Maybe that person is playing correctly for Theros, and you are not? Hard to say without examples.

For example, I've heard it said that removal in Theros is terrible. But is it, really? Sedge Scorpion, Last Breath, Lightning Strike and Pharika's Cure are all good against aggro. Ray of Dissolution and Artisan's Sorrow make for great two-for-ones against bestow. Annul negates the bestow card advantage. Voyage's End and Griptide are great against Ordeals. The tools are there, you just need to sideboard accordingly.

Ray of Dissolution and Artisan's Sorrow aren't 2-for-1's against Bestow. They just keep your opponent from getting a free 2-for-1 because of how an ability was poorly designed.

Having good removal against aggro decks doesn't really matter in Theros limited, because it has been literal MONTHS since I have seen an aggro deck that is actually relevant.

More importantly, all the P/T based removal is just pitiful in this format, because the entire thing revolves around boosting the P/T of a single relevant creature. The only ACTUAL removal spell in the format costs 6 mana.

And congrats, you named two of the best spells in the set as answers to non-bestow spells. The reason that the tempo-based removal is good in this set is because it is the most reliable form of removal.

Instant-speed enchantment removal is two-for-one when the attacker loses the bestow bonus and suddenly becomes insignificant compared to your blockers.

So, you agree about the Scorpion?

I wasn't trying to name the best spells, just to show that there are answers enough to bestow to punish people who tap out, bestow, and attack, as opposed to players that actually think about when and what to bestow. Bestow is a nice mechanics that makes Auras relevant, and makes you rethink your drafting priorities. I haven't lost a game to a bestowed creature for a long time. And Lightning Strikes won a lot of matches for me.

The spells that you named to deal with bestow are considered cards that are first or early picks. If that doesn't describe to you how good bestow is you're confused.

"rethink" your drafting priorities is not good when for the rest of limited Magic there is a system we've developed and Theros breaks that. It doesn't break the limited mentality in a good way either. God's Willing shouldn't be a first pick card in any draft format. That is a bad format.

Theros in summary: Play bad, win games.

Also, you're wrong. The removal in Theros is god awful. Have you played any other limited formats before? Do you have a realistic frame of reference? If you drafted literally the draft set before this, M14, you would know what a removal heavy format would look like.

Scorpion is conditional removal that only hits walkers, and doesn't solve the miserable, unsolvable issue of Bestow.

I just wish we had the Green Doom Blade from core sets.

only thing I don't like about theros is the terrible removal, other than that I've had a lot of fun at the theros drafts I've done

After watching the footage of GP Sacramento I will disagree that this format isn't skill rewarding. Watching Martell play those matches were very instructive. Many good players also went against conventional wisdom and DIDN'T bestow creatures in situations where weaker players would have. Food for thought.

I don't really get this type of comment, if a player is using a better strategy than you, why is he playing worse?

Why is using the best strategy playing bad?
Isn't this the same as discarding some cards just to trigger threshold or being "reckless" to trigger fateful hour or hellbent?
Where those bad mechanics?(just asking here).

I guess I shouldn't have used a metaphor for a game a lot of people have likely played in a while.

Deagles are auto-kills with headshots. Shotguns deal less damage at a distance. The idea I was trying to get across is that people should be rewarded for skillful play (headshots) than they should be for just brandishing a bunch of stuff willy-nilly.

If a play becomes the to-go play between experienced players no matter what the opponent is doing, why is this play skillful?

I get that headshooting is skillful, but why easily punishing people for using auras is skillful?

God's Willing is a high pick because it protects from removal, right? Otherwise, any combat trick would do.

I haven't lost a game to bestow for a long time. Mostly because I force people to not bestow, as they need blockers.

To my kind of thinking, Auras either need to be made relevant, or they should stop printing them. I like the way most cards in Theros can be played in some deck. I don't like the kind of environment you described in M14, where the best strategy was to simply draft blue, every time.

I don't think we can ever agree on this, unless I become a much more experienced player. Experience breeds expectations, and everybody has a limit as to how much can be changed, and how much should remain constant. The less experienced you are, the easier it is to accept changes. R&D enjoys shaking things up, and for now, so do I.

+1 the above. I mean, why not rage against the loss of mana burn?

That being said, liking the format or not is personal, obviously.

No, it's a high pick because it's a one mana protect your voltron. Ranger's Guile in M14 was a late pick and it would be in most formats.

You can keep saying "I haven't lost a game to bestow" but anecdotal evidence will never be taken seriously.

Auras are popular with casual players and they pushed them hard. They've always sucked and they always will suck. They don't have place in competitive constructed Magic outside of very limited applications.

M14 was incredibly deep and if you think the format was "draft blue", I disagree. I think that's a shallow take on a very deep format. I don't think you like M14 because playing with vanilla creatures is hard and it's more skill intensive than Theros. It's hard to win a match of M14 especially if you're bad.

Whatever you say, Mr. UWR pants.

It's really disheartening when the only thing you ever hear about your opinion is "anecdotal evidence won't be taken seriously".

Some players consider themselves skilled until they run into an environment where the things they know don't work anymore. Then the players with real skill show themselves. People like Martell. M14 was pretty much the least skill intensive format I've ever played in, that being said there still was a way for the best players to win. Theros is extremely skill intensive. The reason some of you guys are losing to beginners is because you don't want to adapt your strategy to the current environment. If God's Willing is going to help you win the game in a very meaningful way than it IS a first pickable card.

Like he said, very niche. And not the good Niche, we're talking the "jank on the level of mono-white Belcher" niche.

I just hope that I'm right in thinking they've scaled back Bestow a lot - they've only showed Bestow spell of each rarity. And if they were going to have cycles, they usually show the entire cycle.



There's a difference between using a better strategy, and being rewarded for bad play. You should get a reward for a headshot (clicking a small, specific point which is moving). You shouldn't get a reward for simply hitting your head against the keyboard (metaphorically. If you literally hit your head with the keyboard, you should probably get some sort of reward. But more like the Special Olympics reward )


Threshold isn't really a bad mechanic at all - in fact it is very good - you will eventually get 7 cards in your graveyard through the normal course of the game. It provides a means for early game creatures to stay relevant late game (WHERE THOSE BEARS). Cards which discarded for the sake of doing so didn't really exist (beyond Careful Study, which honestly is undercosted) and most of the discard effects were very powerful. Aquamoeba and Wild Mongrel were very powerful and served as discard outlets. There are also opportunities and chances to outplay your opponent, by holding back graveyard removal, or even something as simple as a Desperate Ravings and feint another spell.
Its probably, in truth, one of my favorite mechanics.
The only real downside to Threshold was that it required a lot of counting, and the complexity of Odyssey block was INCREDIBLY high, tracking Madness, Flashback, and Threshold was really taxing (Wizards even tried to simply this by adding a gravestone to the left of card names, to show they were relevant in the GY). But that was more an issue with Odyssey block than it was with Threshold itself.

Fateful Hour is a mechanic which makes for good stories, if you are the one winning. The problem with that, is that those stories can often be miserable for the person on the other end, who feels they played 100% right and were still punished.
Its extremely similar to Miracle (another mechanic I hate in Limited) in that a person can play 100% correctly, and then get punished by a single random topdeck.
Yes, there were moments you could play into triggering your Fateful Hours (making it a better mechanic than Miracle), but by the end of the Limited format people knew to play around that, and to not attack to below 6 unless you can put them at 0. The risky plays you talk about were fine, but overall I am neutral, maybe somewhat negative, on the mechanic.

I don't really see what's the issue with Hellbent. Aggressive decks generally end up without cards in their hands anyway. Turns out, Rakdos is the aggressive color combo. There really wasn't a downside to the mechanic, beyond you having more limited options. I also don't really remember a sweeper in Ravnica block to punish you for going Hellbent, but its been a while. I think the issue is that Wizards was a little conservative with creatures still in Ravnica, and Hellbent creatures didn't really give enough of a boost considering the fact you had to actually GO hellbent to get the bonus, which is a very heavy drawback in Constructed.
I also remember RUG being the best color combo, and that you always drafted Karoo lands in the format. So there WAS that. The format ended up being really slow.

I was quoting your description of M14 draft, which was draft blue until it dries up, then follow it with white. I enjoyed M14.

What I noticed is lower bestow costs, and ways to lower the cost of all enchantments.

Every color was good in RGD. you jam signets and karoos and then you ramp out things that cost six mana and they feel bad.