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By: GoblinLackeyIsBlue, Richie
Jan 07 2010 1:58pm
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Alright guys, as you know I play a lot of constructed magic in the eternal formats. At one point I use to be a well rounded player before I became bored of standard after Lorwyn rotated in, and angry at extended after the OTJ block rotated out. Recently I've started to draft a lot more than I use to, so in these next articles I'm going to show you the good and bad of my limited experience in Magic 2010 core. I've chosen this set as I feel it's a good starting point to retool on the fundamentals of drafting. What's going to be different about this article is the fact I'm looking for help in limited. I've posted these videos hoping you guys can see some of the drafting mistakes. First off I want to say, my play is a bit sloppy as most of these videos are done with cards I've rarely played with. Often times I need to feel comfortable with playing with cards to eliminate the play mistakes. Anyway guys, here are my drafts, and I hope you guys can learn something from them, as well as help me learn perhaps where I should value picking cards. 

I really like blue/green a lot, as the deck makes sense. Big fat creatures keep anything from harming you, while you protect those creatures with counters. Eventually you stall long enough to get an Overrun or Sleep online and swing in for lethal. Of course the deck sounds great, but it's really a struggle to draft. We need to draft 2 of the strong uncommons in the set, while ensuring we can cut two colors off at the same time. In M10, the benefit of being in these two colors is 

The Draft

 

 

I really like blue/green a lot, as the deck makes sense. Big fat creatures keep anything from harming you, while you protect those creatures with counters. Eventually you stall long enough to get an Overrun or Sleep online and swing in for lethal. Of course the deck sounds great, but it's really a struggle to draft. We need to draft 2 of the strong uncommons in the set, while ensuring we can cut two colors off at the same time. In M10, the benefit of being in these two colors are the fact they're very deep. Each has tremendous depth in playable commons. Blue has a plethora of counter magic, draw, and evasive creatures. Green has combat oriented creatures and enchantment/artifact removal. The deck requires you sacrifice board removal, so it's key you have combat tricks and creatures that can stabalize the board.

I'll admit, this draft fell into my lap. I feel I drafted somewhat strong, though perhaps I'm still over evaluating the power on some cards. What cost me this draft is one of my strengths of a magic player. I'm normally able to recognize the situation and adapt to it. I over thought a lot of situations, while becoming excessively greedy in others generating sloppy play and a headache! I'm not familiar with some of these cards, and that is probably the one thing that did me in. The experience was quite humbling to someone whose ego can easily get out of control.

I'm always curious what happens in your first few picks. I think that's where I struggle the most. Do you use them to try and secure an arch-type, or do you draft yourself into a powerful deck that relies on the cards but lacks synergy? Right off the bat I tried to force control with the Divine Verdict on the second pick which was completely wrong. Rod of Ruin to me would have been a safer pick, but the Borderland Ranger was probably the better pick. I had already passed the Divine Verdict which meant someone was going to be in white that was relatively close to me. Green would have also been cut at pick two, which may have ensured me being passed things like Deadly Recluse and Giant Spider from the second pack. The Rod of Ruin would have allowed me to not commit to a second color, but the problem with the Rod of Ruin is the fact it's not very impressive at all. Yes it's colorless removal, but the cost is too great. In a deck that wants to cast its spell, yet have mana up to protect it's investment. Rod of Ruin just seems too bulky and too taxing on our mana. Black at that point wasn't even an option thanks to passing Doom Blade. I'm curious to see what you guys would have taken with the second pick.

Pack 1 Pick #2

Another sketchy pick for me in pack 1 involved the Armored Ascension vs. Giant Spider. Ascension is by far the most powerful spell in that pack, while Spider provides us protection from fliers, and it would solidify green. I went with the green card, as I felt it really would solidify me in the colors. I also had an Acidic Slime at the time to remove the ascension, and figured I could pick up an Unsummon to deal with those type of enchantments. Part of me considered taking the Enormous Baloth, but I'm still not sold on a 7 drop in a format that requires a solid curve. It is a finisher, but so is our Air Elemental. Had I taken the Borderland Ranger, I would have been positioned to take the Baloth, but would have probably still gone with the Giant Spider instead. The majority of the other picks made sense to me. 

Pack #1 Pick 5

Round 1: Fight!!!

Game one and Game two really aren't that interesting at all. I'm very fortunate my misplays didn't cost me the game. Game three had an interesting play. I was indeed missing something that was obvious. Harm's Way was redirecting Acidic Slime's damage back to the Awakener Druid. Death touch came into play with Harm's Way, causing my Awakener Druid death. I still have a hard time even playing and understanding the card online. In paper it's easy as you can communicate what you're going to do, while online the amount of clicking and targeting can get confusing.

Round 2: Fight!!!

Again, we caught a break. No offense too my opponent, but a 45 card limited deck isn't the greatest strategy. Apparently in those 45 cards laid a Baneslayer Angel and Captain of the Watch which are both incredible bombs in draft. So the deck did have some explosive power, but again at 45 cards in your deck, the chances you draw those bombs decreases. At the most I'd say a 42 card deck is the highest you'd want to go. If you're playing 42 cards, chances are 20 of them are land, and you're curve is somewhere in the neighborhood of Cruel Ultimatum and Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker. I prefer 41 cards as my cap, and mostly the 41st card is generally a land.

Round 3: Fight!!! 

Misplaying spells are fun. I should have played Air Elemental instead of the Awakener Druid, but greed got the best of me. His Djinn of Wishes really ruined my chances of using Sleep. If I ran the Air Elemental out there I would have been able to block the Djinn earlier. I was very reckless with my life total, which ultimately did me in. I also noticed in game two, my hand was very clunky. It really opened my eyes to how important Merfolk Looter and Borderland Ranger are. I feel if had hit my mana drops, I could have been better off in this game, but at six mana I can't really complain. I shouldn't have attacked with my Forest, as I had understood he had counters, yet I was greedy in thinking he wasn't playing either Negate or Cancel. We should have beaten him game two, and we had a shot game one. I could make the excuse that mana did us in, but it wasn't mana. The lack of proper play, and underestimating a situation by over thinking other alternatives that could happened blinded me from seeing the obvious plays. One good thing about Core drafting, obvious is always the direction too look for.

Good luck in those queues guys, hopefully we don't run into each other round 1!!!

10 Comments

The reason your Awakener by Anonymous (not verified) at Thu, 01/07/2010 - 15:13
Anonymous's picture

The reason your Awakener Druid was killed after Giant Growth was because he redirected the damage from your Acidic Slime to it (Deathtouch). I think.

Yes by GoblinLackeyIsBlue at Thu, 01/07/2010 - 15:27
GoblinLackeyIsBlue's picture

Yeah it did, I need to play with the game chat up, but i've also come across other errors with Harm's Way

Never play 41 cards, there is by dunkle_stille at Thu, 01/07/2010 - 15:50
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Never play 41 cards, there is just no reason for it. It's a bad decision as you screw your chances of getting the cards you really need, there is always a card that is worse than the rest. And if your 41st card is a land often, why not only play 16 Lands ( I do that very often Tempest and ACR and it works, if you get the fixing or the right curve for it ).

I'm not really in the mood to watch all these videos now, will do that later... just watched Match 3 Game 2 Part 2 and for no reason you played a sleep at the beginning of it. You were ahead in the race and except of the 5 round clock he had no threat. You better had developed your board in this round...

dude...acaidic slime over by Anonymous (not verified) at Thu, 01/07/2010 - 19:18
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dude...acaidic slime over looter? Phantom warrior over the looter? no way, especially when the slime is off color. Looter is the stone cold nuts in that format. Also, i would hav taken the ranger over the verdict but thats just me. Btw ice cage is great in GU.
and always, always, always play 40 in limited. 41 isnt even an option. unless your deck is literally all 1 spell, some cards will be better than others, so just play the better ones and draw them more.

Big weird curves by GoblinLackeyIsBlue at Thu, 01/07/2010 - 20:37
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Nassif had a bazaar looking sealed curve and went with 41-42 cards. He curved out at 8 with 3 eight drops and wanted to hit a land every turn.

41 cards sometimes makes by rwildernessr (RoninX) (not verified) at Thu, 01/07/2010 - 21:06
rwildernessr (RoninX)'s picture

41 cards sometimes makes sense if you have a high curve in a slow format, and you really need both 23 cards and 18 lands (or 22 and 19) but that is pretty rare.

A couple of things:

Djinn is just pronounced "Jinn"

As long as I am talking pronunciation I have a gripe left over from your last videos: the card is Forbidden OrCHARD (like an apple orchard!) *not* Forbidden OrCHID.

41 cards can sometimes make sense by bigalw1414 at Fri, 01/08/2010 - 07:48
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Sometimes the proper number of lands is greater than 17 but less than 18. In these cases, 41 cards can make sense.

I would have picked up the Divination. Card advantage is really important in Core Set limited as there are less ways to trick your opponents out of cards due to the vanilla nature of the format. Drawing cards is especially important when you have a bomb like Overrun as with enough card draw it's like you have more copies of your best card in your deck.

The blue element of your deck seemed slightly forced - I think the Air Elemental affected this. Four spells requiring double blue combined with 2 Howls and and Overrun seem counterproductive. However, Air Elemental is really good and Sleep does pair excellently with Howl tokens. I agree with the previous comment that the Merfolk Looter would have been a better pick over the Phantom Warrior. Double blue is rough for your deck and should be reserved for cards that win you the game immediately.

Rampant Growths become more important in your deck with the triple green requirements of Overrun and the Howls. They serve the dual purpose of letting you play Air Elemental while reducing the number of islands needed, thus making your Howl's even stronger. In fact their third purpose is to thin your deck of lands so that you can draw your Overrun.

So I think Divination, Merfolk Looter, and Rampant Growth would have been stronger picks. With that amount of card drawing and hand manipulation you would be almost guaranteed to cast a game-ending combination of Howl/Sleep, Howl/Overrun, or Sleep/Overrun in every game.

*I haven't played MODO for almost a year so take my advice with a grain of salt.
**Congrats on winning the MTGOFantasyFootball09 championship!

Oh yeah, next week I'm gunna by GoblinLackeyIsBlue at Fri, 01/08/2010 - 17:07
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Oh yeah, next week I'm gunna show when drafts go BAD, anyway didn't you get 3rd man? gj :D

Pack 1 Pick 2 by Mathu (not verified) at Fri, 01/08/2010 - 13:32
Mathu's picture

I would have gone with the Ranger there, verdict is a little high costed, and the Ranger's ability is very powerful. Sets up much easier plays on double colored cards (wall of frost). I also agree with the 40 cards comments. I used to slip in 41 every now and again. Never did work out as well as when you stick to the minimum. Very nice draft though, grabbed a lot of nice gamebreakers.

Pack 1 Pick 2 by Mathu (not verified) at Fri, 01/08/2010 - 13:33
Mathu's picture

I would have gone with the Ranger there, verdict is a little high costed, and the Ranger's ability is very powerful. Sets up much easier plays on double colored cards (wall of frost). I also agree with the 40 cards comments. I used to slip in 41 every now and again. Never did work out as well as when you stick to the minimum. Very nice draft though, grabbed a lot of nice gamebreakers.