P1P1: Fleshbag marauders is far INFERIOR to magma spray, knight captain of eos, and tower gargoyle. It is very overrated and definitely not a first pick. Tower gargoyle or magma spray should be the pick. I like the gargoyle here so good pick.
P1P2: This pick was certainly where the draft went wrong. You immediately wanted to force esper (and you are in a 4-3-2-2 where forcing is even harder to do) by taking the titan. Why not take viscera dragger? It is really really a great card and easily should have been the pick here.
P1P5: Resouning Roar, carrion thrash, and scourge devil in the pack and you took esper panorama. I think that pretty much means you married your first pick. I would have taken the scourge devil and looked to go grixis or jund, leaving splash potential open for the gargoyle if you get the fixing for it.
P1P6: Hissing Iguanar fairly late and definitely a sign that red is open. Leotau is not that great but an ok card (definitely much worse in esper).
The rest of the picks would have been different depending upon where you went in these first 6 picks, but essentially you should have moved into grixis or jund. Red was open and you didnt see it because you were focused on your first pick. Ill have to agree with a previous comment that said you have been marrying your first pick in a lot of your drafts and they would probably go a lot better if you didnt do this. You even acknowledged that you forced your first pick.
As a first pick Fleshbag is the right pick in my book. I personally try not to committ to a Shard until I recieve a signal.
P1.P1 Fleshbag Marauder
P1p2 Vicsera Dragger
P1p3 Dregscape Zombie
P1p4 Bonesplinter
P1p5 Scourge Devil
P1p6 Hissing igauner
P1p7 Naturalize
P1p8 Blightning
P1p9 Dregscape Zombie
P1p10...
My theory it the slowly expand and read the draft.
I like to focus on 2 colors in the first pack and then comment to a shard in pack 2. Unless there is a clear signal the a shard is open. (3rd pick are later Tower, Bull Ceredon, Woolly, Thrinax, Charms, Removal, and Rares.) If those signs are not there I stick to the plan. It has worked out well for me.
I can modestly say that while drafting shard 3 or 4 times a day I did play the captain and its still not even close to Marauders or even Magma Spray. The fleshbag by itself its a great card. Gharial Drake and stuff are just side effects. And picking the marauders obv leaves you open to 3 shards even if u go esper its still a solid card while a bomb in grixis or jund. The Tower is a very powerful card and oblivisouly first pick worthy but Still imo the marauder was the correct choice there for a matter of flexibility
Thank you for the answer. I slighty disagree because I do not find splashing the 4th color versatile but I do understand the 2 Main plus splash because even when you comit to a shard u still have an undercolor
I think marauder keeping you open to 3 shards is an overstatement. He's not usually all that exciting in esper, and still requires a healthy dose of sacrifice outlets and/or guys from the gharial cycle to be as powerful as you're making him out to be. The gargoyle is at close to full powerful regardless of what your deck looks like and probably warrants a splash in grixis or bant if the mana-fixing works out.
Also, have you ever played the captain? If we're going to talk about making the safer pick to keep our options open, he is clearly the right pick.
So for my 4c builds... I'm usually looking at a splash and a minor splash. Splash will be 6ish cards and minor splash is usually 3 or less. For the minor splash it is high quality cards only. Because you may have to wait 8+ turns to get it out. I usually use the minor splash for things like o-ring, or the shard uncommon/rare/mythic creatures. I've defintly built B/U with an esper splash and a red minor splash for Anji and Bull Ceradron(from the 3rd pack).
So the land. Clearly the shard lands are wonderful and when your planning on 4c any of them are great(see any of them at 6th or later pick and they go in your pile). I tend to try and run 18 land with 2 of them being panoramas (I count them as a .5 land for my main colors as I usually want to panorama for the splashes). So the example for my last draft. I spashed white for o-ring, sanctum gargoyle, and tower gargoyle. I was grixis with 7 cards wanting red mana and none of the red would be needed in the first 4 turns(magma spray, but really that is best to hold a while anyway). I managed tri-lands in my two shards (picking 2nd and 3rd.. so no real 'gifts').
So the mana base for the example BU/R/w
Sanctum, Necropolis, bant panorama, esper panorama, 6 swamps, 4 islands, 1 plains, 3 mountains. Clearly this isnt going to get there on a regular basis. So I ran one grixis obsilisk to help with the red. The result is 9.5 black sources, 8 blue, 5 red, and 3 white.
Really I used to think 18 lands plus a obsilisk was overkill and would result in flood. But I ran 19 mana related cards in a deck that stopped at 5cc. And while getting 'flooded' is a pain.. every 2 for one your card quality creates really makes up for the 'extra' land (make your opponent cry by playing o-ring one turn then follow up with agony warp and magma spray). And while flood is painful, screw is an autolose.
I think when using this style of deck it is very key to keep your core 2 and 3 drops in your core colors. In the above deck the U/B stryx and dredgescape zombies filled 5 slots in the deck.
Sorry for the long answer... hope what you were looking for was in there somewhere.
Do you realy rely on 4c? I've been making a little database about my drafts and usually 4c seems quite a strech. How high do you pic panoramas for that strategy?
I really feel strongly that the salvage titan p2 was where this went wrong. Craw wurm in this format is just bad, and all that other text on Salvage Titan doesn't actually say anything relavent. If I'm following your thought process p1.1 is a strong esper card so you try and follow with 'esper' cards. p1.1 tower gargoyal to p1.2 grixis charm or V.Dragger is where I would have gone. Then in p1.5 and 1.6 I'm grabbing the nice red and starting to think 4c with a very light(1-3 max) splash to white. And really you drafted color fixing.. make it work for you.
As I've read the last 10 or so draftbetter walkthroughs I noticed a bad habit. Don't marry a shard. While I was trying to draft a 'shard' my rating dropped 150+ pts. Since I've gone greedy I've gotten to mid 1800s. My last 8+ decks have run 4 colors (Usually a R/B or B/U base splashing g or w). If your open to a 4c plan and you happen to get fed enough quality to run a shard deck great. If you find yourself maindecking steelskin serpents and shorecrashers it is a very good sign you were not greedy enough and probably needed to make your manabase cry a little more... I guess my big take away has been draft a pair (I have a preference for R/B) and then full splash to a shard, and then light splash to a 4th color. With 2/3 of a deck castable on a pair of colors I'm comfortable waiting till turn 8 to find my mana for a tower gargoyle.
Also a note regarding esper/grixis style draftin. With blue and black your removal/bounce will be great. To make it count you must apply early pressure. This is why 2 drop beaters are a must. Stryx, dreadscape, and deathraiders are my prefered 2 drops.
Long story short... In these drafts it seems like you don't draft enough early beaters and don't get greedy enough. Don't play fair make your t4 tower gargoyle get support from a t5 firefield ogre.
But thanks for all the great walkthroughs, and keep up the good work,
I think you might be thinking of Ravenous Rats, not Relentless Rats.
Relentless are the ones that you can have as many as you want in a deck, which kind of fits that it's a high seller when it's selling at all. :) If I had to guess, it's that someone was waiting for them to hit a certain price, and once it got that low, they bought the amount that they were wanting to buy. Just a guess, of course. :)
Thank you so much for the kind words! I recently looked back on my first few articles (that I used to write on the WotC boards) and it's amazing to see how far things have come! Wow.
Very nice, as usual, and a good step by step for people interested in the format. And you completely nailed why I have a hard time getting my head around the format: difficulty in deck tweaking. You can go dozens of games and not see the impacts of a card you've changed.
I'm thinking that's part of the draw to some players, though. :)
And of course, when there are this many restrictions I have the desire to build a combo deck even while fully knowing the tables are stacked against me. I may have to try one though, just to see what I can do with it. :)
I would thought you knew by now, that the rule of thumb to Alara drafts... NEVER pass Hellion. I agree with the comment about the Marauders. You would have had a nuts Grixis deck.
Could you explain me how he drafted fine? I mean looking at that pack and not even considering the Marauder its the first Error. Picking the gargoyle over it IMO its another. And how could he have drafted fine while in one pick explaining his strategy and then going against it in the next one? The Marauder may be overrated but its still the best card in the pack
Ummm don't listen to these guys, as marauder is extremely overrated. You drafted fine and the only thing different i would have done is grab that metallurgeon. that guy who you played in the 2nd round had a silly deck, you can't really beat it. against a different opponent you probably make finals based on your removal alone. on another note i would have also hated the hellion over stinger, and that decision bit u in the ass as the hellion looked like it came out against you. nice article i always read these.
Gotta love your work. You just try to cover all the aspects on the issues you are analyzing, and what's cool is that you can do it with all the videos and images, I like it, great article, keep them coming.
I agree, Marauder would've left you open and then you could take either Salvage Lands or Viscera Dragger (or maybe risk it a little and pick the Grixis Charm) in P1P2, and gone Grixis with P1P3 Kederet Kreeper. Then you would take Fire-Field Ogre P2P1 and Caldera Hellion in P3P1. You would still have all the good black that was going around and looking at the White you drafted... Red could've been better.
Ill agree on both issues but As I said I'll be working on the layout for my next articles and about the MTGO Focus issue I'll also improve that in the next one.
Generally I apreeciate your column but I'll have to disagree with your picks. Fist pick, the discussion would never be about those 3 cards but always about the Fleshback Marauder and the Tower Gargoyle. Both are very powerful cards and not even comparable to Magma Spray or the captain. Tower gargoyle its a power 4/4 but it forces you to go Esper while the marauders leaves you open to 3 Shards with a powerful pick. And since you're not passing any quality Black cards besides a forcing esper Gargoyle it would be the correct pic. You cant pick a Salvage Titan second pick with the explanation that it can be recursed and etc and about the synergy it has with other artifacts and then go with the Zombie instead of the Mage in pick 3. Esper Panorama over Mettalurgeon its just wrong. Mettalurgeon with Tower Gargoyle or Salvage titan is insane and its not worth it to pick a panorama this high with such quality card in the pack. And since you where so concerned about fixing and still left a Crumbling Necropolis in the side? The other pick are almost automatic but If you picked the marauder first it could have gone a lot better.
Yeah I agree with your point but the problem is I was selling out at .50 so I've been raising it. Hopefully it will cool down some more so I can safely drop it. If you have the time always shop around if you want to save a few bucks. I know I'm not the cheapest 100% of the time but I will save you a lot of time if your time is valuable.
P1P1: Fleshbag marauders is far INFERIOR to magma spray, knight captain of eos, and tower gargoyle. It is very overrated and definitely not a first pick. Tower gargoyle or magma spray should be the pick. I like the gargoyle here so good pick.
P1P2: This pick was certainly where the draft went wrong. You immediately wanted to force esper (and you are in a 4-3-2-2 where forcing is even harder to do) by taking the titan. Why not take viscera dragger? It is really really a great card and easily should have been the pick here.
P1P5: Resouning Roar, carrion thrash, and scourge devil in the pack and you took esper panorama. I think that pretty much means you married your first pick. I would have taken the scourge devil and looked to go grixis or jund, leaving splash potential open for the gargoyle if you get the fixing for it.
P1P6: Hissing Iguanar fairly late and definitely a sign that red is open. Leotau is not that great but an ok card (definitely much worse in esper).
The rest of the picks would have been different depending upon where you went in these first 6 picks, but essentially you should have moved into grixis or jund. Red was open and you didnt see it because you were focused on your first pick. Ill have to agree with a previous comment that said you have been marrying your first pick in a lot of your drafts and they would probably go a lot better if you didnt do this. You even acknowledged that you forced your first pick.
As a first pick Fleshbag is the right pick in my book. I personally try not to committ to a Shard until I recieve a signal.
P1.P1 Fleshbag Marauder
P1p2 Vicsera Dragger
P1p3 Dregscape Zombie
P1p4 Bonesplinter
P1p5 Scourge Devil
P1p6 Hissing igauner
P1p7 Naturalize
P1p8 Blightning
P1p9 Dregscape Zombie
P1p10...
My theory it the slowly expand and read the draft.
I like to focus on 2 colors in the first pack and then comment to a shard in pack 2. Unless there is a clear signal the a shard is open. (3rd pick are later Tower, Bull Ceredon, Woolly, Thrinax, Charms, Removal, and Rares.) If those signs are not there I stick to the plan. It has worked out well for me.
Yeah, learn to spell. ROGUE, not rouge.
Rogue = a deceitful and unreliable scoundrel (or an original magic deck).
Rouge = makeup consisting of a pink or red powder applied to the cheeks.
quite different.
I can modestly say that while drafting shard 3 or 4 times a day I did play the captain and its still not even close to Marauders or even Magma Spray. The fleshbag by itself its a great card. Gharial Drake and stuff are just side effects. And picking the marauders obv leaves you open to 3 shards even if u go esper its still a solid card while a bomb in grixis or jund. The Tower is a very powerful card and oblivisouly first pick worthy but Still imo the marauder was the correct choice there for a matter of flexibility
Thank you for the answer. I slighty disagree because I do not find splashing the 4th color versatile but I do understand the 2 Main plus splash because even when you comit to a shard u still have an undercolor
I think marauder keeping you open to 3 shards is an overstatement. He's not usually all that exciting in esper, and still requires a healthy dose of sacrifice outlets and/or guys from the gharial cycle to be as powerful as you're making him out to be. The gargoyle is at close to full powerful regardless of what your deck looks like and probably warrants a splash in grixis or bant if the mana-fixing works out.
Also, have you ever played the captain? If we're going to talk about making the safer pick to keep our options open, he is clearly the right pick.
So for my 4c builds... I'm usually looking at a splash and a minor splash. Splash will be 6ish cards and minor splash is usually 3 or less. For the minor splash it is high quality cards only. Because you may have to wait 8+ turns to get it out. I usually use the minor splash for things like o-ring, or the shard uncommon/rare/mythic creatures. I've defintly built B/U with an esper splash and a red minor splash for Anji and Bull Ceradron(from the 3rd pack).
So the land. Clearly the shard lands are wonderful and when your planning on 4c any of them are great(see any of them at 6th or later pick and they go in your pile). I tend to try and run 18 land with 2 of them being panoramas (I count them as a .5 land for my main colors as I usually want to panorama for the splashes). So the example for my last draft. I spashed white for o-ring, sanctum gargoyle, and tower gargoyle. I was grixis with 7 cards wanting red mana and none of the red would be needed in the first 4 turns(magma spray, but really that is best to hold a while anyway). I managed tri-lands in my two shards (picking 2nd and 3rd.. so no real 'gifts').
So the mana base for the example BU/R/w
Sanctum, Necropolis, bant panorama, esper panorama, 6 swamps, 4 islands, 1 plains, 3 mountains. Clearly this isnt going to get there on a regular basis. So I ran one grixis obsilisk to help with the red. The result is 9.5 black sources, 8 blue, 5 red, and 3 white.
Really I used to think 18 lands plus a obsilisk was overkill and would result in flood. But I ran 19 mana related cards in a deck that stopped at 5cc. And while getting 'flooded' is a pain.. every 2 for one your card quality creates really makes up for the 'extra' land (make your opponent cry by playing o-ring one turn then follow up with agony warp and magma spray). And while flood is painful, screw is an autolose.
I think when using this style of deck it is very key to keep your core 2 and 3 drops in your core colors. In the above deck the U/B stryx and dredgescape zombies filled 5 slots in the deck.
Sorry for the long answer... hope what you were looking for was in there somewhere.
Reelapsse
Do you realy rely on 4c? I've been making a little database about my drafts and usually 4c seems quite a strech. How high do you pic panoramas for that strategy?
I really feel strongly that the salvage titan p2 was where this went wrong. Craw wurm in this format is just bad, and all that other text on Salvage Titan doesn't actually say anything relavent. If I'm following your thought process p1.1 is a strong esper card so you try and follow with 'esper' cards. p1.1 tower gargoyal to p1.2 grixis charm or V.Dragger is where I would have gone. Then in p1.5 and 1.6 I'm grabbing the nice red and starting to think 4c with a very light(1-3 max) splash to white. And really you drafted color fixing.. make it work for you.
As I've read the last 10 or so draftbetter walkthroughs I noticed a bad habit. Don't marry a shard. While I was trying to draft a 'shard' my rating dropped 150+ pts. Since I've gone greedy I've gotten to mid 1800s. My last 8+ decks have run 4 colors (Usually a R/B or B/U base splashing g or w). If your open to a 4c plan and you happen to get fed enough quality to run a shard deck great. If you find yourself maindecking steelskin serpents and shorecrashers it is a very good sign you were not greedy enough and probably needed to make your manabase cry a little more... I guess my big take away has been draft a pair (I have a preference for R/B) and then full splash to a shard, and then light splash to a 4th color. With 2/3 of a deck castable on a pair of colors I'm comfortable waiting till turn 8 to find my mana for a tower gargoyle.
Also a note regarding esper/grixis style draftin. With blue and black your removal/bounce will be great. To make it count you must apply early pressure. This is why 2 drop beaters are a must. Stryx, dreadscape, and deathraiders are my prefered 2 drops.
Long story short... In these drafts it seems like you don't draft enough early beaters and don't get greedy enough. Don't play fair make your t4 tower gargoyle get support from a t5 firefield ogre.
But thanks for all the great walkthroughs, and keep up the good work,
Reelapsse
I think you might be thinking of Ravenous Rats, not Relentless Rats.
Relentless are the ones that you can have as many as you want in a deck, which kind of fits that it's a high seller when it's selling at all. :) If I had to guess, it's that someone was waiting for them to hit a certain price, and once it got that low, they bought the amount that they were wanting to buy. Just a guess, of course. :)
Thank you so much for the kind words! I recently looked back on my first few articles (that I used to write on the WotC boards) and it's amazing to see how far things have come! Wow.
Thanks again!
Very nice, as usual, and a good step by step for people interested in the format. And you completely nailed why I have a hard time getting my head around the format: difficulty in deck tweaking. You can go dozens of games and not see the impacts of a card you've changed.
I'm thinking that's part of the draw to some players, though. :)
And of course, when there are this many restrictions I have the desire to build a combo deck even while fully knowing the tables are stacked against me. I may have to try one though, just to see what I can do with it. :)
Thanks for all your work!
I would thought you knew by now, that the rule of thumb to Alara drafts... NEVER pass Hellion. I agree with the comment about the Marauders. You would have had a nuts Grixis deck.
Could you explain me how he drafted fine? I mean looking at that pack and not even considering the Marauder its the first Error. Picking the gargoyle over it IMO its another. And how could he have drafted fine while in one pick explaining his strategy and then going against it in the next one? The Marauder may be overrated but its still the best card in the pack
Ummm don't listen to these guys, as marauder is extremely overrated. You drafted fine and the only thing different i would have done is grab that metallurgeon. that guy who you played in the 2nd round had a silly deck, you can't really beat it. against a different opponent you probably make finals based on your removal alone. on another note i would have also hated the hellion over stinger, and that decision bit u in the ass as the hellion looked like it came out against you. nice article i always read these.
Gotta love your work. You just try to cover all the aspects on the issues you are analyzing, and what's cool is that you can do it with all the videos and images, I like it, great article, keep them coming.
I agree, Marauder would've left you open and then you could take either Salvage Lands or Viscera Dragger (or maybe risk it a little and pick the Grixis Charm) in P1P2, and gone Grixis with P1P3 Kederet Kreeper. Then you would take Fire-Field Ogre P2P1 and Caldera Hellion in P3P1. You would still have all the good black that was going around and looking at the White you drafted... Red could've been better.
Ill agree on both issues but As I said I'll be working on the layout for my next articles and about the MTGO Focus issue I'll also improve that in the next one.
Generally I apreeciate your column but I'll have to disagree with your picks. Fist pick, the discussion would never be about those 3 cards but always about the Fleshback Marauder and the Tower Gargoyle. Both are very powerful cards and not even comparable to Magma Spray or the captain. Tower gargoyle its a power 4/4 but it forces you to go Esper while the marauders leaves you open to 3 Shards with a powerful pick. And since you're not passing any quality Black cards besides a forcing esper Gargoyle it would be the correct pic. You cant pick a Salvage Titan second pick with the explanation that it can be recursed and etc and about the synergy it has with other artifacts and then go with the Zombie instead of the Mage in pick 3. Esper Panorama over Mettalurgeon its just wrong. Mettalurgeon with Tower Gargoyle or Salvage titan is insane and its not worth it to pick a panorama this high with such quality card in the pack. And since you where so concerned about fixing and still left a Crumbling Necropolis in the side? The other pick are almost automatic but If you picked the marauder first it could have gone a lot better.
Great content, but the layout and editing could use some work. Also, not really focused on MTGO.
Ill try to improve the graphics and also the way they are presented.
Great analysis of the format. Very helpful for anyone who does not have enough time to test thoroughly, and needs to know what to expect in the field.
I'm thinking typo should probably be Rogues
Either I don't get the joke, or your article is about blush makeup.