1st Place at StarCityGames Standard Open on 6/21/2014
The deck is at its core a solid creature beats concoction with more then half of its slots devoted to them with an extremely low curve reminiscent of a brew we would expect from Legacy. The deck is chock full’o one drops loading up on value with them all. With two power for a single Red we find both Firedrinker Satyr and Rakdos Cackler coming strong out of the gate. We also have Legion Loyalist which with Battalion grands First Strike but more importantly Trample to your assault, and Foundry Street Denizen who when dropped on turn one can offer you so many turns of added value from each and every other creature you pop into play. On two mana you basically have the rest of the team starting on Burning-Tree Emissary to try and chain multiple creatures into play right away, Ash Zealot as a value drop with Haste to lay down the beats as fast as possible, and Firefist Striker with its Battalion trigger to neutralize any big blocker and ram additional damage down your opponents throat. There is also Rubblebelt Makka but he is really there as a cheap pump to ram through as much extra damage as possible working along side Titan’s Strength to take huge chunks out of the opponents life. The deck also has a trio of Shock and a pair of Searing Blood which help to ensure that the path to victory goes unhindered by opposing creatures.
It’s hard to say if the meta will continue to be soft to Red based decks but judging by all its success I guess you’d be a fool not to join in. I’m hesitant to say that this is the best strategy but it is always a strong strategy in the hands of a compitant mage. The only caution I would provide is that people are certainly aware of the deck and should plan accordingly. Also, don’t be one of the fools who says that it’s just a simple Red deck and I can pilot it like an expert without practice. This deck requires a precise use of its resources and knowing when to go all out as opposed to ensuring you don’t over commit is crucial. Just make sure you drive it around the block at least a few times, but most of all feel the burn.
With Conspiracy just recently released, and the magic community moving more and more quickly to accept drafting as its own stand-alone format, it is time to review the fundamentals of drafting magic the gathering. Drafting is a unique format where cards that are unplayable in other formats find new homes in decks that you normally wouldn’t see. It is uniquely positioned as many players first steps into any set. Allowing players a chance to dream up ideas for decks they can use in later tournaments, examine interactions between various cards and refine strategies that may or may not be successful. Up until recently I drafted only a few times with no clue how to do it. This is not a definitive guide on how to draft; if you have found better strategies than mine to use, stick to them. I will only try to show you some of my most basic strategies that I use to draft and offer you my experiences in using them.
This is really more of an optional step, many players love to discover the cards as they draft, if you’re someone that wants the thrill of trying to build a deck as you learn the cards in the set then skip this step; if you’re like me, however you will want to learn the set well before you go into a draft. The first step in doing this is to find a site you like that posts visual spoilers as they become available, for me this is Mythic Spoiler, a site I found out about when Modern Masters came out, coincidentally this was also the set that propelled me into my love for drafting. [Ed.Note: we also preview all the cards right here on The Bag of Loot !!!] Learning what cards are in a set involves not memorizing every card in a set, but it does involve becoming familiar with a set well before a set comes out. There are a whole bunch of reasons to do this, including knowing what colors are strong and what colors are extremely weak in a set; you do this to keep you from getting stuck with a color you can’t build a deck off of because of one card in a set. This is a danger in any set if you don’t know it well enough, because you see one card that you need to build a deck around and then you try too hard to do just that and you wind up passing up a halfway decent deck for trying to build around 1 “bomb” card. Another reason to learn a set is one we will get to later, which is it gives you a chance to know what you’re looking for when you go to a draft. Additionally, on top of everything else is something which we will also get into a little bit later; that is the ability to watch out for value cards. Finally, you can start to build new decks you’re planning to use in the next tournament season by knowing all of the new cards.
I read an article about drafting a while ago and it addressed this order in more detail, it was on the Wizards website and they talked about top-down drafting and booster pack drafting. You can search either on Google and get linked up to the site. I will briefly go over the order or the order that I believe you should pick in in this article. Above everything else, drafting is a monetary technique; you are attempting to get more than your money’s worth either through luck or through your own skill. As it is such a monetary technique, your first pick should always be money picks. This relates back to the previous paragraph, before everything else, you should be watching out for money picks. This involves again a little bit of pre-gaming, but it is definitely worth the time. This step involves finding a card selling site that pays out consistently; for me this site is Starcitygames.com and while this site is essentially the Gamestop of the Magic universe, there’s a reason that they are still the largest Magic dealer in the world. [Ed.Note: you can also sell to Three Kings Loot with a great bonus for Store Credit !!!] That is to say that they are essentially too big to fail, they sell more cards, have more tournaments and are more well-known than any other single retailer for the game, and as such their buy list is equally impressive both in quality of card prices and breadth of card’s they are willing to buy. (As a side note, if you are trying to build a deck, it is sometimes worth it to trade these cards for store credit versus selling them straight out as they throw in extra value when you do) Now there’s also much to consider with how valuable a card is, while it is true that you should pick value cards first but the rule for picking them first is the card that you take has to be a minimum of close to equal value to the tournament you are participating in. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to trade a twenty-five dollar tournament for a 15 dollar card, does it? The next type of card you’ll pick is cards that you’re looking for. Again this really does relate back to money, but in a different way and of course it can also be looked over if the card isn’t worth it. Let’s just think about it like this, if you’ve already decided you’re going to build a deck and you see a three dollar card you need to pick up for said deck in your pack and you take it, well now you don’t need to invest the three dollars in the card you were going to buy, because you already have it. Additionally, if you’ve got a pack of cards that you don’t really care about it doesn’t really hit any of the criteria, but it’s one you need versus one that’s moderately better or more expensive, well you know the old expression. (A penny saved is a penny earned) The next card you pick is cards that build into your strategy, this really only applies if you’ve already built a strategy. This should be self-explanatory if you see a card that plays into the strategy that you’re building, you should go for it. After that comes the cards you have to pick for each color. If you don’t have a strategy yet, then you need to start coming up with one and this typically devolves into picking good cards you see for each color and funneling yourself into one or two colors. Up next comes hate drafting, if you don’t see anything that really helps you in a pack, then maybe it’s time to take out cards that you just don’t want to deal with, this can be the difference between winning and losing a tournament right here. If you see a card you just can’t deal with get it out of the way so that you don’t have to and who knows maybe your colors will change later on and it may be one of the most influential cards in your entire deck. There are two dangers in doing this, however, the first is you may lose your ability to send proper color signals, which we’ll get to later. The second is that it may make you enemies. Remember when you’re drafting, you’re drafting with 5 or 7 other people, and if you make enemies with them, you make enemies with them. They will hate draft you and may skip over better drafts just to get at you. Just remember hate drafting is fine, but don’t overdo it. (You still need to build a deck to win) If you don’t see any of these, maybe it’s time to fill out your deck. The giant bombs in your deck are great, making every deck except yours in a tournament weak is important, but in order to win the game, you still have to be able to get through to the end of your game and it’s filler that lets you do this. A solid 3/3 for 2 is a great filler card for example and in just one hit to the face you can get value out of your card. After this, you should take the random rare or funky card that no one’s really found a use for yet. Remember cards in this group include, Tarmogoyf, and Ravenous Demon. The one caveat I’d like to add to this is just to remember that for every Tarmogoyf there are about a million Scrambleverses, and Goblin Test Pilots; another point is that even if the card isn’t that good, it can still be a ton of fun to play with. Next up is a holographic card, if there’s nothing good and there’s nothing that helps or is fun, maybe it’s time to take the foil. Remember, even a bad foil may be worth a dollar or two to the right person and that’s money in your pocket. After that if it comes right down to it, take a card in your colors, then a value creature, than a value spell, then a creature, then just take a random card. At the end, it really comes down to trying to build value out of nothing, but it does lead us into our next two points.
In draft cards that you would typically find unplayable in another format, you’ll find yourself relying on heavily in draft. For example, a 4/1 for 2 mana can be a great addition to your deck or even a Vizzerdrix, which is a vanilla 6/6 for 6 blue mana. You have to remember that the format is typically much, much slower than other formats, as players typically don’t have strategies that consistently win you games by the third or fourth turn. Real quick and because I feel like it is important, let’s talk about deck fillers real quick. Now when people draft they typically want to think about the big pulls, the amazing cards, the foil Tarmogoyf in their pack. The draft is typically won, however by the fillers; that isn’t to say that someone who is amazingly luck and gets amazing pulls won’t win, but when you get right down to it, luck is not a reliable way to win tournaments. Let’s define filler real quick, filler is anything that isn’t absolutely amazing, such as a Tarmogoyf or Vendillion Clique, it doesn’t contribute heavily to any strategy, such as a Spellstutter Sprite in a fairy deck, and it isn’t a card that you “have to pick” if you choose to be in a color. These cards are essentially the cards that you pick and they don’t say to yourself “I’m so glad I got that card.” They’re the vanilla 3/3’s for 3 or the counter spell for 5 mana that also lets you land cycle for 2. The bombs may win the game, but it’s the filler that typically gets you to that point (but sometimes they do all the work themselves even). There is even a type of deck built entirely around the concept of filler, and that is mono-red burn or goblin, and you’ll notice they’re all just solid cards that do what they’re supposed to do, and never really have the “WOW” feeling you get with a card like Force of Will or Tarmogoyf. Some great filler you don’t think about are equipment cards, such as Bonesplitter. These vanilla equipment cards that make small things big things are great, because it makes almost all of the creatures in your deck bombs.
This is a concept that took some one explaining to me, in order for me to get it. It goes kind of like this, if you have the option of choosing between a sorcery or instant and a creature with a similar but slightly worse effect, you should go with the creature every time. Don’t violate the order of card selection to do this, but there are many reasons to do this. First and foremost is the fact that creatures do so much. Think about it, if your creature has an effect, you get its effect. Additionally, it sticks around after the fact to be a body, and be used to protect you, draw fire away from you, remove threats, and potentially even bring you closer to winning the game; allowing you to get the most value out of a card. On top of power toughness and mana cost with creatures, you should also take into account static effects like evasion that the cards have as well. A 2/3 flyer can be better than a 3/4 ground pounder for the same mana cost. Effects like this can make a card an unanswerable threat to more unprepared decks; meaning that a simple effect like flying can win you an entire game, round or even tournament. It goes exactly the opposite as well, picking up a creature with flying or reach can keep you from losing a whole tournament.
This is a concept you see throughout the formats in magic; it is not however as pronounced in the other formats as it is in draft. The amount of cards in your hand is a resource, just like life, mana, and number of permanents. In drafting however this quickly turns into the most valuable resource in the whole game, as opposed to it being board presence in most of the other games. This isn’t to say that just having cards in your hand will win a game for you, but it can give you the edge against any opponent. The mana cost for card advantage is almost negligible in draft; a mana cost of five for three or four draws is actually a pretty good deal in draft. The need for so many extra cards in your hand comes from the fact that many of your cards don’t do a whole lot besides sit in your hand, and wait to occupy a space on the field. In a more constructed format, you will typically sit on cards in your hand that all have situations in which you’d play them. Additionally, in a more constructed format, you will typically have a mana curve and make full use out of each card in your hand or you’ll have a consistent way to draw all the cards you want.
Decks in drafts have to be a minimum of forty cards, and this section tries to explain the formulation of the decks that you should aim to build. First let’s talk basics you typically want 17 lands, somewhere between 14 and 19 creatures and anywhere between 4 and 9 other spells (Artifacts, sorceries, instants, and planeswalkers). This is really only a basic idea of the breakdown of a deck and is subject to change, but you should still try to stick close to it as it’s pretty reliable. The number of spells changes based on the strategy you’re going with; in control, you would aim for the least creatures and most spells. Additionally, there are spells and artifacts that produce creatures in addition to any other effects and you could count these to either the creature or extra spell category. The mana should be a firm count for the most part unless for something you need less mana than your typical deck, such as red burn. In reference to mana, let’s talk more about how much you should add of each type assuming you’re running more than 1 color. If you’re running 2 colors and it’s a pretty easy split, you should run 8 of the color you have less of or has cheaper spell in that order and vice versa. If you have about 3 quarters the amount of one as the other, you should run 7 of the lesser and 10 of the more; going any less than that puts you at risk of not getting the mana when you need it.
When you draft you will receive 3 packs of random cards of 5 different colors (6 if you count colorless), and you are expected to make a deck of forty cards of 1 or 2 colors out of this (There are a few 5 color decks out there and even a few really good ones, but most of them do not last very long). While many players do this, they do not know the name and in many cases don’t even realize that they are doing it. Sending Good Color Signals is a process that involves two parts strategy, three parts common sense and one part luck. Color signals are basically a language in draft that signifies to every player on the board that a player is playing a color. (This is both why this is important and why it can be a weakness) This is important, because it lets everyone at the table know that someone is drafting this color, and if you want more good cards, you should choose a different color, because I am going to try to take all of them in this color. This is also dangerous, because it tells everyone at the table that someone has quite a few chips invested in a particular color and if you want to get them in trouble taking a good card or two of that color might be a nail in their coffin. By and large sending good color signals is an effective and beneficial tool, remember while it can be used against you, most of the people who are participating in the tournament also want to win, and they can’t do this very well if they devote all their time to taking someone else down. There are actually two parts to sending good color signals, they are sending good color signals and reading good color signals. Sending good color signals means selecting cards of 1 or 2 colors consistently to build a deck. Reading color signals well means to look at the pack and knowing what the most selected colors are going to be, it typically is going to take a little while for you to catch on to this as it takes people a little while to decide on a color. For the sake of sending good color signals and protecting your color you have to be careful about hate drafting too much.
There was an article written on the wizards website a while ago about the difference between deceitful and technical play. Technical play is when you make moves while mitigating the amount of mistakes you make in your play. It is for example, knowing when to go all in with all your creatures, or when to hold back two or three to protect your life. It is a skill which is built simply by playing more frequently, paying attention to every move you make, and amending your mistakes in technical play. This may involve going back and rereading the rules a few more times or taking each step as it’s supposed to be taken. (Drawing after you take your untap and upkeep steps) The article went on to talk about how even though many of us may never be as good as the pros at Technical Play, (This isn’t to say that they don’t make any mistakes, it’s just to say that as it is their job, many of us will not play as many hours in as many competitive events as them) one area we may be able to keep up with them in is Deceitful play. Let’s just talk about something really quick, the word deceitful; it’s a word with really negative connotations, isn’t it? Let me just clarify, when I say deceitful I’m not talking about cheating, neither myself nor any respectable player/game store puts up with cheating in the least. What I am talking about however is manipulating the board state to make your opponent not make a move or vise versa. You accomplish this by making your opponent think you have cards in your hand or a board state that makes taking a technically correct move wrong. For example, when your opponent is too afraid to play their best card, because they believe you may have a counter on board. While this is a pretty good example, I’d like to give one more. Let’s say that it’s your opponent’s turn; his declare attackers step. On board you have two forests open and a 1/1, two cards in hand (let’s say forests for arguments sake). Your opponent has a 3/3 and no cards in hand. As soon as the step starts, you say, “I float two mana and…” You reach for one of the forests in your hand and stop yourself. “You haven’t declared yet?” You ask and pull your hand away from the cards in your hand. In this situation, the idea is that you are making your opponent believe that you have the monstrous growth. As such, even though this wouldn’t happen in the real world, you opponent makes the bad technical choice and doesn’t attack. I won’t negotiate the morality of this maneuver, but it is entirely legal in a tournament. This whole idea of deceptive play comes into the game even more than this quick wheeling; it can even be applied to specific cards. I would like to talk about two cards from the Theros block as examples for this. The first is Defend the Hearth, a brilliant little card that cancels out combat damage dealt to players until the end of turn. This can be the difference in games where players of the set typically lay out gigantic behemoths and swing out with their entire boards, and the player that wins would have lost in one more turn. The next card I want to talk about is portent of betrayal. Basically, the idea behind this card is take the blocker you can’t deal with or your opponent’s largest creature and make it work against them for a turn. This is another one that works well in this format because players in this format tend to get gigantic creatures, and swing out on their turns. There are tons of other great draft cards that I don’t want to get into too much detail about here, such as Shrieking Affliction (Make them forget about it by not doing anything with it for a long time and they’ll take 3 damage pretty consistently in the long run) or take possession (Same idea as portent of betrayal, but with anything). Long story short, you really can never tell what will be a great deceptive card and what won’t, that’s why it doesn’t hurt to pack a few into your deck and try them out, and remember, your demeanor when trying to pull something like this off can be just as important as the card and strategy you’re trying to pull off.
When it comes right down to it, there are no definitive keys to victory in draft. You can meet a million different people with a million different so-called “Keys to Victory” in draft and the problem is that a majority of them will be right situationally. If you were to ask me what the keys to victory in draft were however, I would probably say flexibility and truly the flexibility of draft is one of the things that makes it so much fun and so difficult for so many people to become good at draft. Let’s just compare constructed to draft for a second. In constructed you build a deck and you know your deck fairly well, additionally, you can pretty much autopilot most of your decisions, as the deck pool can be terribly limited, especially in the eternal formats. There is no doubt a reason for this, your draws being fairly consistent and the decks that are their have stood the test of time and are undoubtedly some of the best decks in the format. Limited on the other hand, is a format where no two tournaments are the same and even drafting the same set multiple times, you will typically see a different deck every single time you play a game (even against the same player). It’s a format that makes you think on your feet in a lot of situations, responding to a board state that you may never have seen or even considered before. This is true not only of when you are playing but the same also rings true when you are drafting. To enunciate this point, allow me to share another story with you. As I said before, I really got into drafting around the time that Modern Masters came out. As was mentioned in the beginning of the article I really did my homework on the set, memorizing basically every card in the set, as well as the prices of anything above three dollars on Starcitygames. It was also around this time that I decided I wanted to build affinity in Modern. This meant that at the draft, I would draft value cards and cards that would go well in the new deck I was building as well as I could, mostly artifacts. On top of all this most of the artifacts were a throwback to Mirrodin, which is where I started the game. I went with this strategy most of the night, pulling decks that were okay, but never really came together as I wanted them to and as such landed me a pretty low-ranking in most of them. Finally, in the last draft of the night, I was in trouble it was around the second round of the second pack and I really hadn’t picked up any good artifacts; needless to say I was in trouble. I re-evaluated at this point and looked through the cards I had taken. A lot of filler cards I hadn’t really found a use for, but were pretty good filler nonetheless. Then I noticed something I hadn’t all night, (because I wasn’t reading my color signals very well) blue was open. I didn’t have everything I needed, but 3 Spellstutter Sprites, a handful of counters and some Dreamspoiler Witches, and I knew what I should build, Blue/Black Faeries. I switched my strategy completely at that point and the next pack rewarded me with a Tombstalker. That deck with only one rare and I had switched to in the middle of the second round wound up going on to take 5 damage the rest of the night and coming in first throughout the whole tournament. What I’m trying to say is, keep to the rules I established here and you should be ready to play in whatever format of draft you decide to participate in; know the format, but don’t be afraid to be flexible. The one caveat I’d like to add to this point is one that I’ve mentioned all along, remember no matter what deck you pick, what strategy you go with, you still need to build a 40-card deck out of it that works. I have one final point to make and it’s this…
Magic is a game, treat it like one. When you go to tournaments all of the great plays won’t really matter if you don’t have fun. So get out there win some games, but most importantly have fun at the tournament.
by The Will of the Floral Spuzzem Daniel Clayton Twitter: @DC4VP
With an aggro deck like this the most important factor of your strategy is to be dropping at least one creature every single turn until you mash your opponent into a bloody pulp which is why we find no Scry lands. We start the curve with two one drops that come out swinging with two power each from Rakdos Cackler which if is not unleashed usually means you’re about to die and Firedrinker Satyr who’s drawback will be largely nullified by the amount of beats he will inflict on the opponent. Then we hit a mass of two drops starting with the hasty first striker Ash Zealot, also Firefist Striker that when attacking with two others will nullify the opponents best blocker and then Burning-Tree Emissary that enables your lightning starts by chaining into more spells to advance your board faster then the opponent can mount a defense. We also find two quality three drops to continue the curve with perennial wall of death in Boros Reckoner which turns combat math from simple addition into complex algebra, and Chandra’s Phoenix that has a limited amount of direct damage spells to bring it back but is still a hasty flier to bring forth death from above. Our last creature is the curve topper Fanatic of Mogis that comes in as a late game play once you have your army mobilized to take full advantage of a surprise blast of Devotion to Red to the opponents face, hopefully to put him down for good. There is a support package of burn coming primarily from a full set of Lightning Strike, but also a pair of Shock, a pair of Magma Jet and a singleton Searing Blood all help to either clear the way for your creatures to get through or blast straight up to the dome.
This deck exemplifies what it means to be The Beatdown. It looks like Aggro has positioned itself between Control and Midrange in the metagame right now to exploit it’s speed and destructive nature. Now has been a great time to blast your opponent to bits either using creature or burn based strategies. It’s not likely that this Red mage dominance will continue but shows that any given weekend you can not count out any deck that has power behind it. And counting from twenty to zero has been a fundamental aspect of this game of Magic.
Grand Prix Moscow Champion – Standard on June 15th 2014
Once again the power of fire to the face was able to propel this Tomahawk missile of a deck right to the top of the victory podium. Showing how powerful a linear strategy of simply throwing everything into reducing your opponents life total to zero really can be, this design is a well oiled machine dedicated to death and destruction. This really appeals to the little fire imp which resides in my heart and is a variation on the classic burn theme which has existed in magic since the days of Fireball and Lightning Bolt.
The deck is a little light on the creature side but has found two spicy dudes that synergize with the deck extremely well given the 26 spells that are played at instant speed. The first is Young Pyromancer which on its own isn’t a very intimidating creature but once you start slinging some spells the party gets started and guests will arrive, and don’t think that lowly 1/1’s aren’t any good because every single point matters with this deck. The other creature comes with Chandra’s Phoenix that can do some real damage as a hasty flier but also will find its way back to your hand rising from the grave whenever one of your spells blasts into the opponent. The manabase also affords you space to squeeze in three copies of Mutavault that are able to maneuver their way around any sorcery speed removal. Then we get into the burn suite of the deck which is massive. There is at one cost Shock capable of delivering a two point blast either to the player or if necessary any of his smaller creatures. The mass of the burn is found at two cost starting simply with Lightning Strike which is simply three points going to the opponents dome or one of his creatures. Next we have Magma Jet which is another flexible two points but the most important part is the Scry 2 which helps the weakness of this deck a bit as there is no real draw available to you. Against decks that play with lifegain, the true nemesis of burn, you have Skullcrack which as a surprise against Sphinx’s Revelation decks could very easily snatch victory from what would be an almost certain defeat. The flexibility of Boros Charm is almost universally wasted with the four point blast to the face as the Double Strike will rarely do more damage but if you have a sizable force you might need the Indestructible against a sweeper. The last two cost burn is a removal spell with Searing Blood which will do two points of damage to a creature but has the added bonus where if that creature dies will do an additional three to its controller. And the last burn spell is the Warleader’s Helix with a four point shot while also providing a four point lifegain as an added benefit. The last spot in the deck is taken by the removal of Chained to the Rocks which is capable of exiling almost any creature threat that is able to skirt the other options from direct damage.
Grand Prix Manchester Champion – Theros Block Constructed on June 1st 2014
Winner of ‘the other’ Theros Block Constructed tournament was Fabrizio Anteri playing a powerful BUG Midrange deck. This deck is the flip side of the Elspeth, Sun’s Champion coin and as such runs the means to beat it rather then join it. As was proven at Pro Tour Journey into Nyx that the battle lines were drawn with the majority taking sides between either Elspeth and Prognostic Sphinx then jamming in the formats Green acceleration package.
In this format the most commonly played cards it turns out are a pair of Green mana accelerants which most likely are going to become the dynamic duo come the next Standard season. This decks ideal opening lies with a turn one Scry land into a turn two Sylvan Caryatid followed by a turn three Courser of Kruphix before making your land drop. That provides the deck with the possibility of rushing out that early five drop which is where the deck plays into. The main avenue of attack lies in the Prognostic Sphinx which was discovered to be the main foil to Elspeth as it not only will fly over her ground forces but also is able to skirt her destroy creatures ability by virtue of being not too powerful. There is also additional beatdown provided by Reaper of the Wilds which sports great stats as a 4/5 for four mana able to protect itself if necessary, but also provides some added bonus with a Scry whenever another creature dies. A pair of planeswalkers are included with Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver doing a lot of heavy lifting by not only milling away possible threats and answers from the opponent but also stealing some of those threats away, and Kiora, the Crashing Wave which can add extra draw and acceleration, lock down a particularly troublesome creature or even ‘Call the Kraken’ if allowed to build up enough loyalty. As this deck chose the Midrange route instead of Control the only disruption in the deck is provided from a set of Thoughtseize to not only strip them of their most bothersome card but also provide you with all the information about their plans so you are able to set yourself up properly. Then we have the removal suite which is as robust as they come. Centering around the formats best there is a full set of Hero’s Downfall to rid the board of creatures or planeswalkers alike, a trio of the pseudo-sweeper in Silence the Believers which can often hit two or three necessary targets, a pair of Bile Blight that is extremely good at taking care of an army of Elspeth tokens, and a misers Unravel the Æther to deal with any troublesome artifacts or enchantments including Gods as they are shuffled back into the library. A solitary Read the Bones provides the deck just a tiny bit of draw power to help dig for the cards it needs.
by Bruce Gray -Casual Encounters
Regardless if you play Standard, Legacy, Vintage, Limited…or you just play on a Saturday night with some buddies around the kitchen table, lands are by far and away the most crucial component to any deck. If you don’t have the right mana you can’t cast your spells. Everyone can play with basic lands of whatever colour, but in some instances that still leaves you stuck looking for just the right land to cast your awesome spell or activate that cool ability that you want to trigger. What can a guy do?
In its original form Magic had dual lands. They were just like any other land except they produced mana of both colours. As time has passed these lands have been revealed to be tremendous assets and greatly increase the consistency of decks and thus have climbed in value to the point that only the most ardent of collector or the most competitive of players are prepared to pick them up. Other dual lands of varying nature have been printed, all with differing drawbacks, but yet these too have seen their value climb. Players want access to both colours of mana and modest tradeoffs are perfectly acceptable.
As a casual player, I fully appreciate the need for access to the right mana and dual lands are certainly the way to go. However, the price tag on these lands can be staggering. If you were to review the mana base for many top tier decks, the value of the lands that are being run in the deck are often the most prohibitive part of replicating the deck yourself, or of brewing up something that is just as competitive. So, how do you balance the need to have access to the correct lands without putting a hole in your pocket? Today I will go through some of the options that a casual player can use without mortgaging your home (again) but can still make your decks fun and relatively competitive when you sit down to play.
The cheapest and easiest dual lands is the guildgates from the Return to Ravnica. The nice thing is that all 10 colour combinations have access to a guildgate making them very versatile and readily accessible for decks looking to access the mana of both colours. Each guildgate enters play tapped which is a dilemma if you are looking to have untapped lands, but played strategically can be a nice addition to a deck. Each guildgate runs for about $0.25 on Three Kings Loot but can often be found in boxes at game shops for a dime. This makes them eminently affordable and can help greatly to smooth out the mana hiccups.
For a number of years Core Sets had a series of lands affectionately called“Buddy Lands”. These were lands of typical allied colours (W/U, R/G, B/U, G/W, B/R) and came into play tapped unless you controlled a basic land of the required colours. These lands balanced the need for access to both colour mana and had a suitable drawback without making them undesirable to play such that they were extremely popular. The other nice thing is that since they saw a number of print runs the cost of picking them up can be quite a bit lower than other dual lands. Three Kings Loot has them listed for anywhere from $1.99 to $5.99 a card. These can add up quickly to a costly investment, but their versatility and ability to come into play untapped may make these appealing. Since these have rotated out of Standard there is likely no rush to pick them up, so unless you suddenly get the urge to test out your latest deck at a Modern event you should be just fine to gradually collect these to help defray the cost over a period of time.
Another cycle of inexpensive dual lands that is a little older are the Zendikar “Life Gain” lands. Again, these were allied colour combinations (G/W, W/U, B/U, R/G, B/R) where the land came into play tapped. What sets these a little bit ahead of a guildgate is the fact that when the land enters play you can gain a life. This may sound like a minor benefit, but any benefit is better than simply coming into play tapped. Also, in a deck where you may be running 4 or more of these lands in your multi-coloured deck you may fine yourself with a 20-30% increase in you life total, which is actually very sizable. It is even possible to recur these lands and gain the benefit a second time with creatures such as Kor Skyfisher or Emancipation Angel making for a little extra benefit from these lands. These lands run for approximately $0.75 a piece on Three Kings Loot but can be found at local game shops for about $0.50 a card, making them very inexpensive and perfect for a casual player.
When people think of fetch lands everyone immediately thinks of the Zendikar fetch lands (Arid Mesa, etc). These cards are extremely pricey and not typically something someone on a tight budget can afford. However, Mirage had a very reasonable set of fetch lands. Flood plain, Bad River, Grasslands, Mountain Valley, and Rocky Tar Pit enter play tapped, but can then be sacrificed to fetch a basic land of either type of land type. This is extremely valuable because it allows you to effectively thin your deck out for land and still let you get the land you require to cast your spells. Is it as desirable as the Zendikar lands that let you play them untapped? Absolutely not, but when you compare the difference in cost, a casual player may be willing to accept this tradeoff. The Mirage fetch lands are listed on Three Kings Loot for $0.50 a card and are roughly the same at the local game shop near my home. Arid Mesa is about $40 a card. I could pick up a play set of all 5 Mirage fetch lands for $10. If I’m looking to stretch my dollar I know what I’m looking to get.
The Ice Age “pain” lands are another option for those looking to pick up lands that produce both types of mana. Unlike the “buddy lands” or the “life gain” lands, “pain” lands come into play untapped and can be used for a colourless mana with no drawback. However, if the land is tapped for a coloured source it deals 1 damage to you. As your deck initially kicks off at the start of the game you may be willing to accept this drawback in favour of getting off to a quick start. The option to then use them as colourless mana is appealing to limit the damage you take, but still leaves you open to options. These Ice Age lands were initially in the Allied colours, but a similar set of Enemy dual lands was printed in Apocalypse, giving the “pain” lands a full complement of colour options. These lands usually run for about $1.99 a card, making them somewhat more expensive but not outside the realm of possibility.
There are other ways to go about fixing up your mana situation without needing dual lands or fetches. There is always the option of artifacts that allow you fetch your lands. The cheapest and easiest to put into practice is Traveler’s Amulet as it was printed in Innistrad block and again in Theros. Traveler’s Amulet allows you to fetch a basic land and put it into your hand and is very useful to get out of a jam. Along the same vein, Expedition Map grants you a similar ability. The activation cost to sacrifice it a tad more, but you can fetch ANY land including a non-basic. There are also countless spells and creatures that allow you to fetch lands of varying sorts and all of these are viable as well.
The problem with having these different mana fixing tools in your deck, whether you play at a kitchen table or commander, or some other variant, is that all these cards take spots in your deck. Some players may not mind running a 61 or 62 card deck, but every additional card limits the chance to draw what you really need. Conversly, if you stick to 60 cards you are sacrificing spots in your deck for creatures, removal, or other spells in favour of mana fixing. In Commander, with only 99 spots, you may find yourself unable to squeeze in the required mana fixing into your deck. As a result, these options are not optimal and having access to the correct mana is vastly preferred.
So, as you look to diversify the mana in your casual decks in time for your next kitchen table game, take a moment and consider if access to the correct lands is in your best interest. Instead of getting bogged down with the prohibitive cost of playing the newest and most expensive dual lands, explore some of the other options available to you to help keep you competitive without drying up your bank account. Remember, Casual Encounters are the perfect place to give these older, and often overlooked, cards a chance to shine once again, and great way to help keep your game of Magic fresh and interesting.
Until next time keep it fun, keep it safe…and keep it casual.
Bruce Gray @bgray8791
So, I got my first up close and personal look at full Theros Block Draft and I have to say I enjoyed the experience. The format has good flexibility and variance making for a wide variety of decks and lots of interesting choices. Today I’ll share some of my thoughts on the format and recap my draft…hopefully some of you don’t make the same mistakes that I made.
First off, I ended up playing Junk (G/W/B) which is pretty unusual for a draft deck. Most players would opt to play 2 colours and perhaps splash a third colour, but I ended up playing a full suite of all three colours. In the Journey into Nyx pack I was looking through and had a rare of Revel of the Fallen God…which is a funny card but it is ambitious to cast and tough to get in to because it is 2 colours to cast. However, in the same pack there was a Banishing Light. Banishing Light is premium removal in White in both Standard and Limited, so this was an easy pick and set me up to go into white.
My second pick had a variety of interesting cards but the Golden Hind looked like an easy second pick and had me going into White and Green. Normally this is a colour combination that I’m very comfortable with and really felt at ease with being set up in those 2 colours. With a pick 3 Ravenous Leucrocota I was well on my way to W/G beat down deck I would be expecting myself to play. However pick four is where things got off the rails.
Pick 4 had me looking at a pack that had no green cards of any sort and poor white cards, so it would appear as if I was being cut off from my colours (or is was a lousy pack) but I was looking at a Brain Maggot. Now, I thought to myself, Brain Maggot is a pretty solid card…and with both of my other colours seemingly closed off, Black might be an option. So, Brain Maggot was the pick, opening the door a crack to play Black.
Pick 5 was another Ravenous Leucrocota and I was back on W/G. However, again, pick 6 I was out of luck in either of my colours, but looking at a pack with a Spiteful Blow. Normally I don’t get excited for 6 mana removal spells, but in a draft where removal is a tad tough to come by, the fact that this destroys a creature AND a land made it easily the best pick…and at pick 6 was a pretty good sign Black was open. So, Spiteful Blow and my thought process was very seriously to play either W/B or G/B and abandon the W/G deck idea.
Well, Born of the Gods opened up and my first pack had Tromokratis which was far from ideal as I hadn’t picked a single Blue Card yet. However, Bile Blight was looking at me and I made sure to grab it. Passed my pack…and picked up the next one…which also had a Bile Blight! Ok, so now I was very seriously playing Black…I had perhaps two of the best removal spells back to back and to not play them would be foolhardy. With the next couple of picks I grabbed a couple of green creatures like Nyxborn Wolf, Phere-Band Tromper, and Swordwise Centaur and was really and truly looking to play G/B.
Well the plan totally changed again with Theros when I got passed a pack early in the round and was looking at Scholar of Athreos and a bunch of White, Blue, and Red cards…and nothing in my other two colours. I wondered if I was being cut off again because someone down the table had decided to jump colours too! I was unimpressed. Scholar is an awesome card in a B/W deck…but I committed to playing G/B…unless I was prepared to play all three colours or basically toss this pick. I grabbed the Scholar. I was rewarded with a second one in the next pack too. Oh boy. Now I was in a pickle. So, more or less I spent the rest of the Theros round grabbing utility creatures in White like Leonin Snarecaster, Hopeful Eidolon and an Ordeal of Heliod. I also lucked in to a Sip of Hemlock but most of the rest was just filler and not very good.
So, here’s my Draft deck
Junk (G/W/B)
Now, my first thoughts when I finished building this deck from my picks was ” wow…am I GREEDY! ” Almost every draft deck I have ever seen built, that is any good, is two colours and MAYBE splashes a third. I was full on running three colours…and had virtually no mana fixing. On top of that, I pushed the envelope and played 24 spells and 16 land instead of the more traditional 23 and 17. I was clearly pushing my luck. I kept telling myself I had plenty of removal…all I had to do was hold down the board long enough to get to 4 land (and have all three colours) and I was golden because my highest casting cost on a creature was 4.
Well, I went 2-1…which is normally a pretty decent record…but that one loss left me somewhat frustrated because I played my way to that loss more than I got beat by my opponent. We went the full three games and he won game 1, I won game 2, and then he took game 3…but it was the loss in game 1 that left me bummed. The exchange that left turned the game in his favour was one where I attacked with a Ravenous Leucrocota into his 2 creatures that combined had enough power to kill Ravenous Leucrocota. I didn’t expect him to team block, but he did. But all was not lost…I had Bile Blight in my hand and 2 open black mana. However, I got greedy…again. I opted not to pull the trigger on the Bile Blight on one of his creatures (voyaging Satyr I think) in favour of trying to get a better target with it later. So, my leucrocota died, so did his Satyr…and that left him with a creature and me with an open board. Next turn he Bestowed Nylea’s Emissary on his dude and the beat down was on. That HUGE misplay cost me the game and a chance to go 3-0. I’m not going to say I would have won for sure, but my odds would have been at least even if not better…but instead I had to swallow a loss due to some poor play. All in all, it was a pretty successful draft and had a blast and can hardly wait for my next one to try and rectify those playing mistakes.
Other Ramdom Thoughts:
Ravenous Leucrocota- In my review of Journey Into Nyx I reviewed Ravenous Leucrocota favourably and compared it to Nessian Asp, a bomb in triple Theros draft. Well, Ravenous Leucrocota might be better than the Asp. The difference is the Vigilance. Once this thing goes Monstrous and is 5/7 it is house! It can attack and defend, and if you can Bestow it with anything it is HUGE and really hard to manage.
Brain Maggot grossly over performed for me. The ability to strip your opponent of a key card early in the game is extremely valuable and if that allows you to get out in front and force them to expend resources on other things, well, you are in luck. I have to admit, I also under rated this card in my review.
Leonin Snarecaster and Deathbringer Lampads both played similar roles in the deck, namely provide a form of evasion for some of my bigger creatures to exploit. The snarecaster would tap down pesky blockers and the Lampads just let something sneak in for extra damage and allow me to get into the red zone. These were both surprisingly useful. Especially the Lampads. I was skeptical at first but I have changed my tune.
Consign to dust vs. Fade into Antiquity. I had the option of running either one of these and opted for the Consign to Dust. I liked the option of the Strive mechanic despite the fact that I feel that it, in most situations isn’t all that relevant. Fade can be excellent with the exile ability instead of Destroy, but unless you are facing down a god, the ability to hit multiple targets is key.
Normally I really like Blue, but I really got the sense from the packs going around the table that Blue is pretty weak in this format. Unless no one else is drafting Blue you are usually scrambling to find playable cards. Most of the players who were drafting Blue in my pod really struggled and couldn’t dig up enough answers to stay in the game for long. The one exception was the guy in G/U because he was able to back his blue up with the Green muscle he needed.
A good friend of mine in the military, Major Observation, told me that Bile Blight and Banishing Light are REALLY good removal…and of course he was right.
As much as I hate 6 mana removal, I had never been so happy to see that 6th land show up and then be able to cast Sip of Hemlock. That Hemlock never tasted so good and putting the final nail in the coffin of your opponent.
Fellhide Brawler largely stinks. He’s a bad Grizzly Bear. Mogis Marauder isn’t far behind.
White Cheddar popcorn is outstandingly tasty. Every time I have it I am surprised at how good it is. Why don’t I ever pick any of this stuff up on my own?
Well, that’s all I’ve got for today. If you have thoughts or experiences you want to share about your Drafting JBT, go ahead, let me know. I’d love to hear about them. Fire me a Tweet and tell me your tale or share your wisdom.
Thanks for reading and until next time Keep it fun, Keep it safe…Keep it casual.
Bruce Gray
