Foundations State of the Format Address! | Limited Level-Ups

[@klakhouse]

"those who played OG Zendikar hope your back is ok" How you gonna call me out like this Alex

[@JeremyHoffman]

I was just thinking I need to do my stretches and book a massage 👴

[@marsh3825]

Thank god, I need this sooooo badly right now!

[@Bleeebloo]

Yup. I had a good few 1-3s already hahaha 😢🎉

[@BalldoTM]

@@Bleeebloo i am a machine the takes 1500 gems into 1-3s >:)

[@RockOfGibralter420]

This is nice but…maybe you should be thinking more about who needs YOU right now bro… 🙏 thanks bro take care.

[@BalldoTM]

@@RockOfGibralter420 bro, your right bro...i havent called my mom in ages bro, shes all alone since my dad passed a month or two ago bro.... i just hope that YOU are also taking care of who needs it too bro

[@dowolf]

Thanks for all the content, and enjoy your vacation!

[@thcdreams654]

Great content. Doing well this set. Kinda refreshing to play "simple" magic in a way. Thanks.

[@H1LTO]

Agreed

[@marcowefers6990]

I KNEW the perforating artist would be good, the black and red cards have soooo much good removal that it’s so easy to attack and get good value

[@whattupmang]

Enjoy the trip, brother!

[@Finik_daddy]

Thanks for the tips, bro! After watching this, I played 3 drafts (0-3, 7-1, 4-3) and made it to plat!🎉

[@dejuggamcyugga5238]

The slow appearance of Imprisoned in the Moon made me giggle

[@1z1uQ]

Excellent and useful analysis as usual!

[@thomazalexandrecoelho7094]

Glad to hear your taking a vacation! Enjoy.

[@tersecwalsingham5778]

Good stuff as always. Thanks.

[@voltmatt]

Chords your videos cut out so much frustration for me when a new set comes out. I feel very prepared and targeted for succeeding at FNM tonight like I’ve already grinded a dozen drafts. Thanks as always!

[@chrisshaw5709]

Tatyova is a great splash in a white/blue deck - you don’t mind playing a couple of the tapped gain lands for the splash because they trigger your life gain synergies and gaining 1 life from Tatyova’s landfall is a much bigger effect when it’s triggering other things. 5:50

[@limitedlevel-ups]

Agree, I’ve come up on her specially as a splash!

[@yaelcollas6339]

Keep up the good work.

[@smartkaboose3806]

Started watching this during my second draft, and I was staring at imprisoned in the moon in my deck ahhah 😂😂 thanks for the insight

[@Alberturkey54]

Hey Limited-Level Ups, love your content. Really clear explanations, very informative. I'm wondering - what's your process for efficiently evaluating and learning a new set? Thanks

[@H1LTO]

I'd say years of experience. He coaches full time, drafts a ton and looks at the data. Nothing beats experience when it comes to magic and limited.

[@karlsarap911]

Enjoy your vacations!🐐

[@H1LTO]

Let's go! Been awaiting this for sure. Ive taken months/sets off and back at this set. In loving it so far, though I'm scrubbing around in Silver :) Thank you for these so much. How you really liking it? The simple deck archetypes are nice for me tbh

[@limitedlevel-ups]

I’ve been liking it! Rock solid limited magic. Gave some thoughts at the end of the episode about that

[@H1LTO]

@limitedlevel-ups great to hear, cheers.

[@epthopper]

Thanks for this, I think my bias towards green (and Llanowar Elves being one of my favorite cards of all time) has really held me back in my first few drafts. Definitely been noticing the lack of quality green creatures to actually cast off of Elves

[@matthewbell4897]

This is the first format I felt I really am doing WELL in. Started dipping my toe in limited from constructed during LCI, struggled in most formats except maybe MH3, but this format I’ve been killing it, and even got 3 trophies on mtgo, where I’ve always struggled against the killer competition on that client.

[@bmccarthy9]

Agreeing a lot with the overview on the format from my own few drafts played. A card I'd like to call out re: mana sinks is the 1/4 green spider that has reach, deathtouch and pays 3 mana to put a +1/+1 counter on something. It's both a decently good blocker to get to the mana sink stage and a decently good mana sink that will eventually give good attacks on most stalled boards. I have not played with it yet (no green draft haha) but when played against me it was often an "uh oh, now they can put two counters a turn on stuff". To be fair, while it promises to win the game given enough time it's not actually fulfilled that promise against me, either because I throw all my removal at it and shut it down or I have a rare/mythic bomb that just outclasses it (or both), but both of those are acceptable outcomes for a common imo.

[@declanmccarthy7809]

yea I was surprised he didnt mention it! I saw it on the green commons screen to the side. was really curious to hear if it was just too slow for his playstyle?

[@bmccarthy9]

@@declanmccarthy7809 It's the 6th best green common in the set on 17lands so I can imagine it getting in the slides without experience with it.

[@declanmccarthy7809]

@@bmccarthy9 fair enough! also shoutout another mccarthy hahaha

[@SupahGeck]

I actually made a silly blue deck supported by green with three Clinquant skymage and it ended up really working out. It played hard control and then would eventually stick one to grow, lots of games were won at low life totals but it was really fun. The 5 mana draw three (only 4 though with this bird wizard) next turn plus draw step would often have it make it's first attack as a 5/5.

[@VincentPascoe]

I had a mono black deck with all the cards you mentioned got crushed by mono white and a green deck that just played three green rares and three black removal

[@SamuelHappyMan]

As always, love your videos! Keep up the great discussions! But as usual, I will be kicking and screaming about how I disagree with you lol 45:40 Perhaps this is a result of the skill level of my opponents and the fact that I just trophied with her in UB, I am only at platinmum after all, but I think that the sheer might of High Fae Trickster sticking will far exceed the times where it gets removed. Maybe she *has* stuck far too many times in my games, but when I have her out and I am only playing on my opponents' turn, like a 3 mana tolarian terror with flash to block a 4/4, she seems very overwhelming. Small sample size of course, but I certainly do not think she reads better than she plays

[@limitedlevel-ups]

A fairly tame disagreement, ill take it :D

[@morgancarlton4544]

I started off foundations with two trophy decks - UW skies/good uncommons and an absurd UB deck with 3 mischievous mystics, 2 of the UB ETB looter, Kiora, and several think twices. Then went 6-3 with RG (heavy red plus overrun and a couple other spells) where I realized after the last loss I could have stolen the win with overrun but misplayed both blocks on the previous turn and sequencing on the last turn to miss the critical point of damage. All those decks were based mostly on commons and uncommons. Then my last draft I got passed a P1P2 Koma and opened a second one P2 so I forced UG pretty hard. Ended up going 2-3 and really regretted not abandoning the Koma's for the very solid looking RB sac deck I passed. I think in most recent sets having two absurd rares would be enough even if your lane wasn't super open, but green's commons are so bad it was hard to even make playables.

[@benjaminvandesande6748]

bro i remember playing the prerelease tournament for that set at the mall of america back in the day... by the way, back is not okay!

[@limitedlevel-ups]

Big regional prereleases! Huge throwback (try not to throw yours out)

[@bruinfan05]

Enjoy your vacation! I’m jealous

[@IvanIurchenko]

In Ixalan Gorehorn Raider was a 3/2 instead of 4/4 and it was a great card

[@federicoferrazza764]

Hello Alex! What do u think about "Midnight snack"?

[@H1LTO]

It seems fairly unplayable atm

[@limitedlevel-ups]

Pretty much unplayable imo! The rate is just too bad

[@billdeng4770]

I’m a little higher in witness protection just because there’s no other removal except for bounce in blue

[@00mongoose]

Green is fine. Just need to know what kind of deck your building

[@limitedlevel-ups]

I agree! But I also think it’s true that it’s the worst color by a fair bit

[@00mongoose]

@@limitedlevel-ups I agree in the sense people are trying to build a rampy deck as you mentioned which just doesn't work without lots of payoffs. On the other side, greens creatures are aggressively coated and as people start figuring out where the agro line is, I believe it's performance will improve.

[@morgancarlton4544]

Love your content, been listening for past couple years and went back through most of your podcast episodes that weren't set-specific. You always have good insights and really clear explanations of key things to keep in mind for both newer players and more advanced players. I do have one piece of hopefully constructive criticism though, which is that I've noticed many of your videos have a section or two where the same sentence is said twice in a row (e.g. 20:27). I suspect this is just an editing issue, but it's been happening frequently enough that it's turned into a bit of a pet peeve of mine. I haven't watched LSV's draft or played with Homunculus horde yet, but I imagine it's better if you think of it as a 5 or 6 drop that you don't play until you can immediately trigger it. If you can get a copy with think twice and threaten another two copies the next turn it seems much better. I think it's definitely a trap if you're just hoping to untap with it on turn 5. But even then, I don't think I would draft it highly.

[@limitedlevel-ups]

Huh yeah my bad! Editing issue, will be more careful :)

[@JalebJay]

I resent the nighthawk shaming. I had the time with it in m13

[@WoRMaSTeR64]

How do you have Paradise Druid above Llanowar Elves in your list? The stats on 17lands already bear it out this is clearly not the case.

[@limitedlevel-ups]

Not sure where you’re seeing paradise druids stats, it has a very very small sample size since it’s a special guest and 17lands doesn’t have GIH Win rate data for it. In any case, my tierlist isn’t 1 to 1 with 17lands!

[@francescocarelli6090]

how is possible that the life swing makes the black 4/2 good while other 4/2 with flying or other abilities are bade because of the 2 constitution vs stab and burst lightning??

[@limitedlevel-ups]

The life swing is a big deal, you might be underrating the drain effect

[@VincentPascoe]

In Japan play at haluluya!I drafted in Japanese and lost in the finals because I thought reach was trample 🤣

[@GhostBombGames]

I was excited to try the green ramp thing with heavy top end and garruk's uprising and llanowar elves and I payed the price hard. I exhausted all my gold and gems and had a less than 40% wr when I usually have 60%. There's just no good stabalizing creatures to make up for taking the early game off. I think there's like, one single creature in the whole set with reach? The honey mammoth varient is as you said, pretty awful. Landfall also makes 0 sense in this ser because theres just no support for it at all other than evolving wilds and a mediocre ramp spell.

[@GhostBombGames]

Well I scraped enough gems to try again and bombed yet again so now no more draft for me for a while. I was 60% wr in duskmourne and

[@derekcline950]

I went 3-3 five drafts in a row, 4 of which were green. GW actually felt okay. This set has been weird for me for sure

[@kokushin55]

I want to disagree in a couple of points based on my experience, although I've played less than you, haven't checked the data and have much less knowledge of limited... on second thought, never mind 😅. (ok, I'll say it:I think UR is better than it looks, but people want to draft the tempo deck when it is much better as a control deck, Refute is awesome and Terror becomes playable; UW fliers is worst than it looks but people are not respecting the hawk enough)

[@kkplx]

From my experience: white is king. Black and blue strong. Avoid green and red. Commons and uncommons at least.

[@H1LTO]

@kkplx yeah I can't help but to go WB alot. The cards keep showing up and I'm an angel enjoyer

[@trygvan]

Xx is the worst color. Lol. Dont we hear this every set?

[@limitedlevel-ups]

For sure! There’s always going to a worst color/color combo

[@trygvan]

@@limitedlevel-upsyeah, but like in bloomburrow @dafore_ shows up and gets to no 1 with the assumingly worst color. The early analyses often seems to overlook some more hidden design possibilities that players discover later in the meta. Whether that’s true or not for this set we’ll just have to wait, play and see. 😅

[@limitedlevel-ups]

Only so much time to talk about everything in one episode! Episode the first of a format. On week one and two I like to steer people towards the ever decks, the “bad” decks only become good once people stop drafting them (just like UR in BLB, can’t draft that deck if a bunch of people are trying to do so)

[@ELFKanginFan]

Unpopular opinion: 95% of the cards from OG Dominaria are trash, and that's why that Tatyova shined there but not here.

[@limitedlevel-ups]

Yep, hard agree, powerlevel was very low in that set

[@svetlanathehammer1984]

I wouldn't agree that green is bad, I also am hovering around 70 percent and have had good success with green, I think it's important to draw elves heavy tough and prioritize the dwyinens elite and the 3 drop with trample, the removal is what is quite bad but that can be mitigated by a second color.

[@limitedlevel-ups]

Nice! Yeah I hope I didn’t talk it down too much, I don’t think it’s terrible just worse than the rest

[@svetlanathehammer1984]

@@limitedlevel-ups it's actually my fault man I saw the beginning of the video and felt the need to defend my elves xD. Once u get to the green common/uncommon review I think u did the color justice.

[@limitedlevel-ups]

Hahha all good! Happy drafting :)

[@DieEnteable]

Do you have an example decklist you could share/link? I've tried BG once and Sultai 3 times and went 3-3, 2-3, 2-3, 1-3, whereas I've had good success with the other color pairs. Even got Koma and Muldrotha twice and still felt like an uphill battle.

[@nshandy]

“GW isnt very good, the signpost uncommon is a trap” I went 6-3 with the 3 losses all being against GW. Paul cheon’s video today was a trophy with GW. Card seemed pretty good.

[@limitedlevel-ups]

Small sample size! 17lands is a great place to look for a bigger sample size. Even bad decks win sometimes (not saying yours or Cheon's decks were bad) Bad on average does not mean always bad.

[@reidyo5404]

Paul Cheon could probably trophy with an all commons deck 😂

[@francescocarelli6090]

you can have a good gw deck, but it's hard, so often betting on it is risky