#157: Data goes to Pro Tour; Limited meeting for Team Cosmos
Mr Sierkovitz goes to Vegas - in spirit only. I teamed up with Team Cosmos to help them in their Pro Tour prep and you can now see how it went. PT prep needs to be fast and efficient - as there are only few days between the set release and the competition. So this hypercondensed seminar goes through all cards in the set and tries to put as much context as possible in as little time as possible. We go through general power, but also look at best homes for each card is applicable. Working with legends of the game is easy as they will use their own judgement in the best way possible but not all Pros are Limited specialists so I made sure that the talk is also useful to an average Arena player - so if you want to get a good overview of the format - look no further. It is probably the fastest set review ever and a useful one at that as it is not based on uncertainties before the release but on data driven approaches, albeit based on imperfect early data. Bunch of caveats apply - I tried to highlight as many as possible, but use caution all through, particularly for rarer cards where sample size is still relatively small. Thanks to Team Cosmos - it was great to take part in their prep and see the inner workings of a pro team and observe some masters at work. -Ping me for coaching. Join the Discord, sign up for Patreon, and use this Linktree for everything else! Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #157 vidThis 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 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
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1:37:33
#156: Early 17Lands.com draft data for Final Fantasy
New set is here, and Final Fantasy looks from the early days like a potential all-timer for us limited folks. And getting into the nitty gritty of it should start with getting some fundamentals - what colors look good (spoiler - all of them), which color pairs should you be playing (spoiler - also all of them) and which cards overperform (spoiler - ok - not all of them, for this you need to watch the episode). I look through each color pair and try to find what is best, what is under-explored but good and warn you of any traps for more successful drafting. -Ping me for coaching. Join the Discord, sign up for Patreon, and use this Linktree for everything else! Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #156 vidThis 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 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.
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1:34:31
155: Final Fantasy Draft Skeletons
I am joined by a motley crew of Limited sickos for our eccentric deck-centric set review. We look at some basic info about the upcoming Final Fantasy set and then present our deck skeletons - 40 card functional? decks in each color pair in order to showcase what we think is going to be good in the format. We look at cards in context, as pieces of a synergistic whole, to try and think beyond raw card power. My guests this week are Tresio, Springbok7 and SamP - all Limited fans, all great drafters. They debate and discuss their builds with me playing the role of a moderator and an annoying nitpicker. A role I do truly love.You can find Tresio athttps://x.com/TresioSpringbok7 at https://www.twitch.tv/springbok7and SamP at https://bsky.app/profile/sampratt.bsky.socialor you can check out his excellent podcast: Rough Drafts:https://open.spotify.com/show/4OnYIYmoCdnnlC7pUVyM0APing me for coaching. Join the Discord, sign up for Patreon, and use this Linktree for everything else! Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #155 vidThis 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 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.
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2:46:34
#154: Card evaluation
New set is upon us and we have an impossible task of figuring out which cards are grerat and which are traps without the advantage of having them ever in our hands. Data won't solve that problem but it can definitely help, by looking at the general trends in card power across mana values, colors, etc. Also we can look into the amazing #P0P1 initiative from MTG_DS, where hundreds of people put their bets on the best cards in a set before its release (which mtg_ds kindly shared with me). This let me look at the wisdom of the crowd - what cards were widely liked but turned out to be duds, which cards nobody saw coming. Why some cards fly under the radar, while some lure us into the trap?Here is the example fo P0P1 results from TMD for reference - make sure to give MTG_DS a follow - in the end it stands for Magic Data Science, you should be interested!https://x.com/mtg_ds/status/1920641850546815335Ping me for coaching. Join the Discord, sign up for Patreon, and use this Linktree for everything else! Watch this episode and see the slides: Episode #154 vidThis 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 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.
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1:27:07
#153: Acing the open
Sealed data - the title sort of says it all ;) - will edit later (or will I?)
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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