I think the rare conversation would be interesting if it’s focused less on how good the cards are and more on how many good rares go in each deck. One busted rare won’t make an archetype good but that deck having a bunch of really good rates that no one else wants could have a real impact on its overall strength
One thing about kicker that's really good is it smooths out your curve. The rooms do this even better though because instead of choosing between a cheaper or more expensive version of the card it truly slots in both costs. You don't have to choose between them.
Regarding rares: I think that OTJ's suite of green rares played a huge role in that color's dominance throughout the format. I believe that Play Boosters are a big part of it.
What I want to know about rares/mythics would be: 1) What are the bomb rares that pull you in over almost any uncommon/common 2) What rares in an archetype would are better than the top commons/uncommons in the archetype. In general it’s tough to evaluate a flashy rare vs a staple common on the fly. I assume the common is usually better but pick the rare for fun 😅. May be a lot of content to get through but even just a quick run through of what to lookout for
I mean, there has been Early Access and Prerelease Weekend - it seems reasonable to talk about early impressions by now. And maybe even these impressions will be invalidated in a week or two.
I have gotten in like 10 drafts so far and have only drafted 4 decks. UW, RW, GU, & GW. All seem amazing. The manifest deck really needs ways to get back the card you lost manifesting to work but if you do you draw your whole deck and win in card advantage. And the GW deck is an aggro deck. Use tap abilities and the baseball bat to get in and then your survival abilities trigger to make the next attack easier.
Regarding Derelict Attic, I think it’s kinda like Diresight back in BLB, like that C-/D+ card that’s not super exciting but some decks just want that one copy to make sure they don’t run out of gas. And then it does have the occasional synergies with Eerie and stuff like Final Vengeance
I won 3-0 with GW in my small prerelease sealed pod. My experience lines up more with previous Ep takes. Opponents had to answer my good survivors [Defiant Survivor] and [Glimmer Seeker] I had a few key pieces of G/W removal to keep the board somewhat clear. Finished games with [Fear of A] and [Altanak]. Only room that slowed me down was the red removal one, I cut [Grand Entry.] from my deck early on due to it being slow for my deck and limited enchant synergy. Supplemental also helped my survivors get through/keep pressure on. tldr: dont give up on bant survival
Thanks for the crash course and then the early access streams so I had an inkling about rooms being better than you predicted. Went 3-1 at the prerelease, despite not playing magic for most of the last year.
I had a busted UR rooms at pre-release, and went 0-2 (lost 2-1) both matches vs BG and UBG midrange. One guy was maindecking 3x anthropede... Galaxybrain😂
think you guys are making too many assumptions based on early access where a lot of people are memeing and drafting suboptimally. especially with blue / red rooms, that archetype is so reliant on having people not speculating on rooms and getting multiple smoky lounges that putting it tier 1 seems way off the mark. also think you guys are too high on certain rooms, especially with how strong red white and red black are going to be
Yeah for the first week red aggro decks will be strong and the easiest counter (to build in draft) will be sturdy green midrange decks with lifegain. Red already felt insanely strong just by reading the card but the prerelease I attended was all red vs green decks in the top cut. Rooms will need a lot of specific cards to not get overrun.
Red white didnt feel like a synergy deck to me. You guys simply underestimated Red a ton. With Red Aggro being prominent I dont see mediocre room deck doing good either. Green Black felt exactly as strong as predicted it simply is a midrange deck. Predict there to be more of a rock-paper-scissors meta forming. Azorius definitely looked way better than you guys made it out to be. I think Draft will show which decks with 3 rares are the strongest and I feel confident including GB in there with Swarmweaver, Valgavoths Onslaught, Delirium Worm, Thyvar and even Hedger Shredder. Rooms will need more than 7 turns to stabilize against that and many of their cards that are strong against red aggro wont be strong against GB. Also Izzet historically has terrible lifegain and I can easily see Boros and Rakdos winning through increments of damage against Rooms.
It seems a lot of this set dynamic copies LCi to the point where I wonder if they had the same design team on it. Jeskai decks are best 3 with UR control, UW tempo/synergy deck and WR pure agro (UW control WR tempo and UR agro in LCI). WB is trashy deck that needs 3 pieces of combo to go off (reanimation in DSK, sacrifice in LCI). UG is completely separated doing their own thing relying on payoffs from set mechanic (manifest dread in DSK, Explore in LCI) etc. Following this logic, best commons/uncommons should be cheap fliers.
Regarding your discussion about rares: A big segment during the crash course would be too much in my opinion when you don't want to have episodes that are over 2 hours long. Like Ethan said, the really broken rares are often identified by reading it once when the pick comes up and I guess your average listener has the card evaluation skill to identify these bombs. While I listen to almost every episode of LR I almost always skip their rare episode because it feels that only a third of the episode is really relevant when a rare comes up that needs more discussion. My suggestion is that you use maybe 15 - 20 minutes in one of the first two episodes after the set officialy released to talk about these rares that have interesting implication or boost up certain archetypes significantly or are very niche and need some deck building considerstion if they are worth it. Even with more rares in the play booster era the conversation should still be on commons and uncommon, at the end these are still the cards we will see every draft. Just my food for thought, love your podcast and keep up the great work. :)
I think rares should be discussed but probably don't *need* to be in the crash course specifically, especially with how much they're trying to cover already. Discussing key rares in one of the following episodes seems like the right call to me
If you are reading this before watching, STAY PAST THE OUTRO 😂. Great episode guys, agree with the takes today. Looking forward to this format!
One of these cards has to be deemed "The Louisiana Purchase of the format" 😂
One of the cards needs to be deemed as the "Louisiana Purchase of this format" 😂
I think the rare conversation would be interesting if it’s focused less on how good the cards are and more on how many good rares go in each deck. One busted rare won’t make an archetype good but that deck having a bunch of really good rates that no one else wants could have a real impact on its overall strength
Had the combo of Most Valuable Slayer and Fear of being Hunted at my prerelease. It felt wrong every game I assembled it
Yes! I did that exact thing as well and it was great!
if the game goes long,
The House Always Wins
One thing about kicker that's really good is it smooths out your curve. The rooms do this even better though because instead of choosing between a cheaper or more expensive version of the card it truly slots in both costs. You don't have to choose between them.
It would be good if you just did 10 best rares, 10 biggest trap rares, and maybe 10 rares you guys are not sure about.
Nah fam. They're simply above it all
Ben "The Daintiest Sips of Mountain Dew" Werne
Regarding rares: I think that OTJ's suite of green rares played a huge role in that color's dominance throughout the format. I believe that Play Boosters are a big part of it.
What I want to know about rares/mythics would be:
1) What are the bomb rares that pull you in over almost any uncommon/common
2) What rares in an archetype would are better than the top commons/uncommons in the archetype.
In general it’s tough to evaluate a flashy rare vs a staple common on the fly. I assume the common is usually better but pick the rare for fun 😅. May be a lot of content to get through but even just a quick run through of what to lookout for
It feels weird that we’re talking about adjusting our initial impressions on a format that isn’t even out yet lol
Fuck Early Access
I mean, there has been Early Access and Prerelease Weekend - it seems reasonable to talk about early impressions by now. And maybe even these impressions will be invalidated in a week or two.
I have gotten in like 10 drafts so far and have only drafted 4 decks. UW, RW, GU, & GW. All seem amazing. The manifest deck really needs ways to get back the card you lost manifesting to work but if you do you draw your whole deck and win in card advantage. And the GW deck is an aggro deck. Use tap abilities and the baseball bat to get in and then your survival abilities trigger to make the next attack easier.
16:15 the Learn/Lesson comparison is so perfect
Regarding Derelict Attic, I think it’s kinda like Diresight back in BLB, like that C-/D+ card that’s not super exciting but some decks just want that one copy to make sure they don’t run out of gas. And then it does have the occasional synergies with Eerie and stuff like Final Vengeance
I won 3-0 with GW in my small prerelease sealed pod. My experience lines up more with previous Ep takes. Opponents had to answer my good survivors [Defiant Survivor] and [Glimmer Seeker] I had a few key pieces of G/W removal to keep the board somewhat clear. Finished games with [Fear of A] and [Altanak]. Only room that slowed me down was the red removal one, I cut [Grand Entry.] from my deck early on due to it being slow for my deck and limited enchant synergy. Supplemental also helped my survivors get through/keep pressure on.
tldr: dont give up on bant survival
Thanks for the crash course and then the early access streams so I had an inkling about rooms being better than you predicted. Went 3-1 at the prerelease, despite not playing magic for most of the last year.
MANIFEST DESTINY!!!!
Less funny every time!
First draft went 6-3 with R/G delirium. Lost to rollercrusher twice though 😅 card is pretty unbeatable.
I had a busted UR rooms at pre-release, and went 0-2 (lost 2-1) both matches vs BG and UBG midrange. One guy was maindecking 3x anthropede... Galaxybrain😂
Seems I'm too dumb for Boros, but Simic rocks for me. The landcyclers are crazy there, as you suggested
think you guys are making too many assumptions based on early access where a lot of people are memeing and drafting suboptimally. especially with blue / red rooms, that archetype is so reliant on having people not speculating on rooms and getting multiple smoky lounges that putting it tier 1 seems way off the mark. also think you guys are too high on certain rooms, especially with how strong red white and red black are going to be
Yeah for the first week red aggro decks will be strong and the easiest counter (to build in draft) will be sturdy green midrange decks with lifegain. Red already felt insanely strong just by reading the card but the prerelease I attended was all red vs green decks in the top cut. Rooms will need a lot of specific cards to not get overrun.
I think the amount of sweepers (including in uncommon) is going to keep red white in check.
Its be good to have a pile of 5 analysis. 5 cards you really want together to be doing it.. rare uncommon common x3 etc.
Red white didnt feel like a synergy deck to me. You guys simply underestimated Red a ton. With Red Aggro being prominent I dont see mediocre room deck doing good either. Green Black felt exactly as strong as predicted it simply is a midrange deck. Predict there to be more of a rock-paper-scissors meta forming. Azorius definitely looked way better than you guys made it out to be. I think Draft will show which decks with 3 rares are the strongest and I feel confident including GB in there with Swarmweaver, Valgavoths Onslaught, Delirium Worm, Thyvar and even Hedger Shredder. Rooms will need more than 7 turns to stabilize against that and many of their cards that are strong against red aggro wont be strong against GB. Also Izzet historically has terrible lifegain and I can easily see Boros and Rakdos winning through increments of damage against Rooms.
“Friday Lands” you heard it here first 😄
Thanks for getting this out before the set launches on arena!
Last friday i had a busted jeskai rooms deck (i had 4 red and/or white rares)
It seems a lot of this set dynamic copies LCi to the point where I wonder if they had the same design team on it. Jeskai decks are best 3 with UR control, UW tempo/synergy deck and WR pure agro (UW control WR tempo and UR agro in LCI). WB is trashy deck that needs 3 pieces of combo to go off (reanimation in DSK, sacrifice in LCI). UG is completely separated doing their own thing relying on payoffs from set mechanic (manifest dread in DSK, Explore in LCI) etc. Following this logic, best commons/uncommons should be cheap fliers.
For some reason the pod is quieter on spotify like super quiet
man i have been getting rekt this format
I’m about half way through this, excellent episode so far gentlemen.
The rat is so cute
3-1 at my prerelease and lost to valvagoths onslaught both of my games for my loss,
Regarding your discussion about rares:
A big segment during the crash course would be too much in my opinion when you don't want to have episodes that are over 2 hours long. Like Ethan said, the really broken rares are often identified by reading it once when the pick comes up and I guess your average listener has the card evaluation skill to identify these bombs.
While I listen to almost every episode of LR I almost always skip their rare episode because it feels that only a third of the episode is really relevant when a rare comes up that needs more discussion.
My suggestion is that you use maybe 15 - 20 minutes in one of the first two episodes after the set officialy released to talk about these rares that have interesting implication or boost up certain archetypes significantly or are very niche and need some deck building considerstion if they are worth it.
Even with more rares in the play booster era the conversation should still be on commons and uncommon, at the end these are still the cards we will see every draft.
Just my food for thought, love your podcast and keep up the great work. :)
I think rares should be discussed but probably don't *need* to be in the crash course specifically, especially with how much they're trying to cover already. Discussing key rares in one of the following episodes seems like the right call to me
Nooooooooo. The cards which are slightly overcosted but with huge upside are good in limited? Shocking...
CorncobTV spotted!
It’s fine! I’m not worried about it!
I think Rooms compare better to Adventures rather than Learn/Lessons