I would have made the following changes for what its worth:
p2p6 Wall of Frost
p3p3 Essence Scatter
p3p5 Sleep
p3p6 Polymorph
p3p7 Glorious Charge
Good article and nice draft I feel this was a fairly easy draft as the two early elementals steered the deck in a clear direction making subsequent picks intuitive. WU is a very stong deck type in M10.
Nice job writing out your entire thought process throughout the draft and match. This is a brave and daunting task, to say nothing of subjecting yourself to criticism!
Your draft was quite solid, or at least very close to what I would have done. Merfolk Looter is the best common, period. I'm surprised to read all the doubt you're having about playing 3 copies, when clearly there is no drawback because you can discard the extras. If you like having it on turn 2 (and you should, since that correlates strongly to winning a game of M10) then you should play as many as you can get your hands on. I would take Sleep over it in a deck without much evasion, but that was not the case here (as many have stated).
The biggest problem is your valuation of Righteousness. Clearly you consider it a desireable card, and that is just wrong. What's more surprising is that you lost a match *largely due to having 3 copies of Righteousness* - transcribing every play - and you still aren't seeing how badly the card performed for you.
Righteousness is actually very tough to cast. Just think about any other card in your deck. If you draw a creature, you will likely have the option to cast it whenever you want (given a few land in play). Same goes for top tier removal cards like Pacifism and Doom Blade. Righteousness, on the other hand, is blank in the upper-right corner until a very specific scenario happens. Not that the scenario is far-fetched, but it still needs to happen before Righteousness is anything but a mulligan. To that end, you end up making plays like trading it for a Coral Merfolk just to keep up. After all, you had one less card in hand, so you're bound to be behind.
The other significant flaw of Righteousness is that any instant-speed removal (or Negate/Counterspell) trumps it. This is compounded by the fact that your opponent will probably have all his mana available when you cast it, since it only works on defense. Cards like Glorious Charge or Kindled Fury, while still weak, are much better than Righteousness because you can use them offensively while the opponent is tapped out to avoid being trumped.
I saw quite a few tactical misplays in your game recaps, too, but this response has already gone on pretty long... hope it's helpful!
If my opponent is rude enough to make me sit around and wait for them for an exorbant amount of time then I feel no pity for them. Enough said...go for the win.
Now if the games were very tough, drawn out affairs...I will never try to clock him.
BIG difference there between the two. One is a jerk move and the other is perfectly acceptable IMO.
Agree...I value removal > Looter myself also, especially in early picks. I also value removal > Air Elemental...but thats just me mabye.
The biggest argument I have for taking either the Doom Blade or Pacifism first pick is their mana cost. You almost certainly can splash for that removal but you need to have a significant investment in blue to be able to play the Elemental. When faced with equal power levels between cards then Id take the card thats easier to cast.
Also, I think Rightenous is a SB card versus big creatures, not a main deck card. You can see in the first game how pathetic it is as it took out his Coral Merfolk and Horned Turtle. However, versus green you take out his 5-8 drop with it while still casting stuff...and thats clearly worth it.
I guess I'm not used to tables where people pass Looters so much, though certainly it is more likely at a Swiss table. I might try 8-4s sometime soon and see how I can do there. I've certainly never seen 3-4 looters go by before, more often it's 1 or 2, or none at all. I know it's a card that usually makes me win if I play it, a category most cards don't fall into, so I'll usually pick it over any non-bomb. I'll watch for how often they tend to wheel or show up in picks 6-8 though. Certainly if I'd known in advance more looters would be coming, I'd have wanted the Doom Blade, and I wouldn't argue with anyone who picks the Doom Blade in pack 2 anyway. Someone with a strong preference for black or even going for the powerful mono-black archetype could have picked Doom Blade in packs 1 and 2, and been off to a very strong start. Air Elemental followed by Doom Blade is also quite strong here. Either one would have us up against a less-strong blue/black opponent round 1 probably - I'm not sure right now if blue/black or blue/white is the strongest color pair for M10, but I'm leaning a bit towards thinking it's blue/black right now.
I agree I prefer combat tricks that are less narrow than Righteousness. I haven't played with it much before, and I did want to get some more feeling for how playable the card is. I think in a deck with a Palace Guard and an Alluring Siren it's more worthwhile, but as you see I got to combine it with those two guys exactly zero times in the one round I played. I would still up its value a bit in any draft where I got Alluring Siren before the Righteousness came around, rather than after in this one, but I still like Pacifism, Safe Passage, Harm's Way, Essence Scatter etc. better I think. Maybe Unsummon also. I'd still pick Righteousness over other filler like a Coral Merfolk though (unless I was too low on creatures or on 2 drops.) I also think the value of Righteousness is higher against random Timmies who will walk into it every time, and the more you're playing against strong players who'll play around it, the more its value goes down. Obviously we should optimize our strategy to work against strong opponents, because the less skilled opponents we should beat anyway, right?
Actually, Sebastian tested it with 2x relent. Rats and let him submit the deck... If I can get one of our CCup accounts more than 12 copies I will try to have one of us run it!
112.5j An ability that modifies the rules for deck construction functions before the game begins. Such an ability modifies not just the Comprehensive Rules, but also the Magic: The Gathering Tournament Rules and any other documents that set the deck construction rules for a specific Constructed format. However, such an ability can’t affect the format legality of a card, including whether it’s banned or restricted.
thought you might like that in my mind its pretty much proof that you can do relentless rats decks in 100cs...yes i went through the rulebook for you
That IS a funny idea but I doubt it would be allowed since 100s is a format that overlays normal construction rules. If it is allowed imagine 39 rats + random tutors + removal + swamps ftw. :)
... So, has anyone tested yet to see if Relentless Rats be played in multiples in 100 card Singleton? This sound pretty funny and might be worth some fun.
I am thinking splash of green for Aluren, Fecundity, Maelstrom Pulse & Putrefy. I wonder if Glimpse of Nature could work with it too ... probably not, unless you had Aluren out.
Righteousness isn't horribly bad, but in a deck with it and palace guards, I would have definately liked to see a couple essence scatters. The card is undeniably powerful in a color that lacks a great deal of removal. Not to horrible, but your second pick I think really defined your draft. Taking the looter so early as a second pick to me was a mistake. At common, looter is normally avaliable later from picks 6-8. I feel either cancel or doomblade would have been a better selection. With doomblade you can hope to wheel splashable picks in your 3rd-5th selection like assinate, deathmark, gravedigger and the new zombify.
Actually BryTheFryGuy won the latest PE with Gwb elves, though he told me the black splash maybe wasn't worthy
...
and he beat me in the top 8 on his way to the title, so I've got to respect the little green folk :)
I would like to say thank you for doing these drafts as it can be very rough to have all of your picks and plays analyzed by others. You do a great job of giving your reasons and I really enjoy the article; now on to the criticism.
I am unhappy when righteousness makes my deck and would pick it over almost nothing. The reasons for this are that it is a poor combat trick, in that you need to block a good bit to make it worthwile and is telegraphed when in a racing situation you suddenly hold your attacker(s) back. Also it can never get rid of blockers on their side so it is poor in a aggressive deck. It can't handle most evasive creatures either as it will never get rid of a phantom warrior and other stuff you can't block making you more vulnerable to evasion. I would have played the 2 excommunicates and either the rod or glorious charge over all three righteousness. The card does have a place in some decks but you mentioned how your deck was more agressive and righteousness wants to be in a control deck I feel.
I agreed with the snapping drake pick over sleep and your reasons of sleep being at its best in blue green is true but that had mostly to do with needing a four drop creature as you rarely would play sleep at its best on turn 4. However, I almost assuredly would have gone with sleep over the 3rd looter even though the looter is a great pick, with you already having 2 and not having a lot of gamebreaking bombs I would have gone with sleep to break open a race in your favor or give you an out in a stalled board.
Just my two cents and thank you again for the great article.
I know that Wiffy and a few others occasionally do that but most of us do not. Perhaps we should consider the iphone users, particularly for drafts where there are numerous pictures and nary an alt/title attribute. (Jamuura can you code the rich text interpreter to show alts and titles when pics are used? (Assuming of course they are using the onsite pictures and not some other urls.)) This way at least our iphone capable friends can follow along.
Thanks! I've found so far I analyze these games & my mistakes in greater depth through carefully writing them up than I would otherwise. Which is a good incentive to keep doing them, and improving my game more.
I agree about pick orders. They might help people learn a new draft format, but if stuck to they can be a handicap. You need to consider what your deck archetype needs most, what fills out your curve, etc. especially as you get to the later cards. Some color combinations will even have two different archetypes you could be trying for, which changes a lot which cards you'll shoot for. This is particularly true in some of the Shards of Alara color combos. I've also heard about a red/blue deck in M10 that focuses on small flyers and Trumpet Blast, which sounds like it would be fun to try someday.
On those three picks. I could support either pick on the Righteousness vs. Wall of Frost. If I'd known I was going to get Alluring Siren I'd say that drives the value of Righteousness up, but I didn't get that till late in pack 3, so that doesn't affect the choice here. Likewise if I had 2-3 Palace Guard, but I only got the one. Regrettably, I didn't get to play 2-3 matches and go up against some non-flying decks, where Wall of Frost and my other Righteousness picks could have been side to side showing me which did more good. Wall of Frost ended up by chance being a weaker card against the one opponent I did face, because he had flyers too. Of course the Righteousness was weaker too because he was good at playing around tricks. It's a worse card than Pacifism or Doom Blade because you can only use it on a creature when your opponent gives you a chance to do so. Still, I'd never really played them in M10, thought they could be strong, and wanted to find out. They do sometimes kill a creature dead, which Wall of Frost never does, which is why I picked it here. Versus a swarm attack though, Wall of Frost ends up over time keeping two guys out of each swarm attack - the guy it blocks this turn, and the still-tapped guy it blocked last turn. This is good against things like Howl of the Night Pack, a card I had to battle against in my third episode (sneak preview fact!) I do think these cards are on a comparable power level, Wall of Frost may be a trifle better in a blue/white flyer deck, especially if you don't have your Horned Turtles or Palace Guards yet (and it blocks bigger guys than those.) Against Enormous Baloth or flyers, Righteousness has some advantages. Having two in hand for the double kill in game 2 when even a strong player was expecting I could only possibly have one, that was a hoot and not a bad situation to be able to set myself up for. Triple looter is more questionable than "3 cards that kill things" - you can never have TOO much removal, I'd just rather have 3 pacifism or 3 harm's way, usually.
I definitely feel good about the Snapping Drake over Sleep in P3P2. I originally felt exactly the same way about Sleep as you did. But I read articles by pros like LSV saying it's not as great as people say. I chose to assume it's better than LSV might rate it, but still not one of the top bombs like Overrun, Fireball, and Mind Control. And more importantly, its value is very archetype dependent. In my draft report #1, I only saw one Sleep and I snapped it up pick 3 because I was blue/green, and already had 2 Craw Wurm, a Cudgel Troll, and a Centaur Courser. In this flying deck the Sleep isn't going to be able to force through as much damage that could already get through anyway. Plus I don't yet have enough flyers to back up my Air Elementals, I have zero 4 drops, and the Snapping Drake is a great card that's going to be able to get through a good amount of damage himself in games where he doesn't get hit with removal. I would pick Sleep over him in some drafts, in some situations. But not here.
The Looter over the Sleep I think was a mistake. It was a bit of an experimental pick, in that I wanted to know if 3 Looters was "nuts" or was "too many". Part of that depends on the density of strong cards and the bombiness of those strong cards in the rest of your deck, I suspect. Ironically I didn't get the "early looter in most games" this could have led to, but only in one out of three. And I sideboarded down to 2 looters anyway. Could have used the Sleep in tight races against a strong player. With no Looters in my deck it would be an interesting debate which to pick, with 2 already picked I think the Sleep was clearly a better pick there. I'm only upping my percentage of games where I draw an early looter from "decent" to "even higher", whereas the percentage of games with Sleep goes from zero up to maybe half or more (more because of two looters!) Double-fog plus shutting down any flying blockers and spiders is still pretty good.
Most of my drafts I'm pleased to say I find many picks I would do the same if I had it to do over again, and a few where I'd pick differently. Those are worth looking over and learning from. Sleep is definitely an "I win" card a lot of the time, I won't pass it up for a weird 3 Looter experiment again. I would still pick a 3rd Looter out of an otherwise weak pack though, and maybe even run it, depending on what else I ended up with. I'm not certain yet it isn't playable that way, and wish I'd gotten in more than one round to test it. I would like to hear more people weigh in on the Wall of Frost vs. Righteousness pick. I also think pack 1 pick 7 I could have taken Entangling Vines instead of the weak sprite, in case I decided to switch into green or splash green. Pack 2 pick 7 could have been Unsummon over Soul Warden, too. Or even Horned Turtle.
I'll try to get draft 3 written up soon. Though I'm going to my first Pro Tour this weekend, right in my home town, so I don't know if I'll get it in first. Wish me luck, and maybe I'll write something about it too!
I'll try to add cardnames myself to save the editor the work next time. I have an iPhone myself, and often read Magic articles on it when on the go. (We're making a version of Furcadia for it too, which I'm very excited about getting out there soon!)
Tricking him into letting you get the Sparkmage for a free "kill" of his 4/5 Forest is a great play if it works out. Plus it gives you a fun story to tell forever after.
If I were in a position to try that trick, I'd figure it for about a 1 in 7 chance, and I'd consider various questions. 1) Do I need this trick to work out to survive and win the game? If so I'm trying for it, 1 in 7 chance to win is better than 0%. 2) If I don't hit the Sparkmage, is this a block I would want to do in order to bait out the trick anyway? If I'm trading off smaller guys and I'm about to play out bigger green dudes anyway, that might be a sound play. 3) How much difference would taking the 4 point hit make to me at this point in the game? 4) If he doesn't have the trick, is this a good block? If he can only take out one of my double-blockers for his 4/5 (and being down 1 mana-producing land), possibly so. It's also not a bad play if it had missed a Sparkmage, but cheated your biggest fattie into play a turn earlier and let you swing back with it next turn.
I find games of Magic are best when they give you interesting options to consider like this. Congratulations on pulling off a great combat maneuver like that, it shows one of the reasons some cards are well worth getting in multiples. I had a couple three-ofs this week, and there might be three Sparkmages in my next draft column, but maybe I shouldn't spoil the surprise?
Wall of Frost is an amazing blocker, you can even go as far as to call it psuedo removal because it removes a attacker from the next combat phase. More over you really need ground fat if you're going to go the U/W skies route. I agree with the pick on the pack with Sleep. Sleep is pretty weak in U/W since your creatures generally have evasion anyway. And the most you can get out of it is to stall late game if things are looking bad for you. It really shines in U/G where you can throw down some very strong creatures and a sleep is usually a alpha strike.
@the editor:
why do u keep making the same mistake again and again? in other draft columns u added the cardnames under the pics to be able to follow the draft on ur iphone or other small screen devices after i suggested it, but here again u didn't do it, is it that hard to get all articles in the same format for uniformity?
Good article logical and insightful.
Pleae write about FatController ^_^
I would have made the following changes for what its worth:
p2p6 Wall of Frost
p3p3 Essence Scatter
p3p5 Sleep
p3p6 Polymorph
p3p7 Glorious Charge
Good article and nice draft I feel this was a fairly easy draft as the two early elementals steered the deck in a clear direction making subsequent picks intuitive. WU is a very stong deck type in M10.
Nice job writing out your entire thought process throughout the draft and match. This is a brave and daunting task, to say nothing of subjecting yourself to criticism!
Your draft was quite solid, or at least very close to what I would have done. Merfolk Looter is the best common, period. I'm surprised to read all the doubt you're having about playing 3 copies, when clearly there is no drawback because you can discard the extras. If you like having it on turn 2 (and you should, since that correlates strongly to winning a game of M10) then you should play as many as you can get your hands on. I would take Sleep over it in a deck without much evasion, but that was not the case here (as many have stated).
The biggest problem is your valuation of Righteousness. Clearly you consider it a desireable card, and that is just wrong. What's more surprising is that you lost a match *largely due to having 3 copies of Righteousness* - transcribing every play - and you still aren't seeing how badly the card performed for you.
Righteousness is actually very tough to cast. Just think about any other card in your deck. If you draw a creature, you will likely have the option to cast it whenever you want (given a few land in play). Same goes for top tier removal cards like Pacifism and Doom Blade. Righteousness, on the other hand, is blank in the upper-right corner until a very specific scenario happens. Not that the scenario is far-fetched, but it still needs to happen before Righteousness is anything but a mulligan. To that end, you end up making plays like trading it for a Coral Merfolk just to keep up. After all, you had one less card in hand, so you're bound to be behind.
The other significant flaw of Righteousness is that any instant-speed removal (or Negate/Counterspell) trumps it. This is compounded by the fact that your opponent will probably have all his mana available when you cast it, since it only works on defense. Cards like Glorious Charge or Kindled Fury, while still weak, are much better than Righteousness because you can use them offensively while the opponent is tapped out to avoid being trumped.
I saw quite a few tactical misplays in your game recaps, too, but this response has already gone on pretty long... hope it's helpful!
If my opponent is rude enough to make me sit around and wait for them for an exorbant amount of time then I feel no pity for them. Enough said...go for the win.
Now if the games were very tough, drawn out affairs...I will never try to clock him.
BIG difference there between the two. One is a jerk move and the other is perfectly acceptable IMO.
-M
Agree...I value removal > Looter myself also, especially in early picks. I also value removal > Air Elemental...but thats just me mabye.
The biggest argument I have for taking either the Doom Blade or Pacifism first pick is their mana cost. You almost certainly can splash for that removal but you need to have a significant investment in blue to be able to play the Elemental. When faced with equal power levels between cards then Id take the card thats easier to cast.
Also, I think Rightenous is a SB card versus big creatures, not a main deck card. You can see in the first game how pathetic it is as it took out his Coral Merfolk and Horned Turtle. However, versus green you take out his 5-8 drop with it while still casting stuff...and thats clearly worth it.
-M
I guess I'm not used to tables where people pass Looters so much, though certainly it is more likely at a Swiss table. I might try 8-4s sometime soon and see how I can do there. I've certainly never seen 3-4 looters go by before, more often it's 1 or 2, or none at all. I know it's a card that usually makes me win if I play it, a category most cards don't fall into, so I'll usually pick it over any non-bomb. I'll watch for how often they tend to wheel or show up in picks 6-8 though. Certainly if I'd known in advance more looters would be coming, I'd have wanted the Doom Blade, and I wouldn't argue with anyone who picks the Doom Blade in pack 2 anyway. Someone with a strong preference for black or even going for the powerful mono-black archetype could have picked Doom Blade in packs 1 and 2, and been off to a very strong start. Air Elemental followed by Doom Blade is also quite strong here. Either one would have us up against a less-strong blue/black opponent round 1 probably - I'm not sure right now if blue/black or blue/white is the strongest color pair for M10, but I'm leaning a bit towards thinking it's blue/black right now.
I agree I prefer combat tricks that are less narrow than Righteousness. I haven't played with it much before, and I did want to get some more feeling for how playable the card is. I think in a deck with a Palace Guard and an Alluring Siren it's more worthwhile, but as you see I got to combine it with those two guys exactly zero times in the one round I played. I would still up its value a bit in any draft where I got Alluring Siren before the Righteousness came around, rather than after in this one, but I still like Pacifism, Safe Passage, Harm's Way, Essence Scatter etc. better I think. Maybe Unsummon also. I'd still pick Righteousness over other filler like a Coral Merfolk though (unless I was too low on creatures or on 2 drops.) I also think the value of Righteousness is higher against random Timmies who will walk into it every time, and the more you're playing against strong players who'll play around it, the more its value goes down. Obviously we should optimize our strategy to work against strong opponents, because the less skilled opponents we should beat anyway, right?
Actually, Sebastian tested it with 2x relent. Rats and let him submit the deck... If I can get one of our CCup accounts more than 12 copies I will try to have one of us run it!
How about Bloodbond March?
Heath's call, it is after all his dime we are running this on :)
I loathe the anon comments, and really for every 1 good anon comment we get 10 that I delete.
112.5j An ability that modifies the rules for deck construction functions before the game begins. Such an ability modifies not just the Comprehensive Rules, but also the Magic: The Gathering Tournament Rules and any other documents that set the deck construction rules for a specific Constructed format. However, such an ability can’t affect the format legality of a card, including whether it’s banned or restricted.
thought you might like that in my mind its pretty much proof that you can do relentless rats decks in 100cs...yes i went through the rulebook for you
That IS a funny idea but I doubt it would be allowed since 100s is a format that overlays normal construction rules. If it is allowed imagine 39 rats + random tutors + removal + swamps ftw. :)
Seconded, but I believe it isn't Josh that would implement that but Jaamura (spelling please?), the web guy for the sites.
... So, has anyone tested yet to see if Relentless Rats be played in multiples in 100 card Singleton? This sound pretty funny and might be worth some fun.
I am thinking splash of green for Aluren, Fecundity, Maelstrom Pulse & Putrefy. I wonder if Glimpse of Nature could work with it too ... probably not, unless you had Aluren out.
Righteousness isn't horribly bad, but in a deck with it and palace guards, I would have definately liked to see a couple essence scatters. The card is undeniably powerful in a color that lacks a great deal of removal. Not to horrible, but your second pick I think really defined your draft. Taking the looter so early as a second pick to me was a mistake. At common, looter is normally avaliable later from picks 6-8. I feel either cancel or doomblade would have been a better selection. With doomblade you can hope to wheel splashable picks in your 3rd-5th selection like assinate, deathmark, gravedigger and the new zombify.
Actually BryTheFryGuy won the latest PE with Gwb elves, though he told me the black splash maybe wasn't worthy
...
and he beat me in the top 8 on his way to the title, so I've got to respect the little green folk :)
I echo the first two responses -- an unexpectedly wonderful feast for my eyes and (more importantly) mind.
i wish josh could implement a feature where you had to be a member to post. The random trolling anons are starting to get really annoying.
I would like to say thank you for doing these drafts as it can be very rough to have all of your picks and plays analyzed by others. You do a great job of giving your reasons and I really enjoy the article; now on to the criticism.
I am unhappy when righteousness makes my deck and would pick it over almost nothing. The reasons for this are that it is a poor combat trick, in that you need to block a good bit to make it worthwile and is telegraphed when in a racing situation you suddenly hold your attacker(s) back. Also it can never get rid of blockers on their side so it is poor in a aggressive deck. It can't handle most evasive creatures either as it will never get rid of a phantom warrior and other stuff you can't block making you more vulnerable to evasion. I would have played the 2 excommunicates and either the rod or glorious charge over all three righteousness. The card does have a place in some decks but you mentioned how your deck was more agressive and righteousness wants to be in a control deck I feel.
I agreed with the snapping drake pick over sleep and your reasons of sleep being at its best in blue green is true but that had mostly to do with needing a four drop creature as you rarely would play sleep at its best on turn 4. However, I almost assuredly would have gone with sleep over the 3rd looter even though the looter is a great pick, with you already having 2 and not having a lot of gamebreaking bombs I would have gone with sleep to break open a race in your favor or give you an out in a stalled board.
Just my two cents and thank you again for the great article.
I know that Wiffy and a few others occasionally do that but most of us do not. Perhaps we should consider the iphone users, particularly for drafts where there are numerous pictures and nary an alt/title attribute. (Jamuura can you code the rich text interpreter to show alts and titles when pics are used? (Assuming of course they are using the onsite pictures and not some other urls.)) This way at least our iphone capable friends can follow along.
Thanks! I've found so far I analyze these games & my mistakes in greater depth through carefully writing them up than I would otherwise. Which is a good incentive to keep doing them, and improving my game more.
I agree about pick orders. They might help people learn a new draft format, but if stuck to they can be a handicap. You need to consider what your deck archetype needs most, what fills out your curve, etc. especially as you get to the later cards. Some color combinations will even have two different archetypes you could be trying for, which changes a lot which cards you'll shoot for. This is particularly true in some of the Shards of Alara color combos. I've also heard about a red/blue deck in M10 that focuses on small flyers and Trumpet Blast, which sounds like it would be fun to try someday.
On those three picks. I could support either pick on the Righteousness vs. Wall of Frost. If I'd known I was going to get Alluring Siren I'd say that drives the value of Righteousness up, but I didn't get that till late in pack 3, so that doesn't affect the choice here. Likewise if I had 2-3 Palace Guard, but I only got the one. Regrettably, I didn't get to play 2-3 matches and go up against some non-flying decks, where Wall of Frost and my other Righteousness picks could have been side to side showing me which did more good. Wall of Frost ended up by chance being a weaker card against the one opponent I did face, because he had flyers too. Of course the Righteousness was weaker too because he was good at playing around tricks. It's a worse card than Pacifism or Doom Blade because you can only use it on a creature when your opponent gives you a chance to do so. Still, I'd never really played them in M10, thought they could be strong, and wanted to find out. They do sometimes kill a creature dead, which Wall of Frost never does, which is why I picked it here. Versus a swarm attack though, Wall of Frost ends up over time keeping two guys out of each swarm attack - the guy it blocks this turn, and the still-tapped guy it blocked last turn. This is good against things like Howl of the Night Pack, a card I had to battle against in my third episode (sneak preview fact!) I do think these cards are on a comparable power level, Wall of Frost may be a trifle better in a blue/white flyer deck, especially if you don't have your Horned Turtles or Palace Guards yet (and it blocks bigger guys than those.) Against Enormous Baloth or flyers, Righteousness has some advantages. Having two in hand for the double kill in game 2 when even a strong player was expecting I could only possibly have one, that was a hoot and not a bad situation to be able to set myself up for. Triple looter is more questionable than "3 cards that kill things" - you can never have TOO much removal, I'd just rather have 3 pacifism or 3 harm's way, usually.
I definitely feel good about the Snapping Drake over Sleep in P3P2. I originally felt exactly the same way about Sleep as you did. But I read articles by pros like LSV saying it's not as great as people say. I chose to assume it's better than LSV might rate it, but still not one of the top bombs like Overrun, Fireball, and Mind Control. And more importantly, its value is very archetype dependent. In my draft report #1, I only saw one Sleep and I snapped it up pick 3 because I was blue/green, and already had 2 Craw Wurm, a Cudgel Troll, and a Centaur Courser. In this flying deck the Sleep isn't going to be able to force through as much damage that could already get through anyway. Plus I don't yet have enough flyers to back up my Air Elementals, I have zero 4 drops, and the Snapping Drake is a great card that's going to be able to get through a good amount of damage himself in games where he doesn't get hit with removal. I would pick Sleep over him in some drafts, in some situations. But not here.
The Looter over the Sleep I think was a mistake. It was a bit of an experimental pick, in that I wanted to know if 3 Looters was "nuts" or was "too many". Part of that depends on the density of strong cards and the bombiness of those strong cards in the rest of your deck, I suspect. Ironically I didn't get the "early looter in most games" this could have led to, but only in one out of three. And I sideboarded down to 2 looters anyway. Could have used the Sleep in tight races against a strong player. With no Looters in my deck it would be an interesting debate which to pick, with 2 already picked I think the Sleep was clearly a better pick there. I'm only upping my percentage of games where I draw an early looter from "decent" to "even higher", whereas the percentage of games with Sleep goes from zero up to maybe half or more (more because of two looters!) Double-fog plus shutting down any flying blockers and spiders is still pretty good.
Most of my drafts I'm pleased to say I find many picks I would do the same if I had it to do over again, and a few where I'd pick differently. Those are worth looking over and learning from. Sleep is definitely an "I win" card a lot of the time, I won't pass it up for a weird 3 Looter experiment again. I would still pick a 3rd Looter out of an otherwise weak pack though, and maybe even run it, depending on what else I ended up with. I'm not certain yet it isn't playable that way, and wish I'd gotten in more than one round to test it. I would like to hear more people weigh in on the Wall of Frost vs. Righteousness pick. I also think pack 1 pick 7 I could have taken Entangling Vines instead of the weak sprite, in case I decided to switch into green or splash green. Pack 2 pick 7 could have been Unsummon over Soul Warden, too. Or even Horned Turtle.
I'll try to get draft 3 written up soon. Though I'm going to my first Pro Tour this weekend, right in my home town, so I don't know if I'll get it in first. Wish me luck, and maybe I'll write something about it too!
I'll try to add cardnames myself to save the editor the work next time. I have an iPhone myself, and often read Magic articles on it when on the go. (We're making a version of Furcadia for it too, which I'm very excited about getting out there soon!)
Tricking him into letting you get the Sparkmage for a free "kill" of his 4/5 Forest is a great play if it works out. Plus it gives you a fun story to tell forever after.
If I were in a position to try that trick, I'd figure it for about a 1 in 7 chance, and I'd consider various questions. 1) Do I need this trick to work out to survive and win the game? If so I'm trying for it, 1 in 7 chance to win is better than 0%. 2) If I don't hit the Sparkmage, is this a block I would want to do in order to bait out the trick anyway? If I'm trading off smaller guys and I'm about to play out bigger green dudes anyway, that might be a sound play. 3) How much difference would taking the 4 point hit make to me at this point in the game? 4) If he doesn't have the trick, is this a good block? If he can only take out one of my double-blockers for his 4/5 (and being down 1 mana-producing land), possibly so. It's also not a bad play if it had missed a Sparkmage, but cheated your biggest fattie into play a turn earlier and let you swing back with it next turn.
I find games of Magic are best when they give you interesting options to consider like this. Congratulations on pulling off a great combat maneuver like that, it shows one of the reasons some cards are well worth getting in multiples. I had a couple three-ofs this week, and there might be three Sparkmages in my next draft column, but maybe I shouldn't spoil the surprise?
Props go out to spelling words with a superfluous 'u' in it - we Canadians do it too.
However, if you are looking for the worst of the language barriers, ask an American or Canadian what a 'fanny' is.
Wall of Frost is an amazing blocker, you can even go as far as to call it psuedo removal because it removes a attacker from the next combat phase. More over you really need ground fat if you're going to go the U/W skies route. I agree with the pick on the pack with Sleep. Sleep is pretty weak in U/W since your creatures generally have evasion anyway. And the most you can get out of it is to stall late game if things are looking bad for you. It really shines in U/G where you can throw down some very strong creatures and a sleep is usually a alpha strike.
@the editor:
why do u keep making the same mistake again and again? in other draft columns u added the cardnames under the pics to be able to follow the draft on ur iphone or other small screen devices after i suggested it, but here again u didn't do it, is it that hard to get all articles in the same format for uniformity?