9th ed? When?

[Kitsune]

My deck was as thus:

6 Forest
7 Swamp

1 Beast of Burden
1 Disrupting Scepter

1 Bog Imp
1 Coercion
1 Enfeeblement
1 Fear
1 Highway Robber
1 Looming Shade
1 Plague Beetle
1 Raise Dead
1 Ravenous Rats
1 Spineless Thug
1 Underworld Dreams
1 Unholy Strength

1 Norwood Ranger
1 Elvish Warrior
1 Zodiac Monkey
2 Elvish Berserker
1 Giant Growth
1 Giant Spider
1 Grizzly Bears
1 Ley Druid
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Reclaim
1 Rootwalla
1 Trained Armodon


A simple as pie creature deck with green mana acceleration, black dirty tricks, and extra surprises in the artifacts and Underworld Dreams.  Nothing really ingenious, but I'm not ashamed of it, given that it's my first-ever draft.  It served me well against Strazos in a slow-building first round where my creatures eventually overwhelmed him, and a second round in which he was fucked for mana.  On the other hand, filthy bastard Margalis drew the manipulator in both of the round two games, the second of which had me even more mana-fucked than Strazos.  I got the scepter out against him in the first game, but he countered it by simply playing all of the cards out of his hand, and I never drew the Beast nor Underworld Dreams, which may have helped turn the tide.

Ah well.  It was still a fun draft, despite being denied the ultimate victory.

[Margalis]

It's hard to win when you are stuck on 2 lands and your opponent has Icy Manipulator out :)

Modify: I think leagues are a very good way of developing basic draft skills, even though leagues don't involve drafting. The nice thing about a league is you have a large card pool to experiment with, and you can play tons of a games in a week if you want. The most important thing in drafting is just figuring out the value of cards, and leagues can help you get good at that cost-effectively.

Typically if I'm in a league and not doing well or after I've played my 5 games that week, I'll just mess around and try a variety of deck options to get a feel for what works and what doesn't.

The problem with drafting is that you might not draft a very good deck (maybe through no fault of your own when someone switched into your colors and took your cards) but there isn't time to figure out why it wasn't good or how to improve it. Whereas in a league you can switch out individual cards and get a better feel for overall effectiveness over the course of many games. You may find yourself rolling your eyes when you draw a card that keeps turning out useless, for example. The sample size in drafts is too small. Also in leagues you can edit your deck after every game. Leagues also let you play a variety of other decks so you see what seems to work and not work in other people's decks, what cards are consistently winning games, etc.

[Strazos]

I seem to consistently draw mediocre cards in leagues. It seems I can never seem to draw any "win condition" cards with anything else to support it.

[Xilren's Twin]

Welp, I won the other 5 man draft.  Overall, having 9 people show was nice.  Hope we can do it more often.

I didn't draft anything spectacular, but I went with an agreesive heavy R lite U with a good number of flyers and haste guys, and oddly, all of my combat tricks were in red.  No real creature removal beyond some burn spells, so I was a little worried.  I should have main decked Firebreathing; great card on little evasion critters.  In my last 2 games against Raging Turle I subbed in 3 forests, Zodiac Monkey and Treetop bracers.  My firebreathing monkey won me that game I did sub in the sea monster in a game and it was big help vs a deck with islands.  I saw some very nice cards go by in drafting, so overall I think 9th is a good set, even if I did have a Kird Ape played against me (and blessed Orator, who I hate).  I almost maindecked Polymorph, but felt in the end is was too expensive and risky.

Good times.


1 Aven Fisher  flier1 2/2
1 Aven Windreader flier 2 3/3
1 Confiscate  MVP in a few games
1 Crafty Pathmage makes cirtter unblockable
1 Puppeteer  tap/uptap critters
1 Wind Drake flier 3 2/2
1 Dream Prowler unblockable
 

1 Anaba Shaman  Red tim
1 Enrage  red howl from beyond
1 Goblin Brigand 2/2
1 Goblin Chariot 2/2 haste
1 Guerrilla Tactics 2 dam burn
1 Lava Axe 5 to player burn
1 Lightning Elemental 4/1 haste
1 Ogre Taskmaster 4/3 no block
1 Panic Attack MVP up to 3 critters cant block
1 Shock 2 dam burn
1 Viashino Sandstalker 4/2 haste
2 Goblin Sky Raider 1/2 fliers 4 & 5
1 Flowstone Crusher 4/4 pumpable
1 Flowstone Shambler 2/2 pumpable
1 Sandstone Warrior 1/3 first strike pumpable
 
[Other]
1 Tanglebloom tap for 1 life

10 Mountain
7 Island

Noteable SB

1 Raging Goblin 1/1
1 Reflexes enchant first strike
1 Shatter destroy art
1 Stone Rain destroy land
1 Firebreathing pumpable enchant
1 Goblin Mountaineer mountain walk 1/1


1 Flight
1 Sea's Claim
1 Sea Monster
1 Wanderguard Sentry
1 Polymorph
 

1 Norwood Ranger
1 Tree Monkey
1 Treetop Bracers
1 Zodiac Monkey

Xilren
PS Drizzarian's export enhance is great.  I highly recommend it when posting decks here.

[Merusk]

I think I just have a problem with all of MTG in an online format. The shuffler in leagues likes dealing me either all lands or all spells with no lands.  It doesn't matter my mix, percentage of lands, etc.. if I can get screwed, I do.  Thing is, it only happens in leagues and drafts.  Casual constructed I can hold my own against folks, but I just get raped in any event situation.

Then it also seems that any leagues I join only consist of PST players. Sure, there's 255 people in the league, but when I'm online I only see 5-6 people in the room, max, unless it's after 10pm EST or it's the weekend. Being that I have kids and relatives nearby, weekends are prettymuch out for MTG, and a 10:00 league game will take until 10:40 or so (Unless they've gotten the 'killer combo')

I dunno, its also just not as fun as it was in college.  I never played for the winning aspect, I played for the social aspect of hanging around with friends, like the weekly penny poker game.

[Raging Turtle]

1)Sleight of Hand
Flight
Sea's Claim
Fugitive Wizard (rawr)
2)Storm Crow
Lumengrid Warden
Fishliver Oil
3)Horned Turtle
Wind Drake
Time Ebb
Phantom Warrior
Crafty Pathmage
4)Aven Fisher
Sage Aven
Sift
Dehydration
Levitation
5)Tidings
Wanderguard Sentry
Aven Windreader

Black:
2)Contaminated Bond
3)Razortooth Rats x2
Serpent Warrior
4)Bog Wraith
5)Hollow Dogs

Red:
1)Reflexes
2)Goblin Brigand (shiney!)
Pyroclasm
4)Relentless Assault

Green:
1)Web
2)Rampant Growth x2
Treetop Bracer
Naturalize
3)Overgrowth
Needle Storm (shiney!)
4)Hunted Wumpus
Creeping Mold
5)Natural Spring
8)Scaled Wurm
x)Stream of Life

Some cards that should never see the light of day: 
Flight (will infrequently help, but if the creature dies its a 2 for 1 card advantage),
Storm Crow (crap unless you have two equipment in your deck),
Sea's Claim (no),
Fugly Wizard (worst creature possible, except maybe orithopter),
Lum Warden (no),
Fishliver Oil (MAYBE a sideboard card, NEVER maindeck),
Craft Pathmage (Only if you have some amazing "when this does combat damage effect" creature),
Sage Aven - eh.  Not the worst, but not very good.
Contaminated Bond - Only useful about half the time.  Other times its a dead card. 
Reflexes - crap
Natural Spring/ Stream of Life - lifegain only stalls and does nothing to affect board position.

You're trying to poke your opponent to death with 1/x creatures.  After three or four turns, he'll be playing 3/3, 4/4 creatures and you'll be playing storm crows.   

Blue is a not a powerful color in 9th edition, and it takes skill and luck to draft it well.

[Raging Turtle]

1 Gravedigger
8 Island
8 Swamp
2 Boomerang
1 Coercion
1 Foul Imp
1 Howling Mine
1 Levitation
1 Looming Shade
1 Mana Leak
1 Mind Rot
1 Ornithopter
2 Ravenous Rats
1 Sleight of Hand
1 Storm Crow
1 Underworld Dreams
1 Wind Drake
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Cruel Edict
1 Sage Aven
1 Slate of Ancestry
2 Fugitive Wizard
1 Kraken's Eye

Sideboard
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Enfeeblement
1 Exhaustion
1 Fear
1 Highway Robber
1 Natural Spring
1 Sift
1 Spineless Thug
1 Telepathy
2 Time Ebb
1 Urza's Tower
1 Wood Elves
1 Yavimaya Enchantress
1 Festering Goblin
1 Gluttonous Zombie
1 Sea's Claim
2 Counsel of the Soratami

Cards OUT
Howling Mine:  Do not play in draft
Underworld Dreams:  Do not play in draft.  This and Mine are a two-card combo that does 2 damage on your opponents turn.  That's a bad combo.
Ornithopter:  No no no.
2x Rav. Rats:  Rats are a great card, but I wouldn't play more than one unless I had no other good creatures/good spells
Sleight of Hand - any card drawing spell is better.  Like the Counsel of S. in the sideboard
Slate of Ancestry - this takes 8 mana to draw any cards.   Again, Counsel is better.
Storm Crow - no.
Fugly Wizard (2x!) hell no
Kraken's Eye - Life gain that can occasially beat down, like Soul Warden, is good.  All of the "Gain one life when X color is played"  are bad.  A creature card or removal is 10x better than something like this. 

Cards IN
Enfeeblement:  Removal is Good.  -2/-2 can kill many creatures by itself, neutralize a threat, or kill a damaged creature.  Always maindeck.
Exhaustion:  An interesting card.  If played at the right time, it can win you the game or just earn you a 'free' turn. 
Spineless Thug:  Not great, but tolerable filler.  Years better than Fug. Wizard.
Festering Goblin:  This will be included in most decks, better than it initially looks.
Gluttonous Zombie:  A 3/3 body with fear will win games. 
Counsel of the Sor.:  Both of these should be maindeck.  In a slow format like 9th, the person who draws more cards typically wins.  I might splash a few islands just to play these cards.   

Evasion is good, but fat is usually better.  That's why Hill Giant (3/3 common) is years better than Storm Crow (1/2 flying common).  You might peck three or four times with the crow but the giant will make up that damage in one attack.  Evasion decks need something to delay the fat of the other deck - Horned Turtles, Master Decoy, Icy, etc.     

[Raging Turtle]

I like your deck Xil (it did beat mine  ) but there's a few things I would change. 

I really don't like Tanglebloom.  Doesn't do enough IMO.
The 2x Sky raiders are bleh.  Not a great card and not good enough for two.
Polymorph I would always play maindeck.   A great way to deal with regen'er or something else thats causing problems.  Can also be used on your own pacified or no-longer-useful creatures to replace them. 

[Hoax]

Yeah Bu/G was no good, I found once I put almost all of my black cards (which were drafted sort of as an afterthought) the deck actually stood a chance of dropping somebody to 10 life or less.

The only thing I disagree with is I think Contaminated Bond is pretty cool (I'm sure it actually isn't) just because of all the 1power high toughness cards there are in 9th, it allows you to remove a pesky blocker and Lum Warden always was at least kind of usefull but that could have been because so many other cards were useless.

But now you need to do that to my league cards, I await your wisdom wise massa!

[Margalis]

Evasion can be better than fat, IF you do a couple of things:

1: Evasive ceratures need to get out early, and be relatively efficient.
2: Evasive creatures need power, not toughness.

For example the white Pegasus is a nice card 2/1 first strike flying. Aven cloudchaser is 2/2 for 4, same power, costs twice as much. Then aven flock is 2/3 for 5. At 5 mana two attack power isn't so hot, even with evasion. By the time you can cast it your opponent is playing 5/5s and such.

Typically if you go evasion deck (like I did) you are hoping to get damage early and often, then race them down before they can get all their big dudes online to turn the tides. Of course, cards like pacifism and Icy help immensly. Generally you either need to be able to take out some of their blockers/attackers (icy, pacifism, dehydration, burn, etc) or have a couple "finisher" cards that can do the last bit of damage fast. Xil's deck is a good example of that, with the Howl from Beyond and panic attack to squeeze out that last bit of damage. (Although his deck is less evasion than mine was)

Icy and Master Decoy are especially good because you can use them to tap out blockers, then when they get something big on the table use them to keep that down instead. If you start with say Icy and Pacifism in your hand it means you really don't have to worry until they get out their third big creature, and if you are hitting early and often you should be well ahead by then. I'll post my deck list later.

[Johny Cee]

I'm going to respectfully disagree with Turtle on Storm Crow.

Storm Crow -- 1U
Flying
1/2

Generally,  Crow has evasion and fits a decent point in the mana curve.  I'd rate him much higher than most other 2 CC creatures,  the best of which are the "grizzly bear" types (2/2 for 2CC).

If you are running some pump like Unholy or Holy Strenth, or some equipment,  Crow becomes an unholy terror.


Crafty Pathmage and other of the "unblockable if power 2 or less" creatures are generally less good then they appear.  I'll take 1 pt of damage a turn if that means my opponent is tapping two potential blockers.


In 9th,  Wizards gave back to Blue alot of it's utility.  Global effects like Exhaustion,  color specific hosers like Baleful Stare (which I sided in against Xil),  polymorph, etc.  If you play Blue,  go with the utility cards over the much less good creatures.

I find counters to be fairly useful as well,  but I think I'm in the minority there.

[Xilren's Twin]

I really don't like Tanglebloom.  Doesn't do enough IMO.
The 2x Sky raiders are bleh.  Not a great card and not good enough for two.
Polymorph I would always play maindeck.   A great way to deal with regen'er or something else thats causing problems.  Can also be used on your own pacified or no-longer-useful creatures to replace them. 

Agree on the tanglebloom; dont know what i was thinking including that instead of firebreathing main.

The 2 sky raiders were actually very important.  Even though there just 1 power, getting a flier out early help get me racing and this was definately a beat em down quickly deck (cause taken as a whole it's critters just aren't that spectacular).  If i can get some one in the 10 life range it's usally time for an all out attrack with my red tricks and a haste creature, or lava axe.  Thus even point early is key.

Plus, they (and the wind drake) are good targets to suck out removal spells from my opponent.  Getting two fliers out, even piddly ones, against an opponent with no way to block them gives me a big advantage most people have to respond too..

The Polymorph was a tough call, just b/c it's so random as to what critter you would be replacing it with in draft.  In the end I didnt like the variability.

Sadly, i never got to use my puppeteer's ability even once...

Xilren

[Raging Turtle]

I was very wrong.  Blue rocks in 9th, and blue/green remains incredibly strong.  I've been kicking much ass with that combo when I can draft it.  Card drawing and fliers win win win. 

Storm Crow still sucks though 

[Jain Zar]

Hey, it was my first time drafting.

And besides, I now have a Howling Mine and Underworld Dreams.  I want MORE of them now for my regular decks.
Because amazingly enough, my Black Green Kamigawa and my Black Green Red Kamigawa get a little old after a while, even if I wub my Thief of Hopes THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS much, even more when I combo them with Glitterfangs for the ultimate in "I don't care how big your creatures are, I get free life from your life total every turn.  Biyotch." play.  (Also helped through Hana Kamis, aka: Why cast an arcane spell once when you can get it back into your hand and do it AGAIN.)

(Sure its not OMG DOJO DOOD worthy, but I don't read deckbuilding articles on general principle.  Ill make my own stupid decks and learn that I have a nifty combo in play once it happens.  Been doing it since I got into Magic around Dark and see no reason to stop now.)

[Johny Cee]

I was very wrong.  Blue rocks in 9th, and blue/green remains incredibly strong.  I've been kicking much ass with that combo when I can draft it.  Card drawing and fliers win win win. 

Storm Crow still sucks though 

I think blue overall is pretty solid.

Tidings is huge.  Drawing 4 cards for 5 mana is unbelievable in draft/league.

Magpie and some of the avens are solid (the 3/3 flier is tough).  Puppeteer can be great.  I pulled an Archivist (1/1, 4 cc, tap to draw a card) which is unreal.  Dehydration is a nice card.

That being said,  I got whooped by a deck that busted out an Icy Manipulator, Disrupting Scepter, and Rod of Ruin.  Unbelievable.

[Margalis]

Crafty Pathmage is good for creatures that do something special when they deal combat damage, or for pumpable creatures. Using pathmage on a normal 2 power creature is a bit of a waste.

Edit: Icy manipulator is a bomb in limited, especially when people don't run a lot of main-deck artifact hate. In most packs it's a first pick. It doesn't even commit you to a color.

[Raging Turtle]

motherfucking BALLISTA cockweasels hate hate grrrr. 

[Hoax]

Flame Wave...

So many f'ing times killed by Flame Wave...