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Another M10 draft is in the books. I'm still trying to figure out the format so click the link for the full story. I wanted to see more decks and get in more games with the format so decided on Swiss so I would get three rounds win or lose. Pack One Pick One:
I'm beginning to think that unless you get a bomb or strong removal, the packs are just very blah. There are a couple of directions to go here and I don't like a lot of them. First, I'm not sure the Merfolk Sovereign is first pickable so I'm going to nix the rare. Next, there are two excellent red spells in the pack in the Seismic Strike and the Goblin Artillery. Unfortunately, if I take one of those, I'm still passing a red signal as both are strong. Next is the Tendrils of Corruption or the Black Knight. Taking either of those requires a strong commitment to black and that's pretty hard on your first pick. As well, I would be passing a strong black signal. No strong green cards leaves me with what I felt was my only strong choice in the white tapper. (No, I don't like the Illusionary Servant as it is easy to get a zero-for-oned.) Looking at the pack, I felt that the card I was most likely to get back was the Elvish Visionary.
Blinding Mage
Pick Two:
Nothing really too strong here but a couple good cards to mull over here. It's between the 4/4 Trampler and the Whispersilk Cloak. As I was thinking about this, I decided I wouldn't make a second color commitment just yet and would leave myself open with the artifact.
Whispersilk Cloak
Pick Three:
Well, seeing good green and seeing the Snapping Drakeand the Howling Banshee in the pack are giving me reason to think about choosing a second color. I decided I would forestall that decision again by going with the white card over the other very reasonable picks.
Razorfoot Griffin
Pick Four:
I can no longer deny the green cards and though there is a late Strike in the pack, I know I won't be seeing much red so I decided to take the Wurm.
Craw Wurm
Pick Five:
Three cards I like here. The white has the Veteran Swordsmith and green has two excellent three drops. I decided that if I was going to take a three drop, I wanted it to be the 3/3 over the 3/2 and the land fetcher.
Centaur Courser
Pick Six:
Green keeps rolling, I'll happily take the 4/4 Trampler this time around.
Stampeding Rhino
Pick Seven:
I know the Slime is good. It deals with equipment and bomb stuff alike so It's good to see so late here.
Acidic Slime
Pick Eight:
The battle trick is again pretty late and right on part with my deck so far.
Giant Growth
Pick Nine:
Didn't I tell you that Visionary would come around? No reason to take anything else here.
Elvish Visionary
Pick Ten:
All trash now.
Angels Mercy
Pick Eleven:
A late gift and yes, I will play it as it is very hard to deal with if it hits the board.
Enormous Baloth
Pick Twelve:
Shatter
Pick Thirteen:
Goblin Piker
Pick Fourteen:
Yawning Fissure
Pick Fifteen:
Island
Pack Two
Pick One:
I'm hoping to crack an Overrun or get one passed seeing that after pick five or so, I really didn't pass any quality green cards. Well, I will have to get hooked up as I can't seem to open worth anything. No bomby white or green cards. I will have to go with the Courser here.
Centaur Courser
Pick Two:
Giant Spider is just the type of card I am looking for. I'm hoping the Recluse comes back, but this guy is so good at stopping blue and white that I can't pass it up here.
Giant Spider
Pick Three:
I think I want more Spider action than acceleration at this point.
Giant Spider
Pick Four:
The way my deck is shaping up, I don't think I will be able to reliably play the Armorsmith early but the excellent flier is a welcome addition to my pile at this point over the accel.
Razorfoot Griffin
Pick Five:
This pick is a little tough. I have not had a good experience with the Unicorn and since I didn't get an Overrun myself, I want to have a solution for it as I am bound to see it eventually.
Fog
Pick Six:
Multiple Spiders ensures that I will be able to handle the flying decks much easier.
Giant Spider
Pick Seven:
This is another excellent solution for a lot of tough cards. Pretty much green's version of removal here.
Deadly Recluse
Pick Eight:
No good green, but a decent battle trick that can be that last card if I need it.
Glorious Charge
Pick Nine:
Now, I didn't expect to be out of picks by this point, but I think I got enough playables so I'm not too upset. I'll take an opponent's battle trick away.
Kindled Fury
Pick Ten:
Not sure I'll play it, but not bad.
Silvercoat Lion
Pick Eleven:
That's what I'm talking about!
Llanowar Elves
Pick Twelve:
I'm still not sure I'll play this guy, but no reason to pass it here.
Veteran Armorsmith
Pick Thirteen:
Zephyr Sprite
Pick Fourteen:
Jump
Pick Fifteen:
Mountain
Pack Three
Pick One:
Well, I did get an uncommon bomb at least. Just wish it was in my color as I think that Overrun would be better for my deck than the Fireball that I am going to splash. Fixing will now take a priority.
Fireball
Pick Two:
OK, another uncommon bomb and with the rare being worse for the same cost, I think the Angel is the way to go here.
Serra Angel
Pick Three:
With three Spiders in the deck already, it's hard to justify taking it over the functional reprint of Neck Snap. The huge guy does give me pause but because I already have a huge guy at that drop, I think the removal is more necessary for my deck.
Divine Verdict
Pick Four:
OK, finishing up my five drops with this one.
Stampeding Rhino
Pick Five:
Nice, the Druid can have a huge impact on games so I'm going to take it here. I'm light on three drops and played on turn three or four can get in huge damage. Then, when they use removal on it, they just killed a land and the later drops will have a stronger likelihood of sticking around.
Awakener Druid
Pick Six:
Not sure I'll have room for a vanilla 2/2 but there isn't much else in the pack.
Runeclaw Bear
Pick Seven:
Not sure how I feel about the Auras as I think they are quite sub-optimal in this format. I'd rather take a card that deals with aura's.
Excommunicate
Pick Eight:
This is a two drop that I can get behind. It gets me to my land and big guys that much more reliably.
Elvish Visionary
Pick Nine:
Again, the Unicorn is easy to thwart so I'd rather have the battle trick.
Giant Growth
Pick Ten:
I'm going to cut one of the few guys that is big enough to deal with my guys.
Berserkers of Blood Ridge
Pick Eleven:
Runeclaw Bear
Pick Twelve:
Warp World
Pick Thirteen:
Convincing Mirage
Pick Fourteen:
Coral Merfolk
Pick Fifteen:
Forest
Final Deck
The Elves and the two Visionaries let my play only sixteen land without too much fear of land screw, let's see what can be done.Matches I'm starting this draft at 1762 after my last experience with M10. This one is Swiss so points is not what I am after. At least I start fine:
A nice early drop, removal and the Cloak so I can get my eventual big guys through, I keep. I play the Mage on turn two and get in a couple times before I am forced to hold back as his guys are starting to get threatening.
I get stuck for a bit on the four land that I started with but I still have what I need to stay in the game. When he starts dropping his guys, so do I as I finally get that land. Unfortunately, he keeps mana open each turn and counters my Angel and when I want to play my Spider, which will hold off his entire team, he has yet another counter.
That's not making me happy. When I go to play my last hope to save myself from death, he has counter number three to seal the game.
Usually, limited counter decks are no good but it got the job done that time for my opponent. Hope I can power through it this game as I start with this hand:
Easy keep as I can get some card draw in and get down some guys that he will want to counter so my later plays will come through fine, I keep. I end up doing quite a bit of damage with my the Visionary and the Recluse as he leaves mana open every turn and I am going to wait until he taps out to play my big dudes. He does counter one guy early, but I get in a lot of damage before he even has a board presence.
Eventually, I can't wait any more as his Turtle is holding back my dudes and he has let two Spiders land which to me says he has no counters. After the Angel comes down, he concedes the game.
That was better, let's try again with this hand on the draw:
It's a little land light, but should be fine if I can get at least a couple land before too long, I keep. He taps out on turn three for a Kelinore Bat and I spring the Awakener Druid on him. The animated Forest ends up doing quite a bit of damage before he can kill the Druid. thankfully, he still doesn't really have a board presence and I have drawn enough land to start playing my guys. The Spider is a good start for playing around his counter spells. It gets counters and he swings at me.
I think no big deal, I've got my first-striker to stem the tide as I am saving my Angel for last and when I can get the Cloak equipped the same turn. He has another counter spell for the Griffin and one for my previous turn Courser.
He keeps swinging, thankfully for not too much and I decide to test the waters again with the Spider before the Angel as the Spider is just as devastating for him but not as good for me so if it gets countered, I still have one more backup that will end the game in short order.
He has counterspell number four for the spider and my last ditch effort is the Angel which he does not have a counter for so I put the Cloak on it the same turn. he still attacks throwing away his Snapping Drake in the process but two swings should end his game while I can still block with the Angel. He does not draw a solution and the Angel wins the game.
Cool, a good performance from an M10 deck with me as the pilot, how shocking. I gain six points from that victory leading me to 1768 and my next opponent is ready to go. Unfortunately, I didn't snap my opening hand and the game is not in the "My Games" tab so I am unable to recreate my opener. I do know that I did not mulligan and had at least a Forest, Plains and Elvish Visionary so it was an easy keeper. I get down the Druid which sees my opponent hit the land with an Acidic Slime trigger after only one attack. I have my own Deathtouch guy though and the board is an early stalemate as all my guys are small.
He appears to be mono-green but before the game goes too far, he plays out his bomb in the Platinum Angel. I'm not too worried though as I have drawn plenty of land and I know I can fireball the Angle or if I draw my own Slime, I can take it out so I continue to attack through to get him close to death so that I can fireball the Angle and split the damage to him if necessary.
It doesn't work out that way though as I get to ten mana pretty quickly and I am afraid of an Overrun that my opponent is telegraphing so I take out his Angel and his 4/4 Trampler instead of waiting to kill him with it. He eventually gets my flier with his Windstorm but I have another guy that is a good target for the the Cloak and I am hoping to end the game in short order.
My instincts were right and my opponent reveals his Overrun in topdeck fashion but I have just enough toughness to survive at one life and win the game.
Close one, but now that I know what my opponent is up to, I board in the Fog hope for a better draw than my last one. I start with these cards:
Pretty good as any land and I will likely win this one. I do have a slow start but my opponent's start is also slow as his first drop is on turn four. He goes from there though dropping a creature every turn.
I'm building the board as well and saving the fireball for the Angel that he played on turn seven. Plus, I have the Divine Verdict should I need it. I attack with the Wurm three times unblocked and I begin to suspect he again has the Overrun as he declines to block each time. I save everything else back and leave mana open for the Verdict while playing out as much toughness as I can afford to. I can fireball the Angel on the next turn and swing for the win when he breaks out the much anticipated game winner.
No fog in hand means I lose as all the toughness I had goes into blocking and I still suffer exactly twenty trample damage after hitting his Unicorn with the Verdict. Tough loss there and I'm not happy about it. Without the bomby Angel, and his Overrun, I have an easy win there. No reason to stress though, I have another game with which to win this match. I start with these:
Not amazing, but any land and the Druid will probably win the game for me with his slowish starts thus far. Unfortunately, I don't get that third land until after I am discarding. I try my best once I start to draw land, but I just can't come back after an even slower start on my part.
I have to take the blame for that loss as I probably should have mulled the hand but the Fog and the Slime, both solutions for his game winners, were too alluring for me.
You know I'm going to take a huge hit from a mono green player in the Swiss queues and that's what happens when I see that I just lost twelve points going to 1756 with the loss. As upset as I am, I have to pull it together for the last round as I start with this hand on the draw:
I agonized over this pick for a while as one land and a turn two Courser is hard to come back from even if I miss a land drop or two after that. If I was on the play, I definitely mulligan, but I decide to keep as one land is not a far stretch. Of course I am now facing the only deck with red and black in it for this round and he has removal for my guys and I of course don't draw the land I need and go down in flames.
Not good, one loss away from an episode of Fail. Let's hope for better this time around as I start with some land in my hand:
I keep this one and get a bit lucky to draw the Awakener Druid after my opponent wastes his Sparkmage Apprentice on my head. I get in for some early damage getting ready to play my bigger guys for when he does remove the Druid.
He eventually Kills my land off with his Inferno Elementalbut I have been dropping fatty after fatty for an overwhelming board position.
He has some removal, but I have more dudes and he goes down after he can no longer continue to topdeck guys that can actually trade with my bigger guys.
Much better, let's see about game two with these seven cards:
About the best that I could hope for really he decides to trade his Child of Night for my Visionary early on and I drop some fliers and blockers. We race for a bit and he stays in it with his Panic Attack. After that last attempt, he is unable to keep up and I am able to swing for the win on the next turn.
Close one, but I had multiple ways to deal with his dudes at that point of the game and did not feel as if I were in any danger.Summary That last win brings me up four measly points ending the draft at 1760 for a total of two lost points on the draft. I do get the two packs as prize so my next draft will be cheaper than this one was. My first and third round opponents did not have any bombs that I saw and I was able to overcome but my second round opponent's two bombs were enough to bomb me. I may have gave a game away in a bad mull decision but Round 2 Game 2 was definitely going to be won by me unless he had both of his bombs in that game. I'm still not liking this format very much at all but I am willing to give it at least one more try for the next draft. Until then, draftbetter
18 Comments to “MTGO Draft 105”
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A fine draft, nice play. Could have been gaining some points when your opponents had more points, bit unlucky.
For your draft. It was a nice deck so don’t take my comments as very critical.
P1P1 I can follow your course. Maybe I would have gone for the removal but not sure. It’s a fine pick. So white it is…
P1P3 you did not want to choose a second color. You took the flying Razorfoot griffin a nice card. For me having the cloak in pick 2 the big green fattie would have been better. And I would have chosen my second colour.
P1P5 You take the fine centaur courser vanilla 3 drop. I would have taken the borderland ranger. There are to much fine splashables and 1 or 2 rangers make a 3th color splash a lot better. And maybe you can get a rampant growth as well. Borderland ranger is very strong in this format because it lacks good manafixers.
Pack 2, i would not have been commited to white as you were
with 2 white playables. I would only have drafted the P1P1. That would have made the choise for doomblade an easy one. You took the fine 3 drop creature, also a good playable and because you did not have have the ranger it’s understandable you were afraid to take a third color. Maybe I would have dropped the white at this point. I think the black removal is that much better than the tapper. Lucky you did not whit a bad pack 3 for black and very strong white cards.
P2P4 Your choise was the razorfoot griffin. This should have been the llanowar elves. You were lucky the others didn’t pick it. you played big green fatties. what in the world can be better than speed the biggies up a turn? Green has a lot of spiders to stop flyers. there will be some later flyers in white so the griffin was the wrong pick. This is certainly the case because you chose a giant spider in P2P3 over the llanowar elves. I would have chosen both the llanowar elves.
Pack 3 a very nice round for you. Bet you wished you had taken the borderland ranger when you saw the fireball?
Your choise for white paid out. You are more white committed with the serra angel being double white. So if in P3P6 you take a vanilla 2 drop. You rather want some more white playables instead of more green. You should have taken the silvercoat lion over the runeclaw bear. In your final deck youd didn’t play the bear or the lion so it did not matter.
Deck building. Again just 16 lands. But you don’t want to miss a land drop with the big fatties. So play 17 land. Llanowar elves should be additional speed and not instead of a land drop.
In the play you saw your own mulligan mistake, so I that’s fine. Good to see you are judging your own game. So you learned a lot for the cost of 2 points and you get a cheaper start next time with 2 packs in the pocket. I liked how you saw the overrun comming. A very nice play shifting your game plan and play out the fireball so you could handle the overrun
Maybe in the other game where you lost because of the overrun and you expected the overrun you should have sacrificed the fireball win condition when you played out the 3/3 centaur and should have used the fireball to take out the prized unicorn and still be able to play the verdict for when he would play out his overrun and should do his attack with the angel. But that is a lot of wisdom afterwards. But now you expected the overrun and still did not use that feeling but died when he did it.
Well, as they say, 2 out of three aint bad. I’m a bit curious about why you are so intent on sending a signal on white early but it is pick 1. Then you don’t seem to read any of the signals that black is open. After your opening tendrils, there is pick 3 with Banshee/Warlock/Tendrils, pick 5 with sign in blood, pick 7 assasinate, pick 9 zombie/bat. Pack 2 seems to continue signals that black is very open with pick 3 tutor/child of night/gravdigger, pick 4 wall of bone (not big on walls but regen is very good in limited)/childnite, pick 7 warlock, pick 8 weakness (can be surprisingly effective removal, pick 11/12 child of night. Not sure if that deck would have been better, but nice removal and I think your choices did force someone into black. You ended up with 8 white playables, of which you used 5 so I do wonder about the very early decision on white.
As for the construction, all good. Slightly more white and I’d be tempted on excommunicate.
Gampeplay on Round 2. Game 3 is a definite mulligan. Maybe if that was a plains instead of mountain…maybe. But no. Question on Game 2: Why didn’t you attack with the wurm & the rhino? I assume you are taking everyturn like he might topdeck an overrun. In which case he is doing 39 trample damage minus whatever you block or kill. Since the prized unicorn ( a good limited card BTW) forces removal in that scenario…you should have attacked with more than the wurm. If you do so and he doesn’ block, he goes to negative life, you kill the angel and win (and if you didn’t have the removal, he’d still have to factor that in with using the angel for blocking or attacking). If he blocks, he wont use the angel and would either have to trade at least one creature for the rhino or wurm. But even that works to your advantage since his smallest creature would do 5 or 6 damage after being pumped by his once and future overrun. So since he wouldn’t want to block with his angel, that leaves double blocking with the shrouded guys (no, 2 for 1), a shroud and a unicorn (no 2 for 1), chumping with his bramble (no) or trading rhino or rhino for wurm. That takes 7 damage off the table. He plays his overrun, attacks for 32, you kill the unicorn, use the recluse to block the angel and go to 3. And have an about to be unttapped craw wurm and a fireball to finish him (platinum dies to deathtouch).
Game 1 of round 3, i’d mull but I understand the appeal of that gamble.
Overall, a pretty decent draft with just one minibomb (serra).
This is very similar to the deck I drafted last FNM, with even less success on my part
If you don’t open the bombs, or open bombs that you cannot splash for, you pretty much are at the mercy to those can can open the bombs.
The way to get around this is to build a fast and consistent deck, usually with green dudes, just like you did. But even then you are still at the mercy of an overrun. I’m just not sure what the heck to do when you don’t open well.
O well, I’ll keep plugging along just like you and hope to get better!
p1p1 I think this is between Blinding Mage, Tendrils and Goblin Artillery. Black Knight and Seismic Strike don’t really compete. My pick would be Tendrils, but I prefer strong black.
p1p3 I can’t agree with Razorfoot Griffin here, it’s clearly inferior to several cards in pack. I would’ve picked a second Tendrils, with your picks and having already passed one Tendrils probably Looter.
p1p4 I’ve thought Craw Wurm is surprisingly lackluster in the format, and don’t really think there’s been green signal of any kind yet. I might consider the Baloth over it here, if I intended to go green, 7cc is pushing it but /7 is a lot better than /4. Ponder from a weak pack for me.
p1p5 Borderland Ranger any day of the week over Centaur Courser. 3/3 will stop to Giant Spider / Wall of Bone / Horned Turtle / Palace Guard just as badly as 2/2. Ranger keeps you dropping lands and fixes. Sign in Blood for my BU.
p1p6 Agree on Rhino. Negate for my BU.
p1p7 A late Assassinate, but also late Acidic Slime.
p1p9 Kelinore Bat for mu BU, weaker evasion over stronger land. Illusionary Servant otherwise, but with two Tendrils in pack 1 I’m looking at Bu at most.
p1p11 This was a very good pack.
p2p1 Doom Blade as interrupt for me, and for you too. Just 1/3 of the cards are picked and you easily could fit in black splash yet, picking up 3/3 vanilla over arguably the best removal in format is wrong.
No point picking my own black-blue anymore from now on, so just comments:
p2p5 Gifted Unicorn over Fog. To my experience Green has baad tendency to stall if it doesn’t manage to beat down fast or draw Overrun or Sleep if there is one. Unicorn held back until opponent goes to topdeck mode or clearly isn’t holding back removal can absolutely wreck in that situation, getting your meat through for kill. Fog on the other hand usually trades 1-1 only with the few damage based combat tricks in the format, and a bomb like Overrun. Otherwise it’s just using card to buy time, more or less.
p2p9 Regenerate to side in against removal heavy deck, if I feel like I need to protect some key creature. It’s actually better than one might think at first sight – it’s not Regeneration!
p3p5 Awakener Druid is a tad risky against removal heavy deck. You might end up with big tempo loss for 1/1. Still, it can be a beating too if the answer isn’t there.
p3p7 Entangling Vines here. It’s decent pseudo removal. Common and uncommon ways to untap your creature in format are limited to Act of Treason on your own creature, I think…
Just for future reference…the way to beat overrun is to force him into blocking. NOT holding guys back. You want to tease him into attacking with his guys to get 2:1′s on you, such as trading your two elves for his 3/2 Shroud guy. You do that game 1 by tapping his 2/2 guy and attacking with your deathtouch spider each turn.
Game 3 you do that by attacking with your 4/4 trampler, as someone else stated. If he doesnt block and goes to negative life then you win with Fireball on Plat Angel. If he does block then he cant win on the Overrun attack.
On the draft I think I keep cutting White pick 4 instead of taking the GG costing Craw Wurm. No reason to go with that guy when you have a 1-drop 2/1 in-color. Then pick 5 you can take the Swordsmith…again cutting White. If your going to take a Green card though the Vanilla 3/3 over the amazing Borderline Ranger is a clear mistake. You dont know what you will get pack 2 and 3. You may want to be able to spalsh and the extra 1/1 is not worth the utility.
Finally, Prized Unicorn is not a great creature but hes clearly better than Fog. He makes it rough for your opponent since if you have lethal on the board with the Unicorn then he cant tap out unless he neutralizes that guy. You can see how powerful that was in your Round 2 Game 3. Without the Unicorn on the board you could have tapped out to play another guy early on without the fear of losing right then and there. The extra early guy would have forced him into blocking and then eventually losing.
Finally, when your playing against a mono-green guy then I dont agree with keeping in the Wispersilk Cloak. He doesnt have targeted removal, which is the Cloaks best use. Cards like the 2-drop 2/2′s, the +1/+1 pump, and Excommunicate are all quite superior in that matchup.
Just think if you had the pump spell in hand from early on instead of the cloak…you would have been able to attack with your 3/3 guys into his 4/4 Rhino and gotten a trade. or potentially even got him to neg life and burned out the Angel for the win.
-M
After being away for 3-4 weeks due to travel, I just played in an ACR draft, which I won… and which reminded me why ACR is so much more fun to draft.
Wound up drafting Jund, getting a deck with a Broodmate (which only showed up one game which I would have won anyway) and a bunch of other solid cards.
… so many decisions to make when playing ACR! It’s a brilliant set to draft.
Just in this tournament, there was stuff like:
–do I play the Jund Sojourners now, or save it for cycling as a trick?
–do I play or cycle things like Monstrous Carabid?
–Do I play Vithian Renegades as a dude, or wait to possibly kill something? Is it worth killing my *own* borderpost for the dude?
–How do I prioritize fixing vs. playables?
–How can I manipulate secondary abilities on things like Toxic Iguanar, Ember Weaver, and blades to surprise my opponent?
Then there are the interactions between all the creature abilities, unearth tricks, all the color flexibility and splashing, the very different character of the five shards, Esper tricks, and all the rest.
Meanwhile M10 is vanilla-wars with crazy bombs, and one interesting card: Harm’s Way.
The Borderland Ranger/Centaur Courser pick was one that I wasn’t sure about and I can see that it would have been better to take that guy. As to the land count, I really felt that my land count was actually over what I could have played counting the Elf as a land is pretty straightforward, like counting Birds as a land. The two Visionaries would also let me cut a land but I played sixteen land anyway to ensure that I would have enough and I had about as much problems as I would have with a seventeen land deck.
I did make a mistake in not attacking with the 4/4 in that game and I also agree with you guys there as I saw the mistake in hindsight as well.
Ok I can see the 16 lands, guess we will never agree about that. With the 5 mana big guys in the M10 “vanilla war” I will not risk not dropping those in turn 5. Would it be ACR then I would agree. But I see your point and it’s defendable.
Like entropius said, ACR draft has more options, is more about strategy. But I am very glad to see you did swiss draft M10. An easy way to learn much about M10 for minimal costs. But I hope you will do some ACR after your winning streak last time.
Just a point that I didn’t see anyone else pick up on. You said that you take the Serra over the Guardian Seraph because the Serra is better and costs the same. I don’t know about which one is better. They are both large fliers and while Serra doesn’t tap, Seraph prevents 1 to you from each attacking creature. It adds up.
The real issue is that you said they cost the same. They don’t. Serra is 3WW and Guardian Seraph costs 2WW. She’s online a turn earlier. I think the Seraph is the right pick.
@Care Bear – You’re right about the cost, mis-read that one. Still not sure that it’s the right pick though. The Serra seems like it would hold off more attackers thus preventing damage just as good as the Seraph while doing more damage. I hope I don’t have to make that particular choice again in the near future.
@draftbetter – I’ve given it some thought and you’re probably right about Serra in this deck, however is a deck like UW with a lot of flying creatures, I think the Seraph would be better. She allows you to race better because your opponent’s clock is going to be a lot slower.
General thoughts, save removal; with the format appearing to be bombcentral removal seems even more important.
What do you people feel is the aggressive strategy for m10 draft? and is it worth trying to force?
Going through the commons/uncommons no one color has enough early strong playables.
Two strats kinda caught my eye, either a white soldier build, with some green for oakenforms, giant growth, awak druid. I may be willing to force a soldier build, but there are so few soldiers in this set. If worse comes to worse we can switch over to white fliers.
The other was a wacky monored deck, which I would not want to force at all. Using jackal familiars, raging goblins, and trumpet blasts. I do not like red in m10, everyone grabs fireballs and lightning bolts, which leaves seismic strike for most of your removal.
on Serra vs. Seraph racing:
Serra’s in theory better at racing, since she can slow down your opponent’s clock with vigilance more effectively than seraph can with the damage shield.
BUT, Serra has to risk herself to do it, and risk getting blown out by your opponent’s combat trick.
OTOH Serra also gets past Giant Spiders and Assassinate, two commons that can neutralize Seraph.
on serra Seraph
Serra any day. Not only is the 4 damage that much more crucial with the blockers. Not only the green spiders a 4 toughness also a serra can axchange for a serra a seraph would just die. Don’t forget serra si the uncommen one and you are likely goining to see one on the other side for sure when you pass it on and chosse the seraph. Seraph only works when there are a lot of small creatures attacking you. With just a few big bombs the seraph only works when you don’t block. And I would not be happy to let a big fattie through because it deals 1 damage less to me.
Sumnus question forcing strategy
The soldiers is possible, but going for the bomb in your pack is the best. Forcing green when there’s nothing in your pack is stronger. This draft 105 shows what happens if you choose green without bombs. it’s playable and goes well with red, black and white.
Forcing red is not good. Jackal familiar is not worth playing. Even if your First turn drop and your second is a jackal what should be the best opening hand in fast red. Then you attack third turn with two jackals. Now what? turn 3 your opponent has 16 life. He starts playing fatties and you can’t do anything with the jackals. If one dies then you are in trouble. And you don’t want to hold them back to trade 2 cards for 1 fattie. When you play red it’s about splash removal fireball, lightning bolt etc. or you have a boms like shivan dragon.
I was thinking more along the lines of
t1 jackal
t2 rage goblin att for 3, #2 jack
t3 trumpetblast for 11.
t4 act of treason/panic attack/lightning elemental.
And just to get that reliably in an opening hand would require very very very odd drafting, and a sub-optimal hand would probably mean a loss.
So I will go with everyone else, get some good karma and open the bombs.
One thing I think you have to consider when drafting any core set is that your first pick may not lock your colors. Unless you pull a bomb, your first four packs together will define color selection.
Sure, ideally you draft a single color and signal strongly to your neighbor, but sometimes it just doesn’t work that way. If the colors aren’t coming and your passing good stuff to stay on color, you need to consider switching before the draft falls apart on you.
Ugh, that should read “first four PICKS” not PACKS. No edit feature, apparently.
Serra vs. Seraph
what if you stall on 4 mana? Costing one mana less is huge. 4/4 for 4 with a great racing ability is very, very good. It stops alpha strikes in a way that a Serra Angel does not. Another thing to consider is your mana curve. If I have many good 4 drops already but no five drop the Serra is obvious. The reverse is also true.