Ask Ken, 8/26/04
Hey everybody! Ken was supposed to get someone really cool to fill in for Ask Ken today. Unfortunately, that person backed out and you’re stuck with the Bleiweiss. Never fear! I’m shorter, hairier, and older than Ken, and as you already know, everything between Ken and I is a do-or-die competition. Speaking of do-or-die competition, today’s question comes from Samantha. Samantha asks:
Greetings Ken,
At the local store where I draft, we draft a format known as chaos draft where people are allowed to draft any sets they choose. Most choose to draft sets from Mirrodin block, but often opt to draft 555 or DDD rather than MD5. My question is given such an environment, what combination of packs would you choose to draft?
-Samantha
You pose an interesting question, Samantha! There are two factors which should decide which packs you use – which packs will have the highest yield of bombs you can open, and which packs will draft well with the packs that your opponents will be likely to draft? Unfortunately I don’t know the metagame at your store to determine the second (and often the synergy of packs will come down to luck, as you can’t control your seat), so I can’t help with the latter. I can help with the former.
From your e-mail, I wasn’t quite clear if this”chaos” format can only draw packs from the current block. If you can only use Mirrodin, Darksteel, or Fifth Dawn packs, I readily suggest getting three packs of Darksteel. Darksteel has a very high concentration of cards that you will open as a”first pick” that you will be happy with – more so than Mirrodin or Fifth Dawn. Since you’re only likely to see a good card out of your pack on the first go around, you want the”first pick pack” to be your strategy, since you want whatever you open to be the best card possible for your deck. In an MD5 format, opening a splashable first pick (such as Leonin Bola, Fireball, Barbed Lightning, or a good rare) will allow you to more easily work with your opponent’s packs.
On the other hand, chaos draft might allow you to pick packs from any packs in Magic. If this is the case, I highly recommend going with the Black/Blue/Red strategy – these three colors often have the highest concentration of absolute high-pick cards, and multiple sets yield multiple bombs in these colors. Tempest is especially strong, with the possibility of Rolling Thunder, multiple amazing buyback spells, and virtually unblockable shadow creatures. Invasion works well if a lot of people pick Fifth Dawn as their packs, since you can capitalize on the mixing of sunburst and domain. My best recommendation, in the end, is to go for Ice Age. The packs run really dry after just a couple of picks in Ice Age, but some of the common first picks (Lava Burst, Ray of Command) are absolutely top notch.
That’s all I’ve got for today! Be sure to check out Blog Fanatic – it’s a shameless plug, but not as shameless as me.