Theros Beyond Death will soon be back to Premier Draft queues. What is the format about, what are the archetypes about and what does the data say about the winning strategies? Speed of the format, best cards in draft and how to avoid pitfalls of THB draft. All in a manageable 2 hour chunk.
Check the YouTube recording of it to see any graphs that are hard to imagine in the audio-only format: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWorMx1f4wo
Find all things Sierkovitz: https://linktr.ee/sierkovitz
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#39 - Theros Beyond Death Resurrected

Magic Numbers is a podcast about Limited format in Magic: the Gathering. The idea is to use data to try to crack current format, or try to answer longstanding questions in Magic and by answering the questions making the listeners better at drafting, deckbuilding and general strategy. The target audience is intermediate to advanced players, but rest assured, determined beginners will also find useful information that will allow them to level up. The podcast is an audio version of my Twitch seminars, so if some parts are confusing, it was designed to be watched on YouTube or live on Twitch.

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This week me and Alex, AKA Chord_o_Calls, come back to our prerelease predictions of the OTJ set. We evaluated every card then - but how did our predictions pan out? 


This review is not design to pat ourselves on the back - we focus on mistakes and try to figure out why we made them. Do we have one-off issue or is there some systematic bias in how we assess the cards. 


This episode is key if you want to improve in card evaluation - might be useful with MH3 on the horizon. Yes. I went there. 


Alex is one of the leading limited brains on this planet. If you don't follow him or his podcast - Limited Level-Ups - you are missing out. Check out his YT to learn more!




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Watch this episode and see the slides: 
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#120 - OTJ set re-review with Chord_o_Calls

Some draft archetypes are relatively straightforward. This will naturally mean that the data related to those archetypes will be of high quality as people are playing right cards in those decks. 

But some color pairs turn out to be more elusive for Arena users. And this means that a lot of the data related to those archetypes is based on badly built decks, which will underestimate the color pair's power in the generic datasets, leading to players undervaluing the color pair.

This is an exploit you can use to gain some edge in the late season by evaluating the power of color pairs correctly. And data can help. Here I use data to figure out the plans for each color pair and then use it to identify cards essential for few undervalued color pairs.

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You can get the BulkBox at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.bulkbox.co.uk/store/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount!
If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.

Watch this episode and see the slides: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5OzX00hMn0


Theme song: You Do You, Mana Junkie by essesq (c) copyright 2020 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/essesq/61332⁠






#119 - Figuring game plans using data

Ikoria is coming back to Arena for a week. It is my favourite draft format of all the ones I played. The definition and a gold standard of a high synergy format, fun, unique in so many ways - I would not be myself if I didn’t preach its merits. And there are so many. Hopefully after listening to this bonus episode you can try it and learn that it has so much more to offer than the common knowledge suggests. 
What is the Ikoria philosophy? What are its features? How to tame the micro synergies? How to master the macro-synergies? And what are some of my favourite build-arounds in the set of 1000 build-arounds.

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You can get the BulkBox at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.bulkbox.co.uk/store/⁠⁠⁠⁠ if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount!
If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.

Watch this episode and see the slides: https://youtu.be/zdYuGdWLxqg

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Bonus: How to Draft Ikoria on Arena

This episode we look at the pack composition of OTJ play boosters. How many rares are there acually? What is the common frequency and how often do you get the cards from each of the many bonus sheets? 

On top of that - How should we approach pack one? Is sticking to one color a sustainable strategy? Should you diversify? 

And we look at the most attractive wheel targets, which also sheds some light on the most underdrafted archetypes.

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This podcast is sponsored by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠mtgazone.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - get your reading fix from the best and brightest Magic writers in the business.

You can get the BulkBox at ⁠⁠⁠https://www.bulkbox.co.uk/store/⁠⁠⁠ if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount!
If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.

Watch this episode and see the slides: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s76bxbfC2I


Theme song: You Do You, Mana Junkie by essesq (c) copyright 2020 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/essesq/61332

#118 - Drafting OTJ

Some strategies in draft are easier to reproduce at any skill level than others. In this episode I look at the cards, color pairs and strategies that top 17Lands.com users mastered but the general population still struggles with. What are the secrets of the best players? How do they build the decks others struggle with?

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You can get the BulkBox at ⁠⁠https://www.bulkbox.co.uk/store/⁠⁠ if you are in the UK. Remember to use SIERKO10 code for a 10% discount!
If you are outside of UK, you can find your local distributor on the BulkBox website.

Watch this episode and see the slides: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZhbzd_R4Aw

Theme song: You Do You, Mana Junkie by essesq (c) copyright 2020 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/essesq/61332




#39 - Theros Beyond Death Resurrected

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