M14: Follow-up on the Gladecover Scout deck

August 28, 2013 2 Comments

I attempted to draft the Gladecover Scout deck at a casual draft yesterday. My first pick was Garruk Caller of Beasts, but the next few packs had very little to offer, so I took 2 Gladecover Scouts, Elvish Mystic, 2 Verdant Havens, and Howl of the Night Pack (not in that order). At this point, I figured I could easily splash strong enhancing Auras from most colors, so I was planning to take them, and any additional Gladecover Scouts, over anything but bombs. I stuck to that plan, taking 2 Trollhides over Pacifisms, even though I knew could splash the latter. I was monogreen until the middle of pack 2, when I finally saw some non-green enhancing Auras in the form of Mark of the Vampire, Dark Favor, Lightning Talons, and Illusionary Armor. (At that point, I had 4 Verdant Havens, so I had no concern about splashing cards from multiple colors.)

Unfortunately, I never saw any more Gladecover Scouts, or any Witchstalkers. I did pick up a Ranger’s Guile (and passed a second one) which someone else suggested is equivalent to a Gladecover Scout in my deck since I also had 3 Trollhides. I disagree with that assessment, however, because the creature can still be shut down by Pacifism, Claustrophobia, Time Ebb, Disperse, and a few other spells that regeneration doesn’t protect against. I didn’t want to splash the non-green Auras since there was a high likelihood that I would not have a Gladecover Scout in my opening hand, and I would not be excited to put these Auras on the other creatures in my deck.

Luckily, I had enough decent green cards to build a monogreen deck. I did run the 2 Gladecover Scouts I’d drafted, and they worked quite well with my Accorder’s Shield, 3 TrollHides, 3 Hunt the Weaks, and 3 other pump spells. The deck’s only paths to victory were Gladecover Scout + Trollhide, Garruk Caller of Beasts, or Howl of the Night, but I still managed to win all 4 matches I played, probably because no one at the table had a particularly strong deck. Also, this was a very casual draft, and you shouldn’t expect to do particularly well with a monogreen deck like mine at most drafts.

Conclusion: it’s risky to attempt to draft the Gladecover Scout deck. An average 8-person draft will have only 2.4 Gladecover Scouts. That number goes up to 2.8 if you include Witchstalkers, but that is likely to be drafted highly by other green players, and possibly even raredrafted if you’re at a casual draft. Even though I had 2 Gladecover Scouts before we were halfway through the first pack, I never saw another one, even though I was one of only 2 green drafters at the table, and there aren’t any good alternatives to him in M14.

Filed under Magic 2014 Tagged with , , , ,

M14: The tokens deck

August 27, 2013 Leave a comment

Another deck that I have yet to try is the tokens deck. It is usually centered around Young Pyromancer, Molten Birth, and Barrage of Expendables. This spreadsheet lists all the cards in M14 that produce tokens, and also attempts to list most of the cards that interact particularly well with tokens. Cards in bold are particularly important to the strategy, while cards in italics help tokens get through blockers. (I haven’t listed pumps spells here, only effects that have a more permanent impact.)

From this, it seems that the deck wants to be R/W, with:

  • Young Pyromancer, Molten Birth, and Hive Stirrings to produce tokens
  • Goblin Shortcutter, Master of Diversion, and Seismic Stomp to help the tokens get past blockers
  • Fortify, Lightning Talons, Shiv’s Embrace, and Ogre Battledriver to help push damage through
  • Barrage of Expendables, Congregate, Path of Bravery, and Bubbling Cauldron to buy time, plus Act of Treason if the deck has a reasonable number of sac outlets (or to enable an earlier alpha strike)

If you have a chance to pick up Dark Prophecy and/or Gnawing Zombie, you can also try to make a B/R tokens deck that looks a lot like the B/R sacrifice deck I’d written about previously. In addition to these cards and the red cards from the list above, Altar’s Reap, Blood Bairn, and Vile Rebirth are also important, especially if you have a Young Pyromancer on the table.

One downside of this deck is that Young Pyromancer is good in just about every red deck, so you won’t get passed it very often. But if you do draft an early Young Pyromancer, keep this deck in mind as an option.

EDIT: Shrivel can be a problem for this deck since most of its key token producers make 1/1 tokens. Be careful to not overextend into it against opponents playing black, especially post-board.

Filed under Magic 2014 Tagged with , , , , , ,

M14: The Gladecover Scout deck

August 26, 2013 Leave a comment

The Gladecover Scout deck involves putting Auras on a Gladecover Scout or a Witchstalker and smashing in with a large hexproof creature. I’ve been meaning to try this deck out for a while, but haven’t yet been willing to prioritize Gladecover Scouts highly enough, and this deck obviously does not work without them. A friend recently assured me that this is a strong deck, so I will try to give it a shot at some point and report back. Meanwhile, the goal of this post is to figure out what colors this deck usually is and which other cards I’ll need to prioritize when attempting to draft this archetype.

This spreadsheet lists all the Auras, global enchantments, instants, sorceries, and planeswalkers that can enhance a creature’s power/toughness or grant it additional abilities, whether temporarily or permanently. Green and white have the most cards that go in this archetype, but black also offers some key cards at uncommon, especially Mark of the Vampire, which can make it very difficult for your opponent to race.

  • Green (permanent effects): Hunt the Weak, Trollhide, Oath of the Ancient Wood (rare), Primeval Bounty (mythic)
  • Green (temporary effects): Giant Growth, Ranger’s Guile, Enlarge (uncommon)
  • White (permanent effects): Divine Favor, Blessing (uncommon), Indestructibility (rare), Path of Bravery (rare), Ajani Caller of the Pride (mythic)
  • White (temporary effects): Fortify, Show of Valor
  • Blue: Zephyr Charge, Illusionary Armor (uncommon)
  • Black: Dark Favor, Mark of the Vampire
  • Red: Lightning Talons, Shiv’s Embrace (uncommon)
  • Artifact: Accorder’s Shield (uncommon), Fireshrieker (uncommon), Door of Destinies (rare), Haunted Plate Mail (rare)

Looking more closely at the cards listed above, it seems that this deck should usually be G/B, with Trollhide and Mark of the Vampire being the key commons, as well as Ranger’s Guild if you are running several creatures without hexproof to complement your Gladecover Scouts. At other rarities, Oath of the Ancient Wood, Primeval Bounty, and the artifacts listed can also contribute to a strong deck. The deck is also happy to splash white, blue, and red for Divine Favor, Illusionary Armor, and Lightning Talons respectively.

When playing this deck, you need to be very careful to not walk into Celestial Flare when either attacking or blocking. Shrivel can also be an issue if your Gladecover Scout is enchanted only with Lightning Talons and/or Indestructibility. This, along with the fact that you won’t always draw Gladecover Scout (or be willing to try to mulligan to it) means that the deck also needs other creatures. The deck generally wants to run cheaper creatures so it can put an Aura on them and start attacking, so here are the 1-3 mana creatures in green and black that seem to be good candidates for this archetype:

  • 1cc: Elvish Mystic, Festering Newt, Tenacious Dead (uncommon)
  • 2cc: Child of Night, Corpse Hauler, Predatory Sliver, Gnawing Zombie (uncommon), Manaweft Sliver (uncommon), Voracious Wurm (uncommon), Scavenging Ooze (rare)
  • 3cc: Brindle Boar, Rootwalla, Lifebane Zombie (rare), Syphon Sliver (rare), Witchstalker (rare)

Blightcaster is also a key card since the deck already runs several Auras. If the deck has sufficient mana fixing, other cards from the enchantments and lifegain decks can also be included.

Filed under Magic 2014 Tagged with , , , ,

M14: Archaeomancer

August 23, 2013 Leave a comment

To date, I’ve mentioned Archaeomancer in the context of a few different archetypes: U/R control, U/G control, U/G mill, and W/U skies. And intuitively, it would seem that U/R or U/B are the best color pairs for Archaeomancer since you can regrow instant/sorcery removal in those decks. (Much of the removal in white and blue is in the form of enchantments, and the removal in green is largely conditional, hitting flyers and non-creature permanents.) However, I always prefer hard numbers (hence this blog), so let’s get crunching.

M14 has 61 instants and sorceries. This spreadsheet breaks them down by color, rarity, and quality. It’s clear that red and black have the most number of exceptional instants/sorceries per player in an average M14 draft (0.6 and 0.4 respectively). If you combine bomb, exceptional, and playable instants/sorceries, red and green have the most (1.4 and 1.2 respectively). This corroborates some of my intuition above, and seems to reinforce U/R control as the best home for Archaeomancer.

However, this also include spells that are better in aggro decks (e.g., Act of Treason and most combat tricks) or spells that usually win you the game when cast (e.g., Devout Invocation and Planar Cleansing). Let’s take a slightly different look at this; let’s look at which instants/sorceries we’d most want to recast:

  • White: Celestial Flare
  • Blue: Cancel, Divination, Essence Scatter, Frost Breath, Negate, Time Ebb, Tome Scour, Opportunity (uncommon); you won’t usually want to recur Traumatize since the second casting will typically mill about as many cards as a Tome Scour
  • Black: Altar’s Reap, Liturgy of Blood, Wring Flesh, Corrupt (uncommon), Doom Blade (uncommon)
  • Red: Chandra’s Outrage, Shock, Flames of the Firebrand (uncommon), Molten Birth (uncommon), Volcanic Geyser (uncommon)
  • Green: Fog, Hunt the Weak, Plummet, Howl of the Night Pack (uncommon), Windstorm (uncommon)

Blue itself has the most number of instants and sorceries we’d want to regrow with Archaeomancer, and white has the least. Black, red, and green have similar numbers of them, but red has the most number of good removal spells, followed by black. The green instants and sorceries have very specific purposes, with Plummet and Windstorm only being useful against flyers, and Fog usually only useful if you’re playing a mill deck or if your opponent has falter effects.

Conclusion: Archaeomancer is at its best in U/R control where it can recur removal and blue card draw and counterspells, and in G/U mill where it can recur mill spells and cards like Fog and Frost Breath that can buy you time to mill your opponent out. It may also be playable in U/G control and U/B. That is a fairly limited set of archetypes and Archaeomancer only leaves a 1/2 body behind, so I would consider it only conditionally playable.

Filed under Magic 2014 Tagged with , , , , ,

M14: Plummet vs. Windstorm

August 23, 2013 Leave a comment

When drafting green decks, I’ve faced the choice of drafting either Plummet or Windstorm from the same pack, or having both in my draft pool but not knowing whether either is worthy of maindecking. Another choice I’ve faced is deciding which one to side in against an opponent who has one or more flyers in their deck. Let’s see if we can figure out the right choices in these scenarios.

If you’re running green as a main color, Deadly Recluse and Giant Spider are great ways to deal with flyers. They can also defend quite well against non-flyers, and sometimes even get to attack. Deadly Spider is easier to kill than Giant Spider, so our analysis will look at 3 different categories of flyers:

  • must-kill non-defender flyers (see the spreadsheet from my post on creature evaluations)
  • flyers with power >= 4 (or deathtouch) and toughness >= 3, since they can kill Giant Spider without dying in the process
  • all non-defender flyers

There are only 5 must-kill flyers in M14: 1 common, 1 uncommon, 1 rare, and 2 mythic. An average draft will have 0.57 of these flyers per player, all in white, blue, and black. Must-kill means that you can’t reliably block or gang block the creature with flyers/spiders to neutralize it, or that it has a static ability that makes it dangerous even if it’s not in combat, which is why Nightwing Shade, Air Servant, and Galerider Sliver fall into this category, along with the more obvious inclusion of Archangel of Thune and Windreader Sphinx.

There are 6 flyers with power >= 4 (or deathtouch) and toughness >= 3: 2 uncommons (only Serra Angel and Sengir Vampire, since we’ve already counted Air Servant above), 2 rares (Jace’s Mindseeker and Shivan Dragon), and 2 mythics (Shadowborn Demon and Scourge of Valkas). An average draft will have 0.45 of these flyers per player, primarily in black. Note that although Shivan Dragon and Scourge of Valkas can attack for a lot of damage, I don’t consider them must-kill since firebreathing doesn’t pump toughness, so they can still be blocked and killed by multiple opposing flyers/spiders.

Adding these numbers tells us that the average draft will only have about 1 flyer per player that falls into either of these 2 categories, so you probably don’t want to run either Plummet or Windstorm in your maindeck. Obviously, there are exceptions to this. For instance, if you have Diabolic Tutor or Ring of Three Wishes in your deck, you could run a singleton Plummet or Windstorm as a silver bullet. If you have a U/G control deck with limited creature removal, you’re more likely to face a bomb flyer that you can’t handle, so Plummet or Windstorm might have a place in that deck, especially if you can regrow it using Archaeomancer. And if you have an otherwise really strong monogreen or G/R deck that lacks flying defense, you might run Plummet and/or Windstorm maindeck to shore up that weakness and as insurance against your opponent having a flying bomb.

Finally, let’s look at all non-defender flyers in M14. All of them are playable, except perhaps Dragon Hatchling. Let’s exclude those creatures and then look at the number of flyers we would expect a player in those colors to have in an 8-person draft, assuming there are 3 drafters in each color. (This analysis is more useful here than looking at the average number of these flyers per drafter.)

  • White: 3 common, 1 uncommon, 1 rare, 1 mythic -> 8.9 at the table, or 3.0 per white drafter
  • Blue: 4 commons, 2 uncommons, 2 rares, 1 mythic -> 12.9 at the table, or 4.3 per blue drafter
  • Black: 2 commons, 1 uncommon, 1 rare, 1 mythic -> 6.6 at the table, or 2.2 per black drafter
  • Red: 1 uncommon, 2 rares, 1 mythic -> 2.2 at the table, or 0.7 per black drafter

From this analysis, we can see that only U/X decks are likely to have more than 1 flyer on the table at a time, and so are the only ones against which you’d rather bring in Windstorm. There are only 2 rare and 2 mythic flyers with toughness >= 5 (I’m including Nightmare but not Nightwing Shade here), so Windstorm will usually be able to take down all your opponent’s flyers. (And sometime they’ll play a Galerider Sliver and you’ll knock out most of their side :)) Of course, if your deck also has flyers, you may still prefer Plummet, even when playing against a U/W or U/B deck.

Filed under Magic 2014 Tagged with , , ,

M14: W/U skies

August 21, 2013 Leave a comment

Yesterday, I drafted a W/U skies deck for the first time in M14. It had only 11 creatures (including 8 flyers and an Angelic Wall), but I still went 3-1, at least in part because Path of Bravery swung some races in my favor. The deck is not that different from W/U skies decks in other draft formats and relies on having some good defensive creatures and then winning in the air with flyers. This post will do an overview of the cards that go in this archetype.

Most of the defensive creatures are 2-3 mana. Some of them have flying and can double as attackers in the late game.

  • common: Angelic Wall (converted mana cost = 2), Seacoast Drake (2), Griffin Sentinel (3). Coral Merfolk (2) and Scroll Thief (3) are reasonable, especially if you have Trained Condors, and Scroll Thief often keeps 2 of your opponent’s creatures at bay since people are more scared of it than they probably should be. Capashen Knight (2) is great against X/1’s but should usually start out in your sideboard.
  • uncommon: Wall of Frost (3), Wall of Swords (4)

There are a lot of good evasion creatures in white and blue, but most cost 3-5 mana, so you should prioritize defensive creatures that cost 2 mana. Seraph of the Sword is also excellent on defense against large creatures, lifelink, and deathtouch.

  • common: Suntail Hawk (1), Trained Condor (3), Charging Griffin (4), Nephalia Seakite (4), Messenger Drake (5)
  • uncommon: Warden of Evos Isle (3), Phantom Warrior (3), Air Servant (5), Serra Angel (5)
  • rare: Galerider Sliver (1), Seraph of the Sword (4), Jace’s Mindseeker (6)
  • mythic: Windreader Sphinx (7)

Much of the permanent removal is in the form of enchantments, so I ran an Auramancer maindeck, but moved it to the sideboard after a couple of games since most of my Auras remained on the creatures they were enchanting. The temporary removal and counterspells work well with Archaeomancer, but its higher casting cost (which includes double blue) and smaller body make the interaction less exciting.

  • common: Claustrophobia, Pacifism, Sensory Deprivation (best against ground creatures that your defensive creatures can’t handle, or against Deadly Recluse and Deathgaze Cockatrice), Disperse, Time Ebb, Frost Breath, countermagic
  • uncommon: Rod of Ruin, Spell Blast
  • rare: Planar Cleansing, Rachet Bomb, Domestication

Of the creature enhancements, Divine Favor and Accorder’s Shield were both very good. Path of Bravery was amazing, giving my creatures +1/+1 if I’d managed to set up an early defense; even when I didn’t, the lifegain still shifted races in my favor whenever the board state allowed me to attack with multiple flyers. Illusionary Armor seems like it could be quite powerful since it takes the opponent out of the game very quickly if they don’t have an answer. It can usually be put on your smallest flyer, which can force your opponent to direct their removal at it instead of another threat, and it gets better if you have an Auramancer. Although I didn’t get to try it out, Fortify seems like it has a lot of potential in this deck since most of your attackers are likely to go unblocked. Furthermore, Fortify allows your Seacoast Drakes and Griffin Sentinel to switch from defense to offense for an alpha strike.

  • common: Divine Favor, Show of Valor, Fortify
  • uncommon: Accorder’s Shield, Fireshrieker, Illusionary Armor
  • rare: Haunted Plate Mail, Path of Bravery

My deck also had 2 Divinations and 2 Opportunities. I wasn’t particularly impressed by the former since they were at the same mana cost as a lot of my 3-drops. Opportunity was better and let me refuel my hand in the late game, but would probably have been better as a singleton.

Filed under Magic 2014 Tagged with , , , ,

M14: Maindeck countermagic

August 20, 2013 Leave a comment

M14 has 4 counterspells: Essence Scatter, Negate, Cancel, and Spell Blast. Are any of them good choices for the maindeck?

The spreadsheet I’d created for my last post shows that a typical M14 draft deck has 4 good targets for Essence Scatter (1 bomb + 2.8 exceptional) and 3 good targets for Negate (0.2 bombs + 2.5 exceptional). That means that you will only encounter 1-2 worthy targets per game for either of them. Even then, you need to have the counterspell in hand and have mana open to cast it, so they’re unlikely to be consistently good.

Cancel and Spell Blast have about 6.5 good targets (1.2 bomb + 5.3 exceptional). However, they’re more expensive to cast, especially Spell Blast, so you’re less likely to have mana open to cast them when your opponent casts one of those targets. Also, some of these targets are likely to end up sitting in sideboards, either due to hatedrafts or players switching colors, so you’re less likely to encounter them than the numbers indicate. Finally, countermagic does very little if you’re behind on the board, and good players can sometimes play around it.

Given this, you probably want to leave countermagic in your sideboard unless you’re playing a U/R control or U/G mill deck. In such a deck, Essence Scatter can prevent you from falling behind early and the countermagic can be regrown using Archaeomancer. Also, since these decks don’t usually win quickly, you’re likely to see more of an opponent’s decks and therefore more likely to encounter their bombs.

Other scenarios in which you might want to maindeck countermagic are if your deck lacks creature removal or if you’ve passed multiple bombs and know you’re likely to face them.

EDIT: Someone pointed out yesterday that I hadn’t covered some other reasons to run countermagic. He specifically mentioned that Negate can be useful if you have bombs or combos to protect, which is a valid point. In addition, countermagic gets better if you have other things you can do on your opponent’s turn if they don’t play anything you’re interested in countering. For instance, you might be able to play a creature with flash (although there are only 2 in M14, and both cost 4 mana) or use an instant-speed activated abilities (such as Rod of Ruin and Ring of Three Wishes).

Filed under Magic 2014 Tagged with ,

M14: Essence Scatter vs. Negate

August 13, 2013 Leave a comment

Which is better in M14 draft: Essence Scatter or Negate? This spreadsheet breaks down the creatures and non-creatures in M14 by color and quality, using the updated evaluations from my last post. The tables list the average number of cards of that color and quality per player. Looking at the totals, it is immediately clear that M14 has more creatures than non-creatures that are bombs, exceptional, good, or even situational/filler. So Essence Scatter is superior to Negate, although you may prefer the latter if your deck already has enough creature removal. Essence Scatter is also more likely to have targets since limited decks tend to run more creatures than non-creatures.

Are there any color pairs against which Negate is better? B/R is the only color pair with more bomb/exceptional non-creatures than creatures. Of course, your sideboarding decisions also have to factor in what you’ve seen of your opponent’s deck and what colors you’re playing; if you’re in G/U and lack hard creature removal, you may want to run Essence Scatter over Negate even against B/R decks.

Filed under Magic 2014 Tagged with , , ,

M14: Updated evaluations

August 13, 2013 Leave a comment

I’d posted my initial evaluations of the cards in M14 several weeks ago. Since then, I’ve updated several of my valuations based on experience with the format and the analysis I’ve posted here. This spreadsheet lists my current valuations, the original valuations, and the reason for the change. (Valuations that have changed are highlighted.) I’ve used the same evaluation key as before: B for bomb, + for exceptional, / for good, ~ for situationally playable and filler cards, S for sideboard cards, x for cards that are unplayable in most circumstances, and ? (TBD) for those requiring further evaluation.

Most of the cards whose valuations have changed were originally TBD:

  • I have had good experience with the W/B enchantments deck, so Ajani’s Chosen and Blightcaster are exceptional and Auramancer is good (it is mostly good with Quag Sickness).
  • I’ve been less impressed with the W/B lifegain deck, so Angelic Accord, Congregate, Sanguine Bond, and Trading Post are situationally playable, and Dawnstrike Paladin and Soulmender are unplayable.
  • The mill deck requires multiple Millstones or some of the rare/mythic cards, so Traumatize is good and Tome Scour and Millstone are situationally playable.
  • B/R has enough sacrifice interactions that Act of Treason and Barrage of Expendables are good.
  • Hive Stirrings and Sliver Construct are playable if you have enough good Slivers and so are situationally playable. (Sliver Construct is also a good sideboard card against black or red decks with multiple intimidate creatures.)
  • Door of Destinies is situationally playable in either a Slivers deck or a W/B Humans deck.
  • Xathrid Necromancer leaves behind a 2/2 when killed and can be nuts in a W/B Humans deck, and so is exceptional.
  • Advocate of the Beast is situationally playable because an average draft will have only 7 Beasts, all of which are likely to be highly picked by non-Beast players. It can be picked higher if you already have a few Beasts.
  • Dismiss into Dream is unplayable due to its mana cost and a lack of reusable targeting effects in M14.
  • Domestication is good but not exceptional because M14 has many effects that can increase a creature’s power.
  • Zephyr Charge is situationally playable if you’re short on win conditions.
  • Strionic Resonator may be situationally playable in a U/R control deck since it has enough triggered abilities.

Of the rest, there are 7 cards that I value more, 1 card I value less (Blessing), and 1 card that I’d considered unplayable that I now think requires further evaluation (Pyromancer’s Gauntlet). The cards I value more are:

  • Griffin Sentinel went from filler to good because it is surprisingly good when enchanted Mark of the vampire, Dark Favor, or even Divine Favor in the W/B enchantments deck.
  • Merfolk Spy went from unplayable to sideboard because it’s a reasonable sideboard card against other blue decks.
  • Dark Prophecy went from exceptional to bomb because very difficult to win if your opponent has a few creatures and has this on the board.
  • Quag Sickness went from playable to exceptional because the W/B enchantments deck is strong, tends to be heavier black anyway, and can regrow Quag Sickness using Auramancer.
  • Ogre Battledriver went from exceptional to bomb because it can dominate the game if unchecked.
  • Howl of the Night Pack went from filler to exceptional (the only card that has moved 2 spots) because it has proved problematic when played against me.
  • Fireshrieker went from filler to playable because it has proved problematic when played against me.

Blessing went from filler to sideboard because the W/B enchantments deck tends to be heavier black and have access to more cost-effective Auras. However, it can still be sided in against slower decks since it can take over a game under the right circumstances.

Finally, there are still 5 cards are still TBD; I will attempt to evaluate them in subsequent posts:

  • Archaeomancer: This should be playable at least in U/R control decks.
  • Frost Breath: This might be playable in U/R control and U/G mill decks.
  • Seismic Stomp: This might be playable in U/R tempo decks.
  • Gladecover Scout: This might be playable if you have the right Auras.
  • Pyromancer’s Gauntlet: I’d initially considered this unplayable, but want to see whether it might find a home in a U/R control deck.

Also, my valuation of Academy Raider and Elite Arcanist may go up if the U/R control deck turns out to be good, and my valuation of Fortify may go down if there isn’t a good archetype that wants it.

Filed under Magic 2014 Tagged with

M14: Maindeck artifact removal

August 10, 2013 Leave a comment

Last week, we determined that it doesn’t make sense to run maindeck enchantment removal in M14. Today, we’ll determine whether it makes sense to run maindeck artifact removal.

This spreadsheet has a list of all artifacts in M14. None of the artifacts are common except Sliver Construct, and about half are unplayable. Of the rest, Darksteel Ingot is indestructible, and Elixir of Immortality will usually be sacrificed in response. That leaves 1 common, 4 uncommon, and 5 rare artifacts that you may wish to destroy, so an average 8-person draft will only have 9 artifacts, or about 1 per player. Of these 10 artifacts, only 2 uncommons and 2 rares are playable or exceptional, and there will only be 3 of those opened in an average 8-man draft.

Given these numbers, there’s no reason to maindeck Demolish and Smelt. Since your opponent is unlikely to have many playable artifacts, I would not even recommend siding in Demolish or Smelt unless you see multiple artifacts that you want to be able to destroy. Also, Solemn Offering, Naturalize, and Bramblecrush are no more maindeckable than previously determined.

Filed under Magic 2014 Tagged with

← Older posts

Newer posts →