Hey everyone, welcome to the fifth draft in the series. It's been a journey already and it's only just begun. What exciting things can we run ourselves into in this installment of the series. Let's see... (more...)

I wanted to let everyone know that I got a couple drafts in the can today. I will be putting them up soon, so look for them.

Well, I wrote to Wizards and reported the bug that I ran into with me missing my first two picks in my last draft. They were kind enough to refund me for $7.00 which is just enough to buy one pack and two tickets which puts me at just enough for another draft without spending any more cheese. I will hopefully be doing a draft this weekend at nix tix though and gain even a little more value.

Hey everyone, I had a chance to attend my first live draft of Shadowmoor yesterday. I managed to draft a good deck and I split the finals. I first picked a Murderous Redcap and got hooked up in black and red. My final deck included two Incremental Blights, a Puncture Bolt, Burn Trail, Fists of the Demigod, the BR Liege guy, three BR duos, the 3/3 BR flying wither guy (sorry about the names, I had not seen any of the cards until the packs were actually opened.) I had the goblin who's power/toughness is determined by how many red permanents you have as well as the elemental who's power/toughness is determined by how many black permanents you have. I have to say that drafting the set was quite fun, maybe because I thought my deck was kind of insane, but the color matters theme reminded me a bit of Ravnica draft which is still one of my all time favorites. But at the same time, it was something totally new. I can't wait for the set to be on MTGO, I hope to be able to draft it quite a bit. I don't have a deck list for you, by the time I remembered that I wanted to put it up, I had dismantled the deck and given away the non rares. In round one, I played against another BR deck and we traded removal until he got a bit flooded in game one. Then, the exact same thing happened in game two. In round two, I played against a BU player and in game one, I wrecked him with an Incremental Blight that he was unable to recover from. In game two, he kept a risky hand that didn't get there. I suppose I could have played out the round to try for the extra prize, but I have been on the wrong side of mana screw enough to know that I should quit while I was ahead. Plus, it was getting late. Until next time, draftbetter

Wanted to let everyone know that I got busted by Wizards' for my user name which was draftbettercom. Apparently, it violates the CoC. I thought it might be doing that when I created it, but I figured it was worth a shot. So for a day, I was magicuser219. I have already settled the matter and my MTGO name is just draftbetter. A quick update on my collection; if you read to the end of my last article I was talking about buying and trading to gain extra value, but when I looked at the classifieds, I found that a single Lorwyn pack is selling for about five tix so I just bought one in the store. My collection now consists of two tix and one LLM draft set (plus the two rares and a single foil uncommon.)

I was originally going to do an XXX draft as my inaugural draft. But, it didn't take me long to notice a funny fact about the three 10th edition packs that I bought; They were worth more if I sold them unopened. Each 10th pack costs $3.99 plus tax in the store. Some sellers have a draft set of 10th ed. up in the classifieds for sixteen tickets. Now if they actually sell those packs for sixteen, the profit per pack is three and a partial tickets. However, the opened packs of 10th edition will on average, produce less valuable rares than Lorwyn or Morningtide packs. I didn't try selling my packs for sixteen tix as that might take a long time before someone came along who was willing to buy them at that price. I put them up for fifteen tix though and it wasn't ten minutes before I had them sold. I then searched up an LLW draft set and saw someone selling them for thirteen tix and purchased them. This transaction netted me two tix. Each Lorwyn or Morningtide pack costs the same in the store as the 10th edition packs yet I believe the cards are worth more after they have been opened. This disparity in value probably has something to do with how prizes are given out, but I figured I would take advantage of the situation and I would still be able to do a draft with my original purchase plus have more value. So my collection now contains one LLW draft set plus four tickets. I plan to draft with these cards in the near future so come back often.