M11 Drafting + newb Q's

[Ingmar]

I am probably going to try this tonight as well but I can't get in that early.

[Hoax]

I really hate the concept of sealed since you either draft the nuts or you don't especially in M11 where there is just such a huge swing in the power between a titan pack and a jinxed idol/dual land/leyline pack.

I would enjoy living vicariously though so please post details of how it goes.

[Xilren's Twin]

So.  In a 4-3-2-2 draft, I have a reanimating skeleton, a Viscera Seer (sac to scry 1), and a Bloodthrone Vamp.  The Vamp, once my opponent knows I have the skellie, becomes public enemy number one and a huge removal magnet.

To win the third game, I sac/recurred the skeleton 5 times to scry 5 lands off of the top of my deck and draw gas.

Yeah, i lost to someone doing this exact thing in my last draft.  He was able to at least get decent answers until he hit his bombs.  2-3 turns of scrying 4-5 times is just too much.

I would love to do some of the TNM stuff, but the start times are just akward: 6pm EST and 11pm?  Neither works for me.

On the whole, cant complain about my M11 draft experience thus far; i bought 6 packs at the beginning of Aug, and have managed to run 9 drafts so far without having to spend any more cash due to packs won and rares sold off.  I can live with that sort of monthly expense.

[Johny Cee]

I really hate the concept of sealed since you either draft the nuts or you don't especially in M11 where there is just such a huge swing in the power between a titan pack and a jinxed idol/dual land/leyline pack.

I would enjoy living vicariously though so please post details of how it goes.

I tried to make a post about Sealed strategy once or twice, but I don't think I ever have...


Sealed does have luck involved, but really the big thing it tests is your deck building skill from a known and small pool of cards.  Most bombs don't matter unless they are in colors you are strong in.  The biggest mistake people make is playing a color for the bombs:  that makes games revolve almost completely on drawing them.  Meanwhile, the guy playing a bunch of mediocre cards and following a good curve will curve out every game while the Bomb Deck Guy mutters about land/mana screw.

Making a deck in 2/3 colors around the colors you are strongest in will (generally) beat any deck that revolves completely around getting the one or two bombs into play.  Consistency > bombs, 90% of the time.

Really, draft has as much emphasis on luck:  Bombs get drafted first pick most of the time, so you need to open a bomb or get one passed to you as a 2nd pick.  If you don't open anything, then it's all down to how well you have drafted the rest of your deck.  That's why you can have those drafts where it feels like your deck is awful but you wreck it:  curve and consistency in the "filler" of your deck generally beats someone who is playing bad cards with one or two amazing bombs.


Leagues were a little different.  Due to their setup, you could "save" your point games until you felt you had a good cardpool.  A popular strategy in League was to sit out weeks in which you had weak packs or when you didn't have support for your good cards, and plan on making it up in the later weeks.  I know I did it regularly, especially if I had a couple bombs but the color was weak.

That also lead to the fact that, in general, after the first day a new pack is opened the only people playing games were the guys who knew they had the nuts.

Sealed has always treated me pretty well, though.  When I still played paper, I think I won every Sealed tourney the local store had for almost 2 years.


On TNM:

6 booster sealed the payout is 2/4/8, based on wins and only three rounds no matter how many join.  Seems like it should be really very easy to get 4 packs, and 8 packs should be pretty doable.

[Johny Cee]

So.  In a 4-3-2-2 draft, I have a reanimating skeleton, a Viscera Seer (sac to scry 1), and a Bloodthrone Vamp.  The Vamp, once my opponent knows I have the skellie, becomes public enemy number one and a huge removal magnet.

To win the third game, I sac/recurred the skeleton 5 times to scry 5 lands off of the top of my deck and draw gas.

Yeah, i lost to someone doing this exact thing in my last draft.  He was able to at least get decent answers until he hit his bombs.  2-3 turns of scrying 4-5 times is just too much.

I would love to do some of the TNM stuff, but the start times are just akward: 6pm EST and 11pm?  Neither works for me.

On the whole, cant complain about my M11 draft experience thus far; i bought 6 packs at the beginning of Aug, and have managed to run 9 drafts so far without having to spend any more cash due to packs one and rares sold off.  I can live with that sort of monthly expense.

Start times do seem awkward.  I live 5 minutes from work, so no issue for me, but I can see alot of EST folks excluded do to the commute.

11PM is...  8PST?  Either 7 or 8PM seems about the perfect time to run this, if you count on a Sealed event taking about an hour a game.

[Johny Cee]

Well.  My cardpool is pretty funny.  I built a UWB deck, then went ahead and built a RG deck.  I'll switch hit the decks in depending on the matchup, though I think I'll start with the RG.

Rares all sucked... heh. 

[Johny Cee]

Also, Irony bites me squarely on the ass since I lost a game 3 to my opponent sitting on critters than casting Overwhelming Stampede, which is a ridiculous bomb.

[Ingmar]

My rares:

Dragonskull Summit
Haunting Echoes
Traumatize (with no real other mill stuff to support it)
Silence
Dark Tutelage

...and Platinum Angel :)

A few good spells in each of R/G/B so I'm running 3 colors without enough fixing but a decent amount of removal. No real bombs other than the angel really (the only other rare I'm playing is the land), but I won the first match going away against a weak r/g/w mishmash.

EDIT:

Won round 2, 2nd game I won entirely because I had platinum angel out and he was out of removal, I actually decked him (that's what he gets for having card draw)

Lost round 3 - my removal draws dried up and I ran headfirst into Ajani Goldmane too.

[Thrawn]

Whoo hoo, going to cube draft at a buddies tonight who has a very impressive cube.  Less then 10 proxies I think now and tons of altered or extended art cards.

How could you not like a format where you can go -
First pick - Sol Ring
Second pick - Library of Alexandria
Third pick - Top
Etc....

[Ingmar]

Cube sounds pretty cool. I've thought about putting one together but with what I have the power level would be a lot lower than the normal ones - I kind of hate proxies. The big problem is I don't have 8 magic playing friends locally, most of them have moved on.

[Thrawn]

Cube is tons of fun, I an opening hand with Balance and Black Lotus once.  Just sat back and let my opponent play out his hand while I didn't even play land.  Played Balance off Lotus and wiped his entire board (and half my hand).  May not of been the smartest way to play it but it sure was fun. 

[Ingmar]

Draft I am about to start round 2 in today:


I guess nobody else was drafting black. Pack 2 picks 8 and 10 are  . I thought at first I might go u/b but I just kept getting handed black card after black card. Won the first round, we'll see if I die to the hellkite I passed at some point.

EDIT: Not too surprisingly won the tournament - did drop one game 2 to a blackwhite knight and a hand full of black removal with no creatures.

[Johny Cee]

Great deck Ingmar.  You did have some amazing Blue there as well (Mind Control and a Sphinx), but can't argue with 3x Quag, Corrupt, Skellie/Seer/Bloodthrone package, 3 x Spector.


Just won an M11 draft playing RB:
4 x Act of Treason
2 x Viscera Seer
1 x Bloodthrone
Skellie
3 x Chandra's Outrage
2 x Fling
2 x Quag Sick
Standard black and red filler (barony vamp, etc.)

Massively, massively explosive.  A package of Act plus sac outlets meant that I could grab their best creature, pound home damage, then fling it at another creature or sac it out.

Won a couple games after the mull to 5.

[Hoax]

I didn't like all the additional Corrupts you picked up Ingmar, I really have a hard time imagining playing two let alone more than two. The second one you passed up a Quag Sickness for example, which I don't think you can possibly have too many of under normal circumstances. Not that I'm questioning  the p1p1 Corrupt but once you have it the value is way down surely?

[Johny Cee]

I didn't like all the additional Corrupts you picked up Ingmar, I really have a hard time imagining playing two let alone more than two. The second one you passed up a Quag Sickness for example, which I don't think you can possibly have too many of under normal circumstances. Not that I'm questioning  the p1p1 Corrupt but once you have it the value is way down surely?

Monoblack is the only time that many corrupts make sense.  In monoblack, 3 corrupt is either removal or a headshot...  and a late game corrupt is likely to be fatal.  In most 2 color decks, 2 corrupt is pushing it.

[Ingmar]

I think I'd rather have 3 quags and 3 corrupts than 4 and 2 in limited, simply because once you hit 6 mana, which you do in most games, the corrupt is a lot more versatile. It was the top end of my curve so I felt pretty comfortable running 3 of them (with the 3 quags and one doom blade for earlier game removal). The lifegain from them (and to a lesser extent the 2 Children of Night) was really really nice for offsetting the 3 life lost every time I cast a banshee, too (I ran all 3 of those).

I think almost every game I played ended with a corrupt to the face, running only 1 of them I couldn't count on consistently drawing one every game.

[Johny Cee]

I think I'd rather have 3 quags and 3 corrupts than 4 and 2 in limited, simply because once you hit 6 mana, which you do in most games, the corrupt is a lot more versatile. It was the top end of my curve so I felt pretty comfortable running 3 of them (with the 3 quags and one doom blade for earlier game removal). The lifegain from them (and to a lesser extent the 2 Children of Night) was really really nice for offsetting the 3 life lost every time I cast a banshee, too (I ran all 3 of those).

I think almost every game I played ended with a corrupt to the face, running only 1 of them I couldn't count on consistently drawing one every game.

In monoblack, 3 corrupt is in no way excessive....  Especially because of Sign in Blood/Banshee.  It fills you back up to avoid red "oops, I win" shenanigans, and it is a viable win condition.  Black tends to curve out pretty low, as well, so Corrupt isn't fighting for a spot on the curve with win-con creatures.

In 2 color, I'd much rather have the excess quag sick to clear a path for my early game beats or to remove pain-in-the-ass creatures like Blinding Mage. 

[Ingmar]

Yeah I was speaking from a mono-black standpoint, if I had been drafting a 2nd color the quags would be preferable.

[Johny Cee]

So.  Had a message waiting for me on my account.  A buddy drafted:

Pack 1, pick 1 = Primeval Titan
Pack 2, pick 1 = Baneslayer
Followed by fauna shaman and obstinate baloth picks.

Talk about your money picks....

[Ingmar]

I've hit a rash of baneslayers in losing decks lately, which I guess is a nice consolation prize. I haven't seen a primeval, sun, or grave titan yet, sadly.

[Johny Cee]

So.  Drafting in UB.  When you get Mind Control first pick, Royal Assassin second what the hell?  UB is getting cut to hell by everyone, and the second pack is winding down with very little from other colors.  I do a "wtf?  why not" when I pick up a Mind Reversal.  Three Jace's Erasure and a Tome Scour later...

I have UB aggro (with Assassin, removal, Mind Control, Air Servant and Sleep supporting aggresive critters) with a secondary win condition of mill.  Milled out a guy all in one turn with Mind Reversal (with 2xJace on the field), into Jace's Erasure, 2x Sign in Blood, and a Tome Scour.

Edit:

And WOW, took that draft.  Mostly through UB beats.  To be frank, I was the luckiest lucky luck-luck McLuckerson Lucksack in the world.  There is no way I should have walked through that, if the shuffler hadn't curved me out each game.

It's funny.  Last night I drafted with Schild, also in UB, with what was a much stronger deck.  And I got pounded.  This time, with 5 cards that were basically dead, I get the win.

[Ingmar]

Man I am reading through the Draft Viewer up on the WotC Daily MTG page today and JFC some of these drafts are inexplicable.

First pick Shiv's over Armored Ascension? First pick Sign in Blood over Corrupt, Condemn, or Cyclops Gladiator? 2nd pick Diminish over Cyclops Gladiator when you already first picked a Chandra's? (And that last one was also over the aforementioned Condemn and Corrupt).

[Johny Cee]

Man I am reading through the Draft Viewer up on the WotC Daily MTG page today and JFC some of these drafts are inexplicable.

First pick Shiv's over Armored Ascension? First pick Sign in Blood over Corrupt, Condemn, or Cyclops Gladiator? 2nd pick Diminish over Cyclops Gladiator when you already first picked a Chandra's? (And that last one was also over the aforementioned Condemn and Corrupt).

Hmm.

I think Cyclops Gladiator, unless you are near to mono red, is actually a bad pick.  Honestly, the last few times I've picked him he's sat lonely in my hand while I finished the game with beats or he didn't even make my deck.  Too red mana intensive for too little effect.

Corrupt, which I will first pick all day, can also be a really bad card if you have a temp/aggro strategy.  Too pricey for not enough effect in a dual or tri color decks.  If you are running Bx aggro, I'd debate taking Sign over Corrupt too.  Sign is either card draw or a finisher (nothing better than killing an opponent with Sign!)

Condemn should be a first pick unless you aren't in white.  Probably the second or third best removal in the format, after Doom Blade and Quag Sickness (but many people undervalue that card).  Some drafts, Condemn is just plain superior to Doom if there are lots of black decks running around.

[Johny Cee]

Well, my latest draft has been weird to say the least.  I drafted a pile of great R/B removal, but there are few if any R/B creatures to speak of.

3 x Quag Sickness
1 x Doom Blade
2 x Lightning Bolt
1 x Corrupt
1 x Chandra Outrage

Also 1 x Combust and 1 x Deathmark that I can swap in.

2 x Fire Servant, a Howling Bainshee, and 2 x Nightwing Shade are "good" creatures, with a some filler.


Even standard late picks like Hell Hounds and Barony Vamp/Nether Horror were nowhere to be found.

[Ingmar]

I just got called "horrible" by some dude I beat for splashing red for lightning bolt and volcanic strength (with 3 sacred wolves). 

[schild]

Just started another draft.

This is going to be sick.

[Johny Cee]

I just got called "horrible" by some dude I beat for splashing red for lightning bolt and volcanic strength (with 3 sacred wolves). 

Those guys are tools.  It hasn't happened to me too much lately, but last week a guy called me a newb and congratulated me on my draws after I used Mind Reversal and 2xJace Erasure to mill him.


I'll admit I undervalue auras, but even to me 3 x Sacred Wolf and a pump aura is ridiculously good.  Sacred Wolf and Shiv's or Armored Ascension is pretty much a "good game" moment.

[Xilren's Twin]

Running a 4322 now with a green fatty deck.  4! Llanowar elves, cultivate a bunch worms and the pack leader to draw cards off, Armored ascension to make fat into FAT and a fireball with lots of mana for the finisher.  Crushed my first round opponent; 2 wins in 9 minutes.  Course with no real removal or tricks to speak of the fattys better come out fast and furious. :)

That was a fun one  Came in 2nd overall mainly b/c not enough flying defense and drawing like 4 lands in a row when drawing 1 of 6 other spells would have won me game 3.  Some games went like

1: forest, elf
2: forest, elf, garruks companion
3: plains, spined wurm, attack for 3
4: another land attack with everyone for 10

[Xilren's Twin]

The forces of good win again!  Won a 4322 with a BWr deck.  The relevant picks were below, and the nice thing was i got to use almost every card to help me win some way or another.  Actually pulled off the Lich + Ornithoper combo on turn 3 and thought i had that game in the bag until my opponent played Day of Judgement (but still won).  Another match had my opponent run out 5 flyers in a row (3 hawks, a pegasus and cloud elemental) but i kept drawing quag sickness, doom blade and stabbing pain to fend them off until i could play some critters of my own.  Had a cloaked lion go all the way for 20 damage, killed a guy with sign in blood and fling for exact...it was just a fun variety of games.
Oh, and i hate drafted a Frost Titan :)

 Serra Angel
 Lightning Bolt
 Doom Blade
 Quag Sickness x3
 Fling
 Sign in Blood x2
 Terramorphic Expanse x2
 Infantry Veteran
 Diabolic Tutor
 Tireless Missionaries
 Armored Ascension
 White Knight
 Reassembling Skeleton
 Liliana's Specter
 Prodigal Pyromancer
 Safe Passage
 Celestial Purge
 Nether Horror
 Silvercoat Lion
 Solemn Offering
 Whispersilk Cloak
 Nightwing Shade
 Siege Mastodon
 Phylactery Lich
 Assassinate
 Stabbing Pain
 Ornithopter

[Xilren's Twin]

Came in second in a 4322 with this suboptimal GR brew.  Removal lite to be sure, and tough to deal with flyers which was ultimately my undoing, but many decks just can't deal with dropping 3 power plus guys turn after turn.  My opponent in round 3 had 4! Squadron Hawks, 2 infantry vetrans and a fireball or lightning bolt finisher.  He was all in suicide white weenie flyers since the odds of him having a hawk in his opening hand were nuts, so turns 2-5 were always hawks.  Wish i had been able to find a giant spider, pyroclasm, or another plummet b/c each game was close.  My fattys were slower but by turn 4 I was putting out 5 power guys or hasters and doing massive swings, but after taking 3+ turns of damage from multiple pumped hawks was low enough to get fireballed out.  In one game he was at 15 life, I had a 6/4 Wurm, 5/5 hydra, and cast act of treason on his only 2/2 blocker, and thunder strike on one of my guys; would have killed him when i attacked for 15 but he had the bolt for his 2/2 guy.  These were games were inferno titans would have been gold but never saw him.

Didnt play but watched another match where a guy tried to run a full on mill deck with multiple Jace's Ingeunity, 3-4 Tome Scours, 2 traumatize and some card drawing and a few counters.  He might have actually been creatureless.  I may try that in a Swiss draft just for fun.

[Hoax]

Question:
When can you use a tap ability on an artifact? Not during your turn on the turn you played it due to summoning sickness right? But can you use it during your opponent's turn or not until your turn after the turn on which you summoned it?

[schild]

If it's an artifact and not an artifact creature, you can use it the turn you cast it. Artifacts do not have summoning sickness (whereas artifact creatures do).

[Hoax]

Contagion Engine is even more rediculous then I thought. Fuck that card is stupid in limited.

[Thrawn]

Contagion Engine is even more rediculous then I thought. Fuck that card is stupid in limited.

By itself it doesn't seem that great to me, but I'm assuming the set has lots of counters to make it good?

[schild]

All the set has is counters. I don't know why I thought a return to Mirrodin would be any better than the last visit there. Set sucks. It feels like they mashed Fallen Empires and like, I don't know, The Dark together. It's terrible.