Limited Resources 839 - Paul Cheon on Lorwyn Eclipsed

What is up everybody welcome to another episode of limited resources this episode number 839 my name is Marshall I'm wondering limited one of your limited resources join me on the line all the way from Las Vegas, Nevada it's Paul Cheon Paul welcome back to the show hey it's good to be back you know been playing a ton of Lauren over the past couple of weeks so excited to share my thoughts on the format yeah Louise couldn't make it this week one and other and even more of his children were sick and required going to the doctor and then you know one parent has to be at the doctor one at home with the other kids and that is not really doable you know to get a show done so we've got Paul on we are going to have him on anyway we just get the full Cheon experience that we're going to be talking of course Laura when Eclipse Paul and I just covered the pro tour over the weekend there was a arena director whatever they call them now the win a box thing on arena so we're going to talk about that and then we're going to get Paul's take on the format as a whole kind of big picture stuff what Dexy's been liking and all of that before we do want to say thank you to each and every person who supports us on Patreon if you'd like to join us patreon.com slash limited resources and we really appreciate everybody who supports us there it keeps the show going and it means a lot to us also Ultimate Guard you can check out their full line of products at ultimateguard.com or your favorite local game store or online retailer they make the best stuff right like if you're if you're looking for really high quality sleeves deck boxes binders backpacks things to protect your cards your decks collection ultimate guard is the place to go you know it's a kind of it's one of those companies that's like they get it you know they they really understood the market they were trying to hit and when they design these things they said we want to make these with premium materials with really well thought out 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chitchatting before the show and a little bit after and you can you can see that stuff too but another thing you get is you get to ask questions on our patreon question of the week thread where we do the Q&A show most set cycles but this one's like kind of more evergreen like we do one of these per show and we get a lot of different types of questions mostly magic related this one comes from Larry who says hi thank you for the opportunity to ask questions you bet Larry thanks for the support I'm a newish player a little less than a year of drafting and I try to follow cabs theory when drafting however I'm confused where draw spells fit into this I understand that card draw attached to a decent body is good but where do pure card draw spells fit and that's a great question Larry especially when you're in that stage of your development where you're starting to branch out because you know the truth is is that cabs theory you know which is cards that affect the board state right is a way to there's two main uses for it one of them is kind of a palette cleanser if you're having a hard time finding your way through a format and you're trying all this different stuff and you're doing these build arounds and you're trying all these different cards and they're just not working for you this is a way that you can kind of reset and it's the the idea is that every card in your deck every spell in your deck is either a creature a removal spell and then in some cases like a combat trick so these are only things that affect the board directly you're not playing anything else like cards like card draw spells and things like that none of these like cute build arounds none of these like well if you get this this and this then you get this bonus none of that stuff and what that does is especially if you're in Larry's seat is it helps you focus on what matter most what matters most unlimited so this is a very useful tool to do that but this is not optimal drafting this is pushing things to a little bit more of an extreme so that you can kind of get back to basics and then build back out from there and where Larry's at right now as being a newer drafter is Larry is now ready to start adding in some of those other things because again it is optimal there are different types of cards that you do want to add to your deck that will increase your win rate but that don't affect the board state directly a great example of that you know Paul like in this set would be like gathering stone right like if you have 13 merfolk or whatever and you know you're like well I'm going to be a cab's drafter and I'm not going to put I'm not going to take this gathering stone you're missing out on some equity that that card is excellent and you will win more with it Paul how would you approach that like if you were coming from a kind of extreme stance of like I'm going to only do these as a way to refocus my fundamentals but now I want to start adding in some extra cards that I think will increase my win rate what types of cards what would you be looking for if you wanted to take that step yeah I mean I think we we certainly recognize that especially for limited gameplay cards that provide you advantages certainly are super important you know two for ones we like to call it even a card like a divination for example you know three manager out two cards you know if you if in the right deck you can probably fit a couple of those cards and in kind of a longer game that extra card oftentimes will kind of give you a few more percentage points so I think card advantage spells are just something that you know most people especially the old school players back when all the limited cards were pretty bad like just being up two cards just meant you're probably going to win that game magic is of course changed a lot you can get advantages in a lot of different ways now with cards like you know you have just cards that return cards from the graveyard or you have removal spells that kill two things so there's card advantage can come in multiple different ways but specifically for card draw I think you do need to be careful about kind of how many you decide to put into your deck I've I've fallen for this trap many times where I go oh I have four copies of unexpected assistance this is great it's like oh I probably played two too many copies of this card so just you know I think if you are starting with kind of that baseline theory of look I want to play a bunch of cards that affect the board and removal spells maybe a smattering of tricks add a card draw spell maybe two but then I wouldn't really push it too much past that because oftentimes you're just going to have a lot of other cards where you can kind of sink your mana into right if you have a bunch of creatures that have activated abilities if you have a bunch of grave digger effects at that point you don't really need that much card draw because you're just always going to have stuff to do if you have a if you have a bunch of card draw spells and you have a bunch of activated abilities oftentimes you're going to just find yourself with too much to do with your mana and that's not necessarily where you want to be yeah that's great advice that's what I was going to say too which is that the two things are as you start to add these things do it very carefully like you're still fundamentally in the right spot in many formats in many archetypes if you're a heavily creature based and that the more you start to you know I should rewind you know one of the reasons that we even came up with with uh Capsule in the first place was like if you go to a local game store and you do a draft and then you just walk around and say can can you guys just lay out your deck for me just I want to see what everybody came up with from the table right and they lay out the decks for the players who are newer who are less experienced who aren't as good as the you know the players that have been playing for a long time or that really put a lot of you know focused effort into getting better at this you're going to find that they are way too loose with these these cards that if you read them you're like well that's that seems kind of cool you know but it you know a good a great example of that would be like equipment right is sometimes I've seen players in in real life you know that have four equipment on the battlefield and no creatures right and it's like they maybe should have run one of those like the best one of those probably was was good for them but like the second one was starting to fall off and the third and fourth were just like no like those just need to be bodies or you're never going to find anything you know to equip to right and that happens all the time you know things that make your your spells cheaper or just pure card draw or anything like that it adds up really quick and so you want to be very careful about what you add and and kind of covet those slots like or really like care for those right like if you know like like I mentioned the gathering stone thing like that is one that's worth that slot if you if you have the deck that supports it and it's like that you should feel really good about picking up that card and putting it in that spot but maybe you have one more slot like that maybe two you know it's it's really narrow like you got to be really really careful about you know how you approach that so I love that question Larry and I think you are ready to start adding them where to card draw spells fit they do fit in many decks and you should add one but don't add four they as Paul said they they run out of steam really really quickly and you know like the term we use for it is air right it's like you look at your hand and it's like I have a lot of air like I like I can do a lot of stuff I can spend my mana but nothing happens I'm not beating you down I'm not blocking I'm not advancing a game plan in particular and you want to be very very cognizant of anything that would fit that description meaning you tap mana and the board like let's say your opponent has 10 power out and you tap for mana does it change that meaning do you put out a blocker do you remove one of their guys if the answers no you need to be very skeptical of that card and only run you know a couple of them in your deck the downside to cabs of course is that it's too narrow again it's not the optimal way to do it and there are archetypes that don't work this way right modern limited is a diverse landscape of different designs and everything and it isn't so simple as you know just creatures beat down whatever but you know like Paul you and I watched uh I wanted to talk a little bit about the PT anyway I guess we could do it now but you know you and I watched Seth draft um Seth Manfield you know he won the world championship so we watched him draft at this first PT of the season you know and he had like a pretty bumpy ride during the actual draft itself but if you looked at his deck that he submitted it was very cabsy it was very just like combat tricks removal creatures curve let's go right and you could see that he was like in this turbulent environment of a pro tour draft table where you know everybody really knows what they're doing and you just don't get gifted these amazing decks he kind of went back to basics on that too so you know there is something to be said for that but there are archetypes you know that are weird or that are trying to do something different and they don't lend themselves to this and if you tried to force that through that wouldn't be the case so I really like cabs as a starting place and as a palette cleanser but I but you do you know once you start to outgrow it that's that's a good sign and and you can definitely put some of these these extra I will say I will say this I think a lot of people can perhaps be reminded of cabs there even some of the more advanced drafters because it gets to the point where I'm looking at you know even just like people that I speak to about limited rice see some of some of the people of the some of the draft decks of the people even in my discord or whatever and you know these are people who are people watch limited draft videos every day who kind of understand limited but they're still playing too many colors not respecting their mana curve playing too many card draw spas like these are all kind of common pitfalls that you can run into by trying to get a little bit too fancy with with just kind of how you approach the limited format at the end of the day like if you go back to basics and you draft a good mana curve with some interaction like nothing beats that the best limited players that I know prefer to do that they do we're talking about Seth Manfield marcio these are folks that just like to just draft good curve out decks can you go hero they all you just see them draft boros beatdown almost all the time and so and these are the best drafters in the world right so if they do it you know you don't have to kind of play three changing wave finders and prove how smart you are by playing all these different colors and slow yourself down like oftentimes it is better to just kind of find the right lane good draft a good curve and just kind of you know play good tight magic and hopefully that gets it done no that's totally true and we see that over and over you know shuhei drafts that way martin user drafts that way like some of the you know really top top top tier limited players in the history of of our game you know are very you know I mean you can go all the way back to like Mike Turian right I mean he was known for that right like these guys want to play curve out they don't mess around with mana you know one of the things that if you watch paul's videos on his youtube channel and you definitely should all there there'll be a link in the description for it too he puts up daily draft videos and you know I think one of the things that stands out people paul is when you're building your mana base and when you're selecting your cards you're very very wary of double mana spell like double pip cards you know something that costs red red or white white even if it's like I mean basically up until at least the four drop slot like if it costs you know red red at the two drop that's obviously kind of oppressive but like one red red or two red red like you're very aware of it like you might cut it right if you if your mana even though you're playing like eight red sources you might be like eh you know I really want my mana to be super smooth and I'm just going to put in this this comment over it you know I'm not giving up a bomb here or whatever but those are considerations that you're making all the time and if you watch you know people draft that are like less disciplined than that I mean they're just throwing those in because they're like I'm red it's red I'm playing it you know yeah absolutely that's another good fundamental thing so discipline Larry you got it let's do a crack a pack paul and of course as usual we'll use this not just as a way to figure out what we would take but as a as a jump off discussion starter okay our first card up dream Caesar three this is a foil it's three and a black for a three two flyer and when it enters you can blight one and if you do target a point or each opponent I guess discards card yeah you know I actually thought this card had the potential to be a pretty solid card on the format depending on kind of the speed of the format but it's actually been kind of an under performer for me personally just in draft I think creature types always matter in this format so having a card that has an okay effect but it's creature type fairy certainly doesn't do it any favors you know if it was a goblin or something like that or even an elf of course I think it would be much much better but yeah this is something that almost never makes my decks yeah same and you know I I'm getting more and more annoyed you know like by the like the fact I just I don't understand the fundamental like design principle on this set I I don't know enough about game design to to get my head around it fully but just the idea that we have like an ostensibly playable fairy here and this is not the only one there are there are actually quite a few but just in an unsupported archetype like it's just blue black just is not like there are cards that are hybrid blue black and you know you got trapped by that the triple hybrid uncommon and you know it's like these are three of those right and they're good cards like dream scissors totally fine card but like you said you're just so non-incentivized to put you know off type creatures in your deck that I'm just like why is this here like it feels like filler or like they got halfway down the road on making a cool fairy's deck and then we're like we'll just stop here put these cards in and focus on the these other archetypes and also like I don't know what the decision points were about you know which ones we should focus on or whatever I it feels I actually feel like if they wanted to just kind of shoehorn a bunch of off creature type cards for people to play you should actually make them stronger right so it's like oh this doesn't fit one of my kindred types but because the card is so good it's a card that I would be interested in playing in any of my black decks right let's say this was a 3-3 flyer just like little knobs right to make it so that this is just just a good card by itself because you know it being a fairy really takes away a lot from if it wasn't changeling even yeah obviously that would be fantastic so yeah I think the big miss here is probably the creature type and also just you know there's just the I mean now while the speed of the format isn't fast necessarily you know you still kind of need to the board matters right and to some degree and this obviously doesn't really give you the best stats right it's just a weird pull you know and and what you said is totally true coming off of the set review I had the same feeling where I was like well if it's not an on type creature then it needs to stand up on its own it needs to be good enough to be the exception and say well I feel good about playing this you know which basically means it needs to be at like an uncommon power level so all the common like basically none of the comments have held up like they're even though again you read them that's a perfectly good card it's just yeah they can't and then and so then we play cards like this next one which is like not very exciting you know it's feisty spikeling the one in a red white hybrid for a 2-1 changeling and during your turn it has first strike you know but it's like the only thing I shouldn't say there's two things that matter about the card and the rest is really like whatever and it's like it's that it's a changeling and that it has you know two colors in its type so that it can get you a little vivid boost every once in a while but really it's just like it's a changeling like that's what this is it because like the 2-1 first strike isn't really very good red white is not a deck at all so it's just a changeling it it's it's a two-man of changing you kind of put it in your deck it's if you're aggressive then it can be okay so obviously this can fill the role of kind of a two-man of kithkin that you could play but I feel like it's also just worse than the other two common kithkin that you can have it too so it's it's just a completely filler level card but I think a lot of the the multicolored common changelings are like that they're all totally playable yeah right gangly stompling prideful feastling they're fine but you know it's it's one of those oh man I didn't get enough of my typal card so I am going to put my put a couple of these cards in my deck of course if you do have vivid payoffs then you're more inclined to take cards like this to fill your curve so that you can play you know your shine strikers for four or whatever right yeah and I just I have an issue with that fundamentally right because like if you told me like like these two cards are a really good example they're both common and like dream seizures interesting right like it gives you this choice of like do I want to get a card or do I need to have a bigger flyer you know it would be an interesting thing to figure out how it plays out you know is it maybe a little bit of a surprise and you actually just keep it as a three two flyer a lot of the time or you just always getting the card and then you know how does that change your evaluation there's a lot of like play to that card where feisty spike link it is you just play it like there's no there's nothing interesting about it on the battlefield right and but what are the incentives in this set pick feisty spike link you know it's like okay what else well I'd really like to play a two three lifelink like that's that's where I'm at in a modern era limited set I can't wait to get this two three lifelink or a four two tramp it's like these are boring cards compared to the off type ones the giants they're all interesting you know the tree folk are really cool cards and same with the fairies and they're the ones I want to play and I feel like I'm kind of being told I know that looks cool and it might be interesting and it might even be powerful but how about a two three lifelink my friend I think that's what you really wanted the whole time and I'm like okay yeah I'll take the two three lifelink because it says changeling on it so these are kind of the fundamentals that I'm having an issue with if you're in creature type the set plays really well it's good like it's mid-range that it's creature base I really like that it feels very kind of core limited vibes to me which I really like and each of the core archetypes are diverse interesting powerful you know at least on some level you know there's of course a you know hierarchy there but I mean you know I'm interested in any of the archetypes if it's open I like vivid you know there's the things I like I like it's just when I open a dream season I'm like well just ignore it you know exactly anyway elder auntie is next two and a red for a two two that makes a two two goblin that makes a one one goblin goblin's kind of sucks a little bit yeah I mean it's it's it's it's probably it's the weakest of the five main archetypes that you can draft and certainly this is a filler level card for the goblins deck uh you know what's funny is this would be awesome as a merfolk just because the white deck just cares so much about convoking things out so being able to just make two bodies on turn three to convoke would be really nice but of course it's it's red so it's not quite as good there so I mean just again filler level card if you're not goblins you generally don't play this card right and and you know I would say that this is in some ways a a victim of the goblin deck overall not really translating you know just not really quite being powerful enough because if you know you told me any like name any type and I can pay three mana for three power three toughness over two bodies both of that type I'm in right like that is it double triggers stuff it increases your count on board by two you know it counts as casting one it counts as one of the yard it would be insane as a kithkin right or a merfolk right like both it's just at its worst as a goblin the thing is I mean look the the goblins deck is actually not really an agro deck anymore it's it's kind of a mid-range drain you out deck it really relies heavily on some of those uncommons that has those drain effects so you know you have the elder auntie elder auntie you blight into the token you drain them a few times yeah that is kind of the path to draft that deck the the issue is if you kind of move into this archetype without a lot of those signposts on commons you try to put together a goblin's deck with just a bunch of commons you're going to be in some trouble that's right next one is another goblin it's chaos spewer this is two and a black red hybrid for a five four and as it enters you can either blight two or pay two mana um you get to choose this is going to be a common theme but I think this is a general sentiment that a lot of people feel is uh this format is largely defined by its uncommons and its rares the commons most of the there's just so many of them that are kind of like this just kind of like just a bunch of uh unexciting changelings that you kind of play to fill your deck but you're never really super happy about playing and this kind of falls into that category too where you kind of play this if you're a goblin's deck and you care about blighting onto things if you have some tree folk yeah that's even sweeter I guess but certainly not something you take early right and you know just as a I just checked the the current uh 17 lands data on the color pairs and they're really consistent they've stayed the same and it's basically like elves is 58% in change then it's kith kin which is 57% in change and then it's murphock which is 56% in change and then it's elementals which is 55% so you see this kind of nice progression and then unfortunately it is the goblin's deck which is 53% so it goes 58, 57, 56, 55, 53 it is a significant batch below it that is that is a meaningful you know amount below uh and speaking of our next card is another goblin it's vile vile boggart which is really hard to say on coverage uh Paul and I found out as people were vile vile boggart yeah definitely hard to say on coverage yeah I look this is just a card that if you're not goblins you're just not going to start either uh it can be a fine sideboard card especially against the maybe a kith kin deck or a murphock deck that has the ability to make some 1-1 tokens but yeah just another filler card and that's about it with the black 1-1 and then when it dies you could put a plus some plus or minus 1 on a counter on a creature uh next up is flame chain moller this one always feels like a little without home you know this is the one in a red 2-2 elemental you could pay one in a red to give it plus and plus so in menace until in return it's like kind of an aggressive creature and when i'm playing the elementals deck um that that isn't really what i'm looking for i am looking for two drop elementals but like you know it's interesting when you look at the two two drop uh commons for this deck the red one is this like pump you know fire breathing menace guy and the other one's a 1-3 that when it dies you draw a card it's just like begging to block right and this one is kind of the opposite and i think i lean a little bit more towards the the other end here where you at on the flame chain moller yeah i don't i don't think i've drafted too many very aggressive elemental type deck so this is just something that kind of falls into your lap in the in kind of a the later part of the pack if you need a two drop you'll put it in your deck you won't be super happy about it and yeah i mean the elementals that kind of struggles in the two-man slot i think compared to a lot of the other color combinations because this is one of them and even the summit sentinel sometimes you can kind of overdo it and it just kind of stays in play and if you can't cash cash it in for a card sometimes you're like man this thing's just not even doing anything so yeah i don't love the two drops in the elementals deck but i do think the summit sentinel the blue one is a little bit better for that strategy than the flame chain moller and it's so different yeah and i mean like seriously how many times have you activated that you know it's like it's just not a place that you want to put your mana very often uh speaking of uh next is aquatex defenses this is another card that just kind of where does it go you know because you know one of the things that we talk about um that's similar to what we were talking about with cabs but it's a little bit different for these kindred sets or whatever which is you know anytime you're putting a card into your deck that isn't of the creature type that you care about it really has to pull its weight you know if it either isn't that or doesn't care about that right like it's it's not a goblin or a card that says blah blah blah based on the number of goblins you have or whatever then it's like these cards need to be really good like you need to be getting serious card advantage or some other thing out of them and you know this is a perfect example of one that's not even close like it's just not even you know in the in the ballpark of what it needs to be doing it's the the one in a blue flash aura for your creature it gets plus one plus two and when it um enters the enchanted creature gets hexproof basically it's like a mostly defensive card you do get plus one power so it can be a combat trick but you know along the lines what i was just saying combat tricks also need not apply and unless they're kind of premium you know combat tricks or you're really on the beatdown plan yeah i think one of the big misses in this set is just the combat tricks in general they have not really been pulling their weight there's just no good one mana trick appeal to erdo is not a very good card no you have to you have to get to uncommon you have to get to blossoming defense blossoming defense is like the one that you want and then perhaps the green one is okay the the plus two plus so trample indestructible yeah that has its moments i sometimes you can get some damage through but yeah i feel like i feel like we needed a one mana combat trick somewhere in the aggressive colors and they kind of just have it all at two mana and with the removal being as good as it is it's just it just did just have not been doing well this next card i like a lot i think it's a little i don't know maybe a little underrated a little overlooked for what it is it's safe right cavalry this is the three in a green four four elf warrior that can't be blocked by more than one creature and you can pay five to have target elf you control get plus two plus two so it's an elf it can also target other elves but man i i kept finding myself being really annoyed by this card and at some point it crossed the threshold from annoying to just good like just like no this card is a pain like it's got four toughness it needs to die at some point and you know we talk about a concept called threat of activation you know on the show a lot which is like a card that has an activated ability that you don't need to activate for it to be relevant and this is a really good example of that you know if your opponent has a five five you can just attack with your safe right cavalry and they're like well i don't i i can't really block it because you could just pump it up and and get to eat my creature for free so they don't and then you go okay take four and then you spend your mana elsewhere and that's a big advantage like that threat really matters and you know many many creatures that have activated abilities they're not threatening in that way but this one really is and it is a pain to deal with because if you want to block it you need a huge creature and if you and if they have multiple elves which of course they do you know now you're just like combat becomes an absolute nightmare against this thing because they can pop up a different elf you know and punish you for a different block yeah i i think i mean i hope like wizards when they design green four drops and above they kind of look at this as a really great example of kind of what you need at this point from a four mana creature to actually have it do something back in the day you know of yesteryear a four mana four four we're like oh yeah that's i guess i'll put that in my deck it's nice and beefy and that is just way way below the bar and now we're in a world where we have a four mana four four in the strongest archetype that is basically unblockable that also can pump all your other elves and it's performing at roughly kind of an average level of common in that archetype right so like this is how good a four plus drop needs to be to actually have it be something that you could consider taking over another cc plus level common right this is how you need to push it so i hope they continue doing stuff like this to make it so that these big green creatures are desirable right like they did a really great job with uh what is it migrating ketchard on in the past that card was was huge right and that one did a lot of work it needs to be kind of be at that power level you know just like a four mana four four that i don't know scries one or something like that that's just not going to get it done anymore i think they did a pretty good job with this card and yeah i do like having this in my elves decks it is a little bit awkward though at least specifically for the elf decks because the two best commons or two of the they're both four drops like two of the good ones like you have donhand eulogist and safe right cavalry both of which kind of utilize the same point in the curve and you really can't kind of overdo it in the four mana slot which is why i don't take this as highly as i probably should you know if this was a three drop or if the eulogist was a three drop i think i would see myself taking this a lot higher but because they're both fours and they're both premium commons in that color combination i i tend to focus on the scarbley scouts the midnight tillings the cheaper things i can do in the elf decks yeah it's interesting because i totally agree with you paul that like we almost need to put a caveat on it like it's like four a four drop or four a five drop this actually gets the job done right because we're automatically skeptical of all fours and fives because they're not you only need a few of them in your deck so you can be very picky also it's pretty common to have the upper rarity cards particularly the bombs you know it's very rare that those only cost one or two mana right there's not that many pack rats but you know what there are there's a heck of a lot of five mana five five flying blah blah blah blah is out in the world right and when you only need two or three of those in your deck total you know cards like these fours and fives that come and have to really overperform but this one does like this this is a card that like this and the eulogist are i mean it's a little bit of a shame that they're both in the same archetype you know that they kind of got it over the over the finish line in that way but this is a type of card i really really like uh at the four if i'm going to play you know for the fours i need to play next is gold meadow nomad this is the white one two kithkin and when it if you can pay white necks out from your graveyard to make a one one green and white kithkin at sorcery speed yeah it's just i don't i mean if you in like a super ideal kithkin deck with all the payoffs maybe but if you just have like a smattering of them it's just the body is just not quite good enough here there's just too many ways to kind of brick wall this there's so many lifelinkers that exist in this format too where just a one mana one two just probably doesn't cut it most of the time right it's funny you know the place i've actually found myself putting this the most is if i'm merfolk that is uh heavy on convoke but light on curve i will put a gold medal nomad because it just it looks more like a lanor elf you know in a deck like that and it's like it is a tough pill to swallow to put a relatively low power level off type card in your deck but convoke a convoke draws with a one drop they're dumb like that is that is dumb mode so i will occasionally do that uncommon first one is bark of doran this is the one in a white equipment equipment cost is one the creature gets plus zero plus one and as long as equip creatures toughness is greater than its power to science conduct combat damage equal to its toughness rather than its power this is another good one of what we were talking about with like cabs and and then in this set that you need everything to be on type like there's just no room i mean i would say there's no room in the format for bark of doran yeah i just it's like equipment are just generally not that great anyways and then the fact that this is a very conditional way to beef up your creatures i just don't think it's worth it i have never put it i think i've had one opponent cast this card against me i have two it and so it's just it's just not yeah just just don't take it if you draft this entire format and never take this card and play it it'll probably better for you overall yeah and this is another nod to the like why is this here like this is a tree folk payoff or size just like what uh anyway next one is mud button curse tosser this is the black two one is additional cost of cast that you behold a goblin or pay two it cannot block but when it dies destroy target creature an opponent controls with power two or less i've actually found my way around this card more often than i thought it does look very annoying like kind of it's gonna trade for something or they're gonna blight on do it like there's a lot of it made my imagination go when i saw it but playing against it a bunch i'm like nah i don't know i i respect it but i i'm not like i'm certainly not thinking about taking it here and uh and it doesn't i don't know hasn't really stood out to me as being very good what do you think i mean you you 100 have to play this in your goblins decks of course and and and if you put it in the right goblin deck i mean it's it's like a very very good vile vile boggart i suppose if you think about it we're just you know it's not just mana valley 2 the fact that it kills anything with power 2 certainly helps because you can actually trade up and kill some bigger things it combos really well with gristle glutton which is probably one of the best commons that you want to pick up in that you want to pick up in these goblin decks so if you can put together a good goblin shell with some blight effects i think this is a totally fine card i mean the the cards that we've seen so far have been fairly weak i think it's between this and safe right cavalry yeah right now yeah you really brought the bad back with you paul like what's the deal these are like terrible let's see if it'll get better uh next one is dose of dawn glow this is the four and a black instant return to our creature card from your graveyard of the battlefield if it isn't your main phase you blight 2 but i mean you can get back a full power creature and blight somewhere else and block yeah but the thing is this this format's just not about large monsters right you just don't see that many people playing five six seven drops you don't have even the land cyclers right that's like a cool combo where you you land cycle something and then for five mana you get it back you get a slavering branch snapper in play for five mana you really did it you got your discount here so you know like if you know i think this is the type of card that you would maybe consider playing in an elf like an elf deck that has bombs lots of self mill and no other ways to get recursion right usually you're going to have an unbury sometimes you'll have a dawn bless pendant you'll have something so usually you don't want to play a card like this but look if you have two high perfect more cans in your deck and a lot of self mill then maybe you can find a way to put this in your deck but certainly not a first pick worthy card yeah and and it would be nice to to pick it up late right where like you happen to find yourself in that triple bomb situation and you're like yeah you know and your elves and you're milling yourself and it all just kind of comes together and then you know you pick it up 11th and you're like cool like this is the spot where i want this are rare will it save us no i don't think it will it's hexing squelcher it's one in red for a 2 2 goblin sorcerer it can't be countered it has ward pay to life spells you control can't be countered other creatures you control have ward pay to life you know i was i was talking about um safe right cavalry in this framing of like it went from from from my perspective went from that's kind of annoying to like no that's just good does hexing squelcher craft sot line like is it it's definitely annoying is it good i don't think so i i think this is there's a couple of cards in this format that look really good but are actually mostly traps and i think this is one of them it's a two you're like okay two mana two two rare symbol a crap ton of text yeah none of it really matters because guess what happens you have a two mana two two creature in play right literally no no text right this could be a feisty spikling for all i care about right so it just it's it's the reason why it's just not a good card is because at the end of the day it's just straight up a two mana two two and it makes it a little bit annoying for your opponents to kill the creatures that they want right but like what are we looking at in this format i think this format uh i don't know if you guys talked about it previously but it's just so much of it is about just getting a bunch of creatures in play people are actually having a lot more success with less removal spells in this format and really leaning into you know the the creature types and making sure that you have a critical mass of elves or goblins or what have you so oftentimes you're playing a deck with 18 creatures 19 creatures with three or four removal spells so what you're going to maybe deal two damage because they killed your bomb goblin but your two mana useless two two is still in play like that just happens way too often don't even think about putting this in your non goblin deck and just yeah just first of all just generally you shouldn't play it in your deck another card i think it's a better card that people tend to overvalue that's very similar to this is uh tam mindful first year now this card looks insane because you're like oh two mana for a two two tap this creature gets expert from all colors so everybody just thinks it's a mother runes it's just not right it's just a two mana two two if your opponent just plays a bunch of creatures and you have this in play you have a two mana two two right if you have some vivid synergies that can do some work it is definitely not a bomb do not first pick it over one of the signpost uncommons because you are doing yourself a disservice unless you want to draft a sweet five color deck i mean i applaud you for doing that right but just again there are a lot of cards like that that exist and the squelcher is also just kind of in that bucket yeah and you know i would put it in that similar framing as well where i think that the squelcher and tam both hit that level of annoying but not good right like they're not like really powerful good cards tam can be annoying it really can it can be oh i have to kind of work around this but at the end of the game you're like but i didn't and i still kind of just won you know and it's like the squelcher too it's like well if i really need to kill it i can kill it but like none of us are like all right i've got a handful of six removal spells and i'm going to try to one for one my way out of this for it's like that that is not how this format plays out as far as what we would pick from the pack i i know what i would take it's an interesting discussion though because there's the safe right cavalry which is you know probably the best card here and it's in the best archetype but boy it is way down the list on cards in that archetype like this is not you know you're not like i've got the nut elves deck i opened up a safe right cavalry right this is this is not how this works um but i think the best card you know is probably mud button curse tosser but it's in the worst archetype but i would take it here because there's an elder auntie a chaos spewer a bilevier bager there's a dose of don glow a hexine squelcher and a feisty spikeling and i'm getting something back that will go into my mediocre goblins deck um so i would take that here i think the other option would be feisty spikeling and just sort of punt this pick to the next one and you know hope you're in the the color or i think you could go with the safe right cavalry and just be like well maybe i'm not in elves but like i don't want to be anywhere else at this back is taking these so i'll just take a shot how what would you take out of the pack i think i would take the curse tosser i think it's like i think you can defend taking the safe right cavalry i think those are the two clear picks here i think there's a there's a little more upside with the curse tosser if you put together a good goblins deck with all the blight synergies triple glib gristle glut and all that stuff and you can get a lot of value that way uh so i think you could take that but of course elves is clearly the strongest archetype so i can also see the case being made that you take the cavalry i mean you can still technically play it in your green white decks right it's just a random creature but in in in just the straight up green white deck it's probably more like a replacement level creature that you play in the four mana slot whereas i think my button curse tosser in a solid goblin deck is above replacement level yeah agreed yeah bad pack though like let's let's be clear here really bad that is i was i was like is there another uncommon like what are we doing here yeah something yeah and it is also interesting because of the way that packs are constructed now and playboosters is that like sometimes the uncommon and rares go six cards deep right and this one was like pure old school just no bonus sheet no extra rare no extra it was just like nah dude deal with this so and uh and we did the best we could with it um let's uh we did do i did want to touch on this paul i want to get your big picture thoughts on the format but before we do we just covered the pt uh where you know there were two drafts of lauren eclipse at the at the pro tour level you can see them on youtube now paul and i covered both so you you know we'll kind of walk you through those if you check out those videos but um we also had what has become a bit of a pattern which is that they did a the uh arena director they still call them arena directs i think those were maybe yes that might be it they might be whatever the win a box things right where you play a sealed and then they have two different versions of it they have one that's for a collector booster where you have to get to seven wins before you get your second loss it's a steep hill to climb and then yeah and then they have another version of it where if you for playboosters booster boxes where if you get to six wins you get one and if you get to seven wins you get two of them and and again before your second loss or is that third loss i think it's still second loss but anyway uh and this has happened before where it comes out on the pro tour weekend and of course paul and iyer we're keen you know we're down to play a few of these events we got a side hustle yeah exactly and so we uh we both were playing these between rounds and you know when we got off work for the day we would go back and and jam a few of these and it was fun i mean i i really love these events i it took me until the uh final fantasy one to to play them i kind of was like i don't really want to i didn't really want to play sealed you know that much i do like sealed actually quite a bit but it was like do i really want to spend this much time on sealed and um you know i don't really want like more magic product you know like i i can sell it or whatever but it's like it kind of becomes this thing it's like i want and then it's like i have to wait two months and then some box shows up and then i have to put it up on ebay or try to find a friend that wants it or whatever and it becomes a little bit of a thing but anyway uh but it was a final fantasy one because the prices on those boxes were absurd right they were like 1200 or something and they retailed for four six or whatever it was so the those like i my my poker brain couldn't say no to the ev of those tournaments but it also opened my eyes to like this is fun like i like playing these and so i've played them ever since and uh this one was for the lore when eclipse collector booster so you know those are 350 to 400 worth of of cards that you can win and each entry is 6000 gems which is you know a little over 30 bucks 30 33 something like that 33 30 yes yeah so it's like you know when you when you math it out it's like well so if if it's just straight value you know i can play um you know 11 or 12 entries or so and if i win a box out of one of those that i break even and if i get it any with any more frequency than that then i'm then i'm ahead and you know you can even be a little more generous um and say you know if i put together a couple of deep runs because there are significant gem prizes as you work your way up the winds um where you know like for example if you make it to six wins but don't quite get the box you know you you profit gems like you get a free buy-in or whatever and so you know on top of your original so you know if you say well i'm pretty good and i'll i'll probably pick up some gems in my 10 12 you know runs you know maybe it ends up being 13 or 14 you know that you get out of a a full run of buy-ins for the prize you know that you need to win to get to seven on one of those to break even that's pretty good i mean you know if you play a lot of limited like paul and i do you're you're definitely plus cv to do it so we were jamming those all week and uh what was your take on the on the sealed format and on that you know on your adventure trying to win the boxes yeah the coverage team as a whole as a team we were trying to i think money to voody was setting the line i think he set the line a little ambitiously at 13 and i think the total tally we ended up winning 12 boxes we actually got kind of close so 12 boxes while commentating a full pro tour yeah i mean we spent a lot of evenings just just jamming games but it was a lot and you know look at the end of the day despite the format i'm just gonna despite the format these things are always fun to play just because the the the set that feeling of winning a box and you're winning in is always just a great feeling it doesn't matter but there were high fives all around when anybody oh yeah yeah for sure for sure there were i i i bubble that a one but we'll ignore that one oh no we're gonna talk about that one too we're definitely tilt okay we'll fine i'll we'll talk about that later but but uh i will say this format was a little bit rough because you know every now and then i think it just so much of it just kind of comes down to how like how many of the good kindred cards you opened within the same kindred type right it's like if you open the one of each eclipse card that's not what you want but if you open two or three eclipse elves all of a sudden you have like a bonkers deck and so um you know oftentimes in seal previously you can kind of get a little bit created with your mana bases splash and maybe play some bombs of a bunch of different colors but this format was a little bit weirder in the sense that a lot of the bombs are also caring about your kindred types in some way where you have a champion of the whatever right and you just can't play it because you don't have enough elves for your champions of the perfect you can't splash it even if you have the mana to do so so that made it kind of difficult to just kind of put together a soupy deck and have a lot of success now you can still do it for sure i just it just felt like it was a little bit more difficult to pull off so i've had a lot of pools that were just straight up blanks where i open six boosters and i go well i mean this just i had so many one and two and even some number of o and two finishes in this pool more so than i have it had in others where it's like i feel like my win rate was still probably the same but it was a lot spikier where i would open these these pools that just had you know five goblins and no changelings and i go okay well all my good cards are black and red but i only have like six goblins or whatever and i just it just can't come together and i just kind of scrub out of those or i have the the most insane goblin deck ever that's got grub's command and grub and you know this that recursion loop and a bunch of removal and and everything looks awesome and i do really really well so yeah i would say that the seal deck was a little bit rough uh i mean personally i know some people love sealed but personally for me i'm more of a draft a per i heavily prefer draft to seal but of course you can only play in sealed so you know i still enjoyed it for what it was but this was a tough format to you know i had to i think i spent four hundred dollars worth of gems like that's a lot of entries because that was a lot of one two and o two flame outs but ultimately i still ended up winning four boxes so i still profited from the exchange you know it was like basically getting four boxes for the price of one but that was a lot of entries yeah i i think i spent about the same as you and one half the boxes so i won two boxes so i think i was up still you know i maybe like doubled my my entry but that was a lot of work over you know i was you know playing quite a bit and i mean you know it is it is a different mode like i i know that it's when we're in between rounds i'm playing and i'm focusing on it but like i'm also working and i'm thinking about the next round and if anything comes up it's like the priority shifts you know it's like oh you're in the booths like well i'll try to finish my game but i'm not gonna you know i gotta i gotta get prepped up for the next round so the i i'm accepting up front that i'm gonna have to give up some mind share and maybe even a few games to just the fact that i'm working and i'm you know uh i mean we're on break when we're doing it but like the nature of coverage is that like when a round ends you're up right and so you don't get to know exactly when that is and maybe you have a really slow opponent or it takes extra long and you just have to say well i just gotta scoop this one up or make some crazy plays just to try to finish the game real quick or whatever but then you know when we're off you know we'd go out to eat or whatever go back to the hotel room and then we're dry you know then i can actually focus on it of course the downside then is that i'm tired right because doing commentary is a tough job and it takes a lot of mental focus and even some physical stuff and it's like very you know draining a profession and so then it's like well am i really playing my best like probably not but close enough you know i'm able to i would i would get a good two three hours of like focus play in and that's that should be enough but yeah i ended up winning two and it was exactly what you said they were both um um i'm sad about it because you know i get i'm really proud when i can find a deck that didn't really look like it could win a box and i can get there with it i can find just the right build and kind of a game plan and like maybe a little discipline about not splat you know just kind of get it just right and i can put together something that you know wasn't obvious but both of the boxes that i won were very obvious like they were just like like exactly how you described paul they were just like streamlined on type decks you know the second one was really similar to what you described it was a goblins deck that had everything it's just it's one of those things where you're just like oh perfect you know you look at your rares i had two copies of i'm goblins yeah of grub or whatever and i had grub's command so i could just loop those things and then i also had the emulation and so it's like which isn't really maxed out in goblins but it gets a job done just the same right and so it you know and i was able to to do it i did have a really exciting nerve racking final so i was 6-0 and i was rolling i mean this deck it suits my play style with the kind of inevitability factor and i i knew how to play it and i just i was really kind of i knew the interactions i knew grub getting back command i knew like when if i had both grub's to just get the other grub back to have it in case you know so that i can continue my loop versus getting the more powerful immediate effect that type of thing and then and i ended up i lost um at at 6-0 and it was you know one of those things were like they just had like kind of the perfect curve and it was okay you know took a loss whatever and i'm like but i got this i'm all you know this decks amazing it would be a real bummer to lose but this decks amazing and i faced down this really nice kithken deck and it was very streamlined it was very similar to my build just on the kithken side and the board got big because what ended up happening is my opponent landed bridged and i couldn't kill it and so every single turn they were just flipping and you know so it's like every other turn there's another one one kithken and then they had the thought weft imbuer and so they were they were able to attack me for 15-17 damage every single turn but it was on the ground and it didn't have trample and occasionally they would find a trampler and that's what i would have to use my removal spell on instead of the imbuer which is what i wanted to kill what they found a flyer at some point and then i dig dig okay find the removal spell kill it and so this so this game became it came became obvious to me that in order for me to break this game open because at some point they have you know 12 tokens and all the other kithkins and stuff they have huge amount of power and toughness and my decks like this grindy deck that i and i can't out grind this deck and i don't have any like you know mega bomb that like you know could get through all of that as a creature or whatever but i did have the emulation and that would be absolutely perfect so we get like pretty deep into this and i and i have already decided that i need to draw it but two things need to happen one i need my opponent to not break up my grub getting back a death toucher getting back stuff from the yard sacrificing it or putting blight on getting it back my my card advantage engine was very much rolling theirs was too unfortunately but i needed them to not interrupt that and i needed them to not find another flyer or trampler and they kept not doing that they just kept adding to the board more playable kithkin will call it and then they would like attack me for 15 i would chump eventually i got the two three death toucher thing down and then they just stopped attacking but the problem is now we're doing library checks now it's like who's going to get decked and it would be me so because i had actually drawn you know quite a few more cards i had an eclipsed boggart i mean this deck was the nuts and so i had kind of churned through but at some point i'm like okay i'm going to need to find my one-sided sweeper here to get the job done so anything that milled me on my side i'm not doing it like i i i i have to maintain that out and at some point i needed to play the eclipsed boggart again and i did and every time i'm not even looking at what i'm hitting i'm just looking at the dark cards to see if the emulation's in there because i need to know where it's at and sure enough on the second one or whatever it's in that pile so now i know where it's at it's it's it's in the bottom three cards in my library so i like chump with the boggart just to get it in the graveyard buy it back again with grub so that i can bump that three up right a few and i'm i'm but then once i get to that point it's like okay now i can't do anything i just have to draw my card for the turn no more boggarding definitely no mill and but the problem is this took forever like it took a long time to find it in the first place and then it took a long time to kind of bubble it back up to the top of my library and my opponent could find i just i was out of gas like they they could find any i'm just playing creatures and it's like that's not really getting the job done for me again they had actually stopped attacking at this point but uh miraculously i have to say even after it was probably like over 12 turns of this like it was just turn after turn after turn they couldn't find a way to kill you same i was just waiting for them to be like here's a trampler and i'm like cool i die in two turns or i have to put my whole board in front of it or whatever right and they didn't and it was a real like it was one of those things where like every top deck that wasn't the card that i needed i'm just like my luck has to have run out here like it's just i they they are not that they're not looking for some unique card in the set right they're looking for something with flying right it's like yeah they're kithkin there's not that many but still like it wouldn't have taken really anything but it turns out that their deck which was excellent was very curve low low curve based kithkin low removal low removal high kithkin count curve like the kind of decks that we were talking about they didn't have any major top end in there at all and so i was able to find it and i i wiped literally all but one creature and just attacked with everything and they're just like yeah okay was it the imbuer it was it was yeah it was an o1 imbuer and that looks a little worse than when you have 25 creatures so anyway i was able to pick up the win but like those moments didn't happen that often most of the time it the sealed format felt very lopsided and i have to say i think it's i i actually enjoyed it i don't know what's wrong with me but i think it's a really bad format like i the the way that they set up the uh the color pairs and everything you know the the first thing i look for when i play sealed on these generally is is how you described it paul which is like kind of what's my mana that that's kind of what i want i mean obviously i look at the rares because they put him right in your face but then i go scroll right scroll right like what's my lands what's my color list you know and i and i kind of sort that out to kind of get an idea for what i might be able to do with the deck here i'm scroll right scroll right how many feisty spikelings and feastlings do i have i played so many feastlings over because you just needed them and my eyes got used to going okay how many merfolk i have seven and then down to shape shifter how many of the i got five okay actually that's enough but i just was forced to play all of those all the time and you know what those are kind of boring cards they're not that interesting yeah yeah and and so this ultimately what ends up happening is just when you get to those big payoff cards right the the lords or the the rares that's kind of what ends up kind of breaking open the games and so you just have to try to build your deck around those rares and and kind of try to get there so right and it just didn't work right and i had a lot of what you described where i would lose like i wouldn't even get to gems like i wouldn't even get to three wins or anything it was just like one two oh so many just face kicked in i think i yeah i had like four runs in a row i got nothing i'm like oh here's another hundred dollars okay we have to hear you know we're not really like bad beat story guys on lr like me you and louise we've been through the trenches right like we don't really we we don't like to tell them we don't want to hear them we get it it was unlucky it sucked whatever but you know there are some of them that are worthy and you actually you had like an epic like a truly epic bad beat happened to you that sent you off the rails it was incredible i i yeah i mean this put me on this put me on like full blown tilt so i am six and oh with a really really solid goblins that you know a couple of rares i have a chronicle of victory in my deck with you know 12 ish goblins and and what have you so just really solid start i feel like okay at six and oh i have a really good shot at winning this box and i play against this opponent and we're going back and forth they also have a really solid list but it gets really close and i get down to like five life or something okay and we have a fairly even board and i top deck a hobble hurler which is the five mana four five six seven enters with two minus one minus one counters i can jump things to try to like get extra damage in but my opponent said a much higher life total so i have to pick my spots with how i'm going to choose to attack so i get my opponent to some life total like eight or seven but i'm sitting at five so um the next turn if i utilize my hobble hurler i will win but my opponent makes a super aggressive attack with with all their stuff and i'm one of which is a flamekin guild weaver which is a four three trampler and i have at the moment i believe it was just like a four five hovel hurler i'm like well i'm at five life like just anything can get me here so i'm going to block the flamekin guild weaver if they kill the hovel hurler my board is still okay it's still a two for one like i'll still probably be okay so you know what i can live with that if they draw and by the way he's my opponent's empty handed so i block and i have the win the next turn they rip on t sentence minus two minus two kill the hovel hurler i'm like oh god that sucks but it's okay it's okay like i'm still i'm still i still feel like i'm slightly ahead on this board okay and i have a gathering stone going as well so the longer the game goes theoretically it would benefit you anyway or no no i no i drew gathering stone sorry and i play it for the turn top card of my library chronicle of victory who like all right lock lock it in i have three like you know i have three three creatures and play something if i slam this i will win the game right and my opponent like will just definitively lose they've cast their last card which was a removal spell that they needed to kill my hovel hurler to not just die anyway yeah not just die instantly and they have like you know two elementals in play or something like that i'm like whatever okay but it's okay i'm gonna slam chronicle with gathering stone going it's going to be so hard to lose from this spot my opponent has i'll maybe maybe some of you people who are aware they have seven mana available i will just let you know that they have seven mana available they draw their card for the turn all seven mana becomes tapped and i'm like please do not be the card that i think you're casted dream harvest is what they drew off the top with exactly seven mana and no cards in hand so they cast dream harvest steal my chronicle and kill me like literally over two turns i have to jump off with your own chronicle with my own chronicle i think if they had drawn their own chronicle i might have still been okay like no i still probably would have died but but the fact that they stole my chronicle off of the dream harvest to kill me was just unbelievable that's so they had to go back to back good draws i mean one was an incredible draw to actually win so at that point i'm like all right whatever my deck is still awesome you know i'm six in one let's let's let's let's let's do this and then the very next game my opponent goes i think it was like turn one figure fable on the play turn to activate play donhand dissident turn three they play a another three mana like really solid creature right yeah and i'm just like i'm like what what is happening here so i'm like okay well i'm just i just need to i just need to make aggressive play so i attack with um with a combat trick ready to go with my creature because i'm like i need to make something happen they have two unbeatable rares in play let's go and i attack they block i use my combat trick and they have three creatures in play because they went one drop one drop protective response my creature oh my god and at that point i just i'm just dead and so i ended up bubbling out at six and no thinking i mean i was literally two turns away from just winning the box and i went they went draw draw into losing to that and i was just completely like like off my rocker if you will yeah the next and i instantly joined another queue and i have another great goblin sack and i'm winning and money hears me on the side i am just the entire time just grumbling muttering under my breath because i got a box physically stolen from me and i he's like paul i've never heard somebody slam the trackpad as hard as you are right now he did say that because i'm on a laptop so i'm just like literally doing this and i did manage to win a box with in the next one so i was able to like reset but i'm still feeling the pain of that loss that was incredible and you know and and the there's subtext here too like dream harvest is horrible like right like even in sealed it's just bad like in a format where everybody is trying to be like how many elves can i put into my deck it's this is not a bomby you know like the card that your opponent hits one of the best possible hits you know uh so yeah it's about as good as a feisty spike link for those of you who think it's a bomb so just kind of i mean i i almost guarantee it's just worse you know like right like let me look it's it's right next to it they're right they're literally right next to each other here okay yeah dream harvest game in hand win rate is 50.8% and by the way of this is like of the multicolored rares i did that's just because of the filter i did of the ones that have a significant enough sample size to put a percentage on it which there's only one that doesn't which is uh rating schemes of all the rest it's the worst like all the commands yeah yeah i will say when i first read the card i'm like this is probably a card that luise is really gonna like oh i like it i like it but it's just terrible i'm just like because i'm all i think i feel like i'm generally more pessimistic about cards so i kind of go luise is an optimist yeah yeah so i'm like you're gonna kind of have to beat me with this because i'm just like thinking about the fail case of this card i'm like oh you hit you spent seven mana i hit like two of my like a two drop and a three drop like i guess that's okay right or like you hit my five drop creature you spent seven mana so but when you hit a chronicle of victory that's when you're like i'm a genius and uh and your opponent obviously was yeah that was unreal um that was insane but we've got a little bit of time left paul i wanted to get your big picture take on the format just you know what are you liking what what decks are you drafting uh do you like the format in general what's your take on it just to kind of want it to to get your you know this is where i'm at now with the format yeah i think kind of for the limitations that were imposed on this format which was of course a format that's really leaning into five major kindred types having satisfying payoffs for those kindred types and having the mechanics of all the kindred types work i think they were successful like all the color all the color pairs feel unique they all still when you're doing the thing like i've lost to a good good plenty of good goblins decks right just because they're the worst performing deck you can still put together good goblins deck so i feel like um you know they did a really good job of just like playing to the archetypes and uh you know a good elf that good more folk that whenever you win and you're doing the convoked thing you're recurring a bunch of stuff from the graveyard you're beating them with kithkin it also it all feels very satisfying and exactly what what it's trying to do my reservations for the format was i mean just literally right at the get go was you only can still just draft five archetypes now there's gonna be a bunch of hipsters out there going what are you talking about paul i've had a i had a sick red white giant stack yeah oh man you don't understand black white tree folk are the truth and you know what if you can pull it off fine like i i think yes you can put together a functional draft deck in white black right with with whatever you want with you have reaping willows and stuff but you're just significantly handicapping yourself because you just don't get access to all the kindred payoffs that exist and there's so many of them right every single kindred pair has six or seven signposts on commons right like creekwood safe right more cairns loyalists more cairns eyes that mean they're just it just goes on and on and by not playing into those you're you're handicapping yourself so i i really do think there are five major ones that you want to play now protor drafts are different i will say maybe we can touch on that a little bit later but for the most part this is a format where you have kind of the five main types and then every now and then you can do like the the vivid elementals a fun deck right where you're just taking a bunch of changing wayfinders and evolving wilds and forging wicker moths and land cyclers and trying to make something work which i think is still fine i still think those decks are going to be generally weaker than an on the rails kindred color pair that happens to be open now in a more competitive environment that might not be the case where digging deep and trying to draft some of these other archetypes are more viable but for me i just still generally had the most success leading into the kindred types goblins as the as the deck that i draft least often funny enough goblins is the archetype that i've won the most collector boxes off in sealed so like a really good goblins deck is awesome you just have to make sure it's not contested that's the problem the with the with goblins is just the depth right where i think elves can support if the right cards are open you can probably support three drafters at a table whereas goblins you kind of want to be one maybe two if the person is like all the way on the other side but you still have to run a little bit hot to kind of make it work so you know i knew just kind of going in probably the first 20 of straps would still be fun and i think they were right but i think over time things will fall off just because you don't get as many unique draft experiences you know after you've drafted elves five times kithkin four times mirfolk five like after you've done it you're just like oh it's another elf deck it's another mirfolk deck so i feel like the replayability is definitely lowered here because you can't you can but you can't you know what i mean you can't but you really can't play the other types whereas even compared to something like bloom burrow which you know it was a it was a set that cared a lot about creature types but you could still draft all 10 of the color pairs right like you could you could put it together and they made a lot of like nice cards that kind of play into multiple multiple archetypes that's not necessarily the case here it's like you are leaning into your kindred type and that was like you can tell that was definitely their goal and on that axis i think they succeeded again i still have fun playing the things that my deck is doing i like playing elves and grinding cracking my more can size making a million tokens i like convoking out and playing a mirfolk lord like it's all fun and satisfying but i feel like again there's just less archetypes to explore does it make you nervous uh for the long-term prospects on the set i mean you know the the pts over the first win a box is done we still got a long stretch with this set as kind of the main thing like you know my my litmus test is especially nowadays on arena is like when's that cube coming back when's that vintage you know like and like if i start thinking about that that's that's a sign that like you know maybe i'm feeling like i've kind of explored the format you know and i don't feel that way yet to be to be clear um not yet i i still i still really want to try to nail this vivid deck that i think it's a offshoot of elementals and you know there's some cool stuff and and i think that that's going to kind of carry me for a while but like i am very skeptical that in another month i'm going to be like let's fire up another low end draft i can't wait to draft i can't wait to jump in like i'm nervous about that yeah well on because there are so many sets here i think look here i got my yeah teenage mutinage success is away yeah three weeks away it's i feel like still people like goes like us drafting you know we got 25 drafts at this point where i feel like most people maybe got like 10 so you know i think i think even if a set is where someone you know for the average person they're like it's still gonna carry them for a little month and because tmnt is so so close right it's just it's not that far away i feel like it's gonna be okay now for example avatar was actually around for a really long time right yeah it lasted through the winter or like through december so at that point yes there was kind of a drop off now avatar you could have done you could do a lot of things so it's it was fine but we definitely don't have that as much here i feel like this set's only going to be out for like five or six weeks before we already start looking into the next set so not as big of a concern for this but yes i would be really concerned if the next limited set was three months away and not early access in three weeks no that's a great point we are in a different world now you know for those that don't keep up on the mtg news you know we have seven sets coming out this year four of which are universes beyond i think and uh i am i'm a little i'm kind of sit back and wait you know kind of a approach to this stuff because my knee jerk reaction is well that's just too many you know um but you know there's is something kind of cool about having a new set coming out on you know for limited and kind of keeping things keeping things fresh all the time like i don't i don't know unless the format's like really really good like yeah i could move on and and you know try a different thing and that's cool the thing that i want to know is just that like i always think in terms like for the podcast and stuff and for our our viewers and listeners is like what's the set right now right like because they come out with so many products like this isn't the first year that they've come out with a whole bunch of products but it's like where where does the eye of sauron point right is it like right now it's very clearly at lauren eclipsed right but it's like yeah is it or all seven of these gonna be like that like the main thing on arena a full you know the premiere um you know q is going to be that set and it's going to be up for a period of time and you're going to have a chance to kind of get to know it you know or is it going to feel more like something remastered where it's like kind of a little off to the side and there's a thing here or you can keep playing the other set and they they kind of don't make it like here you go right this is what we're doing you know and i don't i'm really wondering how that vibes out and then also you know we had the spider man debacle last year where it felt like they wanted us to draft that but nobody did and then they kind of quickly put up other stuff you know hey remember final fantasy you guys like that right here you go you know and it was like yeah we do thank you and you know i i wonder how that's gonna vibe yeah i mean i think i mean spider man i think just had like had a variety of issues i just don't know that it was completely fully developed additionally they i think the draft i think the format was curated for pick two draft i just don't think that that's necessary you just make a format and you can have anybody draft pick two i've actually had people that said they don't actually mind drafting pick two in uh in the current set that was actually that's an actually an option on arena because it's like all right everybody let's hold hands okay like we're gonna plant our flags this is my kindred type right you have kind of the right four people so everybody just kind of plants their flag figures out what's open and they actually thought it was a fairly smooth drafting experience so i just don't think any set needs to be yeah i just don't think any set needs to be designed for that and i think that's probably another thing that made that set worse i i would be surprised if we have another set like spider man i would hope not uh and i think uh a lot of these other upcoming sets will be will be a little more developed than what we saw from spider man uh do you like this format i think again it's it's it's weird because i feel like we've only we played a lot this last weekend but it's been out for what almost three weeks yeah just a little no i mean because it came out on tuesday and then the next friday you and i were in the booth commentating the pro tour okay okay yeah that that turnaround time was really quick now we're a friday past that so yeah two and a half yeah i will say i mean the the cards themselves are fun to play i think the the uncommons a lot of them are just fun cards to play which you know i don't know it's like you got to quantify that in some way but it's just like oh yeah this is sweet i feel like i'm doing something powerful oh even if it's removing a minus one minus one counter for my creek would safe right it's like i'm doing it i am doing the elf thing right or it's just like oh gathering stone i hit my elemental right away let's go so just a lot of those little things so i have been having fun with in that aspect so but again the format hasn't been out super super long time maybe there will be a point where i just go oh it's another you know one of these things but i will say actually i was having a little bit less fun earlier on once like a handful of people like especially in mythic ranks it gets really weird where everybody knows what the right thing to be doing is it's kind of like i remember when louis had ranked one with blue black zombies yeah basically everybody in mythic was just drafting the exact same deck right so it was just actually not fun because every all your opponents were just doing the exact same thing so it was actually a little bit less fun in the beginning but now it's like everybody kind of knows how to draft these archetypes and it actually makes the drafting experience a little more balanced and then you have a wider breadth of decks that you can play against which i think is actually better so right right now i have been having fun i wouldn't say it's necessarily the most fun set that that i play just because when you slash the number of archetypes in half that leads to you know sometimes i've had drafts where it's not even clear which lane i'm supposed to be in and those are the worst right where it's just like i am not getting any signals like i do not know what what creature type i need to be this is tough i have nothing everybody's just taking all the good cards and then then you have those train wrecks but i feel like you see those a lot more at the pro tour than you see in your typical uh paper draft or something online where in a in a in a paper in excuse me on the pro tour everybody is taking all the good cards everybody's scrapping and those are the instances where i think you can perhaps branch out a little bit more into the off color types right you're not going to get the nuts elf deck with with all the fixings you're just not right there's going to be two other elf drafters look at seth manfield yep he had three green drafters to his right it was very clear that it was being cut off but he was like you know what blinders on let's do it i'm forcing elves right which certain people are going to do seth is a very experienced drafter but even inexperienced drafters they just know what the best thing is they took a bomb and they're just going to move in right so that's when you you try to get a little creative you're like all right at this point it's a pro tour draft i'm going to just take draw random draw that's where car draw matters more games get a lot scrappier people aren't just beating you down and curving out and we saw some really weird decks get 3-0 even at the pro tour where you know we had that green white mid-range deck right it wasn't even a kithkin deck that got the trophy where it was uh with a snake uh where he he beat uh daniel getchell with just like a green white go big deck and it was just like the game kind of got grindy kind of went long he just kept playing a bunch of haymakers and it kind of got the job done and yeah that will happen when you have kind of a pool or a pod with a lot more experienced trafters and in those instances yeah then you can maybe draft a black white tree full deck yeah that's actually my biggest concern at this point for the format is we always talk about draft being self-correcting and it feels like this format has very limited tools to self-correct like normally you would say okay i'm going to be i'm going to draft black white i'm going against the grain nobody's going to see this coming there's there's enough powerful in that in that case tree folk payoffs and i'm gonna i'm gonna do it i'm gonna find this very narrow lane and i'm gonna hit it and it has been really difficult to justify that it just they do not come together there's not enough meat on the bone to support even one drafter in any of those sub archetypes with any type of consistency at all like it's one of those things where if i came to you and said okay paul you are the only red white black white blue black drafter at the table like i can lock that in for you before the draft starts so you know go nuts you'd be like eh i might not want to do that like the deck i'm going to end up with if i'm very lucky is going to be at best on par with the actual archetypes and it's hard to imagine it really is hard to imagine you drafting black white and then taking a player who said like i have a good elves deck not like the nut nut but like i got a good rare i got a couple of the uncommon's i got a good curve like they're gonna lay out that deck and here i'd rather just have that like i you know and and that just makes it difficult because you know even in a format where all of the 10 pairs are viable it can be difficult for it to accommodate a very powerful deck this feels just like the top half is just crushing the bottom half and i don't really see how the you know i don't really see a viable way for for that to happen yeah yeah i i agree i just i i think for the most part just avoiding the those other creature types entirely is kind of the way to go unless it's like super clear right if you're if you're tabling if you're if you have some black cards and some red cards and then you table a reaping willow or something and then you get a really late moonlit lamentor yes that's like the start of something you can make happen i think a lot of it often comes down to either you know you open a black rare you open a white rare and then you get a reaping willow and you're like all right let's put something together but you're not just taking scarbley scouts and spiral into solitudes and going all right let's grind them out with some you know with like my black white deck with an okay curve in summer movable yeah i think i think the takeaway for me is and i was thinking about this like maybe for the sunset show like we try to sum up the sentence in a sentence you know and i was thinking like they aimed low and hit their target right like they only went for five archetypes they went for on board creature they went for the most basic type of archetype for limited which is creature type based and but they nailed it like the five that they got are all interesting and good and like that's cool and i do think that as a you know one thing i always think about when a set comes out is what is how is this uh for a new player right and like you know when i saw final fantasy i'm just like well we're just never getting any new drafters right there's just millions of word of text and like you and i are like hell yeah this is great but like man can you imagine if your first draft format was final fantasy it just would be so overwhelming you know it'd be like playing a game of commander you know it's just like there's so much stuff going on it's just hard to track it all right if you're new and i mean even for me you know the games of commander i played have had a hard time tracking it and while i prefer that in a draft format personally i always think about the new players you know given the show and stuff we want to have people discovering the joys of limited as we go and i'm just like i don't know how you could you know with with final fantasy but like with this set oh yeah definitely right it's just like yeah it's fantastic for new players i mean literally the on commons tell you eclips kithkin play green white and put kithkin in your deck and you'll have a good time right and so exactly eclips elf it's like it's free to cast mana color wise in this deck and it's impossible and all the others what do you want to do right you know and you're always going to get a card it's card advantage right it kind of does everything you want and just kind of uh as a as a site as just a note just you know i know a lot of the viewers here are you know super dedicated devoted fans of limited but just in terms of the performance of my videos on my channel like i am getting generally a few more views in this set than i have some of the other sets and i think it's because maybe perhaps it's a little more welcoming maybe people maybe there's some nostalgia also attached to lorraine which is why fairy should have been awesome uh and and and uh perhaps it's just it's just it's just easier to pick up right you just kind of play the set uh i'm gonna i'm gonna do this thing i want to learn and this one doesn't look like an intimidating set for me to start kind of learning and i want to get in foundations was another set that did fairly well for me and that's also a set where they literally aimed low right they wanted the gameplay to be a little more simple for newer players to kind of appreciate and enjoy and i think this this is certainly a more complicated set than foundations but still there's only five things you can be doing for the most part and so if you're new to draft you're like okay find my lane have some fun so i think i think that's a win you know uh i think that's an important and maybe one that you know it would be harder to see for our more experienced drafters so you know there's definitely something uh to be said for the set paul thanks so much for taking the time to hang out with us today um we always i mean we love to have you on we're aiming to have you on once per set cycle but it's like we're trying to figure out where to fit you in seven times this year marshal yeah yeah that's a lot of shows buddy yeah you better buckle up where can people find you where can people find your channel that kind of stuff yeah so i do daily limited content usually it's for the the latest set unless of course we have some cube coming out and you'll find that on my youtube channel it's youtube.com slash at humpf h a un ph and uh yeah just daily draft videos i will post there uh and uh you know if you want to learn a little bit on top of you know all the all the great stuff you get here then i think it's just uh just just nice to be able to follow somebody who kind of my my goal with the channel is to teach and educate while i play and uh you know you'll see the occasional outburst here and there yeah i mean i'll put a link i'll put a link to your channel down below i mean everybody knows you know that listens but it's good for anybody who hasn't checked out paul's channel yet he really does hit kind of a unique combination of entertainment high level play right like paul's top tier limited player so that you know goes a long way because it means you can actually learn but also paul takes the time to really explain a stop process so you know if you're there just to hang out with paul for the morning while you eat your cereal great it'll check that box if you're working on your limited game and you want to see how a top tier player evaluates and approaches game states you know draft picks and all that you get that 100% as well and then of course you get kind of the most up-to-date stuff on what people are drafting in a given format because he does daily videos so they're very timely as well i can't recommend them highly enough um and thanks again paul for coming on the show we really appreciate it we also appreciate our patrons for supporting us thank you for that and ultimate guard for their support of the show if you want to find everything related to lr you can go to lrcast.com there's a page of links on the on the front page that has links to kind of all of our stuff and then of course it has all the episodes and everything as well that we've actually ever done which is kind of wild but yeah and then incidentally paul's youtube channel is also on that too so that's another place you can go to find a link to paul's channel if you want to check out his videos that will do it for this one we'll see you next week paul sign off wise what was the best food we had in richmond it used to be like kind of a low-key really good food city but it's kind of fallen off like some of our favorite restaurants have closed and one of them is apparently being operated under some like illegal licensing agreement or something like right we went to a restaurant that we really like there and the food was like way worse like noticeably like what happened here kind of but everything else was the same and we looked up their website and for that location they just have this disclaimer that says this site is operating without a licensing agreement and we like we're trying to get them to stop but they won't and we can't guarantee anything there so it's like yeah what was your favorite food that we had yeah i think i think our food experience this time around was a little disappointing overall i think part of it was because it was so cold in richmond because that big cold storm just kind of blew by that entire east coast area and so we were not really interested in traveling to any place to go eat right like we weren't rarely we didn't take any cabs to go go eat some of some of the food so we were kind of just uh stuck with what was kind of around us i think for me i guess the best place would probably the the pizza place we went to hi we yeah yeah the wood it was like a wood fired like it had a wood fire oven like a brick oven and you just got to order pizza and for marshal and i that was our fourth meal of the day and uh it was the best one it was the best one for the day but yeah we had some we had some pizza there i got like i got some uh some nice i got a nice pizza with a little guanciale and some other types of cheese and it was fine but yeah outside of that everything was there's a bunch of like bars with like a bunch of fried bar food that was just like just okay and i guess we had coverage dinner that was also fine but we always go to some some place kind of fancy for those yeah it's kind of a steak chop place but whatever yeah yeah yeah we'll revisit richmond again and maybe the restaurant scene will have resurrected i'm going back in two months but hopefully the weather gets better i'm i'm going to be doing the sg con there or an sg event so uh hopefully you know like i i'm i it's not 20 degrees outside and i can actually my i'm a i'm a fair weather person so i can't really handle the the harsh cold of the east coast and i know it's colder in chicago and all those other places don't worry i'm going to be in milwaukee in like two or three weeks so i will experience the cold uh first hand