“Dude, apparently nobody in this pod thinks that card is any good,” commented Alex, pointing to the Nyquil currently residing in my grip of cards to choose from. Having shown up too late to get in on the festivities, he was relegated to watching over my shoulder as I looked at my options for a fifth pick.
“Yeah, well, I ain’t complaining. I got no problem with them feeding me good cards,” I responded back. This was the third Nyquil I’d seen already, having taken the first two, naturally. And we were only 5 picks into the first frickin’ pack! I had already taken one second pick, and another one third pick. Should I really take third one as my fifth pick?
This past weekend was the Release Event Launch Party for Magic 2010, and I managed to have a pretty good weekend. On Friday night, I ran my quarterly Launch Party, so that the store owner would have a chance to do a little playing of his own. We had a fairly decent turnout, considering the draft was only $10 to play in, and we were giving away various foil promos like we were Mother Freakin’ Teresa. Brandon, a.k.a. “Mas” ended up taking the whole thing down, managing to go undefeated despite his modest level of inebriation. Apparently, some people play better when they Drunk Draft. Considering he went .500 the next night sober, maybe he should play tipsy a little more often.
The following night, I got to do a little drafting of my own, as the Store owner ran his Launch Party. I took the opportunity to snap a few pictures to record my draft for later perusal. After three packs, I laid my cards out and photographed them, so I would know each pack’s pick orders. All just for you, true believers.
The pack I cracked didn’t have a whole lot going on, so I took Acidic Slime, figuring the utility of it would help against random good artifacts and enchantments. Most of the non-Black removal in the set is enchantments (Pacifism, Siberia, and Entangling Vines) so it could come in handy. Besides, Green has the best mana-fixing. And by best, I mean only, outside of Terramorphic Expanse. Second pick was a super hot Foil Nyquil, so that was a pretty easy pick, followed by a third pick Nyquil as well. Must be nice? Yes, it is.
Looking like Blue should be pretty freakin’ wide open from here on out. Fourth pick didn’t have too many good options. I took a Rhox Pikemaster, figuring if Soldiers were going to be open, he was a good gamble to take. However, the fifth pick came around, and another Nyquil was looking me in the face next to a Walker, Texas Ranger. I ended up taking the Ranger, feeling that I needed some good mana-fixing, and critters too. In hindsight, this was wrong, as a third Nyquil would have been amazing, and I had two and a half more packs to grab creatures to swing with. The rest of the pack gave me two Wind Drakes, Centaur Courser, two Siberias and a Snapping Drake. Potentially 10 playables, not too shabby for a first pack.
Second pack, I grabbed RAWR! first pick. Combined with Nyquil, it’s an absolute blowout. Entangling Vines was second pick, barely edging out Merfolk Looter. Urza smiled on me, though, as I had another Looter in an otherwise weak third pick, which I snapped up. Next up was another Walker, Texas Ranger, followed by Elvish Visionary. I was pretty squarely in Blue Green by this point, and it seemed like the pieces were falling together rather nicely. The rest of the pack gave me Stampeding Rhino, two Divinations, Emerald Oryx, and a Naturalize for the sideboard. I just needed a decent third pack to give me enough playables to finish strong.
Third pack, I opened an OMG Goblins, which quickly made its way to the pile. There was a Walker, Texas Ranger in there as well, but I felt I could splash OMG Goblins pretty well, and in combination with Nyquil or RAWR!, it was obviously amazing. I already had two Rangers, and I felt I could get a third to make the splash more comfortable. Second pick brought Snapping Drake in a pack with good Black and White cards in the pack. (Pacifism and Doom Blade both) Things picked up as third pick brought Nature’s Spiral, followed by Walker, Texas Ranger, Entangling Vines, and another Walker, Texas Ranger at sixth pick. That’ll do, pig, that’ll do. The remainder of the pack brought Telepathy (which was better than I thought) Emerald Oryx, Illusionary Servant, an 11th pick Siberia (ridiculous) and Cancel. This is what I ended up playing:
Ready for Launch
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Acidic Slime
1 Centaur Courser
1 Illusionary Servant
1 Merfolk Looter
4 Borderland Ranger
1 Runeclaw Bear
1 Stampeding Rhino
1 Overrun
1 Nature’s Spiral
1 Entangling Vines
2 Divination
1 Telepathy
3 Ice Cage
2 Sleep
2 Mountain
8 Forest
7 Island
I ended up focusing a little more heavily in Green, as that was where my mana-fixing was, as opposed to Blue, where my evasion was. I would have to rely on various tricks to get me through. I ended up 4-1, winning a few games on the back of Telepathy, of all things. By running it out before my bombs, I could see what tricks they were holding. One player had two Fogs and a Safe Passage in hand, and I was able to draw each of them out before using RAWR! or Nyquil to end the game.
The match I lost can be summed up as follows: he drew OMG Wolves in three games, and I drew OMG Goblins in only one game. I had no removal for OMG Wolves other than a double Goblin fling, and those wolf tokens get out of control pretty dang quickly. Had I drawn OMG Goblins in either of the losses, we both agree I probably would have won the match. I was upset, because he was the guy to directly my right, and we both knew he drafted poorly, as all three Nyquils and three of the four Walker, Texas Rangers went through him to get to me. Sometimes that’s how it goes, though. I still ended up in second, and my redrafted rares ended up being Pithing Needle, Baneslayer Angel, and [insert third card here], so overall, good draft. On top of that, one of my prize packs had Birds of Paradise, so I definitely got good value out of my $10.
I had a few players ask why we redraft rares at the end of the tournament, instead of just keeping what we draft. I used to be against redrafting rares too, as that’s not how I’d learned to draft at side events. But after some thought and reflection on it, I ended up solidly in favor of it, and I’ll tell you why.
At a local level like this, the point of drafting is practice. You’re drafting to get better at drafting. When you keep what you draft, you have to make a decision between drafting the rare worth some dollars or drafting the card that’s good for your deck. These are frequently not the same card. What this means is that some players will draft weaker decks in order to get rares they want, while others will draft stronger decks in hopes of winning the whole thing. If you redraft afterwards, everyone drafts the best deck they can, because that is the best way to ensure you can get the rare that you want. This makes for the best possible competition for the players, and the best skill level increases, as you are able to objectively draft cards regardless of the color of the set symbol, be it black, silver, or gold. Furthermore, everyone walks away with three rares, with the winner, and sometimes runner-up too, getting four rares if there was a foil rare in one or more of the packs.
Moving on, my recommendation is to draft M10 as much as humanly possible. As Mr. Ben Bleiweiss has written, the EV (Expected value) on M10 is ridiculous. There are so many cards that are beyond the price of a pack that you are almost guaranteed to get your money’s worth by a very, very comfortable margin. Even just cracking packs (Sacrilege! Blasphemy!!) is a pretty good return, although why you wouldn’t just draft them is beyond me. I’m going to try to get in a pickup draft or two each week, even if it’s just an 8-man or a 3v3 teams draft. The set is that freakin’ amazing.
In other news, some of you may have heard that I’m actually buying into my local game store as a partner. I’m excited to start creating a store where players are going to feel welcome and invited. Locally, we’ve had a problem in either being second-hand customers, or just plain incompetent ownership. Some of you may have heard of the messed up FNM stories. One store is basically refusing to sell packs, only selling by the box. Awkward. They also seem to hate the DCI, as they keep sanctioning Standard FNM, but running goofy crap like Emperor Peasant Vintage. Yes, you read that right. That was their FNM one week, I kid you not. Needless to say, some people actually want to play Standard once in a while.
What does this have to do with you? Well, let me know in the forums what kinds of things your local store does that you like. More importantly, what kinds of things do they do that you don’t like? What do you wish they did that they don’t? Let me know in the forums, because if you like or dislike it, odds are a lot of people feel the same way that you do. I’m looking forward to your forums posts.
We’ll see you next week, until then, this is Jeff Phillips, reminding you: Don’t make the Loser Choice.