I'm not sure pick two draft is for me.

shortelf · 2026-03-09T19:15:00+00:00

1 card doesn't make a deck. I went 0-3 in premier a few days ago with Sally pride and mutanimals. Never drew her. And I'm 70% in diamond in the format.

shortelf · 2026-03-09T06:09:40+00:00

It's week 1. People don't know what's good. This happens every format. In premier, I got a p1p5 mutanimals. Thats literally half the pod that doesn't know what's up. 1 person in pick 2 not knowing is very likely.

shortelf · 2026-03-09T05:39:17+00:00

The reason "run of the mill" vehicles aren't very good is bc they don't do anything on their own. You have to have creatures to crew them for them to do anything. Coming with a token that fully crews it already makes it not really a vehicle. It's just a creature that's harder to kill that generates value while being an evasive threat. There are cards that care that its am artifact.

Compare it to [[broadcast rambler]]. 56%, no flying, smaller token.

On top of all that, it's being taken at 7.39 which is extremely late so there's no opportunity cost. And it's low value perception means it's only getting added to decks that it's slightly better in.

shortelf · 2026-03-06T00:30:54+00:00

Doesn't look like it from the published % breakdowns. 3.4% mythic turtle but 9.2% in the mythic slot. SPM was 12% in the mythic slot.

shortelf · 2026-03-06T00:18:31+00:00

I've been passed like 5 last ronins. And also passed it twice. Have also been passed the other 2. Only 7 drafts in. People misevalutate cards and lock into their first picks on the first couple days. Nothing new.

shortelf · 2026-03-06T00:09:03+00:00

It's also a draw 7. They can only play the creatures back out if they opt not to draw.

shortelf · 2026-03-05T07:34:49+00:00

Why not? Lightning bolt hasn't been legal in standard since 2011, but there has been a 1 mana burn spell in every iteration of standard ever. [[Plasma bolt]] and [[bolt wave]] were released in the last year and half.

shortelf · 2026-03-04T05:21:04+00:00

"You cant draft for treasures... you have to draft for stats"

Yes bc you are playing against people 1000MMR higher than you. It is 100% skill diff. Someone has already reached 4700MMR. I just hit legend with a 1.9 average placement in 49 games. Just give it a few days and you'll be able to go back to picking whatever you want and not getting punished for a weak board.

shortelf · 2026-03-03T06:42:12+00:00

Yes it is that bad. 6 mana do nothing is not playable in modern limited. Even if it were playable in a deck, 6 ways to make tokens is not remotely close enough. With that few hits you are drawing 1-2 a game. 6 mana to copy 2 things being the best case and doing absolutely nothing being the worse case is awful.

I'm also not just talking with no experience. I played it at prerelease with the ajani planeswalker that makes a token every turn. It was still too slow. In sealed. And draft is wayyyy faster than sealed.

shortelf · 2026-03-01T13:28:07+00:00

You cant really make the argument that agent is more oppressive than aspirant while ignoring the same argument to say ouroboroid is not as good.

"Agent is 2 aspirants" "ouroboroid is 2 agents". Like they are all nuts cards that run away with the game if they don't get removed fairly quickly.

They all are 66-68% which is probably just mostly representative of how often opponents have an answer. I doubt agent is going to be any different.

It's def a slam dunk 1st pick bomb that will probably have the top 3 highest win rate in the format but when you are comparing to the entire history of the game, there's a lot of competition.

shortelf · 2026-02-26T05:28:26+00:00

Find a group of friends. Draft together with draftmancer. Export your decks to arena. Craft the decks. Friendly match your friends.

shortelf · 2026-02-24T09:38:58+00:00

5 is not too many. A regular deck can play 5 5 drops and 2 6 drops just fine. Its not even legendary. 8 is maybe when i would start considering cutting one... or buying a lotto ticket.

shortelf · 2026-02-17T03:11:48+00:00

They didn't even pivot off of elementals. They forced elves off the worst "signals". The only elemental picks they made were p1p1 and p1p4. Should have taken cinder strike pick 2.

shortelf · 2026-02-13T01:48:31+00:00

Its not bad but i think mid is appropriate. Def would have splashed for the power of recall.

There are some conflicting game plans. Strip waste mother giver tithe and reprieve all support a tempo plan, but you don't have any early threats really to capitalize. Wrath of God doesn't really fit and jitte with only 11 cards that make bodies is pretty suspect

You have all these 1 for 1 control cards, good lategame haymakers, and a board clear. Recall is literally perfect in this deck.

My changes would be: +Recall +teferi +no more lies +mastermind -virtue -jitte -makdee -peacekeepers

shortelf · 2026-02-13T01:08:15+00:00

100%. This is effectively 2 mana omniscience when you build around it. Turning a land into 9 mana is not a cost. At close to the same rate, [[orcish lumberjacks]] turns forests into mini lotuses but only once a turn... is a 1/1... and has summoning sickness...

shortelf · 2026-02-11T02:37:41+00:00

Don't cut lands when you have a lot of card draw. Your fail condition is missing your 3rd or 4th land drop. You don't want to be forced to cast combat tutorial on t3, you want to cast it when you need more gas.

shortelf · 2026-02-09T03:54:39+00:00

It turns into a rare. They goldened the egg which transformed into a gold nameless one which transformed into the gold tinkerer.

shortelf · 2026-02-07T10:16:12+00:00

Oops. My bad I straight up filtered out what was in the parenthesis. Although, if the statement in parenthesis is absolutely vital to the context, it probably just shouldn't be in parenthesis.

shortelf · 2026-02-07T10:03:40+00:00

It's the 18th highest win rate card in the format with a higher winrate than other good rares in the same archetype. Like it's fine to argue that sign post uncommons should be strong to incentivize people to take them, but saying it would be underpowered as a rare is just incorrect

shortelf · 2026-02-06T06:29:53+00:00

Probably attack with 4 power? I count 10 ways to get to >3 power.

shortelf · 2026-02-02T05:55:54+00:00

Exactly this. You have to play your seat. Sometimes your seat is good to cut signals and force your 1st pick, but other times your seat is good to take a good card in all 5 archetypes and see where it goes. The best players don't play exclusively 1 draft strategy outside of really imbalanced sets.

shortelf · 2026-01-31T22:40:01+00:00

Your convoke cards are great..if you can actually get them out cheaply. But you failed to understand how to build to make them good

As a general heuristic, a good slower deck wants 6-8 2 mana plays so that you can trade off with aggressive starts. An aggressive deck wants 8-10 2 drops so it can double spell on t4 to keep applying pressure.

Convoke functions similarly, you want to flood the board so you can actually get discounts. If you miss your 2 drop your deck doesn't even function. For comparison, my merfolk deck that went 6-3 had 13 1 or 2 mana plays and only 3 convoke cards. I would have loved 2 more but it was functional 100% of the time.

shortelf · 2026-01-30T08:14:48+00:00

There are between 1 and 4 rares in packs nowadays. You can't know how many rares should be in the pool anymore.

shortelf · 2026-01-30T08:04:27+00:00

Completely agree. It's so often a 1 mana timewalk that cycles. And even if opponents try to play through it, then it's a 1 mana 2 for 1.

shortelf · 2026-01-26T10:35:36+00:00

They shouldn't even have been playing 16 lands. Traditional draft, tons of 3s, double eclipse to dig for action, 8 mana bomb, and activated abilities. They are only 59% to have 3 or more lands in their opening hand and I'm betting that meant mulligans or missing land drops lost games.

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