By Wagz
Hi all, this weekend I got 7 of my good local friends together for a draft with some boosters I have of the latest set. While I won't provide an in-depth tournament report, I will give you the decklists and the results for you to draw your own conclusions from:
Results:
1) Rob Wagner
2) Rob Catton
3) Andy Devine
4) Chris Vincent
5) Jim Marlow
6) Rick Meeson
7) Mick Edwards
8) Robertas Aluzas
Match Results:
Round 1:
Rob W 2-0 Robbie
Chris 2-1 Mick
Rob C 2-1 Jim
Rick 0-2 Andy
Round 2:
Rob W 2-0 Andy
Chris 1-2 Rob C
Robbie 1-2 Rick
Mick 1-2 Jim
Round 3:
Rob W 2-0 Rob C
Chris 2-1 Rick
Jim 1-2 Andy
Mick 2-0 Robbie
Decklists (not including basic lands):
Rob Wagner:
1 Zulaport Enforcer
2 Goblin Tunneler
2 Kiln Fiend
1 Tuktuk the Explorer
1 Gloomhunter
1 Battle-Rattle Shaman
2 Escaped Null
1 Zof Shade
1 Valakut Fireboar
1 Sarkhan the Mad
1 Devastating Summons
2 Vendetta
1 Virulent Swipe
2 Last Kiss
2 Surreal Memoir
1 World at War
1 Heat Ray
Rob Catton:
1 Overgrown Battlement
1 Mul Daya Channelers
1 Aura Gnarlid
1 Rage Nimbus
1 Sporecap Spider
2 Vent Sentinel
1 Ondu Giant
2 Kozilek's Predator
1 Wildheart Invoker
1 Ulamog's Crusher
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Flame Slash
2 Ancient Stirrings
1 Ogre's Cleaver
1 Warmonger's Chariot
1 Growth Spasm
1 Snake Umbra
1 Bear Umbra
1 Heat Ray
2 Eldrazi Temple
Andy Devine:
1 Enclave Cryptologist
2 Skywatcher Adept
1 Caravan Escort
1 Kor Line-Slinger
1 Ikaral Outrider
1 Knight of Cliffhaven
3 Halimar Wavewatch
1 Hada Spy Patrol
1 Dawnglare Invoker
1 Venerated Teacher
1 Hedron-Field Purists
1 Makindi Griffin
1 Kabira Vindicator
1 Ulamog's Crusher
1 Smite
1 Guard Duty
2 Hyena Umbra
1 Deprive
1 Time of Need
1 Drake Umbra
1 Evolving Wilds
Chris Vincent:
1 Renegade Doppelganger
1 Overgrown Battlement
3 Sea Gate Oracle
1 Phantasmal Abomination
1 Wildheart Invoker
1 Merfolk Seascout
2 Kozilek's Predator
1 Nema Siltlurker
1 Artisan of Kozilek
1 Gelatinous Genesis
1 Might of the Masses
1 Naturalize
1 See Beyond
2 Narcolepsy
1 Regress
1 Awakening Zone
1 Drake Umbra
2 Dreamstone Hedron
Jim Marlow:
3 Zulaport Enforcer
1 Null Champion
1 Bloodrite Invoker
1 Lavafume Invoker
1 Lagac Lizard
1 Zof Shade
3 Battle-Rattle Shaman
1 Valakut Fireboar
2 Emrakul's Hatcher
1 Pestilence Demon
1 Hand of Emrakul
3 Last Kiss
2 Wrap in Flames
1 Heat Ray
Rick Meeson:
1 Joraga Treespeaker
2 Soul's Attendant
2 Stalwart Shield-Bearers
2 Nest Invaders
1 Ikaral Outridre
1 Umbra Mystic
2 Aura Gnarlid
1 Kabira Vindicator
1 Pelakka Wurm
1 Prey's Vengeance
1 Demystify
1 Hyena Umbra
1 Naturalize
2 Eland Umbra
1 Boar Umbra
1 Gravity Well
2 Repel the Darkness
Mick Edwards:
1 Null Champion
1 Runed Servitor
2 Bloodthrone Vampire
1 Gloomhunter
1 Arrogant Bloodlord
4 Cadaver Imp
2 Bloodrite Invoker
1 Soulsurge Elemental
1 Bala Ged Scorpion
1 Virulent Swipe
2 Staggershock
1 Last Kiss
1 Surreal Memoir
2 Consume the Meek
1 Corpsehatch
1 Eldrazi Conscription
Robertas Aluzas:
2 Skywatcher Adept
1 Enclave Cryptologist
2 Champion's Drake
2 Halimar Wavewatch
1 Nirkana Cutthroat
1 Sea Gate Oracle
1 Guard Gomazoa
2 Venerated Teacher
1 Merfolk Skyscout
1 Crab Umbra
1 Emerge Unscathed
1 Distortion Strike
1 Ogre's Cleaver
1 See Beyond
1 Puncturing Light
1 Eel Umbra
1 Narcolepsy
1 Survival Cache
1 Reality Spasm
Showing posts with label Draft Practice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Draft Practice. Show all posts
Friday, 14 May 2010
Thursday, 16 April 2009
The fundamental rules of drafting - #3
By Jim Marlow
Hey everyone,
Well i really hope this series of articles is useful for anyone looking to improve their drafting skills, and this article will address the last of my 7 fundamental rules of drafting and give a brief summary.
If you have any questions or comments about this series of articles, i would really appreciate your thoughts, either at the end of the article, or emailed to me at ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk, or even just talk to me at a WNM.
So these final pieces of advice about drafting are really just some final thoughts that should help cover all elements of how to become a successful limited player. Although these final 2 rules are aimed at a less experianced level of player, i believe the points raised in this article are often overlooked by people who are more experianced.
Rule 6) Building your deck and manabase
A draft deck, in my opinion, should never, ever, be over 40 cards. I have once or twice played the elusive 41st card or more, but in reality it is never worthwhile, throws the amount of mana needed off balance, and reduces the chances of you drawing the best card(s) in your deck.
Most of you will know the basic rules of deckbuilding, but here they are in case you dont know/have forgotten or are unsure. (all are subject to some change, it will be explained later)
- a draft deck should have 17 lands and 23 spells
- around 14-15 creatures, with 8-9 non creature spells
- try to draft on a mana curve, with a range of spells with different converted mana costs.
Obviously these are not set in stone, but if you remember these basic guidelines it should stop you from diverging too far from this.
However, it is fine to play a deck with 15 or 16 lands in it, if all of your spells have a very low converted mana cost, or if you have lots of mana accelerants. Also, you may wish to play 18 or more if you have lots of spells with high converted mana costs, or if you a lot of different colours in your deck.
The same rule applies with the creature/non creature spells. I tend to aim for around 15 creatures, but sometimes when playing a 5 colour deck, for instance, my deck may only have 8 or 9 creatures, but plenty of removal, cantrip or accelerants.
Building your manabase is almost as important as picking the mana fixing for your deck during the actual draft, because of course if you dont have the land, you cant play the spells. There are a lot of considerations to make when building your manabase.
Some people have very serious mathematical ways in which they choose the number of each type of lands to play, but i do not. Im probably building my decks slightly wrong but i will go through the processes of how i determine my manabases.
1) count the number of mana symbols in each card.
I count each mana symbol in the corner, plus those in the activated abilities i intend to use (you may only plan to use 1 of a battlemage's abilities to avoid a splash for example).
This gives you the a basic proportion for the number of lands you need of each type.
for example 10 white symbols, 4 blue symbols, 3 green symbols can roughly translate to 10 plains, 4 island, 3 forests.
After this i then look at when i need the man for these spells, meaning that despite having the 10 white symbols, these might all be for 5 and 6 mana spells, with all my green and blue requirements being for 2 and 3 mana spells. I would then adjust the numbers of lands to suit the costs of my spells and the colours based on costs, although i still need a high number of plains, i will have drawn more cards by the time i will be looking to play the spells with higher converted mana costs.
After this i factor in the mana fixing i have picked up in the draft, for example my panorama's might fetch 2 of my colours, meaning i can count it as a blue and white source, but i may need an extra forest for example.
This is a pretty rough guide, but once you have a basic proportion of the lands you need you just need to tweak it based upon the time at which you intend to play each spell, and the fixing you have, and you cant go far wrong.
Rule 7) Hate Drafting
I thought i would mention hate drafting because it is certainly relevent in certain, very isolated occasions, but on the whole i do not really advocate hate drafting cards.
Hate drafting is basically taking a pick out of a pack which you do not want someone else to have, over choosing a card for yourself.
The only time i really see hate drafting as relevent is round about the time of the 9th to 11th picks, where an elusive good card may have stuck in a deep booster and which you may take over the random other chaff in there because your not going to play it anyway.
However, even in this situation, especially in pack 1 where you hope to solidify a draft strategy, i would prefer to take an on colour card in order to not send mixed signals to the person drafting to my left.
Say for example that around 12th pick i am drafting naya and get a pack with a cloudhearth drake, an obelisk of naya and a load of other off colour chaff. The obelisk is semi-playable, but it will probably be in my sideboard. The drake is much better, and i dont want to get beaten around the noggin with it by an esper guy, but if the guy to my left sees the obelisk, particularly if he is in jund, he might question whether i am in naya and may pick some of the white green or other naya cards i would otherwise recieve in pack 2.
Of course, you may not want to pass it if you have put the person to your left into esper, but still, you have to question how strong you think your signals have been through the first pack, because the drake is only 1 card, but if you get a further 2 packs of solid, above value picks through the draft, your deck will end up better.
Another question is hatedrafting bombs, for example what does the esper drafter do with his pack 2 flameblast dragon or broodmate dragon etc. In my opinion, unless there is anything at all relevent in the pack (very unlikely), just ship it. There is always an answer for any problem you pass to your left, and most likely in the same pack, so it really doesnt matter if you pass the broodmate if you take the resounding silence, or the flameblast if you pocket the oblivion ring. Even though its pack 2, it doesnt mean people know what shard both you and they are in yet, so you still need to signal, and passing these bombs reinforces your signals and, assuming you get passed good cards too, means everyone will have better decks, which is always awesome.
So basically hate drafting is something to consider doing, but for me its really a last resort, because i always think there is something more productive to be done with each draft pick.
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Well those are the fundamental rules of drafting. Hopefully armed with these people will be able to improve their level of drafting and their overall game. Of course, these are only the basics, and as i have found, there is a huge number of articles and other writings across the web, and i would reccomend reading as many as possible if you wish to become a better drafter.
Drafting is after all, a very relative excercise, and there are many ways to be successfull at it.
I hope you have enjoyed these articles, sorry for the length of each one, i tried to be concise but there is sadly to say quite a lot to learn, particularly for the more advanced techniques.
If you have any questions, queries, alternative opinions, or anything you would like to say about the 7 rules i would love to hear it.
I hope to see everyone at the next WNM, i just hope i dont do really badly because then i would look like a massive tit.
Anyway, hope to see everyone at the nationals qualifier this saturday, so see you then and next week will be the report from the tournament and the beginnings of my judging career, including some questions i asked riki hayashi about judging
Until then,
Jim
As always, feel free to comment on anything about this article, or anything unrelated to magic whatsoever. If you would like to contribute to the TLM blog, please email any ideas, articles, pictures or anything else to ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk
Well i really hope this series of articles is useful for anyone looking to improve their drafting skills, and this article will address the last of my 7 fundamental rules of drafting and give a brief summary.
If you have any questions or comments about this series of articles, i would really appreciate your thoughts, either at the end of the article, or emailed to me at ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk, or even just talk to me at a WNM.
So these final pieces of advice about drafting are really just some final thoughts that should help cover all elements of how to become a successful limited player. Although these final 2 rules are aimed at a less experianced level of player, i believe the points raised in this article are often overlooked by people who are more experianced.
Rule 6) Building your deck and manabase
A draft deck, in my opinion, should never, ever, be over 40 cards. I have once or twice played the elusive 41st card or more, but in reality it is never worthwhile, throws the amount of mana needed off balance, and reduces the chances of you drawing the best card(s) in your deck.
Most of you will know the basic rules of deckbuilding, but here they are in case you dont know/have forgotten or are unsure. (all are subject to some change, it will be explained later)
- a draft deck should have 17 lands and 23 spells
- around 14-15 creatures, with 8-9 non creature spells
- try to draft on a mana curve, with a range of spells with different converted mana costs.
Obviously these are not set in stone, but if you remember these basic guidelines it should stop you from diverging too far from this.
However, it is fine to play a deck with 15 or 16 lands in it, if all of your spells have a very low converted mana cost, or if you have lots of mana accelerants. Also, you may wish to play 18 or more if you have lots of spells with high converted mana costs, or if you a lot of different colours in your deck.
The same rule applies with the creature/non creature spells. I tend to aim for around 15 creatures, but sometimes when playing a 5 colour deck, for instance, my deck may only have 8 or 9 creatures, but plenty of removal, cantrip or accelerants.
Building your manabase is almost as important as picking the mana fixing for your deck during the actual draft, because of course if you dont have the land, you cant play the spells. There are a lot of considerations to make when building your manabase.
Some people have very serious mathematical ways in which they choose the number of each type of lands to play, but i do not. Im probably building my decks slightly wrong but i will go through the processes of how i determine my manabases.
1) count the number of mana symbols in each card.
I count each mana symbol in the corner, plus those in the activated abilities i intend to use (you may only plan to use 1 of a battlemage's abilities to avoid a splash for example).
This gives you the a basic proportion for the number of lands you need of each type.
for example 10 white symbols, 4 blue symbols, 3 green symbols can roughly translate to 10 plains, 4 island, 3 forests.
After this i then look at when i need the man for these spells, meaning that despite having the 10 white symbols, these might all be for 5 and 6 mana spells, with all my green and blue requirements being for 2 and 3 mana spells. I would then adjust the numbers of lands to suit the costs of my spells and the colours based on costs, although i still need a high number of plains, i will have drawn more cards by the time i will be looking to play the spells with higher converted mana costs.
After this i factor in the mana fixing i have picked up in the draft, for example my panorama's might fetch 2 of my colours, meaning i can count it as a blue and white source, but i may need an extra forest for example.
This is a pretty rough guide, but once you have a basic proportion of the lands you need you just need to tweak it based upon the time at which you intend to play each spell, and the fixing you have, and you cant go far wrong.
Rule 7) Hate Drafting
I thought i would mention hate drafting because it is certainly relevent in certain, very isolated occasions, but on the whole i do not really advocate hate drafting cards.
Hate drafting is basically taking a pick out of a pack which you do not want someone else to have, over choosing a card for yourself.
The only time i really see hate drafting as relevent is round about the time of the 9th to 11th picks, where an elusive good card may have stuck in a deep booster and which you may take over the random other chaff in there because your not going to play it anyway.
However, even in this situation, especially in pack 1 where you hope to solidify a draft strategy, i would prefer to take an on colour card in order to not send mixed signals to the person drafting to my left.
Say for example that around 12th pick i am drafting naya and get a pack with a cloudhearth drake, an obelisk of naya and a load of other off colour chaff. The obelisk is semi-playable, but it will probably be in my sideboard. The drake is much better, and i dont want to get beaten around the noggin with it by an esper guy, but if the guy to my left sees the obelisk, particularly if he is in jund, he might question whether i am in naya and may pick some of the white green or other naya cards i would otherwise recieve in pack 2.
Of course, you may not want to pass it if you have put the person to your left into esper, but still, you have to question how strong you think your signals have been through the first pack, because the drake is only 1 card, but if you get a further 2 packs of solid, above value picks through the draft, your deck will end up better.
Another question is hatedrafting bombs, for example what does the esper drafter do with his pack 2 flameblast dragon or broodmate dragon etc. In my opinion, unless there is anything at all relevent in the pack (very unlikely), just ship it. There is always an answer for any problem you pass to your left, and most likely in the same pack, so it really doesnt matter if you pass the broodmate if you take the resounding silence, or the flameblast if you pocket the oblivion ring. Even though its pack 2, it doesnt mean people know what shard both you and they are in yet, so you still need to signal, and passing these bombs reinforces your signals and, assuming you get passed good cards too, means everyone will have better decks, which is always awesome.
So basically hate drafting is something to consider doing, but for me its really a last resort, because i always think there is something more productive to be done with each draft pick.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well those are the fundamental rules of drafting. Hopefully armed with these people will be able to improve their level of drafting and their overall game. Of course, these are only the basics, and as i have found, there is a huge number of articles and other writings across the web, and i would reccomend reading as many as possible if you wish to become a better drafter.
Drafting is after all, a very relative excercise, and there are many ways to be successfull at it.
I hope you have enjoyed these articles, sorry for the length of each one, i tried to be concise but there is sadly to say quite a lot to learn, particularly for the more advanced techniques.
If you have any questions, queries, alternative opinions, or anything you would like to say about the 7 rules i would love to hear it.
I hope to see everyone at the next WNM, i just hope i dont do really badly because then i would look like a massive tit.
Anyway, hope to see everyone at the nationals qualifier this saturday, so see you then and next week will be the report from the tournament and the beginnings of my judging career, including some questions i asked riki hayashi about judging
Until then,
Jim
As always, feel free to comment on anything about this article, or anything unrelated to magic whatsoever. If you would like to contribute to the TLM blog, please email any ideas, articles, pictures or anything else to ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk
The fundamental rules of drafting - #2
By Jim Marlow
I hope everyone is finished racking their brains over the first couple of rules of drafting, so i thought would move on to the next couple.
I have specifically chosen to write the rules in these separate articles because i think that the rules can be grouped together for people of different play skill.
Rules 1 and 2, covered earlier, are the bare bones of the draft, which i am sure almost all members of Team Leeds has got to grips with.
Rules 6 and 7, covered in the final article, are more general considerations, which i think are sometimes overlooked by people of all playskill, despite being very basic elements of magic (mana base), and so i believe are different to the others.
It is the three rules covered in these articles however, which i believe are arguably the most important to the players of Team Leeds. I believe that it is the perfecting of these skills that will allow people who can generally rely on a 2-1 draft to maybe push and 3-0 every so often, or a person who can consistantly 1-2 to move up to being able to confidently finish in the prizes every week. I know a lot of players in Leeds who have been playing a long time, and although may have won a WNM or two, cant seem to take that small step to becoming one of the more formidable players in Team Leeds; so if you are reading these articles and you think you might be such a player, pay attention.
Rule 3) Signalling
I am really struggling to emphasise how important signalling is in becoming the next level of drafter, because it is in knowing what the people around you are drafting, that makes for you to have a better deck.
Signalling is probably the most potent tool in a magic player's drafting arsenal, and this is a rough guide in how better to both read and recieve signals.
The first thing you need here is of course a good knowledge of the power levels of the cards in the format, because this allows you to recognise that a card in the pack your picking up should not be there, meaning that you are being signalled a shard is open. Likewise, you should know that passing a card that is above the power level of the rest of the pack allows you to guide the player, or players to your left into a particular shard.
Here are some hypotheticals.
You open your first booster of the draft and the notable cards you see are these
- sigil of distinction
- vithian stinger
- jund charm
The pick here is obviously the sigil, but more than this you are almost certain that the player to your left will take one of the other two cards, and possibly that the player the his left will take the other, which is valuable knowlegde.
Of course, you may then get passed these notable cards.
- woolly thoctar
- tidehollow strix
- bone splinters
So what do you take here?
Well, your sigil of distinction means any of these will fit into your deck. I personally would consider the best card to be the thoctar, followed by bone splinters, then strix. Yes, i know i said pick removal above creatures, but i will talk about when to abandon these rules later.
So if the thoctar is the best, do you pick this. I would pick it yes, but not just because it is the best, because the person to your left may be signalling that naya is open. The bone splinters is also a close pick, but using our knowledge that 1 or more of the players on our left is in jund/naya - we can force them further away from our naya shard by passing the bone splinters, and of course we can only hope that the next guy takes the strix and goes grixis with his stinger as well.
Now i know this probably all sounds very familier to most players at Team Leeds, because im sure almost anyone would pick the sigil and then the woolly thoctar, but it is the extra information gained about what other people around the table are playing which can be helpful.
So what other information can be gained about the second pick when we take our woolly thoctar, well we can also begin to deduce what shard the person to our right is in. When you look through the pack, have a look at what card is missing from the pack, and if you have a good knowledge of the power level of the set, you should be able to guess within 2 or 3 cards what is gone, especially when the rare is still in the pack.
When the rare is gone it is a little harder to know what the person to your right has taken, because i have already listed quite a few bombs that you would windmill slam and do a little dance at opening. (i forgot the plainswalkers - take them!!!) So when the rare is gone you may have to rely more on what is left in the pack and the next few picks for this knowledge
However, lets look back at our hypothetical 2nd pick - and a common is missing from the pack
So who can tell me what the person has taken from this pack?
well basically there are only a few cards
- oblivion ring
- resounding thunder
- branching bolt
- sanctum gargoyle
These are just about the only cards that i would think anyone could consider taking over the cards we saw in the pack - however, we can narrow this list down by looking at the pack and thinking of what the person who made the pick might think.
If the person took the resounding thunder or branching bolt, he knows he is sending people in the direction of naya by passing the woolly thoctar, so this is possible, but if it was me i would probably just take the thoctar thus leaving the thunder/bolt and bone splinters in the pack so the people to my left can fight it out over jundish type decks and leave me free.
The sanctum gargoyle is also a possibility if someone had decided to steer clear of all the naya/jund cards in the pack, and may wish to force themselves into a shard by commiting early. Moreover, the other jund/naya card in the pack means the tidehollow strix may even be passed all the way round to me. However, the power of the woolly thoctar cant be denied, as it is a borderline bomb, i believe the card that was taken from the pack is more likely the oblivion ring.
The oblivion ring is by no means a bad pick here, as i discussed it keeps the person open, but pushes me and people to my left towards other shards. Obviously therefore i can assume that the person intends to draft either a bant or esper deck, which is fine by me, because despite both shards containing white, the type of white cards we will be looking to draft are different.
I can use this information to my advantage later in the draft, for example in pick 5 or 6 i may be torn between a hissing iguanar and a steward of valeron. knowing one of the guys to my left is in jund, i may pick the iguanar here and try to table the steward, even though it may be better placed in the aggresive naya deck i hope to be building
To summerise.
In just 2 picks i have been able to put at least 1, if not 2 people to my left in different shards from me, and know that i can be expecting to recieve some good cards for my first couple of picks (especially naya cards).
Also i have been able to deduce that the person feeding me has taken either a sanctum gargoyle or more likely an oblivion ring, and is drafting esper/bant, so i can expect some good picks to continue from the right and in pack 3.
The extra information i have recieved in this draft about my opponants has allowed my to realise which shard i need to be drafting, whether or not this means abonding my first pick bomb or not, and also allows my to guide my next picks because i may pick cards that i know wont table and chance getting other cards back to me.
Obviously being in different shards to your opponants is key, because it means that you all draft better decks, and then the extra knowledge you have about them will be able to give you the edge - for example you may want to pick the 11th pick naturalize in case you get paired against the guy from your right who you know to have a sanctum gargoyle or oblivion ring.
Rule 4) When to abandon the pick order
This rule is not really that complicated, its basically a more complex way of looking at the pick order in a draft, which will hopefully increase your level of drafting and the power of your deck.
My basic pick order, if you dont remember, is this
- bombs
- removal
- mana fixing
- creatures
- combat trick (giant growth etc)
- hate drafting
Any drafter can follow these to a basic level and have a degree of success, but it is adapting the order of picks based upon your deck which can bring you to a higher level of drafting.
Let me give you some examples.
if in your first pack you have drafted some solid black red cards - goblin deathraiders, blightning, hells thunder, vicera dragger your need for mana fixing may go down if you think you are going to continue to draft an aggressive B/R deck.
Therefore you may wish to take more creatures over the mana fixing, for example picking a second vicera dragger over a savage lands.
On the other hand, you may have landed in a 5 colour strategy, with various powerful spells of 3 or more colours. Therefor when faced with the pick between a paragon of the amesha and an armillery sphere, your pick may be dependent on the quality of the mana fixing allready in your deck.
The lesson to learn here is that the pick order changes relative to the previous picks you have made, so for example if you have 5 or 6 quality removal spells but only a couple good creatures, you may wish to pass removal spells in order to take some good creatures, because after all most limited games are won by creatures.
This is not that hard to get to grips with, but the key is looking at each set of cards you pick up and knowing the other cards you have already picked, meaning that the power level of the cards you look at is also relative to the order of picks that the deck you are drafting demands.
I think one of the most important, and definately underused, element of the draft is the review period. I can not stress enough the importance of using the review period wisely. Although it is only a minute, this should be enough to determine the following things.
1) the number of playable cards you have drafter
2) the number of creatues
3) the number of non creatures (in particular removal)
4) are there any gaps in the mana curve.
5) how much mana fixing do i have
By doing this, you can then alter your picking order to draft more creatures, or removal spells, more mana fixing or do i need more 2-3 drops, or do i need to fill in the higher end of my curve with 5+ mana fatties.
By pack 2, you should be fairly set in a shard, as should most players round the table, so it will be not be a problem passing a better card by this stage, it is more important that your deck is the best it can be, so learn to use your review period and alter the order in which you pick certain types of cards and your drafting will certainly improve.
Rule 5) Mana Fixing
This will be pretty short because it is fairly straight forward, but because of the importance of mana fixing in Ala/Ala/Con i thought it deserved its own section.
The importance of mana fixing is huge in any deck, because you can not win without being able to successfully play your spells.
In a format where the better cards are 2 or 3 coloured, therefore, the importance of mana fixing goes up.
You will have seen that i place mana fixing in my order of picks above creatures, this isnt to say to pick a naya panorama above a resounding thunder, but because games can, and often will be, won or lost on the ability to play your 3 colour spells early.
It is very tempting to take other cards over the tri-lands or panoramas, but believe me a 1st pick tri-land is nothing to be ashamed of, because they can simply mean you play your turn 3 woolly thoctar, and bash face whilst your opponant sits across from you not being able to play his removal.
As previously mentioned however, you should be aware of the need for mana fixing in the deck you are drafting, as well as the type of mana fixing that is best for your deck. In an aggressive, low curved deck, i try to steer clear of the obelisks, because the acceleration they offer comes at the wrong time, and i want to playing guys during these earlier turns. On the other hand, the obelisks can be awesome in a 5 colour deck which has lots of multicoloured, high costed spells, or lots of different splashes.
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I hope these rules will help people to increase their drafting, even a little, particularly if people begin to take note of signalling and information other than the cards they pick up, because i think this is one of the most advanced drafting skills (and one in which i am pretty bad)
Anyway, hope somebody finds this useful, look out for the final 2 rules after i have taken a large nap, i am pretty tired from writing 2 really loooong articles, and im sure you guys will be bored of reading them, so it may not go up till tomorrow.
Untill then
Jim
As always, feel free to comment on anything about this article, or anything unrelated to magic whatsoever. If you would like to contribute to the TLM blog, please email any ideas, articles, pictures or anything else to ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk
I have specifically chosen to write the rules in these separate articles because i think that the rules can be grouped together for people of different play skill.
Rules 1 and 2, covered earlier, are the bare bones of the draft, which i am sure almost all members of Team Leeds has got to grips with.
Rules 6 and 7, covered in the final article, are more general considerations, which i think are sometimes overlooked by people of all playskill, despite being very basic elements of magic (mana base), and so i believe are different to the others.
It is the three rules covered in these articles however, which i believe are arguably the most important to the players of Team Leeds. I believe that it is the perfecting of these skills that will allow people who can generally rely on a 2-1 draft to maybe push and 3-0 every so often, or a person who can consistantly 1-2 to move up to being able to confidently finish in the prizes every week. I know a lot of players in Leeds who have been playing a long time, and although may have won a WNM or two, cant seem to take that small step to becoming one of the more formidable players in Team Leeds; so if you are reading these articles and you think you might be such a player, pay attention.
Rule 3) Signalling
I am really struggling to emphasise how important signalling is in becoming the next level of drafter, because it is in knowing what the people around you are drafting, that makes for you to have a better deck.
Signalling is probably the most potent tool in a magic player's drafting arsenal, and this is a rough guide in how better to both read and recieve signals.
The first thing you need here is of course a good knowledge of the power levels of the cards in the format, because this allows you to recognise that a card in the pack your picking up should not be there, meaning that you are being signalled a shard is open. Likewise, you should know that passing a card that is above the power level of the rest of the pack allows you to guide the player, or players to your left into a particular shard.
Here are some hypotheticals.
You open your first booster of the draft and the notable cards you see are these
- sigil of distinction
- vithian stinger
- jund charm
The pick here is obviously the sigil, but more than this you are almost certain that the player to your left will take one of the other two cards, and possibly that the player the his left will take the other, which is valuable knowlegde.
Of course, you may then get passed these notable cards.
- woolly thoctar
- tidehollow strix
- bone splinters
So what do you take here?
Well, your sigil of distinction means any of these will fit into your deck. I personally would consider the best card to be the thoctar, followed by bone splinters, then strix. Yes, i know i said pick removal above creatures, but i will talk about when to abandon these rules later.
So if the thoctar is the best, do you pick this. I would pick it yes, but not just because it is the best, because the person to your left may be signalling that naya is open. The bone splinters is also a close pick, but using our knowledge that 1 or more of the players on our left is in jund/naya - we can force them further away from our naya shard by passing the bone splinters, and of course we can only hope that the next guy takes the strix and goes grixis with his stinger as well.
Now i know this probably all sounds very familier to most players at Team Leeds, because im sure almost anyone would pick the sigil and then the woolly thoctar, but it is the extra information gained about what other people around the table are playing which can be helpful.
So what other information can be gained about the second pick when we take our woolly thoctar, well we can also begin to deduce what shard the person to our right is in. When you look through the pack, have a look at what card is missing from the pack, and if you have a good knowledge of the power level of the set, you should be able to guess within 2 or 3 cards what is gone, especially when the rare is still in the pack.
When the rare is gone it is a little harder to know what the person to your right has taken, because i have already listed quite a few bombs that you would windmill slam and do a little dance at opening. (i forgot the plainswalkers - take them!!!) So when the rare is gone you may have to rely more on what is left in the pack and the next few picks for this knowledge
However, lets look back at our hypothetical 2nd pick - and a common is missing from the pack
So who can tell me what the person has taken from this pack?
well basically there are only a few cards
- oblivion ring
- resounding thunder
- branching bolt
- sanctum gargoyle
These are just about the only cards that i would think anyone could consider taking over the cards we saw in the pack - however, we can narrow this list down by looking at the pack and thinking of what the person who made the pick might think.
If the person took the resounding thunder or branching bolt, he knows he is sending people in the direction of naya by passing the woolly thoctar, so this is possible, but if it was me i would probably just take the thoctar thus leaving the thunder/bolt and bone splinters in the pack so the people to my left can fight it out over jundish type decks and leave me free.
The sanctum gargoyle is also a possibility if someone had decided to steer clear of all the naya/jund cards in the pack, and may wish to force themselves into a shard by commiting early. Moreover, the other jund/naya card in the pack means the tidehollow strix may even be passed all the way round to me. However, the power of the woolly thoctar cant be denied, as it is a borderline bomb, i believe the card that was taken from the pack is more likely the oblivion ring.
The oblivion ring is by no means a bad pick here, as i discussed it keeps the person open, but pushes me and people to my left towards other shards. Obviously therefore i can assume that the person intends to draft either a bant or esper deck, which is fine by me, because despite both shards containing white, the type of white cards we will be looking to draft are different.
I can use this information to my advantage later in the draft, for example in pick 5 or 6 i may be torn between a hissing iguanar and a steward of valeron. knowing one of the guys to my left is in jund, i may pick the iguanar here and try to table the steward, even though it may be better placed in the aggresive naya deck i hope to be building
To summerise.
In just 2 picks i have been able to put at least 1, if not 2 people to my left in different shards from me, and know that i can be expecting to recieve some good cards for my first couple of picks (especially naya cards).
Also i have been able to deduce that the person feeding me has taken either a sanctum gargoyle or more likely an oblivion ring, and is drafting esper/bant, so i can expect some good picks to continue from the right and in pack 3.
The extra information i have recieved in this draft about my opponants has allowed my to realise which shard i need to be drafting, whether or not this means abonding my first pick bomb or not, and also allows my to guide my next picks because i may pick cards that i know wont table and chance getting other cards back to me.
Obviously being in different shards to your opponants is key, because it means that you all draft better decks, and then the extra knowledge you have about them will be able to give you the edge - for example you may want to pick the 11th pick naturalize in case you get paired against the guy from your right who you know to have a sanctum gargoyle or oblivion ring.
Rule 4) When to abandon the pick order
This rule is not really that complicated, its basically a more complex way of looking at the pick order in a draft, which will hopefully increase your level of drafting and the power of your deck.
My basic pick order, if you dont remember, is this
- bombs
- removal
- mana fixing
- creatures
- combat trick (giant growth etc)
- hate drafting
Any drafter can follow these to a basic level and have a degree of success, but it is adapting the order of picks based upon your deck which can bring you to a higher level of drafting.
Let me give you some examples.
if in your first pack you have drafted some solid black red cards - goblin deathraiders, blightning, hells thunder, vicera dragger your need for mana fixing may go down if you think you are going to continue to draft an aggressive B/R deck.
Therefore you may wish to take more creatures over the mana fixing, for example picking a second vicera dragger over a savage lands.
On the other hand, you may have landed in a 5 colour strategy, with various powerful spells of 3 or more colours. Therefor when faced with the pick between a paragon of the amesha and an armillery sphere, your pick may be dependent on the quality of the mana fixing allready in your deck.
The lesson to learn here is that the pick order changes relative to the previous picks you have made, so for example if you have 5 or 6 quality removal spells but only a couple good creatures, you may wish to pass removal spells in order to take some good creatures, because after all most limited games are won by creatures.
This is not that hard to get to grips with, but the key is looking at each set of cards you pick up and knowing the other cards you have already picked, meaning that the power level of the cards you look at is also relative to the order of picks that the deck you are drafting demands.
I think one of the most important, and definately underused, element of the draft is the review period. I can not stress enough the importance of using the review period wisely. Although it is only a minute, this should be enough to determine the following things.
1) the number of playable cards you have drafter
2) the number of creatues
3) the number of non creatures (in particular removal)
4) are there any gaps in the mana curve.
5) how much mana fixing do i have
By doing this, you can then alter your picking order to draft more creatures, or removal spells, more mana fixing or do i need more 2-3 drops, or do i need to fill in the higher end of my curve with 5+ mana fatties.
By pack 2, you should be fairly set in a shard, as should most players round the table, so it will be not be a problem passing a better card by this stage, it is more important that your deck is the best it can be, so learn to use your review period and alter the order in which you pick certain types of cards and your drafting will certainly improve.
Rule 5) Mana Fixing
This will be pretty short because it is fairly straight forward, but because of the importance of mana fixing in Ala/Ala/Con i thought it deserved its own section.
The importance of mana fixing is huge in any deck, because you can not win without being able to successfully play your spells.
In a format where the better cards are 2 or 3 coloured, therefore, the importance of mana fixing goes up.
You will have seen that i place mana fixing in my order of picks above creatures, this isnt to say to pick a naya panorama above a resounding thunder, but because games can, and often will be, won or lost on the ability to play your 3 colour spells early.
It is very tempting to take other cards over the tri-lands or panoramas, but believe me a 1st pick tri-land is nothing to be ashamed of, because they can simply mean you play your turn 3 woolly thoctar, and bash face whilst your opponant sits across from you not being able to play his removal.
As previously mentioned however, you should be aware of the need for mana fixing in the deck you are drafting, as well as the type of mana fixing that is best for your deck. In an aggressive, low curved deck, i try to steer clear of the obelisks, because the acceleration they offer comes at the wrong time, and i want to playing guys during these earlier turns. On the other hand, the obelisks can be awesome in a 5 colour deck which has lots of multicoloured, high costed spells, or lots of different splashes.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hope these rules will help people to increase their drafting, even a little, particularly if people begin to take note of signalling and information other than the cards they pick up, because i think this is one of the most advanced drafting skills (and one in which i am pretty bad)
Anyway, hope somebody finds this useful, look out for the final 2 rules after i have taken a large nap, i am pretty tired from writing 2 really loooong articles, and im sure you guys will be bored of reading them, so it may not go up till tomorrow.
Untill then
Jim
As always, feel free to comment on anything about this article, or anything unrelated to magic whatsoever. If you would like to contribute to the TLM blog, please email any ideas, articles, pictures or anything else to ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk
The fundamental rules of drafting - #1
By Jim Marlow
Hey Everyone,
So having spoken to a few people at WNM i have had some great feedback about the blog and its awesome to hear that people are reading the articles we are writing for it, i was worried that people hadnt been paying much attention because there had been fewer comments made on each article, but its great to have any feedback about the blog, especially if its positive.
The feedback i got reminded me that i have somewhat forgotten the players of Team Leeds that are'nt currently as competative as some of the more experianced players in our group, so i decided that i would write a set of articles with some very basic rules that i think will help people of all skill levels to increase their drafting and play skill.
Just to let people know that i am no Finkel or Ruel when it comes to drafting, and in my limited rating is certainly not very impressive, so please dont blame me if following these rules leads to a bad perfomance.
The fundamental rules of drafting
rule 1) Pick order
I basically follow this rough guide in the order i pick things
- bombs
- removal
- mana fixing
- creatures
- combat tricks (giant growth etc)
- hate drafting
I must first say that, as with all of the rules i have listed, is subject to the type of deck you are drafting, for example if your deck is mono-coloured, mana fixing is less important to you than other cards.
I was told this rough order by Robertas Azulas the first time i ever drafted, and although every format and deck within that format is different, sticking to this guide of the importance of certain types of cards has served me well since i heard it.
There are a number of cards that i would consider bombs in the current Ala/Ala/Con format, for example -
- flameblast dragon
- vein drinker
- battlegrace angel
- broodmate dragon
- bull ceredon
- hellkite overlord
- sigil of distinction
- martial coup
These are quite clearly cards that you would almost never pass pick, 1, pack 1, because the power level is so high. Obviously, opening a broodmate dragon in pack 2 when you have solidly drafted esper is not the best thing in the world, but in my opinion, you should almost always take a card thats better for your deck than hate draft - but i will talk about this more in another section.
rule 2) Your first few picks
The first few picks in a draft are in my opinion the most important of all. In my first few picks, roughly the first 4-5, i hope to have solidified my place at the table into a colour/shard/tribe or whatever depending on the format (for the purposes of this article i will refer to the current Ala/Ala/Con format), as well as hopefully putting my person(s) to my left into a different shard, as well as knowing what shard the person(s) to my right are in because of whats missing from the pack - i will speak about signalling in a different section.
There are two main arguments about what to do in your first couple of picks in draft, basically whether to commit; or whether to stay open.
By this i mean from your first pick do you pick something like a sanctum gargoyle, or a naya charm, or something that immediately commits you to a particular drafting strategy that you can force yourself into from the word go.
Commiting or forcing a shard can be very productive, because if by coincidence the shard is open from your right anyway, you can end up with simply ridiculous decks, meaning literally unbeatable in the pod. Similarly however, you may end up having to switch shards, if your shard dries up mid way through the pack, meaning that your first picks will be wasted, and as will be mentioned later, you may end up in the same shard as the guy to your left.
My personal preference in approaching a draft is to try to stay as open as possible for the first 3 picks, by which i can generally tell what colour or colours are open from the right, even though this may mean passing some objectively more powerful cards to my left. By this i mean that i very rarely like first picking a charm or a battlemage, or really any card that puts me firmly into 3 colours, and my favourite thing is staying mono for as long as possible for the first couple picks.
Of course, because some cards are just plain bombs, you can be forgiven for taking them, even if they are 2 or 3 coloured. Take broodmate dragon for example, the card is so powerful that you would take him, because even if you end up esper, it is only 1 missed pick, and at least your opponants dont have it. If you first pick a 2 or 3 coloured bomb, this also makes it far more acceptable to force yourself into a shard, because even if your deck is slightly worse than it could have been had you been more objective, the fact you have an extremely powerful card in your deck makes up for this.
For the record my all time favourite card to open in ala/ala/con draft is . . . .
- Sigil of Distinction
This is a big bomb, it wins games, and goes in any deck, what more can you want!, this is simply amazing.
this is followed closely by
- flameblast dragon
- caldera hellion
- mycoloth
- vein drinker
- battlegrace angel
Notice anything...yep all 1 colour, why? because i can play my battlegrace angel in a naya, esper or bant deck, whichever seems the most open after a couple of picks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is a fair amount of information to swallow in this article so i decided to split the fundamental rules of drafting into 3 parts.
The next 2 article will cover the following rules
rule 3) - signalling
rule 4) - when to abandon the pick order
rule 5) - mana fixing
rule 6) - building your deck and manabase
rule 7) - hate drafting
I hope the first couple rules help people to draft more succesfully, i will post the next two articles in the next day or 2, so everyone who wishes to will have enough time to digest and remember all the rules for the next WNM draft in Leeds, which i believe to be in 4 weeks time, due to the 5 week month meaning it will be
Standard on the 22nd April
Block constructed on the 29th April
Standard on the 6th of May
Draft on the 13th May
Thanks for reading
Jim
As always, feel free to comment on anything about this article, or anything unrelated to magic whatsoever. If you would like to contribute to the TLM blog, please email any ideas, articles, pictures or anything else to ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk
So having spoken to a few people at WNM i have had some great feedback about the blog and its awesome to hear that people are reading the articles we are writing for it, i was worried that people hadnt been paying much attention because there had been fewer comments made on each article, but its great to have any feedback about the blog, especially if its positive.
The feedback i got reminded me that i have somewhat forgotten the players of Team Leeds that are'nt currently as competative as some of the more experianced players in our group, so i decided that i would write a set of articles with some very basic rules that i think will help people of all skill levels to increase their drafting and play skill.
Just to let people know that i am no Finkel or Ruel when it comes to drafting, and in my limited rating is certainly not very impressive, so please dont blame me if following these rules leads to a bad perfomance.
The fundamental rules of drafting
rule 1) Pick order
I basically follow this rough guide in the order i pick things
- bombs
- removal
- mana fixing
- creatures
- combat tricks (giant growth etc)
- hate drafting
I must first say that, as with all of the rules i have listed, is subject to the type of deck you are drafting, for example if your deck is mono-coloured, mana fixing is less important to you than other cards.
I was told this rough order by Robertas Azulas the first time i ever drafted, and although every format and deck within that format is different, sticking to this guide of the importance of certain types of cards has served me well since i heard it.
There are a number of cards that i would consider bombs in the current Ala/Ala/Con format, for example -
- flameblast dragon
- vein drinker
- battlegrace angel
- broodmate dragon
- bull ceredon
- hellkite overlord
- sigil of distinction
- martial coup
These are quite clearly cards that you would almost never pass pick, 1, pack 1, because the power level is so high. Obviously, opening a broodmate dragon in pack 2 when you have solidly drafted esper is not the best thing in the world, but in my opinion, you should almost always take a card thats better for your deck than hate draft - but i will talk about this more in another section.
rule 2) Your first few picks
The first few picks in a draft are in my opinion the most important of all. In my first few picks, roughly the first 4-5, i hope to have solidified my place at the table into a colour/shard/tribe or whatever depending on the format (for the purposes of this article i will refer to the current Ala/Ala/Con format), as well as hopefully putting my person(s) to my left into a different shard, as well as knowing what shard the person(s) to my right are in because of whats missing from the pack - i will speak about signalling in a different section.
There are two main arguments about what to do in your first couple of picks in draft, basically whether to commit; or whether to stay open.
By this i mean from your first pick do you pick something like a sanctum gargoyle, or a naya charm, or something that immediately commits you to a particular drafting strategy that you can force yourself into from the word go.
Commiting or forcing a shard can be very productive, because if by coincidence the shard is open from your right anyway, you can end up with simply ridiculous decks, meaning literally unbeatable in the pod. Similarly however, you may end up having to switch shards, if your shard dries up mid way through the pack, meaning that your first picks will be wasted, and as will be mentioned later, you may end up in the same shard as the guy to your left.
My personal preference in approaching a draft is to try to stay as open as possible for the first 3 picks, by which i can generally tell what colour or colours are open from the right, even though this may mean passing some objectively more powerful cards to my left. By this i mean that i very rarely like first picking a charm or a battlemage, or really any card that puts me firmly into 3 colours, and my favourite thing is staying mono for as long as possible for the first couple picks.
Of course, because some cards are just plain bombs, you can be forgiven for taking them, even if they are 2 or 3 coloured. Take broodmate dragon for example, the card is so powerful that you would take him, because even if you end up esper, it is only 1 missed pick, and at least your opponants dont have it. If you first pick a 2 or 3 coloured bomb, this also makes it far more acceptable to force yourself into a shard, because even if your deck is slightly worse than it could have been had you been more objective, the fact you have an extremely powerful card in your deck makes up for this.
For the record my all time favourite card to open in ala/ala/con draft is . . . .
- Sigil of Distinction
This is a big bomb, it wins games, and goes in any deck, what more can you want!, this is simply amazing.
this is followed closely by
- flameblast dragon
- caldera hellion
- mycoloth
- vein drinker
- battlegrace angel
Notice anything...yep all 1 colour, why? because i can play my battlegrace angel in a naya, esper or bant deck, whichever seems the most open after a couple of picks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is a fair amount of information to swallow in this article so i decided to split the fundamental rules of drafting into 3 parts.
The next 2 article will cover the following rules
rule 3) - signalling
rule 4) - when to abandon the pick order
rule 5) - mana fixing
rule 6) - building your deck and manabase
rule 7) - hate drafting
I hope the first couple rules help people to draft more succesfully, i will post the next two articles in the next day or 2, so everyone who wishes to will have enough time to digest and remember all the rules for the next WNM draft in Leeds, which i believe to be in 4 weeks time, due to the 5 week month meaning it will be
Standard on the 22nd April
Block constructed on the 29th April
Standard on the 6th of May
Draft on the 13th May
Thanks for reading
Jim
As always, feel free to comment on anything about this article, or anything unrelated to magic whatsoever. If you would like to contribute to the TLM blog, please email any ideas, articles, pictures or anything else to ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Draft Simulators
By Wagz
Hi all! I'll be helping out with this Blog as and when I feel I have something to write. I'd like to combine my introductory article with giving the link for a draft practice website:
You need to sign up (free) to try them out, but note that this isn't real practice. I use this website when new sets come out to get a feel for what boosters will look like when I open them, so you can see what strategies might begin to present themselves. The main downsides with these things is that the bots run on the experience and card evaluation of others, so at the moment cards like Wild Nacatl and Hissing Iguanar can be picked up in bunches of 3 or 4, even in a SSC draft. Also, you don't get to experience actually playing the decks you construct from your draft pile.
In conclusion, online bot drafters are terrible and you cannot get real practice of drafting from them. You can however, get realistic ideas about what cards get opened in what frequencies, which is valuable information when new sets get released. I wish MTGO v3.0 was still in the beta testing stage so I could do 3-4 drafts a day again for free, they were good times.
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