What do people think will be the best color combinations post torment? I think G/B will get much stronger, G/U will remain powerful but hard to draft, and R/B will also get much better because of the large amount of common removal.
White looks really weak with only 3 resonable common creatures and green looks like it will be weakned but will still be pretty strong as the common creatures are mostly pretty good. Mono black is probably not a possibility, but mostly black with just a splash of another color could be really good.
I plan to do two or three drafts at the prerelease Saturday and as many as i can within the first few days of it's official release so I will report to you guys with what seems to be strong. Thanks alot!
Amos
Well, I was working on different combinations, and in a tor-tor-tor draft, I find that blue/black to be very strong. The 4 playable blue drawing spells (I love breakthrough) tend to overpower the opponent... and black has enough "bombs" that you should be able to find them. The recur spells are incredibly powerful, along with blues discard.
Black will be overdrafted though. The pool of playable black cards is still about the same, but there are a lot more "bad" chaff that doesn't have really good synergy. However, there are a lot more black bombs at the same time. Stuff like cabal torturer is unbelievable, along with other commons like carrion rats, organ grinder and soul scourge... well, its very very playable. Still, if half the table is drafting it, there aren't *that* many good cards to go around. Hard to depend on the first three packs for all your black picks.
UG is hopeless in a tor-tor-tor draft (normally the format at the pre-release), but the ods-ods-tor drafts, I would name it the strongest, still. Blue got more card drawing, more threshold gimicks, and lets face it, madness can only help it.
Red got a huge boost, but unless you manage to get RB with cards like Pardic Collaborator (wow!), your going to have problems with creatures. Its removal is good though.
The green enchantment (narcissism) that reads "g, discard a card: creature you control gets +2/+2" is unbelievably good. I would say this card is probably the best boost to green stompy... The fact you can sac it!? Unbelievable. The blue, white and red one are also amazingly good. The white one is limited in scope, and the red random part makes it very hard to use effectively but the blue one is also very powerful. If it didn't have the 1U activation cost, it would be broken... but it is hard to use it a lot and still cast out. Late game, however, it is simply a breaker.
White and green, despite some really good cards, don't have enough depth in Tor-tor-tor. The cards are simply not there to depend on. The rares are very good, and some green others are pretty good, but not enough to build a deck around.
I'm going to be drafting UB at the pre-release, if I draft then... I'm hoping for a better sealed this time around!
Green/Blue should be a very solid bet overall. I expect many players to overreact and try to cut off black for torment, and blue seems to easily be torment's second deepest colour. Tons more threshold and more great flyers. Meanwhile G/U has solid synergy and green should be easier to get.
The big difference here is that I am suddenly as turned off of red as I have ever been (early impression, havent drafted it much).
In my mind, you should not be drafting W or G unless you pair them with a colour strong in odyssey (U or B), and i would say the same of red since it still has few efficient creatures, but it tends to pair up poorly with both blue and black.
I expect top combinations in OD OD TR to be
G/U
B/U (Both colours are reasonable in both sets and have good symmetry. Not my preferred approach but powerful. May get you into fights with neighbours)
W/U (expect white to be underdrafted leaving very deep odyssey picks, but you need to get your torment blue, 'cos the white is awful)
B/G
R/G (on the pure strength of green's aggresion and the multitude of red burn. Place a premium on fast, not big).
Overall, the only combination I would try to force for Odyssey torment is blue white, and only because it is the easiest one to force and has solid symmetry. Any of the others could get cut off, as Black, Green, and Blue are all colours that some players will find very strong, making White the easiest one to get a piece of. W/B will be respectable as well, but tends to have an 'identity crisis'.
how about B/G has anyone tried that? I remember some of my best drafts were in Inv Pln Apoc drafting B/G/r. looking over the two sets and thinking about the types of creatures and common tricks it seems like a B/G deck could be really powerful with the right mix of removal/pump and Fat creatures.
My reasoning is that G is the consensous strongest color in Oddessy and B looks like the strongest color in Torment, and Oddessy black isn't bad and is often underdrafted. You could concievably get a really powerful deck with lots of removal and good creatures. Just a thought, i'm prolly gonna try it at the prerelease.
Amos
I drafted B/R today in a tor+tor+tor draft and ending up winning, going 6-0. Of course I got Nantuko Shade, Hell-Bent Raider and Devastating Dreams alone with a Pardic Collaborator, but still, the other cards were very useful.
One thing I'd like to think about is how to get the right kind of black if you're drafting black. It's like there are subgroupings in the color.
Because of the amount of black, there are definate "groupings" of power. The problem is that it is only one pack.
It is also very hard to splash most of the cards that are worth playing in torment black, so you often have to fight through ODS for the black, which can be very weak.
The only two ODS-ODS-TOR Bx drafts I would consider forcing from the start would be BR and BU. BR gets a huge removal push from red in ODS, and U gets increadible drawing power (Breakthrough + organ grinder is good, btw =) ). Also of note are the new 1/3 blue guys, which are very powerful in stalling against rushes. Even against a wild mongrel, 90% of the time they can't attack (they discard a card, then you switch power/toughness, and they have to pitch another, for instance). Black also gets the board sweepers this time... the 1 damage madness does not have great synergy with red, but the -2/-2 flashback certainly does. Also, U and R both have the most broken pumpers... Since UB and RB are mandatory for playing them, you have a fairly good chance of being passed one.
GB doesn't have as much synergy. For instance, a lot of the black board control takes a while to get going, and often eats up threshold. The green creatures that don't need threshold are also expensive, making it very hard to get a decent manacurve. GR got a push though, with rootwalla and narcissism (god that card is good) especially.
However, GU is still my top-tier, with the addition of compulsion, rootwalla, and other threshold tricks (even the rampant growth for three!). It also got some good stall (early game), and some more card drawing. Compulsion is amazing, and again you get narcissism. The fliers are still quite good, but blue doesn't gain much in common or uncommon creatures, except for the aquamoeba. Skywing rules the air in Tor-Tor-Tor and are still really good in ODS, but there are too many avenflocks and kroshan archers to depend on them.
I said i'd report after the prerelease and i was a little late (read 4 days) but here i am.
I did three drafts at the prerelease, two 3x torment, which i really don't like because everyone is either playing black or playing to beat black. I drafted 3 stern judges in one of the drafters (one of only 2 white mages at the table) and i ended up winning the draft pretty easily with W/R which looks like a weak color combination early but i didn't want to draft black as i could tell it was being drafted heavily by both my neighbor's. I lost my next draft in the 1st round with a B/R deck that never really got the tools to come together. I didn't get quite as many quality creatures as i needed and didn't open or get passed any bombs. I had a ton of removal, but nothing great for dealing damage.
The third draft i did was Oddessy Oddessy Torment and was a very difficult draft indeed as i was seated next to two PT players (including Neil Reeves who just top 8'd San Diego) and i had to play David Williams (the draft was unsanctioned) 1st round. I thought i drafted quite a strong deck. I opened overrun in my first pack and got some strong red so i was a r/g mage through the first 2 packs. Then i got passed a Stern Judge (theme?) as like the third pick in the 3rd pack and decided that that was a good enough reason to splash as i had already taken a couple of other good white cards that came to me late (second Thoughts, Aegis of Honor). Needless to say, Williams rolled me first round in two strait games as i was unable to deal with his superior creatures and removal (he played G/R also) basically, i would drop like a cartographer and he would drop a mongrel then a leaf dancer and i could never recover. I also had some mana issues that his petravark didn't help out. The second game i was able to mount a bit of an offense with some squirril tokens and early mad dog but he was able to drop a fatty pretty quickly and my mad dog bit it while he burned my squirrils and swung.
Overall, i'd say that 2x Oddessy 1x Torment is very difficult to draft and that i'd like to force a deck that has either a lot of removal or a lot of high toughness creatures as almost all removal in the two sets is toughness based. Also, i would value the ability to gain and maintain threashold and manage your graveyard very important and it makes playing suboptimal cards like careful study very useful. That's all for now, when my torment boxes come in i'll have a lot more for you all.
Amos
There an awful lot of bears in WG and white does have good removal and green has some strong beatdown and the fact that they are under drafted is real good. I had some succes with stern judges the other day.
When drafting ody, ody, tor, you have to force your colors. IMHO blue/black with maybe a small splash is the way to go if you wanna win. I've drafted with players that have been on the pro tour and win consistantly playing blue/black. Oddy's black isnt that bad dont be afraid to take very early afilicts, partiarch's desires, and ghastly demises. also dont get suckered in to changing your colors before you get to torment because there'll be late hallowed healers and other quailty white green and maybe a little red. IT WONT BE WORTH TO DRAFT THOSE CARDS TAKE THE REMOVAL. Then once you get to torment it really easy and you'll be glad u stayed in your colors.
People are really underdrafting all the good card drawing in Oddysey, so I usually end up with 1 Words of Wisdom, 2 Careful Study, 2 Deep Analysis, and 1-2 Obsessive search, plus first pick of any good cards in Blue, and any bombs in any colors. I usually have the above, plus a little splash in black or red for removal (grisly demise, last rites, waste away, flame burst, flaming gambit, firebolt, etc) plus some white (teroh's vanguard, hallowed healer hypochondria, etc). This seems to work out. THis is what I remember from last friday.
2 Obsessive search
2 Deep analysis
1 Careful study
1 words of wisdom
1 Churning eddy
1 grisly demise
1 last rites
2 Hypochondria
1 Waste Away
3 skywing aven
2 hydromorph gull
1 aquamoeba
1 Aboshan, Cephalid emperor
1 Llawan, cephalid she-bitch
1 Hallowed healer
1 Angelic Wall
1 Teroh's Vanguard
Land, no non basics
this was pretty balanced, but a couple of things it has a hard time with, like BR control. It'd need shelter to deal with that, but you increasingly don't get shelter, so whatever. The 3 skywing avens and 2 hydromorph gulls were really good, and normally you won't get them as early as I did.
Oh, I got a circular liogic too, which was really REALLY good with all the cards I could dump (and wanted to).
3 Skywing Aven... THAT'S broken. About the other cards. Carefull Study is only really good in a deck with lots of madness cards or in a deck that needs treshold, but is a solid 23rd card in most other decks. Also, IMO Words of Wisdom is just a 23rd card, it's not that good since you use up resources but gain no card advantage. Still, tell me where you play to get such cards, I mean 3(!) Skywing Avens (prolly in the top 3-5 commons in the whole set) 2 Gulls, the legends and two Hypochondrias... that's just sick...