P6: I agree, I love Dragoons myself, especially in U/W.
P7: I like Ancient Grudge here as you have not really decided what your second color is and you just grabbed a red bomb two picks earlier. You already shipped a Assassin and a previous Withering, putting either the guy on your left or the guy next to him on B/X Madness, so I really don't like the Withering here. If it was a Soot, yeah, but withering really isn't all that strong without madness outlets.
P8: Slipstream is a fine man, try unmorphing him after blockers are declared. Gustcloak is terrible, I would rather run anything rather than put him in my deck.
P18: I think Saltfield Recluse, it will actually save you more life in the long run IMO, and if you are staying W/B you will have better removal options later.
P23: Enitity IS a combat trick, one that tricks your opponent by killing him. Or just holds the ground long enough for your Drakes to do it.
P33: Luminid, I think you are heavy enough blue that the Strobe would probably come back if you really want it, which I wouldn't.
P2 I would have like to see because the Djinn is a bad 3/3 flyer for 5 if not in U/R not being able to block the formats many 2/2s, 2/3s and 1/3s (not to mention 5/3s) it a pretty big drawback.
P8 Take the Eel, by far better then the two cards you mentioned. A 2/2 for five need a crazy ablity to be good, see Endrek Sar, Master Breeder. Gustcloak Cavalier simply never makes the cut in a deck. I'd run an 18th land over him.
After pack one you should have been U/B you had seen one good white card after pack one. The Preist, Blink, and Kestal all were picked before pack got back to you putting at least 3 other people at table with white cards. Two of the pack's three black cards were gone but you had seen the Dark Witherings late showing you the way to go.
P16 Based on what I said above Mutation was proper pick. If you were still looking to force white then Derm was card to go with. That said you were trying to force White by picking it, if you knew it or not. You say you will rareley 1st pick mutation, this is incorrect, blue has few one mana spells worth playing. While it's not the best card to first pick it is one I have first picked many, many times.
P17 Nothing in your colors, taking the Sliver wasn't awful here but was not a good pick. I would have picked Cradle probably if you really wanted to avoid black this pack showed you that maybe you should be in Red or Green. Saw not much Red pack one, but did see some decent late Green that pack (and that will repeat itself this time.) If you're sticking to white I think you take Riftwatcher and hope to nab a Whitemaine Lion later, or maybe a Ramosian Revivalist pack 3 if you're lucky.
P18 Tough call, if you're not playing Black Saltblast is right call as you have no removal yet.
P19 You said it as well as I could :)
P20 Plasma is right call. At this point chance of Whitemaine is much lower and without any rebel searchers Plasma is better anyways. Riftwatcher if you have nothing to go with it is a 23rd card at best, you gain 4 life, maybe they loose 4 and you're out a card. Not worth it.
P21 You have almost no Slivers. Aquamorph is right call imo. I like him much more then entity but as you lack evasion at this point he might not be a bad call ether.
P22 Plamsa, if you are worried about running too many 4 (and 5 with FS coming up) drops then Artist will power them out sooner.
P24 Midnight Charm is best card in pack but you are not going for Black.
P25 An Artist before would have let you splash for a very good sliver to go along with your so-so ones.
P33 I'd take the 3/3 flyer. Strobe basically has worked out three ways for me. First one: too slow versus fast decks, they beat me down. Second: Longer game Strobe lets me get in there for the win. Third: longer game Strobe does nothing against a large, stalled board and my opponent just replays whatever I bounced. I only pick it highly if I have a way to abuse it (Rift Elemental and Timebug being the main ones.)
P36 That is my least favorite of the Future Sight slivers and one I have almost never played, just plain bad.
P37 Nice pickup this late!
P40 A weak card in a color you're not playing, less then ideal. The further I go into this draft the more I wonder what should have replaced White, Red or Black?
P42 This puts me back in Black camp as U/B decks make Grave Scabber so amazing, plenty of discard outlets.
Didn't really mean for this to be so critical, think of it as constructive critism. And good luck in the 8-4s!
I think I've gotten Jaya second maybe once. Never seen her past that, her going 5th is insane, just bonkers. If the pack was :Tromp the Domains, Firemaw Kavu, Sulferious Blast, Jaya, Call of the Herd, Foil Spectral Force (and I think we can say it wasn't) she maybe should go 5th, but honestly in terms of card power should be 1-3rd pick.
This is why I feel that 4-3-2-2s don't help alot in getting ready for 8-4s. For instance you're plan to block a 2/2 with your facedown Drake, honestly odds are pretty small this will happen vs a decent opponent. Good players can play around most morphs without too much trouble.
This draft looked alright however you should have been in black. Seeing not one but two late Dark Witherings is a strong signal. You should have picked both then the Smallpox to go with them. Double Cradle to the Grave late pack two backs this up.
Also I think you underrate Dreamscape artist, seems like a black splash for the Cradles would have been worth it. (Also with three mana up you can activate the Artist getting Swamp+other land cast cradle a nice syngery that will also surprise your opponent.) Also good for madness.
I haven't drafted yet in MTGO. How long of a time commitment is it? Are there any draft leagues or anything like that where you could draft and then play off and on with the deck over the next week or more?
Drafting sounds like fun, but I have a lot of trouble blocking off more than an hour or so at a time to play, so I haven't really given it a shot yet. If drafting and then playing several rounds takes several consecutive hours, then I'm likely not going to be able to do it very often.
I love draft walkthroughs and yours have been very enjoyable. I like seeing how someone of similar skill level thinks when drafting. Solid drafts with room for improvement of course just like all of us.
I think the solar flare list from Am Champs that did not run Remand seems to be a bit better off than the Nats version.
I say this because you're always tapping out with flare, so why would you want to leave counter magic open? It's nice to have, but maybe Remand is a bit of a crutch.
I'll never play the deck on MTGO though, I am salivating at the chance to put a warhammer on a troll and bashing for infinite!
PureMTGO allows any topic as long as there is no cussing or mindless bashing. As long as an article is fun to read I am going to post it and I will continue to operate the site this way and i'm sorry some of you do not like this. I want to give you all the freedom to write about whatever you want and if you want censored articles we all know where to get them from. Just because I post an article does not mean I agree with the topic. I hope you all understand the stance that I have taken on this and i'll be more than happy to chat with anyone about it in further detail if they would like.
I liked the article. Occasionally, I just get evil and go on a rampage killing things and building hate decks. I can't help it, it's how I get my jollies...some days.
Nice article, I always enjoy reading about drafts :)
Just thought seen as you kept mentioning a list of top five commons/uncs/rares in each of the different draft packs it might be useful to actually name them in a article. I'm sure this would help drafters that were new to the draft and would also be an intresting point of debate.
I love draft cap, I think it is a great program, and a solid learning tool. It lets you know what is going on, you can show it to people and see where you are messing up.
However, Draft Cap thinks it is funny to skip packs. However, this is much better than the alternative that I can think of which is capturing a screen shot, opening MS PAint and copy pasting that bad boy in there.
That is a lot of work, and slows down the draft a lot. Hopefully, I'll get the kinks out soon, and I'll stop looking so computer illiterate with the program.
I am pretty sure I never actually activated the Noble, She was too busy turning sideways to get in for two.
I really love ETW. It's at least really close to being FTW, which is what ETW does when I play it.
I think I have cast ETW 1 millions times and have lost once on MTGO when it resolved. (this by the way is a lie, it does however make me giggle.)
I disrespect the artist, I think he is really good in a three color base blue deck when you need to have all three colors, but in this deck i just felt he would be lacking.
Rift elemental is something I have overlooked, I've never thought of him being good, but then again I have a pretty narrow mind when I sit down. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look into him if I ever draft something this similiar again.
Yeah I recognize that when I say that mono black is shallow in Future Sight that I am not drafting mono Black. I know that I going to be playing another color.
Another thing that you are correct about is me being married to my first pick. That is a very true statement, and I can not argue that fact. It's a horrible habit that I have, and as you'll see in later articles in the series it is a huge point that I need to confront in order to get better at drafting. I have not tried the grabbing the best card in the pack and looking for signals method yet, because I have yet to evolve to that point in drafting, I constantly catch myself taking my first pick, and then building around it.
I know 4322 are horrible, however, I wanted to get a grasp on the format before I jumped into the big boys pool. I'll be in the 8-4 queue soon enough I promise, and I bet I'll be able to learn a lot more from that than I would from a 4322.
When I started to play paper magic, i was around a lot of really good players, and we drafted all the time. The catch to that was the winner got all the rares, so I was able to adapt a lot quicker using that draft style. It was either learn how to do it right, or lose a lot of money every week.
The 4322 queue however, has been really good in showing me what color combinations are the strongest. It has shown me what is playable and what is chaff.
I appreciate the comments, they were well thought out, and I hope they help. Thank you.
It's very hard to evaluate your draft because pack 2 is missing, but I found myself wanting the baloth over the sudden death, but I think i'm the one that's wrong. I have to assume I got something useful in green in pack 2. My first 4 picks were green, then I chose my second color on 5 with the corpulent corpse followed by tresspasser. Knowing this about my deck, I have to value madness higher in the planeshift pack and value the deepcavern imps highly in Future Sight. It looks like black gets cut off after looking deep in pack 1, so I have to assume someone else saw that signal too.... So I end up with a green beatstick machine, never a bad thing. I just don't like first picking sudden death because of how bad it is in P and F unless you're dealt a bomb. My deck would probably win round one at least unless I got paired up badly.
When you drafted the Warrens, you disqualified yourself from picking the telekinetic sliver. Also, telekinetic sliver works a lot better as a u/w deck where you can pick up poultices, sidewinders, opalines, lymphms later. Warrens is by no means a first pick card. It's only good if you have a lot of suspend, and at that point you don't know if you do.
B, R, E, A, K - Warrens is an A, the Kavu is middling between B and R.
The only card that could even be considered is the Bonesplitter, and I'd have to question you on that.
I think you can tell that the telekinetic sliver was your worst pick though. In TSP, you can't just pick the best card in the pack, you have to actually build a cohesive deck. Kavu / Isolation is a lot more cohesive and condusive to a good foundation that warrens / telekinetic. Then you watched as me sitting to your right just cleans up on solid white & red deep into packs.
But I could because I didn't really overcommit to anything. Also, white has the deepest quality of creatures, red is ridiculously deep in TPF that it can support 4 players as their second color. Of course, we didn't find this out until Future Sight.
P2: While Spirit Noble is clearly playable, keep in mind that the times you can swing with enough fliers to make the +1 Power ability a better deal than just swinging with the Noble is pretty rare. I still love the card though!
P4: You and your Empty the Warren! Makes me lol. After the exceptional green in the last pack, Weatherseed Totem was the correct pick here.
P10: Though signals have gotten mixed at this point, I would have taken the Herd Gnarr.
P18: In general, I feel that Artist is better than Brute Force since it's an exceptional deck manipulation tool. Brute Force seems better in a GR or WR deck, though it's certainly playable in UR too.
P43: I cannot begin to tell you how good Rift Elemental can be in a deck like yours. Whenever I get an early Arc Blade, I start looking for Rift Elementals. The trick is to try to hold them back until the late game. I've won quite a few by using my pile of mana to do 2 to 6 direct damage to my opponent each turn with my Blade (targetting critters can be risky with the Blade since there are tons of bounce effects int he format). While attacking with the Elemental early might look sexy, it's really just an invitation to get him killed before he becomes really useful.
Nice article Mr. Claytor. Reading a draft article from a writer honestly trying to improve his game and acknowledging his shortcomings is refreshing. I hope my comments here don't sound too harsh, as I really just want to make a few strong points to help you and other players out there.
P1: Passing FMK. Wow, that's pretty awful. For future reference, Warrens is nowhere near as good now as it was in T-T-T draft since there are plenty of answers to it, including the ever-present Sprout Swarm. Grapeshot is a far better Storm card (best limited Storm card in the block, IMO). Warrens is still decent, probably best in UR, but it's not anywhere near as good as FMK. Keep in mind, FMK is usually a 3-for-1, sometimes *only* a 2-for-1. FMK vs. S.Blast is a tough call. FMK vs. Warrens really shouldn't be.
P3: This early in the draft, you should *not* be thinking that you are already commited to two colors (unless you've drafting crazy bombs, but that's another story). Red is perhaps the easiest color to splash, and Blue and Green are the easiest colors to facilitate splashing a third color. So, at this point, you should be thinking "UX splashing Red," in which case, Nantuko Shaman, Spinneret Sliver, and Looter il-Kor are all excellent choices for you. Note: I still think Looter was the best pick here.
P4: I would not have been worried about Red being cut here and been quite happy to pick the Red suspender, which combos excellently with ETW. BTW, I would have taken Crusader over the Giant anyhow, unless I was going RW with Warrens.
P5: At this point I'm thinking G, W, and possibly B are open. Then again, this is 4211, so who can say. Again, it might have been just a bad pack. I might have taken Dralnu (thinking of Red as a splash) or the Dryad if I had taken the second sliver in pack 3.
P6: At this point I have no idea what anyone behind you is drafting. Sentinel is solid for blue, but since blue is so deep it might not mean anything. The Cannonade red is still open (it tends to be over-drafted, so *any* removal this far along is a good sign). Cavalry and Burial are both playable (though pretty meh), and after a steady stream of white and black playables it's possible these colors are being under-drafted. No green to be found, which is odd after the excellent Dryad from the last pack.
P7: Pretty good confirmation that Black is open. I'd be sad if I hadn't picked Dralnu. I'd take the Gorgon.
P9: Here's where interpreting signals and keeping your options open pays off. A Tendrils this late is ridiculous and a golden signal that Black is being severely under-drafted.
P11: I would have taken Ghostflame Sliver here.
Anyhow, after the TSP packs, I'd be holding a Blue-Black deck with a possible Red splash. I notice that you kept getting passed excellent Black cards throughout the draft, and blue seemed to be cut in PLC. That's all part of the 4211 Experience (TM), I suppose.
I know it's a few days after the fact, but hopefully you're still reading comments. First off, I noticed in both your drafts you seemed afraid to draft black because of a supposed weakness in FS. Well, though it is not the deepest color, black does have Ichor Slick, Death Rattle, Deepcavern Imp, Mass of Ghouls, Cutthroat Il-Dal and Stronghold Rats as excellent to acceptable picks, and it's doubtful that you're drafting mono-black so you DO have another color to go into. That said, you also seem to get married to your first pick a lot of the time. ETW in your first draft big time, and seemingly the Death (just by your comment on the second pick that there were no other good black cards) in your second draft, though you did jump out of black when appropriate. That early in the draft it is better to snag the best card in the pack and watch for signals to hopefully figure out what your upstream neighbors are in, then cement your colors in. Even then it is important to be able to switch colors or pick up a different supporting color in pack 2, as you have no real control over what your downstream neighbor takes, regardless of the signals you send. Last general comment is that you should really draft 8-4s. Yes, they are hard. Yes, half the people there are 1800+. But the fact is that you do not learn ANYTHING drafting 4-3-2-2. The average quality of drafter in 4-3-2-2 is horrible. 8th pick Expanse? You cannot with a straight face tell me that every person in the draft before you had a better option for his/her deck than the second best mana fixer in the block. Simply put, you can learn to draft 4-3-2-2 well, and you can even get your rating above 1700 in a fairly short time. But if you try to move to 8-4 from there, you will do terribly, as the people in 8-4 know what they are doing. You cannot lucksack your way into a good deck in 8-4, the only way to do it is to have good drafting skills. Which you only learn in 8-4. Try it out. You'll probably get slaughtered your first few times (I know I did), but if you're any good at picking up strategies at all, you'll learn quicker.
Not really addressing the core of the article itself, I'm going to speak specifically on writing. Please take no offense, for I too have similar problems with my writing (which is why I've taken a long haitus as I develop my writing style).
The Main problem with your writing as of now is that although it articulates ideas, it fails to provide a strong voice. A good example of a voice would be Tim Aten's writings (or rantings if you would call them), as well as Osyp's writings. They both have a specific type of voice in their writing that allows them to write funny satirical pieces for the world to enjoy. That said, I feel that your take on satire (as you have claimed that is what this piece is), is lacking at best. If memory serves, satire writing is considered one of the hardest forms of writing because of the issue of stance and voice. Your voice within the piece does at times seem more childish versus attempting to make people laugh.
That said, a voice is something you develop overtime, and thus best of luck in developing one.
Oh also, annoying decks with a pointless win condition is fine, but one with no win condition is a bit annoying, but hey there are Daves in this world.... (If nobody gets that reference *sighs)
I can't believe these people take offense to this, ha.
Creating hate decks can be fun. I have a prismatic hate deck that has about 32 different ways to stifle fetchlands. That is fun.
I have decks that intentionally are horrible and I plan to lose. Is that wrong? Using polymorph on an activated blinkmoth nexus to reveal my only creature in the deck, chimney imp and then giving the sad face : ( is entertaining to me.
We pay our money to play the game. If it isn't against the CoC, others should have no say in how you choose to have fun.
There IS a win-condition with the first deck... just have to "beat" for one a turn.
Dragonmage65: I have always valued your input, your play ability, and your willingness to give/participate heavily in the community. This said, I do feel this is damaging to your "face" in the community; an interesting read, but I do not feel that this topic should have been approached from this side of things. But, rather, from the opposite side, on proper etiquitte.
Still your online friend, no hostile feelings toward you, but I do feel that this article has damaged a lot that you have worked for, and it would probably be in the best interest of this site, and MTGOTRADERS as a whole to remove this article and for Heath or a MTGOTRADERS component, therein, to respond to this, in the public eye; even if removing it doesn't take place. It puts a bad taste in people's mouths (especially newcomers who are interested in what PUREMTGO is about to have this type of thing posted (moreso that it's on the front page).
Casual, I agree, is about ANY deck being played (even Dragonstorm, 'Tog, Friggorid, etc.). But, to deliberatly step on peoples toes is not casual, That really does hurt the image of MTGO as a whole, and is quite damaging (in my opinion) to us (PUREMTGO).
"Having NO win condition in the hopes that a player quits out of frustration is truely low."
Mark Gottlieb once did the same thing on the official site in one of his articles. His used a deck with a Isochron Scepter/Metamorphose combo for a soft lock, with no win condition. "It's a little thrill as you pull off the con—and it's a brilliant, subversive deck concept."
That was published on the official site, not a player-run one like this one. There weren't any calls for a retraction, there were calls for a correction (because the deck *DID* in fact have a subtle win condition the author did not catch).
Again, if you took offense to the article, I apologize, but I am not going to censure myself, nor am I going to continue to defend myself beyond this. Make what you want to make of it.
Just a few quick observations:
P6: I agree, I love Dragoons myself, especially in U/W.
P7: I like Ancient Grudge here as you have not really decided what your second color is and you just grabbed a red bomb two picks earlier. You already shipped a Assassin and a previous Withering, putting either the guy on your left or the guy next to him on B/X Madness, so I really don't like the Withering here. If it was a Soot, yeah, but withering really isn't all that strong without madness outlets.
P8: Slipstream is a fine man, try unmorphing him after blockers are declared. Gustcloak is terrible, I would rather run anything rather than put him in my deck.
P18: I think Saltfield Recluse, it will actually save you more life in the long run IMO, and if you are staying W/B you will have better removal options later.
P23: Enitity IS a combat trick, one that tricks your opponent by killing him. Or just holds the ground long enough for your Drakes to do it.
P33: Luminid, I think you are heavy enough blue that the Strobe would probably come back if you really want it, which I wouldn't.
Good call on not raping your manabase for Jaya.
Comments were too long to post so here is part 2:
Some last notes on draft picks:
P2 I would have like to see because the Djinn is a bad 3/3 flyer for 5 if not in U/R not being able to block the formats many 2/2s, 2/3s and 1/3s (not to mention 5/3s) it a pretty big drawback.
P8 Take the Eel, by far better then the two cards you mentioned. A 2/2 for five need a crazy ablity to be good, see Endrek Sar, Master Breeder. Gustcloak Cavalier simply never makes the cut in a deck. I'd run an 18th land over him.
After pack one you should have been U/B you had seen one good white card after pack one. The Preist, Blink, and Kestal all were picked before pack got back to you putting at least 3 other people at table with white cards. Two of the pack's three black cards were gone but you had seen the Dark Witherings late showing you the way to go.
P16 Based on what I said above Mutation was proper pick. If you were still looking to force white then Derm was card to go with. That said you were trying to force White by picking it, if you knew it or not. You say you will rareley 1st pick mutation, this is incorrect, blue has few one mana spells worth playing. While it's not the best card to first pick it is one I have first picked many, many times.
P17 Nothing in your colors, taking the Sliver wasn't awful here but was not a good pick. I would have picked Cradle probably if you really wanted to avoid black this pack showed you that maybe you should be in Red or Green. Saw not much Red pack one, but did see some decent late Green that pack (and that will repeat itself this time.) If you're sticking to white I think you take Riftwatcher and hope to nab a Whitemaine Lion later, or maybe a Ramosian Revivalist pack 3 if you're lucky.
P18 Tough call, if you're not playing Black Saltblast is right call as you have no removal yet.
P19 You said it as well as I could :)
P20 Plasma is right call. At this point chance of Whitemaine is much lower and without any rebel searchers Plasma is better anyways. Riftwatcher if you have nothing to go with it is a 23rd card at best, you gain 4 life, maybe they loose 4 and you're out a card. Not worth it.
P21 You have almost no Slivers. Aquamorph is right call imo. I like him much more then entity but as you lack evasion at this point he might not be a bad call ether.
P22 Plamsa, if you are worried about running too many 4 (and 5 with FS coming up) drops then Artist will power them out sooner.
P24 Midnight Charm is best card in pack but you are not going for Black.
P25 An Artist before would have let you splash for a very good sliver to go along with your so-so ones.
P33 I'd take the 3/3 flyer. Strobe basically has worked out three ways for me. First one: too slow versus fast decks, they beat me down. Second: Longer game Strobe lets me get in there for the win. Third: longer game Strobe does nothing against a large, stalled board and my opponent just replays whatever I bounced. I only pick it highly if I have a way to abuse it (Rift Elemental and Timebug being the main ones.)
P36 That is my least favorite of the Future Sight slivers and one I have almost never played, just plain bad.
P37 Nice pickup this late!
P40 A weak card in a color you're not playing, less then ideal. The further I go into this draft the more I wonder what should have replaced White, Red or Black?
P42 This puts me back in Black camp as U/B decks make Grave Scabber so amazing, plenty of discard outlets.
Didn't really mean for this to be so critical, think of it as constructive critism. And good luck in the 8-4s!
I think I've gotten Jaya second maybe once. Never seen her past that, her going 5th is insane, just bonkers. If the pack was :Tromp the Domains, Firemaw Kavu, Sulferious Blast, Jaya, Call of the Herd, Foil Spectral Force (and I think we can say it wasn't) she maybe should go 5th, but honestly in terms of card power should be 1-3rd pick.
This is why I feel that 4-3-2-2s don't help alot in getting ready for 8-4s. For instance you're plan to block a 2/2 with your facedown Drake, honestly odds are pretty small this will happen vs a decent opponent. Good players can play around most morphs without too much trouble.
This draft looked alright however you should have been in black. Seeing not one but two late Dark Witherings is a strong signal. You should have picked both then the Smallpox to go with them. Double Cradle to the Grave late pack two backs this up.
Also I think you underrate Dreamscape artist, seems like a black splash for the Cradles would have been worth it. (Also with three mana up you can activate the Artist getting Swamp+other land cast cradle a nice syngery that will also surprise your opponent.) Also good for madness.
-iceage
I haven't drafted yet in MTGO. How long of a time commitment is it? Are there any draft leagues or anything like that where you could draft and then play off and on with the deck over the next week or more?
Drafting sounds like fun, but I have a lot of trouble blocking off more than an hour or so at a time to play, so I haven't really given it a shot yet. If drafting and then playing several rounds takes several consecutive hours, then I'm likely not going to be able to do it very often.
I love draft walkthroughs and yours have been very enjoyable. I like seeing how someone of similar skill level thinks when drafting. Solid drafts with room for improvement of course just like all of us.
I think the solar flare list from Am Champs that did not run Remand seems to be a bit better off than the Nats version.
I say this because you're always tapping out with flare, so why would you want to leave counter magic open? It's nice to have, but maybe Remand is a bit of a crutch.
I'll never play the deck on MTGO though, I am salivating at the chance to put a warhammer on a troll and bashing for infinite!
I'm working on it, I promise :) I hope to have it finished by the end of the week.
PureMTGO allows any topic as long as there is no cussing or mindless bashing. As long as an article is fun to read I am going to post it and I will continue to operate the site this way and i'm sorry some of you do not like this. I want to give you all the freedom to write about whatever you want and if you want censored articles we all know where to get them from. Just because I post an article does not mean I agree with the topic. I hope you all understand the stance that I have taken on this and i'll be more than happy to chat with anyone about it in further detail if they would like.
In the U/B Dralnu Deck, you can search for Tormod's Crypt with Tolaria West.
I liked the article. Occasionally, I just get evil and go on a rampage killing things and building hate decks. I can't help it, it's how I get my jollies...some days.
Nice article, I always enjoy reading about drafts :)
Just thought seen as you kept mentioning a list of top five commons/uncs/rares in each of the different draft packs it might be useful to actually name them in a article. I'm sure this would help drafters that were new to the draft and would also be an intresting point of debate.
Keep drafting and writing !
I loved it. Good work! I don't care that your scathing wit didn't come through. - I get it ;)
I love draft cap, I think it is a great program, and a solid learning tool. It lets you know what is going on, you can show it to people and see where you are messing up.
However, Draft Cap thinks it is funny to skip packs. However, this is much better than the alternative that I can think of which is capturing a screen shot, opening MS PAint and copy pasting that bad boy in there.
That is a lot of work, and slows down the draft a lot. Hopefully, I'll get the kinks out soon, and I'll stop looking so computer illiterate with the program.
I am pretty sure I never actually activated the Noble, She was too busy turning sideways to get in for two.
I really love ETW. It's at least really close to being FTW, which is what ETW does when I play it.
I think I have cast ETW 1 millions times and have lost once on MTGO when it resolved. (this by the way is a lie, it does however make me giggle.)
I disrespect the artist, I think he is really good in a three color base blue deck when you need to have all three colors, but in this deck i just felt he would be lacking.
Rift elemental is something I have overlooked, I've never thought of him being good, but then again I have a pretty narrow mind when I sit down. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look into him if I ever draft something this similiar again.
Yeah I recognize that when I say that mono black is shallow in Future Sight that I am not drafting mono Black. I know that I going to be playing another color.
Another thing that you are correct about is me being married to my first pick. That is a very true statement, and I can not argue that fact. It's a horrible habit that I have, and as you'll see in later articles in the series it is a huge point that I need to confront in order to get better at drafting. I have not tried the grabbing the best card in the pack and looking for signals method yet, because I have yet to evolve to that point in drafting, I constantly catch myself taking my first pick, and then building around it.
I know 4322 are horrible, however, I wanted to get a grasp on the format before I jumped into the big boys pool. I'll be in the 8-4 queue soon enough I promise, and I bet I'll be able to learn a lot more from that than I would from a 4322.
When I started to play paper magic, i was around a lot of really good players, and we drafted all the time. The catch to that was the winner got all the rares, so I was able to adapt a lot quicker using that draft style. It was either learn how to do it right, or lose a lot of money every week.
The 4322 queue however, has been really good in showing me what color combinations are the strongest. It has shown me what is playable and what is chaff.
I appreciate the comments, they were well thought out, and I hope they help. Thank you.
It's very hard to evaluate your draft because pack 2 is missing, but I found myself wanting the baloth over the sudden death, but I think i'm the one that's wrong. I have to assume I got something useful in green in pack 2. My first 4 picks were green, then I chose my second color on 5 with the corpulent corpse followed by tresspasser. Knowing this about my deck, I have to value madness higher in the planeshift pack and value the deepcavern imps highly in Future Sight. It looks like black gets cut off after looking deep in pack 1, so I have to assume someone else saw that signal too.... So I end up with a green beatstick machine, never a bad thing. I just don't like first picking sudden death because of how bad it is in P and F unless you're dealt a bomb. My deck would probably win round one at least unless I got paired up badly.
Had browser problems...
2 more things, I went through it pick by pick and I had two other differences of opinion
The Stormfront Riders are better for the white deck that we have drafted up to this point then the magus
The celestial crusaders if better than the ivory giant imho
Nice to see another draft article Mr. Claytor!
P2: While Spirit Noble is clearly playable, keep in mind that the times you can swing with enough fliers to make the +1 Power ability a better deal than just swinging with the Noble is pretty rare. I still love the card though!
P4: You and your Empty the Warren! Makes me lol. After the exceptional green in the last pack, Weatherseed Totem was the correct pick here.
P10: Though signals have gotten mixed at this point, I would have taken the Herd Gnarr.
P18: In general, I feel that Artist is better than Brute Force since it's an exceptional deck manipulation tool. Brute Force seems better in a GR or WR deck, though it's certainly playable in UR too.
P43: I cannot begin to tell you how good Rift Elemental can be in a deck like yours. Whenever I get an early Arc Blade, I start looking for Rift Elementals. The trick is to try to hold them back until the late game. I've won quite a few by using my pile of mana to do 2 to 6 direct damage to my opponent each turn with my Blade (targetting critters can be risky with the Blade since there are tons of bounce effects int he format). While attacking with the Elemental early might look sexy, it's really just an invitation to get him killed before he becomes really useful.
Nice article Mr. Claytor. Reading a draft article from a writer honestly trying to improve his game and acknowledging his shortcomings is refreshing. I hope my comments here don't sound too harsh, as I really just want to make a few strong points to help you and other players out there.
P1: Passing FMK. Wow, that's pretty awful. For future reference, Warrens is nowhere near as good now as it was in T-T-T draft since there are plenty of answers to it, including the ever-present Sprout Swarm. Grapeshot is a far better Storm card (best limited Storm card in the block, IMO). Warrens is still decent, probably best in UR, but it's not anywhere near as good as FMK. Keep in mind, FMK is usually a 3-for-1, sometimes *only* a 2-for-1. FMK vs. S.Blast is a tough call. FMK vs. Warrens really shouldn't be.
P3: This early in the draft, you should *not* be thinking that you are already commited to two colors (unless you've drafting crazy bombs, but that's another story). Red is perhaps the easiest color to splash, and Blue and Green are the easiest colors to facilitate splashing a third color. So, at this point, you should be thinking "UX splashing Red," in which case, Nantuko Shaman, Spinneret Sliver, and Looter il-Kor are all excellent choices for you. Note: I still think Looter was the best pick here.
P4: I would not have been worried about Red being cut here and been quite happy to pick the Red suspender, which combos excellently with ETW. BTW, I would have taken Crusader over the Giant anyhow, unless I was going RW with Warrens.
P5: At this point I'm thinking G, W, and possibly B are open. Then again, this is 4211, so who can say. Again, it might have been just a bad pack. I might have taken Dralnu (thinking of Red as a splash) or the Dryad if I had taken the second sliver in pack 3.
P6: At this point I have no idea what anyone behind you is drafting. Sentinel is solid for blue, but since blue is so deep it might not mean anything. The Cannonade red is still open (it tends to be over-drafted, so *any* removal this far along is a good sign). Cavalry and Burial are both playable (though pretty meh), and after a steady stream of white and black playables it's possible these colors are being under-drafted. No green to be found, which is odd after the excellent Dryad from the last pack.
P7: Pretty good confirmation that Black is open. I'd be sad if I hadn't picked Dralnu. I'd take the Gorgon.
P9: Here's where interpreting signals and keeping your options open pays off. A Tendrils this late is ridiculous and a golden signal that Black is being severely under-drafted.
P11: I would have taken Ghostflame Sliver here.
Anyhow, after the TSP packs, I'd be holding a Blue-Black deck with a possible Red splash. I notice that you kept getting passed excellent Black cards throughout the draft, and blue seemed to be cut in PLC. That's all part of the 4211 Experience (TM), I suppose.
I know it's a few days after the fact, but hopefully you're still reading comments. First off, I noticed in both your drafts you seemed afraid to draft black because of a supposed weakness in FS. Well, though it is not the deepest color, black does have Ichor Slick, Death Rattle, Deepcavern Imp, Mass of Ghouls, Cutthroat Il-Dal and Stronghold Rats as excellent to acceptable picks, and it's doubtful that you're drafting mono-black so you DO have another color to go into. That said, you also seem to get married to your first pick a lot of the time. ETW in your first draft big time, and seemingly the Death (just by your comment on the second pick that there were no other good black cards) in your second draft, though you did jump out of black when appropriate. That early in the draft it is better to snag the best card in the pack and watch for signals to hopefully figure out what your upstream neighbors are in, then cement your colors in. Even then it is important to be able to switch colors or pick up a different supporting color in pack 2, as you have no real control over what your downstream neighbor takes, regardless of the signals you send. Last general comment is that you should really draft 8-4s. Yes, they are hard. Yes, half the people there are 1800+. But the fact is that you do not learn ANYTHING drafting 4-3-2-2. The average quality of drafter in 4-3-2-2 is horrible. 8th pick Expanse? You cannot with a straight face tell me that every person in the draft before you had a better option for his/her deck than the second best mana fixer in the block. Simply put, you can learn to draft 4-3-2-2 well, and you can even get your rating above 1700 in a fairly short time. But if you try to move to 8-4 from there, you will do terribly, as the people in 8-4 know what they are doing. You cannot lucksack your way into a good deck in 8-4, the only way to do it is to have good drafting skills. Which you only learn in 8-4. Try it out. You'll probably get slaughtered your first few times (I know I did), but if you're any good at picking up strategies at all, you'll learn quicker.
Not really addressing the core of the article itself, I'm going to speak specifically on writing. Please take no offense, for I too have similar problems with my writing (which is why I've taken a long haitus as I develop my writing style).
The Main problem with your writing as of now is that although it articulates ideas, it fails to provide a strong voice. A good example of a voice would be Tim Aten's writings (or rantings if you would call them), as well as Osyp's writings. They both have a specific type of voice in their writing that allows them to write funny satirical pieces for the world to enjoy. That said, I feel that your take on satire (as you have claimed that is what this piece is), is lacking at best. If memory serves, satire writing is considered one of the hardest forms of writing because of the issue of stance and voice. Your voice within the piece does at times seem more childish versus attempting to make people laugh.
That said, a voice is something you develop overtime, and thus best of luck in developing one.
Oh also, annoying decks with a pointless win condition is fine, but one with no win condition is a bit annoying, but hey there are Daves in this world.... (If nobody gets that reference *sighs)
Write what you want and ignore the complaints.
I can't believe these people take offense to this, ha.
Creating hate decks can be fun. I have a prismatic hate deck that has about 32 different ways to stifle fetchlands. That is fun.
I have decks that intentionally are horrible and I plan to lose. Is that wrong? Using polymorph on an activated blinkmoth nexus to reveal my only creature in the deck, chimney imp and then giving the sad face : ( is entertaining to me.
We pay our money to play the game. If it isn't against the CoC, others should have no say in how you choose to have fun.
There IS a win-condition with the first deck... just have to "beat" for one a turn.
Dragonmage65: I have always valued your input, your play ability, and your willingness to give/participate heavily in the community. This said, I do feel this is damaging to your "face" in the community; an interesting read, but I do not feel that this topic should have been approached from this side of things. But, rather, from the opposite side, on proper etiquitte.
Still your online friend, no hostile feelings toward you, but I do feel that this article has damaged a lot that you have worked for, and it would probably be in the best interest of this site, and MTGOTRADERS as a whole to remove this article and for Heath or a MTGOTRADERS component, therein, to respond to this, in the public eye; even if removing it doesn't take place. It puts a bad taste in people's mouths (especially newcomers who are interested in what PUREMTGO is about to have this type of thing posted (moreso that it's on the front page).
Casual, I agree, is about ANY deck being played (even Dragonstorm, 'Tog, Friggorid, etc.). But, to deliberatly step on peoples toes is not casual, That really does hurt the image of MTGO as a whole, and is quite damaging (in my opinion) to us (PUREMTGO).
Just my $1.83 (due to taxes and inflation),
~HK3Family // UnusVirUnusCalx~
"Having NO win condition in the hopes that a player quits out of frustration is truely low."
Mark Gottlieb once did the same thing on the official site in one of his articles. His used a deck with a Isochron Scepter/Metamorphose combo for a soft lock, with no win condition. "It's a little thrill as you pull off the con—and it's a brilliant, subversive deck concept."
That was published on the official site, not a player-run one like this one. There weren't any calls for a retraction, there were calls for a correction (because the deck *DID* in fact have a subtle win condition the author did not catch).
Again, if you took offense to the article, I apologize, but I am not going to censure myself, nor am I going to continue to defend myself beyond this. Make what you want to make of it.
- Nick