Drafting isn’t only about picking the best card from each pack and adding lands. There are many things you must consider, so you can start building a strong deck from the moment you open your first booster pack.
A draft deck must not be built at the deckbuilding table; it should only be finalized there. The construction is one thing you have to work on pick after pick. Your draft may be going pretty badly (wrong signals, poor “opens”), but it is always possible to end up with a decent deck if you focus on building from pick 1. Let’s analyze the different steps necessary to do so.
Read the Signals
Your neighbors give you — purposefully or no – signals during the whole draft. These indications should help you figure what colors they are playing, or, even better, what colors they are not playing. Let’s say you’re being passed a booster in which a common is missing, while Oblivion Ring is still in the pack. The probability your opponent is White is pretty low at that time, and the color should be open as its best common is still there. Somebody picked a non-rare card over Tower Gargoyle? Esper must be open. When signals are obvious, it is better to switch than to sacrifice one or two good picks than a whole draft persisting on the wrong path.
Pick Enough Creatures
Do not neglect creatures, as they are the cards that will help you win 99% of your Limited games. Pay attention to play a minimum of 13 or 14 (except for a few exceptions, such as five-color control in Alara Block or Dampen Thought in Kamigawa), and if you have the possibility to run between 16 and 18, even better.
At some point, if you realize you are short of creatures, or of non-creature spells, adapt your picks to give the deck a better balance.
For instance, if after four picks in the third pack you have only 12 creatures, and you have to choose between a non-creature spell and a guy, pick the creature. I know this sounds basic, but the basics are important in order to maximize your success.
Pick Removal Spells
A good Limited deck must have creature removal. In most the situations, you can’t just play one guy after another, otherwise you will be in trouble if your opponent’s monsters are stronger than yours. If you can’t find any removal spells, try and pick pump spells, or at least counters or discard.
Also, if you’re doing well on the monster count, you should almost always pick the removal over the creature. Guys almost always end up coming from somewhere, while removal spells rarely remain in the packs after pick 5.
Pay Attention to your Curve
When you’re aiming at controlling the tempo, you must absolutely be able to play one guy a turn, starting from turn 2 or 3, and if possible use all of the mana available on every turn. In order to do so, you need to build a good mana curve, with mostly two- and three-mana spells, but also five or six four-mana spells and a few at five mana or more. Again, basic stuff, but worth remembering.
Stay in Two Colors
While the current format (Alara Block) is an exception, in draft, limiting you deck to two colors is usually a wise decision. Beyond that, your mana draws become irregular and your global draws a lot more random. If you really want to splash, try and play one or two cards, or three at a maximum, unless you have good fixers (see below). Also, you should only splash cards with an immediate impact on the game. The idea is that a splash gives you mana troubles, so you must consider you will sometimes draw that card and not be able to play it immediately. And in this case, when you eventually draw your third color, the card you were holding should be good no matter what, to compensate for that little disadvantage. And the only cards that truly answer that description are removal spells and bombs.
Work on the Manabase
In some formats (Alara, Ravnica, and Invasion blocks), the huge amount of gold cards and of mana fixers gives you much flexibility in how to build your manabase. In these cases, the standard choice is to draft a third color. However, you should never ever play an equal three-color split (unless you have amazing fixers). With a 6/6/6 manabase, you will nearly always lose when your fourth and fifth turns don’t buy you the time to draw the right mana.
Anyway, keep in mind that even though you’ll be receiving as many lands as you want during the deck construction doesn’t mean you don’t have to work on your mana before that. And how do you do that exactly? By picking mana fixers, obviously, but even more importantly: by picking cards from as few colors as possible. Here are a few tips on how to do that. Important: each of the following points applies when two cards of nearly the same level are concerned.
– In your very first pack, when choosing between two cards of a similar power level, choose the one that has the fewer mana symbols in its cost.
– In the next few packs, try and pick cards from the same color as your first pick.
– When you eventually choose your second color, try and keep your options open in the very same way, and stay two colors if possible.
– If you go three colors, try and determine a splash and two main colors. As, usually, you will add a color for removal spells, your splash should be Red or Black, or sometimes White. Then select cards from the two main colors over cards from the third.
Also, the more colors you play, and the less of a splash they truly are, and the higher you should pick the fixers. You can also decide to pick fixers higher if you already have many playables.
Anticipate the Upcoming Picks
Some cards are not very strong on their own, but they get a lot more powerful when combined with others. If you were to receive a pack containing one such card, you must consider your odds that you’ll be passed the second part of the “combo.”
Let’s say, for instance, you are playing in an Alara/Alara/Conflux booster draft, and your first five picks are Esper. You then receive a pack featuring Obelisk of Esper and Puppet Conjurer. Which one do you pick? Both cards seem to be of equal strength, but when you think of it, the probability of getting passed Etherium Astrolabe, Sludge Strider, or even Bone Splinters makes the 1/2 an obvious call.
In some packs, it is also possible to predict a card will wheel. Let’s say you get to choose first pick first pack between Oblivion Ring and Branching Bolt, probably the best two commons in Shards of Alara. In this pack, are about 10 playables (about the average amount in a pack) including Etherium Astrolabe, a card as unpopular as it is strong in Esper. Here, you should not consider the decision as being between Thunder and Ring, but between the RG removal spell and the Oblivion Ring /Astrolabe package, which should make the pick easier.
The Danger of Counter-Drafting
Counter-drafting is sometimes useful, when a pack contains a card you absolutely don’t want to face (a Pinger or Pyroclasm-like effect against your aggro deck, for example). However, you should never counter-draft when there is a good card for you in the pack, or when you are short in playables. After all, you only play against three of the seven players at the table, so you have less than 50% chance to play the player who has picked that card. Is he actually going to play it? If you play against him, will he draw it when he is supposed to have it one game out of two? If so, is it going to make a difference in the end? If you want to calculate the odds from there, passing that card really is relevant. You will realize that the probability you miss the playable you would pass when counter-drafting is much higher.
And if you really pass a card that destroys your deck, try and pick a card that annihilates it before the draft ends (Cancel, Discard, Path to Exile for a Pinger, Sigil Blessing for an Infest, etc).
The only time when you can counter-draft is after the first pack has ended, when you know you have tons of playables and that the card you would pick has a 50% chance or less to make it to your final deck.
Optimize the Review Period
You may think that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to keep in mind all the things explained earlier (and you would be right to think that). However, there are two ways in which to improve at such things, helping you to remember what your deck is lacking.
The first concerns the review period. Between each series of fifteen picks, you have a minute to look at the cards you have previously drafted. Don’t lose any time and stack them as follows: creatures by converted mana cost, and non-creature spells by converted mana cost. You should then have about 40 seconds to determine your deck’s strongest and weakest points. Try and also ascertain if either one of the colors you have been drafting could be replaced, or if a splash for a new color could be possible. This way, if you open a very good card in a color you are not currently playing, you won’t have to try and memorize everything you have been drafting previously to know if you can afford to select it.
The second, sadly, is simply experience. Nobody can remember every card he has passed and picked, or anticipate exactly what will happen. But memory and intuition are the two things you learn to develop by drafting and playing.
One last thing concerning this column in general… When I write strategy articles, I sometimes say things that seem obvious to some of you. But my goal, with this column, is to try and help people improve at their favorite game. And being good at Magic is not about Jedi Mind Tricking the opponent, or about coming up with amazing plays. It can help, of course, but 90% of playing good Magic is not making mistakes, while only 10% involves provoking your opponent’s errors.
To get to the point when you make almost no mistakes, there is no secret. You must master a lot of things that may not look difficult individually, but which, when combined, make Magic one of the most complex games there is.
This column is aiming at helping you pass thresholds, but make no mistake, there is no shortcut. If you want to become good at Magic, constant effort and growing experience is the key.
Until next week…