Innistrad spoilers, discussion, and pre-release

[Dan Barrett]

First up - Jason will be having a pre-release again this time, so please do come and support it, it's probably advisable to book in advance and reserve a slot in case it's really busy - do so here:

 

SATURDAY

 

SUNDAY

 

 

Secondly, spoilers are starting, and this set looks pretty sweet theme-wise.

Nothing official yet (expect to see some early tomorrow morning after the Innistrad party at PAX, and spoiler articles start on dailymtg Monday), but there is this blurry Russian video that confirms flashback is returning, and there are some gold cards in the set. It would be an obvious Salvation fake, but the book the cards are on has the same symbol as one of the houses in that theme article, so...

 

 

[Charlie Grover]

I dont think the tribal element is hugely overpowering; its more the horrible swingy nature of things; about 25% of the cards are going to be bad most of the time and mind-blowingly overpowered the rest of the time, which is definitely not what I want in a limited format. Im hoping im wrong, but it feels like bad players are gonna getcha with their 3 mana 4/6's when you miss a drop too often for this to be a great format :(

[Mark Langley]

Perhaps drafting 3 mana 4/6's doesn't seem like a bad plan though in limited when the pace dictated by the set is slower. I don't think players using that path are bad as you should draft to your strengths but as a generalisation I don't in general think any opponent is bad and that I should auto win. That just leads to sloppy play and getting beaten by the person who drafted the 3 mana 4/6's surely and also fills you with a plethora of mana flood/mana screw/my opponent was so bad/my opponent was so lucky stories which have all been told before.

 

You can build your deck to the best of your ability, that never means as a given you are actually going to draw what you want to/need to. Thus the stories of dreams are made.

 

 

 

 

[Kieran Symington]

I hope someone can clarify this for me, but it seems that based on the rules for double sided cards, if you had a creature that was a copy of Civilised Scholar (or a Necrotic Ooze with its ability) then if you discard a creature card to the looting ability you untap it and the Transform does nothing. If this is right, you could potentially use a Necrotic Ooze with the ability to dump a load of creatures into your graveyard. Not sure what exactly you could do with that but it's certainly interesting (all I have so far is using the Scholar ability on Necrotic Ooze to get Laboratory Assistant, Pentavus and Grimgrin Corpseborn into your graveyard with another creature in play, then mill your whole library, play Laboratory Maniac and loot again to win immediately - but that's a bit involved even for me. The best use is probably just to use it to set up Skaab Ruinator or huge Boneyard Wurms/Splinterfrights).

[Philip Dickinson]

someone needs to answer some questions about innistrad draft for me

 

is monoblue or 5cc viable?

[Peter Dun]

@Dan: just want to say that I loved your article on scg, and agree with EVERYTHING you said in it pretty much to the letter (can't comment due to facebook/China)

[Dan Barrett]

Thanks! 

 

I'm assuming you mean about FNM and planeswalker points and not the whinging about a few mythics for laughs?

Peter Dun said:

@Dan: just want to say that I loved your article on scg, and agree with EVERYTHING you said in it pretty much to the letter (can't comment due to facebook/China)

[Charlie Grover]

Could you not take me to task for something for once? It really is unnecessarily aggressive. I didnt say the cards are bad - almost all the flip cards with reasonable stats on the top side and stupid good ones on the second side are really really good. People do lose to worse players with good draws. It is just fact. This set happens to contain perfectly good cards that are also exceedingly swingy; not a format I (or most people) hugely want to be playing. The best example is probably the one mana guy; if you draw him on turn 1 he might just crush the game for you, but generally he is average at best... Of course there are ways to maximise your chances of winning, like sandbagging a 2 drop if you think they have a 3 drop flip guy and you are going to miss your drop, but that doesnt mean that the cards arent unfortunately swingy

Oh and @ Kieran: If you want to dump your whole GY, you can play 1 mirror mad phantasm, somehow get it in there, then use necrotic ooze to activate its ability -because the second instance says "a card named" and not "this card" it mills to you hit another mirror mad phantasm NOT ooze, and voila, no library :)

Mark Langley said:

Perhaps drafting 3 mana 4/6's doesn't seem like a bad plan though in limited when the pace dictated by the set is slower. I don't think players using that path are bad as you should draft to your strengths but as a generalisation I don't in general think any opponent is bad and that I should auto win. That just leads to sloppy play and getting beaten by the person who drafted the 3 mana 4/6's surely and also fills you with a plethora of mana flood/mana screw/my opponent was so bad/my opponent was so lucky stories which have all been told before.

 

You can build your deck to the best of your ability, that never means as a given you are actually going to draw what you want to/need to. Thus the stories of dreams are made.

 

 

 

 

[Mark Langley]

Charlie, if my posting tone seemed aggressive to you personally then I apologise but rest assured I will always say exactly what I think so you might find my posts always to be antagonistic even if that isn't the case. However that being said, I think as I have only ever commented on two of your posts, albeit questioning them or their intent [as I read it], are you getting me confused with someone else?

 

Either way I agree with what you are saying about a swingy format, but I don't agree about people being labelled 'bad' just because they draft in a certain way. If that way of drafting works for you then draft that way. I have seen far too much magic 'elitism' over the past 17 years and calling someone 'bad' is red rag to a bull I am afraid.

 

Mark.

Charlie Grover said:

Could you not take me to task for something for once? It really is unnecessarily aggressive. I didnt say the cards are bad - almost all the flip cards with reasonable stats on the top side and stupid good ones on the second side are really really good. People do lose to worse players with good draws. It is just fact. This set happens to contain perfectly good cards that are also exceedingly swingy; not a format I (or most people) hugely want to be playing. The best example is probably the one mana guy; if you draw him on turn 1 he might just crush the game for you, but generally he is average at best... Of course there are ways to maximise your chances of winning, like sandbagging a 2 drop if you think they have a 3 drop flip guy and you are going to miss your drop, but that doesnt mean that the cards arent unfortunately swingy

Oh and @ Kieran: If you want to dump your whole GY, you can play 1 mirror mad phantasm, somehow get it in there, then use necrotic ooze to activate its ability -because the second instance says "a card named" and not "this card" it mills to you hit another mirror mad phantasm NOT ooze, and voila, no library :)

Mark Langley said:

Perhaps drafting 3 mana 4/6's doesn't seem like a bad plan though in limited when the pace dictated by the set is slower. I don't think players using that path are bad as you should draft to your strengths but as a generalisation I don't in general think any opponent is bad and that I should auto win. That just leads to sloppy play and getting beaten by the person who drafted the 3 mana 4/6's surely and also fills you with a plethora of mana flood/mana screw/my opponent was so bad/my opponent was so lucky stories which have all been told before.

 

You can build your deck to the best of your ability, that never means as a given you are actually going to draw what you want to/need to. Thus the stories of dreams are made.

 

 

 

 

[Peter Dun]

village bell ringers + splinter twin

village bell ringers is white

reveillark is white

totem guide hartbeast is white

idyllic tutor is white

 

just saying ;)

[Charlie Grover]

Im not labelling them bad for drating the werewolf cards. The cards with acceptable front sides/good backsides are really really good. Doesnt mean they wont occassionally lead to super unfun blowouts, regardless of player skill - It punishes mulligans much more cos its harder to curve out after a mulligan, and mullinganing well is quite an important skill.

 

And @ Peter: Gifts for Deceiver Exarch, Pestermite, Bell ringer is more interesting to me...

Mark Langley said:

Charlie, if my posting tone seemed aggressive to you personally then I apologise but rest assured I will always say exactly what I think so you might find my posts always to be antagonistic even if that isn't the case. However that being said, I think as I have only ever commented on two of your posts, albeit questioning them or their intent [as I read it], are you getting me confused with someone else?

 

Either way I agree with what you are saying about a swingy format, but I don't agree about people being labelled 'bad' just because they draft in a certain way. If that way of drafting works for you then draft that way. I have seen far too much magic 'elitism' over the past 17 years and calling someone 'bad' is red rag to a bull I am afraid.

 

Mark.

Charlie Grover said:

Could you not take me to task for something for once? It really is unnecessarily aggressive. I didnt say the cards are bad - almost all the flip cards with reasonable stats on the top side and stupid good ones on the second side are really really good. People do lose to worse players with good draws. It is just fact. This set happens to contain perfectly good cards that are also exceedingly swingy; not a format I (or most people) hugely want to be playing. The best example is probably the one mana guy; if you draw him on turn 1 he might just crush the game for you, but generally he is average at best... Of course there are ways to maximise your chances of winning, like sandbagging a 2 drop if you think they have a 3 drop flip guy and you are going to miss your drop, but that doesnt mean that the cards arent unfortunately swingy

Oh and @ Kieran: If you want to dump your whole GY, you can play 1 mirror mad phantasm, somehow get it in there, then use necrotic ooze to activate its ability -because the second instance says "a card named" and not "this card" it mills to you hit another mirror mad phantasm NOT ooze, and voila, no library :)

Mark Langley said:

Perhaps drafting 3 mana 4/6's doesn't seem like a bad plan though in limited when the pace dictated by the set is slower. I don't think players using that path are bad as you should draft to your strengths but as a generalisation I don't in general think any opponent is bad and that I should auto win. That just leads to sloppy play and getting beaten by the person who drafted the 3 mana 4/6's surely and also fills you with a plethora of mana flood/mana screw/my opponent was so bad/my opponent was so lucky stories which have all been told before.

 

You can build your deck to the best of your ability, that never means as a given you are actually going to draw what you want to/need to. Thus the stories of dreams are made.

 

 

 

 

[Peter Dun]

drafting innistrad is illegal

playing a pre-release can only be sealed

product has not been released

 

thus it is impossible that I have played with the new cards

 

HOWEVER, in a hypothetical situation in a parallel universe where this might have happened, some thoughts:

1) There is NOT a lot of removal in this set outside of white. White has a lot of the very best cards in the set, but is bad against itself.

 

2) Flashback cards give you enough spells to delay werewolves, and even transform them back. Transforming them isn't actually that difficult... you can just skip a turn if you have to. Acting removing the card from the sleave is very very annoying though.

 

3) Travel preparations is a very very powerful card, and a good reason to go gw. There is not a lot of removal in the set, and if you are white, half of the white "removal" effects don't do anything to you.

 

4) Because every colour has defensive 3 drops, the format is quite slow, even though there is no removal. This means bombs, or ways to break stalls matters.

[Charlie Grover]

More interesting twin.dec tech: If you have Teferi in play, gifts for teachings, and 1 of each exarch variant sets up the combo regardless of what pile they give you.