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By: olaw, Oliver Law
Jun 10 2014 12:00pm
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Hello!

Welcome to the Conspiracy!  I got to attend my local game store, Patriot Games in Leeds, this week for the Conspiracy Launch.  It was certainly a very interesting experience.  I hadn't really had much chance to check out the spoilers so I didn't know entirely what to expect from the draft but honestly that was part of the fun.

Without having much knowledge of the draft format I just stuck to usual draft principles and found myself picking red removal that was being passed to me.  I kept getting passed solid red cards and just ran with it.  I was a bit saddened not to have found any big cards to drive me in a particular direction and so kept picking red cards and picked up a Fires of Yavimaya which seemed like it would be good in an aggressive red strategy.  So, after the draft with mostly red cards I decided that I would run Red with a splash of green for Fires and a couple Selvala's Enforcers which seemed like they would be pretty powerful (and give me a chance to try out Parley).  I did draft an Advantageous Proclamation conspiracy, which allows you to play with 35 cards rather than 40, but I got a bit worried about building the deck wrong and stuck with a 40 card deck.  On reflection I probably could have gone to 15 lands and cut a few things main deck to use it.

So here's what my draft deck looked like:

I felt my deck might be a bit underpowered but with no knowledge of the format I felt I drafted as well as I could have.  I didn't see any obvious bombs.  You may notice that there is a Spearpoint Oread in the deck.  That's because Lore Seeker showed up in our draft and the player who drafted it chose to add a Theros booster to the draft.

Lore Seeker

The skeptic in me did see this card as 'Target player has to buy another booster pack' but it is very fun to add some wild cards into a draft.  I imagine people with collections of older packs have had a lot of fun with Lore Seeker.

With our draft decks built the 8-man pod was then split into two multiplayer games with four players.  So let's get into it!

Match 1

In my first pod, I played against an Esper deck featuring flyers and Brago, a Boros deck and a BUG Control deck.  I'd use people's names but for a start I can't remember them so I'm just going to be calling players by the colours of their deck.  The Boros player and myself both had Power Play so the first player had to be picked at random - unfortunately I lost the roll and so Boros went first.  The Boros player and the BUG player had a couple of Hidden Agenda conspiracies but those were the only other conspiracies in the match.  For cases where it may be relevant this is how the table looked with play passing to the left:

Boros (1)
BUG (2)
Esper (4)
Me (3)

My deck was quite aggressive and I started things off with Skitter of Lizards and spread some damage around and then played a Peace Strider.  My opponents weren't getting up to a great deal with the Boros player playing a Skitter of Lizards and equipping Power of Fire which then took out the BUG player's Liliana's Specter before eating an Assassinate, meanwhile Esper was playing draw go.  Getting aggressive unfortunately didn't win me a great deal of friends.  Some heat was drawn away from me though by the Boros player dropping a (Heartless Hidetsugu) which nobody was happy about.  Esper ended up killing it off by teaming with the BUG player to trade off one of his spirit tokens and then cast Morkrut Banshee to kill it off.  Both the Esper and the BUG player were running multiple copies of (Liliana's Specter) which was keeping hands small and the Boros player cast a Coercive Portal to try and get back into things.

Coercive Portal

I was convinced to vote for Carnage by the BUG and Esper players, with the BUG player having no permanents and the Esper player losing his Banshee and a Spirit token, but looking back as I ended up losing my Lizards and Peace Strider I was probably better off siding with the Boros player and choosing homage.  My draws from there on were not good as I flooded out.  Meanwhile, Esper dropped a Brago, King Eternal to follow up the board wipe.  Fortunately, I had Grenzo's Rebuttal with the Esper player to my left and destroyed a land and his Brago before it could get going.  I, of course, lost my Ogre token and a  land but I'd helped stabilise the board somewhat.

Grenzo’s Rebuttal

Frankly this was one of my last big plays of the game.  The Esper player dropped an Infectious Horror teaming with the Boros player who played a Pride Guardian to keep dropping the BUG player and my life total while gaining 1 life himself.  Esper also made a ton of Spirit tokens with Rousing Souls which put him pretty far ahead.  Meanwhile, the BUG deck was also coming into its own using Brainstorm to set up Parley cards like Selvala's Charge.

Rousing of SoulsSelvala’s Charge
Parley cards seem very powerful

The Boros player, like myself, was struggling to draw anything relevant and was the first one offed by the Esper's hoard of flyers.  My last valiant play of the game was to use an (Orcish Cannonade), while on 3 life, to prevent the Esper player enchanting his Infectious Horror with Traveler's Cloak, preventing a card draw and putting the BUG player in a better position.  I felt it was the right thing to do, particularly with the Esper player bragging about how well he had played the board (though in fairness he did politic pretty well).  The BUG player managed to draw a good amount of cards from Deathreap Ritual, which is an excellent draw engine in this format, and managed to get aggressive. 

Deathreap Ritual

A Syphon Soul helped his life total and a March of the Returned, from a Theros Booster added to the draft by Lore Seeker, brought back a couple of reach guys to prevent him dying to the spirit tokens.  So the BUG Control deck won through the first match.

Match 2

We were supposed to split into another multiplayer match with the other players from our draft pod, but the other game in our pod went really long.  Instead we split with another draft pod and played another game.  I ended being in a match with the BUG Control player who won the last match and two new players one playing Izzet and another playing Rakdos

Izzet (3)
BUG (4)
Rakdos (2)
Me (1)

 

I got to use Power Play to go first this time.  I had a relatively slow start but played Fires of Yavimaya on turn 3 and then started dropping Enrage Revolutionary and other Dethrone guys and just going after the guy with the highest life total. 

Fires of YavimayaEnraged Revolutionary

Again it didn't win me a lot of friends, and I had to start holding more back to block, but it started an interesting political game of who wanted to be on the highest life total.  As the turns went on the Rakdos player formed a series of threats, including a Lizard Warrior revealing a Muzzio's Preparations naming the card.  He would later drop a second for a formidable set of 5/3s. 

Lizard WarriorMuzzio’s Preparations

Rakdos also dropped a double-kicked Quag Vampires.  He had already identified the BUG player as the biggest threat but given that the BUG player was the only player with Swamps it made sense to attack him for 3 each turn.

The Izzet player, meanwhile, had not done a great deal.  He was a young player and I believe this was his first draft and he largely played out none threatening creatures such as Whispergear Sneak and Plated Seastrider.  Despite this, through the manipulations of my opponents (primarily that Rakdos and BUG were attacking each other every turn) Izzet remained on the highest life total for some time which meant I was often attacking my Dethrone guys at him just to grow them for future purposes, while he chump blocked.  I believe I got 5 +1/+1 counters on my Enraged Revolutionary before he was eventually Assassinated by BUG.

The BUG player after having a slightly slow start dropped a Liliana's Specter and then set up  a Selvala's Charge which netted him 3 3/3 Elephant tokens.  He also played an early Deathreap Ritual which drew him a lot of cards primarily from the chump blocks made by the Izzet player from my Dethrone guys.

With Rakdos applying increasing pressure to BUG's life total and openly threatening to finish him off and Izzet dropping a kicked Enclave Elite which threatened another unblockable creature, BUG sent all his guys at RakdosRakdos was at 9 life at this point and really couldn't take the damage so he pulled the trigger on the Spontaneous Combustion in his hand. 

Spontaneous Combustion

This pretty much wiped everyone's board except mine, as I was now in possession of a Chartooth Cougar and a Skitter of Lizards with 3 +1/+1 counters.  Post-combat, BUG played a Scaled Wurm revealing Muzzio's Preparations naming it to make a rather threatening 8/7 before passing the turn to me.  I played another Enraged Revolutionary and attacked Izzet to get a +1/+1 counter on it - keeping back my 4/4s to defend my life total against the Wurm if it happened to come my way.  Rakdos was out of juice by this point and Izzet dropped an Enraged Revolutionary and a Marchesa's InfiltratorBUG attacked Rakdos with the Scaled Wurm and then a Wakedancer with a Morbid trigger (I can't quite remember where something died or perhaps I'm forgetting a turn) provided him two 2/2 blockers.  Regardless, the board state was now Izzet had an Enraged Revolutionary and a Marchessa's Infiltrator and BUG had a tapped Scaled Wurm and a couple of 2/2s, Rakdos' board was empty.  I had Volcanic Fallout in hand and used it to clear all but my own creatures and then attacked for lethal against BUG and also sent some damage at Izzet and RakdosBUG used Skeletal Scrying to draw one card, hoping it would be the Respite he needed to survive, it wasn't and I killed him off. 

Volcanic Fallout

I went down to 4 from the Fallout so was far from safe, Rakdos went down to 1 after attacks and Izzet was on 6 I believe.  Rakdos played a Grenzo, Dungeon Warden off the top and activated it once but found a Brimstone Volley on the bottom.  Izzet didn't have a play for his turn. 

Grenzo, Dungeon Warden

On my turn I attacked Izzet to death and then used my own Brimstone Volley to finish off Rakdos to pick up the win.

FIRST PICKS
I won a pack of Conspiracy for my troubles so I thought I would crack it for a little first pick exercise.  Obviously, this is primarily a casual format so I'm not looking for a draft pick order or anything but I'd be interested to hear what people would take from the pack.  So here it is:

MisdirectionBreakthroughBite of the Black RoseWakestone GargoyleWhispergear SneakTurn the TideDoomed TravelerÆther TradewindsSkitter of LizardsMana GeyserSelvala’s EnforcerUnhallowed PactPlummetSyphon SoulStasis Cell

This pack seems pretty good.  Here are my thoughts on what my first pick might be:

Rare

  • Misdirection though a sweet card is probably not something I would want to pick, except as the card that is worth the most money.  It certainly can be fun too but I can't think of too many cards in Conspiracy that you would really want to redirect.  Brimstone Volley, Assassinate and other removal spells are all viable targets but I question how much value you will actually get out of it.

Uncommons

  • Breakthrough is an excellent draw spell, though slightly better in a deck where you can gain some advantage from discarding cards, and so I can easily see first picking this.
  • Bite of the Black Rose seems very powerful but probably not a card that is going to win you a lot of friends.  Seems like it could be very good but could have a big bearing on the politics of the game (for better or worse).
  • Wakestone Gargoyle is a pretty powerful flyer.  Flyers seem to be very good in this format as there aren't a ton of them in the format and obviously some colours just aren't good at dealing with flyers at all.  There are also a lot of creatures that have 3 or less power and toughness which means that the Gargoyle holds the fort very well.

Commons

  • Syphon Soul is a very powerful black card, usually allowing a 6 point life swing in your favour.  This can do a great deal to keep you in the game, though you do need to watch for accidentally becoming the Dethrone target.  Not sure I would go so far as to first pick it but it is very good.
  • Selvala's Enforcer is a card that I didn't actually ever get a chance to cast in my draft deck despite drafting two copies, however, it seems like a good one.  Worst case scenario it's a 2/2 which draws everyone a land but more likely it will be bigger and as I said it gives you an extra card (as well as everyone else).  Picking the Enforcer is nice if you want to go Green as it cuts green from the pack (unless the next player wants to pick Plummet - which seems doubtful), so seems like a nice first pick.
  • Stasis Cell seems like a pretty versatile way of dealing with the biggest threat on the board, if a slightly expensive one.  Again politically and tactically interesting but if you are picking a blue card from this pack it probably won't be Stasis Cell.
  • Skitter of Lizards is also a reasonable if not exciting first pick in a pack that is light on Red if you wanted to cut Red.  Probably not what I would go for though.
  • Whispergear Sneak is one of the various draft altering artifact creatures, however, of them it's probably the least exciting.

All considered I think I would probably pick the Wakestone Gargoyle from this pack.  The pack is very blue heavy and it might be worth letting other people fight it out for those cards.  I think Gargoyle is pretty strong in this format as it's difficult to kill, it's a flyer and it can be aggressive if you need it to.

What would you pick from this pack?

CONCLUSIONS
Overall, I had a lot of fun with Conspiracy draft.  I have almost never played Multiplayer Magic, in fact these might have been my first multiplayer games ever, as I've never really got into it but this was a very nice entry point for me.  Commander/EDH is a format that seems quite intimidating as I've never really known where to start with it and so never tried it (though I would like to at some point).  The experience was very good and I enjoyed the interactions and politics of a multiplayer setting, even if it did take some getting used to.

If I have any negatives in relation to Conspiracy draft I'd probably say it is a bit gimmicky in places.  The draft altering artifact creatures are sometimes a bit much, Whispergear Sneak and Cogwork Spy seems a bit pointless (unless you are going particularly deep - perhaps I'm missing something).  The actual Conspiracy cards seemed a bit underwhelming to me but perhaps that was just the draft I was in.  I guess they couldn't make them too powerful but as I say they seemed a little underwhelming to me.  Also, the additional information that needs to be noted down for the Hidden Agenda conspiracy cards and cards like Lurking Automaton means you have to track quite a bit more information than you would normally need to.  Be sure to come equipped with a pen and paper if you are going to a Conspiracy draft (though perhaps that's good practice regardless).  This is actually one of the reasons why Conspiracy would be well suited to MTGO, as the program could track this information for you rather than relying on you following it accurately.

In terms of other observations of the format, I got the impression that 3 power and 3 toughness seems to be the going rate for creatures in the format so 4/4s and 3/4s are particularly good.  It also helps protect your creatures against Brimstone Volley, provided Morbid hasn't been triggered and Spontaneous Combustion.  Getting a couple of 4/4s out in the second match seemed to be what won me the game as the sweepers in the format just couldn't deal with them.  If you have similar or differing experiences then let me know.

That's all I've got for this article.  I hope you enjoyed this look at Conspiracy draft and I hope I gave you a good impression of what the format is like.  It's a real shame that it won't be coming to MTGO.  Wizards could really do with making MTGO more functional for multiplayer but at the moment it seems they are having enough troubles making it functional full stop.  So Conspiracy on MTGO?  Probably a wish too far, particularly at the moment, but maybe one day we'll be able to get MTGO Multiplayer on an equal footing with paper Magic.

Thanks for reading,

Oliver Law (olaw on MTGO)