For the Wild Slash story that Paul mentioned, I remember Paul had Kiora’s +1 ability on his opponent’s Lagonna-Band Trailblazer w/ 3 power. So his opponent has to target their own trailblazer w/ wild slash to trigger ferocious and use the clause “dmg can’t be prevented” to swing for lethal. That’s a pro play by the op.
It is kind of weird that we got these cards like Windrider Patrol and Returned Centaur that don't seem to have any purpose when there are still 2316 cards that are legal in Pioneer but not on Arena. For example, even if you ONLY consider those cards and need to keep Windrider Patrol's slot as a Blue 5 mana common creature, it could have been Aven Surveyor or Cyclone Sire or Messenger Drake, all of which are also 5 cost fliers but ones that actually DO something. Or if they didn't actually want to make fliers even better, it could have been Mnemonic Wall to support spells or Whitewater Naiads or Thassa's Devourer to support enchantment synergies.
I find it funny how people tend to associate White with Lifelink more often, when technically Black did "gains life when it deals damage" in El-Hajjaj in Arabian Nights.
I loved the gates archetype so I can't help trying to force it the second I see any gate payoffs, but I've found if you just grab a few gates and a payoff or two instead of turbo gates, it usually works out. I love blue based control splashing grixis with gates ablaze, a random gatekeeper, or colossus as your finisher. And GW or GR aggro seem happy for a growing Gatebreaker Ram. I'm wondering if the gate hype will die down into a more three color centered format. I had good success doing Mardu sacrifice, basically WB with Assemble the Legion and a removal spell and it was great. There's also a few cards that look like they'd enable a Sultai turbo mill strategy but the payoffs seem scant. I'ma have to do some experimentation in the 3 color deck space, I need some more archetypes of this format may have lost its legs for me.
Returned Centaur to me has the sole audience of Phenax, God of Deception brawl decks. No idea if it would even be good there cause I've never played brawl, but it was in our janky EDH decks back when Theros first came out!
Funny enough, I did put Centaur in my first pass for cards in a Phenax deck but it got cut pretty quickly. In a deck where all your creatures can mill every turn, milling a few extra cards once isn't what you want from a creature. But I could imagine this in something like Alesha, who Smiles at Death that wants to mill cards but doesn't naturally have ways to do that.
coming to this episode out of a game of bloomburrow draft where the top fifteen cards in my deck were lands and the other two were in my opener. not a great feeling
I have to say I certainly share Marshall’s sentiments. This set feels like a randomly selected mass of commons and uncommons that were slapped together in 20 minutes to be a draftable format, with one glass cannon of a red white deck in the middle. The draft feels unsatisfying and the gameplay uninspired. Truly the worst set I’ve seen in a while, I am not impressed.
YES! I feel like everyone loves this set and I had almost no fun playing this set. In general I'm not a big fan of masters sets drafting outside of MM15 and Eternal Masters but this one is especially bad. I went back to foundations draft which I'm still having fun with because I got sick of just playing 4/5 color good stuff.
This is easily the worst set to ever be released on Arena. Maybe Streets of New Capenna was worse, but it's close. Just an absolutely terrible set to follow Duskmourn. Even if Foundations is kind of mid, I will not be drafting Pioneer Masters ever again over it.
I tried to stay away from the Gates deck and drafted what I felt were great decks. My UW flyers decks was a decent deck with pay offs and the first 2 decks playing against were Gates decks which just ran me over and for the first time ever, I dropped after those 2 loses and no wins and spending gems on the draft just because I hated what I have been playing against. 90% of the games I have played of the 3 total pioneer drafts (not doing any more even when they change up the cards) were against Gates decks. So boring.
Yeah, I have not had fun with this set. There are lot of stinkers or just boring cards at common and uncommon. The gates archetype isn't enough to keep it interesting, particularly when it's so hotly contested because it's one of the few fun things going on.
For the Wild Slash story that Paul mentioned, I remember Paul had Kiora’s +1 ability on his opponent’s Lagonna-Band Trailblazer w/ 3 power. So his opponent has to target their own trailblazer w/ wild slash to trigger ferocious and use the clause “dmg can’t be prevented” to swing for lethal. That’s a pro play by the op.
I love your Wristwatch Revival channel!
Thank you to the Patreon question of the week. I was wondering this myself!
It is kind of weird that we got these cards like Windrider Patrol and Returned Centaur that don't seem to have any purpose when there are still 2316 cards that are legal in Pioneer but not on Arena. For example, even if you ONLY consider those cards and need to keep Windrider Patrol's slot as a Blue 5 mana common creature, it could have been Aven Surveyor or Cyclone Sire or Messenger Drake, all of which are also 5 cost fliers but ones that actually DO something. Or if they didn't actually want to make fliers even better, it could have been Mnemonic Wall to support spells or Whitewater Naiads or Thassa's Devourer to support enchantment synergies.
I already quit playing pioneer masters and had almost no fun playing it. It really felt like unless I was in a lucky seat the drafts were bad.
1:15:50 White is vigilance, blue is flying, black is lifelink, red is first strike, green is trample.
I find it funny how people tend to associate White with Lifelink more often, when technically Black did "gains life when it deals damage" in El-Hajjaj in Arabian Nights.
I always say Paul's user name like the Rick Ross ablib HAUMPH!!
I loved the gates archetype so I can't help trying to force it the second I see any gate payoffs, but I've found if you just grab a few gates and a payoff or two instead of turbo gates, it usually works out. I love blue based control splashing grixis with gates ablaze, a random gatekeeper, or colossus as your finisher. And GW or GR aggro seem happy for a growing Gatebreaker Ram.
I'm wondering if the gate hype will die down into a more three color centered format. I had good success doing
Mardu sacrifice, basically WB with Assemble the Legion and a removal spell and it was great. There's also a few cards that look like they'd enable a Sultai turbo mill strategy but the payoffs seem scant. I'ma have to do some experimentation in the 3 color deck space, I need some more archetypes of this format may have lost its legs for me.
Returned Centaur to me has the sole audience of Phenax, God of Deception brawl decks. No idea if it would even be good there cause I've never played brawl, but it was in our janky EDH decks back when Theros first came out!
Funny enough, I did put Centaur in my first pass for cards in a Phenax deck but it got cut pretty quickly. In a deck where all your creatures can mill every turn, milling a few extra cards once isn't what you want from a creature. But I could imagine this in something like Alesha, who Smiles at Death that wants to mill cards but doesn't naturally have ways to do that.
For LSV's grades just add +1 grade to any; blue, card draw, or dinky artifact cards, to Marshall's grades.
coming to this episode out of a game of bloomburrow draft where the top fifteen cards in my deck were lands and the other two were in my opener. not a great feeling
I have to say I certainly share Marshall’s sentiments. This set feels like a randomly selected mass of commons and uncommons that were slapped together in 20 minutes to be a draftable format, with one glass cannon of a red white deck in the middle. The draft feels unsatisfying and the gameplay uninspired. Truly the worst set I’ve seen in a while, I am not impressed.
YES! I feel like everyone loves this set and I had almost no fun playing this set. In general I'm not a big fan of masters sets drafting outside of MM15 and Eternal Masters but this one is especially bad. I went back to foundations draft which I'm still having fun with because I got sick of just playing 4/5 color good stuff.
This is easily the worst set to ever be released on Arena. Maybe Streets of New Capenna was worse, but it's close.
Just an absolutely terrible set to follow Duskmourn. Even if Foundations is kind of mid, I will not be drafting Pioneer Masters ever again over it.
Is it pronounced wiv - urn? I’ve always heard why - vurn
I tried to stay away from the Gates deck and drafted what I felt were great decks. My UW flyers decks was a decent deck with pay offs and the first 2 decks playing against were Gates decks which just ran me over and for the first time ever, I dropped after those 2 loses and no wins and spending gems on the draft just because I hated what I have been playing against. 90% of the games I have played of the 3 total pioneer drafts (not doing any more even when they change up the cards) were against Gates decks. So boring.
Yeah, I have not had fun with this set. There are lot of stinkers or just boring cards at common and uncommon. The gates archetype isn't enough to keep it interesting, particularly when it's so hotly contested because it's one of the few fun things going on.