This episode we look into the early draft data of the new format. Which colors started off strongly, which cards make each archetype tick. I look into each color pair and talk about best common and uncommon, hidden gems in each archetype (cards that surprised me or cards that still go late in the draft but perform very well), and traps (cards that look like they should fit in but data suggests they don't). Based on those I try to analyse what makes each color pair tick and what doesn't to give y...
Nov 21, 2023•1 hr 44 min
This week we look at the upcoming set: how will the synergies play out, what do I consider good and bad before we dive into proper drafting. Where can you find some synergies and how to theory craft a Caves deck. Plus a couple of cute two card combos you might be interested in! This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business. There is a companion article to this primer that talks about all the removal in the set - make su...
Nov 14, 2023•1 hr 41 min
New set is upon us - time to theory craft all 10 2-color decks in the new set and speculate on what we think is going to be great and what is doubtful in Lost Caverns of Ixalan. And to do that I lean on the expertise of my illustrious guests: A 100k sealed tournament winner, JasonILTG Freshly from winning a Mox Jet, Zakagan Winner of the most recent tournament back home, ddavp_mtg And me after 2-1ing a 6 person modern tournament in my LGS Discussions were furious, heated, and full of insights in...
Nov 09, 2023•3 hr 3 min
Going back to original set review and re-evaluating it based on how the set played out is an under-appreciated activity. Me and Trumpetman come back to our pre-release evaluations and try to look at cards we got wrong, and speculate why. Which cards are harder to predict, which ones are easy and why - we try to answer those questions based on our successes and failures from WOE. Just in time to draw some lessons on card evaluation for the LCI set coming out on Friday. Patreon: ...
Nov 06, 2023•1 hr 7 min
This week we look at the data of the most drafting person in 17Lands - which almost certainly means, most drafting person on Arena, period. Pasta Pirate does an average of 9-10 drafts a day. What can we learn from his data? What can he learn from it himself? Patreon: https://patreon.com/sierkovitz to get extra access, perks and the good feeling of supporting my work. This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your r...
Oct 26, 2023•1 hr 26 min
Players focus a lot on how to build a deck, but i think most improvement in win rate for starter/intermediate players that is easy to achieve comes through good draft navigation. This week I give some (hopefully) useful tips on how picks differ depending on the pack number, which picks will make your deck more frequently. I also talk about learning how to wheel specific cards - how to select the card as your pick 1 in such a way, that you give yourself a good chance of getting another decent car...
Oct 18, 2023•1 hr 17 min
This week I have a very special guest: Rob Conroy, AKA Viralmisnomer - Mr 17Lands himself. And there is a great reason for that. 17Lands has a whole bunch of new patron-only features and Rob and I will show you why you should seriously consider getting them not only to support the site we all love and cherish, but also in your own interest. From a great card evaluation tool, through personal data up to a tool that lets you improve your mana-base building skills - all the new toys make me excited...
Oct 14, 2023•1 hr 17 min
Drafting in Magic: the Gathering is not easy. There re dozens of factor you need to try and synchronise in your head while the ruthless clock continues ticking. But data can help! Today I look at what the best of the best do differently. Which cards do top players draft higher than others? Which cards do they use more efficiently and win with more than it would result from just the average win rate difference between top players and the rest? Identifying those cards is a key to unlocking strateg...
Oct 09, 2023•1 hr 23 min
New format is upon us and time to look at what can early data tell us about it. Which cards are key, which ones are traps, what do decks want to be doing and what do other Arena drafters leave open for the cunning grinders to abuse. Patreon: https://patreon.com/sierkovitz to get extra access, perks and the good feeling of supporting my work. This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brigh...
Sep 12, 2023•1 hr 52 min
Before we dive into the new format - I look from theory point of view at the set design. What looks as if it is possible, how do the set mechanics intertwine, what to look out for in the first days, and what sweet build-arounds does the set have to offer. Patreon: https://patreon.com/sierkovitz to get extra access, perks and the good feeling of supporting my work. This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix ...
Sep 12, 2023•2 hr 7 min
In my opinion the most interesting part of set review is not the review itself, but returning to it after the format has passed and reevaluating your grades in order to see where did you miss, where did you hit and try to answer why this happened. This is why our set reviews with Trumpetman are designed in such a way as to easily reanalyse them after the format is done. They are linked to 17Lands.com win rates so we can see how large was our miss for each card. Today we look at our review perfor...
Aug 30, 2023•57 min
This episode was originally recorded in December 2022 but never appeared in the podcast feed. Now you can use it before the Arena Open this week as a unique window into the mind of one of the best (or looking at 17Lands.com data - the best) cube players in the world. Apart from iteration-specific arguments lots of general theory surrounding this format with someone who is a true expert theorist of the game and an all round nice person. Patreon: https://patreon.com/sierkovitz...
Aug 21, 2023•2 hr 38 min
This week I look at how LTR drafts changed over time. Which cards, color pairs fell in and out of favour with the Arena users. And how did the player win rate impact those preferences. But doing just a retrospective of one format can be a bit boring - what universal trends can we draw from LTR evolution? Can some color pairs be more resilient to metagame shifts and if so - why? Patreon: https://patreon.com/sierkovitz to get extra access, perks and the good feeling of ...
Aug 17, 2023•1 hr 20 min
The biggest level up from a decent drafter to a great one is realising that drafting good cards is not enough to become an exceptional player. Truly great drafters are able to sacrifice power for synergy and know exactly when to do it and when not to. This ability lets you get more out of the cards in your decks and win games because of those synergistic interactions and consistent goals and plans across every card in your deck. But easier said than done. Today I look at the ways to use game dat...
Aug 02, 2023•1 hr 25 min
Drafts are hard. There is plenty going on and to navigate it well, you need to think not only of your own deck, but about what are other people doing. In limited content you will often hear that something is a signal - but what are signals exactly? And how can you read and interpret them? And perhaps more importantly - do signals mean anything and can you draw some actionable conclusions from reading them? I immersed myself in 17Lands.com data for 2 weeks trying to answer those questions and her...
Jul 20, 2023•1 hr 36 min
There are multiple good reasons why top players win more. A lot of it has to do with game play, but not everything. Learning how to navigate draft and evaluate cards is an easier way of boosting your win rate and drafting best cards and being able to pick the right lane will aid you also in improving your game play later. Here are some lessons from top 17Lands.com user data that will help you become a better limited player. Patreon: https://patreon.com/sierkovitz to get e...
Jul 05, 2023•1 hr 29 min
New set, new possibilities! This week I give a general overview of which colors are good, what cards fuel them and which cards are essential in every archetype. And which cards absolutely are not - I looked through biggest traps too, so you don't have to. Patreon: https://patreon.com/sierkovitz to get extra access, perks and the good feeling of supporting my work. This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and bright...
Jun 27, 2023•1 hr 47 min
Set reviews are tricky bits of content. Based on limited information, prone to errors and quickly out of date. This is exactly why me and Trumpetman designed out set review structure in such a way that we can easily confront our predictions with the reality. Since we predicted the win rate of cards, we can match our guesses with the end of the format results. This way we know exactly where were our biggest misses and where we were bang on. This episode is looking at our successes and failures an...
Jun 18, 2023•1 hr 9 min
Limited is a hard format. It is not easy to start winning reliably. Today I look at several ways to quickly improve your Limited draft and deck building skills using the 17Lands.com data. I analyze why beginners can have problems with winning reliably, but most importantly, I try to give actionable advice on how to solve the problems I identify. This video is primarily aimed at beginner to intermediate players, at least I tried to make it so. After watching it, you should be able to: - identify ...
Jun 12, 2023•1 hr 44 min
5C strategies in Limited are undoubtedly fun. But they are also tricky to execute, hard to master and laden with mana issues, which lower your win rate. This episode I look at the 17Lands data of 4 and 5 color decks in MOM to try and figure out, what makes a 5C strategy tick. Key cards, how much fixing is enough, reasons to go 5C and traps associated with this approach. Patreon: https://patreon.com/sierkovitz to get extra access, perks and the good feeling of supporting my work. ...
Jun 06, 2023•1 hr 49 min
This episode I look at the data on the new card type. How many Battles should you play in your draft deck? Which ones are over and underperformers? What is the impact of the number of battles you have in your deck? And does it vary with color pair you are playing? And if so - why? Plenty to unpack but on top of everything I also had to somehow do this while my cat and my dog were, very aptly, fighting a battle against each other. Patreon: https://patreon.com/sierkovitz to get extra...
May 16, 2023•1 hr 4 min
This episode I look at the data of different win rate user tiers on 17Lands.com. In 17L data you can look specific at top win rate players group, a bunch that has a ~60% win rate across multiple formats. What do those players do differently? What color pairs, cards are they high on compared to the rest of the users? How do they use battles compared to the rest? But aside from looking at the top users I am asking: is it always worth to try and copy best players and the way they draft? And my conc...
May 01, 2023•1 hr 48 min
New format is upon us and first day data, even if based on smaller sample sizes is an excellent way of getting an edge over less invested players by identifying best colors, color pairs, cards that surprised and disappointed us in the first few days. And guess what? That is exactly what I will be talking about today. Get your edge against the people who ignore the draft data. But pretty please - do not fall into a trap of thinking that early data means the format is solved. Those are excellent i...
Apr 21, 2023•1 hr 40 min
Before each set I will now try to make an episode on theory crafting. MOM looks like a fantastic set to build around. In this episode, I explored the types of buildaround, how to design buildarounds, give some practical examples and try to speculate on some interesting cards from MOM that have a buildaround potential. Patreon: https://patreon.com/sierkovitz to get extra access, perks and the good feeling of supporting my work. This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your ...
Apr 21, 2023•1 hr
This week I had a great pleasure to have a very special guest: Numot the Nummy. A streamer extraordinaire, with Pro Tour credentials and most importantly, a limited specialist. We looked at Numot's ONE data - a format he didn't like and performed somewhat under par for his standard (still an insane win rate of over 60%, but some people have higher standards than that). Which cards did he overdraft, which cards did he value too low, which cards proved successful in his builds? All of that availab...
Apr 11, 2023•1 hr 23 min
This week I look at the impact lords, creatures giving power and/or toughness bonuses to a tribe, give to the archetypes they are printed in. But that is not all, we look into week 2 of SIR and have a reverse engineering approach on the MOM spoilers. Patreon: https://patreon.com/sierkovitz to get extra access, perks and the good feeling of supporting my work. This podcast is sponsored by mtgazone.com - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business. Remind...
Apr 04, 2023•1 hr 4 min
First dive into the data of the new-old format. What is peculiar about SIR packs, which colors are the strongest, most open and underdrafted. Which color pairs do best and what cards allow them to do so. I look at the best cards in each color / color pair, at the hidden gems that have high win rate but Arena users are not drafting them highly. At least not yet. Patreon: https://patreon.com/sierkovitz to get extra access, perks and the good feeling of supporting my work. This podcast is spons...
Mar 26, 2023•1 hr 14 min
This episode looks at a relatively understudied aspect of limited: sideboarding. I look at general trends in sideboarding - when people do it, when they don't and how much sideboarding is a good thing. I also dive into recent few years of limited formats to find the star cards in terms of sideboarding. The ones who are almost exclusively sideboard cards, the ones that are the most effective as sideboard cards and the ones that are potentially sideboarding traps. Based on those cards I also try t...
Mar 23, 2023•1 hr 12 min
Time to look at the draft deck composition data and look at the secret successful sub builds in ONE. In this episode I look at the ONE decks in each color pair and cluster them based on how similar they are. After doing that, I calculate the win rate of each deck and its closest relatives. Based on that I can find clusters of successful sub-builds in each color pair. Using the archetypist tool I developed with Pekka Pulli, you can explore that data set on your own. Some sub builds are logical an...
Mar 23, 2023•1 hr 18 min
Lot has been said about the unique speed of ONE draft format. But is there a good basis to vilify this format as something that is extremely fast? I look deep into format game length data and try to unravel what is driving the speed of ONE and how does it compare with other formats. I also look at the cards that allow you playing long games and what can be useful in making control decks in ONE limited. Patreon: https://patreon.com/sierkovitz to get extra access, perks and the good feeling of sup...
Mar 10, 2023•1 hr 1 min
