New set is here, and Final Fantasy looks from the early days like a potential all-timer for us limited folks. And getting into the nitty gritty of it should start with getting some fundamentals - what colors look good (spoiler - all of them), which color pairs should you be playing (spoiler - also all of them) and which cards overperform (spoiler - ok - not all of them, for this you need to watch the episode). I look through each color pair and try to find what is best, what is under-explored but good and warn you of any traps for more successful drafting.
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Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #156 vid
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I am joined by a motley crew of Limited sickos for our eccentric deck-centric set review. We look at some basic info about the upcoming Final Fantasy set and then present our deck skeletons - 40 card functional? decks in each color pair in order to showcase what we think is going to be good in the format. We look at cards in context, as pieces of a synergistic whole, to try and think beyond raw card power. My guests this week are Tresio, Springbok7 and SamP - all Limited fans, all great drafters. They debate and discuss their builds with me playing the role of a moderator and an annoying nitpicker. A role I do truly love.You can find Tresio athttps://x.com/TresioSpringbok7 at https://www.twitch.tv/springbok7and SamP at https://bsky.app/profile/sampratt.bsky.socialor you can check out his excellent podcast: Rough Drafts:https://open.spotify.com/show/4OnYIYmoCdnnlC7pUVyM0A
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Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #155 vid
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount!If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
New set is upon us and we have an impossible task of figuring out which cards are grerat and which are traps without the advantage of having them ever in our hands. Data won't solve that problem but it can definitely help, by looking at the general trends in card power across mana values, colors, etc. Also we can look into the amazing #P0P1 initiative from MTG_DS, where hundreds of people put their bets on the best cards in a set before its release (which mtg_ds kindly shared with me). This let me look at the wisdom of the crowd - what cards were widely liked but turned out to be duds, which cards nobody saw coming. Why some cards fly under the radar, while some lure us into the trap?Here is the example fo P0P1 results from TMD for reference - make sure to give MTG_DS a follow - in the end it stands for Magic Data Science, you should be interested!https://x.com/mtg_ds/status/1920641850546815335
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Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #154 vid
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount!If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
Sealed data - the title sort of says it all ;) - will edit later (or will I?)
This week we try to add a little bit context to the Tarkir: Dragonstorm drafts. Yes, some cards have high win rate, but who cares? That doesn't mean you should cram them in any deck. Some cards have a low win rate - again - that doesn't make them unplayable. They just need the right home. Today, with some 17Lands numbers I try to figure out what cards make the 6 main color combinations of this format tick.
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Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #152 vid
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount!If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
This week we dive into the new set - what is the big picture data? What are the key cards in each color, how to approach the early data and wht makes the 3C combinations tick. Also - how to pick fixing in TDM.
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Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #151 vid
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount!If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
Some meta stuff today. How to read data. What traps to avoid and what does data tell us about reading data.
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Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #150 vid
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount!If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
Yet again our ever changing lineup of limited virtuosos takes on out unique deck-centric and excentric take on a set review. What to expect from the new set, what are we going to be playing, trying to draft, avoiding and dreaming of assembling. You can find my guests on Bsky:https://bsky.app/profile/jasoniltg.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/r-condon.bsky.socialor Elon Musks X.com platform:https://x.com/Tresio
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Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #149 vid
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount!If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
Today I look at the impact of luck in Aetherdrift draft. How much of the games outcome is determined by the luck in the pod? And how do great players deal with that? And how you, my dear viewer can become, if not great, at least better. I also talk about vehicles. And cards played in multiples.
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Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #148 vid
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount!If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
Some cards are just great. They have it all - they fit like a glove to any deck you drafted. But some are amazing in one place, but a detriment elsewhere. The generic Win Rate metsrics for those cards can be misleading because they will be impacted by the cards bad performance in some decks so you won't see it is actually good in a more niche home.This week I look for those cards that have one home where they are great. Or decent. So you can start including them where they belong.
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Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #147 vid
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount!If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
New set and this time the rules of engagement changed. And early data tells that story very well. Avoid the traps and start winning by being ahead of the curve. Might come in handy - either on Arena, your LGS or, dare I say, upcoming PT. I go through all the colors, color pairs, highlighting key cards and adding some context and describing the game plans that seem to give good results.
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Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #146 vid
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount!If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
The Skeleton Crew is back!!! Me, Jason Ye, Zach Kagan and Jake Browne look at Aetherdrift and try to figure out what are the key themes / synergies and cards in the new set. This is our unique take on a set review where more attention is put on within-set synergies rather than individual card power. We go through all the colorpairs and try to see how we envision decks in those color pairs, what will be important for them and where we expect hits and misses. Watch it to get ready for your prerelease and when the set hits arena and receive the insight into our questionable sense of humor as a "bonus". And I am using the word "bonus " very loosely here. My guests are an exceptional bunch. Worth following them and here is where you can do it: Jason: https://bsky.app/profile/jasoniltg.bsky.social Zach: https://bsky.app/profile/zakagan.bsky.social Jake: https://bsky.app/profile/jakebrowne.com
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Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #145 vid
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount! If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
We hear the wisdom from experienced players: Always play your two drops, Spend all your mana, and many more. But how do the numbers back those old truths? Do they stand scrutiny of testing them through data? Are they universal? Or are there corner cases? I test several Limited heuristics and hopefully you get to level up your game play through it!
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Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #144 vid
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount! If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
In this episode, I answer a variety of question about Magic, life, cooking and stuff. Mainly MAgic though, so don't worry - you can still get something useful out of it, I am not turning into a lifestyle content creator.
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Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #143 vid
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount! If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
New set is with us and with it the usual struggles. What to play, which cards overperform, which do badly, what color pairs to prioritise. Fear not - I have most of the basics covered and hopefully you will leave with a solid understanding of the key features of the Pioneer set.
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Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #142 vid
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount! If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
"Draft the good cards" is one of the basic pieces of advice you will get when starting to play limited. But just how effective is that advice? I dived deep in 17Lands.com data from BO1 Foundations drafts to measure just that. Turns out that this advice is solid. Over the course of the episode I will try to make you understand how and why does it work and how to best apply it, especially if you are a newer player.
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Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #141 vid
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount! If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
There are some cards that are just great in Limited. You can jam them into any deck and be happy about it. Filling your whole deck with those must be nice. In reality, to find 23 playables we need to compromise a bit. Some cards will be below par. But with some knowledge you can make the most of that. Some cards can be great in one of the color pairs in the format but mediocre in others. Knowing that will help you in putting them only in the right home and thus maximising on their power. Other cards are the opposite - great in most color pairs, but significantly weaker in one. Imagine if W is aggressive in a format apart from WU decks which tend to be controlling. You can imagine cards that will be great in all W decks apart from WU and cards that are specifically great in WU. This is the plan for today's episode - sifting through all the common and uncommon cards in the set to find the ones that need a particular home.
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Watch this episode and see the slides: https://youtu.be/fz372F0oTzI
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount! If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
New set, new data. How to position yourself well in a new format? Get the best available card evaluations as early as possible. And that is the aim of this episode.
I will look at each color pair through the lens of the key card - surprising hits, reliable performars and shocking duds. Plenty of cards in each category will be discussed throughout the episode.
Hopefully with this information you will be ready to trophy more and outplay those who rely on guesswork and intuition.
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Watch this episode and see the slides: https://youtu.be/aWoTNGMbq7E
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox at
if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount! If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
Theme song: You Do You, Mana Junkie by essesq (c) copyright 2020 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/essesq/61332
Set reviews are fun but what exasctly do they bring to the table? We grade cards, we speculate wildly and life moves on. This set review is different. We graded the cards before the set was released, and are coming back to our initial grading after the dust has settled. Me, and Alex, AKA Chord_o_Calls use this re-review to learn - what typpes of cards do we miss on? What trends we had during the grading? How can we use our failures to improve the next time? Card evaluation is a skill that can be worked on and it yields results. Hope this episode will help you improving your grading skills. You can find Alex on twitter: twitter.com/Chord_O_Calls Or listen to his excellent podcast, Limited Level-Ups, which you can find on your podcast app or on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@limitedlevel-ups
Ping me for coaching. Join the Discord, sign up for Patreon, and use this Linktree for everything else!
Watch this episode and see the slides: https://youtu.be/s-s-3MdNJv4
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox at
if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount! If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
Theme song: You Do You, Mana Junkie by essesq (c) copyright 2020 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/essesq/61332
So, you have your Boros aggro and UW Eerie decks nailed to a fine detail? But perhaps recently the wins are not coming as easy as they did early season? Don't worry - I got you covered there. We will loook at the data of top 17Lands.com users and try to figure out what do they do differently to sustain a solid win rate throughout the format. And what strategies do they lean onto as the well with the best decks dries out because the knowledge of their strength becomes universal.
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Watch this episode and see the slides: https://youtu.be/s-s-3MdNJv4
This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.
You can get the BulkBox at
if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount! If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.
Theme song: You Do You, Mana Junkie by essesq (c) copyright 2020 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/essesq/61332
