good outside of samurai/warriors will likely slip through later.

As for taking the u/b bomb pack 2 I wouldnt, not on arena unless there was deck I needed it for. In a live game you obviously want to hate draft a card like that, but on arena you usually dont play against the people you draft with. That means you can tell your neighbor(s) you're not in black or blue and they should go ahead and be there if they were already close. If you're already pretty established in 2 colors then a double off-color card is useless no matter how much of a bomb it is. It's never going to be worth it to switch at that point because you are abandoning all of pack 1 and sending mixed signals to the rest of the table.

I dont think hate drafting is a good idea the first pick of any pack. Youre giving up too much value to throw away a first pick card to play in your deck just to cut off something you may not even play against, even in an 8-person draft.

Hate drafting is never correct full stop (Unless you are in a team draft obviously)

The Only exception might be if you are passing an unbeatable bomb in an 8 person pod, but even then I probably wouldn't do it unless the pack had nothing good for me

You're both right, you wouldnt want to hate draft on pick 1. What I meant was, because it wont wheel, there is nowhere in pack 2 would I take it on arena (unless i needed it for a deck.) I disagree with the notion that hate drafting is never right, though. There are times for in competitive magic, especially in a set like this where a good draft will net you more playables than you can fit into your deck.

masterplum posted...

The Only exception might be if you are passing an unbeatable bomb in an 8 person pod, but even then I probably wouldn't do it unless the pack had nothing good for me

Always splash the unbeatable bomb

It's unbeatable!

If I had a nickel for every game that I had in my hand the unbeatable bomb and no way to play it....

https://www.polygon.com/tabletop-games/22965400/mtg-new-capenna-preview-cards-lands-triomes-release-date-price

Another 3 color based set!

I like the new triomes but a bit annoyed that the names aren't linked somehow.

Im just happy to be able to run the complete cycle in my cube now.

So Lurrus banned in Pioneer and Modern. Larry too good to live anywhere

So yesterday, I went to my first draft. I obtained two powerful mythics:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/9/9/AAfOLaAADBST.jpg https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/9/8/AAfOLaAADBSS.jpg
(can't believe that no one picked progress tyrant before me)

Wow, nice.

And I also got the mirror box in a set booster that I bought after, so I can now copy him and other legendaries in my runo stromkirk deck

Oh no
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/8/6/AAe-HzAAC8FS.jpg https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/8/7/AAe-HzAAC8FT.jpg
any cheap way to get exquisite blood? I have a card similar to epicure