This is what I love about the game of poker: I can sit at a casino with Brian Davis, make negative EV plays for in and around twelve straight hours because I am the absolute worst at Limit Hold ‘Em, and still come out $200 ahead because of the luck factor. Someone make me a shirt that says, “I <3 Manascrew,” and I will wear it -especially if it looks like an Adrian Sullivan garment circa 1999 and I have to peel it off with a surgical instrument.
You’ll notice, you astute little readers you, that I said the word “Casino.” Yes, that’s right, little Chatter, of 2000 JSS Challenge boba-fett-shirt-wearing-fat-kid-in-coverage-photos fame, has finally grown up to be a big boy. Though I have been enjoying my God-given right to die for my country for the last three years, I can now finally chant the flavor text for the Ninth Edition Balduvian Barbarians at the ale house of my choice in peace*.
Speaking of Balduvian Barbarians, it’s really good that I don’t do crack, because from what I hear crack is much more addicting than Ninth Edition draft, and I’m already severely addicted to Ninth Edition draft.
I never thought that it was possible to “go infinite” in 4-3-2-2s. Ninth Edition proved me wrong. Yes, you do have to win the entire draft and open at least one rare to get your money’s worth, but because it’s so unreal easy to do that it’s definitely worth your time. I’ve played in at least twenty-five of these things and have won the draft at least twenty times. The players do not know what’s going on, and cards like Scaled Wurm (of all things) are gigantic bombs.
Of course, the fun part about it isn’t crushing face and taking candy from babies; that would be incredibly sad and sadistic. The fun comes from the memory of really – and I’m talking circa-1995 “really” – Old School Magic. Men crush into the red zone and battle one another. A lot of monsters die. The effects aren’t fancy, but all the roots of the game we love are there. Perhaps most importantly, though, for idiots like me who are the absolute worst at the combat phase, it’s great practice for playing a perfect game. Because the game is less “tricky,” and there are much fewer weird keyworded effects that can complicate a board situation, it’s very easy for two people to sit down at a computer and iron out what the technically perfect play is for every phase of every turn of every game. You can’t defend a second-best play by saying “I was trying to play around Leaden Fists” (or whatever); there is only one Giant Growth, it does what it does, and based on the way the draft went you know exactly how concerned you need to be about it.
I know this is a little counterintuitive because I’m saying “the board situation is easier to resolve; therefore, it’s making you better than it would otherwise.” That’s not quite right, though. What I’m saying is that given the thirty minutes you have to play, it’s much more realistic that you can consider the merits of each and every potential play in a Ninth Edition draft, and doing so is a fantastic learning exercise if you’re the type of person who goes on autopilot too much.
I am looking at you, Chase Childress**.
Anyway, if you want to win free product and score the phone numbers of women across the continent, follow these simple Ninth Edition draft guidelines.
1) Always play Blue cards in your deck.
One draft I first-picked a Wind Drake, received no other Blue cards except a 8th pick Mana Leak, and still forced it out of pack two and won with ease. It’s not just Sift; it’s the fact that the color contains very few bad commons. Horned Turtle, Aven Fisher, Wind Drake, Time Ebb, Remove Soul, Mana Leak, Aven Windreader, Boomerang, Sleight of Hand, Counsel of the Soratami, and Wanderguard Sentry are all perfectly fine cards. You don’t have many awful Grizzly Bear-type creatures that seem fine but don’t do anything, yet cards like Horned Turtle ensure that you don’t get randomed out by those very same 2/2 dorks.
Then you get to the uncommon slot, and if you thought King’s Hawaiian was unreal just wait until you resolve Thieving Magpie. Puppeteer and Confiscate generally tend to win games by themselves, and every once in awhile you’ll open a rare like Temporal Adept that will make you speak in tongues and tear up every phonebook in sight.
2) Three is the magic number.
Everybody knows the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost. Everybody also knows that unless a creature is capable of either trading with or surviving combat with a creature with three-power, it doesn’t belong in your deck***. Balduvian Barbarians, for example, is actually much better on defense against Green decks than he is when you turn him sideways, unless you’re in the U/R tempo archetype or have many a pinger in your forty cards.
I also, incidentally, hate all the random White utility creatures for two mana. The problem with them is not that they don’t impact the game; on the contrary, in a format without a milieu of Subterranean Shambler-esque cards to wipe all X/1s off the board, they’re usually guaranteed to stick around. The problem with them is that because they are some of White’s premier commons, you have to draft them ahead of other cards that, on average, will be better. This is why I’m almost never in White and Black; the common pool lacks a lot of depth, and it’s not like Time Spiral or Coldsnap where there are a ton of cards on the borderline. I’m almost always going to play a nineteenth land**** over a Goblin Chariot or something, just because there are so few situations where Chariot will do anything important.
3) Somewhere, Brian Weissman is smiling, because card advantage is everything.
I am glad that Griffin Poole***** doesn’t play this format, because there sure is nothing better than drawing a card off the top of your deck in a Ninth Edition draft. Counsel of the Soratami makes you move a little, and Sift is full-on flagpole. Kavu Climber reportedly racks up Lebron-level paychecks, but is currently embroiled in a nasty legal battle with the Hilton family over a certain unfortunate videotape. Meanwhile, our favorite fireslinging cow, the Anaba Shaman, may not “draw cards” in the strictest sense but he sure can send ‘em smokin’ to the graveyard faster than you can say “Patrick Chapin is winning Grand Prix: Columbus.”
The thing is, this format lacks the combat tricks, abundant removal, and cheap evasion to get around its numerous X/3 and X/4 blockers. So you can tap out on turn 4 for a Sift confident in the knowledge that you’ll probably be able to stabilize next turn.
Alright, with that in mind, let’s think through how to draft. I don’t have DraftCap software, so instead I’m going to give you a rough idea of how important certain elements are to a good Ninth Edition draft deck. We might as well start with the product, though, so we know what we’re working towards.
Here are three of my decks from the last three days. The U/R one is the stone nuts, but the two U/G decks are fairly typical of what you’ll be able to draft (the one with the Adept that looks nuts actually won fewer games than the nearly-all-commons list). We can then take a look at the common factors between the lists and see how to put the pieces together.
Deck #1
2 Kavu Climber
1 Craw Wurm
1 Scaled Wurm
1 Giant Spider
2 Rootwalla
1 Horned Turtle
1 Aven Fisher
1 Aven Windreader
1 Puppeteer
1 Thieving Magpie
1 Time Ebb
1 Phantom Warrior
2 Remove Soul
1 Mana Leak
1 Llanowar Elves
2 Counsel of the Soratami
1 Sift
1 Wanderguard Sentry
8 Forest
10 Island
Deck #2
1 Kavu Climber
2 Craw Wurm
1 Rootwalla
1 Llanowar Behemoth
2 Aven Fisher
2 Wind Drake
1 Temporal Adept
1 Confiscate
3 Time Ebb
3 Sift
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Rampant Growth
1 Horned Turtle
1 Mana Leak
1 Boomerang
1 Anaba Shaman
1 Mountain
10 Island
7 Forest
U/R
1 Orcish Artillery
3 Anaba Shaman
1 Rod of Ruin
1 Volcanic Hammer
2 Balduvian Barbarians
1 Flowstone Shambler
2 Horned Turtle
2 Remove Soul
1 Aven Fisher
1 Wind Drake
1 Ogre Taskmaster
1 Wanderguard Sentry
1 Sift
1 Tidings (nice card)
1 Aven Windreader
1 Sage Aven
1 Sea Monster
10 Mountain
8 Island
Okay, so what can you see about these lists besides the fact that they are all insane ridiculous retarded gas good?
It should be fairly obvious by now that every card falls into some archetypal category: card drawing, creature removal, and dumb animal. I count Mana Leak and Remove Soul as creature removal because they are better Cradle to the Graves, and are used on the very first target they can find. They also combo incredibly well with Time Ebb, which is also nice because I want to be playing every Time Ebb I can get my hands on. It’s probably not Blue’s “best common,” in that Aven Windreader is a gigantic flying creature with a relevant ability, and Sift lets you draw three cards while only discarding one of them (I couldn’t believe it either), but Time Ebb is sure insane literally every time I cast it.
Every deck needs its fair share of dumb animals, too. Sea Monster is one of the best of these (if you’re not Green) because all the good decks play Blue. Ergo, he’s a 6/6 with no drawbacks when you need him to be, and a Moat in most other circumstances. In Green, Creature-Wurms are another form of card advantage, because sooner or later they’re going to have to start chumping (or fall victim to a well-timed Ebb). In red, two Pingers just gets there against every deck in the format – and don’t get started on Orcish Artillery. It’s hard to make the U/R deck work, but when it does it’s certainly almost unstoppable.
Basically, every card in each of these decks ensures that your opponent will run out of gas while you continue to play threats. That’s honestly your one and only objective. Stick to that plan, and it’s really hard to lose games.
In other words, go forth and enjoy your newfound booster packs!
Zac
* Said flavor text has recently eclipsed The Tossers’ “No Loot, No Booze, No Fun” as my favorite drinking song.
** Chase just wanted me to namedrop him, but I couldn’t think of clever things to say because he sleeps until 7pm and has friends that urinate on expensive furniture.
*** Unless it has wings and makes various noises like “Caw!” and “Squawk!”
**** In U/x you have so many Counsels and Sifts and Tidings and etc. that you can get away with 18 lands no problem. Also, there are so many weak players in 999 that you can often overcome manaflood, but not the Screw.
***** Griffin “I played the card Momir Vig, Simic Visionary at a Pro Tour because it lets you chain Coiling Oracles” Poole likes to draw cards for fun. Seriously. Independent of Magical contexts he can be found flicking pennies off Ancestral Visions every few seconds just for the sheer rush of it all.