Tuesday 1 December 2009

The top picks in Zendikar limited

By Jim Marlow

Hey everyone,

Worlds has been and gone, sealed ptq season is coming to a close.....which means soon i can write about extended. Luckily for you guys, i will try and fill in the next few days and weeks filling in with other crap before the extended ptq reports flood in, with stories of me going 0-2 with some blue monster i had a laugh playing.

So basically i feel like im ok at drafting zendikar. I manage to draft some pretty sick decks in most of the drafts i do (thank god for swiss queues), but to be honest my results have really not been living up to my expectation of the decks i build.

Im pretty sure its not only me that comes away from a draft, build my deck and thinks to myself....'yeah probably 2-1', or 'sickness, definately 3-0'. I find i can normally guess with some accuracy how good my deck is and hopefully exceed my expectations. To be honest, im not that annoyed if i go 1-2 with a deck i feel like should probably 0-3'd (i mean obviously drafting a pile is a problem, but im more happy to have carved some points out of nothing)

However, zendikar seems to have thrown of my 6th sense for working out how good my deck is, to the point where '3-0' decks are going 1-2 and vice versa. Clearly, this is to do with my massively swingy play ability, whereby my ability to play alcahol is almost directly related to the amount of alcohol in my body. Nevertheless, other people have also voiced similar complaints, especially with decks online....which are somewhat different because you only have to lose 1 match to be knocked out obviously (see, another reasons why swiss is best....)

So this lead me to question how much i really know and understand about the format, and soon after this i was questioning myself about what the 10 stone cold nut bomb cards there are in Zendikar to open pick 1, pack 1. For most sets i can probably reel off the top 5 cards to open p1,p1....i can probably name most of the top 5's from the last couple blocks worth off hand, and as soon as i hesitated (past #1 foil fetchlands obv), i knew i had an interesting discussion on my hand.

So i had a thought and here are my top 10 pack 1, pick 1's from Zendikar draft, please comment back with any thoughts you have on how wrong i am, im actually interested in this....rather than not really reading what you scrubs have to say.

I was going to have all 10 as black cards as a laugh...but probs should take this seriously..its serious business after all.

1) Tog Batters

2-249) Anything else

on a more serious note....


1) Sorin Markov

2) Ob-nixilis, the fallen

3) Rampaging Baloths

4) Sphinx of Jwar Isle

5) Day of Judgement

6) Hellkite Charger

7) Malakir Bloodwitch

8) Eldrazi Monument

9) Sphinx of lost truths

10) Kazuul Warlord

I was toying with the idea of putting vampire nighthawk over the warlord, because i absolutely hate ally based decks but also because i just much prefer vampire nighthawk to kazuul warlord as a p1,p1. However, im pretty sure there are loads of other cards that are close here, possibly deserving of a slot in the top 10....

rite of replication, Oracle of Mul Daya, Eternity Vessell and Luminarch Ascension (among others) all seem pretty close to these 10.

I would love to see how other people rate their top 10 slams in zen draft, because maybe this will help patch up some largely lacking draft results.

So if you're coming along tomorrow for the draft, pass me the ob, nixilis after i slam the sorin please....because i will still go 0-3 with the deck anyways.

See you all soon,


Until then,


Jim.


As always, feel free to comment on the article below. If you would like to contribute to the blog via and article, pictures, or absolutely anything, please contact me at ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk

6 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. Vampire Nighthawk should be in the top 3 and Rampaging Baloths shouldn't be in the top 10 IMO

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  4. Vampire nighthawk is better then hellkite, monument, lost truths and warlord imo. Also baloths if u pick nighthawk and pass baloths you are more then likely forcing the person you are passing to into green. Emeria angel and Turntimber ranger should be in the top 10 as well.

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  5. I'd like 2 see a new line up from uncommons and commons Jim...would be much more useful....obviously bomb rares win, which U's and C's are ''a house''
    -John

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  6. ill have a think and try and do it next week John.

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