-
Google Search
Recent Comments
The much anticipated Magic 2010 is finally draftable. I have the whole story after the link.
4-3-2-2, and I was hoping to do Swiss to get used to the format, but this one was next to fire so I jumped in.
Pack One
Pick One:
Dissapointing, no bombs. Bombs are needed in this format. Well, I'll take the card that takes their bomb.
Pick Two:
I remember how good this Aura was back in Shadowmoor and it is hopefully just as good. Sad thing is, there isn't much else that is good anyway.
Pick Three:
Ugh, these packs are terrible, is this what M10 is like? Repeatable damage seems pretty good though plus the Rod can make combat a bit tough for the opponent.
Pick Four:
There is a good signal at pick four.
Pick Five:
Well, no strong cards again but Counsel of the Soratami was very playable in triple 10th drafts.
Pick Six:
Here's a nice flier that plays defense while pinging the opponent.
Pick Seven:
OK, one is good, but two practically guarantees that I will draw one of them each game. Again, there isn't much good in these packs.
FOIL Rod of Ruin
Pick Eight:
Nothing for me, no card draw for my opponents.
Pick Nine:
A fantastic creature for locking up the ground while my fliers come on line.
Pick Ten:
Late Rampant Growth but not a card I want to splash and it's too late to jump into a color that I really haven't been seeing up to this point. Sideboard card this time for those pesky Fireballs.
Pick Eleven:
This one kills my fliers and I don't like the Ice Cage at all.
Pick Twelve:
I think one of these times, I want to try a Tome Scour deck, as an alternative win condition. I'll take it in case I can develop it.
Pick Thirteen:
Cheap flier, not sure I'll be playing it.
Pick Fourteen:
Pick Fifteen:
Pack Two
Pick One:
Well, I'm in blue and white and this is the perfect kind of land that I want for my deck. Not sure if it's more powerful than the Divine Verdict, but it's definitely good in my deck.
Pick Two:
These packs are seriously bad, battle trick for now, not sure I'll even run it. Maybe I should have cut the Bolt?
Pick Three:
Another Verdict and this one is in a pack with nothing else so I'll take it.
Pick Four:
Ponder is the best I've got? Nothing else really.
Pick Five:
I like the idea behind the Armorsmith, but I don't have a single other soldier and his casting cost is quite prohibitive. I'll go for the Slayer here as it's not terrible stats and if I get a little fortunate, the extra ability can come in handy.
Pick Six:
I hate seeing late Gravediggers as they are fantastic cards. I have a decent flier though that I'm taking over anther Verdict.
Pick Seven:
I'm really hoping these packs aren't all as empty as almost every pack I've looked at.
Pick Eight:
I hate Planeswalkers, Negate is a fine board card.
Pick Nine:
I've seen this guy gain 20-30 life, not sure if I'll play it, but would hate to have to play against it with my no removal deck.
Pick Ten:
Pick Eleven:
A late decent card, nice.
Pick Twelve:
A fine card that I can probably put in the main deck and always have a target.
Pick Thirteen:
Pick Fourteen:
Pick Fifteen:
Pack Three
Pick One:
Again, another open without a bomb, I don't like my chances in this draft. I have a nice solid card though so I'm going to take it.
Pick Two:
Games are bound to go long in this format and the Griffin has way more potential to have an impact on the game than the Pegasus will have. Plus, my Rod(s) can take care of it if it is on the other side of the board.
Pick Three:
These packs are so bad that the third Rod, which I don't know if I would normally play, is my best option.
Pick Four:
Another fine guy for holding the ground and hopefully getting inevitability with my pingers and fliers.
Pick Five:
A nice late gift in the card drawing spell, happy to take it here.
Pick Six:
Another nice late card for me. The Passage can really hurt my opponent or neutralize a big spell like Overrun.
Pick Seven:
Not happy about seeing the late Wurm here but I'll take the board card over another Mostodon.
Pick Eight:
I think this battle trick seems good and is cheaper than the Warriors Honor from 10th. I just don't know if I have the deck for this card.
Pick Nine:
Another flier to help me out.
Pick Ten:
I'll probably play the counterspell.
Pick Eleven:
Pick Twelve:
Pick Thirteen:
Pick Fourteen:
Pick Fifteen:
Final Deck
Pretty controlling deck. I'm hoping that the big behinds can control the board until I can steal their best guy and win with it.
Matches
After that horrible pre-release, I'm sitting at 1771 for the start of this one. My opponent wins the die roll and I start with this hand on the draw:
I have some drops and removal, I'll keep it. I draw fine on the land and we start a bit of a race that I am getting the better part of since I have the Rod going. We trade some guys and my Armored Ascension goes to the graveyard along with my other Slayer thanks to his Verdict. 
Even though he got control of the board at the end of the game, I had the game in hand thanks to the two Rods.
I wasn't expecting race type of games with my deck, but a win is a win. Let's see about game two as my opponent chooses to draw this game unlike game one:
I probably would have mulled this on the draw, but I can't really afford to go down on the play. Once I get any white source, I'm good to go so I keep it. I get more land, but not a white source for a while. Thankfully, the one creature I can play will hold off his ground army just fine but his fliers are coming through while I am missing land drops. I eventually get a white source but I'm kind of far behind in this game.
I use the Rod to kill his Illusionary Servant but he is sneaking damage through each turn. It's getting late in the game but I have some necessary removal spells and I ended up using my Safe Passage on a turn when he cast Sleep on me.
I was saving the Mind Control for his Angel, but he plays a threat that I must deal with right away so I go ahead and steal his Blinding Mage as it will deal with the angel just fine. I miss killing a creature with an end of turn ping and he has enough fliers because of it do deal the last damage to me.
I might have lost anyway there as being on one and him on nineteen, he has forever to find a way to get one damage through. Still, not good. Let's see about game three, here's my starter:
Best hand yet, I'm hoping to avoid his bombs or draw more solutions for them, I keep. I have the turn three Turtle and his turn three is the Illusionary Servant. I was planning on dropping the Griffin on turn four but change my plan to the Rod of Ruin that I have drawn so that I can take out the Servant before too much damage gets done. I am able to kill the Servant and take out his 3/2 flier on the same turn.
I think I'm doing good but I have drawn almost nothing but land since the start of the game while my opponent is dropping quality creature after quality creature.
Sleep again rears it's head along with the Angel to knock my life way down and my opponent seals the game with the bounce spell.
I already am not liking the way this format is going. I have to open better I think and I think a plan is necessary for winning. Usually that plan includes something to build around and I just didn't get anything that I could do that with in this draft.
Summary
Let's hope things look better on the next one. I hope to open a little better or maybe the packs were just really bad this time. My rating ended at 1762 after the match and no prize. I take some of the responsibility for this loss as I didn't play %100 of my capability but I do wish I hadn't flooded in that last game though as I probably could have put up a fight with a normal land to mana ratio. Also wish my opponent didn't have Sleep in his deck. I also found out that there are tons of solutions to Auras in this format so it's tough to consider them good cards from my very small experience so far.
Until next time,
draftbetter
7 Comments to “MTGO Draft 104”
Write a comment
You need to login.
Hello this is my 1st comment here, altho i read your reports a long time now. This archetype you drafted has to be aggresive with a bunch of fliers and tempo or removal cards. YOu overdid it with 3 rods of ruin. You should put the sprites in and draft more fliers. Ponder wasnt trully needed and unsummon could be better or negate. Undead slayers are just Scathe Zombies against all decks but black.
Your opponent was more experienced with the archetype and played the deck you should be playing too, but he also had the bombs. Not so much about serra angel, but sleeps is a gamestealer.
I agree with Dakon regarding how to draft the WU fliers type of deck and that the 3x Rods were a little much. I would have to guess that at least one of your close neighbors was drafting W and U early as well. I mean, you passed 2 Servants early and then saw just one more (in pack 1 no less)? To me that is a sign that U is dry!
P1P3 – some good B & G picks (unfortunately, that pack was too early to see any signals as it was missing 1 R and 1 C card, the common was probably a Bolt or a Doom Blade).
P1P6 – seemed like a good indication that B & G were open. Child of night is a solid card as is Deadly Recluse.
P2P2 – wish you were in G and cut the (easily splashed) Bolt
P2P5 – Definitely the Safe Passage over the Slayer
P3P1 – Cloak was the pick.
Most of the remainder of your pack 3 picks were about as good as they could have been.
Yeah, I agree with the above. I think it was clear in pack one that Green was being underdrafted and Blue was being overdrafted. You should have switched to WG IMO.
P3P1 Veteran Swordsmith. I dont mind the Rod of Ruin but this set seems too bomby for it. Veteran is the best of the Soldier pumpers and hopefully you’ll get a few more.
P7P1 Take the Lion to establish colors for pack 2. Also, Rod x 2 is weak. I value them higher than most people but two will choke up your hand for sure, especially with the amount of ridiculous bombs in this format.
P11P1 Ice Cage is ok removal. If you had taken the aggressive cards then it becomes really good. Another option on the late picks is to set yourself up for a different second color or take the 2/1 Merfolk guys hoping for the lord.
Just heres my theory…If you dont open bombs then you need to draft a deck that can beat the opponent before they draw their bombs, ie. aggro. You drafted a defensive deck designed to get to the later part of the game with the selection of 2x Rod of Ruin in pack one…I guess just hoping to open bombs in WU in pack 2 and 3. Seems like a mistake? What do you think…
Also, by passing the aggressive cards in White in pack one then you almost certainly set someone up to draft that deck and cut you from key picks in pack 2.
-M
Yeah, definitely some tough luck with those packs. Pretty much taking the winddrake over the divine verdict is the only draft choice that I absolutely disagree with. Drakes are around, whereas sometimes a crappy pack can have that verdict as pick 1. Armored ascension is just as good in M10 as it was before. But mostly some bad luck and some bad draws there. I lost to small fliers when I drafted 3 serra angels and an ambassador sphinx (and didn’t draw them in 3 games).
In general, M10 seems to be quicker than AlaraBlock. Not really sure why since the simpler decks (1/2 colors) should be balanced by weaker cards (wooly thoctar vs craw wurm).
i dont really know but maybey you should’ve taken out a undead slayer, and put in a soul warden, they are pretty useful and 1/1 for 1
The colours you ended up with are the strongest in M10 imo. That’s not showing in your deck but it shows in the deck on the other side of the table. I happen to think you could have draft some cards dif. like the guys above me told you already. Your deck would have been stronger but you would have lost anyway. Sleep is to damn good. That’s why I don’t like this M10 sealeds or drafts like alara block. alara block was fun the last 2 times right? You can fix a bad cardpool playing alara by drafting well. In M10 it’s hardly possible. Only thing you can do to overcome a bad cardpool is going for the green fatties because there are not much fatties in there. And hope for the best that you don’t encounter a deck like you did now because than your fatties will be tapped and you will lose. I happend to win a sealed tournament because the one deck that did just that had a bad draw. The format just is not balanced enough. You should play swiss first to learn this format better, or just leave it and play alara.
Again you could have draft some cards better if you had known the format better, but you have not seen the cards to win so don’t feel to bad. Only change you had was to be lucky and have the negate against sleep. But that bit of luck was sitting in your sideboard. In M10 negate is not a sideboard card. It could have saved you now. It makes sure overrun does not finish it stops removal. You wanted a controlling deck, you needed it.
First, MIND CONTROL IS A BOMB
Its a actually a double bomb since it removes your opponents bomb and gives you one. I don’t think there are more than 5 cards you should take over mind control.
Secondly, three rods are fine as long as the deck is build around it, for example by getting wall of frost to survive early. It can be tricky to survive long enough, but having two rods active wins you most games. Wall of frost and turtles can get you there.
Thirdly: Armor guy is much better than the undead slayer gray ogre guy. 2/1 flier is hugely better than the 2/2 first strike flier, especially if you had more excommunicates which you should.