Coldsnap drafting and Klep's favorite draft color

[Apollyon]

At the FNM before the Coldsnap drafft, I went 4 color white. I opened Fetters, Helix, Siege Wurm, and a bunch of other good stuff. I settled on the Fetters and was passed Blazing Archon, Master Warcraft, and Phytohydra. I opened a Steam Vents pack 2, picked that over Grotesque and was passed a foil Savage Twister. The rest of my list was:

Shrieking Grotesque
Soulsworn Jury
Shadow Lance
Absolver Thrull
Boros-Fury Shield
foil Steeling Stance
Screeching Griffin
Withstand
2 Crypt Champion
Rakdos Ickspitter
Blind Hunter
Voyager Staff
Cytospawn Shambler
Courier Hawk
Ghost Warden
Mistral Charger
Gruul SIgnet
Rakdos Signet
Orzhov Signet
Gruul Turf
Boros Garrison
Orzhov Basilica

I won game 1 of my first match off Master Warcraft. I lost game 2 to not seeing land 3 for 5 turns. I won game 3 because I had Phytohydra out and I topdecked Savage Twister to kill his guys that were lethal next turn (5/6 bloodthirt guy, Selesnya Guildmage, and a ton of other good creatures on his board vs my Soulsworn + Phytohydra) and turn my Phytohydra lethal. He had the Flash Foliage, but it didn't matter.

Match 2 was really fast. He had turn 2 Izzet Guildmage, I had turn 3 Fetters for it, I dropped Cytospawn Shambler, then I dropped Crypt Champion. He got the 2R, discard random card: burn stuff guy out, but both of his activations whiffed and dealt only 2 damage. They ended up swinging for 14 in one turn to drop him to 2.

Game 2, I dropped Blind Hunter, Shadow Lanced it and raced his team. He had me dead on the board, but I played Boros Fury-Shield to stay at 1 and swing back for the win. He didn't attack with his Indentured Oaf, even though I had no blockers, because he correctly predicted that if I had the Fury-Shield, that would have killed him.

Match 3, I ID'd. We played for fun, went 1-1 in games, then everyone else finished and we went and drafted Coldsnap.

Coldsnap drafting seems really good from what I've seen of it so far. I drafted a 4-man Coldsnap last night. I opened Garza's Assassin, got a 6-7th pick Vexing Sphinx (a lot better than I thought he was going to be).

The rest of my deck was:
5 Gutless Ghouls (1 left in SB)
2 Coldsteel Heart
1 Blizzard Specter
3 Drelnoch
1 Stromgald Crusader
3 Feast of Flesh
1 Gristle Grinner
2 Disciple of Tevesh Szat
1 Frozen Solid
1 Rimebound Dead (this guy was really good for me)
1 Zombie Musher
2 Krovikan Mist

Everyone had decks ranging from solid to great. One guy had 2x Ohran Viper, Shape of the Wiitigo, 3 Ronom Hulk. The other guy had most of the Ripple stuff.

[Harkius]

...and was passed a foil Savage Twister....

W
T
F
??????

Somebody was drafting wrong. Period. The only reason that I can think that this was an acceptable pass is if they were playing a deck with no red, no green, no red/green karoos, no red/green signets, and opened a Skeletal Vampire.

Harkius

[Jacob Orlove]

Any of the shocklands is like $15-$20. Foil Savage Twister is, what, maybe $1?

[Liek]

If it was FNM, they probably just rare drafted over the Twister. Or it was a noob that doesn't know that good cards are good.

[Apollyon]

If it was FNM, they probably just rare drafted over the Twister. Or it was a noob that doesn't know that good cards are good.

It wasn't a shockland. I opened one of the two at the table (Steam Vents) and traded it out for the other (Stomping Ground), Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, and the last 2 Leylines of the Void that I needed for my set.

Update: drafted again twice today. Coldsnap wasn't nearly as good of a deck as last time. I was fighting with half of the table for one color or another, even though I got some really strong picks.

I got passed Savage Twister pack 2 AGAIN in my RGD draft. Once again, I splashed for the Twister. I also was passed Cleansing Beam and used it to wipe out my opponent's Coiling Oracle, Transluminant, Selesnya Evangel, and Mourning Thrull to win the draft.

[UR]

Coldsnap drafting seems really good from what I've seen of it so far. I drafted a 4-man Coldsnap last night. I opened Garza's Assassin, got a 6-7th pick Vexing Sphinx (a lot better than I thought he was going to be).

The rest of my deck was:
5 Gutless Ghouls (1 left in SB)
2 Coldsteel Heart
1 Blizzard Specter
3 Drelnoch
1 Stromgald Crusader
3 Feast of Flesh
1 Gristle Grinner
2 Disciple of Tevesh Szat
1 Frozen Solid
1 Rimebound Dead (this guy was really good for me)
1 Zombie Musher
2 Krovikan Mist

Everyone had decks ranging from solid to great. One guy had 2x Ohran Viper, Shape of the Wiitigo, 3 Ronom Hulk. The other guy had most of the Ripple stuff.

Coldsnap drafting actually sucks big time IMO. Kamiel Cornelissen drafted nine(!) Surging Dementia, he cast it on turn two and rippled it six times leaving the opponent with just one card in hand and a single land. Julien Nuijten also rippled the damage spell five times mising a game he otherwise couldn't win. Picking up ripple cards isn't my idea of a fun draft. For drafting that mechanic is very, very strong.

I did manage to win the Sealed deck tournament which was okay...

...and was passed a foil Savage Twister....

Yikes... I mean, sometimes I'll splash two colors just for that card (just pick up a Signet later on if you can, otherwise hatedraft it).

[Godder]

I think the sooner everyone realises Ripple is awesome, the sooner they'll stop getting mauled by decks like that.

[Klep]

Yeah, the prerelease really didn't give me any reason to hope that triple Coldsnap draft will be anything but the worst limited format ever.  Ripple is just too amazingly stupid.  You either have a couple people getting a bunch of the same ripple card and destroying the table, or everyone has to use all of their early picks on the ripple spells to keep other people from getting them, heavily distorting the draft, or both.  There's just nothing good there.

[LordHomerCat]

So far, I haven't enjoyed CS drafting that much either.  I managed to get the MTGO Beta (which means unlimited free CCC!), so I'm gonna have to spend some more time trying to figure out what is going on, but at the moment, I am just completely unsure of what I should be doing in draft.  Every draft, my deck has *seemed* really strong to me, and then I've just gotten completely destroyed and been really confused.  Well, practice makes perfect I guess.

[UR]

If you've got premium I suggest you go and read Julien's articles.

[Vegeta2711]

CS draft is god awful, the color balance is entirely WTF and every draft deck seems to based around getting 3-5 of a couple of great cards or going heavy Ripple.

[wraith985]

It's not that bad. It's not that interesting either. But it's not that bad.

2-1'd my pod last night and won a small release event today, both with control-ish decks...meaning that next week, I'm drafting cows.

MoooOOOOOOoooo...

[Apollyon]

I went 2-0-1 in Coldsnap drafting on Friday nght. I went UBR, got 2 Skred, a Disciple, and 3 Rimewind Taskmage. The rest of the deck was more or less decent.

White is an awful color to draft in Coldsnap. It's just really slow and weak. The other colors just have a ton of better stuff. Although Valkyrie is the third best card in the set behind Garza's Assassin and Rimescale Dragon.

[Nightfall]

I won my release event yesterday, I went with G/R beatdown with a splash of white.  Here's the deck as much as I can remember:

4 Goblin Rimerunner
2 Ronom Hulk
1 Orhan Yeti
1 Boreal Druid
2 Boreal Centaur
1 Karplusan Strider
2 Martyr of Ashes
1 Allosaurus Rider
1 Juniper Order Ranger
1 Steam Spitter

2 Into the North
2 Surging Flame
2 Skred
1 Gelid Shackles

1 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Snow-Covered Forest
2 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Highland Weald
1 Mouth of Ronom
5 Forest
5 Mountain

Skred is by far the best removal if you can pick up a decent number of snow permanents.  When I entered the third-pack I already had a couple of snow lands, but since I had so many playables I started drafting them a bit higher.  Into the North is great, especially if you get a Mouth of Ronom like I did.

Goblin Rimerunner is amazing (his nickname for us is The Rumrunner).  He has a little synergy with Ronom Hulk, since you just need to keep their non-snow from blocking and smashing for 5.  The haste ability is a great trick, absolutely wrecking an opponent.

I had actually picked up six Rimerunners, and I didn't play all of them only because of curve issues.  Allosaurus Rider won me both games in the finals.  Most people don't have a way to deal with a 10/10 in this format.  Also, splashing for Juniper Order Ranger and Gelid Shackles was definitely the right call.  The shackles were good, but the Ranger is nuts.  I got away with just running the 1 SC Plains for a white source since I had my two Into the Norths.

I never saw the ripple strategy really work out very well.  I think I hit my two Surging Flames one time and one guy hit 4 of the bounce spell, but otherwise I never saw any ripple action.

[UR]

White is an awful color to draft in Coldsnap. It's just really slow and weak. The other colors just have a ton of better stuff. Although Valkyrie is the third best card in the set behind Garza's Assassin and Rimescale Dragon.

You don't honestly mean that about the Assassin do you? There are a ton of cards that I'd pick higher than that. Even if you are on black there is; Krovikan Rot, Balduvian Fallen and maybe even Zombie Musher that would be better picks.

[Apollyon]

I've won so many games off just dropping him and paying 12 life to keep my opponent from playing creatures. It trades with every single other bomb and comes back to kill more good creatures.

Discussion among the players who have drafted the set a lot note that Krovikan Rot isn't spectacular. Balduvian Fallen is good, as is Zombie Musher and Disciple, but none of them are nearly as good as the Assassin has been for me.

The best common in the set is Skred, the second best is Rimewind Taskmage. The other really good commons are: Musher, Disciple, Shackles, Squall Drifter, Ronom Hulk, Resize, and Surging Flame.

[UR]

The best common in the set is Skred, the second best is Rimewind Taskmage. The other really good commons are: Musher, Disciple, Shackles, Squall Drifter, Ronom Hulk, Resize, and Surging Flame.

I absolutely agree with you on this, but I'm still not convinced about the Assassin. It's BBB cost isn't very inviting and it doesn't kill black guys (and they have a lot of good guys).

[Apollyon]

It only kills: Valkyrie, Owl, Dragon, Hulk, Aurochs, Drifter, Taskmage, Greater Stone Spirit, Darien, Heidar, and a bunch of other cards that I can't think of off the top of my head.

I haven't found the BBB to be an issue yet. It just means that you'll need to draft black cards, which isn't bad, as black is a really strong color. Plus, black has all of the good lifegain (Gutless Ghoul and Feast of Flesh), so the loss of life isn't as bad as it appears.

[kirdape3]

While it's pretty easy to get to BBB in a basically two-color format, I wouldn't want to have to rely on it.  Garza's Assassin is Not Bad (tm), but I'd rather not have to commit pack one and I'd be much more liable to not be able to splash that card late.

White in this format is actually pretty good.  There are 2 common bears (Ronom Unicorn and Kjeldoran Outrider), very strong commons in Squall Drifter and Gelid Shackles, and it's not like you're not going to pick up other goodies along the way.  Every deck with more than about three white cards in it has been very solid.

Oh, and Stalking Yeti is patently ridiculous.

[Dozer]

The best common in the set is Skred, the second best is Rimewind Taskmage. The other really good commons are: Musher, Disciple, Shackles, Squall Drifter, Ronom Hulk, Resize, and Surging Flame.

And Grim Harvest. BDM wrote it in the coverage of GP St Louis, and I agree. I'd rank Grim Harvest in the top spots with Skred, Moron Hulk and Zombie Musher. These are IMO a small notch above the others. Grim Harvest is amazing not only with Garza's Assassin (listen to the Sunday moxradio Malmö coverage to hear an excellent story on that), but also with any Martyr and also basically any other dead creature.

Grim Harvest + white Martyr makes this weird Limited Life deck. Grim Harvest + Martyr of Ashes completely locks up the board. Grim Harvest is about the only form of repeatable card advantage at common. Sure, the red Martyr trades well, and there's Vexing Sphinx, Phyrexian Etchings and Scrying Sheets at Rare, and stuff like Perilous Research and Vanish into Memory at Uncommon, but Grim Harvest is almost as good. Look at it like this: There's no deck which Grim Harvest won't make.

Maybe it's not a first pick, first pack. But it can certainly become one in pack two, and even in one I'd take it early.

[KrauserKrauser]

Gazra's Assassin successfully made sure that I would not be going to Kobe.

That card is so unkind when teamed with Grim Harvest