Monday, July 20, 2015

Origins Limited

Well it has been a little over a year since my last post, and I have had some success recently, so figured I would dust off this blog! 

Since my last post, I have had a few brushes with nearly qualifying for the PT again. The closest was GP Orlando where I was three game wins away from top 8 and the invite. Unfortunately, came up short against the eventual winner, Eugene Hwang. I also was three wins away in the last traditional PTQ, a standard event where I played RG devotion, again losing to the eventual winner. I matched my best GP day one record (8-1) in Providence, my first standard GP, last month. Day two was a bit of a train wreck where I lost two unfavorable match-ups, misplayed badly to pick up the fourth loss, and lost a close, but favorable, match-up in the last round to get no money. Given my lack of prep for the tournament, I was still pretty happy with how I played overall.

Just yesterday I was able to take down an Origins limited PPTQ, which nets me the joy of playing modern at the RPTQ on Halloween. I am glad there is a lot of time in between because I rarely play modern and I will need to jam a lot to get a feel for the format again. I don't want to write a full tournament report on the PPTQ, but I do want to share my thoughts on the limited format so far.

Big picture, I love that the rares are very beatable. There is nothing like Citadel Siege in the format, which is great. Fate Reforged limited was incredibly annoying due to how much better a lot of the rares were compared to the uncommons/commons. The commons and uncommons are a lot more competitive in this format. The marquee cards, the flip planeswalkers, are often pretty interesting to play with/against, as compared to the Dragonlords which usually just immediately won the game. 

One thing I have noticed from the drafts I've done, about 7-8 including two PPTQ top 8 drafts, there are more unplayables than most recent formats. If you waffle too much in choosing colors, you can be left scraping the bottom of the barrel to round out your deck. Luckily there are a handful of cheapish cantrips available to help fill you out so you don't have to play stone blanks or 19 lands. This could be a byproduct of how I approach drafting in general though. I focus on taking the most powerful cards early, and will radically change course if passed the right cards later on. I find it to be a huge mistake to "force" an archetype from the outset. You eventually need to settle on something, but try to let your neighbors tell you what you should be drafting. The problem with this approach is that if you take too long to figure out what colors you are supposed to be in, you will sometimes not get enough playables, as described above. Overall, I think my flexibility has served me well as it allows for more power to get into my decks.

I have had success with all of the colors in Origins, mainly drafting based on power level of individual cards. You do need to be aware of the Renown creatures, and have a plan for them. It can be very hard to beat a Topan Freeblade if you don't have enough two drops. 

Topan Freeblade

I recommend drafting Fiery Impulse and Reave Soul fairly highly, as they are also good ways to deal with the Renown creatures. 

Fiery ImpulseReave Soul

Disperse is better than normal as resetting Renown can sometimes be your only way out. Separatist Voidmage plays a huge role there as well, but I have found my four drop slot to often be cluttered. I found good three drops to be a bit scarce, so if you are deciding between a four and a three, give the edge to the three drop all else being equal. 

DisperseSeparatist Voidmage

On the topic of Renown, in general all of the Renown cards are pretty good, but Knight of the Pilgrim's Road is actually not very good. Because most players know to draft bears to combat the free blades, it often is very hard for the Knight to get through and often is left trading down.

Knight of the Pilgrim’s Road

Another important part of the format are Thopter tokens. There are many cards that produce thopters that are very solid, so I would be very weary of playing too many X/1's. Things that do one damage are a bit better due to this as well. Chandra's Fury is a lot better than normal (I didn't like it much at all previously).

Ghirapur GearcrafterChandra’s Fury

A few card specific notes: 

Sentinel of the Eternal Watch and Whirler Rogue are the nut uncommons. Hangarback Walker might be the Pack Rat of the format (not nearly as good, but a great card)
Sentinel of the Eternal WatchWhirler RogueHangarback Walker

Don't play Bellows Lizard. Remember, as Andrew Cuneo once said, you can play any number of basic lands in your deck.

Bellows Lizard

Finally, side boarding is very important in this format. There are specific sideboard only cards, like Enlightened Ascetic, but just as important is keeping track of the power and toughness of your opponents creatures, and boarding in spells/creatures that match up well with those numbers. I recommend, especially in sealed where you have a lot more boarding options, to jot down all of your opponent's cards, and especially their creatures power and toughness, so that you can board appropriately.

If you have specific questions about cards or the format, let me know on Twitter @bchap55 .

Thanks for reading!

-Ben