First, I’ll give a brief report from the PTQ I played this weekend, and then for the remainder of the article I’ll discuss my impressions of Rise of the Eldrazi (ROE) Limited, specifically the ROE draft format.
PTQ Indianapolis Mini-Report *Top 4 (again)*
Since I was already qualified for U.S. Nationals on Pro Level, I was ineligible to compete in a Nationals Qualifier tournament this weekend. However, there was a Pastimes PTQ in Indianapolis on Sunday, which I ended up playing. Since I had nothing better to do on Saturday, I spent the day playing in ROE drafts on MTGO in preparation for Pro Tour: San Juan. Just as I finished my last draft, it was 7:00am and that meant it was time to head off to the PTQ. Oops, forgot to sleep. Oh well. So I call my buddy Ervin and tell him I’m on my way over to pick up him and Jake Meiser, and that I still have his Jund deck from last week. He tells me Jake decided not to go, and so we’re off to the other side of Cincinnati where we agreed to pick up Jack Grannan and Chris Grady. When we arrive, we discover that Ben Wienburg is also there and waiting for a ride, and the three of them squeeze into the backseat and we’re off to Indianapolis. Good thing Jake decided not to go; someone would have had to ride in the trunk. And by someone, I mean Ben.
Jack, Chris, and Ben are out of contention midway through the event, while Ervin and I are undefeated. My favorite match was the one I won by Mindslavering my opponent when that was literally my only path to victory. I ended up losing a match in the Swiss to Bobby Graves (2-0) and his Naya deck, and by that I mean Gerry Thompson Naya deck. By the way, that deck is gas. Ervin, meanwhile, went undefeated, and drew with Bobby into the Top 8. Since there were exactly 128 players, I had to battle in the last round, and I finished 6-1 to make Top 8. In the quarterfinals I played against Nick Becvar and his Gerry Thompson Naya creation. In game 3, I literally looked at close to 45 cards in my deck before finding a Polymorph, but when I finally did I was able to kill him with it. In the semifinals I had my chance at revenge against my only loss so far in the tournament: Bobby Graves. This time I was able to take the match to a game 3 and cast Polymorph targeting his Cunning Sparkmage so that I could make a Plant Token and safely resolve Polymorph the following turn to win the game. Unfortunately he Polymorphed into the only creature in his deck to save him: another Cunning Sparkmage. So that ended my tournament. He proceeded to knock off Ervin in the finals and finish the tournament 9-0-1. Congratulations to Bobby for the victory. Clearly it was his day, and he certainly had nothing handed to him, having to defeat Pro Tour Top 8ers back-to-back to win the tournament. Unfortunately, that means I still have no plane ticket to Amsterdam, and Ervin is still not qualified. He lost in the finals, and I lost in a de facto finals since obviously I was scooping to Ervin if I beat Bobby. Not a big deal, but it’s always frustrating to get so close and only leave with a box of product (and a pin to remind you that you did not in fact win)*.
On the ride back from the tournament, we discussed what sort of party shenanigans we would pull off this time, until we realized it was Sunday night instead of Saturday night, which basically meant nothing is happening in town. So instead we drop off Ben, Chris, and Jack, and head over to Jake’s house to play in some online poker tournaments. We made money but didn’t win any of them. At some point I pass out from exhaustion after about 48 hours without sleep. For those who are interested, I made no changes to the maindeck from last week, and in the sideboard I added Canopy Cover for the Red matchup and Jace Beleren for the control matchups. I took out Reality Spasm and Narcolepsy to make room. I’ve already discussed the deck extensively in my PTQ report here and my deck primer article here. In order to avoid turning my column into a My Polymorph series, I’d like to change things up and spend the rest of the article talking about the ROE draft format.
* On a related note, kudos to the Head Judge for running an excellent tournament; regrettably, his name escapes me, but he made some top-notch rulings that not many PTQ judges are able to make, and he was careful to base his rulings on player testimony and facts of the matter unique to the situation at hand rather than being excessively lenient toward players that fail to know the rules coming into the tournament (and no, I am not referring to the celebrity DQ of a local hero, which I have not heard enough about to make a decision one way or the other; I’m mostly referring to the correct Round 1 overturn he made that allowed me to win the match when my opponent misplayed based on his lack of understanding of the rules and the floor judge tried to allow him to take back his misplay).
Rise of the Eldrazi Draft
Last week Brian Kibler talked about his first impressions of the format in an enlightening article that can be found here. Earlier in the week, Quentin Martin offered his perspective on the format here. Instead of evaluating each of the cards individually, which would take forever, what I will do is talk about which cards and archetypes have worked for me and which ones have not, in the hope that you will gain a better understanding of the individual cards as well as the format as a whole.
I’ve done approximately 20 ROE drafts on MTGO (8-4s, obviously) so far, and I’ve won slightly less than half of them (probably about 8 of them). Sometimes I 3-0’d with decks that I thought there was no way I could win a match with, and 0-1’d with decks I thought were incapable of losing a match. Despite the variance and wildly incorrect predictions, I’ve learn quite a few things about the format.
One of the most striking features of the format is how powerful the (non-vanilla) creatures are. The late game threats like Pelakka Wurm and Artisan of Kozilek threaten to dominate the board immediately, and generate so much value that their high casting costs are well worth the investment. On the other end of the spectrum, the early game threats are also unreal. Most of the early creatures have the leveler mechanic and can provide quick pressure if you spend your first few turns casting and leveling them up. Moreover, the value of the leveler creatures remains high in the mid-to-late game, since you can often cast and fully level your creature in time for it to attack for maximum value the following turn. Cards like Beastbreaker of Bala Ged, Knight of Cliffhaven, Nirkana Cutthroat, (coulda) Hada Spy Patrol, and many of the others threaten to take over the game both early and late, regardless of when you draw them.
Another feature about the format that stands out to me is how many niche archetypes exist. In M10 draft, you pretty much take the most powerful card in the pack each pick and just jam them all into the same deck, occasionally deviating from the plan by taking something like Gorgon Flail over a ‘better’ card when you already have Prodigal Pyromancer and Goblin Artillery or something. Zendikar draft offered a bit more synergy and a break from solidified pick orders by introducing the Ally theme, where sometimes it was beneficial to take less powerful allies over ‘better’ creatures, or to take the good allies over quality removal that would otherwise be a higher pick. But for the most part, you could create a list of pick orders and you would rarely stray far from it. Rise of the Eldrazi, on the other hand, is a completely different animal.
In Lorwyn block, the tribal theme was at least as important as the colors you were playing, which meant sometimes three drafters in a row could be drafting the same color and yet you could be at the bottom of the river and still get completely hooked up with everything you want from the color (say by drafting Mono-White Kithkin when the two White drafters in front of you are drafting White-Red Giants and Blue-White Merfolk). In ROE, the colors are still the most relevant feature, and there are still cards that are pretty much universally the best card across archetypes, like Vendetta or Narcolepsy. But beyond the first few cards in the pick order, the value of the next best card varies wildly depending on the theme of your deck.
One archetype that Luis-Scott Vargas advocates is the Blue-Red Kiln Fiend deck that wins by making its creatures unblockable monsters via Distorting Strike, Wrap in Flames, and Goblin Tunneler. While everyone is interested in Flame Slash, Narcolepsy, Drake Umbra, and Staggershock, these niche cards will often table back to you and provide you with an incredibly powerful and synergistic deck. Nobody outside the archetype cares to pick up Valakut Fireboar, yet he is all-star caliber in this deck. I have drafted this deck once and had success, and I also got smashed by it once in the finals of a draft.
Another archetype that I have found to be particularly powerful and full of niche cards is the Venerated Teacher deck, which is better as Blue-Black but sometimes ends up Blue-White. Red decks don’t care about the Teacher, Green decks want to avoid Blue at all cost, and in general even the Blue-White leveler deck wants to take solid leveler creatures over the Teacher since they are good regardless of archetype. So if you see some Black leveler dorks early and then a Venerated Teacher midway through pack 1, there is a good chance Blue-Black levelers is open and you might be wise to move into it. The reason I say Blue-Black levelers is a niche archetype is because most of the Black leveler creatures are mid-to-late picks and often table. Guul Draz Assassin and Nirkana Cutthroat are high picks, but Null Champion and Zulaport Enforcer will often make it all the way back to you.
An archetype that I tried to make happen that basically fell flat on its face both times was Blue-Green. The first time I drafted four Aura Gnarlids and a bunch of Auras, including Drake Umbra, Bear Umbra, Boar Umbra, Eel Umbra, and Narcolepsy (since Gnarlid counts all Auras on the board, not just the ones on your side). This was a draft in real life where we were doing Swiss, and out of my three matches I only won 1, and it was by topdecking Drake Umbra as my only out on the final turn to win Game 3 of match 3 and avoid going 0-3 with it. Even though the deck had a very high power level in terms of card quality, it lacked what Blue-Green always lacks: creature removal. Historically, this color combination is the weakest for that exact reason, and from my experience this format is no exception. The better Aura Gnarlid deck is Green-White, using the Green mana fixing to enable a Blue splash.
The other Blue-Green archetype I drafted was a deck with high-toughness Green ground creatures and mana acceleration in the form of Sporecrap Spider, Overgrown Battlement, Ondu Giant, and Growth Spasm along with Blue evasion creatures such as Hada Spy Patrol, Skywatch Adept, and multiple Frostwind Invokers. The plan was to stall the ground while flying over in the air. The plan failed since the opponent would just use removal spells on my evasion creatures and play creatures that were big enough to attack past my ground creatures (which includes almost all levelers since most of them can attack past a 4-toughness dude without much effort). I have essentially given up on Blue-Green and unless I have something like 5 Narcolepsies and literally nobody else at the table is drafting Green, I plan to stay away from this color combination in San Juan (but not in D.C., because it’s the nut high in Standard).
Another archetype that is traditionally bad is Black-White since both tend to be better as base-colors. In Zendikar Limited, this color combination struggled with consistently casting Hideous End and Kazandu Blademaster or Vampire Nighthawk and Kor Aeronaut. In ROE, however, I drafted this color combination twice so far and was very happy with both decks. The high picks in both colors are the same, taking removal spells like Vendetta, Oust, and Induce Despair early and then trying to fill out the deck with efficient leveler creatures and White flyers. Most of the important cards are non-color intensive and so playing 9 Swamps and 9 Plains is perfectly reasonable and sufficient to cast most of your spells on time. There is nothing too fancy about the archetype, just solid creatures and quality removal. Survival Cache is a lot better in this archetype than it looks, since you can get ahead on life with your early threats and Last Kiss and then the life gain becomes very relevant later on when you are casting your Vendettas. Also for those unfamiliar with the booster draft format, Linvala, Keeper of Silence and Drana, Kalastria Highborn are each the stoneblade in this deck, as well as in any other deck playing either of those colors. Gideon Jura too.
Another niche archetype I have employed, to varying degrees of success, is the Eldrazi Spawn Token deck. This deck is usually Red-Green, though sometimes Black is involved. There are essentially two different ways to approach the archetype. One way is to take advantage of the mana-generating aspect of the Spawn Tokens and use them to accelerate you into huge Eldrazi monsters. This strategy has generally gone very poorly for me since few of the Eldrazi monsters are worth the investment and in order to stall long enough to cast your 11-drop, you have to start chump blocking, and if you’re chump blocking with Spawn Tokens, you’re not really making any progress. The other way to approach the archetype is to generate value from the tokens themselves via cards like Bloodthrone Vampire, Raid Bombardment, Might of the Masses, Ogre’s Cleaver, or Virulent Swipe, each of which will generally come later in the packs and often table back to you. Like the Blue-Red Kiln Fiend deck, this archetype is able to generate big advantages off low-pick cards based on the synergy of the cards in the deck. Just keep in mind that if you do move into this archetype you have to take cards like Emrakul’s Hatcher and Kozilek’s Predator over removal spells and ‘better’ cards because they will not table back to you and they are so crucial for the archetype to thrive.
One final archetype I would like to talk about is Jund. No, I’m not talking about Standard. This deck almost always has a Green base with a Black and Red splash for removal, though it starts off in a variety of ways. Sometimes you start off by taking Black removal (Vendetta, Induce Despair); sometimes Red removal (Flame Slash, Staggershock); sometimes Green creatures (Beastbreaker of Bala Ged, Joraga Treespeaker). I rarely find myself in straight Black-Red, usually because the creatures are subpar and you’re forced to waste too much of your removal spells as 1-for-1’s just to keep up instead of being able to sandbag them for a crucial turn. So whenever I find myself picking up some early Black and Red removal spells, I look to go base Green and focus on picking up mana fixing and Green creatures higher than I normally would. This archetype is one of my favorites, and is probably the one I end up in most often, largely because it tends to be the culminating archetype that results from a variety of openings. Calling it Green/x might be more appropriate since really it is the Green mana fixing that powers the archetype and allows for powerful splashes, but in general the splash colors are Black and Red since those tend to provide the best removal spells.
Now that I’ve talked about many of the archetypes in the format, I will finish by briefly talking about some of the cards that have surprised me. Traitorous Instinct is much better in this format than Threaten effects have ever been, given the quality of Levelers and huge Eldrazi creatures. Also Deprive, and counter-magic in general, is at a premium since there are so many times when a clutch counter is all it takes to blow out an opponent and win the game. Regress is also better than it’s ever been, having juicy targets in the form of leveled up creatures, Eldrazi monsters (cast off Spawn Tokens), and creatures enchanted with Umbras. As obvious as it may sound, I’ve been particularly impressed with Evolving Wilds since, outside of Green, there is not a lot of fixing, and I find that most of my losses involve mana problems and most of my games involving Evolving Wilds result in victories. For these reasons, I tend to take the land higher than most people, usually around pick 5-6 after bombs, premium removal, and the very best creatures. I pump the fist every time I table one of these.
Overall, the format seems very rewarding to drafters who are willing to adapt and take risks based on awareness of what archetypes are open rather than simply on what colors are being under-drafted. I expect a lot of Finkel-esque audibles into the open archetype midway through a draft, as he did with Kithkin to win the Top 8 draft in Kuala Lumpur. I’m also excited that, for once, the set is available to draft with on MTGO in the weeks leading up to the Pro Tour. Because of this, unlike for the previous Pro Tours this season and last, I plan to have fifty or more drafts under my belt going into the tournament.
Next weekend I will be competing in Grand Prix: Washington D.C. and the following weekend in Pro Tour: San Juan. Hopefully I’ll be flying home with at least one trophy in hand and plenty to write about.