Hey everyone! Welcome to an Innistrad Block Draft walkthrough.
Pack 1 pick 1:
My Pick:
Here there are three cards worthy of first picking: Hellrider, Tower Geist, and Strangleroot Geist. All of these creatures are very good. Strangleroot Geist is powerful enough to be played in Constructed. It’s worse in Limited because efficiency isn’t as much of a concern, and they’re more likely to play a 3/3 and block. Still, the power you get for a minimal two-mana investment puts this over almost every common in the set. I would take Fires of Undeath over it pick 1 pack 1, but not much else.
One card I would take over it, though, is Tower Geist. This card reminds me of Mulldrifter, or perhaps a better comparison would be a strictly better Messenger Falcons. Getting value from it is as simple as tapping four mana and casting it. And you really do get value—you almost always get two good cards out of the deal, the one you draw and a 2/2 flier, and sometimes the card you bin even ends up being relevant. I like everything about this card, even the easy mana cost, and I’d take it over any common in the set.
Hellrider is the last option, and it’s between Hellrider and Tower Geist for my pick 1. I think Hellrider is more powerful but also slightly harder to cast, and it’s higher variance—Tower Geist will always do something good, but when you’re on the back foot Hellrider is not a lot better than Russet Wolves. It seems like the kind of card that can swing games by itself, though, and given I haven’t had a lot of experience with it I wanted to try it out.
Pack 1 pick 2:
My Pick:
This pack has a lot of nice cards: Highborn Ghoul, Nephalia Seakite, Wild Hunger, and Diregraf Captain are all very good in their respective decks. Given I took Hellrider first pick, I’m looking at Blood Feud or Pyreheart Wolf. Blood Feud is much more powerful, but Pyreheart Wolf should not be underestimated, particularly with Hellrider. It’s very difficult to handle a Wolf when you’re on the defense and this format is fairly tempo-based, making six-drops worse than they would otherwise be.
Of course, Blood Feud is Blood Feud. It’s a six-mana Grab the Reins most of the time, even if it’s a little harder to make work. Worst case, you’re still killing their best creature, and that’s just fine for six mana (see: Into the Maw of Hell.) I thought about Pyreheart Wolf for a little while, but I couldn’t justify taking it over such a potential blowout.
This could easily have been wrong—these are the kinds of picks I tend to make at the start of the format, when no one knows anything about archetypes and you should just take the most powerful card. If there is a red-based aggro deck, starting it off with Hellrider into Pyreheart Wolf has to be one of the best opens you can hope for.
Pack 1 pick 3:
My Pick:
Again we have a bunch of solid to good cards in other colors, and Markov Warlord in red. This guy has actually been a little less impressive for me than he looks, mainly because sixes face such a high barrier to entry in this format. Still, he often hands out upwards of eight damage the turn he comes into play—even an aggressive deck loves having one of these guys to top their curve.
Unfortunately our first three picks have been two six-drops and a four-drop, which is definitely high on the clunk factor. It’s going to be important to prioritize two- and three-casting cost creatures throughout the rest of the pack.
Pack 1 pick 4:
My Pick:
Now this is an interesting pack. We can’t just take another red card and not worry about our second color; there’s actually a decision to be made here. Thalia looks pretty good: a solid two-drop is exactly what we need. However, white/red is not a great color combination. The other option is Wild Hunger, one of the best tricks in the format if you can flash it back. Green/red is a better archetype than white/red.
Thalia fits the hole in our curve a lot better—Wild Hunger needs early guys already in play to be great. However, it’s still early in the piece, and there’s plenty of time to pick up cheap creatures in the next two packs. I really like Wild Hunger; it punches through a ton of damage, and casting it and flashing it back in the same turn is comparable to Rally the Peasants in its capacity to steal games out of nowhere.
Pack 1 pick 5:
My Pick:
This pack is a lot worse than what we’ve seen so far, with only two good blue cards as the relevant choices: Nephalia Seakite and Divination. Russet Wolves has always struck me as somewhat of a Thraben Purebloods; playable, but barely so as expensive vanilla creatures are a lot worse than in their glory Core set days. There’s no way I want to take it fifth.
Of the two blue cards, I like Seakite better. He ambushes 2/2s quite nicely, and a 2/3 flier for four is on-curve anyway. Divination is fine but that’s all it is; you’ll never cut it but you don’t want to take it over a good creature or removal spell.
Pack 1 pick 6:
My Pick:
Stormbound Geist is clearly the best card in the pack. However, how committed are we to blue? It’s clear that we’re red, but we have a good card in both blue and green. Stormbound Geist is also a large commitment. We’d want to play at least nine Islands with a double blue card that costs three.
Despite Erdwal Ripper being a lot worse on power level than Stormbound Geist, it’s a much safer choice. Red is almost certain to be a main color, and blue has no such guarantee. Besides, Erdwal Ripper on turn 3 is one of the best ways in the format to punish a bad/slow draw. Even when it’s bad, it’s still a decent guy unlike its close relative Bloodcrazed Neonate.
Pack 1 pick 7:
My Pick:
There’s another couple good blue cards in this pack: Screeching Skaab and Chant of the Skifsang are both fine. They’re better in different decks. Skaab is at its best in U/B or U/G or similar, where you have a lot of ways to interact with the graveyard. He’s no Armored Skaab or Deranged Assistant but still a solid dude. Chant is very nice in U/W, when you have a lot of fliers so the big wall it leaves behind isn’t too relevant.
U/R falls somewhere in between, with neither a ton of fliers nor a lot of graveyard interaction. In such a situation, I like Skaab a little more. Chant is awkward removal while Skaab is still a decently sized dude with a small upside. Almost every deck will be in a position to get some value of Skaab, and two-drops are important.
Pack 1 pick 8:
My Pick:
This pack makes me confident we’re leaving that Wild Hunger on the bench. Griptide is a good card, and there’s really nothing here for anyone else. U/R is looking open, and it’s a color combination I like.
Pack 1 pick 9:
My Pick:
Faithless Looting wheeled! This card is much better than people realize. It’s actually the third best red common in the set, behind Fires of Undeath and Wrack with Madness, and it’s not even that much worse than Wrack. It smooths out your draws with too many lands or not enough, and it does so very cheaply. It rarely even costs you a card because lands past the sixth are usually dead, and if you discard two of those you already ended a card up. Looting is not just for Constructed, folks, although it’s amazing there as well.
Pack 1 pick 10:
My Pick:
This pack sends up some flags. Niblis of the Mist and Elgaud Inquisitor are still in the pack, really? Those cards are both among white’s top commons, and it wasn’t even like the pack was that loaded with white cards the first time round. We’re definitely taking one of them even though we’re more likely U/R, just in case we open Geist-Honored Monk or similar.
Because they’re similar in power level (both are just solid midrange creatures), curve considerations dictate which one we should take. Right now we still need early creatures: Screeching Skaab is the only two-drop and Erdwal Ripper the only three. Niblis is the pick for that reason; we already have Hellrider at four.
Pack 1 pick 11:
My Pick:
Wow. The white hits just keep coming. It’s funny, because the color didn’t seem that open in the first half of the pack, but it’s possible everyone’s packs were just shallow in white. This is the second straight pack that wasn’t loaded the first time around but has two good white cards wheeling.
I actually really like Midnight Guard. 2/3 is an excellent size in this format. Riot Devils, Selhoff Occultist, One-Eyed Scarecrow—I like them all. That said, Silverclaw Griffin is just too good to pass up. Three-power first striking fliers shouldn’t come pick 11.
Pack 1 pick 12:
My Pick:
Not much of a choice here. Haunted Fengraf won’t make every maindeck, but it’s a decent land particularly if your deck wants to play eighteen.
Pack 1 pick 13:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 14:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 15:
My Pick:
The first pack wasn’t amazing, but it went ok. It’s not clear if we’ll end up in blue or white—I’m leaning towards blue, both because we have a little more of it and because we passed a very late Elgaud Inquisitor and Midnight Guard. We have a couple very good red cards at the top end. From this pack we’re looking to get some cheap creatures and removal.
Pack 2 pick 1:
My Pick:
This is not a good open. The only red or blue cards that I would consider playing are Riot Devils and Spectral Flight, and I don’t want to take either first pick. Riot Devils is a dork. As for Spectral Flight, it’s fine but you don’t even play it half the time, and I don’t have that critical mass of good two-drops.
The only card I’d really consider taking is Avacynian Priest. I’m still not guaranteed to play white, but if I do the Priest will be very good. I’m more likely to play blue, but Spectral Flight might not even make my R/U deck. It’s a pretty bad pack all round—someone gets a Spider Spawning if that’s what they’re after, but past that the taking are very thin.
Pack 2 pick 2:
My Pick:
Welllll… I thought the first pack was bad.
Again, there are a couple good green cards. Avacyn’s Pilgrim and Prey Upon are worthy of an early pick, but with just a Wild Hunger in green it doesn’t seem worth it. I’m all for leaving my options open, but you have to draw the line at some point; you can’t just take cards from every color forever or you’ll never get to 23. Feeling of Dread is reasonable if I end up white. If I can pick up a Shimmering Grotto or a Traveler’s Amulet, I can splash flashback on Feeling and Griptide.
Pack 2 pick 3:
My Pick:
Still no red cards—this is not going well. It’s rapidly becoming less clear if I’m white or blue. This is a really great way to end up with two half-decks, or rather no deck at all.
The choices here are Village Bell-Ringer and Moon Heron. Moon Heron is much better, but red/white is looking a tiny bit more likely at this point. It’s not quite enough to tilt me in the direction of Village Bell-Ringer though. I’m expecting to see more blue than white in this pack, because I took blue from early on in pack 1 and only passed a few good white cards.
It’s not outrageous to end up U/W, but it’s definitely on the bottom of the list. Red was flowing well last pack, I did a good job of cutting it, and it still contains the best cards in my deck: Hellrider, Blood Feud, Markov Warlord.
Pack 2 pick 4:
My Pick:
Life is looking a little better. This pack is, again, very bad, but this time I’m the only one who gets something good out of it. Skirsdag Cultist is not insane or anything, and we don’t have a lot of synergy with it, but it’s still a solid red card even if I’d almost prefer an Ashmouth Hound.
Pack 2 pick 5:
My Pick:
Spectral Rider is very good, but we want to take a red card here. Even if I am R/W, which is certainly no more than 50%, I don’t want to take cards that commit me heavily. WW is not going to be easy to cast whatever color combination I end up.
Village Ironsmith is, well, not very good. But it’s a lot better to cast a 1/1 first strike than to not cast a 2/2 unblockable. Anyway, I need two-drops something fierce.
Pack 2 pick 6:
My Pick:
It’s clearly Into the Maw of Hell here. I just want to go on a tangent about how good and how underrated One-Eyed Scarecrow is. Against any white deck, he shuts down all of their Spirit production—Doomed Traveler, Lingering Souls, Midnight Haunting, Mausoleum Guard, Elgaud Inquisitor. Against blue decks, he’s not quite as good, but giving even half of their creatures -1/-0 is worth a card; Cumber Stone was an early pick back in the days of Shards Block. And to top it off, he’s a three-mana 2/3, which is the right size to be in a format full of 2/2s and 2/1s. I don’t usually play him main, but he’s one of the best board cards around. I have more Scarecrows online than any other creature from Innistrad.
Pack 2 pick 7:
My Pick:
Crossway Vampire vs. Pitchburn Devils is the choice here. This is a classic sort of mid-pack pick where you have two cards that are both decent and playable, and you need to consider your curve and how both cards will fit into your deck. I do have a Skirsdag Cultist, which favors the Devils, but I also have too many expensive cards and not enough three-drops, which favors the Vampire. In my experience, curve is important enough in this format that you can’t ignore it for power early and assume you can fill it in later. If you don’t fill it in, you won’t end up with a good deck. The Vampire is the pick here for me.
Pack 2 pick 8:
My Pick:
Not really much to say here. Geistflame is awesome, and getting it eighth gives us hope that we might end up with a good deck after all.
Pack 2 pick 9:
My Pick:
Both Spectral Flights wheeled, which is pretty funny. Riot Devils is better, though. The card is actually fine—oddly enough I like it quite a bit better than either Russet Wolves or Thraben Purebloods. Three mana is a reasonable price to pay for a generic dork, but for a four or five mana investment you expect better.
Pack 2 pick 10:
My Pick:
It’s unlikely that we’ll play Fortress Crab—I have too many other good four-drops—but it’s not total rubbish.
Pack 2 pick 11:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 12:
My Pick:
This card is a little bit sideboardable in the right matchups. If you expect it to go long and they have a lot of removal, it’s actually pretty good.
Pack 2 pick 13:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 14:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 15:
My Pick:
Pack 2 started off dreadfully, but the second half of the pack—in particular the eighth pick Geistflame—gave us hope. Our deck has things going for it: we have solid creatures, a little bit of removal, fliers, and one or two game-enders. It’s not insane, and in particular it doesn’t have a lot of synergies, but we have the basis for a solid draft deck.
Pack 3 pick 1:
My Pick:
Come on, good open, one time?
Yeah, this is pretty miserable. Not quite as bad as pack 2, from which we took an Avacynian Priest that won’t even make the cut, but I wouldn’t mind cracking, say, a Falkenrath Marauders or a Mindshrieker. The only card I can even take is a Blazing Torch. There’s no way I’m splashing Kessig Wolf Run with no fixers and only one pack to pick them up.
Pack 3 pick 2:
My Pick:
I like Lantern Spirit here. Moon Heron is a little better, but I have too many four-drops and not enough threes. Fliers are always good, and Lantern Spirit is a pretty efficient one.
However, at some point during this pack I got disconnected. I thought I took Lantern Spirit, but apparently it just looked like it and I auto-picked instead, while not even aware my internet was down. Luckily, the card I auto-picked was Moon Heron XP so not the actual worst, even if another four-drop is clunksville.
Pack 3 pick 3:
My Pick:
Now this is a pack: Falkenrath Marauders, Kruin Outlaw, and Geistflame. I would like to say I contemplated this long and hard, analyzed it from all perspectives, and finally reached the conclusion that the five-drop was powerful enough to make up for the lack of efficiency. In fact what happened was I logged back on, saw I had two seconds to make a pick, panicked, and took the first good card I saw. Luckily that card was pretty good—honestly I would make the same pick if I had 20 seconds instead of two. Yes, a five-drop is not what my curve wants, and yes, Outlaw is great—but it doesn’t win games by itself the way Marauders does. Sometimes they can’t ever deal with it and it’s all over in four swings.
Pack 3 pick 4:
My Pick:
The only card for me is Makeshift Mauler, which makes me wish I’d gotten that Lantern Spirit. Oh well, Fortress Crab will not make the cut most likely. The first Mauler is just fine even if you don’t have ways to feed it, and I already have Faithless Looting and Screeching Skaab so it’s unlikely to end up a brick.
Pack 3 pick 5:
My Pick:
It’s the same Crossway Vampire vs. good five-drop pick I had back in pack 2, and it’s the same choice here. We need those early creatures. The double red on Vampire is not even that worrisome; with only a few single blue cards it’s not going to be hard to run ten or more Mountains.
Pack 3 pick 6:
My Pick:
Kessig Wolf vs. Forbidden Alchemy. I like Alchemy a lot, but with no fixing it’ll be tough to flashback, and we still don’t have enough two and three-drops to really feel comfortable.
Pack 3 pick 7:
My Pick:
And here we have the classic Think Twice vs. Forbidden Alchemy conundrum. If you need the lategame and can afford the flashback, you take Alchemy; otherwise, it’s the cheap card advantage machine that is Think Twice. What I said on the previous pick still applies. With no black mana especially, Forbidden Alchemy is a too clunky. I want the early efficiency of the cheaper draw spell.
Pack 3 pick 8:
My Pick:
Right here: this is where not getting enough cheap creatures in the first few packs comes back to bite you. I’d really like to take Moon Heron; it’s a great card, a three-power flier for four, simple and sweet, one of the best blue commons. But with two Moon Herons, a Makeshift Mauler, a Nephalia Seakite, a Skirsdag Cultist, and a Hellrider, can I really take another four-drop? Six is already right at the top of what’s reasonable; not casting a spell till turn 4 is a great way to start off on the back foot.
Instead I grab a Desperate Ravings. People keep telling me this card is better than Think Twice; I have my doubts. It’s great when your hand is bad, but not being able to cast it when your hand is good sucks. It’s probably better mainly because of graveyard interactions. Anyway, the point is that Think Twice is pretty good and so is Desperate Ravings, even if I don’t really want to take either over a flier. Selhoff Occultist is fine and all, but he’s just a dork. The card draw is a little better.
Pack 3 pick 9:
My Pick:
It shouldn’t surprise anyone what card I take here. If I take Scarecrow over actual cards, I’m certainly going to take it over nothing at all.
Pack 3 pick 10:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 11:
My Pick:
This card is all right but unlikely to make the cut—we aren’t aggressive enough and have plenty of fliers anyway.
Pack 3 pick 12:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 13:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 14:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 15:
My Pick:
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The deck:
Village Ironsmith
Screeching Skaab
Kessig Wolf
Riot Devils
2 Crossway Vampire
Haunted Fengraf
Erdwal Ripper
Nephalia Seakite
2 Moon Heron
Skirsdag Cultist
Hellrider
Makeshift Mauler
Falkenrath Marauders
Markov Warlord
Geistflame
Blazing Torch
Faithless Looting
Think Twice
Desperate Ravings
Griptide
Into the Maw of Hell
Blood Feud
What I like about this deck:
– Card advantage and selection. Between Think Twice, Desperate Ravings, and Faithless Looting, you have smoother draws than your average Limited brew.
– Fliers. Two Moon Heron, Seakite, and Falkenrath Marauders: it’s not a ton, but every deck needs something besides ground-pounders.
– Bombs. Falkenrath Marauders: Hellrider not quite as powerful, but it’s a huge beatdown and very hard to race.
– Removal. Blazing Torch, Geistflame, Griptide, Into the Maw of Hell, Blood Feud: actually a pretty nice selection.
What I don’t like:
– No curve. The two-drops just never came! I find that happens more often than I’d like; they’re more important in Innistrad than they’ve been in any format since Zendikar. Curve is critical to winning games, since the removal is mostly situational and tends be better for the player in front (Griptide and Blazing Torch are two examples in the above decklist.)
– Too many average red dorks. Riot Devils and Village Ironsmith: sometimes you have to, and I had to but I don’t love it.
Overall : probably a 2-1 deck. A couple Deranged Assistants away from a lean machine, but could go 3-0 with a little bit of luck.
Round 1 I played against W/R. Game 1 was a non-event; he kept a one-lander on the draw and never got there.
Game 2 he again had an awkward hand, playing lands and saying go. I had Erdwal Ripper on turn 3 but decided against swinging with it; I’d seen Village Bell-Ringers in the draft. He didn’t have anything end of turn. When he passed again on turn 4 I went for it, under the assumption that if he saw me playing around Village Bell-Ringer he’d probably just to play it if he had it because otherwise it would be awkward if he ripped a four-drop. He may have had Rebuke, but I was fine if my 2/1 got Rebuked because then he didn’t have it for the Moon Heron I was about to play. In fact he had stone nothing. Geist-Honored Monk next turn revealed why he kept the hand, but that was basically the only creature he played all game. My assorted dorks backed up with Geistflame and Blood Feud got there while he played straight lands.
Round 2 was against some W/U/B brew. As far as I could tell black was his splash color, but he was splashing for such hits as Undying Evil and Diregraf Ghoul. Game 1 I sculpted my hand early with Faithless Looting and Desperate Ravings. At some point I had a Blazing Torch-equipped Skirsdag Cultist, and he swung his Mausoleum Guard into my four untapped mana and Nephalia Seakite which he knew I had. This was very weird because even if he had a trick I would just Torch his Guard in response; either he had two tricks or he just wanted the Spirits. I assumed he just wanted the Spirits for whatever reason and blocked, and he turned out to have both Skillful Lunge (which I responded to) and Undying Evil, leaving him with a 3/3 Mausoleum Guard and two Spirits.
On my turn I Griptided the Mausoleum Guard and attacked with both my guys, with the idea that he would trade two Spirits for my Cultist because I wanted to play Falkenrath Marauders next turn and actually get through. He had the Village Bell-Ringer ambush, though, to only lose one Spirit, which made me feel very stupid because I’d played around that exact card two turns ago. He then had Smite the Monstrous for my Falkenrath Marauders, and I felt like I was getting behind, but luckily his motley assortment of creatures couldn’t actually get through a Nephalia Seakite. Eventually I drew Think Twice and a lot of Moon Herons and overwhelmed him in the air.
In Game 2 I actually had the exact same scenario come up as in round 1—I played Village Ironsmith, he did nothing, I chose not to attack into a potential Bell-Ringer, and he continued to do nothing. Again I thought it was unlikely that he had the Bell-Ringer, so again I swung in, but this time he actually had it and held it for the double bluff. It ended up not mattering because he had no answer at all for the Falkenrath Marauders I played turn 5.
Round 3 I mulliganed into an awkward hand and did nothing until turn 4. That was ok, because he’d had a slow start and I’d been on the play, so I stood a chance of racing with Nephalia Seakite + Moon Heron against Abattoir Ghoul + Diregraf Captain. I Griptided his Captain so I could ambush a Zombie token with my Seakite, but then he played Grimgrin and I had exactly one turn to rip a land and Into the Maw of Hell it. If I did, I absolutely won because I could take out his only Island and he couldn’t recast Captain next turn, but instead I didn’t and Grimgrin destroyed me.
Game 2 was very silly. We each had three spells the whole game; luckily two of mine were Hellrider and Markov Warlord, while one of his was Black Cat.
Game 3 was frustrating. He started off with some cheap Zombies, and on turn 4 had Walking Corpse and two Black Cats in play against my empty board with me at sixteen. I played Hellrider and swung on the basis that I could probably race; I had more four-drops and Into the Maw of Hell and he only had two cards in hand. This was wrong. I was at four less life than him and had more lategame; I had no reason to trade four damage for four damage.
He spent a turn casting Forbidden Alchemy and doing nothing, but then followed up with Diregraf Captain + Markov Patrician and I was firmly on the back foot. I had Into the Maw for his Captain but no chance of racing, and unfortunately he drew a timely Abattoir Ghoul that ate first my Hellrider and then me.
Until next time,
Jeremy
tux_the_penguin on Magic Online