Magic Numbers

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 sponso...

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....

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....

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...

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: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

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...

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 read...

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 beco...

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 po...

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 ou...

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 interme...

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://pa...

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, figh...

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 us...

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 - d...

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 t...

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 o...

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 ⁠⁠mtg...

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/sierk...

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...

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 d...

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 deck...

ONE Quick Draft is available on Arena now and it may be a good idea to play a couple of those, as they will offer you a fresh look on the format. Why? The bot and human metagame are sufficiently different from each other to offer a slightly different experience.   I talk about what is special about bot draft and offer some advice on how to abuse those differences for your benefit. How to...

This week I look at why ONE is different from all other recent formats. Why there are so few great commons? What causes the imbalance in color power and why I strongly believe white is by far the most powerful color at common in the set and also why you still should draft preferentially red. On top of that we look at all the color pairs and figure out their best cards, their hidden stars and traps...

I look at the speed of the format: is it lightning fast and what may be the reasons for it. I also look at color pair win rates and the rate they are played at. Are some color combinations hidden gems? Are the most played ones successful?    On top of that I look at best commons and uncommons in each color and in each color pair. To be able to relentlessly mock myself (with a couple of t...