Two weeks back, I told you about how we set up the Commander 2016 Rotisserie Draft and introduced you to the participants. This week, we’ll get right to the draft itself.
Having two new folks changed the draft dynamic. I had some suspicions of which way Tom was going to go. Anthony was a complete mystery to me. It turns out that Shea tried something entirely new for him (contrary to my prediction) and Keith laid his intentions on the table right away. Because we had two new players, we also chose seats for the draft at random. Had all five us returned, the order would have been inverse to the previous League’s standings, with the player who finished in last choosing who sat in Seat 1. As it was, this was the order:
Seat 1: Me (Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder)
Seat 2: Tom (Saskia the Unyielding)
Seat 3: Anthony (Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis)
Seat 4: Shea (Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice)
Seat 5: Keith (Breya, Etherium Shaper)
Unlike the previous draft, in which I had sketched out most of the deck I wanted to draft in advance, this time I had more general ideas and goals. I had three over-arching points:
- Be the beatdown
- Don’t get caught in the ramp battle
- Use my commander’s ability
Being the beatdown meant that I knew I wanted to be aggressive and draft creatures with high power-to-cost ratios. Not getting caught in the ramp battle was my realization that there’s the best ramp, like Kodama’s Reach and Cultivate, but the second best isn’t all that far behind it. Being a four-color draft, I suspected (somewhat correctly) that everyone else would spend a good deal of the early draft with ramp and mana fixing, giving me the opportunity to get the cards I wanted. Using my commander’s ability meant having some expensive spells so I could get good cascades. It also meant drafting other cards that also give cascades (in the broadest sense). I’ll let you judge how successful I was. Let’s get right into the draft, because there are lots of cards.
Round 1
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Player |
Pick |
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Sheldon |
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Tom |
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Anthony |
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Shea |
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Keith |
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Keith |
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Shea |
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Anthony |
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Tom |
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Sheldon |
My first pick is what I expect should be the first pick in most Rotisserie drafts, even more so in a four-color one. I highly valued Oracle of Mul Daya, since it’s land ramp plus (effective) card draw, so I while I certainly expected it to still be there as the last pick of the round, I was nonetheless still happy that it was. Tom’s first-pick Sol Ring surprised all of us, since we figured that the four-color nature of the commanders would demand mana fixing to go with the ramp.
I had Sol Ring on my list to pick if it were still available a few rounds later (it famously went as the 100th card chosen in the previous Rotisserie draft), but it wasn’t all that much on my radar. I had expected that Keith would get it, being the only non-green player, but Tom upset that from the get-go. As you’ll see with Shea’s first pick of Command Tower and his early rounds, his whole approach in the draft was to not get as routinely mana screwed as he had last time (but to be fair, he was playing Mardu). Both of Anthony’s first picks signaled his direct leap toward some kind of landfall deck. I get Karametra as just a strong early pick; Titania seems like it would have been available to him much later.
Round 2
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Player |
Pick |
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Tom |
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Anthony |
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Shea |
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Keith |
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Sheldon |
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Sheldon |
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Keith |
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Shea |
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Anthony |
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Tom |
Going in, I knew exactly what I wanted my Round 2 wheel to be, and I got it. Keith picking Panharmonicon makes sense in his deck, blinking Breya to keep getting Thopters, but I had hoped that it would be around a few rounds later. Anthony’s early pick of Avenger of Zendikar certainly cut it from the three other green lists, although none of us had thought to pick it up so early. Him picking it when it did also made me consider dropping one of the strategies I had considered, a token swarm deck, since Avenger is certainly the centerpiece.
Round 3
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Player |
Pick |
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Anthony |
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Shea |
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Keith |
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Sheldon |
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Tom |
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Tom |
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Sheldon |
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Keith |
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Shea |
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Anthony |
Burnished Hart being still available to me here was a surprise. I had stated t right before the draft hat I didn’t think it would be available to me and it wasn’t quite aggressive enough for what I wanted to do, but I really couldn’t pass it up here.
The first real dagger/uproar of the draft was Tom picking Sword of the Animist, and of course it’s a great wheel with Stoneforge Mystic. The rest of us had valued it highly and thought that no one else would think of it. I had it on my list for Round 5. From there, I stuck to plan.
Round 4
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Player |
Pick |
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Shea |
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Keith |
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Sheldon |
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Tom |
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Anthony |
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Anthony |
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Tom |
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Sheldon |
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Keith |
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Shea |
I’m just staying on plan here. Xenagos just makes Yidris better and easier to get in damage with. It can also make larger creatures lethal. The number of nonbasic lands that went this early shows how important everyone considered mana fixing. I continued to engage in contrarian investing here, thinking that my existing and planned ramp picks would be sufficient.
Round 5
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Player |
Pick |
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Keith |
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Sheldon |
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Tom |
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Anthony |
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Shea |
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Shea |
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Anthony |
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Tom |
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Sheldon |
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Keith |
Aura Thief was an MVP for me in the last draft, and although I wouldn’t draft it highly (it went in Round 29 last time), I can understand why Keith did. You can see Anthony just settling in on his landfall plan, not really caring about the rest of us, since it was going to be unlikely that anyone else would want too many of his cards.
As we were reviewing our cards before Round 6 started, someone else mentioned that Sensei’s Divining Top was still available, so I was pleasantly surprised when Keith didn’t cut it out from under me.
Round 6
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Player |
Pick |
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Sheldon |
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Tom |
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Anthony |
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Shea |
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Keith |
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Keith |
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Shea |
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Anthony |
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Tom |
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Sheldon |
There are cards in Magic which I really like. Greater Good is one of them. Once again, this round looked mostly like folks sculpting their land bases, although I was a little sad that Keith nicked Thassa, God of the Sea, since I had hoped to grab that as part of my “make Yidris unblockable” suite.
Round 7
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Player |
Pick |
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Tom |
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Anthony |
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Shea |
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Keith |
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Sheldon |
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Sheldon |
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Keith |
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Shea |
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Anthony |
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Tom |
Contrary to the previous draft, in which I valued the working pieces of a blink/Clone deck more highly than the creatures, this time the specific creatures were important to me. Knowing that Shea loves graveyards nearly as much as I do, I thought it was time to pick the first two of my graveyard kings. Anthony really upsets all that with his very strong pick of Containment Priest. When Shea drafted Helix Pinnacle, which is kind of cool in a proliferate deck, we knew that he was going to be the control player.
Round 8
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Player |
Pick |
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Anthony |
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Shea |
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Keith |
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Sheldon |
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Tom |
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Tom |
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Sheldon |
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Keith |
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Shea |
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Anthony |
Shea’s picks of counterspells—the extremely strong Mystic Confluence and Mystic Snake—confirmed that he’s the control player. I picked up the third of my graveyard superstars lest someone else snatch it after seeing what I had done the previous round.
Round 9
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Player |
Pick |
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Shea |
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Keith |
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Sheldon |
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Tom |
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Anthony |
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Anthony |
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Tom |
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Sheldon |
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Keith |
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Shea |
Anthony clearly gets best wheel so far with The Great Aurora and Warp World.
Urabrask is obviously part of my Living Death plan, and although I haven’t yet put Purphoros into the deck in the games we’ve played so far, I picked it in case I still wanted to go for the swarm plan.
Round 10
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Player |
Pick |
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Keith |
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Sheldon |
Leovold, Emissary of Trest (became Protean Hulk) |
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Tom |
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Anthony |
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Shea |
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Shea |
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Anthony |
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Tom |
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Sheldon |
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Keith |
You’re obviously looking at my pick here. The draft was right before the meeting at which we banned Leovold, Emissary of Trest. I had suspected that we were going to, but wasn’t 100% sure. I didn’t want to give away anything to anyone who might be following along (both Tom and I were live tweeting), nor for the write-up of this draft, in case we posted it before the banning came out. After the banning came out, the other four folks told me to just replace it with whatever, and it only seemed reasonable to make it Protean Hulk. I don’t really have any way to abuse it too badly (mostly since I’m not in white), so it will likely be nothing more than a strong value play for me.
Round 11
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Player |
Pick |
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Sheldon |
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Tom |
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Anthony |
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Shea |
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Keith |
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Keith |
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Shea |
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Anthony |
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Tom |
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Sheldon |
I loved Keith’s sweet wheel of Perish and Nature’s Ruin. Knowing that he’s the only nongreen player and that he’s likely going to be frequently behind on creatures before he gets his engines going, they’re cool picks.
I think he could have waited until much later in the draft to grab them. Anthony’s choice of Storm Cauldron may define how League games end up and paint a definite target on him as the combo player.
Round 12
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Player |
Pick |
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Tom |
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Anthony |
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Shea |
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Keith |
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Sheldon |
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Sheldon |
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Keith |
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Shea |
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Anthony |
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Tom |
Another dagger when Shea nicked Villainous Wealth from what was going to be my wheel of it and Genesis Wave. I got the latter and then bumped Dualcaster Mage up my list some.
Round 13
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Player |
Pick |
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Anthony |
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Shea |
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Keith |
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Sheldon |
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Tom |
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Tom |
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Sheldon |
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Keith |
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Shea |
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Anthony |
Shea gave us two picks that everyone else had to look up (which is normally Keith’s job). Keith doubled up on the Grave Pact effects and then picked Falkenrath Noble in response to me grabbing Blood Artist; I think he had hoped to get both.
Round 14
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Player |
Pick |
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Shea |
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Keith |
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Sheldon |
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Tom |
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Anthony |
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Anthony |
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Tom |
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Sheldon |
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Keith |
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Shea |
In Round 14’s blowout, Keith took Massacre Wurm right out from under me.
I simply slid everything up one on my list until, during Anthony’s wheel, I realized that no one had yet picked Crypt Ghast, which I had suspected would be gone so early that I didn’t even have it on mine. Keith’s Round 9 pick of Cabal Coffers meant that Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth wouldn’t be far behind, so Crypt Ghast made even more sense.
Round 15
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Player |
Pick |
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Keith |
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Sheldon |
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Tom |
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Anthony |
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Shea |
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Shea |
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Anthony |
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Tom |
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Sheldon |
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Keith |
Anthony shows off his intentions of some kind of combo deck with Swans of Bryn Argoll after the Seismic Assault. Sword of Light and Shadow and next round’s Sword of Feast and Famine were two or three rounds lower on my list, but Tom taking Sword of Fire and Ice motivated me to bump them up.
Round 16
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Player |
Pick |
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Sheldon |
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Tom |
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Anthony |
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Shea |
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Keith |
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Keith |
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Shea |
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Anthony |
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Tom |
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Sheldon |
Style points to Keith for the Yahenni wheel. At this juncture, we’re all kind of setting into our strategies. These middle rounds went relatively quickly.
Round 17
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Player |
Pick |
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Tom |
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Anthony |
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Shea |
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Keith |
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Sheldon |
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Sheldon |
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Keith |
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Shea |
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Anthony |
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Tom |
Lord of Extinction and Consuming Aberration are part of the high power-to-cost-ratio plan. The latter makes life a bit weirder. It’s great for when I want to cast Rise of the Dark Realms (which I later drafted), Sepulchral Primordial, and Puppeteer Clique, but a little more awkward for Living Death.
Most of my Living Death plan revolves around Urabrask the Hidden anyway, but as you’ll see, some later picks in this draft change the math on that a bit.
Round 18
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Player |
Pick |
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Anthony |
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Shea |
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Keith |
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Sheldon |
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Tom |
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Tom |
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Sheldon |
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Keith |
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Shea |
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Anthony |
I’m not sure where Keith had Gisela, Blade of Goldnight in his list, but Tom’s pick of Aurelia made the choice for him to take it right away.
Round 19
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Player |
Pick |
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Shea |
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Keith |
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Sheldon |
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Tom |
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Anthony |
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Anthony |
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Tom |
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Sheldon |
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Keith |
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Shea |
Really like Keith’s pick of Vela the Night-Clad and wish I had thought of it. Also jealous of Shea’s Vulturous Zombie.
Round 20
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Player |
Pick |
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Keith |
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Sheldon |
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Tom |
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Anthony |
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Shea |
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Shea |
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Anthony |
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Tom |
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Sheldon |
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Keith |
I have the feeling that Anthony’s Arcbond is going to provide some of the biggest blowouts, like when I’m battling with Lord of Extinction and someone chump blocks. Blocking with Acidic Slime (or anything with deathtouch) becomes a battlefield wipe. Stuff will happen.
***
I’ll wrap up Part 1 there. Part 2 will feature the last 30 rounds of picks and my thoughts on how it all went down.
Our normal Deck Without Comment and Idiotic Combo features will return next week.
Check out our comprehensive Deck List Database for lists of all my decks:
SIGNATURE DECKS
Purple Hippos and Maro Sorcerers; Kresh Into the Red Zone; Halloween with Karador; Dreaming of Intet; You Did This to Yourself;
THE CHROMATIC PROJECT
Mono-Color
Heliod, God of Enchantments; Thassa, God of Merfolk; Erebos and the Halls Of The Dead; Forge of Purphoros; Nylea of the Woodland Realm; Karn Evil No. 9
Guilds
Lavinia Blinks; Obzedat, Ghost Killer; Aurelia Goes to War; Trostani and Her Angels; Lazav, Shapeshifting Mastermind; Zegana and a Dice Bag; Rakdos Reimagined; Glissa, Glissa; Ruric Thar and His Beastly Fight Club; Gisa and Geralf Together Forever;
Shards and Wedges
Adun’s Toolbox; Animar’s Swarm; Karrthus, Who Rains Fire From The Sky; Demons of Kaalia; Merieke’s Esper Dragons; Nath of the Value Leaf; Rith’s Tokens; The Mill-Meoplasm; The Altar of Thraximundar; The Threat of Yasova; You Take the Crown, I’ll Take Leovold; Zombies of Tresserhorn
Four Color
Yidris: Money for Nothing, Cards for Free; Saskia Unyielding; Breya Reshaped.
Five-Color
Partners
THE DO-OVER PROJECT
Animar Do-Over; Glissa Do-Over; Karador Do-Over; Karador Version 3; Karrthus Do-Over; Steam-Powered Merieke Do-Over; Mimeoplasm Do-Over; Phelddagrif Do-Over; Rith Do-Over; Ruhan Do-Over
If you’d like to follow the adventures of my Monday Night RPG group (in a campaign that’s been alive since 1987) which is just beginning the saga The Lost Cities of Nevinor, ask for an invitation to the Facebook group “Sheldon Menery’s Monday Night Gamers.”