Lords of Limited

We're sending off MID the only way we know how with 50 takes in 50 minutes! What were the highs and the lows of this format? How did the gold uncommons match up against each other? What made the gameplay so intricate? Plus, some rare Ethan salt stories from the Draft Challenge on Arena!

This week we're returning to Ben's concept of Synergy Theory and looking at MID limited under that lens! Drafting "decks not cards" is harder than it sounds, so we're here to help by looking at cards interacting with mechanics, their own color, other colors, and their strategy compatibility. Original Episode: https://www.lordsoflimited.com/episodes/synergy-theory-episode-174 Ethan's Survivor Podcast: https://comeoninsurvivors.libsyn.com/

High stakes limited play is back with the opening day drafts at the World Championship! Ben & Ethan break down the two featured drafters, PVDDR and Seth Manfield, and go pick by pick in their two difficult seats! PVDDR: https://magicprotools.com/draft/show?id=sN9NGcXduyr6zNYUKWrOIf9uH-w Seth: https://magicprotools.com/draft/show?id=yRCun5IyEgAk_OPecwKQjSeffiQ Between Packs: https://imgur.com/a/HekvYlC

For the October Bonus Episode, your hosts are diving into the MID Team Draft vs Team Resources, where they went right, where they went wrong, and what the takeaways are for next time! Drafts and Decks: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRlU_HNo44kWEMx0EyTWNXKUWuBRY3XoLXgGwwmVC_dC31FN9wxyNIHNS4eevhM7wMDYL_gX5biZSWj/pub

This week we're exploring all that MID's most misunderstood color has to offer. Even though Red is the worst color, it's nowhere near Blue in AFR, and actually has a lot of play to it if you unlock its secrets. Shout out to Ryan Saxe for his help with this episode! Draft Log 1: https://www.17lands.com/draft/c3d93a02bb6b43f6a03cbd89df0494f3 Draft Log 2: https://www.17lands.com/draft/18816aa58e6f4c47b9c855bf1a3e6067

Ethan's return to the podcast has him trying his best to catch-up on the format and pick Ben's brain with a lot of questions. We then discuss a general approach to navigating drafts in MID and put that into practice with a couple of roundtable deep dives! Draft Log 1: https://www.17lands.com/draft/e065cca5d4bf40b6b807f704941c9145 Draft Log 2: https://www.17lands.com/draft/d3d3c43747354934820ccf205a9dde0b

Episode 228 is here after the first weekend of playing with Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, and we've broken the format wide open. Dimir Zombies is the best deck in the format, and it is hungry for brains! We go over the big picture concepts of how to win in the format, overperforming cards, and rerank the top commons. Don't miss out on the opportunity to get a big edge on your competition this week!

We're welcoming in the newest limited format the only way we know how to on LOL: The Crash Course! Join us as we look through big picture concepts like creatures vs. removal, archetype support, incidental lifegain, flying and of course our top commons and uncommons in each color! Grading Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQyvruGHlT3yRFp029_TewlLlHjxnLWXjWscKIdisMd-I-JBGLzLMfJnq4nAv6vbI94zR5X1Qeh_5CN/pubhtml

With Innistrad: Midnight Hunt right around the corner, your hosts are taking a deep dive on all the commons and uncommons previewed so far to try to get a sense of what to expect from this upcoming draft format in terms of mechanics, archetypes, build arounds, and more!

We're kicking off September with our monthly bonus episode dedicated entirely to the newly redesigned Tinkerer's Cube on MTGA! This cube captured the hearts and imaginations of both your hosts immediately and we're here to share everything we know about winning and having fun in this extremely well designed limited environment! Roundtable: https://www.17lands.com/draft/aff2b89d54fd47a590c701c0a243785f

We're sending Adventures in the Forgotten Realms off in classic LOL fashion with our 50 Takes episode! What were our biggest takeaway from the format? Just how busted was Rakdos? What did 17lands data teach us? How did Venturing shake out? These questions and more answered in this 50 point rundown!

For our August Bonus Episode, we're joined by Data Scientist and Limited aficionado Carl AKA TwoDuckCubed! With the rise of data in the MTG Limited world, we wanted a chance to air our concerns and frustrations and put Data in the hot seat with Carl as its appointed defense attorney. Let the trial begin!

With Adventures in the Forgotten Realms almost on the outs, we return to a LOL staple and look at a bunch of "What's the Play" situations from various games in the AFR Draft Challenge Event on MTGA. Play Along at Home: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQcqxasMPCepNTuVNz49qNBl5PXbchgX7ti5yceeHKuiR4fnjC4cjEO97AgjJM-zKDttStp0UCfCx-R/pub

Your hosts are back with an early mid-week episode to bring you up to speed on the newest MTGA announcement for limited players! From August 10-26, Arena is bringing back Amonkhet Remastered, Kaladesh Remastered, and Ikoria for 5 days each and is giving everyone a free draft entry for each format! Want to know how to win in each of these complex sets? Tune in and find out!

This week we're running back our Pass/Fail style episode, this time exploring all 6 non-blue decks in AFR; what are the strategies for each archetype, do they have multiple builds, and what are the overall takeaways for success in the format? Listen and find out! Decks Discussed: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQw1DtFy9Zsk5GInHZx0nOp6QymVKOoRBChaYkf1-PogyRLktEdUhnsqffYri69YbOM8bRzmFzjw56D/pub

It's that time again: another review of a Lords & Chord Vs. Resources Team Draft! Follow along with your hosts as they take a look at all 6 draft logs and decks, where they may have gone wrong, and what pivotal picks dictated the wins and losses for each team! Play along at home: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTMb2jNe24S0VMqT-gaykaoxl5bnjNende-H-xwUaVVj3iiSAbg1wLxLkhIdq0FxFTbK-5SeCk-hmN8/pub

Our July Bonus Episode has us looking at all 17 limited formats since starting the podcast and ranking them from worst to best! Take a trip down memory lane with us as we discuss the best deck in each set, what worked, what didn't, and which sets fully inhabited the 8 characteristics of a great limited format!

This week we're examining the outcast of Adventures in the Forgotten Realms: Blue. What are the reasons to draft and (more importantly) what are the reasons to not draft this color? What other colors does it pair best with and how should you be thinking about the commons and uncommons this color has to offer? Answers to all these questions and more in this episode! Roundtable: https://www.17lands.com/draft/adc76c5e6a704b37b058e5a0fc2debb3

It seems that in Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, aggro is the name of the game. With so many mechanics and cards that can snow ball from a fast start, how can you combat these tier 1 aggressive strategies? That's exactly what we're here to discuss this week. What cards and archetypes are best when battling the red menace and what are they keys to beating aggro in AFR? Look no further than this episode! Roundtable: https://www.17lands.com/draft/f5a73fb9510b4f7cab7452bdf237b450

With a weekend full of drafts under their belts, your hosts are here to give you as much info as possible on AFR to help you get a critical hit on your next draft. In this episode, we take a look at re-evaluating dungeons and venture, speed of the format, what decks and colors we've been winning with, and re-ranking the top commons! AFR Tier List: https://www.lordsoflimited.com/tier-list LOL Merch: https://www.lordsoflimited.com/merch

With only a day to spare before the release of Adventures in The Forgotten Realms, your hosts are here with their Crash Course episode to get you as prepared as possible! We take a look at how creatures size up against removal, the different mechanics and how often they show up, card grading differences, and top commons and uncommons for each color! Grading Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vR-K4xP3k3EAl4OR8ygV_Wbk00OpUQ2Y1Lco6q9aPd7W_WGLf8Sb-X1RJVwD64DLxRWTlrDpZo79qvX/pubhtml

Our June bonus episode is here with an in-depth look at the new Chromatic Cube on MTG Arena. There is a definite recipe for success in this format and it's not like anything we've seen in Arena Cubes before. If you're looking to trophy your next Cube draft, this is one episode you won't want to miss! LOL Merch @ Teepublic: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/lords-of-limited?ref_id=23850&utm_campaign=23850&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=Lords%2Bof%2BLimited

Your hosts are here to send off Strixhaven the only way we know how to on Lords of Limited: The 50 Takes Episode! Official LOL Power rankings, Learn/Lesson and why it was so busted, The Golden Egg Award, Surprise Reach, and more all packed in to this episode bidding farewell to the semester at STX! Merch at TeePublic: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/lords-of-limited?ref_id=23850&utm_campaign=23850&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=Lords%2Bof%2BLimited

This week we're talking Team Draft and reviewing all 6 drafts and decks from the 4th installment of the Lords vs. Resources Showdown: MH2 Edition! Follow Along: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQd-QgI5x81RaEv_hG0r1ElreJ6iDQtujlpOho63INMR57bPU9HR293nVqRd4h3U4zgeRv9YOQ8iTC5/pub LOL Merch @ TeePublic: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/lords-of-limited?ref_id=23850&utm_campaign=23850&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=Lords%2Bof%2BLimited https://shop.channelfireball.com/collections/booster-box-sale

With over a week of MH2 drafts under their belts, your hosts are here to dump as much info as possible on this incredibly synergistic set! What are the archetypes trying to do? What are the best uncommons and top commons in the set? What have we been winning with? All these questions and more answered on this jam-packed episode!

As the days of drafting Strixhaven come to a close, we take the opportunity this week to look at which archetypes passed the test of this format and which ones failed. How were the best decks built, what led to less functional versions of each college, and where did they fall on the spectrum of aggro to control? Decks Examined: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRzmEnbFvA39peE-jFms8k7tjrAcoCgdh7XTXGzBzIEg2L4ty9OekX8WYVPrCoWmfPucYzXdk5KAWAp/pub

We've got a lot of homework this week for the students at Strixhaven with our "What's the Play?" episode! We walk through a handful of "Keep or Mulligan" decisions as well as some in-game scenarios to show you how and why we're making the plays we make during our games of limited in STX. We also reveal our free preview cards for Modern Horizons 2 courtesy of WOTC! Play along at home: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSIoUS6ONPbHy9EnQd6Y5akIp1lRmYX8BCX4LT1DCuIPjcaTE6PhMLhqYrbuO75wuQQJLvkmRYNeZpE/pub

This week, we're going through not one but TWO entire draft logs from our time in Strixhaven Limited. We break down the reasoning behind each pick, the different elements we're juggling as we progress through the draft, and what the final build for each deck looks like! Ben's Draft: https://www.17lands.com/draft/6019342090944d7ba900c772f571ce23 Ethan's Draft: https://www.17lands.com/draft/0940f15b72d94672818e7f6b00d6630f

For our May Bonus Episode, we sit down with one of the founders of and current Chief Marketing Officer for ChannelFireball.com, Mashi Scanlan! We ask Mashi about a number of topics including the origin story of CFB, leaving his job as a lawyer behind, what is important for making good content, and if the current MTG Boom is sustainable. We loved this unique opportunity to hear from someone who's been in the content game from its inception! Support the show at: patreon.com/lordsoflimited

Now that we're a month into our semester at Strixhaven, we're ready to hand out Gold Stars and Demerits to our big overperformers and underperformers. Where did we go wrong in our evaluations? What cards have surprised us the most? And where have we landed on the top commons for each college? All this and more in this week's episode! Roundtable: https://www.17lands.com/draft/31b77ca2e17540abb03a1ad8bce9630d

It's lecture time on Lords of Limited this week with a huge focus on the headliner mechanic from Strixhaven: Learn/Lesson. We discuss why Lessons are so important, how they should affect your draft and pick order, when to grab which one when in different situations, and how certain Learn cards stack up against the top commons in their respective colors. There's a lot to "learn" from this episode, so you won't want to miss it! Roundtable: https://www.17lands.com/draft/6beca2d308d540d3b645e39edadc9625

With the upcoming MTG Arena Sealed Open, your hosts have only one thing on their mind: a $2,000 cash prize! That's why this week we're talking all things Strixhaven Sealed, from overarching heuristics, to individual card overperformers and everything in between! Sealed Pool: https://sealeddeck.tech/2W7SmOEA4d Ethan's Build: https://sealeddeck.tech/17lands/deck/7fac91e3c35249d1a19a8792654b3d62/0 Ben's Build: https://sealeddeck.tech/Gb21lIcyND

As with any "guild" style set, it's incredibly important to try and find the open draft lane in Strixhaven. This week we're talking about all the considerations for changing majors in this format and put our discussions into practice with two draft logs reviews. Draft 1: https://www.17lands.com/draft/cc5bbd1f251b40c1b8daed302139e627 Draft 2: https://www.17lands.com/draft/dd36d411a1c848b7b8c9c9f4cc772438 Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/lordsoflimited

With a full weekend of drafting under their belt, your hosts are here to give you our first impressions of what Strixhaven Limited has to offer. We discuss our thoughts on Learn/Lessons, Magecraft (aka Bencraft), review all 5 colleges, specific over/under performers, and finish things off with a roundtable! Draft Log: https://www.17lands.com/draft/aa1248aaa9b8468da6f5174601030401

For our 200th (and second bonus) episode, we decide to shake things up on Lords of Limited. This week, your hosts are getting to know each other better with a back and forth interview style show to peel back the curtain and understand more about the men behind the Magic!

It's the first day of class and your hosts are here with a full syllabus ready to go! We talk through tons of big picture statistics for the upcoming format, then go through our biggest grading disagreements, and finish off with top commons/uncommons for each of the 5 colleges! Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRz-R6UwZ6xRWMuLz3PREPlvJAKY6wpq0oxS3Iaqt01m-Glou2VRYlzIHE49hZA2vH6yy5pY5tSWhiC/pubhtml

With the full Strixhaven Spoiler here a week early, your hosts are jumping right in to the deep end with predictions on what the archetype skeletons will look like for each of the five colleges in the upcoming set. This will be a great companion piece to next week's crash course episode and will help you to start thinking about these cards in the context of each deck, not just in a vacuum. Enjoy!

Your hosts are back again this week to send off Kaldheim in proper Lords of Limited fashion with another installment of "50 Takes in 50 Minutes." We've got a bunch of LoL official power rankings, the double-edged dichotomies of the format, cards that rose and fell in our estimation over the lifetime of KHM, and much more!

Your hosts are back with one of their favorite episode styles: What's the Play? Kaldheim has a ton of interesting decisions from Keep or Mulligans, tap land sequencing, when to deploy card draw spells, and so much more. In this episode we explain our thought process through navigating a number of opening hands and in-game decisions. Play along at home: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRmXKC3oIWV5PcmSYCx_QQcEt1XeyxGEtgvUiEfujZL6YUyypuOrx5NgCqdDEb4YCjhGJIAGYUibPZV/pub

Our first monthly bonus episode is here with your hosts sitting down with known streamer, memer, and mythic drafter Deathsie! We discuss a wide range of topics including Best-of-1 vs. Best-of-3, how MTG pulled Deathsie back into full time streaming, how he innovates and iterates on a format, and, of course, Goldvein Pick! twitch.tv/deathsie twitter.com/deathsie

Getting tired of these snow pun episode titles? We sure aren't! This week we're looking at two full draft logs, one where getting deeper into a color almost goes too far and one where snow seems like it could be the open lane for once...or is it? Draft 1: https://www.17lands.com/draft/791d7f068555423ba86b61b2d6a62829 Draft 2: https://www.17lands.com/draft/d78bb92f90bd4ddc89b59ec09d44a270

Kaldheim is one the most complex limited formats we've ever seen, which makes navigating the drafts incredibly difficult. Avoiding a trainwreck in KHM is one of the most important skills you can acquire to have consistent and positive results and that's exactly what we're here to help with this week! Roundtable: https://www.17lands.com/draft/c7dce993e86a4cba94e65f44ec303bb2

Boros is the name of the game this week on Lords of Limited. Your hosts look at everything this color pair has to offer, the range of possibilities from aggro to control, and how they're navigating their way into this strong and flexible archetype! Draft Log 1: https://www.17lands.com/draft/9ad29c0c8d2046a5bab9189405a90741 Draft Log 2: https://www.17lands.com/draft/457fb344b28f41ce86289370f8d18b1a

After a ton of preparation for the Arena Sealed Open, your hosts are back to talking about what they know best: draft! They take a chance to check in on how the metagame has shifted on the BO1 Ladder and then dive in to four different draft logs to show how they're currently navigating Kaldheim! Draft 1: https://www.17lands.com/draft/e233df8c616c44da86f9192e7a5473c9 Draft 2: https://www.17lands.com/draft/534cc6f03ff94e89883503eed2105aaf Draft 3: https://www.17lands.com/draft/975808a93ea34d78863bbfed9d8f344d Draft 4: https://www.17lands.com/draft/806d47fc5f294e118664261ce19b706a

With the Arena Open and Sealed MCQ around the corner, your hosts dive deep into the world of Kaldheim Sealed to get you prepped to win that $2,000 prize! We discuss big picture thoughts, the biggest changes from draft to sealed, and even walk through a sealed pool build that you can play along with at home! Sealed Pool: https://www.17lands.com/pool/9f9f679884004aee8f8ed8401c912436

The power level of the commons in Kaldheim is extremely flat, and figuring out the best home for each of them can give you a real leg up on the competition. That's why we're here this week to discuss the considerations for every single common in Kaldheim and where they'll each perform at their best! Roundtable: https://www.17lands.com/draft/6e732a8620b14fc7a62bcc47d06fce59

Fresh off of a weekend full of KHM drafts (and a victory in the Lords vs Resources Rematch), your hosts are here with as much of an info dump as possible on how to win in this super complex format! From big picture questions to why you're not taking snow lands high enough, biggest over and underperformers, the top commons in the set and more! We've got you covered on how to trophy your next draft!

Your hosts are back for their patented Crash Course style episode to welcome Kaldheim in to the spotlight! You can expect all the usual content to get you primed and ready for your first drafts of this format: creature vs. removal stats, mechanic and archetype support, card disagreements, common and uncommon rankings, and more! You won't want to miss this breakdown of this incredibly complex set! Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSf0lXRDLEejjgG3vsJ_EiaY_zMEaggNskyuSXlbilRZCfz_jC6smKWD2jyDqkg-qVDXw2s0Me216a5/pubhtml

With spoiler season in full swing, your hosts are this week to discuss as many commons and uncommons as we can get our hands on! We look at new and returning mechanics, speculate on how they might play out in the limited environment, return to our "great or garbage" segment, and more in this hour packed with KHM content!

This week we're breaking down all the different ways your drafts can start and what possible routes you can take after a given P1p1. From "The Gold Rush" to "The Trainwreck" and everything in between, these blueprints are just what you need to help navigate your next draft! Plus, we've got Ben's free preview card for Kaldheim courtesy of WOTC! CFB Kaldheim Release Party: https://shop.channelfireball.com/pages/kaldheim-release-party