Limited post-ORI

note: this post does not give any insight or information about post-ORI limited. This post is about a thought that passed my mind when BFZ was released and what I did in order to find my answer.

A long time ago I used to be good in limited. That 'good' came from me being able to evaluate cards based on their power and put them in the right deck. Other players had more difficulties with this and I was capable to win games only by having cards I knew how to put to a good use. Later, while being the world of internet, I found out that many people draft based on some pro players draft pick list and such decks are more difficult for me to beat especially if I don't have much experience with the set (I don't draft much in general). It upset me highly that players that were way worse players and deck builders than me could win a draft without even knowing what some of the cards in the deck were doing or what for they were actually in the deck.

In constructed this is happening as well and can be seen way more. The pro scene is affecting tournament play around the world. There is not enough time to brew and it is very difficult to come up with something fast while doing this alone. Even though I've been doing this for a very long time alone and came up with good decks it did not matter at all. All I had was a deeper understanding of the power of cards. But those players net decking just copied the deck and played with it a lot. This way they learned how to play the deck and did not really need much of that 'understanding'. I'm still better at solving situations that are strange or winning a game that took a really bad turn but I'm not better at playing technically better. The same goes for limited.

So in the past months I tried to do a little experiment. I'm interested in what other people draft so I drafted according to some of those people (since I'm still too lazy to read articles or watch others draft on their streams and what not). Since I know how they play normally I could understand why the pick this or that. I was able to see what they wanted draft and play. None of those play styles though corresponds mine so it was difficult for me to pilot their drafted decks but I could see that those decks simply worked. I wasn't just a worthy pilot and managed to screw up often still often ending with 2:1 or 3:0 record.

One of those players is a former pro player known for being very good limited player. He is a good player for sure but since Origins I just can't agree with his reasoning or card evaluations and I decided to ignore his evaluations. Pre-ORI our pick order and card evaluation aligned more or less. Since I could compare the way how I draft and how others draft I came to some conclusions. I'm more prone to switching to a color. I also give preference to cards that give more options but are worse than a certain card in the pack in the same color. I often draft more for integrity than power of individual cards. That is also the reason why I don't usually fare well with decks build around a broken rare. If I would omit these our pick order and evaluation of cards would have been more or less the same. Post-ORI it changed though nad by a lot.

At BFZ prerelease my pool was really strange. I stared at it for the whole deckbuilding time limit which has never happened to me. In the end I sleeved a 4c Eldrazi. Being four color I was capable to have creatures with evasion, a little bit of synergy among Eldrazi and have access to few tricks (red/blue). I lost my first round being totally lost in my deck. One of the players told me to play BG only and he put the deck together. The deck was incapable of winning though and really lacked the little bit of removal I had. In any other format the BG deck would actually be fine as it seemed to have a curve and strong creatures. But this deck died to single 1/4 Kozilek's Sentinel (I had no way to go past it) and if by a chance someone played some processors I was doomed. So I switched back to my 4c deck no matter how crazy it seemed. It was actually better as it gave me more possibilities and an actual win condition. Its mana base was really bad so I was depending on luck way more than I would like. But I'd rather try that than having a deck that can't win.

My next sealed deck was full of allies. But they had similar problems like the BG deck from the previous sealed deck. They could be stopped rather easily. I added black for 3 cards after seeing that Boros is not enough - 2x Kalastria Healer, Drana's Emissary. After the first lost I won all the following rounds. The cards that allowed me to win were the black cards. Without them I would probably go 0:5.

After few sealed decks and drafts I realized that what I like are Grixis builds and what does not seem to work is anything green. Even though I managed to win with few Naya ally decks the green color was the worst of those colors. The UBr decks were though to pick though and were killing very slowly. It was fun though and it could win by dealing a damage per turn. White/Black seemed solid and BR Eldrazi aggro was also something I often ended up in (when blue seemed to disappear).

During the prerelease and release events I asked some players about what they think and what decks they would create out of my pools (the very first one and one I opened later - I'll try to find screenshots of that if I still have them). I got a very wide range of answers and decks but the only deck that seemed viable from my pool was a pure RG beatdown as I simply did not have enough cards to support any other archetype. The players that I think are better players in general also said that RG beatdown was the way to go. After talking to others why I think their idea wouldn't work (I actually tested all of those decks online and paper to see how it works in practice. The deck with most wins was the RG beatdown - tested against aggro, some kind of good stuff and control) they also came to the conclusion that maybe it is not the best idea to play what they thought could have worked.

Anyway there were cards that we couldn't really agree on their power and that is something that I wanted to figure out. Since the group of players I asked (different players in styles but rather all good limited players) was rather skilled one I was wondered why their opinions sometimes differ so much.

While all of us can pretty much agree that Gideon and Quarantine Field are good cards and that the best common is Eldrazi Skyspawner other cases weren't that clear. For example our views on certain cards differed. For example Angel of Renewal and Ghostly Sentinel were deemed very bad and low picks by many including the former pro. I'm not a good drafter in sense of picking the right cards at the right time but I usually am good at figuring out which cards I want for a deck (even though post-ORI I'm not sure even about that). For me Angel of Renewal and Ghostly Sentinel seemed solid at first glance. Remember Shepherd of the Lost or Shattered Angel? These cards killed many of my opponents and I figured that something similar might be strong. I had to wait to find out but I wasn't ready to ignore those cards. In Battle for Zendikar the Flying ability has way more importance than in other sets. A high CMC creature might be a problem but if it gives you life when it comes into play it because good. 6 mana may be a lot but well there are other cards that people, cost million mana (6+) and are considered good. Why not this card? The life swing can be pretty important and 4/4 Flyer is big and opponents won't be super happy to bounce the creature. Ghostly Sentinel might not give you life but it flies, is rather big for other flyers and has Vigilance (the players opposing me though were also players that marked Emeria Shepherd as a good card). These two cards were the main reason for some clashes. I also said that the white Retreat is very good but people ignored me. I'm not LSV obviously^_^.

What I personally had no idea how to evaluate are the big eldrazi and utility lands. I underrated the lands for sure and I agreed that they can be good. But for the Eldrazi? If playing a deck that actually has a curve and some good creatures why would I want to play a 7/8 for 7 mana? Many tried to convince me that even non-eldrazi "non-control" decks were a good place for such cards. But seriously I don't see that as a good idea ... and my opinion hasn't changed even months later.

Since the BFZ prerelease I decided to follow my own reasoning rather and if that would lead me to losing everything I have on modo then be it. BFZ was not a set I was a friend with. I won several release events and drafts but I knew that a week or two later things would change and I would be rather the one losing the first round and getting no prizes. I was sure that I don't understand the set but on the other hand I was sure that my evaluation of deck types and power of cards was right from the beginning. I just had no idea how to manage to draft those archetypes. After a very strong exchange of opinions on Mist Intruder (I was defending the card, because based on my experience this card played a big role in getting something 'ingested' and the fact that it flies was rather important as well) in a dedicated Ingest deck I stopped talking to anyone and just watched how what my opponents drafted works. I also loved animating my lands and card like Grip of Desolation seemed overpowered to me. It took some time for others to see that as well. But that was due to me overdrafting cards with Awaken.

I was picking Mist Intruder quite high when running UBr Ingest. Sludge Crawler is a card I would first pick and I called this card a constructed playable if the archetype would actually work (I build such deck and this card was one of the best, the deck was bad as expected though).

Anyway my limited records were worst than most of the other players so I was wondering if I really should reevaluate the cards. One of the players that I saw draft and play was my flat mate. He is not a competitive player - he does not attend tournaments and such - but for me he is a good player. He is a total opposite of me - playing intuitively, building primarily aggressive decks and staxx decks and being actually good limited player. While I was better at drafting pre-Origins sets this could not be said for post-ORI sets. I gave him some packs and let him draft. Even though his first decks were mostly Ally strategy decks I could see later that he picked and played cards others often disregarded. He was also the one who would pick Ghostly Sentinel pretty high and say that those angels were really good. For me his draft picks seemed totally random (not counting picks like Gideon on first pick) but in the end he managed to assemble something that resembled a deck way more than my decks.

I obviously misbuilt my deck^_^ Did I put Plains in the deck? (main color).

When OGW came out we played some BFZ/OGW. I was opening one crappy pool after another one and had really difficulties with building a deck. I asked players around if that pool is really difficult or I'm a total loser in this set. Since all the players agreed that the pools were really bad and many had no idea what to with them I came the conclusion that maybe I'm not lost yet. When my flatmate finally also managed to open a pool that was not full of Thought-Know Seers and Reality Smashers I was really interested what he would build out of it. It was a 4c deck with Blue/Green being the main color. The deck actually worked even though it was way weaker. I stared at the pool for like half an hour coming to the conclusion that I would go 4c. But I did not want to. Something was holding me back because I felt that there had to be a way how to make the deck work. I did not managed that but he did and many other players do as well and that is when I realized that I should rate all the lands higher no matter what they do (Crumbling Vestige was my number one friend but I did not want to play cards like Fertile Thicket.

I also asked him at the release how my deck should look like. Staring at my timer I did not really feel like being the best person to put my deck together. I knew that anything running red with Chandra would kill most opponents but I had no idea what combination was the best. After trying all but one (that we both agreed was unplayable) the deck was born. I stared at the cards not knowing what to think about them. I looked at the cards individually and wasn't sure what they would be doing while being together in a deck. My flatmate though saw that pretty clearly.

The last debate we had with the player that has different opinions than me nowadays while being far better player than me was about discard. Card like 'Discard two cards' weren't usually doing well in earlier sets. But in BFZ those were cards I had no problem main decking. This was one of the ways how to get rid of the annoying eldrazi or Grip of Desolation. It worked wonders. But the player in question disagreed with me. I won't be telling anyone what is good and what not since I do not consider myself good enough for doing that and who would actually listen? But on the other hand even from watching other players draft and play it seemed I wasn't that far from truth.

When OGW was out it seemed to me that this set would make the drafts more readable and more simpler for me. It seemed to me that the metagame would be faster and more aggro oriented. WB combination seemed as the best archetype and that is what I tried to be into. But others had the same impression obviously. So I ended up in other colors often trying to still be in that blue/black I liked before. Blue seemed pretty difficult to draft though too. But it contains very solid cards and killing someone with 3/4 flyer seemed as a good plan.

For some reason I still had problems convincing some players that 2/4 Flyer for 4 mana is not a bad card even in a faster format. Even though our opinions did not differ that much in OGW it was clear that something changed in the Magic limited universe. Since we all play Magic the same way and draft the same way it had to be some change in the design of those two sets.

I ignored BFZ/OGW pretty much later on and waited for SOI to see if the set would be similarly 'strange'. I did not expect to play it much since I expected that the set would be a total stranger for me and I don't have the money to learn the format. SOI came and I was hooked though. When I saw what my opponents played I was in awe! I kind of felt like playing Vintage while playing the first sealed deck. UR Investigate control, Seasons Past BG control were simply awesome decks. SOI showed me that there are so many things possible to do, a lot of complexity, very nice and strong enchantments and decks that don't need to be a beatdown to actually win the game. The set is not that straining as BFZ was where each 1 damage really counted. It was fresh, new and well designed. What I saw, I liked.

When talking about some of the cards though the opinions differed strongly as well. I understood that our opinions differ a lot based on what decks we would like to draft and I understood that. Suggesting some things like that Fork in the Road and Stoic Builder might not be a bad combination weren't really well accepted though. I put those cards in a good use actually. The same could be said about Uncaged Fury. While looking at the card I thought about Temur Battle Rage. It is a card I wanted to include in a standard pauper deck and for that reason alone it seemed clear to me that this card won't be bad in limited environment. Similarly Heir of Falkenrath seemed as a very strong creature to me. One I would never pass. But that is a card we all agreed that is good.

After some other debate about Moldgraf Scavenger (whether the card is good or not) I came to understand what some players are missing while still being way better players than me. I remembered another player and dear friend of mine. He is a good player but his deckbuilding skills are rather lacking. Give him a good deck and he will win most matches. Let him build a deck and he will lose half of them. What he lacks and I found rather strange is some kind of insight into mechanics of a certain set. Some of the players I talked about limited don't have this insight as well and are very reluctant to dig deep and enjoy the set. They understand power/toughness/cmc well, can evaluate a card while being taken out of a context but they do not really see all the synergies and possibilities the card offers. They also often ignore the environment in which the card is to be played. I noticed this in constructed. People tend to think that if a card was good once it will be good once again. But this may not be true since the field can be completely different. Now this shows a lot in limited as well. This suggests that the complexity is way higher and that there are many more ways one can go and that pure cold logic based on 'value' does not always bring the best results. I find this really cool and I'm very grateful for this. The designers came with something more complex and enjoyable than I would have thought possible. But some players are too blind to see it and some players are not that good to enjoy it that much (me...).

Thank you for reading and hope you keep opening strong cards and 'money' in your packs^_~.