PODCAST · leisure
Magic Numbers
by Sierkovitz
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.
Episodes
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#195: Early 17Lands.com data for Reality Fracture
FRA is a banger. But a banger that is particularly hard to navigate. Cards can be contextually good, but there are some universal trends. Once you know them - the rest will become much easier. And hopefully by the end of this seminar you will have that baseline knowledge. And the true format...
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#194: Reality Fracture draft deck skeletons with the Skeleton Crew
New set is out soon so why don't you learn the ins and outs of what we think is important in out eccentric, deck-centric set review. Instead of looking at cards, we build decks and show you how we think they might work. With me are The Rosemary Tea - check her awesome streams here. She is one of...
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#193: How is Pick 2 draft different?
This week I look into Pick Two draft. Since its introduction it has become a popular variant of Magic, both because of how fast it is, how little it costs and a relatively OK payout structure. So what does it change in drafting and what does having 12 packs in the pod change in the resulting…
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#192: Right cards for right decks in Hobbit
The format has stabilised after 2 weeks of turmoil and now is the time to actually look for solutions. And to do it, you better know what cards make which types of decks and which cards fool you into playing them. I look at all the cards in the set and see what are the best homes for them and…
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#191: Early 17Lands draft data for The Hobbit
New set, new rules of engagement. How to use the early draft data to understand the latest Magic expansion limited format? General set stats, color power, what makes each color pair tick and what are the traps to avoid. I started offering coaching on Metafy! Go to my profile to see what's on…
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#190: The Hobbit draft deck Skeletons
Welcome to my eccentric, deck-centric set review. I look at some general stats for the new set, and fed with that information, set out to build functional draft deck and theory craft how the set might look like in the future. Am I right? Am I wrong - only time will tell. But I can guarantee you...
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#189: Right Cards for the right draft decks, MSH Edition
Format is now well developed and the pick orders stopped evolving - so it is time to start solving a static environment. And what better way to do it that re-evaluation of every card in the set? I look at each card and see how it performs in every color combination where data is available. Ping…
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#188: Early 17Lands draft data for Marvel Super Heroes
New format, new opportunities. We can start discovering the secrets of the MSH set, but you've got to start somewhere - and where better than with the early 17Lands data? We look at set statistics, color power levels, best cards at each rarity, key cards and biggest traps in each color pair. This...
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#187: Marvel Super Heroes Draft Deck Skeletons with the Skeleton Crew
Few days before the new set releases on Arena - why not see our vision of draft format before starting to draft? Our eccentric, deck-centric set review is back. We look at format stats, design vision and then instead of grading individual cards we propose 40 card decks skeletons to showcase what…
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#186: Journal Club (Mulligan and opening hand data)
This week we are trying something new. A journal club. And the reason for it is very simple - there are not that many Magic-related scientific papers out there. But last week Jess Williams and Zev Goldhaber-Gordon released a very interesting paper on opening hands, land percentages, mulliganing…
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#185: Reimagining limited deck clustering
This week we say goodbye to SOS and sending it off through testing some new deck clustering approach. This time it is capable of distinguishing sub-color pair builds. And this opens new possibilities of analysing limited data. What happens when a color(pair) is not open? Can we see the symptoms…
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#184: Right cards for right draft decks, SOS edition
Card win rates can be misleading if you don't look at them with some amount of granularity. Two color pairs have a very different base win rate? Card played in both can look middling. Card is only good in one color pair but is routinely played in many? Win rate can look bad. To start correctly...
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#183: Early 17Lands draft data for Secrets of Strixhaven
New set is upon us, and it plays out sweet in Limited. I look at the early 17Lands data in order to figure out what works, what doesn't. But for this one, I think the more important thing is: what are the rules of engagement. What do you have to do in this format in order to start winning that is...
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#182: Draft deck skeletons for Secrets of Strixhaven with the Skeleton Crew
New set is almost there, so it is time for my eccentric, deck-centric set review with the ever changing but ever wise Skeleton Crew. This time we have Zach Kagan and Tresio and we dive into out hopes and aspirations for the Secrets of Strixhaven set. And what a banger it promises to be. Despite...
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#181: Winning against your worst opponent, your own brain
No graphs in this seminar but we are looking at something that will help you in every format you play and, who knows, potentially also in your non-magic part of life. Today we look at some cognitive theory and find ways our own brain tries to make us lose. How does it do it, what can we do about...
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#180: The secret sauce of Pizza decks in TMT draft
Everything Pizza decks are the open secret of the TMT draft format. Some streamers chain one 5 color deck after another. And there is a good reason for that. Since it has not been covered by any podcasts, the top cards for the archetype, including its namesake, are still going relatively late.…
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#179: Right cards for the right decks, TMT Edition
Even with only 5 supported color pairs, some cards are not universally good. And after learning about the best cards in the last episode, figuring out the ones that have only one good home is important. We can fool ourselves by looking at the generic win rates of a card, but sometimes the...
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#178: Early draft data for TMT
New set, new rules and despite its small size TMT looks interesting. There is a variety of diverse strategies which are viable - aggro, control, tempo are all there. And some cards do surprisingly well - check out this episode to see which ones and why. Ping me for coaching. Join the...
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#177: Draft deck skeletons for TMT with the Skeleton Crew
Our deck-centric, eccentric set review is back - we cover the key aspects of the upcoming Turtle set. Get some head start over the rest of Arena folk by tapping into great minds of Jason Ye and Springbok7. I am also present. How to build the 5 main color pairs, some key cards and good ideas on…
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#176: Right Cards for Right Decks, ECL Edition
Typal sets are tricky to navigate. How are we supposed to know if this particular Kithkin is OK in Elves or not? And how do we even start one of the unsupported color pairs? Well, here is the answer. I look at most cards in the set and try to figure out which cards are good in surprising homes…
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#175: Early 17Lands Draft Data for Lorwyn Eclipsed
New set - new analyses. We look at the basics of Lorwyn Eclipsed - which color pairs are looking good, which are looking sus. Best cards at each rarity all in the sauce of context that will hopefully help you putting those trophies on board and - more importantly - letting you understand what…
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#174: Lorwyn Eclipsed Draft skeletons with the Skeleton Crew
Our eccentric, deck-centric set review is back. My class guests go through the skeletons of the 5 supported color pairs in Lorwyn Eclipsed, building functional decks using mainly commons and uncommons to keep it realistic. But there is more. Since there are only 5 main builds we let them loose to...
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#173: Arena Power Cube Data
Is Arid Mesa better than Black Lotus (no) what cards make reanimator decks tick? What plan B should a Breach / Brain Freeze deck have for more resilience? All that in this weeks special episode on arena power cube. Ping me for coaching. Join the...
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#172: Best draft cards of 2025
This week time to look at 2025 in retrospective - what cards were the heroes of last year's draft? I use data to highlight some bests in multiple categories. Part to reminisce, part to try and think more about the current designs and player psychology to see if we can get some advice from there....
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#171: 16Lands Data
Cutting that land is tempting when you build your draft deck. But is it? This time I explore some data on what are the features of a successful 16 land deck, which cards make it tick and which are not pulling their weight. Ping me for coaching. Join the...
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#170: How I Stopped Worrying And Learned to Love the Draft
How often did you regret a draft pick after the draft? That lingering feeling you should have made a different choice in a 50:50 decision? Well, hopefully today I will convince you to worry less. We will look at the cost of abandoning the picks and I will make a semi-coherent case that if your…
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#169: Drafting Right Cards for the Right Decks in Avatar: The Last Airbender
17Lands win rates we look at the most show us how much a card is winning in all the decks it has been put into. And for many cards, this is enough. They are either generically good and play well in most shells, or generically bad and should be avoided. But what about those exceptions?Well,...
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#168: Early 17Lands Draft data for Avatar: the Last Airbender
New set is upon us and it feels great! Drafts are fun, mechanics feel awesome, and there is still plenty left to discover. And this is why we are here: to lok at the early data and give you some pointers on what works so far and where to look for new possibilities. We will look at most powerful...
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#167: Avatar: the Last Airbender draft deck skeletons with the Skeleton Crew
Join out deck-centric eccentric set review. Instead of reviewing individual cards, we are looking at whole decks for each color pair - how would we build them, which cards are we hopeful for and what synergies will be key in the early days of the format once it hits the Arena. My guests this time...
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#166: Draft signals in pick 2 draft
Spider-Man set has not exactly been a crowd pleaser, but that should not distract us from some positive features it had. As far as I am not impressed by its execution, the idea of a pick 2 draft is interesting and I would love to see it implemented again - in a better balanced set. The concept of...
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#165: Early 17Lands Draft Data for Through the Omenpaths
New set upon us and it is a challenging one. But worth giving it at least a couple of tries and you want to be prepared for that. What colors tick and which are duds? Which cards overperform and which failed to fulfil their promise? And why are there so many spiders in this definitely in-universe...
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#164: Spider-Man draft deck skeletons with the Skeleton Crew
New set is upon us so it is time for our unique deck-centric, eccentric set review. Smaller set, smaller crew, so this time me, Sam Pratt from the Rough Drafts podcast and Zach Kagan (see below for their details) go through the specifics of Marvel's Spider-Man and look at which cards we expect to...
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#163: Learning card evaluation from the extremes
Today's episode is all about card evaluation. I look at cards from the recent past which were either amazingly good, sneakily good but under-appreciated by the community or traps that looked like they might be good but did not deliver. What vcan we learn from those cards? Are there any common...
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#162: Breaking the format with Sam Pratt
Today we get a great guest - Sam Pratt from Rough Drafts podcast and we are talking about how to figure out builds, what role does the data play in that process and in the process figure out some key features of successful build-arounds in the format. Sam is someone worth following - you can find...
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#161: Right homes for right cards in EOE draft (based on 17Lands data)
Week one data can only get you that far in understanding the format. To get a full grasp on it we need to go a bit deeper than the superficial. Today we try to look at cards in the context of their best homes. Yes, some cards are universally good, but some require a bit more thought put into…
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#160: Early 17Lands draft data for Edge of Eternities
New set, early start and people are struggling a bit - this is where data can be truly helpful. Get some ideas on what the format is all about through the lens of numbers. Green looks solid but what makes other colors tick? And what should you be cautious about when interpreting the early…
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#159: Edge of Eternities draft deck skeletons with the Skeleton Crew
The new set is upon us so it is time to reanimate the Skeleton Crew. Our eccentric, deck-centric set review is back!! Through the means of ancient necromancy we have summoned Jason Ye, Sam Pratt (of the Rough Drafts podcast - give it a try) and Tresio to debate Edge of Eternities cards, decks and...
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#158: Data stories: Openness and negative space win rates
Once per set I try to explore some new data concepts and try to give you, the viewer, some insight into the research process while trying to answer some questions related to limited Magic that interest me. This week episode is all about openness in draft lanes - something Final Fantasy was mage…
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#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...
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#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…
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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…
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#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,...
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#153: Acing the open
Sealed data - the title sort of says it all ;) - will edit later (or will I?)
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#152: Right cards for the right draft decks, TDM edition
This week we try to add a little bit context to the Tarkir: Dragonstorm drafts. Yes, some cards have high win rate, but who cares? That doesn't mean you should cram them in any deck. Some cards have a low win rate - again - that doesn't make them unplayable. They just need the right home. Today,...
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#151: Tarkir: Dragonstorm Early draft data from 17Lands.com
This week we dive into the new set - what is the big picture data? What are the key cards in each color, how to approach the early data and wht makes the 3C combinations tick. Also - how to pick fixing in TDM. Ping me for coaching. Join the...
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#150: How to navigate 17Lands data in the early format?
Some meta stuff today. How to read data. What traps to avoid and what does data tell us about reading data. Ping me for coaching. Join the Discord, sign up for...
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#149: Tarkir: Dragonstorm Draft Skeletons with the Skeleton Crew
Yet again our ever changing lineup of limited virtuosos takes on out unique deck-centric and excentric take on a set review. What to expect from the new set, what are we going to be playing, trying to draft, avoiding and dreaming of assembling. You can find my guests on...
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#148: Luck and Skill in draft
Today I look at the impact of luck in Aetherdrift draft. How much of the games outcome is determined by the luck in the pod? And how do great players deal with that? And how you, my dear viewer can become, if not great, at least better. I also talk about vehicles. And cards played in multiples....
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#147: Right homes for Aetherdrift cards in draft
Some cards are just great. They have it all - they fit like a glove to any deck you drafted. But some are amazing in one place, but a detriment elsewhere. The generic Win Rate metsrics for those cards can be misleading because they will be impacted by the cards bad performance in some decks so…
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#146: Aetherdrift: Early 17Lands.com draft data
New set and this time the rules of engagement changed. And early data tells that story very well. Avoid the traps and start winning by being ahead of the curve. Might come in handy - either on Arena, your LGS or, dare I say, upcoming PT. I go through all the colors, color pairs, highlighting key...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
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.
HOSTED BY
Sierkovitz
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Magic Numbers have?
Magic Numbers currently has 175 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Magic Numbers about?
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...
How often does Magic Numbers release new episodes?
Magic Numbers publishes regularly with 175 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Magic Numbers?
You can listen to Magic Numbers on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Magic Numbers?
Magic Numbers is created and hosted by Sierkovitz.
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