Personally I’m enjoying it! I generally tend to prefer pretty formats with a decent amount of complexity, which WOE doesn’t have a ton of, but certainly it has enough to keep things interesting and plays quite smoothly once the patterns are picked up. It’s a format where the archetypes flow into each other nicely, which is particularly appreciated, imo.
I know it’s only been out a week so far, but what are all y’all’s feelings on it? Yay? Nay?
I think it’s fun, but really haven’t got my head around finding my lane yet, I’m just trying to draft jund every time and ending up with below average decks.
I’ve seen a surprising number of three+ color decks running around and I can’t decide if it’s a mistake or not. There’s some amount of fixing with treasure floating around, but I’ve been sticking to the two color archetypes with decent success. My best decks so far seem to find one of the tentpole uncommons and build around that.
Given that we have access to prophetic prism and Crystal Grotto and treasures it certainly seems like splashing 1 or 2 great cards is right. Definitely at least the off color adventures should be right.
I’ve only played sealed once and draft once so far, so this opinion is subject to change. But I like it. What stands out to me is the role tokens. For as long as I can remember, the advice has just been “don’t draft auras; you’re opening yourself up to card disadvantage.” Roles are finally playable auras. They’re fun and they seem pretty well balanced. The fact that a creature can only have one role at a time makes for interesting gameplay decisions and unique opportunities to generate value. [[Cursed Courtier]] in particular is a great design, really fun to make it work.
I agree with what you say about the archetypes flowing into each other, and I think roles are a big part of that. [[Unassuming Sage]], for example, fits in RW celebration and BW enchantment sacrifice and GW auras.
I really like roles, too! They seem to have hit the mechanic just right. They’re not powerful enough to completely derail a game on their own, but they definitely shake things up. I think the restriction to one role at a time that you mentioned has a lot to do with that. It also really helps that they play so well with the other mechanics, like you said. It all just works so well.
So far it’s been my favorite set since Zendikar Rising. I absolutely love it and I’m planning to draft as much as possible. Some of the things I love a lot:
- Role tokens – these are so versatile and add a really fun element to the game
- Bargain – combos with roles and food tokens really well and this is another great mechanic
- All of the colors are playable and each has advantages
- Nearly every color pair has a good strategy and has a shot against any deck
- There aren’t too many bombs that run away with the game, everything seems like you can beat it or play around it
Things that killed me in LTR limited were cards like [[Witch-king of Angmar]] being unanswerable, or the fact that Izzet turbo tempt was obviously the strongest deck, or grixis being the only real viable colors to play. I think green was flat out unplayable.
WOE to me feels like every game is a great game of magic. I’m interested to see how sealed is but so far for me the format has been a lot of fun. Both to play and watch streamers play. I think there are still lots of new things to discover too.
