Optimizing Raid: The Cards
Along with a bunch of new cards to collect, Raiders Unchained brought with it a couple of new mechanics. One of them is Raid, which is an abillity that triggers when three or more of your creatures attack (take a look at the wiki page for all the gritty details). The ability fits naturally into the Umbruk faction pair and was designed to be a big part of draft as well as constructed.
So what do you get for successfully Raiding your opponent? Well, you might get giant creatures like , significant face damage from and , or in the case of the chance to completely overwhelm your opponent with a string of free creatures.
As mentioned above, a Raid is triggered when you have at least three attacking creatures on your turn. It sounds simple, but …
Raiders Unchained Previews: Herd Mother and Ordnance Captain
Hey forgeborn, I've got some sweet new cards to share with you today. Not any of those flashy legendaries that drive constructed players wild. Nope, today is about the humble commons, the meat and potatoes of every draft format. The first card is a dino with some fearsome maternal instincts.
http://i.imgur.com/F38l0phl.jpg
Most of the time she's just your average reptile, hanging with the fam. But when her herd starts raiding, she doesn't sit back, she's leading the charge! 8/8, 13/13, 20/20. Those are some serious stats, usually requiring multiple cards to deal with. If your opponent can't kill it before the end of your next turn, Herd Mother could be around for another raid trigger, growing even more. Of course, this is the ideal situation.…
Faction Primer: Dysian
Dysian has long been a popular faction pairing in draft. Can its traditional build-a-monster strategy survive in a world with Death Current? Or does NU need to shift to a more value oriented game plan.
(Mouse over section headings for definitions.)
The midrange NU deck sets itself up in much the same way as the midrange AU deck. It spends rank 1 leveling up solid bodies like , and alongside some value cards like and . It wants to win as many trades as possible and start pushing damage in multiple lanes. But where Esperian is more likely to lean towards late game power, Dysian is more likely to shift to an aggressive mid-game. and provide solid underdrop removal options to push damage past blockers while and can provide huge buffs to a…
Picking Byzerak
NT has been my favorite faction pairing for the current draft format. Here's a draft showing what sort of strategies I look for and how that influences my picks.
Game 1: I was up against an AN midrange deck that was packing a bunch of removal. They leveled two in rank 1 and was able to get really good value from them throughout the game. Between that and three, I was never able to setup my board the way I needed to. The game was close but I felt on the back foot for the majority of it. Things ended with a spectacular misplay when I tried to block lethal damage with an ...on the rank up. I was dead anyway, but it was salt in the wound of a particularly painful game.
Game 2: Another AN opponent. This time I hit plus in rank 1 then again in…
Faction Primer: Oratek
Oratek is the home of leveling extra cards and flexible mobility effects. How can we make the most of these two unique mechanics.
(Mouse over section headings for definitions.)
I think the defender archetype still has some viability in the current format despite limited access to animating effects. You just have to be a little more creative to use every part of the pig.
The main drawback of creatures with defender is that they don't apply pressure. Their big bodies make them great at beating other creatures in combat, but if you don't have any other tricks, that 8/2 is just going to sit there, ignored by your opponent. Traditionally, animating effects such as (old) , and the classic were used to turn left over defenders into threats. But w…