Lack of updates
Hey everyone,
It's been a little over a week since I last updated here. It's been a really hectic week for me. I'm getting married in Vegas next month and this has been the week that I had to nail down all the details of the trip from booking a flight and hotel to paying for everything that needs to be paid. Things are settling down a little bit and I will start with regular updates again next week.
I would like to bring back my metagame breakdowns now that the new set is seeing widespread play and they will be relevant again but it's suddenly very hard to get any information on decks. I have results for Niles, IL and Anaheim from last week (4/28) and Taylor, MI from this week (5/5). If you know results from any other events that from the past two weeks or play in an event this weekend, please pass the results along so we can get a better idea how the metagame is shaping up. Having said that, of the 24 decks I do have, 8 of them are Phadalus rush. Looks like Shaman rush is still king.
Finally, for anyone who read my TCGPlayer article this week, what would the interest be like in seeing a once a week simulated draft with explanation of picks. If people liked that and want to see more, I could make it a weekly thing here, but if everyone thought it was just a waste of time I won't bother because it's a lot of typing for no reason if no one wants to read it. Let me know what you think, or if there's something else you want to see here send me an email blyonsmagic@yahoo.com
posted by B Lyons @ 2:20 PM
14 Comments
14 Comments:
Congrats on getting married. I'm sure it'll be a lot less stressful once it's over (I've heard they can be quite crazy to plan).
Personally, I like to work through things myself than hearing about them from another person. I've always enjoyed Math, and a lot of that is involved so I guess that's why.
However, I don't think a lot of people know what they're getting themselves into come time for Nationals. Other than of course the guys up in NYC who draft with some of the best Limited players weekly.
This new set really messed with things draft-wise, and it's a lot more difficult now. I'm going to be focusing a lot on Limited in my articles for this reason.
~Ted
Congrats etc...
Personally I'm not much interested in any kind of draft or sealed articles.
I'm also tired of the glut of articles explaining why the most popular decks are so good. Instead, I'd like to see more of what else the pros playtested and what decks didn't quite make it. I've read a couple of good articles like this, and I'd like to see more.
Perhaps interresting for the metagame breakdown.
The first regional in the Netherlands was on April the 29th.
With our tournament less than a day after the darkmoon fair in Austin there was no time to actually build and test decks that saw widespread use there.
What follows now are the top 8 decks, sadly I have no complete decklists.
1 Rob v. Kemenade (Dual Wield Gorebelly)
2 Manuel Broeks (Gnome Warlock Rush)
3 Sylva Ottema (Gnome Mage Rush)
4 jordy van der gaag (Gnome Warlock Rush)
5 Benny Ng (Azarak stall/control)
6 rocky Setrokarijo (Zenith Control)
7 Johannes Michels (Dwarf Pet Hunter control)
8 Patrick Vial (Radak Rush)
There where 26 Horde and 15 Alliance decks at the end of the tournament (41 players)
We started with 49 but dropouts cant be avoided sadly.
Then on Limited play, personally i think that draft in wow is not as good as drafting a game like Magic
You need to choose one of the 9 classes and next to that you need to choose a faction. To many cards cant be combined in a deck wich makes drafting strategy in my eyes a bit bland ... just draft alot of good allies and generic removal with a curve and your there.
not interested in limited myself (i think starcitywow has covered limited way too much) Constructed is where it's at!
And congratulations on your wedding!
Dude... What was with passing on the Scimitar? You're not going to draw the Annihlator every game and redundancy is a good thing, especially when it comes to weapons. That and the fact that everyone knows weapons are good making equipment removal good.
I think you said something about players overlooking vanilla allies with no text in limited, but I wonder if you did just that concerning the weapon.
First pack you rightly passed a medoc for the Annihlator passing a virtually non-horde pack. Second pack gave you a Skewer or a Tressong... Skewer is a great removal ability, and Treesong is hardly worth picking over it when you know there's a good chance your right side is probably going to go Alliance.
3rd pack I can see taking the Nera Lifeboon as there really was nothing else, so you may getting a signal that your left is going Horde. But fourth pack gave you Masten Everspirit and hur shield smasher, signaling that the 3rd pack was just a fluke and your left really can't be taking Horde.
(The bots aren't good at sgnaling this kind of stuff yet, but you can use them to evaluate what kind of signals any given pack would represent in a real draft)
Masten is a house in sealed. If Medoc, Chasing A-me, and call the Spirit are good then a guy with it builkt in is great.
You have to pay attention to the signals (yeah the bots are dumb, but it's good practice to do this) and see that Vaerick Proudhoof is tabling.
I liked the draft articles. Too bad the AI sucked, but I think it would help the community as many of us are pros when it comes to Constructed but noobs in limited.
FYI, the top 8 of the NYC regional this past Saturday (5/12):
1. Phadalus rush
2. Kayleitha beatdown (woot!)
3-4. Bulkas Cruelty and Phadalus rush (forgot the order)
5-8. Gorebelly Twig combo-rush, Aleyah solo, and 2 other I can't remember.
I forgot to add that I do like the Draft articles, it's always great to see other strategies/thoughts. Good job =)
Mobile, AL May 12 (19 Total Players)
1. Elendril - Control
2. Telrander - Feral/Rush
3. Pagatha - Control
4. Pagatha - Control
5. Telrander - Feral/Rush
6. Azarak - Aggro
7. Bulkas - Control/Cruelty
8. Thangal - Feral/Control
I just watched another draft of yours. =)
http://wow.tcgplayer.com/draft/WatchDraft2.asp?ID=11973&SeatNbr=1&Drafter=BLyons#
Overall your choices were better than the article one. But I have a few observations...
2nd pack, second pick you took a Bloodclaw over what would have been your 2nd Iceblade hacker. As far as limited goes Iceblade hacker is far more game impacting than Bloodclaw. You're already into hunter with the Bonebow, and taking bloodclaw over the sward isn't worth tryin to cut off hunter from anyone else. 4 factions can play hacker, it's not coming back. Bloodclaw probably isn't either, but there was a Proudhoof that did.
I like call the spirit over Interest in a pint. More versatile, as it gets back a guy that killed one of there allies in the first place. And Pint doesn't stop protecters, a recalled proudhoof does. Or a 7 drop ferocity guy does too.
Zeeza over ghank seems not so hot. Ghank seems very situational at first read, but after playing some drafts and limited it really isn't that bad. In fact it's good, you can play more aggresively and know that ghank will gain back any disadvantage you may have had.
late in the draft your definitaly playing Ord Horde hunter... The choice between Hidden enemies and Poison water should be a given. especially with that debros you just picked up.
To be fair the next draft I have time to do I should link you so you can criticize me too. =)
I took the Bloodclaw over the Hacker because I already had one Hacker + Bone Bow. Three weapons is nice but starts to crowd the deck and I wanted to be sure to cut Hunter in the second pack. I knew neither card was coming back.
I took Tomb Robber over Ghank because I already had 4 4-drops (including one Ghank) at the time and only 3 2-drops. It was more to fill in my curve than because of card valuation.
I took the Poison Water over Hidden Enemies because of Enemies abilty to function as Blueleaf Tubers. A lot of games drag out to a stalemate and sometimes require a shuffle back in and Poison Water gives that to me. I also already had one Hidden Enemies at the time.
As for Pint over Call the Spirit, that's basically a personal preference thing but I knew neither was really likely to make the deck anyway so I didn't put much thought into it.
More info on the NYC regional this past Saturday (5/12):
1. Phadalus rush
2. Kayleitha beatdown (woot!)
3-4. Bulkas Cruelty and Phadalus rush (forgot the order)
5. Gorebelly Twig combo-rush
6. Telrender
7. Aleyah solo
8. Sen'zir beatdown
Ghank I can see your reasoning... But not the Hacker, You can't count Ancient bone bow in the equation because it's ranged and allows you to "dual wield" it. Having two weapons and one bow seems better than a Bloodclaw to me. Two basic weapons means you're probably going to see it most of your games.
As for a tubers, When it was just HoA tubers was a first pick because the format was so bad. 60% of the games went the full deck (in our play). With the first two set draft we did (The pre-release celebration top 8)it became readily apparent that the card pool was better geared for draft decks and tubers was now a dud. I haven't seen a game yet that went through a whole deck, so waters is just a Your Fortune awaits and given a choice between a generic quest and one that does the same thing and a game related ability for my hero, I choose, "both," from the card text. Just sayin' =)
I would almost alway squeeze a call the spirit into my deck. It can be a second copy of your best guy and replace the copy of your worst.
Here's a draft I just did. The second round of packs had some hard choices in the first 4 or so picks.
http://wow.tcgplayer.com/draft/WatchDraft2.asp?ID=12006&SeatNbr=1&Drafter=ogreshaman#
Iceblade hacker is a mediocre weapon, and he already had 2. Believe it or not, you can have too many weapons in draft. Bloodclaw is a fine choice over it, especially if he needed a 1 drop.
-scm2117
Mediocre weapon still > above average pet.
He didn't already have two, he had one iceblade hacker. Again the ancient bone bow is in it's own class, don't lump it together with normal melee weapons.
Having a ranged weapon and a melee weapon is amazing in constructed much less limited, there is no reason not to want to two melee's in a draft deck. In fact some reasons to run mulitples are you want to draw one every game and smart opponents are packing hate.
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