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By: ricklongo, Rick Longo
Oct 18 2013 10:55am
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Hello and welcome to Rick's Picks!

This time, I'm bringing you a draft in which I end up in red-green, traditionally one of the most successful aggressive limited archetypes. Is it as good this time around? Let's take a look.

DRAFTING

ROUND 1

ROUND 2

So, this was definitely a good draft. I thought my deck was pretty good (and at least as good as the one I lost to), but sometimes mana flood just happens.

There's one interesting conclusion I've reached not only from this event, but from all the Theros drafts I've done so far. Generally, two of the most obvious archetypes in any limited format are red-green beatdown and white-blue skies. This time around, however, I can't help but feel there was an effort to mix things up.

For example: the majority of times I get a white bomb and try to pair it with blue, I end up in white-red instead (ditto for opening a good red card and trying to go red-green). Conversely, whenever I open a blue bomb, chances are I'll end up blue-green, and the same thing happens when I start out green. Take this draft, for example - the only reason I ended up in Gruul was the fact that I opened the Xenagos on pack two (after TOTALLY CALLING IT!), and the Polis Crushers further cemented my position; otherwise, chances are I'd end up in blue. This is basically because white and red have, by far, the best aggressive heroic cards, whereas blue's awesome bounce spells are great to open the way for big green monstrous guys - especially with the lack of reliable universal removal.

Of course, in a dynamic format such as limited, often you'll just go the way that seems to be open for you (again, like me going red-green here). I do feel, however, like WR and UG are the best combinations in this format right now (and I'll even have an absolutely brutal red-white draft up soon to illustrate my point). What do you think? As always, I'm eager to hear your opinion.

Thanks for watching, and see you next time!

2 Comments

So great when you open an by Kumagoro42 at Wed, 10/23/2013 - 20:16
Kumagoro42's picture
5

So great when you open an insane bomb like that (that's like, what, rolling a 100 on a d100?) and then get to draw it in games! Xenagos was really eager to play for you. Except at the end, I guess. Very anti-climatic conclusion for the draft.

I think your analysis of the color combinations are correct, although I'm merely an observer, not a practitioner these days (I vicariously live the draft experience through you!).

That thing you said about the Theros Block season starting: do you plan on live recording some dailies where you play Theros Block constructed? You ever did something like that? I'd really like to see it.

Thanks for the continuing by ricklongo at Mon, 10/28/2013 - 10:00
ricklongo's picture

Thanks for the continuing suport! :)

I've already uploaded a Theros Block Constructed 8-man event, and will work on getting those dailies up soon enough.