Many moons ago when PDCMagic was just starting, site admin
WoCoNation had the brilliant vision that pauper could support an all-commons draft. And thus
Draftling was born! The program randomly distributes “packs” of 15 common cards (with no lands!), which the players draft normally. At the end of the draft, the program allows players to build decks with the cards they drafted, and then distributes a text file of that deck to each player to upload into MTGO. I’ve personally found
Draftling to be as different from normal drafting as PDC is from normal constructed. A lack of mass removal coupled a low number of bombs in the format rewards the player who can draft high value cards the most consistently. The program is still in Beta form, so there are still some kinks to be worked out with the program (gosh, that sounds familiar!) Plus, there are some issues with the format – MTGO lacks a utility to “deck check” outside of Premiere Events (which would be really handy, if anyone on the MTGO development team is reading), and a player must own all the cards that he or she drafts in order to play them, which is not a problem in a normal draft. On the plus side you can play a free draft outside of the normal shark pool with a minimum investment and have a load of fun doing it!
As a between-season “special event,” MPDC’s host
stiffdiddypinky ran a casual
Draftling event. The finals pitted
stiffdiddypinky's removal heavy RBU deck against
Hokusai’s GW beaters. It was a tense back and forth battle that went to three rounds, and was only decided when…MTGO crashed.
Well, that’s three out of four PDC events the troubled client has claimed so far this week. With BPDC’s Season Finale scheduled for later that night, will system instability cancel the fourth?
7 Comments
Draftling stopped responding twice, figures since it is in beta. We just went to ccgdecks.com and last picked rares. Last pick Foil Garruk anyone?
I did not play the finals of MPDC, stiffdiddypinky did. But the crash did decide it :( Also, we switched from Draftling to ccgdecks.com because Draftling is still in Beta and you can feel that. It crashed on us twice....
I fixed the name of the finalist. Thanks for the correction! See what I mean we I say we are a community? :)
I did not know that about the Draftling crashes or ccgdecks, though. I didn't even know that program supported all commons drafting. How did you pull that off?
Classic has a number of rounds dependant on the number of entrants (either 4 or 5) and a top 4 or top 8, also determined by number of participants.
Sorry, I didn't get the TPDC metagame updated until today. I've changed it from Thresher.
I think I saw Mongrel plus Gathan Raiders, and that to me means Thresher. I did not watch closely enough at the time to determine that it was a Madness deck but not a Thresh deck. (In my defense, I was getting my face pounded in for the two games I watched most closely.)
I know you called it Thresher cuz the meta report called it that, but it was RG Beatz (it had no Thresh-related stuff MD).
Thanks for the correction walkderdog!
I somehow missed that in looking at the decklist. I have gone back and corrected the article. Any chance I could get you to input that deck into Gatherling? It's the only top 4 deck that's not there, and that helps the title and archetype really stand out.