Hello everyone, and welcome back to the SCG Daily. This week’s series is pretty much explained by the title: I recently gained access to Magic Online for the first time, and I kept track of what I did while I was just getting started, with the hope that it might be of some use to the folks out there.
First of all, I need to apologize to all the Apple users who might be reading. I won’t lie to you: I used to be one of you, and I’ve sold out. Unexpected circumstances at work had caused a couple of machines to become available, and my aging iBook was just too underpowered to do anything anymore, so I couldn’t turn down a free PC. The only price I had to pay was a conversation where my supervisor explained that work still technically owns the machine, so I had to “watch what I put on the hard drive.” Basically, she told me in ten different ways not to put porn on the computer, without actually using the word “porn.” Awkward.
Games were okay, though – I checked. So on Monday, November 20, I went here to download Magic Online and its free tutorial. Here’s how it went down.
7:30pm. I logged in and got the logistics taken care of, choosing the same handle as in just about every Magic forum I frequent, “mm_young.” I recalled this article, where Gadiel Szleifer notes that having his name as his handle has led to a lot of “repercussions” for him, but I figured I’m not big-time enough that it would be a major annoyance. If I were to become that big-time in the future… well, that would be a nice problem to have, wouldn’t it?
8:00pm. God, this tutorial is boring me to tears. It’s written as much for people who have never used the online interface before, as for people who have never played Magic before. It also doesn’t teach you anything about the various keyboard shortcuts, so I had to comb Frank Karsten’s archives for this article to teach me such basic things as the fact that you can use F2 instead of clicking “OK” all the time. The tutorial also doesn’t teach you very simple stuff, such as the various commands you can get by right-clicking on an empty part of the playing field – one of those is concession, so for my first few real games I was mana-burning myself to death because I didn’t know how to concede. However, the tutorial does teach me how the stops work, which is just about the most important thing to know when you are playing a game on MTGO.
I easily overwhelm the program in a couple of games. I wonder… does anyone ever lose a game in the tutorial? Probably not – if someone’s first Magical experience was a solid beating, it might take away their business. So what would happen if I just played like a total moron, and tried to lose on purpose? Would the program play like an even bigger moron? These are the things I think about.
8:30pm. After getting my settings the way I want them, it was time to purchase three packs and two event tickets and go looking for my first draft. I actually wanted to do 999 or RGD draft to start, but my expected wait time looked to be the lowest in the Time Spiral queues. I chose a 4322 because I figured my unfamiliarity with the interface would cause me to play badly enough; I didn’t need the possibility of Anton Jonsson or Nick Eisel across the table from me.
For now I am just going to give you the drafts from memory – I may eventually learn how to use DraftCap, but right now I’m still learning the interface. The first pack of the first draft was one of the worst I had ever seen: I basically had the choice of Temporal Eddy, Feebleness, or Terramorphic Expanse. I hate drafting Black in this format, so I decided to force Blue by taking the Eddy. In retrospect, keeping my options open with the Expanse might be better, because the Eddy is not so strong as to be a first-pick.
At any rate, after the Eddy pick the Green started flowing my way. I know that a lot of people don’t like drafting Green in this format, but when stuff like second-pick Stonewood Invocation, third-pick Phantom Wurm, fourth-pick Might of Old Krosa, etc., are flowing your way, it’s hard to turn them down. There wasn’t much Blue to be had, but I was okay with that, as it meant I wasn’t shipping any Blue to my left and would get the hook-up in pack 2. Sure enough, I opened Brine Elemental and got shipped multiple Spiketail Drakelings. The Green kept coming in pack 3 and I thought I ended up with a nice little deck:
Creatures (15)
- 1 Ashcoat Bear
- 1 Brine Elemental
- 1 Durkwood Baloth
- 1 Durkwood Tracker
- 1 Havenwood Wurm
- 2 Nantuko Shaman
- 2 Penumbra Spider
- 1 Phantom Wurm
- 1 Scarwood Treefolk
- 1 Slipstream Serpent
- 2 Spiketail Drakeling
- 1 Viscerid Deepwalker
Lands (18)
Spells (7)
Sadly, I lost in the first round. In game 1 I was beating the hell out of my opponent’s R/B deck; it was only a timely Dark Withering on Phantom Wurm that let him get back in the race. I got to activate Brine Elemental (“Brian Elemental,” as Brian David-Marshall obviously calls it) in my opponent’s end step, have my opponent block it on the subsequent attack with Clockwork Hydra, and then play Wipe Away targeting Brian with damage on the stack. However, when he tapped out for Triskelavus two turns later I misclicked, not selecting the re-morphed Brian as an attacker on my turn. I still got to unmorph, but the damage missed gave him an extra turn, so that he was able to play Phthisis on Brian and finish me in the air with the Trike. In game two I missed my third land drop for three turns in a row and got bashed by a Flamecore Elemental.
10:00pm. After grabbing some Chinese food I went back to drafting. I first-picked Hail Storm (it’s a bomb, isn’t it? Sound off in the forums) and then turned back to Blue with Ixidron. Again I received quality Green cards late, including a 15th-pick Greenseeker. In pack 2, I first-picked a Firemaw Kavu intending to splash, but I didn’t deviate from the U/G plan:
Creatures (17)
- 1 Pirate Ship
- 3 Ashcoat Bear
- 1 Brine Elemental
- 1 Coral Trickster
- 1 Crookclaw Transmuter
- 1 Durkwood Baloth
- 1 Fathom Seer
- 1 Firemaw Kavu
- 1 Greenseeker
- 1 Ixidron
- 1 Phantom Wurm
- 1 Scarwood Treefolk
- 1 Scryb Ranger
- 1 Tolarian Sentinel
- 1 Viscerid Deepwalker
Lands (17)
Spells (5)
Again I thought my deck was quite awesome, so of course I lost again in the first round. My opponent came out G/W with a seemingly weak offense – just a morph and a Watcher Sliver. I was slow-playing an Ixidron, hoping to lead my opponent into a total blowout, so I accepted some damage and tried to draw gas by flipping Fathom Seer. I regretted the lost tempo when my opponent played a Mountain and put Undying Rage on the morph (guess that’s one way to beat Ixidron). The morph turned out to be Fortune Thief, so I was happy my Ixidron stayed secret.
In game 2 he went turn 2 Amrou Scout, turn 3 Griffin Guide. I managed to get a race going, though, and when I used Think Twice to topdeck Snapback on the last possible turn, my army of trees turned the tide. In game 3 I came out a little slow and he set up an impenetrable wall of double Watcher Sliver. Then he played Fury Sliver and suddenly I was drawing to one out (Ixidron); Firemaw Kavu cruelly spited me by coming off the top when it could kill absolutely nothing.
Well, that was disappointing, but at the same time I was making an average of two interface mistakes per game, so it’s not like I expected to be over 1600 after my first night of MTGO drafts.
11:00pm. I’m in another 4322; among the players is Top8Magic‘s own Matt Wang. There’s no way in the world he should be drafting 4322 – according to the T8M podcasts, Wang is one of the most profitable players at Jonnydraft – but the 84 queues were running slow at the time.
(Interesting side note: Wang and I exchanged greetings and then I typed, “wtf are you doing in a 4322?” The chat window removed the first word from that sentence! What’s up with that? Isn’t the whole point of WTF that it’s a clean substitute in situations where the F-word isn’t allowed? I guess MTGO doesn’t want little kids asking what it means.)
I finally thought I was going to get there with this draft. I was strongly U/R after pack 1, first-picking Lightning Axe and getting a Brine Elemental, a Fathom Seer, and a couple of very late Dream Stalkers. So, on the first pick of pack 2 I faced the hardest choice I’ve ever seen: Vesuvan Shapeshifter versus Firemaw Kavu. Man! Two ridiculous bombs which combo with multiple cards that I’ve already picked. Eventually I took the Shapeshifter because I figured that drawing infinite cards with Fathom Seer would be ridiculous, but I have no confidence that is in fact the correct pick.
I would like to say that another Firemaw came in the third pack, but I would be lying. Instead I just opened a Draining Whelk…
Creatures (16)
- 1 Bogardan Rager
- 1 Bonesplitter Sliver
- 1 Brine Elemental
- 1 Crookclaw Transmuter
- 1 Draining Whelk
- 1 Errant Ephemeron
- 2 Fathom Seer
- 1 Fledgling Mawcor
- 1 Looter il-Kor
- 1 Spiketail Drakeling
- 1 Subterranean Shambler
- 1 Telekinetic Sliver
- 1 Venser's Sliver
- 1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
- 1 Viscerid Deepwalker
Lands (17)
Spells (6)
I decided to run the Shambler in the main deck because not many of my guys were vulnerable to it, and I had shipped a few copies of Empty the Warrens. I thanked my lucky stars for doing so in game 1 of round 1, when my opponent unsuspended a Keldon Halberdier, a Rift Bolt, some other suspend spell, and then played Empty the Warrens all on turn 5. I had been sitting on the Shambler since the opening hand and Wrathed his board. Then I started playing creatures and he couldn’t keep up, having fired the whole cylinder. Game 2 he won by Emptying for six, and then Emptying for six again a couple of turns later after wearing out all of the tokens from the first wave.
Game 3 he stalled on four land, with only one Mountain, and said that if he had drawn a second Mountain it would have been all over (he didn’t say what his gas would have been, but I had played into Sulfurous Blast). He took this beat with good humor, pointing out some ways I could play the interface better and saying I was “a prodigy” for playing as fast as I did on my first night. Well, I doubt the prodigy part, unless he was saying that I was a [censored] who should be smacked up, but thanks anyway.
In round 2 I faced an aggro R/B deck that must have received every removal spell at the table. Plus he seemed to have Stupor every time it would be a total blowout. When you do that, your guys don’t even have to be good; I was destroyed by Withered Wretch and Thick-Skinned Goblin. Matt Wang scooped to him in the finals.
1:00am. Well, I did just receive two-thirds of a set, and I’m off work all day tomorrow because I’m flying home for Thanksgiving in the afternoon, so why not draft again?
This time it was an 84, because all other queues were empty. Yet again I ended up in Blue, and again the color I prefer to pair it with, Red, was flowing freely. I got a copy each of Coal Stoker, Grapeshot, and Empty the Warrens in the first two packs alone, and I liked the way it shaped up:
Creatures (16)
- 1 Pirate Ship
- 1 Flying Men
- 1 Ovinomancer
- 1 Aetherflame Wall
- 1 Assembly-Worker
- 1 Coal Stoker
- 1 Coral Trickster
- 1 Fathom Seer
- 1 Flamecore Elemental
- 1 Greater Gargadon
- 1 Ironclaw Buzzardiers
- 1 Riftwing Cloudskate
- 1 Sage of Epityr
- 1 Slipstream Serpent
- 1 Tolarian Sentinel
- 1 Viscerid Deepwalker
Lands (17)
Spells (7)
In retrospect this deck is not all that; when guys like Flying Men, Sage of Epityr, and Assembly-Worker are making the cut, it’s a little depressing. Plus, subsequent practice in this format suggests that eighteen land is right in most cases where you have no Prismatic Lenses or other accelerants.
So it should be no surprise that I lost in round 1 to an R/G deck that simply had more beef than I could deal with. At one point I was getting pounded by Durkwood Baloth, with another Baloth on the way next turn, and my opponent played Pardic Dragon. On the next turn, when I desperately blocked with and activated Ovinomancer to try and stay alive, he played Bogardan Rager on an unblocked creature for lethal damage…
Gameben: don’t concede
Gameben: i want to see the sheep
Gameben: lol
No, I didn’t expect to be over 1600 after my first night, but that was humiliating.
2:00am. I wanted to wash the taste of the Sheep Incident out of my mouth, so I sat 999, not knowing much about the format except that Rich Hoaen said “always draft Blue.” I first-picked Icy Manipulator and then proceeded to receive no Blue at all – I finished pack 1 with some Green guys, a Volcanic Hammer, and some terrible Red creatures that I did not expect to make the cut. So when pack 2 offered a Time Ebb and nothing much in Green, I happily abandoned the Hammer and moved into G/U. A Force of Nature greeted me in pack 3 and I was quite pleased with my deck…
Creatures (14)
- 1 Force of Nature
- 2 Grizzly Bears
- 1 Giant Spider
- 1 Wood Elves
- 1 Wind Drake
- 1 Scaled Wurm
- 1 Order of the Sacred Bell
- 2 Trained Armodon
- 1 Thieving Magpie
- 1 Elvish Warrior
- 1 River Bear
- 1 Kavu Climber
Lands (17)
Spells (9)
… and thus, of course, I lost in round 1. He was G/W, but Rod of Ruin and Warrior’s Honor helped him trade his smaller dudes with my fatter ones. He also played a Chastise on my Scaled Wurm in games 2 and 3 to gain a huge advantage in the race.
Anyway, this article is getting a little long, so I’ll be back tomorrow with my first draft win. The first three installments of this series will already be written by the time you read this, but if you have any questions about (or issues with) Magic Online that you’d like me to tackle on Friday, don’t hesitate to sound off in the forums or contact me personally:
mmyoungster at aim dot com
mm_young dot livejournal dot com