Type 4 draft of the Day--5 Oct 04

[Triple_S]

Here are your possible choices...which do you opt for?

Discuss

[Smmenen]

You can't use consumptive goo becuase its an infy/infy if it targets itself.  Sorry!

[Trollstorm]

I went with Consumptive Goo because he's a machine gun that gets huge, and because I designed a similar card in the middle of Apocalypse, and I never have been able to play with this card. He doesn't really have a way to protect himself, though.



smennen: Say what?

[Matt]

You should start including the [card][/card] tags for people who aren't familiar with cards that are unusable in every other format. Especially for those of us without the foresight to memorize the different Towers.

This one's harder than the last. Let's see, here's some analysis from the perspective of someone who has never played this format:

I'm assuming Goo isn't actually there, for the reason Steven gave. So moving on...

Morphling seems badly underpowered, unless there's [card]Hermetic Study[/card] or something to combo with it. It's got lots of nice abilities (vigilance, flying, untargetable, 5/oo p/t) but with stuff like Balance and Reiver Demon and probably even Foundry-imprinting-something-horrible, it's just not as sturdy as you want. Jareth is better but there's still plenty of answers and he won't necessarily win you the game outright, so he's gone too.

Soul Foundry is always going to be at least as good as the card imptinted on it. This card might be easier to evaulate if it wasn't a first pick, as you might have a trove of great imprints or none. Either way, this breaks the "Arcane Lab" rule, so it shoots right to the top of the list.

Balance and Reiver Demon both fill the "sweeper" spot, and that makes them crazy. Balance is probably better than Demon, and if this is the first pick you can take artifacts and enchantments and one-for-ones higher than normal to maximize Balance's power (tutors, too, if those are allowed). Balance is strong.

Treachery is also strong, but there's already two creatures here that it can't target, and one powerful guy (Demon) whose use is mainly his CIP ability. This doesn't look like the draft for Treachery to be great.

That leaves Tower of Fortunes. This card seems amazing in a format where most of the tempo is obliterated, leaving card advantage (and possibly synergy) the primary determinant of success.

It comes down to Tower and Foundry. Picking either one is better than Balance because they both survive an opposing Balance and actually give you +1 to the Balance count anyway. It's better to take the artifact and give your opponent the Balance, especially when the artifact helps you recover from said Balance.

They both generate lots of card advantage. I choose Foundry on the expectation that there will be plenty of creatures who I would like to have multiples of, or if I could get something like Crater Hellion, the ability to "Scepter" a strong CIP effect.

Of course if this is a later pick and I haven't got much that would be impressive on a Foundry, then I'd take Tower.

[Jet]

Here's the order I'd pick this set, with Goo being banned.

1. Tower of Fortunes - Card draw one, right? Activating this feels like cheating. If it resolves, you're at least at +3 cards. Card advantage wins t4, my clear first pick from this

2/3. Balance - Good wrath, but not first pick worthy.

2/3. Reiver Demon - Good sized body with a useful ability. Would be my first creature pick out of these because he pulls double duty as beats and removal, utility is so good.

4. Morphling - Small, hard to kill creature, good blocker. Tough call between this and Jareth on which is better. Morphling can be worth infy life with diamond valley though.

5. Soul Foundry - This is best with a high number of creatures in your deck, I hate having lots of creatures in my deck.

6. Jareth, Leonine Titan - Solid creature, slow kill though.


7. Treachery - I don't take sorcery speed targeted removal unless I have to

[jpmeyer]

Soul Foundry.  I've found that unless you have something like Holistic Wisdom in your deck, you can't make a good use of all those cards from Tower of Fortunes because of the one spell per turn rule

[Jacob Orlove]

Soul Foundry.  I've found that unless you have something like Holistic Wisdom in your deck, you can't make a good use of all those cards from Tower of Fortunes because of the one spell per turn rule

If you first pick it, though, you can grab a lot more instants than usual.

[Jet]

Soul Foundry.  I've found that unless you have something like Holistic Wisdom in your deck, you can't make a good use of all those cards from Tower of Fortunes because of the one spell per turn rule

If you first pick it, though, you can grab a lot more instants than usual.

You can never have too many instants.
Seriously, next time you draft t4, try picking very rigidly to this order:
1. Bombs
2. Instant card draw
3. Instants
4. Cyclers.
5. other

Trying a couple drafts like this showed me just how good instants are compared to the better sorcery cards I had been taking.

I've stoped picking cards like mask, canyons and timmy early because my deck has to be so much weaker overall to support them. If I see the right pieces, I will still build a creature centric deck. But that archtype is much harder to put together than what I normaly play.

[Jacob Orlove]

I'm a huge, huge fan of instants in T4. I was just referring to other people who don't draft them as heavily.

Oh, and sometimes instants and instant card draw > bombs.

[thorme]

Never drafted Type 4 myself...but why would the Goo be banned?  Isn't is functionally equivalent to something like a Serra Avatar.  A big critter that doesn't have haste that kills 1 opponent if it attacks unmolested.  How exactly is that broken in this format?

[Jacob Orlove]

The Avatar only has P/T equal to your life total, though. It's not necessarily going to be lethal. Plus, the goo can eat all potential blockers.

[SliverKing]

David Allen does bring up a good point though

How are "firebreathers" different than Phage?

You can cheat them into play I guess, but with infinite mana does it matter if you drop a Phage or a Shivan Dragon?

The only issue I can see is a hasty, or instant speed, firebreather.

Not that I even play type 4, just curious what the rationale is.

[rvs]

Well, the rationale would be that Phage is different if you play Living Death and that twilight thing. It could be funny if somebody counters your phage and then kills you with Living Death

[Smmenen]

Phage is a liability.  What if you draft Thicket Elemental.  How often will you want to kick it?  People die to their own phage more often the Phage kills an opponent.

[Triple_S]

Now that would be hilarious!

With a card such as [card]Reverse Damage[/card] would both players die or just one?

[SliverKing]

Phage is a liability.  What if you draft Thicket Elemental.  How often will you want to kick it?  People die to their own phage more often the Phage kills an opponent.

fair enough

I figured it was the double-edged nature of phage (especially with free mindslaver in the format), but I was curious.

I'm actually looking forward to playing some type 4 SCG weekend.

[Triple_S]

Clearly someone has hijacked Josh's PC or his TMD account!  Now if we can only get Marc to throw some down also and we can have an 8 man Bus/Meandeck t4 death match.  And of course Ian v 2.0 will win.

[Jacob Orlove]

Oh man, TEAM T4 would be nutty. :D

[Triple_S]

I was thinking that it could be a big free for all type deal but I'm sure we could try some 2 headed dragon or Emperor action