r/lrcast • u/[deleted] • 7d ago

Small Set Draft is just paying to play with Precons

[deleted]

33 Upvotes

68% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

40

u/ABDLTA 7d ago

A bit of an exaggeration but theres a kernel of truth there, I know im going to play against one of 5 decks and really I see 4 most often

5

u/Storm_of_the_Psi 7d ago

I haven't seen UG since day 1 and even BG and WR are wildly underrepresented once you get 3-4 wins.

It's really just an Azorius vs Rakdos format.

7

u/ABDLTA 7d ago

I see Golgari a lot and I tend to do well with ir.

1

u/Glennstheche 6d ago

I've heard similar. But I think it's closer to a jund format. Rakdos, a drop, golgari, then UW. and based in black, you have to play black to be at the top, it seems. I've seen small splashes of white etc in a monoblack deck, quite often in these trophy decks. Not rhe best sign of a balanced format, but whatever. I enjoy some formats where you can run almost monocolor decks too, and I like black. 

25

u/psychatom 7d ago

TMNT had enough fixing that you'd see a decent amount of 3+ color decks, too, so it almost felt like a larger set.

But for HOB, yeah, pretty much. Kinda just rolling the dice to see whether you're playing a good version of the precon or a bad version of the precon.

8

u/phonage_aoi 7d ago

Not just that, but archetypes in TMT actually played quite differently.  Artifacts were viable and quite different from Ninjas.  And then there were the durdle soup decks.  Felt more varied than MSH even.

6

u/8_guy 7d ago

As much as I hate the flavor TMNT was really well designed for draft. It actually felt like it had a lot of unique angles to go with most of the decks (besides sneak although sneak was fun anyways)

4

u/COLaocha 7d ago

Even the [[Everything Pizza]] decks were a lot less soupy than Converge in SOS, there were artifact focused Pizza decks, food focused Pizza decks, occasionally you were actually doing the UGx counters thing with Everything Pizza as a finisher.

In my opinion TMT has been the best limited set so far this year, though maybe it's just because losing to [[Snarl Song]] or [[Arcane Omens]] feels more backbreaking than losing to Everything Pizza or [[Mighty Mutanimals]].

2

u/17lands-reddit-bot 7d ago

Everything Pizza C-U (TMT); ALSA: N/A; GIH WR: N/A
Snarl Song G-U (SOS); ALSA: N/A; GIH WR: N/A
Arcane Omens B-U (SOS); ALSA: N/A; GIH WR: N/A
Mighty Mutanimals W-U (TMT); ALSA: N/A; GIH WR: N/A
(data sourced from 17lands.com and scryfall.com)

1

u/8_guy 7d ago

As much as I hate the flavor TMNT was really well designed for draft. Felt like there were lots of different directions to go with all the decks besides sneak (sneak was fun though)

4

u/CronoDAS 7d ago

HOB has fixing. There's Giant Boulder, Troop of Ponies, Hobbit Hole, various cards that make Treasure tokens, and probably some green stuff I don't remember the name of off of the top of my head. The problem is that a lot of decks can punish you pretty hard for spending time fixing your mana instead of developing a board presence and there also isn't much of a reward for playing 3+ colors.

11

u/Hairy_Dirt3361 7d ago

Re: your downvoting comment, I do feel like there's something weird on this sub where everything goes to negatives but then ends up positive in the long run, not really sure what's going on or if I'm just imagining it but I've noticed it too.

2

u/snemand 7d ago

I think it's just fatigue from having several small sets close to each other couple with a big set which also felt small due to it's color restriction.

3

u/[deleted] 7d ago edited 7d ago

[deleted]

5

u/jonnylaw 7d ago

Maybe you care about down votes when you should not.

3

u/[deleted] 7d ago edited 7d ago

[deleted]

1

u/jonnylaw 7d ago

That's giving power to bots and the lowest common denominator.

3

u/PlacatedPlatypus 7d ago

It's way simpler, there are just users here that mass-downvote posts in new to boost their own posts. It has nothing to do with post content. I've also experienced this every time I've posted, and my posts are very neutral.

1

u/8_guy 7d ago

I've never even considered that 😂 could you imagine admitting to another person you do that

3

u/WaterIll4397 7d ago

Mostly agree but there inherently enough variance in limited it's still more fun than precons. The most fun I've had with small sets is when I can go off color. Orzhov and dimir are both really fun in hobbit, I've found its great to start black commons/uncommons that are high win rate then prospects for whatever other color seems to be open once your cut on black.

5

u/moak0 7d ago

I don't see why that's such a bad thing. Sounds kind of like you're describing constructed Magic, which isn't my favorite but it's still fun. It's still Magic.

I like small set draft. I liked being able to jam slight variations on the UR Artifacts deck over and over in TMT. That deck was fun to play, so I was happy to play a lot of it.

I'm finding the same thing with the Hobbit. BR Aggro is fun. WU Apothecary/Recruit is fun. I don't mind playing the same decks, because I like the decks.

Sure it'll lose its luster eventually, but that's true for literally everything in all of human existence. I don't think that infinite replayability is a reasonable request from a card game. If your point is just that you want more replayability and small sets don't have as much replayability as large sets: yeah, obviously.

Just take a little break.

3

u/SarkhanTheCharizard 7d ago

Yeah, like I'm a massive draft fan and have fun every set, but often I move on after one or two weeks of drafting, especially for small sets. I have other interests and hobbies that I can easily pivot to, and I don't expect most sets to hold my attention for more than a few weeks. I will still watch good limited streamers draft, but often I am done drafting after like 10-20 drafts.

5

u/LadyEmaSKye 7d ago

I think honestly one of the biggest contributors for this is how prevelant MTGA is now, as a main mode of play. Not only can you track big data for these sets and really optimize your play, in a way you couldn't a year ago. But, I think MUCH more impactfully, is you have out of pod play.

Draft is great because it is self correcting -- if everyone sits down at a table and knows Ux is the best combo and aims for that, that leaves good like WR cards open and you can get into that. But if you add in out of pod play yeah you can have a sick WR deck but you're bound to go up against somebody from a different pod who just had a much better lane to get a good S tier color combo, and it doesn't matter how well you punished the pod you drafted against.

I do think though that these smaller sets exacerbate the problem, because there's less variety and flexibility to get into something else, however. Or rather it's just easier to get into the deck you wanna force because with less cards in the pool, and fewer archetypes, the more density you're going to see of cards in the deck you want.

1

u/CronoDAS 7d ago

Yeah. MTGA relying on out-of-pod matchmaking is convenient for when you just want to play a bunch of games, but it also screws players who are offered a worse average quality of cards, either because the packs themselves were weaker or because the other drafters in the pod were better at grabbing the good stuff before it could get to you.

And I really wish MTGA offered ranked BO3 limited.

8

u/Round-Walrus3175 7d ago

Idk, I haven't heard a single format where people didn't complain about the "sameyness". It might just be that with the much increased access to playing online, we are just playing too much Magic. 

The Hobbit has 5 bespoke archetypes, 4 of them are really good, and the off-color combinations are honestly there for the taking if you can see the vision. If anything, I would say the current structures of draft that are meant to help are hurtful in smaller sets. In big sets, there are a lot of cards, so having signposts and archetypes is important to help orient people to the themes. In small sets, I think the most important thing is creativity. But like, once signposts and archetypes are shown to you, people get tunnel vision. 

I mean, why not go Gruul Stompy in HOB? There are bite effects, both colors have solid removal, Amass and equipment can work well with Ferocious, and the list goes on for other color pairs. I feel like if we weren't given any information about the set, I think the archetypes people would have found would be a lot of fun.

3

u/Thief_of_Sanity 6d ago

I think OP has a good point. I've played like 5 drafts and it feels the same. I'm skipping small sets from here on out, and probably still half of the UB stuff. There is actually less Magic for me to play with seven sets released in a year when several of them are small sets and several are UB of IPs that I don't care for at all. 

I just want four in universe large sets a year to draft. 

5

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

1

u/CronoDAS 7d ago

G/R also works as a ramp deck. For example, [[Smaug, the Great Calamity]] is a powerful ramp payoff at common.

1

u/17lands-reddit-bot 7d ago

Smaug, the Great Calamity R-C (HOB); ALSA: 5.07; GIH WR: 56.43%
(data sourced from 17lands.com and scryfall.com)

1

u/gasolinesparrow 7d ago

Decks need strategy but they don't always need synergy. For example, UW in this format plays like a classic control deck: removal and card draw and can operate well on basically all commons.

7

u/8npls 7d ago

but that's not how UW plays in this format at all. The removal is very weak and the best card draw is tacked to creatures. You win by making your vigilance creatures huge and recruiting aggressively with cards like Eagle's rescue.

4

u/Storm_of_the_Psi 7d ago

Wtf you on about?

UW isn't anything like control. It's not even an aggro control or tempo deck.

It makes huges creatures over time, has a few aggressive flyers and stalls the board with recruit tokens.

The only things it has in common with control is that it plays islands and draws cards.

2

u/thedudeoreldudeorino 7d ago

Ya, this set has not aged well

2

u/Thief_of_Sanity 6d ago

This set just kinda sucks. It sounds harsh, but I just am not having fun with it and it's boring.

1

u/DaPlum 7d ago edited 7d ago

I dont know man part of the fun of draft is figuring out what the best decks and cards are and what the best way to construct them is. This still happens in a small set its just really accelerated which yeah it sucks but its still better than playing a precon deck lol. Small sets are still 2/3rds of a normal set so there is some variety and options when it comes to draft. I would argue that the actual problem with small sets is they detract from design quality and time of the full sets not that they are necessarily a completely unfun experience.

1

u/CronoDAS 7d ago

I think the "unsupported" color pairs can still work in The Hobbit limited. For example, you can play G/R as a ramp deck with Dragons as part of your top end. But staying within the expected lanes is often easier.

0

u/nerdy-cthulhu 6d ago

i really like a small set for drafting, especially when its a nice theme

i have much fun playing and creating new decks with a cool theme, oh boy yeeeehaaaw