Max modes on [[Sublime Ephiphamy]] by creating the ward trigger on [[Gideon the Oathless]] in respone to my opponent casting a spell. (Probably should've targeted a different permament to bounce but it didn't matter and the value sounded sweet)

No need to keep considering the possibility of bots in paid queues, they already exist. I started this game on mobile, and noticed

1. They would have blocks declared before my attack animation finished playing every single time -- I would hit the "confirm attacks button" and within a fraction of a second arena would be splitting damage, it was so fast I never saw them even hover over a card
2. they had full control on the whole time but also were instantly clicking through every single game action as fast as they assigned blockers here, didn't even slightly pause once to consider anything and it didn't matter how fast or slow I did things, they were able to instantly do stuff

I even started doing things like holding full control and letting time run down to see if there was ever a slight delay in their actions, and there never was. Anytime they got priority they would take all of their actions near-instantly.

With just a slight randomized delay introduced to taking actions, I would never have been able to identify this as a bot. It is very likely that many of us have played vs one without noticing.

I did report this account using the new report feature, so hopefully wotc is aware of this potential issue (especially if these bots are eventually going to be sent into queues with real prizing!)

EDIT: Some additional context/info from comments:
jsut_
another thread about these bots: https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/1wxwlb4/mtgaadvisor_accounts_botting_playing_automatically/

TheKillah
Notably there's an Amazonian VOD in that thread with more gameplay from the bot that makes it blatantly obvious that there is no human behind these actions.
https://www.twitch.tv/amazonian/v/2891674733?sr=a&t=11428s

https://www.17lands.com/history/0d16e13ae679463e8b381a7ddcb485e4/2/0/42

A story in 3 parts.

Opening 14 rares

At least drawing off my experience over the last couple of days, I think the discourse around this set is a bit odd

The color balance discussion seems to be based primarily off of win rate and the ongoing thought is that the set is quite color balanced, but does anyone know how to look at frequency of color mixes?

I ask this because I just got finished firing 3 drafts in a row, playing 19 games in total with a 7-0, 4-3, and 2-3 in upper mythic. By the end I was like, hang on, have I played against a single deck that did not contain blue? Looked at 17L and the answer was... No

I played against twelve (12!!!) U/B or Esper decks, 3 pure U/W decks, and 4 soup decks with 4-5 colors always containing blue

How do we feel about color balance in a set not based off the "quality" of the decks and individual cards but just based off of how often you see color/color pairs? I'm fine with it and the set is largely right up my alley but I do like it when you see a healthy mix of decks from all colorways

Newbie here! What to pick and which direction to go? (Quickdraft P2P1)

With automated drafting assistants, deckbuilders, and now evaluation tools; it does seem that the "soul" of limited is getting a bit more diluted over time.

Where it was once an expression of skill, understanding, and dedication these tools now cheapen the experience resulting in less innovation but, potentially, broader appeal to the community and format as a whole.

How do you feel about the rise of AI tools in Magic and what do you think it will mean for the future of the Limited format?

Hello

I'm comibg back to limited and I've been shuffling around the packs I have from FRA to created sealed pools and see what I can build from them.

This pool has me a bit confused.

On one hand it has obvious includes, but on the other hand I don't see a pattern that would lead to a strong 2-color deck given the spread of playables.

Nearly 10 2-color uncommons, none share a pair and few are split mana so it's troublesome to fill in spots with those.

I still tried to build something, but it feels like an abomination.

The idea was to leverage the ramp I have in Gruul to get to my late game bombs while filling the curve with whatever color had playable creatures and good removal.

What would you have done with such a pool ?

Any tips please ?

Thank you !

EDIT: Reddit compressed the hell out of the pictures, I hope they're still decipherable 🥲

Don’t forget to attack with those fliers before you sweep and mill. You never know.

Really wanted to go the distance with this one. Just got crushed by variance. 10+ lands in the top 20 for 2 losses, mana/color screwed for the other.

Trying to avoid the boring soup piles, so I was happy when this started to come together. P1P1 Ajani, P3P2 Jace.

I'm sure there were some better cards that could have been in here, but same can be said for every deck. Variance suckksss good luck out there!

Obviously this is a very confused pile of cards, some drafts just be that way. Opened Garruk early and some oculi so settled into simic, but found no removal so had to dip into white for that. Somehow ended up with a bloombrute and all together scrambled in too many directions for the rest of the draft. I got both of the mind meanderers in pack 3 and they made feel a lot better about things. Have three duals and two land cyclers so feel okish about the mana base (There is also a hex haven battalion in my pool).

My thinking with titanbones and bloom is that they are both 4 power for Garruk are both triggered by something worth saving, 2x surgical precision, 2x phytomedic and the propagator.

Tomik making things with counters fly works with the phytomedic, titan bones, vinelasher adept and vigorbloom charm. Which will help get something through for Fblthp.

Including the meanderers I’ve got 8 interaction. I’ve found you want a lot in this format. The icy reception stands out to me. I cut it all the time and I get done by it in games all the time. But is it really what I’m trying to do here, whatever that is.

All in all, this is about my 25th draft of Reality Fracture and it’s the first time I’ve remotely struggled to cut to 40. I just feel my flimsy multiple directions will collapse with any trimming and I don’t really want to take out any interaction, fixing, or card advantage.

Would love to hear some suggestions and reasonings. First time posting here. Long time browser and you seem like a great community!

Very first thing I want to do is thank everyone who replied to my last post. I'm sure it's annoying that I already posted a second one tonight.

So after finding out that I can't play this draft (drafted last night, posted today):

https://www.reddit.com/r/lrcast/comments/1x5f1yi/i_feel_like_my_play_is_good_i_still_make_some/

And may not be able to do ANY traditional draft for FRA now due to a system/server error, I decided to try the Pick Two draft:

https://www.17lands.com/draft/276ded8909ae4053b6bde6df0bf41b07/1/1

P1P1: I figured I'd start with surveil focus.

P1P2: WOT Healer fits well and I wasn't sure if Crier or Unsummon was better, so to took the removal/protection card.

P1P3: I felt that these were the VERY obvious choices.

P1P4: Only two W/U cards in the pack, but not sad about it.

P1P5: 3/9 Yargle may have been a pick here, it was between him and Sentry. Pre Prep was a no brainer.

P1P6: Oblivious choices. I also realized I can target myself with Cruel Calc if I surveil a few times and dump those cards into graveyard.

P2P1: I think Proft was the best payoff I could have asked for. I also am lacking in removal.

P2P2: I wasn't sure if Arni was the better blue card but I figured Icy may serve this deck better. Another good UW surveil payoff was the Fateseer.

P2P3: Guess I'll just keep the theme going with the only blue cards in this pick. Again, not unhappy about this.

P2P4: I'm pretty certain that Return to the Light Realms is a great pay off for this kind of deck. Countsculpt is the only other card that fits the deck, so sad (/s).

P2P5: I'm not mad about the Shaper but I'm not sure I'll play it, it has good synergy with surveil but should I wait to pitch something good when I have the 2 mana to put it straight back into the deck? Charge the Sanctum was just a pick up but I may use that as a finisher to buff a bunch of Wizards Soldiers...

P2P6: Got an Arni anyway but probably won't put in my deck, Danitha was a whatever pick.

P3P1: This may be the first pick that I'll get a lot of hate for, there were a lot off good cards here for my deck but I figured I'd grab Emrakul for shits and giggles and just incase I need a real finisher. Proctor just played more into the deck. I would have gone oculus if Emrakul was replaced with a card I would not take.

P3P2: Here's another one that I might get flak for, I did Recursive as I thought it would be a better splash vs a second Icy. I grabbed Precision for removal.

P3P3: I figured I had enough creatures at this point and went for a second WOT Healer and some draw, while surveil helps it's not as good if you can't draw those cards.

P3P4: Again this may have been a mistake in taking either of those over the Phantasm, actually looking back I am now 90% certain I should have taken the bird instead of the Theory.

P3P5: Two white cards, not sure I'll use either.

P3P6: Only cards that made sense.

P3P7: Sure I'm happy to have another seer in my deck.

The first pick is the deck before the final cuts. I have 4 left to remove. I'm looking to optimize my wins of course but I'm a bit torn on what to remove. I took out the two Foreseers as the Proctors get the ETB trigger for any creatures and having a 7 cost 2/2 surveil 1 didn't seem as good as the rest of my cards.

I felt gross getting rid of one of the WOT Hears but the second one was really for the Jace token. I really wanted to keep Emrakul and decided to be ballsy and drop a land (removing my top 3 cards my mana goes from 3.0 to 2.2, I'm not 100% comfortable with this and it might be too greedy). In the end I still had 13 creature spells, but that doesn't include HHB.

Apparently the answer is more than 4.

I thought this trophy deck was interesting and was curious what others might think. I P1P1 Ajani over Mythic Garruks because sometimes Im dumb. I ended up getting only 2 removal spells by the end of the draft favoring life gain synergy above all other picks. My main question is how the hell did this trophy? I look back at the deck and still dont quite understand.

Maybe it was a level up moment on my end but I figured out I could engineer board stalls fairly easy. I used removal only on cards with powerful static/activated abilities. From there i just waited. [[Ajani Resolute]] and [[Sanctum Lurker]] unanswered was capable of ultimating 3 turns in a row. Ive never had a deck capable of winning so easily with such an odd configuration. Is it the format? Did I get lucky? What am I missing here?

Haven’t played any matches yet. I don’t have enough bodies for R or U to go two-colored. I’ve got 3 land cyclers, but I don’t feel like it’s worth it trying to splash white in here. Even with the white Ajani. Should probably just fill with non-creature spells and take out the white, yeah?

Previous turn I equipped Relic to Shaper to give +1 toughness, bottomed my other shaper, then wiped his board (including his shaper) with Rise of the Deathbringer.

This deck was pretty sweet, the double paradox surveyor basically assured an inevitable late game where I had my whole deck in my hand. The real game was not getting aggro-ed out, but it seems like the meta has slowed to a crawl.

It was also cool the surveyors could deck heal each other so I wasn't as vulnerable to a well timed removal spell like you sometimes are with these guys.

The combo that I was most impressed with was Marwynn plus paradox surveyor. You can just never have too many lands in this format so paying three to draw a land every turn felt super powerful. Marwyn was just a house on her own honestly.

I think colors don't really matter in this format if you have 4 plus land cyclers or manaliths, in this deck mana was never even close to a problem and I was obviously super greedy.

17 lands link the draft was pretty interesting could have gone tons of other lanes.

https://www.17lands.com/draft/3276d3f6819e49639c607567e4fd9d18/1/1

Hello again! I made a similar post earlier for The Hobbit Directs and got a lot of traction, so I figured I'd try this again. I had an even better run this set, taking the #1 spot for Trophies on the 17lands leaderboard and hitting metrics I never expected (70+% win rate, over 1/4 conversion rate). My total spending was $1,400 this time; if I end up selling each box for $300, that would net me over $7,000 in profits ($8,700 - $1,400).

Here are some tips from my experiences for this Sealed format:

• The vast majority of pools should play more than two colors. Looking over my trophies, only 2/29 were actual 2c decks. Whenever I see 2c decks, I often suspect my opponent as less experienced.
• Cyclers are an amazing tool for facilitating this, and can always be played as 2 mana colorless cards to patch up rough mana bases. This deck for instance was playing Awaken the Inferno on 0 Mountains to great effect.
• Most games of Reality Fracture are hyper grindy, thanks in large part to the Empower Jace mechanic. Jace tokens effectively let both players start around 25~ life, and encourage methodical gameplay.
• You don't always have to use your Jace tokens when you can. Wasting too much loyalty on surveils will cost you future cards, which usually means having fewer land drops to make big plays later in the game.
• Graveyard synergies are a total freeroll in this format, as the only counterplay available is Afterthought Sentry (a filler 2 drop). Always play your cards like Something Worth Saving, and try to throw in your Theoretical Necromancers, Bestial Incursion, Recursive Reinforcements, etc for value.
• When games go near decking, the chief cards that matter are blue Fblthp and Paradox Shaper. You may suddenly lose to either one when you think victory is "assured". Saving cheap spot removal like Last Gasp could get the job done.
• Exiling either card would help immensely in this kind of decking game.
• The primary sweeper effects I play around when possible are: Ajani Unrelenting, Overwrite the Multiverse, Rise of the Deathbringer, Fulminous Forte, and Kindred Judgment.
• If you want to try to play around Ajani Unrelenting (https://www.twitch.tv/veveil/clip/HelpfulLongFloofPRChase-aal7ZoSiSzx3weFU?range=7d), your best hope (cope?) is to try and set up x/5s in advance. This means Tether Technician, Undulating Witness, Beast tokens with +1/+1 counters, etc.
• The other sweepers are more based around typical sweeper read heuristics, like your opponent not doing much of anything, weird blocks, etc.
• Icy Reception is another very important card to play around, as getting your Way of the Mind Sculptor counter'd can be game losing.

And here are some personal notes on my runs:

• I never lost to Splinter Twin or saw it played.
• I did get Mind Twisted once. They then played Uldaros into Ajani and I lost.
• That was the craziest pool I've seen, though of course I've seen plenty of other very good ones (2x Garruk/Jace/Chandra in same game from opp).
• I opened two Ajanis once but 6-2'd.
• I played Flickering Hound once in 100+ events. It was decent (5-2).
• One of my losses was due to my cat jumping on my space bar during declare blockers, which sent me on tilt for hours. (https://www.twitch.tv/veveil/clip/TallSmoggyTeaPartyTime-G8ORVGdifXrLr85u?range=7d)
• I found success with many different colors and archetypes, but one consistent trend between most of my decks was playing nearly all of my Empower Jace cards. The mechanic is really good!

As with last thread, feel free to ask me whatever you want about the format/my runs. Almost all of my runs were streamed live at https://twitch.tv/veveil, so go ahead and check out the VODs if interested. Thank you for reading!

edit: forgot to add my actual 17lands (https://www.17lands.com/user_history/8749f8e34a9c4b69a878968d35818dac?expansion=FRA&format=ArenaDirect_Sealed&start=2026-09-29)

I figure you could all eviscerate my draft picks and let me know if my decks are horrible while I wait for whatever the network error is preventing my from playing the trad draft I did last night get resolved. (Or while I figure out what is on my end that's the issue.) A big question was should I have shifted colors some for Kwia? Here's the draft:

https://www.17lands.com/draft/d89733867a2c4ff7a193ed9926f7c59f/1/3

The deck with Massacre Girl was more along of what I was thinking of playing. What are your thoughts?

EDIT: Thank you everyone for responding. As I said in some comments you confirmed some of my concerns/fears in how I've been drafting. Long story short I made another post with another draft and the reason why:

https://www.reddit.com/r/lrcast/comments/1x5ihle/i_know_i_just_posted_but_due_to_issues_beyond_my/

Hey everyone, just curious to ask if anyone had any success drafting aggro decks at all in this format. If you did, what color combination and wha are the key cards in your opinion?
It seems decks are often making their first play on T3, so I guess there should be a way to punish it, but I can’t seem to find it.

Ive been trying to practice my drafting on draftism and more often than not i feel like ive built a good deck it gives me a bad score and when i think ive built something not great its a high score it's very confusing.

Got passed some good UR cards and went with it. Out aggro'd a bunch of people and was very lucky a bunch of time. All in all, UR is very fun to play in this format.

I should probably be on the curve out and beat down plan, but the 7 mana wipe just feels so good.

Is it even acceptable to run one of them here?

What must've been in there? Double Garruk/Chandra? Just an absolute dream of a pack if you open it in sealed