In 10 days...

Can't wait for Lorwyn!

Draft: get removal. I was gg'd in Friday's 2nd round due to the lack thereof despite having the best creatures and the best curve. Ah well, win some, lose some.



BLOGGING FOR WHAT'S RIGHT!
September 23, 2007 11:51 pm

Magic nalang! (Kasi wala daw intriga)

Scenario:

You playing in a 3-booster draft. You open your first pack and find: Plains, Goblin Token, Mind Bend, ?, ?, Blaze, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, Lava Axe. Because you want a GG Aggro-Keso deck you have to decide:


Lava Axe is somewhat more efficient, doing 5 damage for 5 mana, whereas Blaze would need 6 mana to do the same thing. Lava Axe's glaring weakness is its inability to target creatures. Also, Lava Axe can't do more than 5 damage while Blaze could theoretically do infinite damage. However, when you draft R/? the game is less likely to go into the late game and every single point of damage for every mana becomes more important.

Me: Lava Axe
Anjoy: Blaze (may control ka kasi sa mana mo pag blaze..)
Marty: Blaze
Tal: Blaze
Runas: Lava Axe (less casting cost for more dmg)

I like 5 damage for 5 mana. This is purely personal preference since I usually pick small evasion creatures to bring the beat down early. Blaze is certainly the stronger card and a much more potent topdeck late game.

However, if I pass the Blaze left and Mr. On-my-left picks it as his 2nd pick, then he will likely move into Red and I won't see any good red cards being passed in my 2nd pack. He is less likely to pick Lava Axe as a 2nd pick if his 1st pick wasn't red. (I think. This whole drafting strategy thing is all very new to me.)

This is a testament to how much more we have to learn about drafting. The pros talk about things like "open colors" and "signaling". What are these things? I usually just pick what I think is the best card in the pack the first few times and then try to stay in color later.

At this point I guess we'vel realized how important it is to try and see what colors we're not seeing in the packs (the colors other people are playing) and what colors have strong cards being passed late (the underdrafted color) when picking cards. I also have some idea about defensive drafting (picking the cards you don't want used against you). But this idea from the pros that the best draft decks are controllish and all about card advantage are just beyond me.


BLOGGING FOR WHAT'S RIGHT!
September 14, 2007. 12:11 am

Draft again!

This time I finished 1st in a 4-man draft in Recto. There being just 4 of us, the chances of getting a chase rare were slim... but that doesn't mean we didn't!

In the first round I drafted green for Overrun and waited anxiously for the Craw Wurms, Spined Wurms, and Sylvan Basilisks that would no doubt come my way. They never did. I got 2 Skyshroud Rangers and some random black trash. I counterdrafted Benalish Knight and threw in a couple of Plains for him. It was horrible. I finished 3rd on the strength of Overrun. For my trouble, I got a Loyal Sentry (would've been my 5th). Tal beat me in the first round and finished 2nd, losing to William. I can't remember what either of their decks were like, but William had the Horseshoe Crab + Arcane Teachings shenanigans.



The second round was much better. I was able to draft some nice efficient creatures (though I was still forced to go 3-colors due to the shallowness of the cardpool). In this format I really get to appreciate the creatures that are usually never touched in Standard. One spectator praised the efficiency of my Grizzly Bears. Rawr!

I won't go too deep into details, but one thing that really made me laugh happened in game 2 of the fight for 1st-2nd. My opponent cast Juggernaut, his big, nasty wrecking machine. On my turn I clip Pacifism on it. It looks like that's the end of the story until two turns later when I cast... Sculpting Steel! It was pretty much good game when I cast Mass of Ghouls the following turn and then Angelic Blessing on Mass the turn after that.



First pick! For my trouble: Hypnotic Spectre, Blanchwood Armor, Faerie Conclave, and Knight of Dusk.

A few words on drafting strategy. Tal says he might have to change his style of getting the HUGE vanilla creatures over the smaller, more efficient ones, and pretty high in the pick order too. I think that even in draft there has to be some kind of curve, although making one is astronomically more difficult than it is in standard. However as my experience in tonight's first round proves, you need the mamaw!

Also, how would YOU pick from my first pack, which contained: Incinerate, Terror, Craw Wurm Mortivore, AND Juggernaut? I picked Terror. Juggernaut was sorely tempting, followed by Incinerate.

A word of condolence for all those who suffered greatly on this day six years ago.


BLOGGING FOR WHAT'S RIGHT!
September 11, 2007 11:57 pm

Draft!

This blog is quickly turning into a journal of my MtG experiences, for better or worse.

We held an 8-man 3-booster draft at Marty's house the other night. The rules weren't my favorite way to play draft, but I'll take what I get (more on this later). My deck was a red-black aggro-burn that went 2-0, 2-0 against Runas' U/W/G control/combo and Marty's G/B in a pseudo-mirror match before losing 1-2 to Anjoy's R/W/? because of a series of bad plays I made. I redeemed myself in the last round against Tal's R/G(?) where we went 1-1 before he allegedly made a key misplay in the third round that cost him the game and match. Summarizing, my overall record was 3-1-0 or 21 points, and good enough for first place (there was a miscalculation with the scores, but all is well).

Regarding the rules, what happens when we draft among ourselves (like the previous single-booster draft we played in Faura) is that we keep what we draft, including the rares, and the winner gets extra packs as a reward. Now, I'm not saying that this is a bad rule set; in fact I think it forces a player to make a decision on whether to play for cards or for the win and thereby asking him (I hope I can soon write /her after that him) whether he has confidence enough in his drafting skills to play for the packs, and not simply break even by drafting rare cards that are inferior in draft over a strong but monetarily cheap common. As an aside, I have to praise Runas for passing a Sulfurous Springs for a (presumably) stronger card out of one of his packs. Shamefully, I picked a Caves of Koilos out of my third pack which was out of color for me. (Again, more on this later)

I personally prefer the Recto-style rule set where rares are collected at the end of the draft and the winner gets to pick one rare and three uncommons, followed by the runner-up, and so on. Beyond forcing players to choose between cards or wins, this rule set forces the player to play for the WIN because winning is the only way you're getting that chase rare. This is especially true when one of the players opens a pack and finds, for example, a Pithing Needle (ahem). In the rule set we played the other night, if I opened a pack with Pithing Needle and a game winning card like say, Blaze, I would pick the Needle and I wouldn't mind if I got Blazed to death in every single game I played afterwards. Not very conducive to a competitive drafting match.

Still on the rules, I'm happy with how the deck building part of the draft was ruled. We picked a total of 42 cards from the boosters, but we only needed exactly 40 cards in our fighting decks, including lands. The 17 or so "extra" cards would go into our "sideboard". I believe that this is an excellent rule because it prevents the scenario where you need to topdeck for the win and you rip that one off-color card you got as your 15th pick and which you didn't even bother to get lands for (ahem*Sylvan Scrying*ahem). This also allowed me to pick the Caves of Koilos without worrying too much about it screwing up my gameplan, knowing that I could just chuck it in my sideboard and play the in-color cards.

Another good thing about that draft was the abolishment of the "shuffle-graveyard-into-library" rule which I thought was silly. Picture having that 'mamaw' you worked so hard to kill getting shuffled right back into your opponent's library along with two or three other cards. Unfortunately we failed to enforce the deck-out rule which is absent in single-booster drafts but present in three-booster drafts. This oversight resulted in one match lasting FOREVER and eventually boring both players and the spectators into declaring it a draw.


So what were the MVPs in this draft? First, Soul Feast was a SUPERSTAR. On several occasions it single handedly swung the momentum of the game in my favor. I will never pick Consume Spirit over it again.

Terror was Terror and Incinerate was Incinerate, making little children cry all over the world. Guerrilla Tactics, two copies of Shock, and two copies of Spitting Earth made sure they kept crying.

Hidden Horror was awesome, usually eating my Goblin Pikers in exchange for 3 mana, 4/4 imbaness. My 2 Goblin Pikers weren't bad either, beating early with some help from Fists of the Anvil. Mass of Ghouls graduated from crap-I-would-never-touch to crap-I-would-draft. It's like Spined Wurm, but black and fragile. Finally, there were Lava Axe and Essence Drain for the win.

All in all, the draft was one of the best experiences in my short MtG career. My only qualm is the ridiculous crappiness of the box we bought. WoG? Pithing Needle? Crucible? Nonexistent. We basically got three lands and a Squee. Would I do it again? Absolutely. We just need 8 people and a venue again. The experience is of course invaluable and as the drafting ability of myself and my play group goes up so too I believe will the excitement of draft.


BLOGGING FOR WHAT'S RIGHT!
September 9, 2007, 5:22 pm