I like the Banshee deck idea although Pulse is a tad expensive to play 4 in a deck, well for me anyway. Which Banshee's would you take out to add in the original Banshee when MED3 arrives?
Now that I have that out of my system, I just wanted to throw in a little sideboard trick I've been using against storm decks to great effect, and that card is Ancient Grudge. You said it yourself, Chromatic Star/Sphere serves not only as a storage space for an extra card on the turn they desire to go off on, but it also fixes their mana.
Ancient Grudge does four things in this instance. It restricts their mana, it denies them a card for their go-off turn, it kills lotus petal, AND YOU CAN DO IT TWICE. Ancient Grudge is a great way to steal games from the storm player who maybe gets somewhat of a weak draw, or makes games where they have a great hand manageable.
Decks playing white have the best chance to beat storm in my opinion. Strands, Safe Passage, Standard Bearers, Unicorn, and various life gain work well vs Grapeshot. Holy Light is the answer to Empty the Warrens version.
Dear god, is it ever painful to read. The word is shoddy, not "shotty". And can you please give proper punctuation and sentence structure a try? Please? I realize the meat is the Magic, but presentation goes a long way. Read anything by SPG or Hamtastic for a demonstration. The information is solid, but mucking through the first paragraph makes it nigh unreadable.
P1P1: Echoes pays for about one pack of the draft; that seems like a reasonable trade-off. I think without Echoes in the pack both Warlock and Inferno Elemental come into consideration too, but I think I'd have to take Howl. One thing I've noticed about M10 drafting is that sometimes you just hit some amazingly weak packs, and this is a fine example.
P1P3: In a vacuum I think Wall of Bone is the better card, but there's no doubt that the Bat works much better with your Overrun.
P1P6: I think I prefer Warlock here over Recluse, too, especially with a Spider newly added to your pile. Another evasion guy has to be better here, and even though you've passed some good Black I think you can look forward to enough flowing that it's worth cementing your second color.
P2P10: This is a big gift; absolutely the pick here IMHO. I don't think the first Recluse is bad but they drop drastically in quality pretty quickly.
P3P3: Rhino is a creature you kind of need at this point, but Slime is just *so* good I think I might have to pick it anyway. It's not always the best 2-for-1, but it's still pretty much always a 2-for-1, kind of a cantrippy Naturalize that you can main-deck. This is the one pick in the draft that I really disagree with.
Bonus Exercise: as was pointed out, this is basically Air Elemental or Doom Blade or Acidic Slime. Blade is just flat-out better than Pacifism, the only red card in the pack is horrible, and those are the best cards in each of their colors. (You could make a case for Safe Passage in an aggressive deck, but I still think I'd want Doom Blade here. If the first pick was Captain of the Watch then suddenly Pacifism/Air Elemental/Blade/Safe Passage becomes complicated, but there's no such debate here). Between those three, I'm pretty sure I would take the Doom Blade; you can be reasonably confident it'll make your deck even if it's the only black card, whereas if blue winds up getting cut hard that Elemental will be mighty lonely. G/B is also just better than G/U, IMHO, and Air Elemental isn't 'better enough' to make up the difference. If it's Tendrils in the pack, then I take Air Elemental, but Blade has to be the pick IMHO.
I'd take air elemental from your quiz, or possibly pacifism. the guy to your left is probably picking doom blade from the pack you got ant queen out of so giving him another should give him a pretty darned clear signal. The guy to his left is then looking at pacifism or snapping drake, and should hopefully take pacifism ('though he might have taken snapping drake out of your original pack, which is why i say maybe take pacifism). Anyway, I think either pacifism or air elemental are better picks than doom blade...
I think I'd've just gone P1P1 tower gargoyle, but it's certainly close, and I think jungle shrine is a fine pick. the P1P3 akrasan squire over feral hydra is certainly not what i'd've taken, but i'm not too experienced in SCA draft, so can quite contentedly believe it to be correct!
Don't let our comments keep you away from draft articles. We pick you apart because we care... :D And, hey, maybe you can learn something from all of us...
That really made me laugh and I had no idea you could do that :) awesome.
@Godot: Really nice article, thanks for posting it. As for the quiz at the end I'd go for the Doom blade. The problem is that you are passing some good green to your left but seem to be able to cut black so that black should be flowing pack 2 when green is likely to get somewhat cut.
1st time commentating on any article...late and i will keep it short..Godot your article's are top notch. Overtaking my previous favorite in Pete Jahn.i Feel i am actually learning from your draft re-caps..
I probably would have taken pacifism in your "quiz" but in hindsight i agree with others for the doom blade..
Far as the term villlain goes...quite nice IMO..fits perfectly..ignore the uptight players
I would probly take the pacifism or elemental. True u passed 2 blades but u also passed a bunch of other good black cards. its quite possible for anyone of them to aim for black while you are able to go for white since not much was passed in P1P1. G/W is good. I love Blue.
@ Balduran: I like the potential bonus mana and life gain from Pasture, aswell as the free blockers, but Factory could be good - hard to say without testing. Remand would certainly be a good addition. Mana Leak I'm not so sure about. This is a deck that goes late, and Mana Leak will too often be a dead card. I'd consider Rune Snag though, as it improves itself in the late game. Spell Burst I like.
@Theobill: Shoal is good too, but this is the issue - so many decent potential cards that you have to make some tricky cuts. With my decklist, I felt I just about had enough counters and they did the job. I'd have liked more win conditions, but again, what do you remove?
@RagMan17: I love Guile just the way he is, he's our main beatstick aswell as our chief thief. Sounds like you played the best Gather Specimens of all time!
What drives me nuts about Exiled, is that they gave us PR2 Kird Apes with the original art so shortly before they announced the contents of FtE: Exiled. I was so happy to finally have black bordered, non-foil Kird Apes online that I collected a set of PR2 Apes right away. (I hate white borders.) And then not even a month later, boom, fancier Apes. And more of them. And now the PR2 Apes are like 4 for a ticket. Dammit.
Goblin Lackey is the best new art in the set. That, or the Guay Channel, which I haven't seen yet. Berserk could've been better. I prefer the original. I like that it's your typical 1/1 mage becoming enraged past the point of no return, but I don't get why he's growing fur too. It's not a polymorph effect. For Berserk I want to see your average baseball player, standing calm at the plate - getting hit by a pitch, throwing his helmet, and charging the mound. That's Berserk. (And just like the attacking creature, that's usually the last thing the baseball player does that game too. Heh.)
I wonder if something in Vintage can abuse this? Banefire can only be answered by Commandeer. (Practically.) And Vintage decks are like 30 mana sources and 20 tutors (all restricted) anyway.
Strip Mine is going to suck. In Vintage they have all that artifact mana and crap. A Strip Mine lock in Vintage doesn't shut you off. In Vintage if you spend a turn to Strip Mine someone then you might be unknowingly time walking yourself! But in Legacy, that's not true at all, and Strip Mine would destroy everything, which is why it's banned. Classic has two moxes and Mana Crypt, but decks aren't commonly full of non-land mana sources. So Strip Mine recursion is an unanswerable hard lock. But forget about recursion. How about 4x Wastes, 1x Strip Mine? Imagine you lead with Underground Sea. Your opponent Wastes it. Okay. You fetch up a basic Island - this is why you play them. They Strip it. Ouch? Everyone will run either 4x maindeck Stifle or mono-color combo with 4x Wasteland + Strip Mine. Classic has a Vintage-style restricted list because they refuse to outright ban anything. But Classic doesn't have the power that Vintage has. Go give a Legacy deck one Flash, one Mana Drain, or one Balance. That's what one Strip Mine in a Classic deck is going to feel like.
1. My knee-jerk reaction is to take Doom Blade. However, if someone has passed Air Elemental, it means either enormous bomb for them or enormous price tag. Either way, in 8-4 I would like to assume that most people would acknowledge that blue will be a lost cause for them if they pass an Air Elemental. You did pass a Doom Blade, so it is possible that the player to your left could go black and never go back, despite its splashability. There is nothing wrong with Doom Blade, but I would honestly think the bombish flier is the pick here.
2. I don't mean to pick on the poster, but "why don't you tweet more?" is the bane of the civilized world.
P1P3: Bat is just better enough than Oryx, flat-out -- it's arguably more evasive, and the one mana makes such a difference that it trumps the toughness concerns. If Oryx were 2G instead of 3G it'd be a lot more interesting. Strike seems okay, but G/R seems really mediocre in this format as you have a really hard time punching through and less depth than you might think.
P1P5: Windstorm makes sense but it's not *that* good; not damaging players is a serious issue, and there aren't all that many fliers out there. Looter might just be a huge signal -- I think it's worth snagging.
I was thinking, "Why not just call the person Qleene?" But not everyone has names that work in a sentence. Some people have names like sicksicksicksicksicksicksicksicksicksicksicksicksick. Isn't it amazing though how he would've stood a much better chance by playing Trumpet Blast at the right time?
C:\Program Files\Wizards of the Coast\Magic Online III\Data\
d80121604.dat - replace the full text
d80118d00.dat - replace the abbreviated text
d8011fe01.dat - replace the flavor text
Don't use Wordpad or you'll mess up the hyphens.
One of the sad things about MTGO is that you can't Sharpie your own cards. However, you can Sharpie everyone else's cards, which can be just as fun. :)
Doomblade for sure since you already passed one and to pass yet another puts your neighbor in black or black splash since he probably will pick up both black removal.
My only concern looking at the first 2 picks is the amount of green going downstream (2 spiders and a centaur and then slime, oryx and a mana elf) and although Ant Queen is a bomb, green may dry up rather quick in the following picks.
Thanks very much for all your comments. I realized pretty quick after this draft that I knew nothing about drafting M10. I got off on the wrong foot, and it quickly went downhill from there. I have strange aversions to combat tricks and looters because of my largely constructed background where they don't do that well I guess. Yea, and I start contradicting myself in the draft as well, because I pick things over Pacifism which is really some of the best removal in white.
Thanks guys, I don't think I'll be doing a lot of drafting articles in the future, but it was great to have you!
Slith is a good card but can be a real dud if the other play gets a creature out first.
I like the Banshee deck idea although Pulse is a tad expensive to play 4 in a deck, well for me anyway. Which Banshee's would you take out to add in the original Banshee when MED3 arrives?
more slith firewalker
Its Rogue, not rouge.
Now that I have that out of my system, I just wanted to throw in a little sideboard trick I've been using against storm decks to great effect, and that card is Ancient Grudge. You said it yourself, Chromatic Star/Sphere serves not only as a storage space for an extra card on the turn they desire to go off on, but it also fixes their mana.
Ancient Grudge does four things in this instance. It restricts their mana, it denies them a card for their go-off turn, it kills lotus petal, AND YOU CAN DO IT TWICE. Ancient Grudge is a great way to steal games from the storm player who maybe gets somewhat of a weak draw, or makes games where they have a great hand manageable.
mathematicians, not MATHMETICIANS
Decks playing white have the best chance to beat storm in my opinion. Strands, Safe Passage, Standard Bearers, Unicorn, and various life gain work well vs Grapeshot. Holy Light is the answer to Empty the Warrens version.
Wonderful, informative read.
Take the air elemental G/U is so good in M10 draft.
Dear god, is it ever painful to read. The word is shoddy, not "shotty". And can you please give proper punctuation and sentence structure a try? Please? I realize the meat is the Magic, but presentation goes a long way. Read anything by SPG or Hamtastic for a demonstration. The information is solid, but mucking through the first paragraph makes it nigh unreadable.
P1P1: Echoes pays for about one pack of the draft; that seems like a reasonable trade-off. I think without Echoes in the pack both Warlock and Inferno Elemental come into consideration too, but I think I'd have to take Howl. One thing I've noticed about M10 drafting is that sometimes you just hit some amazingly weak packs, and this is a fine example.
P1P3: In a vacuum I think Wall of Bone is the better card, but there's no doubt that the Bat works much better with your Overrun.
P1P6: I think I prefer Warlock here over Recluse, too, especially with a Spider newly added to your pile. Another evasion guy has to be better here, and even though you've passed some good Black I think you can look forward to enough flowing that it's worth cementing your second color.
P2P10: This is a big gift; absolutely the pick here IMHO. I don't think the first Recluse is bad but they drop drastically in quality pretty quickly.
P3P3: Rhino is a creature you kind of need at this point, but Slime is just *so* good I think I might have to pick it anyway. It's not always the best 2-for-1, but it's still pretty much always a 2-for-1, kind of a cantrippy Naturalize that you can main-deck. This is the one pick in the draft that I really disagree with.
Bonus Exercise: as was pointed out, this is basically Air Elemental or Doom Blade or Acidic Slime. Blade is just flat-out better than Pacifism, the only red card in the pack is horrible, and those are the best cards in each of their colors. (You could make a case for Safe Passage in an aggressive deck, but I still think I'd want Doom Blade here. If the first pick was Captain of the Watch then suddenly Pacifism/Air Elemental/Blade/Safe Passage becomes complicated, but there's no such debate here). Between those three, I'm pretty sure I would take the Doom Blade; you can be reasonably confident it'll make your deck even if it's the only black card, whereas if blue winds up getting cut hard that Elemental will be mighty lonely. G/B is also just better than G/U, IMHO, and Air Elemental isn't 'better enough' to make up the difference. If it's Tendrils in the pack, then I take Air Elemental, but Blade has to be the pick IMHO.
Excellent draft overall, though, nicely done!
I'd take air elemental from your quiz, or possibly pacifism. the guy to your left is probably picking doom blade from the pack you got ant queen out of so giving him another should give him a pretty darned clear signal. The guy to his left is then looking at pacifism or snapping drake, and should hopefully take pacifism ('though he might have taken snapping drake out of your original pack, which is why i say maybe take pacifism). Anyway, I think either pacifism or air elemental are better picks than doom blade...
I think I'd've just gone P1P1 tower gargoyle, but it's certainly close, and I think jungle shrine is a fine pick. the P1P3 akrasan squire over feral hydra is certainly not what i'd've taken, but i'm not too experienced in SCA draft, so can quite contentedly believe it to be correct!
Don't let our comments keep you away from draft articles. We pick you apart because we care... :D And, hey, maybe you can learn something from all of us...
Thanks again for taking the time to do this.
P1P3: Did you think about Seismic Strike at all here? The Bat is not that great, and you had already passed some good black cards.
That really made me laugh and I had no idea you could do that :) awesome.
@Godot: Really nice article, thanks for posting it. As for the quiz at the end I'd go for the Doom blade. The problem is that you are passing some good green to your left but seem to be able to cut black so that black should be flowing pack 2 when green is likely to get somewhat cut.
1st time commentating on any article...late and i will keep it short..Godot your article's are top notch. Overtaking my previous favorite in Pete Jahn.i Feel i am actually learning from your draft re-caps..
I probably would have taken pacifism in your "quiz" but in hindsight i agree with others for the doom blade..
Far as the term villlain goes...quite nice IMO..fits perfectly..ignore the uptight players
PEACE..
I would probly take the pacifism or elemental. True u passed 2 blades but u also passed a bunch of other good black cards. its quite possible for anyone of them to aim for black while you are able to go for white since not much was passed in P1P1. G/W is good. I love Blue.
Good article
@ Balduran: I like the potential bonus mana and life gain from Pasture, aswell as the free blockers, but Factory could be good - hard to say without testing. Remand would certainly be a good addition. Mana Leak I'm not so sure about. This is a deck that goes late, and Mana Leak will too often be a dead card. I'd consider Rune Snag though, as it improves itself in the late game. Spell Burst I like.
@Theobill: Shoal is good too, but this is the issue - so many decent potential cards that you have to make some tricky cuts. With my decklist, I felt I just about had enough counters and they did the job. I'd have liked more win conditions, but again, what do you remove?
@RagMan17: I love Guile just the way he is, he's our main beatstick aswell as our chief thief. Sounds like you played the best Gather Specimens of all time!
What drives me nuts about Exiled, is that they gave us PR2 Kird Apes with the original art so shortly before they announced the contents of FtE: Exiled. I was so happy to finally have black bordered, non-foil Kird Apes online that I collected a set of PR2 Apes right away. (I hate white borders.) And then not even a month later, boom, fancier Apes. And more of them. And now the PR2 Apes are like 4 for a ticket. Dammit.
Goblin Lackey is the best new art in the set. That, or the Guay Channel, which I haven't seen yet. Berserk could've been better. I prefer the original. I like that it's your typical 1/1 mage becoming enraged past the point of no return, but I don't get why he's growing fur too. It's not a polymorph effect. For Berserk I want to see your average baseball player, standing calm at the plate - getting hit by a pitch, throwing his helmet, and charging the mound. That's Berserk. (And just like the attacking creature, that's usually the last thing the baseball player does that game too. Heh.)
I wonder if something in Vintage can abuse this? Banefire can only be answered by Commandeer. (Practically.) And Vintage decks are like 30 mana sources and 20 tutors (all restricted) anyway.
Strip Mine is going to suck. In Vintage they have all that artifact mana and crap. A Strip Mine lock in Vintage doesn't shut you off. In Vintage if you spend a turn to Strip Mine someone then you might be unknowingly time walking yourself! But in Legacy, that's not true at all, and Strip Mine would destroy everything, which is why it's banned. Classic has two moxes and Mana Crypt, but decks aren't commonly full of non-land mana sources. So Strip Mine recursion is an unanswerable hard lock. But forget about recursion. How about 4x Wastes, 1x Strip Mine? Imagine you lead with Underground Sea. Your opponent Wastes it. Okay. You fetch up a basic Island - this is why you play them. They Strip it. Ouch? Everyone will run either 4x maindeck Stifle or mono-color combo with 4x Wasteland + Strip Mine. Classic has a Vintage-style restricted list because they refuse to outright ban anything. But Classic doesn't have the power that Vintage has. Go give a Legacy deck one Flash, one Mana Drain, or one Balance. That's what one Strip Mine in a Classic deck is going to feel like.
Two things:
1. My knee-jerk reaction is to take Doom Blade. However, if someone has passed Air Elemental, it means either enormous bomb for them or enormous price tag. Either way, in 8-4 I would like to assume that most people would acknowledge that blue will be a lost cause for them if they pass an Air Elemental. You did pass a Doom Blade, so it is possible that the player to your left could go black and never go back, despite its splashability. There is nothing wrong with Doom Blade, but I would honestly think the bombish flier is the pick here.
2. I don't mean to pick on the poster, but "why don't you tweet more?" is the bane of the civilized world.
P1P3: Bat is just better enough than Oryx, flat-out -- it's arguably more evasive, and the one mana makes such a difference that it trumps the toughness concerns. If Oryx were 2G instead of 3G it'd be a lot more interesting. Strike seems okay, but G/R seems really mediocre in this format as you have a really hard time punching through and less depth than you might think.
P1P5: Windstorm makes sense but it's not *that* good; not damaging players is a serious issue, and there aren't all that many fliers out there. Looter might just be a huge signal -- I think it's worth snagging.
More comments on my own reply...
I was thinking, "Why not just call the person Qleene?" But not everyone has names that work in a sentence. Some people have names like sicksicksicksicksicksicksicksicksicksicksicksicksick. Isn't it amazing though how he would've stood a much better chance by playing Trumpet Blast at the right time?
C:\Program Files\Wizards of the Coast\Magic Online III\Data\
d80121604.dat - replace the full text
d80118d00.dat - replace the abbreviated text
d8011fe01.dat - replace the flavor text
Don't use Wordpad or you'll mess up the hyphens.
One of the sad things about MTGO is that you can't Sharpie your own cards. However, you can Sharpie everyone else's cards, which can be just as fun. :)
Doomblade for sure since you already passed one and to pass yet another puts your neighbor in black or black splash since he probably will pick up both black removal.
My only concern looking at the first 2 picks is the amount of green going downstream (2 spiders and a centaur and then slime, oryx and a mana elf) and although Ant Queen is a bomb, green may dry up rather quick in the following picks.
RagMan
even that you did very well, i think you should have picked in P1p1 the 4/4 flyer and going Esper all the way...