"... drafting a great deck, that does better things than a 2 mana 4/5 or whatever, because that's what it is." I agree with the broad point here: the synergy ceiling of a well-drafted deck can overcome this excellent card. But also you're describing Chrysalis' floor here. Chrysalis has self-synergy such that casting multiples makes them 4 mana for 2 6/7s, or 6 mana for 3 8/9s. Plus they synergize with nearly every green card, which is why cards like Malevolent Rumble are also off the charts for common winrate.
Exactly. If chrysalis is your win con then yeah you're probably just going off 17 lands stats but it's so much more than that. It's a bomb and an engine and a stabilizer all at common.
I've had decks in UR, WR, and UW that were so good it looked like I cheated like every card you could want and just fold up to two unanswered Eldrazi Aggro is like a turn to slow to race the ramp decks
The fake draft navigation was such an excellent segment! Really distilled the drafting thought process into just a few minutes of podcast. And you have the visual guide setup so we can follow along. Just top notch work.
This episode inspired me to try essence reliquary. What I ended up with was an energy deck that won by bouncing energy producing creatures with aether revolt on the battlefield and going face with tons of damage. Thanks for the fresh perspective!
Hilarious ad read😂. Quality writing guys. Main reason I'm still not sold on chrysalis not being an absolutely cracked card is this idea that it's just a 2 mana 4/5 with reach. Talking about floors and ceilings that is the absolute floor for the card in decks that don't even want it. I do agree it's not a real win con and you shouldn't be warping your whole draft around it but in general more power for less work leads to a more consistent card. If I could choose between a well supported chrysalis vs a well supported any other common I'm going chrysalis. If I get a common left over I have to run even though it doesn't perfectly match my gameplan I'm going chrysaliss (assuming it fits my mana) cause even without anything to ramp into or other eldrazi support it's still a2 mana 4/5
I'm glad to hear your thoughts on the Chrysalis. Ive played a lot of MH3, including big Destination Qualifier in Warsaw and it's definitely not the third strongest card and the synergistic deck is more important than a stat monster in MH3. Plus it doesnt have trample so its easy to chump it with spawns etc.
Agreed with Ben's broad point here - Chrys is definitely a powerful card, but it's also lifted by superb support that's almost accidentally synergistic. Playable 2 drop acceleration at all rarities, hitting a huge follow up, the spectre of Titan's Vanguard... But it still folds to, say, Cthonian Nightmare looping Accursed Marauder. It's a problem for sure, but even the best positioned common of all time has limits!
You call it cooking, but you ain’t picking pteramander p1 pack 1 of the arena open. You ain’t passing the purple overlord either. Cards with high floors will be essential picks in competitive environments, not the b of 1 arena rare draft queue. That’s how I think of card evaluations, like yeah it would be fun to cook with reliquary but are you going to put your money where your mouth is when money is on the line? I guess the difference is if you want to have fun or to win, although they aren’t mutually exclusive.
My first MH3 trophy was with a B/G(/R). 1 Cursed Wombat, 1 mana dork, 1 Ooze, 2 Evolution Witness, 2 Repurposer, the 2-drop Eldrazi that gives tokens Evolve, 1 Wumpus, 1 Brushwag, 1 6/8 reach/channel. Also had the rare that ramps a land and kicks to exile a land. The Wombat always gets killed before it can take over the game, but it gets in for early damage against slower decks and demands an answer. The key to a lot of games was getting in and/or trading off early, firing kill spells at big threats in mid game, and then finding Marionette Apprentice (so good) to grind out last points of damage while recurring my own threats (often the Apprentice) with Witness. Had lots of kill spells: 3 Breathe Your Last, 1-2 of the black MDFC kill spell, 2 of the red deal 4 + exile, one Wither and Bloom. Like you described, it felt extremely B/G midrange. Had enough synergy to finish or take over late game, lots of answers for threats, and the only card advantage was recursion (I had the green card draw MDFC but never quite cast it). It's slower and less snowball-y than G/W because you usually have to pay to adapt (which is so risky into open mana). There are way fewer free +1/+1 counters floating around (they're mostly in white) to snowball and aggro people out.
I have to challenge you on Serum Visionary. This card is just great for me in UB specifically. I'm finding myself needing something on the board to survive, and the ability to combine it with another draw 1 to trigger you stuff is way more important than I thought before playing. It has really strong synergy with Emrakul's Messenger. Then the line of Turn 2: Tempest Harvester Turn 3: Loot Snacker > Visionary is legitimately nuts.
I’ve been brewing a pauper writhing chrysalis deck since I figured there’s no way the card is bad, so far it’s been very good still. Even if it’s removed I still get the two spawn for ramp/ chumping.
ROFL at Chuck Norris and it nudged a memory of my first year substitute teaching. Some students (who evidently shared progressive politics) at Hercules High School were exchanging Chuck Norris jokes, and I told them I was disappointed when I recently learned the guy had campaigned for Prop 8 (the California ballot measure aiming to ban same sex marriage). One of them goes, "I just died a little bit inside."
Like Ben said, Chrysalis is easy. You play it, you get your ramp and your big body. On average, it's hard to mess it up, but it can also be easy to outplay. Black has two unconditional removal spells, blue has bounce, let them use their tokens (or force/goad them into it) and kill it. Even bounce can be kinda devastating. I've found my opponents wills just keep casting them, keep sacking tokens, keep getting them bounced or eventually killed, it's a slog but in a well built control deck you will eventually find a better threat. Honestly even the reach deal to me seems fine because it's like "kill this." Kill it or it gets bigger, kill it so you can get your fliers through. Don't kill a dinky whatever thing with your first removal spell, wait a for a Chrysalis. Personally I think some of the more broken stuff is in WG, I've swung for 12 over lethal or something huge on turn 5, but also have broken board stalls with massive hydras/giving something flying (B/W MDFC that gives flying/lifeline can be ridiculous.) I also love BG tinkering with 1/1 counters, the whole Abzan wedge is honestly more interesting to me than Chrysalis.
@wizmo57 see I actually think the reach sort of gives it the flashing "kill me" sign in a good way. There are other reach creatures in the set but I think they are at uncommon, and one is blue. So by killing Chrysalis you get rid of the growing threat AND the reach blocker instead of having some other reach creature NOT worth actually killing. Killing it kills two problems. You could imagine a 2 or 3 mana death touch spider that would wall off flyers/whatever and be pretty playable in this set, deathtouch is really good on the 2 mana mana dork. Chrysalis having reach is part of what makes it "easy" which is also it's downfall.
The Most broken stuff I was able to do was with cursed wombat and Friends but in a straight abzan Shell with 2 of the 1W 3/1 that proliferates whenever another nontoken creature hits the battlefield
I’ve been brewing a pauper writhing chrysalis deck since I figured there’s no way the card is bad, so far it’s been very good still. Even if it’s removed I still get the two spawn for ramp/ chumping. Hopefully I can make it work
Reached fastest mythic ever with mh3. Done really well with selesnya, boros and Eldrazi. I think Boros is the best since its way to fast when raptor is played on turn 2 and you get another 2 drop or a kill spell, the game is over. basically.
Yeah that was a surprising take to hear, dog umbra has been good for and against me. There's not much sacrifice stuff going on so it's not frequently punished, it dunks on bestow, and it's very efficient at making combat go well for you.
I killed my opponents first writhing chrysalis and i thought i had the game back in hand, and then they played two more, and i was able to kill the second, but the third proved too much to matter.
Love the podcast. Your chrysalis discourse is such an example of how subjective the enjoyment of a particular format is. I loved OTJ limited and was surprised Ethan didn’t love it, given almost every card had a place synergistically, bar some of the mythic bonus sheet cards. MH3 has many more completely unusable cards imo. From getting wrecked at prerelease by multiple chrysalises plus titan’s vanguard’s, I was already pretty over the format feeling it was heavily unbalanced towards R/G/X Eldrazi. I stand by that and haven’t enjoyed the format thusly. Too many wide, stalled boards with random reach creatures gumming up the ground and air. Too much 1-for-1 removal that doesn’t do the trick. Doesn’t the 17 lands data re: chrysalis not only indicate its own power, but also that of the colour combo? I just personally think R/G is too boringly strong and not fun to play against with weak removal? I agree there’s some cute tricks and fun combos and synergies, some of which are quite high level, but overall I’m not a fan of the format. What do you play in this format, other than the aforementioned Eldrazi soups, or slick energy, everything else is meh? It’s all just opinion at the end of the day!
Lords of Limited is the Writhing Chrysalis of podcasts
The truly unskippable ad read
What an intro boys!! 👏👏 That's art!
I loved the part of MH3 limited where writhing chrysalis said "it's chysalisin time" and writhed all over the place
is this anything
it's a good bit sir
Good joke, 8/10
"... drafting a great deck, that does better things than a 2 mana 4/5 or whatever, because that's what it is."
I agree with the broad point here: the synergy ceiling of a well-drafted deck can overcome this excellent card. But also you're describing Chrysalis' floor here. Chrysalis has self-synergy such that casting multiples makes them 4 mana for 2 6/7s, or 6 mana for 3 8/9s. Plus they synergize with nearly every green card, which is why cards like Malevolent Rumble are also off the charts for common winrate.
Exactly. If chrysalis is your win con then yeah you're probably just going off 17 lands stats but it's so much more than that. It's a bomb and an engine and a stabilizer all at common.
I've had decks in UR, WR, and UW that were so good it looked like I cheated like every card you could want and just fold up to two unanswered Eldrazi
Aggro is like a turn to slow to race the ramp decks
at uncommon it probably would've been fine. but i keep running into decks that get multiple copies out at the same time and it snowballs
Thank you for the infomercial at the beginning. It was excellent.
WOW what an intro. I died. 🤣
I love the way you guys aren't afraid to completely disagree. it's wonderful getting multiple perspectives. You guys have a great dynamic
The fake draft navigation was such an excellent segment! Really distilled the drafting thought process into just a few minutes of podcast. And you have the visual guide setup so we can follow along. Just top notch work.
Writhing Chrysalis walked through the door, my life’s better than ever before
XDDDDD to that opening, best limited podcast no question
This intro was so good!
Awesome intro 😂
im a christalis truther, i think describing it as a 2 mana 4/5 is a considerable understatement.
Its more like a two mana 7/8 that gains 6 life
This episode inspired me to try essence reliquary. What I ended up with was an energy deck that won by bouncing energy producing creatures with aether revolt on the battlefield and going face with tons of damage. Thanks for the fresh perspective!
Intro was fantastic. Rest of the episode was good too, I guess.
Hilarious ad read😂. Quality writing guys.
Main reason I'm still not sold on chrysalis not being an absolutely cracked card is this idea that it's just a 2 mana 4/5 with reach.
Talking about floors and ceilings that is the absolute floor for the card in decks that don't even want it. I do agree it's not a real win con and you shouldn't be warping your whole draft around it but in general more power for less work leads to a more consistent card.
If I could choose between a well supported chrysalis vs a well supported any other common I'm going chrysalis. If I get a common left over I have to run even though it doesn't perfectly match my gameplan I'm going chrysaliss (assuming it fits my mana) cause even without anything to ramp into or other eldrazi support it's still a2 mana 4/5
The ceiling for Serum visionary is emerging a Riddlekeeper on 4
Great intro. Marauder has impressed me more and more. Also it can get the Writhing Chrysalis 😅
I'm glad to hear your thoughts on the Chrysalis. Ive played a lot of MH3, including big Destination Qualifier in Warsaw and it's definitely not the third strongest card and the synergistic deck is more important than a stat monster in MH3. Plus it doesnt have trample so its easy to chump it with spawns etc.
I wish my partner would look at me the same way Writhing Chrysalis does.
Agreed with Ben's broad point here - Chrys is definitely a powerful card, but it's also lifted by superb support that's almost accidentally synergistic. Playable 2 drop acceleration at all rarities, hitting a huge follow up, the spectre of Titan's Vanguard...
But it still folds to, say, Cthonian Nightmare looping Accursed Marauder. It's a problem for sure, but even the best positioned common of all time has limits!
Sounds like SNC UW fliers description
A 6/7 for 2 that ramps (I know that's not what it is but it's how it feels alot of the time)? How did they miss it?! They missed it.
You call it cooking, but you ain’t picking pteramander p1 pack 1 of the arena open. You ain’t passing the purple overlord either. Cards with high floors will be essential picks in competitive environments, not the b of 1 arena rare draft queue. That’s how I think of card evaluations, like yeah it would be fun to cook with reliquary but are you going to put your money where your mouth is when money is on the line? I guess the difference is if you want to have fun or to win, although they aren’t mutually exclusive.
I think Abzan often wants to be 3 colors, not two. I guess specifically GB splashing white works really well.
My first MH3 trophy was with a B/G(/R). 1 Cursed Wombat, 1 mana dork, 1 Ooze, 2 Evolution Witness, 2 Repurposer, the 2-drop Eldrazi that gives tokens Evolve, 1 Wumpus, 1 Brushwag, 1 6/8 reach/channel. Also had the rare that ramps a land and kicks to exile a land.
The Wombat always gets killed before it can take over the game, but it gets in for early damage against slower decks and demands an answer.
The key to a lot of games was getting in and/or trading off early, firing kill spells at big threats in mid game, and then finding Marionette Apprentice (so good) to grind out last points of damage while recurring my own threats (often the Apprentice) with Witness. Had lots of kill spells: 3 Breathe Your Last, 1-2 of the black MDFC kill spell, 2 of the red deal 4 + exile, one Wither and Bloom.
Like you described, it felt extremely B/G midrange. Had enough synergy to finish or take over late game, lots of answers for threats, and the only card advantage was recursion (I had the green card draw MDFC but never quite cast it).
It's slower and less snowball-y than G/W because you usually have to pay to adapt (which is so risky into open mana). There are way fewer free +1/+1 counters floating around (they're mostly in white) to snowball and aggro people out.
Staaaaaap this intro! Hi-llarious 😂
I have to challenge you on Serum Visionary. This card is just great for me in UB specifically. I'm finding myself needing something on the board to survive, and the ability to combine it with another draw 1 to trigger you stuff is way more important than I thought before playing. It has really strong synergy with Emrakul's Messenger. Then the line of Turn 2: Tempest Harvester Turn 3: Loot Snacker > Visionary is legitimately nuts.
This episode was so much fun 😊
I’ve been brewing a pauper writhing chrysalis deck since I figured there’s no way the card is bad, so far it’s been very good still. Even if it’s removed I still get the two spawn for ramp/ chumping.
My ability to pivot in this format is abysmal. I hope you cover that sooner than later 😂
LSV definitely first picked voidcraw! (Not that I agree with it..)
ROFL at Chuck Norris and it nudged a memory of my first year substitute teaching. Some students (who evidently shared progressive politics) at Hercules High School were exchanging Chuck Norris jokes, and I told them I was disappointed when I recently learned the guy had campaigned for Prop 8 (the California ballot measure aiming to ban same sex marriage). One of them goes, "I just died a little bit inside."
Played about 6-7 sealed decks. Usually, about 6 wins. All 3 main sinergys are fine.
Like Ben said, Chrysalis is easy. You play it, you get your ramp and your big body. On average, it's hard to mess it up, but it can also be easy to outplay. Black has two unconditional removal spells, blue has bounce, let them use their tokens (or force/goad them into it) and kill it. Even bounce can be kinda devastating. I've found my opponents wills just keep casting them, keep sacking tokens, keep getting them bounced or eventually killed, it's a slog but in a well built control deck you will eventually find a better threat. Honestly even the reach deal to me seems fine because it's like "kill this." Kill it or it gets bigger, kill it so you can get your fliers through. Don't kill a dinky whatever thing with your first removal spell, wait a for a Chrysalis.
Personally I think some of the more broken stuff is in WG, I've swung for 12 over lethal or something huge on turn 5, but also have broken board stalls with massive hydras/giving something flying (B/W MDFC that gives flying/lifeline can be ridiculous.) I also love BG tinkering with 1/1 counters, the whole Abzan wedge is honestly more interesting to me than Chrysalis.
i agree, for me its the reach thats just too much
@wizmo57 see I actually think the reach sort of gives it the flashing "kill me" sign in a good way. There are other reach creatures in the set but I think they are at uncommon, and one is blue. So by killing Chrysalis you get rid of the growing threat AND the reach blocker instead of having some other reach creature NOT worth actually killing. Killing it kills two problems.
You could imagine a 2 or 3 mana death touch spider that would wall off flyers/whatever and be pretty playable in this set, deathtouch is really good on the 2 mana mana dork. Chrysalis having reach is part of what makes it "easy" which is also it's downfall.
this intro had me near in tears
The Most broken stuff I was able to do was with cursed wombat and Friends but in a straight abzan Shell with 2 of the 1W 3/1 that proliferates whenever another nontoken creature hits the battlefield
I’ve been brewing a pauper writhing chrysalis deck since I figured there’s no way the card is bad, so far it’s been very good still. Even if it’s removed I still get the two spawn for ramp/ chumping. Hopefully I can make it work
maybe in the cascade / ramp / ponza type shell
Reached fastest mythic ever with mh3. Done really well with selesnya, boros and Eldrazi.
I think Boros is the best since its way to fast when raptor is played on turn 2 and you get another 2 drop or a kill spell, the game is over. basically.
The one time I draft Writhing Chrysalis with what looked like a very good Eldrazi deck, I go 1-3 in premier draft on MTGA 😭
It can't beat Scurry of Gremlins! Sick the gremlins on him.
I drafted a dimir sacrifice deck with warran soultrader,shilimgar and a couple reef worms lol went 4-3
The CorncobTV coffee mug!
It's such a shame that Dish took it away from us. How will I watch Coffin Floppers now?
@@jdoom1345 they say Coffin Flops NOT a show
Wait, we're dunking on Dog Umbra? Dog Umbra counters the Chrysalis!
Yeah that was a surprising take to hear, dog umbra has been good for and against me. There's not much sacrifice stuff going on so it's not frequently punished, it dunks on bestow, and it's very efficient at making combat go well for you.
I’m guessing 12:40 for Ben’s volume
Intro was gaaaaaaaas! 😂👌
I killed my opponents first writhing chrysalis and i thought i had the game back in hand, and then they played two more, and i was able to kill the second, but the third proved too much to matter.
when I use the chrysalis on my face does it still need to be writhing for beneficial effects?
It's the writhing that makes it so effective at getting to those hard to reach places.
Was hoping a joke about the writhing in the wall or something like that :(
MOLTEN GATEKEEPER MENTIONED!!!!!
shloop!
Lmao at that intro. I'm so mad how this card ruined the format ffs.
Ben was just so off this entire conversation lol
a card like chrysalis shouldn't get past playtesting
Hilarious
Love the podcast. Your chrysalis discourse is such an example of how subjective the enjoyment of a particular format is. I loved OTJ limited and was surprised Ethan didn’t love it, given almost every card had a place synergistically, bar some of the mythic bonus sheet cards. MH3 has many more completely unusable cards imo.
From getting wrecked at prerelease by multiple chrysalises plus titan’s vanguard’s, I was already pretty over the format feeling it was heavily unbalanced towards R/G/X Eldrazi. I stand by that and haven’t enjoyed the format thusly. Too many wide, stalled boards with random reach creatures gumming up the ground and air. Too much 1-for-1 removal that doesn’t do the trick.
Doesn’t the 17 lands data re: chrysalis not only indicate its own power, but also that of the colour combo? I just personally think R/G is too boringly strong and not fun to play against with weak removal?
I agree there’s some cute tricks and fun combos and synergies, some of which are quite high level, but overall I’m not a fan of the format. What do you play in this format, other than the aforementioned Eldrazi soups, or slick energy, everything else is meh?
It’s all just opinion at the end of the day!
I said it day 1, if you are not forcing Eldrazi you are playing MH3 hard mode
SNC levels of imbalance
Algo