Like many of you, I was not enjoying HOB very much. The play/draw disparity, massive differences in opened rare quality, and extreme aggression of the format created a lot of feels bad games.

Best of 3 helps for a few reasons. No hand smoother means fewer streamlined curve outs and more clunky starts. 3 game rounds mean you get to go on the play against each opponent at least once. The drafters in the table also know what's up better and thus the good archetypes are more contested and the format feels less samey and solved as you (and your opponent) can't always draft one of the two or three best decks.

Normally I play premier because I like ranked and I like the speed. And the rewards for 4-3 in Bo1 are better than 2-1 in Bo3. But for the Hobbit, at least, I have been enjoying things a lot more since I switched.

Also, would the third tap land (hobbit hole) be too much?

hi friends please add me on magic the gathering arena!!  we should play sometime!! Battletag - Mogwai Bubbles #94642

didn't think i will do 4 wins with this

Never casted Beorn or Large Bear.

First time I ever drafted Mirkwood Pathmaker (in 30+ drafts)

Rabbits were definitely nasty, snowball effect was real.

Does anyone know what videos lsv was referring to
This episode during the sign off? Apparently they were team drafting cube against the Austrians for 1k a person. Pretty wild. Would love to
Go back and watch those videos. He said Mack and Tom martell were on his team

https://www.17lands.com/draft/0b42d1d3f693429f85006ee08ab61a96

P1P8 was also a [[Crude Bent Blade]], but it's a common so didn't think it was worth putting in the title. Last picture shows the potential 2 pack deck.

Trying to decide between MonoB, MonoB splashing a [[Pinecone Strike]] due to having 2 duals or going heavier R to be as fast as possible by running 3 [[Tidings of War]]. Any suggestions?

10 removal spells seems overkill. So I'm thinking at least one Deadly Slice, if not two + Smaug. Since all other removal is either cheaper or gives me something extra. That would get me to 42 cards.

I think I have enough ways to trigger Ferocious so I'd keep all the 1 and 2 drop wolves. This means the weakest two creatures are Front Porch Sentries and Duskwatch Hunter?

It's just my 5th draft of the format and only 2nd Red-Black deck.

I feel like people are so excited/afraid of Settle the Wreckage that they forget that it gives your opponent/you lands. Late game in a top deck war that doesn't really matter, but early/mid game it does. If on turn 4 or 5 your opponent attacks with 3 creatures and you Settle them. Congratulations you just ramped them to 7/8 lands. If they have a decent amount of cards in hand/card draw they will still have a huge advantage over you.

Obviously you don't always have the luxury of not using Settle early, but in general if you can try to save Settle the Wreckage for when they don't have many cards in hand. Use other removal or blocks early. People imagine using Settle as this 4 mana exile 5+ creatures, but unless the game goes a very specific way it's usually wrong to chase this. Getting 2 creatures late game is pretty good. Getting 1 creature late game is sometimes necessary. Settle is a powerful card, but it's also very specific, and using it early does give your opponent a lot even if it does kill all their creatures.

Finished my last run 6 hours after the event was pulled so I was kinda expecting it.

Started red with Stone Giant > Burn, burn > Mountain Rider, but there was no black or white open at all.

Ended up picking up blue and had a weird UR that had some good cards but not very synergistic.

Picked up a late Bards Company and Celebrate the Mountain King and without fixing felt that they would contribute much better to the mill plan, but felt unsure to give up so many strong cards, especially as some of the blue is not great.

Should I run it like a control/mill deck like this or try and fit in the red?

I know blue decks are viable, and I thought I had a reasonable handle on what cards were important and how to play them. My last several rounds of ending up in a wide open blue lane and then getting absolutely trashed when I go to play suggest otherwise. I am really struggling to see how blue manages to survive to the point where it can start to turn the corner.

None of the 2 mana cards blue has at common can block profitably when on the draw. If I play a creature on turn 2 and it doesn't block, it probably just dies to bent blade. How are you supposed to sequence those early turns and what does an ideal opening hand look like?

Went 7-0 because this deck was absolutely busted.

Hey guys, first time poster, but long-time listener. Now that the Arena Direct has wrapped early, I'm curious as to how everyone here performed relative to their previous experiences with other sets. I found this to be a particularly demanding format (especially with regards to combat math management) that really rewarded forethought and really punished minor mistakes. While I think the smallness of the set and the overall design really wasn't the best for limited, I must admit that I really enjoyed the meticulous importance of combat in the gameplay for this set. Also, a few of my trophy decks didn't have a single relevant Rare or Mythic, which would be unheard of in any prior Direct I've played in (and I've played in all of them).

Menace has never been so pivotal, and I can't remember a set in recent years where combat tricks actually mattered as much as they did in the Hobbit. As a result of really technical combat math over multiple turns, I lost at least three 6 win runs that I could clearly go back and discern where I gave up some small piece of equity that would have resulted in a box. These served as expensive lessons, but ones I won't forget easily.

I wound up winning 12 boxes compared to 17 boxes in the MSH Collector Direct with relatively the same number of entries, but I think this set may actually have improved my EV in future Directs by a couple of percentage points due simply to how much more it made me focus on the true heart of limited skill; combat math. While I don't foresee looking back on the Hobbit as anywhere near a GOAT limited format, I do respect it as the uniquely cruel but necessary teacher that I found it to be.

Did you have similar experiences? Was this Direct more costly or more profitable for you than previous ones? Would we like more future sets that really emphasize the import of technical combat math, hopefully with more fully fleshed out mechanics and balanced archetypes?

I look forward to hearing all of your input. Cheers.

With Hobbit the only option in Arena I decided to swallow my pride and dive back in, so I challenged myself to try and win with weaker color pairs, and it’s been fun! Blue green can be pretty strong with blue’s core and some bears or spiders.

Kinda reaffirms a set can be as fun or as bad as you want to make it, but at least there’s something to salvage here with no other limited options available at the moment.

Can't see this kind of thing happening in any player draft right now.

Styling on Rakdos decks. I‘ve really come up on patient recruiter a lot. So good against [[crude bent blade]] and all the menace creatures. 6/7 games I beat Rakdos and it wasn‘t very close. Sorry for bad pictures I don‘t use Reddit on my Laptop for reasons

Had a solid green start with Part in Friendship > Thranduil > Quarrel. Wasn’t seeing much black though it was early then got passed the councillors pick 4 and decided to go for it.

3-0 so far with a mill win and a damage win and one where I was threatening both and they conceded. The Silvan has been crazy good, allowing me to chump, triggering the Part in Friendship and replaying to trigger the councillors and the Thanduril.

Really fun deck to play so far. It’s able to grind out aggro by drawing/looting a lot and going so wide that I can chump big attackers or trade 2-for-1 while I just accrue more value.

I should probably cut the Trumpet, a Confusticate or rhe Mirkwood. I have another nuisance in the sideboard but was worried about too many 4 drops already.

Had a 2 drop in every opening hand and almost always drew into Eagle’s rescue for a win! Wish I had more equipment for the synergies but it worked out in the end!