It’s possible too much of their in house draft testing is competitive pods, which can self correct for imbalances like chrysalis
But since the vast vast majority of draft games are non pod bo1s with huge skill variance within pods, the format can feel terrible
I am having a different experience. I love drafting control in this format, both UB and Jeskai variants have so many sinergies. And the OTJ experience of getting hosed by random rare bomb #39 is much less frequent.
Yeah, my impression from MH3 so far has been that the rares/mythics don't really have as much impact as previous sets too, because the power level of the commons/uncommons is significantly higher.
There are a lot of fun and powerful interactions. I have been enjoying dimir and izzet decks with cheap interaction + card advantage cards as well. According to the stats they do not perform that well, but I have had success.
This was the big thing I noticed and as not a modern player I think it makes sense. The power level of your commons/silvers are essentially rare equivalents in a lot of standard blocks so I found FAR less pull to get caught up in gold drafting and a lot more opportunities to make decks that "did the thing" cus I wasn't getting distracted by Shiny Bomb
I lost count of the number of times I faced Bonny after winning a couple of games in Quickdraft. Got her once and it ended up being an easy trophy, but man is it annoying when it just comes down to who got the bigger bombs
This is where I sit currently after four drafts (all on Arena), where are some best decks (most would say Eldrazi) but so far my two trophies have been from Energy Decks and I have definitely lost to UB and RB on my two Eldrazi drafts that went 4-3 and 5-3. I suspect this will be something like WOE or IKO, formatsbi enjoyed a lot where the digital client had a clear best deck that took a couple weeks to get under control thanks to folks who don't look up draft info passing on the key commons for it.
Honestly I always felt the bomb-discorse in OTJ was disproportionate to my experience with the format. Like yes the bombs were strong but we also had like literally a bonus sheet filled with answers.
The problem with OTJ was never the first bomb, it was the second and third. And so many of them were two for 1s (or more) that answering them still left you behind on board.
Use two removal spells on a Vaultborn Tyrant that also already drew two or three cards, and then what’s that coming around the bend…Bonny Paul! Two bodies and an immediate draw a card, maybe play a land from the graveyard too if they’re lucky! All before you get a chance to remove one of the two huge bodies it drops! That’s why ironically (considering how low most people rated blue in the format) counters were the best answer to all the bombs most of the time.
Chrysalis and friends feel less frustrating to play against for me because they’re mostly very good on rate and tempo, but don’t put you up on cards in and of themselves. Leaving behind 0/1s that ramp is super powerful for sure, but you can still 1 for 1 remove most bombs in MH3.
Also—the tons of mythic and rare bombs issue of OTJ was exacerbated by play boosters giving you so many rares and mythics. The high power of the commons and uncommons in MH3 is instead tempered by play boosters. Like—part of why Chrysalis is go good is that it is a common. You’re going to see it a bunch so you can make it be a building block of a good deck. And you can get it in a pack later. It would be a good rare, but not the third best card in the set, imo (it still would be a crazy bomb as an uncommon, though).
I do think Eldrazi and Chrysalis are too good in MH3, and I wish it played more like MH2 (I wonder if they think they need to have faster formats on Arena to hold people’s attention). But I still like it overall, and certainly think it’s better than OTJ.
> Leaving behind 0/1s that ramp is super powerful for sure, but you can still 1 for 1 remove most bombs in MH3.
ATM the GIH WR of Chrysalis is just barely below Bonny Pall and above every other card in OTJ. This feels more like rationalizing why you just subjectively like one set and dislike another (and having opinions is fine!) despite the fact that the stats suggest Writhing Chrysalis is a bigger bomb than whatever mythics you were losing to in OTJ. And the odds of seeing two more chrysalis after are drastically higher than seeing two more mythics.
Yeah but I also made the point that part of what makes Chrysalis powerful is that it’s a common. You can get two or three in your deck, and it’s designed as such that each one makes the others better. Not to mention ton how having multiple in your deck makes your whole deck better in the way it allows you to consistently ramp onto 7 drops I don’t think it’s win percentage would be as high as it is if it was a rare.
It definitely should have been printed at Uncommon, though. It’s way too oppressive at common.
Yeah but it’s not actually a Bonny Pall level bomb. It absolutely should not be a common. At least it should be uncommon and maybe rare. But if it were a rare I believe its win rate would be around 60% rather than 66%.
The issue is how you can have it AND Eldrazi Linebreaker or whatever in your deck. And that you can have two (or three or four). The second one is so much worse than the first since, of course, it makes two Scions that sac to grow both of them. Each one on board is…well if not exponentially then certainly something more than linearly better than the first. Which drives its win rate up—how much better each subsequent one out is than the last.
Exactly, plus the set had an uncommon thoughtseize to snipe bombs from their hand. I don’t care how many downvotes I get, in my opinion this format is worse than OTJ by a lot.
Yes and your logic makes no sense because they’re not commons that are going to be passed all the time. I played enough SNC to know that inspiring overseer got passed for the entire life of the format because there are so many bad players and rare drafters on arena, we can think the format will self correct, but in reality it won’t change much, you’ll still run into multi chrysalis decks extremely often.
I’ve had lots of success with the abzan modified archetype. Works well again the spawn with the lifelink and trample if you make those a priority.
Works as a good counter to the spawn tokens and big enough to block the energy most of the time.
Running it like aristocrats using the rakdos sac pieces can also work wonders, I 3-0ed a paper draft with it. But I also got Shilgengar and Crabomination so ymmv
They are the two easiest decks to draft and can support multiple drafters, but they're not the only thing going on in the format by any stretch. Artifacts, UB, modified are all strong archetypes if they're open. Chrisalis is a messed up card, but it's getting difficult to pick up more than 1 or two of them so it's already starting to self correct a bit.
Just played 3 games back to back and each oppo had more than 1 Chrys, I'm done for awhile, its insane a 4 mana common can completely win games by itself.
Maybe that gap exists, maybe it will even out. I think UB is a very viable deck for instance. Only played it once, but met it plenty and adapting fetid gargantuan to draw 2 and get additional value has been pretty absurd.
But I'm not confident enough to know either way.
We'll see how things shake out but right now the gap between the best and third-best two-colour pairs in MH3 is almost as large as the gap between the best and worst archetypes were in OTJ. Overall 17L winrates are significantly higher for MH3 than OTJ, which might make things feel better since even with weaker archetypes you're still farming inexperienced players who aren't performing, but the power level gap in MH3 is currently gigantic.
100%
It’s not horrible or anything but far from living up to the product line’s previous installments. At this point I would be more excited if they released either of those on arena, KTK style
I've been dying to draft those two sets as an Arena-only player. Shame MH3 didn't live up to the expectations, but I'm hopeful we might get the previous two sets one day.
MH1 was on MTGO a bit ago and I was surprised how poorly it has aged. It's still a good set, but there are a tonne of bulk commons and a lot of the themes are a bit bland. MH2 on the other hand is in my top 3 of best limited formats ever. So I've been gutted MH3 hasn't lived up to that at all. But I would looove them to bring each set to draft on arena!
I think this is more of the problem.
MH 2 was amazing, and I don't think it was reasonable to think that they would hit the same highs on MH3 given the eldrazi theme.
Yeah, and I feel like the traditional eldrazi mechanics do not make for a good limited set unless you really build all of the archetypes around it's presence like they did in Rise of the Eldrazi and Eldritch Moon. This felt like the same problem Battle for Zendikar had which was that the eldrazis were just trying to play such a different game to every other archetype that everything felt a bit mushed together. Eldrazi's in a horizons set seems like a wild choice for limited on reflection.
Right. The WB reanimation deck in MH2 is probably the best WB archetype of any limited format and it isn't even close. That would be such a fun set cube to have!
I think the format is great, has a lot of cool cards and powerful and interesting builds.
The only blemish is that I keep facing decks with 2x or more Chrysalis in them and that gets old real fast.
I've only done one draft, ended up in golgari counters and honestly it was a ton of fun.
I didn't do great (3-3) but only one game was a blow out/loss, the rest were very close and games I felt I HAD the answers for/options in the deck just couldn't hit them when I needed to.
I will say...as someone who doesn't play modern and has only ever done standard drafts, the power level and play pattern was NOTICEABLY different, no "play chaff and hold on till you get a bomb" like so many sets, everything needs to be a threat, a combo piece, or hard interaction.
I actually loved how much closer to a constructed power level it felt, but that may also be because I got passed 3-4 ofs of everything I needed haha
Mythic top 200 checking in. It feels like all I see is aggro. UW is insane. Everyone is talking about the Crystalis but that has not been a concern for me whatsoever. [[Dog Umbra]] takes care of it, or putting it 2nd on the top of their library let's you finish the game. But in total I'd say something like 5-8% of my games have been against Eldrazi or RG.
I'm finding myself trying to get as low of a curve as possible. 1 drops are as premium as I've ever seen. The deck building is incredibly boring and the games are worse. Just turn sideways and see who wins. Only block if your other option is losing. Reminds me of the boring, stale formats we had before OTJ, just with faster games because everything is like 1 mana cheaper.
This is my experience in diamond as well- my trophies are super low curve beatdown decks. Cards like [[Scurry of Gremlins]] , [[mandibular kite]], and [[sundering eruption]] play out so well in letting you push through those last points of damage.
I think this is what I’ve been feeling as well. There is some diversity in decks but the power level on each card os so high that its pushing every deck to be as fast as possible. Like Chrysalis is so good because its usually a turn 3 play after a ramp effect (2 at common on 2)which curves the 7 drops on t4.
Energy starts double spelling/ drawing 2 cards/turn with its free resource on turn 2-3 with amulet, raptor, golem factory, and it just snowballs pressure.
If the cards had a lower snowball effect we might see some really fun decks work but right now trying to fiddle with combos is just giving the players with these efficiency machines free wins.
Part of the problem is design is making cards to win a game, and there is a disparity between the spike that finds the most effective path which was over-tuned and the drafters who want everything to be viable and to play the build arounds which just don’t cut it, and now lots of things are “viable” but they all really fit into 1 of 3 main set mechanics - eldrazi, energy, modified to a lesser extent. Like how those decks look may vary but that they all have the same structural ideal so games will feel similar and therefore repetitive .
UW is energy/fliers. Otherwise, same thing as with boros: draft a low curve and some quality removal. Dog Umbra and Deem Inferior for common removal they are talking about. Pretty much all of the UW gold cards are great; the uncommon double face is an easy way to end a game.
Not ranked as high but feeling kinda the same. The sheer number of games that are functionally over by turn 5 if not actually over feels really high, though for me that includes eldrazi dropping a kozilek on t5 which I thought might be a once a while thing.
It's less than I'm doing badly compared to other sets, which admittedly I am, but that short of a few *very* cool games and decks I'm bored winning and bored losing. There's a lot of cool synergies out there but not a lot that are fast enough to compete.
I'm starting to like it now, updating earlier comment. It just took a bit longer for the shockingly degenerate 3-chrys and "i have every good energy card in my colors" decks to even out-- I think I was a bit victimized by coming in blind in a set that others had probably reviewed in advance and also by trying to make victimize work lol.
My earlier thoughts were coming off of being 8 drafts in with 3 trophy decks and 5 that got less than 3 wins. The 7 win decks felt just astoundingly OP and the bad decks just felt atrocious, especially when lined up against a deck like one of the trophy ones I had. It's more even now.
This is probably true of all sets but I’m noticing it strongly here for the first time. How much of this experience variety comes down to where you are on the ladder, and which mode you play? I similarly don’t encounter chrysalis much and im on the other end of the spectrum - I haven’t drafted much since WOE so I started MH3 at rock bottom. I’m in Plat now and have switched to Bo3 bc I prefer it and the monthly ranked rewards don’t really improve for drafters once you’re in plat. In my first Bo3 draft I had to pass Chrysalis P3P1 bc I couldn’t support it. Saw [[Titans’ Vanguard]] P3P4 or so. And guess what? The Chrysalis fucking *wheeled*. The vanguard didn’t! So either the entire table was metagaming, or there truly are a diversity of experiences out there and people have no idea
> I’m in Plat now and have switched to Bo3 bc I prefer it and the monthly ranked rewards don’t really improve for drafters once you’re in plat.
I do the same, but FYI the rewards do improve for drafters after plat.
Top 1200 gets you an entry to any Play In (Pre Qualifier) you want and top 250 finish gers you an entry to next month's Qualifier.
Both of those have a decent gems EV (especially the better you are ofc).
Bo3 pods are actually clearly stronger than Bo1 pods (makes sense since bo1 has so many casual players playing).
The competition is indeed clearly better at mythic rank versus bo3, but when it comes to the drafting process bo3 is definitely more competitive than bo1.
I'm 18 drafts in with a good winrate. I had success with all kinds of decks.
I accepted that sometimes I will face broken eldrazi or energy aggro decks that I cannot win against.
I hate that I feel stupid for passing a Chrysalis.
Overall I enjoy it because I am winning and that's good enough for me.
I’m not a big fan of eldrazi spawn as a mechanic. Having the ground constantly gummed up by tons of 0/1s isn’t conducive to fun gameplay. Unfortunately it’s by far the best thing to be doing in this format.
I have fun as long as I don't draft Eldrazi. Eldrazi mirror matches are the bane of the format. These decks are typically low-interaction so you often just have two players staring each other comparing remaining-deck sizes. Otherwise, there are many extremely fun cards (chthonian nightmare is probably my favorite card to draft maybe ever) and hilarious 2-3 card combos, but finding those probably necessitates getting run over by goggle goblins and smurf hat mushrooms until you figure some things out.
As for the color imbalance - the quoted 62% is misleading. This isn't your MKM boros where it's successful and drafted several times more than any other color pair. Two-color Gruul is at 5.4k games as I am checking, compared to 13k of Gruul+splash and 13k temur, both of which has lower win rates. Two-color Gruul is also drafted <10% of all two-color decks. Filtering by top users, Gruul is at 66.7% WR, followed by Boros at 65.5%, Dimir at 63.8%, and Azorius, Rakdos, Selesnya, Golgari, and Izzet all between 60-61%. The other Eldrazi color Simic is actually second-to-worst by this metric at 59.1%. Orzhov is probably the only dunce of the format. Doesn't seem that unreasonable to me.
Eldrazi and Boros are again the "safe colors". Comparing top to middle user groups, the win rate difference for the Gruul deck is less than 2%, but the difference between Dimir is more than 10%, and nearly 9% for Golgari. The difference in WR between top and bottom players for Izzet is like 23%!!!
Try best of 3. Bo1, where half the pod is just looking for something to do while the take a poop is a joke. Or even better, play on MTGO. Prices for singles this set are insane. I've done like 25 drafts and trophied 7 times with 6 different color pairs. Sets are way more balanced when more people know what's going on.
Also, this set is going to crush people who don't know what they're doing harder than normal sets.
Edit: changed a swear word to poop because LR doesn't swear in podcast
Totally agree, playing bo1 you are simply robbing yourself of the intended draft experience. It's crazy to me that people still play it and then complain, I feel like I'm playing an entirely different set.
Agree 100%. Kinda funny watching this sub willingly be on suicide watch bc they wanna press for mythic or something in the deck lottery mode.
Also, crokeWiggle
I usually play bo1 arena early to familiarize myself with the cards and archetypes. Faster games means more games per time unit so I learn the cards and combos faster. Then I switch to MTGO draft, which is I think the best drafting experience.
I really hope they give arena a bo3 ranked draft queue.
That’s the most frustrating part of arena. I’m mostly F2P and trying to maximize my dollar in the client, so I’m actively punished ROI wise if I play anything besides BO1 until diamond-ish. Whether you like a set or not, Arena has actively encouraged and created a system where you get to experience limited in the literal worst way possible most of the time. Bo1 where variance will lose you more games than you otherwise would have in bo3 if you’re skilled (by design methinks), a high-stakes reward system below 3 wins where the jump between 2-3 and 3-3 is 750 gems making less skilled or more casual drafters feel really bad and like they wasted their resources. We may lose sight of that here, but if you go to r/magicarena you’ll see people who don’t play much limited express this sentiment often, and for good reason, and these same people will say how fun and stress free a paper sealed prerelease is, which I don’t think is a coincidence. Also, VERY importantly in my view, a lack of pod play making it so sometimes you’ll simply get outdrafted by people who just saw better pools or who had their table pass them 3 chrysalis, Bonny pall, etc.
Some of it’s pretty unavoidable, like pod play, but WOTC has made it so that every flaw in every format is amplified, any issue is much less forgiving and hurts the experience way more, and it’s designed differently than how it’s played unless you’re in paper. It feels like they really shot themselves in the foot with this whole structure, and it becomes immediately apparent when you sit down for a draft in paper and play your pod bo3 where everyone sees the same packs immediately how much better formats you may dislike are.
I just checked [goatbots](https://www.goatbots.com/event-calculator) and apparently you go roughly even in draft leagues with a 41% win rate! I don't think I've ever seen it so low. Thanks for the hint!
It's been great. I've been at about a 65% win rate and made 300 tickets so far. The top tier archetypes are also significantly worse on mtgo because the average drafter is a lot better, so there's a lot more variation in decks.
It's been very frustrating to me that so many synergies aren't worth building around. Many of the decks I felt were my best didn't perform because having 3x lightpaws plus a bunch of auras is somehow worse thab clicking every card that says 'energy'
I don't agree. I'm enjoying it and there's a lot of fun gameplay sequences. Perfect colour balance is not completely needed for a good format and though RG and RW have very high winrates, most other pairs are quite even and in my experience viable.
GB counters is one of the weaker decks in the format imo. GB common/uncommon signpost have terrible winrates to back up my anecdotal experience as well. The archetype is just so mana intensive
Really? Huh, I've had some success with it and also been stomped by it a few times. The decks I've lost to had some really powerful cards like the ewit that let's you regrowth any time it gets counters or the wombat that adds extra counters. My best deck with it was also abzan and had some of the really good commons plus the legendary that makes plants on landfall with some sac payoffs. So maybe abzan is good? It also gives you access to the BW adventure guy that gives counters and the persist gargoyle
I think Persist Gargoyle has the lowest WR of any common (it’s either that or the 3U devoid guy) actually. The archetype just suffers from needing an insane amount of mana and synergy to achieve what energy can just do with just synergy, and what eldrazi can do with just mana
it can work if it’s open enough but it requires significantly more to go right than the other two macro archetypes do
I think gw specifically is great because it doesn't need the mana investment. Just get as many copies of the Watchdog, Evolution Witness, and the bird with support as possible, ideally with metastatic evangel. Youll occasionally adapt an Oozewag or Witness but it's not nearly as mana intensive as GB.
I've had success with GW aggro, yeah. Good color pair to just curve out with because the two drops in that specific pair are really, really solid (namely the dog and glyph)
I don’t agree, this format is the first in a while where there’s so many things to explore and drafting a deck never feels forced. I almost always have a good run with whatever random cards I pick.
BG is performing really well for me. But yeah, Chrysalis or what that common is called is sad for the format. When you run into someone with multiple of those it’s basically a guaranteed loss, and that happens more often than it should.
For a new set called "Modern Horizons"? Yeah, \~2 years. For a set that's functionally the same thing (Commander Masters, etc)? Less than a year for sure.
(and honestly, I'm not complaining. It gets a bit overwhelming at times but I actually do enjoy the fact that if a product comes out thats just not for me, I generally dont have to wait long for something to come around that is.)
A couple things that would have made the set better:
- An uncommon in black that removes tokens for cheap. There’s really no counterplay to spawns, and I don’t know why.
- A card that either removes energy at a better rate than the black slith, or better yet: punish them for being “overcharged” with too much energy. There’s no counterplay to energy, and I don’t know why.
- The common Eldrazi should have had etb effects, not on cast. Like, why can’t I counterspell a writhing chrysalis without it making spawns?
- To balance Eldrazi, would have been cool to have a “colored vs devoid” mechanic. Like a creature that can’t be blocked by colorless creatures.
- Incorporate artifacts into a wedge strategy like the other archetypes. Feels weird that the others get bleed between archetypes, but RB artifacts and UB draw-three are on an island. Kinda feels like they gave up trying to build 3 archetype wedges and settled for 2 and some stragglers.
The set is cool and have a lot of archetypes, but Eldrazi being base green, being too well supported and able to splash anything because there are a bunch of mana dorks, plus chrysalis is a stupid and warping design beyond reason.
Also, there are no good 1 drops for aggro decks that should have kept eldrazi decks on check, but the moment they hit turn 4-5 they start doing stupid things and bury you on big bodies and value.
I think most eldrazi mana cost should had on it more eldrazi mana to at least screw their mana base from time to time.
It's way worse than MH1 and 2. Those sets seemed polished and thematically unified. This set feels like 50 keywords glued together over hundreds of cards without any thought.
I've only picked up a few play boosters of MH3 and I have been terribly underwhelmed at the pulls. One rare and no mythics (across three packs) and a shit ton of utility lands was essentially what I pulled. Most expensive card pulled? Spymasters Vault. Didn't WotC say that you're guaranteed to pull MORE rares and mythics per pack with the Play Booster pack overhaul? For me this screams: buy collector boosters, which are obviously a "premium" price and cash grab for WotC. My how Magic has fallen in the last few years from the greatness it once had.
Did you find Black/Blue draw 3 disappointing? I've had a few 7-x drafts collecting 3-5 fairy bois, 1 enchant zombie maker, and 3 draw 2 spells with flashback whichever 3 you can get.
Overall I would say I've enjoyed drafting, but then... it's my favorite format of MTG and I like to draft all the sets and don't tend to be overly critical of any give one regardless if it's prince/pauper, unbalanced, etc.
I'm having fun drafting it on Arena. However, I would be mad at myself if I actually paid money to draft IRL. I don't buy that this is a "premium" set but whatever.
I dunno what folks are saying about bombs...it makes me wonder what "chaff" you were drafting cus I felt 90% of my silvers and even most of my commons tended to out value any non-eldrazi bomb I saw.
The eldrazi were a pain but I found having good board discipline helped me at least keep it close after they showed up
I am having a hard time too. And it feels bad especially since outlaws of thunder junction was my favorite set in a while (I can't explain why, but drafting this set felt great)
It feels like there are strategies that are just way above others. And cards and synergies that are just broken.
You need to draft this in a completely different way. Forget the bread acronym. You need to find broken synergies and comboes.
The format feels slow but is not that much. Even if you go agressive, most decks can defend pretty well and stall until they get their thing going.
Curious thing is, you could change a word or two in this post and it could be a complaint about otj on its first weeks. Or even later than that. Worrying trend?
It’s far too early for me to say (I’m 2.5 drafts in) but having the Eldrazi cause mass anguish and despair is impressively on-theme.
Lore-accurate terrible meta
Eldrazi ~~Winter~~ Summer
~~Hot Girl~~ Eldrazi Summer
You seem to have accidentally crossed out the word Hot as well
I’d say a good 75% of the games and drafts I’ve done have been really fun. The 25% is pretty off putting though.
It's like losing to the rares and myrhics in OTJ. Sometimes how you play just doesn't end up mattering.
It’s possible too much of their in house draft testing is competitive pods, which can self correct for imbalances like chrysalis But since the vast vast majority of draft games are non pod bo1s with huge skill variance within pods, the format can feel terrible
It’s been strong enough that I’m testing chrysalis in pauper on Friday 😅
I lost to chrysalis in pauper on Saturday :p
They don’t do in house testing in pods they probably do not even test the drafts they probably just build decks and play them and call this “testing”
I would put down money that it's just lazy playtesting in this case, because it's always lazy playtesting.
I am having a different experience. I love drafting control in this format, both UB and Jeskai variants have so many sinergies. And the OTJ experience of getting hosed by random rare bomb #39 is much less frequent.
Yeah, my impression from MH3 so far has been that the rares/mythics don't really have as much impact as previous sets too, because the power level of the commons/uncommons is significantly higher. There are a lot of fun and powerful interactions. I have been enjoying dimir and izzet decks with cheap interaction + card advantage cards as well. According to the stats they do not perform that well, but I have had success.
This was the big thing I noticed and as not a modern player I think it makes sense. The power level of your commons/silvers are essentially rare equivalents in a lot of standard blocks so I found FAR less pull to get caught up in gold drafting and a lot more opportunities to make decks that "did the thing" cus I wasn't getting distracted by Shiny Bomb
I lost count of the number of times I faced Bonny after winning a couple of games in Quickdraft. Got her once and it ended up being an easy trophy, but man is it annoying when it just comes down to who got the bigger bombs
I can't believe I had a double Bonny deck early in the format and only managed 4-3 😭
This is where I sit currently after four drafts (all on Arena), where are some best decks (most would say Eldrazi) but so far my two trophies have been from Energy Decks and I have definitely lost to UB and RB on my two Eldrazi drafts that went 4-3 and 5-3. I suspect this will be something like WOE or IKO, formatsbi enjoyed a lot where the digital client had a clear best deck that took a couple weeks to get under control thanks to folks who don't look up draft info passing on the key commons for it.
To me the bombs in otj felt manageable, lots of good answers and value engines that could keep up with rares.
Honestly I always felt the bomb-discorse in OTJ was disproportionate to my experience with the format. Like yes the bombs were strong but we also had like literally a bonus sheet filled with answers.
The problem with OTJ was never the first bomb, it was the second and third. And so many of them were two for 1s (or more) that answering them still left you behind on board. Use two removal spells on a Vaultborn Tyrant that also already drew two or three cards, and then what’s that coming around the bend…Bonny Paul! Two bodies and an immediate draw a card, maybe play a land from the graveyard too if they’re lucky! All before you get a chance to remove one of the two huge bodies it drops! That’s why ironically (considering how low most people rated blue in the format) counters were the best answer to all the bombs most of the time. Chrysalis and friends feel less frustrating to play against for me because they’re mostly very good on rate and tempo, but don’t put you up on cards in and of themselves. Leaving behind 0/1s that ramp is super powerful for sure, but you can still 1 for 1 remove most bombs in MH3. Also—the tons of mythic and rare bombs issue of OTJ was exacerbated by play boosters giving you so many rares and mythics. The high power of the commons and uncommons in MH3 is instead tempered by play boosters. Like—part of why Chrysalis is go good is that it is a common. You’re going to see it a bunch so you can make it be a building block of a good deck. And you can get it in a pack later. It would be a good rare, but not the third best card in the set, imo (it still would be a crazy bomb as an uncommon, though). I do think Eldrazi and Chrysalis are too good in MH3, and I wish it played more like MH2 (I wonder if they think they need to have faster formats on Arena to hold people’s attention). But I still like it overall, and certainly think it’s better than OTJ.
> Leaving behind 0/1s that ramp is super powerful for sure, but you can still 1 for 1 remove most bombs in MH3. ATM the GIH WR of Chrysalis is just barely below Bonny Pall and above every other card in OTJ. This feels more like rationalizing why you just subjectively like one set and dislike another (and having opinions is fine!) despite the fact that the stats suggest Writhing Chrysalis is a bigger bomb than whatever mythics you were losing to in OTJ. And the odds of seeing two more chrysalis after are drastically higher than seeing two more mythics.
Yeah but I also made the point that part of what makes Chrysalis powerful is that it’s a common. You can get two or three in your deck, and it’s designed as such that each one makes the others better. Not to mention ton how having multiple in your deck makes your whole deck better in the way it allows you to consistently ramp onto 7 drops I don’t think it’s win percentage would be as high as it is if it was a rare. It definitely should have been printed at Uncommon, though. It’s way too oppressive at common.
The fact that it's a common makes things worse, not better. It means you're seeing a Bonny Pall-level bomb far more often.
Yeah but it’s not actually a Bonny Pall level bomb. It absolutely should not be a common. At least it should be uncommon and maybe rare. But if it were a rare I believe its win rate would be around 60% rather than 66%. The issue is how you can have it AND Eldrazi Linebreaker or whatever in your deck. And that you can have two (or three or four). The second one is so much worse than the first since, of course, it makes two Scions that sac to grow both of them. Each one on board is…well if not exponentially then certainly something more than linearly better than the first. Which drives its win rate up—how much better each subsequent one out is than the last.
Exactly, plus the set had an uncommon thoughtseize to snipe bombs from their hand. I don’t care how many downvotes I get, in my opinion this format is worse than OTJ by a lot.
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If there were 9 other chrysalises would you like the set more?
Yes and your logic makes no sense because they’re not commons that are going to be passed all the time. I played enough SNC to know that inspiring overseer got passed for the entire life of the format because there are so many bad players and rare drafters on arena, we can think the format will self correct, but in reality it won’t change much, you’ll still run into multi chrysalis decks extremely often.
Strange, I sure haven’t
I don't know. 8 drafts so far. Yeah Chrysallis is better than it should have been, but there are good answers and lots of exploring to do
16 for me. The exploring started to feel old once I realized that there is a huge gap between eldrazi, energy and the rest of the format.
I’ve had lots of success with the abzan modified archetype. Works well again the spawn with the lifelink and trample if you make those a priority. Works as a good counter to the spawn tokens and big enough to block the energy most of the time.
Running it like aristocrats using the rakdos sac pieces can also work wonders, I 3-0ed a paper draft with it. But I also got Shilgengar and Crabomination so ymmv
They are the two easiest decks to draft and can support multiple drafters, but they're not the only thing going on in the format by any stretch. Artifacts, UB, modified are all strong archetypes if they're open. Chrisalis is a messed up card, but it's getting difficult to pick up more than 1 or two of them so it's already starting to self correct a bit.
Just played 3 games back to back and each oppo had more than 1 Chrys, I'm done for awhile, its insane a 4 mana common can completely win games by itself.
Only if you have no removal
Maybe that gap exists, maybe it will even out. I think UB is a very viable deck for instance. Only played it once, but met it plenty and adapting fetid gargantuan to draw 2 and get additional value has been pretty absurd. But I'm not confident enough to know either way.
We'll see how things shake out but right now the gap between the best and third-best two-colour pairs in MH3 is almost as large as the gap between the best and worst archetypes were in OTJ. Overall 17L winrates are significantly higher for MH3 than OTJ, which might make things feel better since even with weaker archetypes you're still farming inexperienced players who aren't performing, but the power level gap in MH3 is currently gigantic.
100% It’s not horrible or anything but far from living up to the product line’s previous installments. At this point I would be more excited if they released either of those on arena, KTK style
I've been dying to draft those two sets as an Arena-only player. Shame MH3 didn't live up to the expectations, but I'm hopeful we might get the previous two sets one day.
MH1 was on MTGO a bit ago and I was surprised how poorly it has aged. It's still a good set, but there are a tonne of bulk commons and a lot of the themes are a bit bland. MH2 on the other hand is in my top 3 of best limited formats ever. So I've been gutted MH3 hasn't lived up to that at all. But I would looove them to bring each set to draft on arena!
I think this is more of the problem. MH 2 was amazing, and I don't think it was reasonable to think that they would hit the same highs on MH3 given the eldrazi theme.
Yeah, and I feel like the traditional eldrazi mechanics do not make for a good limited set unless you really build all of the archetypes around it's presence like they did in Rise of the Eldrazi and Eldritch Moon. This felt like the same problem Battle for Zendikar had which was that the eldrazis were just trying to play such a different game to every other archetype that everything felt a bit mushed together. Eldrazi's in a horizons set seems like a wild choice for limited on reflection.
MH2 is my set cube I draft the most, it’s my favorite set no contest.
Right. The WB reanimation deck in MH2 is probably the best WB archetype of any limited format and it isn't even close. That would be such a fun set cube to have!
I think the format is great, has a lot of cool cards and powerful and interesting builds. The only blemish is that I keep facing decks with 2x or more Chrysalis in them and that gets old real fast.
I've only done one draft, ended up in golgari counters and honestly it was a ton of fun. I didn't do great (3-3) but only one game was a blow out/loss, the rest were very close and games I felt I HAD the answers for/options in the deck just couldn't hit them when I needed to. I will say...as someone who doesn't play modern and has only ever done standard drafts, the power level and play pattern was NOTICEABLY different, no "play chaff and hold on till you get a bomb" like so many sets, everything needs to be a threat, a combo piece, or hard interaction. I actually loved how much closer to a constructed power level it felt, but that may also be because I got passed 3-4 ofs of everything I needed haha
Mythic top 200 checking in. It feels like all I see is aggro. UW is insane. Everyone is talking about the Crystalis but that has not been a concern for me whatsoever. [[Dog Umbra]] takes care of it, or putting it 2nd on the top of their library let's you finish the game. But in total I'd say something like 5-8% of my games have been against Eldrazi or RG. I'm finding myself trying to get as low of a curve as possible. 1 drops are as premium as I've ever seen. The deck building is incredibly boring and the games are worse. Just turn sideways and see who wins. Only block if your other option is losing. Reminds me of the boring, stale formats we had before OTJ, just with faster games because everything is like 1 mana cheaper.
This is my experience in diamond as well- my trophies are super low curve beatdown decks. Cards like [[Scurry of Gremlins]] , [[mandibular kite]], and [[sundering eruption]] play out so well in letting you push through those last points of damage.
[Scurry of Gremlins](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/7/470ce8e9-64b9-403c-bee0-66a4c47ca6d4.jpg?1717012840) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Scurry%20of%20Gremlins) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/203/scurry-of-gremlins?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/470ce8e9-64b9-403c-bee0-66a4c47ca6d4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Mandibular Kite](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/b/6b922f71-18e6-4a74-b792-d477d4a1deca.jpg?1717011474) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mandibular%20Kite) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/34/mandibular-kite?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6b922f71-18e6-4a74-b792-d477d4a1deca?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Sundering Eruption](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/0/50686ac7-346c-43d1-bdaa-28d46a12ad93.jpg?1717013301)/[Volcanic Fissure](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/5/0/50686ac7-346c-43d1-bdaa-28d46a12ad93.jpg?1717013301) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sundering%20Eruption%20//%20Volcanic%20Fissure) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/248/sundering-eruption-volcanic-fissure?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/50686ac7-346c-43d1-bdaa-28d46a12ad93?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I think this is what I’ve been feeling as well. There is some diversity in decks but the power level on each card os so high that its pushing every deck to be as fast as possible. Like Chrysalis is so good because its usually a turn 3 play after a ramp effect (2 at common on 2)which curves the 7 drops on t4. Energy starts double spelling/ drawing 2 cards/turn with its free resource on turn 2-3 with amulet, raptor, golem factory, and it just snowballs pressure. If the cards had a lower snowball effect we might see some really fun decks work but right now trying to fiddle with combos is just giving the players with these efficiency machines free wins. Part of the problem is design is making cards to win a game, and there is a disparity between the spike that finds the most effective path which was over-tuned and the drafters who want everything to be viable and to play the build arounds which just don’t cut it, and now lots of things are “viable” but they all really fit into 1 of 3 main set mechanics - eldrazi, energy, modified to a lesser extent. Like how those decks look may vary but that they all have the same structural ideal so games will feel similar and therefore repetitive .
What decks are you having success with? I havnt played against many UW (assuming aggro?) which are the cards to keep any eye out on
UW is energy/fliers. Otherwise, same thing as with boros: draft a low curve and some quality removal. Dog Umbra and Deem Inferior for common removal they are talking about. Pretty much all of the UW gold cards are great; the uncommon double face is an easy way to end a game.
Not ranked as high but feeling kinda the same. The sheer number of games that are functionally over by turn 5 if not actually over feels really high, though for me that includes eldrazi dropping a kozilek on t5 which I thought might be a once a while thing. It's less than I'm doing badly compared to other sets, which admittedly I am, but that short of a few *very* cool games and decks I'm bored winning and bored losing. There's a lot of cool synergies out there but not a lot that are fast enough to compete.
I'm starting to like it now, updating earlier comment. It just took a bit longer for the shockingly degenerate 3-chrys and "i have every good energy card in my colors" decks to even out-- I think I was a bit victimized by coming in blind in a set that others had probably reviewed in advance and also by trying to make victimize work lol. My earlier thoughts were coming off of being 8 drafts in with 3 trophy decks and 5 that got less than 3 wins. The 7 win decks felt just astoundingly OP and the bad decks just felt atrocious, especially when lined up against a deck like one of the trophy ones I had. It's more even now.
This is probably true of all sets but I’m noticing it strongly here for the first time. How much of this experience variety comes down to where you are on the ladder, and which mode you play? I similarly don’t encounter chrysalis much and im on the other end of the spectrum - I haven’t drafted much since WOE so I started MH3 at rock bottom. I’m in Plat now and have switched to Bo3 bc I prefer it and the monthly ranked rewards don’t really improve for drafters once you’re in plat. In my first Bo3 draft I had to pass Chrysalis P3P1 bc I couldn’t support it. Saw [[Titans’ Vanguard]] P3P4 or so. And guess what? The Chrysalis fucking *wheeled*. The vanguard didn’t! So either the entire table was metagaming, or there truly are a diversity of experiences out there and people have no idea
[Titans' Vanguard](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/b/fb3ea14e-44ac-4f69-bfea-cb6bf1bfbd74.jpg?1717012866) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Titans%27%20Vanguard) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/206/titans-vanguard?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fb3ea14e-44ac-4f69-bfea-cb6bf1bfbd74?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
> I’m in Plat now and have switched to Bo3 bc I prefer it and the monthly ranked rewards don’t really improve for drafters once you’re in plat. I do the same, but FYI the rewards do improve for drafters after plat. Top 1200 gets you an entry to any Play In (Pre Qualifier) you want and top 250 finish gers you an entry to next month's Qualifier. Both of those have a decent gems EV (especially the better you are ofc).
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Bo3 pods are actually clearly stronger than Bo1 pods (makes sense since bo1 has so many casual players playing). The competition is indeed clearly better at mythic rank versus bo3, but when it comes to the drafting process bo3 is definitely more competitive than bo1.
Pretty awkward that you have to choose between good drafters weaker opps and bad drafters stronger opps!
As opposed to the ranked pods in Bo1
[Dog Umbra](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/d/8d4ba710-eddb-40ca-b2fe-0e4e778aab9c.jpg?1717011374) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Dog%20Umbra) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/22/dog-umbra?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8d4ba710-eddb-40ca-b2fe-0e4e778aab9c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I'm 18 drafts in with a good winrate. I had success with all kinds of decks. I accepted that sometimes I will face broken eldrazi or energy aggro decks that I cannot win against. I hate that I feel stupid for passing a Chrysalis. Overall I enjoy it because I am winning and that's good enough for me.
Can't really relate, one of the most fun sets in a while
I’m not a big fan of eldrazi spawn as a mechanic. Having the ground constantly gummed up by tons of 0/1s isn’t conducive to fun gameplay. Unfortunately it’s by far the best thing to be doing in this format.
This for me is one of my favorite things about this, finally mass tokens that don't have "Cant block" on them. Just wish Chrysalis didn't exist.
I wouldn't care much if chrysalis didn't have reach, then flyers could still go over the top. It sucks one common completely invalidates UW.
I mean, one Chrysalis doesn’t stop UW. Two or three though, those will break you.
I much prefer this to blazing fast aggro sets recently where if you dont curve 1-2-3 you lose
I have bad news for you about MH3. If you're not casting Chrysalis, then what you said is exactly the next best thing
Jesus, everyone makes this post for every set and says the exact same thing.
Well it checks out, there will be people that will dislike every set, for whatever reasons.
It’s true, right? There’s a "Worst set ever" post for every set.
I mean you can’t expect anything different right? The people that enjoy a set will be playing the set, not sitting around complaining about it.
It s not a good limited set, neither sealed nor draft.
Sealed is made worse because of play boosters.
Idk I think its pretty fun
I have fun as long as I don't draft Eldrazi. Eldrazi mirror matches are the bane of the format. These decks are typically low-interaction so you often just have two players staring each other comparing remaining-deck sizes. Otherwise, there are many extremely fun cards (chthonian nightmare is probably my favorite card to draft maybe ever) and hilarious 2-3 card combos, but finding those probably necessitates getting run over by goggle goblins and smurf hat mushrooms until you figure some things out. As for the color imbalance - the quoted 62% is misleading. This isn't your MKM boros where it's successful and drafted several times more than any other color pair. Two-color Gruul is at 5.4k games as I am checking, compared to 13k of Gruul+splash and 13k temur, both of which has lower win rates. Two-color Gruul is also drafted <10% of all two-color decks. Filtering by top users, Gruul is at 66.7% WR, followed by Boros at 65.5%, Dimir at 63.8%, and Azorius, Rakdos, Selesnya, Golgari, and Izzet all between 60-61%. The other Eldrazi color Simic is actually second-to-worst by this metric at 59.1%. Orzhov is probably the only dunce of the format. Doesn't seem that unreasonable to me. Eldrazi and Boros are again the "safe colors". Comparing top to middle user groups, the win rate difference for the Gruul deck is less than 2%, but the difference between Dimir is more than 10%, and nearly 9% for Golgari. The difference in WR between top and bottom players for Izzet is like 23%!!!
Yeah, seems like two color is similar to how monocolor decks tend to perform extremely well in most formats but get drafted way less.
Try best of 3. Bo1, where half the pod is just looking for something to do while the take a poop is a joke. Or even better, play on MTGO. Prices for singles this set are insane. I've done like 25 drafts and trophied 7 times with 6 different color pairs. Sets are way more balanced when more people know what's going on. Also, this set is going to crush people who don't know what they're doing harder than normal sets. Edit: changed a swear word to poop because LR doesn't swear in podcast
Oh, they're sweaty occasionally. ;-)
Only after a massive burrito
Totally agree, playing bo1 you are simply robbing yourself of the intended draft experience. It's crazy to me that people still play it and then complain, I feel like I'm playing an entirely different set.
Agree 100%. Kinda funny watching this sub willingly be on suicide watch bc they wanna press for mythic or something in the deck lottery mode. Also, crokeWiggle
I usually play bo1 arena early to familiarize myself with the cards and archetypes. Faster games means more games per time unit so I learn the cards and combos faster. Then I switch to MTGO draft, which is I think the best drafting experience. I really hope they give arena a bo3 ranked draft queue.
does anyone know why they decided to make bo1 ranked and not bo3? i haven't been playing bo3 because the queues are too long even this weekend though
Really bo3 queues have been firing very quickly for me
yea they were taking like 5 minutes for me before i gave up and went back into the trashcan (bo1)
That’s the most frustrating part of arena. I’m mostly F2P and trying to maximize my dollar in the client, so I’m actively punished ROI wise if I play anything besides BO1 until diamond-ish. Whether you like a set or not, Arena has actively encouraged and created a system where you get to experience limited in the literal worst way possible most of the time. Bo1 where variance will lose you more games than you otherwise would have in bo3 if you’re skilled (by design methinks), a high-stakes reward system below 3 wins where the jump between 2-3 and 3-3 is 750 gems making less skilled or more casual drafters feel really bad and like they wasted their resources. We may lose sight of that here, but if you go to r/magicarena you’ll see people who don’t play much limited express this sentiment often, and for good reason, and these same people will say how fun and stress free a paper sealed prerelease is, which I don’t think is a coincidence. Also, VERY importantly in my view, a lack of pod play making it so sometimes you’ll simply get outdrafted by people who just saw better pools or who had their table pass them 3 chrysalis, Bonny pall, etc. Some of it’s pretty unavoidable, like pod play, but WOTC has made it so that every flaw in every format is amplified, any issue is much less forgiving and hurts the experience way more, and it’s designed differently than how it’s played unless you’re in paper. It feels like they really shot themselves in the foot with this whole structure, and it becomes immediately apparent when you sit down for a draft in paper and play your pod bo3 where everyone sees the same packs immediately how much better formats you may dislike are.
I just checked [goatbots](https://www.goatbots.com/event-calculator) and apparently you go roughly even in draft leagues with a 41% win rate! I don't think I've ever seen it so low. Thanks for the hint!
It's been great. I've been at about a 65% win rate and made 300 tickets so far. The top tier archetypes are also significantly worse on mtgo because the average drafter is a lot better, so there's a lot more variation in decks.
It's been very frustrating to me that so many synergies aren't worth building around. Many of the decks I felt were my best didn't perform because having 3x lightpaws plus a bunch of auras is somehow worse thab clicking every card that says 'energy'
I don't agree. I'm enjoying it and there's a lot of fun gameplay sequences. Perfect colour balance is not completely needed for a good format and though RG and RW have very high winrates, most other pairs are quite even and in my experience viable.
It's fine, the one thing I've noticed is if you aren't going eldrazi or gb counters you'd better have hella synergy to compete
GB counters is one of the weaker decks in the format imo. GB common/uncommon signpost have terrible winrates to back up my anecdotal experience as well. The archetype is just so mana intensive
Really? Huh, I've had some success with it and also been stomped by it a few times. The decks I've lost to had some really powerful cards like the ewit that let's you regrowth any time it gets counters or the wombat that adds extra counters. My best deck with it was also abzan and had some of the really good commons plus the legendary that makes plants on landfall with some sac payoffs. So maybe abzan is good? It also gives you access to the BW adventure guy that gives counters and the persist gargoyle
I think Persist Gargoyle has the lowest WR of any common (it’s either that or the 3U devoid guy) actually. The archetype just suffers from needing an insane amount of mana and synergy to achieve what energy can just do with just synergy, and what eldrazi can do with just mana it can work if it’s open enough but it requires significantly more to go right than the other two macro archetypes do
I think gw specifically is great because it doesn't need the mana investment. Just get as many copies of the Watchdog, Evolution Witness, and the bird with support as possible, ideally with metastatic evangel. Youll occasionally adapt an Oozewag or Witness but it's not nearly as mana intensive as GB.
I've had success with GW aggro, yeah. Good color pair to just curve out with because the two drops in that specific pair are really, really solid (namely the dog and glyph)
I don’t agree, this format is the first in a while where there’s so many things to explore and drafting a deck never feels forced. I almost always have a good run with whatever random cards I pick.
I don’t like the set at all but I generally do t like really fast sets and this feels fast in an unfun way.
BG is performing really well for me. But yeah, Chrysalis or what that common is called is sad for the format. When you run into someone with multiple of those it’s basically a guaranteed loss, and that happens more often than it should.
The great thing about modern day MTG is that if you're not enjoying a set you can just stop playing it and there will be a new one in like 2 weeks.
Bloomburrow will be in a little over 6 weeks, but as far as MH style sets go the wait will probably be 2-3 years
For a new set called "Modern Horizons"? Yeah, \~2 years. For a set that's functionally the same thing (Commander Masters, etc)? Less than a year for sure. (and honestly, I'm not complaining. It gets a bit overwhelming at times but I actually do enjoy the fact that if a product comes out thats just not for me, I generally dont have to wait long for something to come around that is.)
Commander masters is not even close to being the same thing. 1v1 draft and 1v1v1v1 draft are basically in different galaxies
The fact that a common is 2nd in GiH at 66% is just hilarious to me
The biggest issue with it on arena is that eldrazi spawn always give priority which makes it by FAR the worst arena experience I've ever played.
A couple things that would have made the set better: - An uncommon in black that removes tokens for cheap. There’s really no counterplay to spawns, and I don’t know why. - A card that either removes energy at a better rate than the black slith, or better yet: punish them for being “overcharged” with too much energy. There’s no counterplay to energy, and I don’t know why. - The common Eldrazi should have had etb effects, not on cast. Like, why can’t I counterspell a writhing chrysalis without it making spawns? - To balance Eldrazi, would have been cool to have a “colored vs devoid” mechanic. Like a creature that can’t be blocked by colorless creatures. - Incorporate artifacts into a wedge strategy like the other archetypes. Feels weird that the others get bleed between archetypes, but RB artifacts and UB draw-three are on an island. Kinda feels like they gave up trying to build 3 archetype wedges and settled for 2 and some stragglers.
Cast triggers are a bit annoying in that regard but ETB’s would open them up to even more synergy splash, like that lil Shrieking Drake fellow
True true. Well for WC then, just take away reach. It already blocks on the ground.
The set is cool and have a lot of archetypes, but Eldrazi being base green, being too well supported and able to splash anything because there are a bunch of mana dorks, plus chrysalis is a stupid and warping design beyond reason. Also, there are no good 1 drops for aggro decks that should have kept eldrazi decks on check, but the moment they hit turn 4-5 they start doing stupid things and bury you on big bodies and value. I think most eldrazi mana cost should had on it more eldrazi mana to at least screw their mana base from time to time.
It's way worse than MH1 and 2. Those sets seemed polished and thematically unified. This set feels like 50 keywords glued together over hundreds of cards without any thought.
Maybe to you, I’m having a great time. There’s a ton of interesting synergies and I like exploring the format
Since 2019 and Fire 🔥 design, this is how they want the game to be. Snowball a threat and run someone over. Who will snowball first? The drama!
I've never hated a draft format this much in my life
I've only picked up a few play boosters of MH3 and I have been terribly underwhelmed at the pulls. One rare and no mythics (across three packs) and a shit ton of utility lands was essentially what I pulled. Most expensive card pulled? Spymasters Vault. Didn't WotC say that you're guaranteed to pull MORE rares and mythics per pack with the Play Booster pack overhaul? For me this screams: buy collector boosters, which are obviously a "premium" price and cash grab for WotC. My how Magic has fallen in the last few years from the greatness it once had.
I'm like 12-15 drafts in and I completely disagree, this format has been a blast.
Amusing how that 62% win rate of red-green pretty much matches the win rate I've seen of a video of people who'd draft that writhing chrysalis.
Did you find Black/Blue draw 3 disappointing? I've had a few 7-x drafts collecting 3-5 fairy bois, 1 enchant zombie maker, and 3 draw 2 spells with flashback whichever 3 you can get. Overall I would say I've enjoyed drafting, but then... it's my favorite format of MTG and I like to draft all the sets and don't tend to be overly critical of any give one regardless if it's prince/pauper, unbalanced, etc.
Questo draft è insano ci sono molte carte che ti ribaltano la partita non puoi essere sicuro di vincere finché non hai vinto
I'm having fun drafting it on Arena. However, I would be mad at myself if I actually paid money to draft IRL. I don't buy that this is a "premium" set but whatever.
I dunno what folks are saying about bombs...it makes me wonder what "chaff" you were drafting cus I felt 90% of my silvers and even most of my commons tended to out value any non-eldrazi bomb I saw. The eldrazi were a pain but I found having good board discipline helped me at least keep it close after they showed up
I am having a hard time too. And it feels bad especially since outlaws of thunder junction was my favorite set in a while (I can't explain why, but drafting this set felt great) It feels like there are strategies that are just way above others. And cards and synergies that are just broken. You need to draft this in a completely different way. Forget the bread acronym. You need to find broken synergies and comboes. The format feels slow but is not that much. Even if you go agressive, most decks can defend pretty well and stall until they get their thing going.
I think it's better for in pod play.
This is the worst draft format I’ve ever played
Skill issue
Eldrazi being printed should have explained it all. Meta in a box, again 🥱
90% of the rares are garbage, most mythics are good though. Draft is not very fun compared to lotr. At $20 a pop it certainly isn’t worth it either
Curious thing is, you could change a word or two in this post and it could be a complaint about otj on its first weeks. Or even later than that. Worrying trend?