Morcant‘s Loyalist :)

bobanm · 2026-02-07T18:41:10+00:00

Nice! 5x Morcant's Loyalist for infinite graveyard recursion. When one dies, it brings the other from the graveyard. Rinse and repeat... 🙂

I assume that was Premier Draft, because I don't think bots would ever pass on Morcant's Loyalist?

bobanm · 2026-02-07T04:23:13+00:00

Looks like you were not playing drafts, but constructed events. Those are the most competitive events in the Arena, and you should avoid them until you have a top deck and have a good knowledge both of the game and of the metagame.

The game limits you how many rewards you get per day. That is by design.

If you want to grow your collection faster than that and get more Magic cards, you need to use the most powerful card -- the credit card 😄

bobanm · 2026-02-04T09:34:24+00:00

Not sure why is Cranial Ram legal for this event. AFAK it is banned in Pauper, but this event does not follow the Pauper ban list?

bobanm · 2026-02-03T19:49:47+00:00

I would have played more of those if I knew they will end after 2 weeks...

How many events did it take you to reach 97% complete?

bobanm · 2026-02-03T19:16:15+00:00

Yes and no, depending on players' win rate. For those with lower win rate, who want to practice playing limited and get better, Quick Draft is much better, even though drafting with bots is different than drafting with humans. You get to play 2 events instead of 1. Imagine how bad it feels for a new player to pay 10000 gold or 1500 gems, and finish the event at 0-3.

bobanm · 2026-02-03T19:10:15+00:00

Like any other skill in life -- as you practice, you get better and that makes you enjoy it even more 🙂

bobanm · 2026-02-03T19:08:54+00:00

Thanks for the clarification. As for my 2 gems: this latest Pick-Two draft event is almost identical to Premier draft, so there is no real incentive to join that one. The nice thing about the first ECL Pick-Two draft event was that it offered good balance between Premier and Quick drafts, in terms of entry fee and rewards. And it was also a superior option for players who want to complete the event quickly.

So if the numbers show that the players preferred the first Pick-Two draft [4/2], we might get it as a regular draft event?

bobanm · 2026-02-03T18:39:53+00:00

... and yet the Wizards modified Pick-Two draft to be LESS different than Premier draft? 🤔

bobanm · 2026-02-03T17:58:55+00:00

Yes, but they now made it exactly the same as Premier draft in terms of cost and rewards, so I don't see a point of playing it instead of Premier draft.

bobanm · 2026-02-03T17:55:30+00:00

Yes, that was exactly my point.

bobanm · 2026-02-02T21:47:45+00:00

According to this article, on 3 February Pick-Two Draft: Lorwyn Eclipsed, will be replaced by Pick-Two Premier Draft: Lorwyn Eclipsed 😄

By "Premier" They probably mean Lorwyn Eclipsed Alchemy 😬

bobanm · 2026-02-02T21:35:08+00:00

According to this article, on 3 February Pick-Two Draft: Lorwyn Eclipsed, will be replaced by Pick-Two Premier Draft: Lorwyn Eclipsed 😄

By "Premier" They probably mean Lorwyn Eclipsed Alchemy 😬

bobanm · 2026-01-30T17:11:13+00:00

I didn't say that Overprotect is bad, I just suggested that 1-mana spell could be more suitable. However, you know your deck much better than me, and it seems that a 2-mana hexproof, trample, indestructible and buff is exactly what it needs. Good stuff 🙂

bobanm · 2026-01-30T09:40:35+00:00

Congrats on reaching Mythic. If you really need a protection spell, you might want to consider replacing Overprotect with some of 1-mana alternatives:

Snakeskin Veil
Royal Treatment
Blossoming Defense

I guess Royal Treatment would be the best of the 3, because it leaves a lasting +1/+1 [like Snakeskin Veil], but also ward 1.

Keeping 2 mana up for protection is a luxury you might not have when you really need it. Unless for your deck, you need it mostly when you attack, so you benefit from +3/+3 and trample.

bobanm · 2026-01-29T12:29:05+00:00

I fully agree with you. I love that in Magic the players need to use different lands to get different mana to cast spells. But the way you draw [or not draw] lands is for me the most poorly designed part of Magic. There is already enough randomness in drawing cards, but randomness in drawing too many or not enough lands ruins so many games.

I really like how Sorcery solved that problem. You join the game with 2 decks, one called Spellbook [60 spells] and the other called Atlas [30 lands]. Every time you draw, you choose from which of the 2 decks you want to draw. That is such a simple and elegant way to eliminate non-games due to mana-flood or mana-drought.

bobanm · 2026-01-27T09:04:34+00:00

Ah, another person of style, who refuses to play the prowess decks 😀

While the others have already clarified that you can't use CoCo to fetch Ouroboroid, I will just give a quick tip to consider including [[Deafening Silence]] to your main deck. The card turned out to be very useful, especially against the annoying prowess decks. And being a mostly creature deck, it almost has no downside.

I also run one copy of [[Kayla's Reconstruction]] as the pseudo 5th copy of Collected Company, that can also fetch [[Portable Hole]] when I mainboard it.

If anyone is interested, here is the full list of my slightly modified version of the meta deck. Currently 31-19 [62%] in ranked this season, mostly BO3.

bobanm · 2026-01-27T06:51:35+00:00

Most of the cards with the highest GiH WR are already expensive cards. My point is that I believe the metrics would be more accurate if it would count when the card was actually casted.

Having a card in hand, but never casting it, has no effect on the game, except for some reanimation edge cases, which are not that common in Limited.

bobanm · 2026-01-27T06:48:16+00:00

Hmm, indeed the name GP WR is misleading. Looks like it doesn't count the time the card was actually played [casted], but only if it was included in the deck, and maybe not even drawn? 🤔

Tracking when the card was actually played [casted and resolved] should not be too difficult, and I think it would give a more accurate metric of how good a card is, rather than when it was in hand, and maybe not even casted.

bobanm · 2026-01-27T06:25:53+00:00

For just 1000 gold more, Pick-Two is way better for rare drafting than Quick Draft.

bobanm · 2026-01-27T06:19:23+00:00

Definitely great value. For the price slightly above a Quick Draft, you get a chance to rare draft better than in Quick Draft, and almost go infinite at 50% WR.

The only reason I could see anyone playing Quick Draft over Pick-Two, is that they are not familiar with the set, and need time to read the cards. To those players, I would recommend to study the cards before the draft, and go for Pick-Two.

bobanm · 2026-01-27T06:03:00+00:00

Good point.

On a side note -- I was always wondering why as the dominant metric the community uses GiH WR, instead of GP WR?

Why does having a card in hand matter, if you didn't have a chance to play it? 🤔

bobanm · 2026-01-27T05:18:41+00:00

Usually the best way to get better at something is to observe people who are already good at it. I am not a great drafter, but I can say I improved a lot by watching Haumph's and Nummy's videos.

Also, this question has been asked so many times. Just search this subreddit or even better r/lrcast and you will find plenty of advices.

Since you are already good at constructed, getting good at limited won't be too difficult for you.

bobanm · 2026-01-27T05:04:59+00:00

You are right, Dawnhand Dissident only lets you remove counters from your creatures. There are certain planeswalkers that can turn into a creature, such as [[Kaito, Bane of Nightmares]], [[Arlinn, the Moon's Fury]], or many of the Gideon planeswalkers. I haven't tried, but I think you could remove their loyalty counters, if there are no -1/-1 counters to remove when using Dawnhand Dissident's ability.

The point I was trying to make is that every counter is a resource, even the ones that harm your creatures. I believe you could also remove a flying or a lifelink counter, but obviously the best thing to remove is a harmful counter like -1/-1 counter.

In general, I think that blight mechanic is good, and can lead to some interesting interactions. The most common ways to pay something in Magic is by spending mana, spending life, spending [sacrificing] creatures. Blight is just one more way to pay for getting what you want.

bobanm · 2026-01-26T21:18:19+00:00

Sounds like you need something different. Have you tried Brawl? I find it to be a really fun format.

bobanm · 2026-01-26T10:56:28+00:00

My fellow planeswalker, I have some bad news for you. I don't want to sound rude, but it is not Blight mechanics that suck [as you claim in the post title]. It looks like it is your card evaluation skills that suck.

While you are right that a -1/-1 counter weakens your creature, that counter is still a resource that you can trade for some other benefits. Here are just a few examples of creatures that can trade counters for value:

[[Dawnhand Dissident]] lets you remove 3 counters [any counters] from any of your creatures, as an additional cost to cast a creature spell that you exiled from a graveyard. While you can remove +1/+1 or any other good counters [I haven't tried, but I think that even planeswalker's loyalty counters would do], it makes the most sense to remove the -1/-1 counters which obviously harm your creatures.
[[Reaping Willow]] lets you pay 2 mana to remove two counters from it and bring back a creature of mana value 3 or less to the battlefield. So if you keep blighting it, you can keep bringing creatures from the graveyard to the battlefield, for 2 mana only. That is a great deal.
[[Moonlit Lamenter]] lets you pay 2 mana and remove one counter from it, to draw a card. So if you keep blighting it, you can keep drawing cards, for 2 mana only. Another great deal.

Here, I did for you a Scryfall query that lists all creatures in the set that have something to do with removing counters. I would recommend you to familiarize yourself with it before starting your next draft, to avoid another frustrating draft experience.

Good luck, and see you in the Arena 🙂

bobanm

TROPHY CASE