Intro
I’ve had a distinct lack of inspiration lately, and I put that down to a distinct lack of restrictions. I could write about anything! I went to GenCon UK both as a player and as a judge, and having recently started playing Magic Online, I’ve been drafting pretty much every day.
Okay, every day.
I felt the need to find out more about the draft format before I could make even vaguely qualified remarks on it. Then Nick Eisel goes ahead and tells us all everything we could possibly ever want to know about… Okay, obviously like everybody on the face of the planet I don’t entirely agree with Nick, but more on that later. After all, this article is the sprawling, unfocused type that is about everything and anything. It really couldn’t be focused with so few restrictions around for creativity to breed. Need structure. Must eat brains!!!
Ahem.
GenCon And Extended
This sort of event always makes me feel like I live in a world full of mad freaks. I know, most people would consider themselves to be the freaks, and I feel that way sometimes, but this is different. Why would people want to sleep when they could be gaming twenty-four hours a day?
I’m not suggesting people should do this all the time, but once a year you really should try. The organizers have realized now that people don’t understand GenCon, and hence have done things like not make it a twenty-four hour convention and hold it at a holiday resort, so that those who don’t want to get a hotel room need to pay extra entry fee.
Seriously, why would anybody pay the amount of money they charge when they don’t get eighty hours of uninterrupted gaming-cum-endurance test? Why why why?
I don’t have an arm or a leg to spare, and certainly not both, so the only way I could afford to go to GenCon was by spending half my time there judging. I was judging on the day shift, so I couldn’t play in the PTQs there no matter how much I wanted to. Okay, so I didn’t have an Extended deck (I still don’t), and had no real desire to play in the PTQs… But I still felt left out. They should’ve had a PTQ starting at midnight.
Of course, that brings up another problem: It was a big convention with lots of events, and there were no less than four PTQs on one weekend in one place. Now that sounds like a wasted opportunity to me. Why do all the PTQs need to be held in season? They ran Grand Prix: Nottingham recently, well before they’ve even decided where the Pro Tour it feeds is being held, so why can’t they have one of the four PTQs at GenCon feed that Pro Tour instead of Honolulu? It would be so much better if they offered both Limited and Constructed PTQs so I could have been genuinely pissed off that I couldn’t play in them.
It would make so much more sense.
Now I’ll impart a few words of wisdom I’ve gleaned from judging at Extended events.
- Goblins is complete rubbish.
- All successful rogue decks are mono-black, or nearly so.
- Psychatog and Heartbeat of Spring/Mind’s Desire/Early Harvest/storm combo are both strong, but boring as hell to watch and may pick up unintentional draws.
- Boros Deck Wins is top-notch, and the card that allows that is Suppression Field out of the sideboard. That card makes certain other cards look fair, like this one:
Suppressed Psychatog
1UB
Creature — Atog
2, Discard a card: Suppressed Psychatog gets +1/+1 until end of turn
2, Remove two cards in your graveyard from the game: Suppressed Psychatog gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
1/2
Or this one:
Umezawa’s Suppressed Jitte
2
Legendary Artifact — Equipment
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage, put two charge counters on Umezawa’s Suppressed Jitte.
2, Remove a charge counter from Umezawa’s Suppressed Jitte: Choose one — Equipped creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn; or target creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn; or you gain 2 life.
Equip 4
I have hated Psychatog from the moment I first laid eyes upon that toothy grin, and any card that turns it into a clumsy weenie has my full support. It adds insult to injury. Go ahead, play your ‘Tog; if you spend all your mana on it, you can even make it a 4/5. Humiliation! Die, Tog, die! Kill kill kill!
Sorry, I erupted into some sort of blood frenzy there. Bloody U/B again! It’s probably just that I always wanted to know what a Psychatog’s brains taste like…
So here’s what you should play at Extended PTQs: If you’re a nice guy and want to win, play BDW. If you’re a sadist, play Tog or Heartbeat. If you’re just playing for fun, play a fun deck and concede immediately if your opponent is playing Tog or Heartbeat. Believe me, it’ll be much more fun that way. It’s no fun for judges, either, if people play decks that can’t finish three games in fifty minutes for love or money.
Magic Online
As I’ve mentioned before I’ve recently started playing online, and it is definitely a very different experience from real-life Magic – or indeed, real-life anything.
The first major difference is the individual clock, which in many ways is an awesome innovation… But on the other hand, it puts additional pressure on people to figure out the best way to speed through a turn. This, in turn, reduces the number of stops you set, which makes being flexible awkward at times – or even impossible.
Here’s an example I had the other day: I was playing in a Sealed league and was controlling his draws with a Lurking Informant. These efforts were being somewhat stymied by his Crown of Convergence. During his upkeep, he used the Crown to get rid of the swamp on top of his library, revealing Brainspoil. As I had no stops set during his upkeep, he then proceeded to draw that Brainspoil and there was nothing I could do about it. This wouldn’t happen in real life, and leaving that possibility doesn’t slow things down at all.
Then again, in real life people can get draws by letting the clock run down…
I also find that the clock makes it harder to use MODO as a way to replicate a sociable draft environment. Y’know, I would chat with my opponent and that would be fun, but then I’d lose half my matches by running out of time. I’m not an atomic-powered typing machine. The great thing about real-life Magic is that even in a serious game you can be happy, have fun, and chat until the game gets really intense. Then you can focus on business and switch back into fun mode when the hard decisions are done.
So to sum up, the problem with playing online is that it is hard to switch. If chat is possible you can do it, no worries, if the upkeep suddenly matters you can start worrying about it when that upkeep comes.
Never mind the technicalities of online play; it really isn’t quite the same as going down the pub-like venue on Tuesday nights for a draft and a few pints. It’s less fun when you and all your opponents are completely sober, and it’s almost impossible to have good discussions about the format and the draft you just did online. Everyone disappears immediately and most don’t talk much; maybe I should just use pm more. Of course, there are an abundance of talented people who play online, but I haven’t got a clue how to tap into that pool of talent. Much better just to draft on Tuesday nights with the guys, who do include some talent, like Richard Collins, who used to be the number-one rated Limited player in England.
On the other hand, it’s not like every Tuesday is the Keith Loveys. I’ll write more about the annual Keith Loveys Memorial Booster Draft after this year’s has happened, but I would like to mention that it is awesome. If you’re in London in December, you may want to investigate whether you can attend. Trust me, it’s worth it.
Ravnica, Eisel etc.: We Hates the Mill
Okay, enough dallying around; time for something vaguely strategic.
Nick Eisel wrote that Ravnica Draft is very simple, with U/B Milling being the best deck by far. I have heard many people echo that sentiment, stating that they have won countless drafts in a row drafting the archetype. While I find it hard to dispute that it is the best deck in the format, it isn’t as crushingly dominant as many people imply.
The reason Nick and others keep winning with it is that the necessary process of adaptation hasn’t properly gone through the drafting community. Milling is a rather novel way of winning that was only occasionally possible in the past. The Dimir mill deck is far more robust and far harder to stop than last year’s flash-in-the-pan Dampen Thought. Simply hate-drafting a few cards in mid-to-late picks isn’t enough anymore. These days, it is imperative to have a deck that can in some ways stop the attack on our thoughts, minds and knowledge that the guild that does not exist unleashes upon us. Here are a few strategies to keep the millers in check:
Boros:
This deck needs to be very fast. It also needs ways to remove annoying blockers, since even with a fast start the legion can be easily frustrated by defensive creatures such as Vedalken Entrancer, Belltower Sphinx, and especially Drift of Phantasms. Three key cards in this match-up are Thundersong Trumpeter, Fiery Conclusion, and Instill Furor. Rally the Righteous can also help, but blowing that fine finisher on killing a simple wall is usually an unfortunate event. If they can protect their defenders and you can’t kill them in time you will lose, simple as that — but if you hit them hard and fast, there’s usually little they can do about it.
Selesnya:
The key here is that you have tons of creatures, whereas they have very few. Here as well you need to play beatdown from the start, and you need ways to remove their fat-bottomed blockers. The G/W way to do this is with combat tricks, especially Seeds of Strength and Gaze of the Gorgon. U/B has very few ways of dealing with a whole army, so if you can keep them under pressure so they can’t counter your key spells, then you should be in good shape.
Golgari:
This is the guild that has the least speed in order to fight the mental attack, but there are many tools available to the Golgari to keep control of those shifty types. Creature removal can take care of Entrancers and other on-board threats. B/G creatures also tend to be big enough that those pesky Drifts aren’t really a problem.
But the most important aspect of the B/G game plan against milling is the attack on your own turf, so to speak. Discard spells are vital in this matchup. Strands of Undeath is not taken nearly high enough, in part because people don’t see it enough as a sideboard card for this matchup. Dimir Guildmage makes an awesome traitor, even if you have zero blue mana sources in your deck.
The card you really want here, however, is Nightmare Void. It stops their scheming and interfering and comes back for more even if it’s countered.
Another card that is highly underestimated that can shine here is Rolling Spoil. While it usually doesn’t kill many of their men, as it does in the Selesnya match-up, it can disrupt them long enough for you to get the big boys out. It’s so good if they have an Aqueduct or other double land!
(I refuse to call them bounce lands, by the way, since that could fit way too many lands printed in the history of Magic, from the Planeshift dragon lairs to Oboro, Palace in the Clouds to Karakas. “Double lands” is far less ambiguous a name.)
General Advice:
I find it hard to figure out how to play against U/B, because each build can be so different depending on what they actually have in their deck. Sometimes they sit there and do nothing and that usually happens because they are holding a counterspell, most likely the devastating Induce Paranoia. So do you hold back your best spells and bait the counter with something less crucial? Or do you play your best spells in the hope they’re bluffing? This can be very tricky, because the Dimir Mill deck isn’t really a classical counter-control deck, nor is it a typical aggro-control deck. The tactics that tend to work against Constructed decks of this ilk don’t really apply, unless you sideboard up to sixty cards.
If your deck is painfully ill-equipped to deal with the library attack and you have a reasonable number of playables in your board, then running straight into Paranoia may be the way to go. It won’t even matter that they countered your Siege Wurm and milled seven cards. Of course this doesn’t help when they’re playing draw-go in game one and you’re alone, lost, confused and haven’t got a clue what to do.
This is where being good at reading an opponent helps more than anything, because there is no way you can realistically know how many counters (and which) he has in his deck and in his hand. It’s interesting how non-threatening an opponent is who drops Entrancer after Entrancer, compared to one who plays nothing and just sits there with 1BUU untapped. Just read your opponent correctly every time and you’ll be fine. (Unless he kills you because you didn’t put on enough pressure because he had a counter in hand.)
You gotta love this sort of advice: Glaringly obvious, hopelessly glib, and coming from someone who has no real accomplishments in this game. Y’know, if that deck was easy and/or straightforward to beat they wouldn’t be pimping it as the best deck around.
Guild-Specific Boosters
And now for something completely different.
After every real-life draft, I hear everyone and their pet poodle Rupert complain about how one booster has four different cards they want, the next has none whatsoever, and then there are several again. There never seem to be boosters with just one or two cards for your deck, and there are too many with no good picks at all.
This phenomenon may have existed before, but it wasn’t obvious – without the guild model, there were more archetypes, which made it much easier to signal and get yourself into a good position where the cards for your colors will be passed to you. The lingering question here, however, is whether this is a genuine effect or just a misperception brought about by the lack of an abundance of archetypes.
Let’s open a sample booster:
Gate Hound, Transluminant, Sparkmage Apprentice, Muddle the Mixture, Surge of Zeal, Brainspoil, Nightguard Patrol, Golgari Brownscale, Shambling Shell, Stinkweed Imp, Fists of Ironwood, Greater Forgeling, Putrefy, Darkblast, Moonlight Bargain
This booster is a rather obvious Golgari-heavy one. Even if the first three picks are black and/or green, which is rather likely, it will still have several good picks for Sol Malka’s disciples and little else. This booster seems to support the theory that the boosters are heavily biased towards a specific guild. Here’s another:
Goblin Fire Fiend, Dimir Infiltrator, War-Torch Goblin, Selesnya Evangel, Fists of Ironwood, Screeching Griffin, Incite Hysteria, Necromantic Thirst, Elves of Deep Shadow, Golgari Rotwurm, Vedalken Entrancer, Reroute, Festival of the Guildpact, Lightning Helix, Helldozer (foil)
This is the exact opposite of the previous booster. This has so many playable cards for all guilds that it will likely never look like a booster that favours any single guild. What the two boosters have in common is that they are a nightmare for signalling purposes. In the first one, you take Putrefy and the next guy is likely to go into G/B as well. Here, there just is no signal.
To go off on a bit of a tangent, most nightmares you hear people talking about are ones where lots of bad things happen. My nightmares — at least the ones that make me wake up in a cold sweat — tend to be ones where nothing happens. People ignore me, and the monsters I was going to slay doesn’t show up depriving, me of honor and glory. I find that sort of thing terrifying: Things that do nothing. That’s why this booster is a nightmare booster for signalling.
Okay, it’s time for booster number 3:
Faith’s Fetters, Snapping Drake, Farseek, Wojek Siren, Lurking Informant, Sewerdreg, Convolute, Goblin Spelunkers, Woodwraith Strangler, Dimir Aqueduct, Wizened Snitches, Conclave Phalanx, Watchwolf, Doubling Season, Dimir Infiltrator (foil)
This booster is interesting, as the best two cards are Faith’s Fetters and Watchwolf. So a white drafter opening this pack will be very happy, whereas a white drafter getting this third-pick will find nothing but a Conclave Phalanx, and in general anyone not drafting Dimir will be unhappy, cry, and run to his mummy. So this looks like a guild-specific booster, even though the best cards in it are not from that guild.
So far, it’s utterly inconclusive. I opened half a box recently – and looking at all the boosters, I can’t really determine a pattern that would lead to the impression of guild-specific boosters that I (and many others) perceive. I suspect that it is mainly a result of attempted signalling in a set where such an emphasis is placed on a mere four-color combinations. Take the second booster above; if the person opening it takes the Fetters (it being the best card in the pack ‘n all), then the next guy is likely to take the Watchwolf and let the next few drafter fight over the blue and black. This would likely happen even if one or more of the U/B cards were actually better than the ‘wolf.
But that may not be the source of the effect — just something that exacerbates it. Maybe the print runs pair the best cards from certain guilds with the worst from others, and that leads to boosters that are genuinely skewed one way or the other. I’m sure if someone bothered to do the complete, total, and unabridged statistical analysis of this they might find the answer… But I certainly don’t have the time or the inclination to do that. If this phenomenon bothers you, then set out to draft three-plus colors every time and you shouldn’t have a problem with it no more. If anyone has more to say on the matter feel free to chime in on the forums.
Guildpact, Savior of Magic
They’ve really been pushing the Two-Headed Giant format lately, haven’t they? One thing that strikes me and many others as odd about this format is how often the games manage to go to time (or even end in a draw) despite the whole affair being best of one. Perhaps Wizards introduced this when milling is a win condition that is in better shape than ever, and is an easier win condition in 2HG than in simple one-on-one duels, since you have twice the resources but don’t need to destroy twice the resources?
I don’t really like the rules they’ve introduced for 2HG, and my experiences at GenCon haven’t changed that much. There is so much lifegain in this block – but surprisingly, there is little one can do about milling. It’s fine in duels because there is one major weapon, tempo, that can usually defeat it, but the quick beats generally don’t cut it in 2HG. We had no millstones in our deck, and lost horribly to anybody who had a Psychic Drain, Glimpse the Unthinkable, or an unanswered Vedalken Entrancer.
It would have been nice if both teams had the same reasonable target to attack, like forty life. This also means that dredge is pointless in 2HG.
They should introduce the rule that if one player is unable to draw, his teammate draws an additional card instead, and only if both libraries are depleted does a loss occur. And no looking at teammates’ hands, and no simultaneous turns and no discussion, and…
Okay, being able to talk freely does have some advantages and promotes a friendlier atmosphere.
What does this latest rant of mine have to do with Guildpact? It ties in with the whole set of problems that are around at the moment, and really it’s all about those sneaky Dimir. Call me a whiner, but I am getting sick of ground stalls and games against mill decks. Those decks can be beaten, but it doesn’t make for very interactive or fun Magic.
That’s the problem with Ravnica block and its guild strategies: It won’t play the way it’s supposed to until it is complete. Until then, certain strategies will work too well in any Limited format, and unfortunately, one of those is annoyingly dull. They shouldn’t have put Dimir in the first set. As Kelly Digges‘ pointed out in his excellent recent article, it’s even silly from a flavor perspective!
Leaving that aside, Ravnica is really an awesome set that is awaiting the rest of the block to unleash its full potential. If you are bored with things right now, fear not! In February, the world of Magic will be set right — so all hail Guildpact, Savior of Magic.
Which is kinda strange, ‘cause in many ways Ravnica was already the savior…
Peace out,
Martin
darkheartothorny on MODO and SCG forums