Yo

I just realized this podcast is not about how to play the archetypes for a specific set, but teaching us how to play broader archetypes and then mapping them onto the color pairs for a specific set.

I got about 5 minutes in before I realized you're talking about Foundations not Pioneer Masters lmao.😊

Yooooooooooooooooooooo Saaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmm

Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmm

The Q&A was really good in this episode, turning the questions into some great draft fundamental lessons.

Thanks Sam for another useful video : )

This set for me is absolutely miserable to play currently, losing the vast majority of matches to my choice of manascrew and flood, or not getting the 7+ removal pieces you need to not lose. Coming to content like yours praying for some sort of perspective on this misery.

The Blue 2/1 flier that makes fliers on your second draw each turn is a great splash (and also just a crazy card in general) if you are able to get your hands on one

great analysis thanks sam

Thanks Sam

Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmm

as a naturally threat-light deck, any oppolnent that has a more removal-heavy draw/deck, can then just end up holding something effective to kill a Terror if they didn't have to spend those on your less threatening or absent creatures.

You're awesome, love your videos.

It would be awesome if you would upload some drafts of yours. Love the pod

Thanks so much for these Sam! Always helps to get the brain going trying to navigate the format :)

As someone who isn't really keen on blue, this was really interesting.

Not sure if Sam actually misremembered or just misspoke( which I am sure happened with calling Ajani's Pridemate a 1/1), but Fiendish Panda returns something based on it's power to the battlefield rather than to hand.

Hey Saaaaaaaaaaaam!

Just did a foundations prerelease with Rakdos sacrifice. I had two of the threatens, and several sacrifices outlets. Felt very powerful, and Vampire Gourmond was amazing

Thank you for your vídeos, they have been useful. Just a little correction, balmor gives your creatures trample*

Hoping the tune comes back, I did enjoy it as an intro and wouldn't mind it as an outro either. On the content of this episode my comment is: While less of a reasonable card than Fear of Lost Teeth and Grasping Longneck, if you happen to end up with a relatively high number of instants, I think playing Appendage Amalgam as an additional enchantment is acceptable.

Once you have a swarmweaver it's so easy to build a deck that can play the swarmweaver multiple times a game in GB.

Obviously true that this deck does not want to splash, but there is one more rare I'm happy to splash if possible, and that is the Balloonman, because the synergies are kind of absurd.

Mono blue at throne of eldraine tho 10:24 !

the title xDD

Maybe I missed it but you didn't mention pyroclasm no? I made a wacky/bad izzet control yesterday and pyroclasm was maybe the best card against aggressive decks. Is it a card I should take highly or just try to wheel it?

so green is not the best 2nd colour, what were the good ones?

Congrats on the 190th episode

Title is a bit scuffed

It’s interesting. I’ve drafted about 25-30 drafts in this set and have yet to be red black even once. I think it’s exactly because of what you’re saying, it’s hard to get into and you kind of have to commit early and just hope it’s open. So often I’ll end up in something like gruul or golgari instead. Those feel a lot easier to pivot into.

I have had a fair amount of success with rakdos not leaning too hard into the sac theme and just picking up as much good removal and good red creatures as possible

BR's problem is that without mirth and a shitload of removal, every other more commonly picked combination of colours will curbstomp it if they miss a single beat. Because neither black nor red have many even remotely useful in the common creature slot. Curious to see how you adress the creatures in particular.

The goat!!!!

I think your reasoning on why RB should lean aggressive is missing something important, and you gloss over it when you say "final vengeance also lets you sacrifice enchantments, but mostly you need a creature". There is an entire suite of rooms that can work well as fodder for RB! The "creature or enchantment" thing is not just on final vengeance - it is on *every* sacrifice outlet in the set. This is how you compete with blue decks playing an attrition game - you still play things like percussionist and rats, so you gum up the board early, but then your card advantage is things like Derelict Attic, Ticket Booth, Glassworks, etc. to go with your sacrifice theme. This works well because these rooms can be sacrifice fodder (you've gotten at least a card's worth of value out of them before sacrificing them), but they are also high impact plays in the late game, because these rooms typically have an expensive side that gives you some form of late-game inevitability. I'm not saying an aggressive RB beatdown deck can't work, but I've had no issues with a more controlling, attrition-based strategy, and out-valuing blue decks has not been a significant issue for me.

Lmao just say no to the Bloodsucker question!

Saaaaaaaaaaaaam Nice to catch the podcast since I missed while on twitch - 3p

I suppose a potential pivot is a red aggresive draft that doesn't end up seeing boros but does see open black. I wonder if it's valuable to try and price into enabling delirium more like from commune with evil. Probably too far off the plan of reducing life.

This analysis was super helpful to me, especially the idea of playing like a 'fair' control deck with a strong late game and an emphasis on hitting land drops. Thanks!

just drafted one and went 2-3, I did exactly the errors you mentioned. Though it is difficult to turn down 3 Optimistic Scavengers when you're white

3 minutes in, I knew it was going to be a treat!

This deck feels like a solid idea for sealed as well if your pool supports it, agree?

it'll definitely be interesting to see where things shake out on the "weaker commons are okay" vs the "power level is important and you need to be pretty open" arguments. my experiments in the format so far have found me really punished when I'm contested

Saaaam

I think unwanted remake has a home in a heavy Survivor theme deck, is a one mana way to remove any creature post block and keep your survivor alive.. but yeah it's very narrow and definitely over drafted, it should be going like 10th pick+

Saaaaaaaaaaaaaam

As a 4 mana common, I found Friendly Ghost to be a fairly good card here as it could enable an attack and has the important 2 power. I was talking it ahead of Unsettling Twins and behind Most Valuable Slayer, but I did feel that it was close with the twins and some decks might want one or the other. Although Friendly Ghost does have decent 17 lands stats in WR specifically, I also could just be wrong about it as well.

I've found infernal phantom to be pretty good at the 4 drop slot. You often play enough enchantments to trigger it and it synergizes great with Turn Inside Out. Trading with a big creature and going face for another 4-5 is big game.

Jolly Balloon Man targeting Arabella seems awful tbh. We actually lose out on damage since Arabella drains for 1 less than if we'd targeted anything else.

Thank you, Sam!