General Fight Club

ravnic

ravnic

Rusje said:
Most of the time two coloured decks are much stronger than mono-coloured. I think it it quite hard to balance mono vs two (let alone 3 or all).
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I've been tracking draft data from my cube for ten drafts (I know, it's still a very small sample size) and mono decks are making up ~16% of the decks drafted. Three color decks are ~17% with the remaining 67% being straight two colors. If we take a look at how successful they are, here is how often those decks got positive draft results of 2-1 or better:

Mono -> 57%
Two -> 41%
Three -> 50%

Regarding the small sample size, I'd say they are pretty close to each other. And even if I might not be quite there yet, I think I've got a solid understanding of how it can work. I think to get mono colored decks up to par you need two things:

1) A synergistic theme, that you can draft in a color alone. For example, I have a lands theme that is centered in green so that you don't need to pivot into other colors. Same for Bx sacrifice or Wx lifegain.

2) A couple payoffs that make people interested in going mono color. What those are of course depends on on your power level. Mine are something like:

 
Rusje

Rusje

ravnic said:
I've been tracking draft data from my cube for ten drafts (I know, it's still a very small sample size) and mono decks are making up ~16% of the decks drafted. Three color decks are ~17% with the remaining 67% being straight two colors. If we take a look at how successful they are, here is how often those decks got positive draft results of 2-1 or better:

Mono -> 57%
Two -> 41%
Three -> 50%

Regarding the small sample size, I'd say they are pretty close to each other. And even if I might not be quite there yet, I think I've got a solid understanding of how it can work. I think to get mono colored decks up to par you need two things:

1) A synergistic theme, that you can draft in a color alone. For example, I have a lands theme that is centered in green so that you don't need to pivot into other colors. Same for Bx sacrifice or Wx lifegain.

2) A couple payoffs that make people interested in going mono color. What those are of course depends on on your power level. Mine are something like:

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3) do not have cards which are easy splash able and worth it to splash for.
 
Shpungo

Shpungo

Rasmus Källqvist said:
Here's silly fight for low power land cyclers:

vs vs

Oliphaunt does have the benefit of cycling for 1, but I do like the ability of drawing cards from lands too
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Lol the discussion got a bit sidetracked, but I can comment on your fight. I've played in the each of the limited formats with these land cyclers, and although they all had different contexts, I definitely got a feel for how they play. Furnace host charger I would say is a nice middle ground, it never feels bad to play and the cycling is convenient. Oliphaunt having the 1 cost cycling is nice, however it's pretty much the worst cycler to come out of the LOTR cycle, as it will frequently die to removal and not have achieved anything unlike the host charger which is always going to get a swing in. Finally, my personal favourite is definitely the Monstrosaur. Its activated ability and creature type just lend towards having more synergies across the board and I really love top end aggro red cards that can provide you with more gas and refill your hand after you've emptied it. Basically, Oliphaunt feels the worst to play as a creature and best to cycle, and Monstrosaur is my favourite to actually play as a creature.
 
ravnic

ravnic

Talking of mono color support, one thing to do this are heavy hybrids. Those are hybrid cards that you could, for example play in {W/U}, mono {W} or mono {U}, but wouldn't work really in a white or blue deck with other colors. I like to have one of these for each color combination, but I am not quite sure which one would be the right choice for azorius.



Arcanist's Owl works nicely with the blink and artifact themes in my cube, but you need a certain density to find something with it. The real artifact decks in my environment like to access 3+ colors of mana, as they can allow doing so for being ~75% colorless cards. Well, I could imagine wanting the Owl in {W/U} or even mono {W}, because there you have enough targets, but I haven't seen it in mono {U} yet and I think it's a long-shot to believe it will pull anyone into mono blue.

Godhead doesn't really do much for any particular synergistic theme. It's probably a fine finisher for {W/U} or mono {U} control decks, though, and in mono {W} you often have a lot of tokens and anthem effects. So, while it has less direct synergy with anything supported explicitly, it might be a good upgrade for being better in either color?

Btw, I know Plumeveil exists and I like it, but you would never see it in a mono white deck in my cube I believe. On the other hand, Thistledown Liege and Azorius Guildmage would be mono white cards.
 
Brad

Brad

I love hybrid cards and wish there were more 2-3 symbol hybrids at a power level that I'm willing to play.

The Clue hybrids were quite nice on average.
 
ravnic

ravnic

gaytransmulldrifter said:
I feel like the strongest argument for Godhead here is that it is just really cool and appealing. If I had never seen it before and opened it in a pack I would be like wow that is so badass this card is so cool. That counts for a lot for me.
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That is really something that I never pay much attention to, but I should. I might be perfectly happy with all my Opts and Gravediggers, but it’s also important to have some cards like that to make drafters go "wow" (Wilson, 2005).
 
Humpty_Dumpty

Humpty_Dumpty

Avatar feels more white than blue. Anthems and +1/+1 counters are ways to break the symmetry of its effect, and those are often more prevalent in white than blue. If you’re okay with that it is a cool card ( with massive blowout potential if your opponent has removal).
 
ravnic

ravnic

But in a mono blue deck, it kindanullifies all of your opponents threats as long as you can stick it - unless of course you are facing explicitly the token and anthem deck, but that's a really bad matchup to begin with. But against something like a golgari deck? Turning all there beefy dudes into tiny dudes that would have to chump attack into your 4/4 seems quite strong.
 
Mown

Mown

Yeah the best way to break the asymmetry on Godhead is not relying on creatures.
That does mean your opponent will have a lot of removal spells to point on your 5 mana creature though so it works better in theory than practice.
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

Mown said:
Yeah the best way to break the asymmetry on Godhead is not relying on creatures.
That does mean your opponent will have a lot of removal spells to point on your 5 mana creature though so it works better in theory than practice.
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You could also play creatures that are primarily ability-oriented or scale with counters. Shove the Godhead of Awe in with some sort of blink package, and it's actually pretty cool!

 
MilesOfficial

MilesOfficial

LadyMapi said:
There's also the synergy with



Casting the Master with the Godhead out gives you a 1/1 and at least six 2/2s, and you need to kill both the Godhead and the Master in order to get rid of them. Nasty.
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Man, I need to put that in my reject Cube. Such a sweet card that I miss from my main list.
 
Brad

Brad

ravnic said:
Talking of mono color support, one thing to do this are heavy hybrids.
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I was thinking more on mono color lately and would be curious to hear your thoughts and experiences on the differences between a heavy hybrid like Godhead or Nightveil Specter, which are both present in your list, compared to a light hybrid like Dryad Militant.

Do you feel that you could probably run hybrid sections of wildly different sizes if the cards were primarily light hybrids?

How much of a focus on colorless cards did you give in order to assist in enabling mono decks?
 
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