A TS/TS/PC draft night

[Matt]

Last night I went to my first draft in some time, because my old Magic buddy was interested in seeing some of the new cards. He hadn’t played in some years and had a good time, we will probably go back again for another draft. He did pretty well for not having played in years and never having seen the cards.

We sat down after a reseating when a ninth person showed. I’d read that black was not a very good color in TS/TS/PC but I opened a Strangling Soot and it was definitely the best card, so I took it. Next I grabbed a Temporal Isolation. I suppose I knew about draft archetypes in this format I might have pushed for BW rebels but I didn’t really know what was up so I just soldiered on. In the next few picks I grabbed a Phyrexian Totem and two Undying Rage, along with some medium-strength creatures. Knowing I had the Totem and the fast beats, I knew I would want all the removal I could grab, and with two Rages, evasion creatures were at a premium too. I was wobbling between red or white as my second color, splashing the loser.

In pack 2 I took a Castle Raptors first pick, but did not end up playing it, which I will explain later. I also got a very sweet Sulfurous Blast and some more removal, which put me firmly in BRw. I saw three Calciform Pools go by, wishing somewhat that I were playing blue.

Planar Chaos performed as advertised, which is to say, it gave me little in the way of strong bombs, but did fill out my deck with . One aspect of drafting skill which I could stand to work on is knowing when I have enough playable cards for a deck, because I spent a lot of late picks taking weak cards that were in my colors that I should have known I was not going to end up using instead of taking good cards from other players.

When I knew I didn’t want to play too many white cards, I knew I had to cut some. I was surprised to find out how many rebels I actually wound up with, and kicked myself for not taking a second Blightspeaker. I thought about Castle Raptors: it was a later-game card, which was fine for the color it would take me the longest to find, but it couldn’t be searched out, and while it was good at holding the line, I had assumed I would be playing the aggressor way more often than I wound up doing. In retrospect I should have sided it in almost all the time and probably should have maindecked it anyway.

In the end I assembled a deck which was light on bombs but otherwise had everything you could want in a limited deck – a good curve, plenty of removal, some evasion, some card advantage, good mana fixing.

Here is what I played:


//Spells
Temporal Isolation
Sulfurous Blast
Grapeshot
Strangling Soot
Melancholy
2 Undying Rage
Brute Force
Wheel of Fate

//2cc
2 Pit Keeper
Rathi Trapper
Blightspeaker
Sangrophage

//3cc
Prodigal Pyromancer
Ironclaw Buzzardiers
Amrou Seekers
Saltfield Recluse
Aven Riftwatcher
Phyrexian Totem

//4cc
Vampiric Sliver
Empty the Warrens

//Mana
2 Chromatic Star
Prismatic Lens
7 Swamp
7 Mountain
2 Plains

SB: 2 Feebleness
SB: 2 Cyclopean Giant
SB: Muck Drubb
SB: Brain Gorgers
SB: Castle Raptors
SB: Honorable Passage
SB: Jedit’s Dragoons
SB: Assembly-Worker
SB: Firefright Mage
SB: Flowstone Channeler
SB: Fury Charm
SB: Reality Acid
SB: Eternity Snare
SB: Keen Sense
SB: Psychotrope Thallid
SB: Molder
SB: Seal of Primordium

It became immediately apparent that the Pit Keepers were awful, and I should have maindecked 2 Feebleness over them (a change which I fixed in every post-SB game). The Wheel of Fate never once un-suspended itself in over 10 games and should definitely have been Raptors. I did not feel I had enough madness outlets to play the Muck Drubb or Brain Gorgers (I had passed on the red Arrogant Wurm in pack three for just this reason).

Round one I faced turn one: “Suspend Durkwood Baloth,” turn two: “Suspend 3/3 flying green wasp.” I died with 5 mountains and a Lens for mana. Sided the Feebles in for Pit Keepers. I won this game with Negator and a slew of removal, including killing his Pulmonic Sliver over and over and over. Game three I was all set to get massive advantage off Blast when he dropped a Watcher Sliver (with his board of Sinew and Gemhide and Quilled slivers). I eventually did manage to kill everything, though he saved Quilled Sliver with Whitemane Lion. I was all set to stabilize with Prodigal when he dropped Might Sliver and I couldn’t deal with a 4/4 in time.

Round two I faced U/R. Game one I got mightily steamrolled. Game two he was stuck on one island and seven mountains for a long time; Negator Totem was MVP here. Game three was a tough battle that he had numerous opportunities to win, but missed them. He played a Primal Plasma as a wall to stop my rampaging Totem, which I enchanted with Undying Rage. He could have bounced it with that 1/3 guy but he missed that play. He also failed to make a race of it given the chance (a race he would have won) because he feared removal in my hand (2 lands). He also missed a morph opportunity.

And my round three opponent didn’t show!

My buddy remembered what I told him about synergy being important, and tried to draft a sliver deck. He did okay at drafting (opened a Magus of the Scroll and he got plenty of rares) but none of the critical Slivers, but he hasn’t seen a card since Judgement and can be forgiven this. Given the draft pool he got, he built his deck pretty close to perfectly, though he misplayed his way to 0-3. But we have better hopes for next time.

I thought Vampiric Sliver was going to be just another Hill Giant but he was actually really good. He's essentially unblockable because everyone fears tricks...as well they should, since I have Brute Force, two Feebleness, and other instant-speed stuff.

MVP was Negator Totem, which ruled supremely. I would not feel bad first-picking it. Blast was also extremely strong.

[Implacable]

Thanks for showing us your draft, Matt!  I really enjoy reading detailed accounts of drafts and how the decks played out.  I took a shot at putting together that list, if you don't mind:



//Spells
Temporal Isolation
Sulfurous Blast
Grapeshot
Strangling Soot
2 Undying Rage
2 Feebleness
Brute Force

//2cc
2 Pit Keeper
Rathi Trapper
Blightspeaker
Sangrophage

//3cc
Prodigal Pyromancer
Flowstone Channeler
Ironclaw Buzzardiers
Amrou Seekers
Saltfield Recluse
Phyrexian Totem

//4cc
Empty the Warrens

//5cc
Castle Raptors

//Mana
2 Chromatic Star
Prismatic Lens
7 Swamp
7 Mountain
2 Plains

The Pit-Keepers should stay in your deck; it's more important to play a guy on Turn 2 than to have a removal spell ready.  Hitting your 2 and 3 drops is very easy in this deck, which is great in this format; tempo > quality, in my experience, which is the inverse of the RGD experience (1st picked 2/2s for 6 mana!).  Feebleness is undoubtedly very strong; it is one of the best black cards in Time Spiral, neatly stripping your opponent of their utility 2 and 3 mana 1/1's (like Looter il-Kor and Dreamscape Artist).  Flowstone Channeler is very good for the same reason; although it can't function as a Madness outlet, it can work as a channel for excess lands, which is important in a deck with such a low curve.  Finally, of course, Castle Raptors is perhaps the best White creature in Time Spiral; it should always be played in a deck running any White.

[Matt]

I would play the Vamp Sliver over ETW, which I never ever cast even once, even in casual games afterward.

[kirdape3]

Here are cards that should be played:

Temporal Isolation
Sulfurous Blast
Grapeshot
Strangling Soot
Undying Rage x1
Feebleness x2
Brute Force
Fury Charm
Melancholy

Rathi Trapper
Blightspeaker
Pyrodigal Pyromancer
Flowstone Channeler
Ironclaw Buzzardiers
Amrou Seekers
Saltfield Recluse
Phyrexian Totem
Empty the Warrens
Castle Raptors
Vampiric Sliver
Jedit's Dragoons

That leaves 18 mana cards - probably Lens, Star, 16 lands.

I would not be very happy to play this deck at all ever.  You don't have but a couple of evasive creatures, you lack outright bombs in an extremely bomb-heavy format, and functionally your way to win is through Phyrexian Totem and/or Castle Raptors.

[Matt]

Can you explain why the deck wants Fury Charm and Dragoons?

[kirdape3]

Fury Charm is a trick, and it allows you to keep your limited creature selection alive.  It's better than Undying Rage, which is useless on defense.  Dragoons is actually one of your best creatures (and absolutely the best one to put Rage on), and you need survivable creatures that can contain anything that green has to offer.

[Gekoratel]

One of the biggest weaknesses of your deck despite being 3 colors is that you have a very low creature count.  For this format I prefer to have around 15-16 creatures some archetypes such as BR can afford to be lite on creatures because they are busy trading removal 1 for 1 and getting small card advantage off cards like Soot and Mindstab while they ride a single creature to victory.  Next time your drafting TTP when your deciding between a creature and spell that are equivalent in power look at your previous picks and see how many creatures you have because that should influence your decision.

BTW Jedit's Dragoon is a fine man that I like to have at least 1 when I'm playing white.  Tiago Chan has gone as far as to call him a first pick in an odd Dutch UW drafting strategy.

[Matt]

I know the benefits of Dragoons, but what would you take out for him? The more white you put in the more the deck inches towards the 6/6/6 problem, which I wanted to avoid so badly that I cut Castle Raptors.

[kirdape3]

I would've played Raptors and Dragoons over both of your white creatures.  Raptors is a quality first-pick in this format and Dragoons is awesome in your deck.

You can splash for either of them off 2 Plains, Star, and Lens.

[forests failed you]

Matt,

I've been looking at your draft and thinking about it for a few days and here are some comments for you.  Hopefully, they will prove insightful.

Firstly, I think that your drafe went really, really awrye at some point.  Please allow me to explain.  You are three colors, and yet you are very lacking in the 'bomb' department.  Of the cards that you have in your deck I can only find three that are top picks.  Obviously Sulfurous Blast is a first pick, but from there I think the best cards in your deck are Temporal Isolation, Prismatic Lens, and Castle Raptors.  Strangling Soot is a very decent card, however it seems to me that Soot probably showed up as a 3rd or Forth pick in pack one and moved you from RW into Black, which is what caused you problems. 

Consistency and combat tricks are extremely important in this format and it seems that you picked up some decent ones, which is good.  However, you do not have many good evastion guys here to stick your Undying Rages on.  I think that moving into black was likely a mistake and you should have forced the RW, instead of picking up what appear to be extremely mediocre black cards.

In spite of this I would have played the following cards with your pool.

Brute Force
2 Chromatic Star
Temporal Isolation
Grapeshot
Prismatic Lens
Fury Charm
2 Undying Rage
Prodigidal Pyromancer
Amrou Seekers
Aven Riftwatcher
Phyrean Totem
Strangling Soot
Blightspeaker
Ironclaw Buzzardiers
Saltfield Recluse
Empty the Warrens
Castle Raptors
Jedits Dragoons
Assembly Worker
Rathi Trapper
Honarable Passage

3 Swamp
7 Mountain
6 Plains

I think that there were likely a lot of cards you undervalued that you should have been picking up that could have made your deck much better.

The first thing that comes to mind is the absence of any turn one suspend cards.  Ivory Giants, Keldon Halbredier, Corpulent Corpse, Duskrider Perigrine, all come to mind.  These cards are extremely high picks; and you want to be taking them in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th pick slots.

Secondly, you picked Pit Keepers and Sangrophage in the two drop slots, which is good because two drops are important.  However, I think that instead of moving into Black  you should have been trying to soak up the White and Red weenies.  Benalish Calvalry, and Amrou Scout are extremely soild, and you should have been taking them very highly. 

Thirdly, you have no fliers!!!  This deck wants more Cloudchaser Kestrel and Bassalt Gargoyle.  Those cards tend to be undervalued and float around well into the fifth pick stages of a draft if you are lucky.  Value them highly, they are extremely good. 

It looks like you had the start of a good RW beatdown deck, but splashed into Black and lost sight of what your deck was trying to do.  To be honest, it is usually best to try and avoid Black if you can unless you have the cards to play the madness deck.  (which I think you may have been trying to make, from the Mukdrub and Brains in the board.)  Usually, I will avoid Black unless I have a Looter Il-Kor in my deck.  Black is also by far the weakest card in Planar Chaos.

So, I'll summerize (and these are just good general tips to all drafters in this format).

Don't stray into a third color in pack one unless you are being cut off.  3 color decks that do not have Green for Mana fixing tend to be bad.  (unless they are laden with bombs, which this one clearly is not). 

Value suspend creatures higher.  One and Two drop suspenders are among the most powerful cards in the format, value them accordlingly.

Needs more evasion.  Make sure you get 3-4 fliers, especially if you are playing RW.  They are important for racing.

And, Chromatic Star is awful.  I'd much rather have a Grizzly Bear than that card ever.  Don't pick it over other cards that would make your deck.  You probably took it because of how bad you knew your mana was going to be... But that could have been avoided by just taking the Soot with the knowledge that you would splash for it, and build a RW deck with 2-3 Black cards.

Other notes:

These cards come around late and are worth taking:

Coal Stoaker
Flamecore Elemental
Aetherweb membrane (wall)
The 4 drop who does one to all creatures without flying.

Also, Meloncholy is a bad card.  I would advise anybody from ever playing it.

Good luck!

Cheers
ffy

[Matt]

I actually P1P1'd the Soot. That pack was awful past that, as far as I could tell. I remember not having to take much time on the pick. I know my draft went Soot/Isolation/red card/Totem as my first four picks.

I think that there were likely a lot of cards you undervalued that you should have been picking up that could have made your deck much better.

This is DEFINITELY possible. I don't know much about the format. For example, I did not know about the "first turn susped is good" thing.

Thirdly, you have no fliers!!!  This deck wants more Cloudchaser Kestrel and Bassalt Gargoyle.  Those cards tend to be undervalued and float around well into the fifth pick stages of a draft if you are lucky.  Value them highly, they are extremely good.

This was not rectifiable. I saw one Kestrel (and I know I picked something awesome over it - Totem or something. I don't knwo which pack it was) and I never saw a gargoyle.

It looks like you had the start of a good RW beatdown deck, but splashed into Black and lost sight of what your deck was trying to do.  To be honest, it is usually best to try and avoid Black if you can unless you have the cards to play the madness deck.  (which I think you may have been trying to make, from the Mukdrub and Brains in the board.)

This is not what happened at all. Perhaps that's what I should have done, but it is not what I did.

I will take your advice into due consideration should I draft again before Future Sight is released. What are the major archetypes?

[Crankster]

One archtype that is relatively easy to draft and suits players used to control is U/W slivers. Basicly you run combat tricks and some slivers. The MVP slivers are Watcher sliver, Poultice sliver and Synchronous sliver. Sinew sliver is nice but not essential. Most of these come late, often allowing you to get awesome tricks and fliers. Without a potent airforce you tend to get screwed over pretty bad.
This archtype can go from pretty good to really awesome if you splash black and get the right rebels, blightspeaker, rathi trapper and saltfield recluse come to mind.

[jro]

Empty the Warrens seems really bad in all these builds.  Without any suspend cards or Coal Stoker, the best you can hope for seems to be a turn 5 Warrens for 4 by casting a Star, but you're probably going to need the star early to fix your mana.  And with no source of card advantage, it's not like you'll have the cards for a big late game EtW.  I think I'd sooner just run a real dude.

2x Feebleness seems really good with 1x Prodigal Pyromancer, 1x Flowstone Channeler.  With 2x Feebleness, both Pit Keeper and Cyclopean Giant become much better.  2x Pit Keeper gives you a late game chump blocking loop.  Sulfurous Blast is never bad, but it will always be symmetrical (or worse) in this deck.  I think I'd build this RBw, splashing for Jedit's Dragoons, Castle Raptors, and Temporal Isolation, which are all late game cards.

Creatures (13, not counting Totem):
2 Cyclopean Giant
Castle Raptors
Jedit’s Dragoons
Flowstone Channeler
Rathi Trapper
Blightspeaker
Prodigal Pyromancer
Ironclaw Buzzardiers
Vampiric Sliver
Muck Drubb
2 Pit Keeper

Spells (8):
Temporal Isolation
Sulfurous Blast
Grapeshot
Strangling Soot
1 Undying Rage
Brute Force
2 Feebleness

Mana (19):
Phyrexian Totem
Chromatic Star
Prismatic Lens
7 Swamp
7 Mountain
2 Plains

One archtype that is relatively easy to draft and suits players used to control is U/W slivers. Basicly you run combat tricks and some slivers. The MVP slivers are Watcher sliver, Poultice sliver and Synchronous sliver. Sinew sliver is nice but not essential. Most of these come late, often allowing you to get awesome tricks and fliers. Without a potent airforce you tend to get screwed over pretty bad.
This archtype can go from pretty good to really awesome if you splash black and get the right rebels, blightspeaker, rathi trapper and saltfield recluse come to mind.

I like to play UW Slivers for ground control as part of the traditional UW Skies archetype.  There are good uncommon/rare slivers for that as well (Telekinetic, Pulmonic, Quilled, Opaline (usually a really late pick, and really great against annoying crap like Saltfield Recluse), Psionic (fantastic with Watcher or Poultice).  Essence Sliver (if you're lucky) is especially awesome in that deck.  If I see the right cards in TS (basically Watcher, Bonesplitter, and mana fixers), I'll even go WUR Slivers, since it's pretty easy to get Cautery, Frenetic, and Opaline in PC, and they're all really good.