New Question of the Week Thread
Added 2018-05-11 00:06:00 +0000 UTCHey All,
Refreshing the PQotW Thread here since it's been a little bit. As always, if your question didn't get answered, feel free to repost it here! We have a lot to get through each time so we can't always get to them, but it's not because we didn't like your question, I promise :)
Thanks!
Marshall
Comments
Hi Marsh, Longtime listener, back from the good ol' Rocket days. My question is about the bigger picture of limited - as someone who hasn't been able to string two drafts of the same format together due to real life obligations since around Khans, are there any big philosophical shifts in limited since then? I plan on putting the reps in on arena because I'm really enjoying the client, but any tips you can give as I get ready to dive back into it? Hope to see y'all at GP Sac so I can thank you for your continuing hard work and great content in person there.
vel levine
2018-06-29 14:01:31 +0000 UTC(Sorry for the double post but I had trouble finding the right place to post questions) Hi Marshall, which memorization technique do you use to quickly learn the cards of a new set so that you know what each card does and which combat tricks exist? Same question goes to LSV because his card-memory is just incredible. Could you also do an episode on constructing cubes? Maybe you can interview a well-known cube-builder? (I am more interested in paper-cubes than online-cubes)
Jörn Bethune
2018-06-24 08:51:02 +0000 UTCI'm watching GP Vegas coverage and the commentators and lots of people in chat are advocating for hate drafts. We haven't talked about hate drafting in awhile since MTGO drafts don't have in-pod play anymore, but at a GP draft you *do* play against people in your pod. I was surprised to hear so many people (and the commentators!) advocating for hate drafting as I always thought it was basically never worthwhile. Has anything changed?
Daniel Schneider
2018-06-17 21:35:03 +0000 UTCHey Marshall and Luis, thanks for continuing to produce top notch content. I've been listening for a couple of years now, even though I don't draft much. Part of the reason is that I can rarely get 8 MTG friends together for a draft. We've done a few 4-person drafts but the decks didn't feel right with only 4 players worth of packs. What are your favourite ways to get a better draft experience with only 4 players? Thanks again for all your hard work! <3
Fithäkk
2018-06-17 05:13:59 +0000 UTCI want to get rid of my old cards and also try and give them to kids. I decided (with FLGS agreeing to host) to build a ton of different decks and then have kids (maybe 15 and younger?) “draft” the decks to play. I’d do it youngest to oldest. Kids would keep the cards and decks. I have been playing since theros. I figured best decks would generally look like strong draft decks. Any ideas on good archetypes? They’d mainly be common and uncommon, but bulk rare and mythic rares can make an appearance too...(For what it’s worth, this will be at Gabi’s comics in Olympia, so feel free to drop by Marshall!!)
Adam hoffmann
2018-06-10 03:55:22 +0000 UTCImagine that you're P3P8 into a draft and your pack has six cards left in it, and they're all 3R vanilla creatures, with the full range of power and toughness that adds up to 6 in it, from a 0/6 through a 3/3 to a 5/1. How would you rank those if you had drafted a Red-X midrange deck? Does it change much if you've drafted aggro or control?
William McDuff
2018-05-30 17:51:17 +0000 UTCHi Marshall and Luis - I am a new-ish player having just returned to Magic from a 15 year hiatus in February. When I played as a kid it was casual kitchen table Magic. As an adult I'm interested in the competitive scene but have yet to play any events at competitive REL. Since February I have attended GP Seattle to play Limited Side Events, I will attend GP Pittsburgh for more side events, and then plan to play main event at GP Sacramento. Other than the low hanging fruit such as playing more (especially at competitive REL), watching videos, reading, etc. What tips do you have for someone who has not yet played at competitive REL? How can I best prepare for the shift in rules enforcement, and are there any easy traps to fall into that may give my competition a leg up due to the differences in casual and competitive play (e.g. moving to combat and declaring attackers without announcing going to combat first)? As a final note, I do try to play my casual games as if they were competitive, not allowing myself to take back misplays or missed triggers. Thanks!
Brian A Madden
2018-05-16 16:11:28 +0000 UTCHi, Marshall and Luis - I'm curious to know if you have ever played different limited formats against one another? For example, if you put together a large event with a pod for every limited format in MTG history, and then had those pods compete against one another (I guess post-draft the pods would be teams?), which pod would win? I guess the subtext to this question is, "Are some limited formats more powerful than others?" Would newer formats beat older formats? Would the faster formats always beat the slower formats? Are there one or two formats that would just be totally busted? I'd love to get your thoughts on this! Thanks - love the show!
Eric Lynch
2018-05-15 19:50:42 +0000 UTCHi Marshall and Luis, I have a Genius or Grifter question for you. Last week in a game at a Dominaria draft, I had a Sierra Disciple and Mesa Unicorn on the battlefield. I cast a short sword and equipped it to the unicorn. I attacked with both creatures. My opponent said, “No blocks,” and very quickly and confidently asked, “So, I take 4?” The damage should have been 5 because of the Disciple’s historic trigger of +1/+1 at the casting of the short sword. If my opponent realized I was forgetting the +1/+1 trigger and tried to rush us into recording 4 instead of 5 damage, … Genius or Grifter?
Brian Leaf
2018-05-14 14:04:13 +0000 UTCHey guys! This isn’t really a limited question, but rather an MTGO one. Is there a list of Magic pro user names on MTGO? I sometimes wonder if I’m playing against a pro in a particularly tough match. I know not all pros would like their names published, but if you could list some of the popular ones on the show, or post a list on Patreon, it might be kinda cool to know if we are playing against (and maybe beat) a pro. Thanks.
Ira Humphrey
2018-05-13 23:21:13 +0000 UTCHey guys! Love the show, and it’s helped my game significantly. I’m headed to my first GP ever this year and I figured what better way to start my GP career than with Vegas baby! I’ve been doing pretty well with pptq’s and I want to do well at the GP, but I also don’t want to let making it to day two cloud my head. How should I balance confidence in my game with realistic expectations? What was your first GP like? Also which color sleeves should I use if I want to win? Thanks guys, hope to see you at Vegas!
Blane Malcomson
2018-05-12 14:02:09 +0000 UTCHow long into the format do you start experimenting with stuff? Would you jam a funky Lich's Mastery deck right out of the gates, for example, or do you prefer to get a couple "safe" drafts in first to get a feel for the format?
Freyja Letki
2018-05-12 12:36:02 +0000 UTCIf your primary goal is to qualify for the PT via limited events (emphasis on MTGO), what ratio should you play sealed vs draft to maximize value and increase your odds? Thanks guys!
Jaeger
2018-05-11 18:08:39 +0000 UTCHi Marshall and Luis, I feel like every time I open a bomb rare I hardly ever draw it (if at all). For example, in the Dominaria prerelease I opened a Lyra Dawnbringer and didn't draw her until round **5**. You often talk on the show about how these cards will finish out the game for you but I have a hard time relating to this. It feels to me like I should focus more on commons/uncommons and have these bombs as a nice occasional occurrence rather than relying on them to come up and finish the game, putting build-arounds even farther out of scope for me. Would appreciate your thoughts and advice on this. Thanks, Aviem.
Aviem Zur
2018-05-11 17:39:27 +0000 UTCG'day Marshall and Luis, I play MTGO almost exclusively and have a question regarding the limited leagues. I usually play in the Friendly Sealed and the Intermediate Draft leagues as I feel like these offer the best value for money, but I have heard people say that if you are good enough you should play in the Competitive leagues. I usually go 6-3 or 7-2 in the friendly sealed league and average 2-1 results in the draft league. Am I good enough to be playing in the competitive leagues or would I possibly be wasting my money as a poor performance would mean I might not get any return?
Shane Garvey
2018-05-11 08:17:53 +0000 UTCHi Marshall and Luis. Have you tried the bot drafting on MTGA? Wanted to get your take on how valuable this is; wondering if its a more budget friendly alternative to MTGO.
Matt Carr
2018-05-11 07:40:37 +0000 UTCHowdy Marshal and Luis, With the release of Dominaria, I've found myself wondering about when to splash for cards in limited. In particular, I went a little deep with Sailor of Means decks in Rivals, and I think that's instilled some bad habits in me, as in that format I found myself splashing cards I never would have considered before, like Dusk Charger or Contract Killing. I think this could be especially relevant in Dominaria, as there are a lot of powerful uncommons (especially gold uncommons like Tatyova) but the fixing is, to be frank, awful. How good of a card do you have to have to want to splash (and therefore prioritize fixing more highly), and how good does your fixing need to be?
Allen Smith
2018-05-11 05:09:41 +0000 UTCHey guys! I’m in a sealed league at my work that we’ve been running since SOI. You buy 6 packs at the start and can buy a new pack once a week to add to your pool. The “season” lasts the entire duration of the set’s lifespan and we usually have some pretty powerful decks near the end. Since Dominaria launched I have been getting totally destroyed. It’s been frustrating and I’ve chalked it up to me just “not getting this set”. I’ve tried various strategies and color combinations and nothing ever works; everyone else just seems to play things I can never hope to answer. I finally sat down with one of our best veteran players to look at my pool, and his conclusion was “yeah, your pool is just awful”. Ok, so my question is “now what?” Do I just keep taking beatings in the name of practice? Is this set’s lifespan long enough that there’s a good chance all of our pools will level out eventually? Am I wasting money every week if I keep buying into this? Lastly, I’ve never had cards this dysfunctional before — is my pool really that bad or is Dominaria just an unforgiving format for sealed? Thanks a lot, and thanks for doing what y’all do.
Kyle Stewart
2018-05-11 04:42:05 +0000 UTCHey Marshall and Luis! I'm really enjoying Dominaria, but I feel like I'm having a very hard time adjusting to the format. I love ramp and go big style decks, and I had pretty good success with them in Hour of Devastation. After Ixalan though I'm struggling to create the same kind of success in a slower format and I feel like drafting linear decks for so long in Ixalan skewed my view of drafting and deck building. Do you have any tips for somebody who wants to do more than suit up any creature with On Serra's Wings? As always, thanks for the amazing content!
Chris Belisle
2018-05-11 04:11:48 +0000 UTCI have a game design opinion question. What do you think of cards like Naru Meha, which can copy a spell when it enters the battlefield? It seems straight-forward, but utilizes the stack in a way which may be confusing to newer players and is harder to navigate in Magic Online. Does the benefit of making a card with this ability outweigh these detriments?
Drew Acquaviva
2018-05-11 02:37:59 +0000 UTCWhat do you think of different strategies meant to reduce the amount of information you give your opponent? Stuff like shuffling your side-board into your deck then taking out 15 cards to disguise how many cards you brought it, shuffling a pack before passing it in a physical draft to make it harder for your opponent to tell what you might have been looking at, trying to suppress potential reactions to a good or bad top deck etc. Is there an edge to be had or is it just a waste of time and mental energy?
William Gross
2018-05-11 02:19:54 +0000 UTCI recently started playing Magic Online, and I suck at it. I'm decent in person - not great, not even very good, but decent - but I'm absolutely abysmal online. By that I mean, even accounting for the fact that I'm playing an on-average higher level player than I do at my LGS, I'm constantly running out of clock (I'm quite fast in paper), screwing up mana payments, and the other day I even made a basic Island hexproof when I mis-clicked while trying to buff my creature. Do you have recommendations on how to improve at the medium (MTGO)? I am genuinely rarely frustrated at losing a game of magic because I was outplayed or even due to bad luck with the cards (randomness affects us all at some point, after all), but I am often and increasingly frustrated at losing to the interface. I'd prefer to believe that I can shift my perception rather than blame everything on Magic Online, because that stance, while fairly popular, isn't something I can improve upon.
JeFF Stumpo
2018-05-11 01:44:27 +0000 UTCIn limited there are cards that create immediate value and those that create value over time. The magnitude of the value can vary. An example of two very strong versions of each are Ravenous Chupacabra and Aryel, Knight of Windgrace. If you had to choose between these two cards in the vacuum of a "slower" format, which one would you want in your deck? Follow up question. Is there any set of circumstances in which the answer to the previous question is not Ravenous Chupacabra?
Ryan Glinski
2018-05-11 01:31:23 +0000 UTCHey guys, I’ve been listening for about 2 years now. I’ve gone back listen to most of the old episodes (even set reviews cause i love those episodes, great for card evaluation). Quick question, is it ever jarring to go from a set as fast as ixalan to a set that can be as durdly (and awesome) as dominaria. Thanks.
Andrew J Dufour
2018-05-11 01:26:14 +0000 UTCHow do you evaluate newly printed cards that get added to cube formats? Obviously something like Ravenous Chupacabra is amazing in Ixalan limited, but it's less clear how it stacks up in Modern/Legacy/Vintage cubes.
Daniel Schneider
2018-05-11 01:22:54 +0000 UTCHey Marshall and Luis, my friend and I live very far apart and don’t get to play Limited very often. When we do, it’s usually just him and I. We always play our prerelease pools against each other, but that quickly gets started. Are there any other 1v1 limited games you’d suggest? Thanks, Taylor from Scottsdale
Taylor Courser
2018-05-11 01:06:11 +0000 UTCHow best do you evaluate when to use your removal in limited (especially sealed for PPTQ's and GPs). When I snap off removal immediately upon 'good time' to do so, I usually regret it 2 turns later when something amazing comes down that wins the game without an answer. But at the same time I've lost to things like an Aesthir Glider that I left unanswered for 5 turns because I didn't want to use premium removal on it. Obviously there can't be a one-size-fits-all answer, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Eli White
2018-05-11 00:44:56 +0000 UTCHi Marshall and Luis! Thanks for all the great advice. I have a question about Sealed Deck. When building a pool, are you more interested in making sure you have answers (even if inefficient) to different enemy wincons or would you rather build a synergistic deck that has a higher power level. For example, let's say you end up in a heavy Green deck with only two removal spells and no Mammoth Spiders. Are you interested in main boarding Pierce the Sky even though the card may occasionally be dead in Game 1? In a similar vein, if that Green pool has no Broken Bond, are you eager to jump at splashing white for an Invoke the Divine and a removal spell or two?
Parker
2018-05-11 00:41:05 +0000 UTCHey Marshall and Luis, thanks for the consistently awesome content. I am always unsure of exactly how many lands to play in my ramp decks, and I find it strange that a deck with 7- or 8-drops might want fewer lands than a more midrange deck. I understand that you’re more likely to flood with mana dorks, but do you have a good rule of thumb? Do you think of the first Llanowar Elves or Grow from the Ashes as replacing a land? How often do you play 15 lands (if 17 is standard in the set)? Thanks!
Jake
2018-05-11 00:39:10 +0000 UTCHi Marshall and Luis, thanks for the show. Been listening for over 2 years and it really helped my play a lot, especially in draft + sealed. My question is: after a set rotates out of Standard what do you guys do with all the commons and unsellable uncommons? Selling rares back is easy enough to do, but my question is regards to all the “bulk cards”. Thanks as always and keep up the great work.
Douglas McLean
2018-05-11 00:37:58 +0000 UTCHi Marshall & Luis -- Been listening since the Loucks era and every week I tune in to tune my drafting and gameplay a little more. So, thank you! I have two questions: 1) Each game develops in stages -- early, mid, late -- but how about the drafting itself? Are there stages to each draft, and how can we better evaluate how our deck is developing during each stage? 2) How many Llanowar Elves (or mana dorks for cube and other formats) are needed before we can cut a land? At what point do we cut multiple lands -- going down to 15 for example? Thanks again for the great show! ps. you don't have to answer both, just thought I'd keep it to one comment :)
Sebastian Frye
2018-05-11 00:30:04 +0000 UTCMachine-learning set analyses FTW!
Brien Howard
2018-05-11 00:27:07 +0000 UTCHi Marshall and Luis! I'm a die-hard basketball fan and I know you are too. In fact, it seems like a lot of Magic players are. Is there something here? Both games are highly interactive and asymmetrical, with a huge variety of strategies and feature combining synergistic players/pieces. Or maybe I'm overthinking this? Also, if the Warriors, Rockets, Cavaliers, and Celtics were Dominaria draft decks, what decks would they be?
Steve Stormoen
2018-05-11 00:22:42 +0000 UTCHi Marshall and Luis - I have a question about Navigator's Compass. You guys both gave it an F in the set review and I've heard a lot of people saying it's stone unplayable. But from where I'm sitting, it's a one drop artifact in an artifacts sort of matter set that provides no-cost fixing for the rest of the game. In a set with very subpar fixing and cards that are begging to be splashed for I think it's playable in the right deck. Am I crazy?
Nicholas Walker
2018-05-11 00:14:52 +0000 UTCIt's often said on the show that sometimes, the only way to know how good a card is is to play with it. But it's 2018, and we've gone through Moneyball in sports... why can't we use quantitative analysis to figure out some of the more contextual valuations? Analytics could help tell us the speed of a format, whether a creature lives through the set's removal, and other such factors that affect how a card performs. Is there a fundamental problem with this approach, or is it just that people haven't done it yet?
P
2018-05-11 00:14:38 +0000 UTCHey Marshall & Luis - great show. I have struggled to win with build-around or “A+B” style decks in Dominaria draft. The draft seems to go well, but I never seem to get the right mix in game - whether it’s ramp and big spells in the Ramp decks; auras and aura payoffs in the aura decks; or token-makers and sacrifice or go-wide rewards in the token decks. Instead, I seem to get eviserated - literally - before I can set up my synergies. I feel like the Clippers of Magic Online - the roster always looks great at the start of the league, but I never seem to make it to a trophy. Is this just a “run bad, play bad” situation, or are build-arounds just too inconsistent in Dominaria? Thanks!
Jonathan Montgomery
2018-05-11 00:08:09 +0000 UTC
