Video Drafting With Noah – Scars of Mirrodin #1!

First up, the Draft:

  Pack 1 pick 1:

  My Pick:

A little background: I had a huge string of wins with aggro metalcraft-type decks. I was convinced it was the strongest deck, and it often is.

But that was weeks ago. Since then, i.e. Scars being on MODO for a longer time, the metalcraft cards have been getting more respect. It’s a rare draft now with late Lifestaffs, or even late Panic Spellbombs. I still liked the deck, but I was aware they were not just falling into my lap like they used to. One does need to adapt to the regional concerns of drafting (a topic for another time)

It had been suggested to force Infect. I am not a fan of the forcing strategy generally; it’s rare in these modern times one archetype is head and shoulders stronger than another. Once more, if I had to distill draft into one tenet, it is “be adaptable.” That probably applies to Magic in general, but again, a topic for another time.

The pros of drafting infect are obvious: a quick-kill, and you care about cards that no one else does. The flaws of Infect are likewise obvious: you don’t have a Plan B, and sometimes the person next to you is cutting you off from Plan I. From my dabbles with the deck, Infect required a rare
and
nobody around you doing the same thing. That was a lot of ducks, and so I was happy to go with more mainstream decks. They were winning after all.

I’ve since revised my thinking. Infect is slightly more flexible than I gave it credit for, which means there are other ways to build it. As this draft will show, a rare is not required (but it sure helps). All that leads up to my pick of Nim here. A weak pack, I simply had to choose whether to go with ‘Craft or Infect to lead. Remembering my past drafts, and the advice to “force infect,” I led with Nim.

  Pack 1 pick 2:

  My Pick:

Unexciting, but in for a penny. Nothing here is compelling enough to turn away from the first pick. If I had taken Edgewright last pack, I’d have taken Idol here.

  Pack 1 pick 3:

  My Pick:

Here’s where we start to mix it up. First of all, this pack is atrocious. But I do like Thrumming Bird, and think it’s quite underrated. I admit it was an aggressive pick here, but both G/U and B/U infect are viable, if unconventional. Nothing else stood out, although I suppose Turn to Slag would have been a legitimate choice too.

  Pack 1 pick 4:

  My Pick:

I don’t exactly regret this pick, but I’m not sure I would do it again. It was the last pack that screwed me up, because I was just concerned that conventional infect was off the table. Pinions remains a truly terrible card, but if it has any value at all, it’s in infect. Further, unlike Untamed Might, it doesn’t deadify if one of our colors disappears. The other option was Perilous Myr, which is ironically a safe pick. But that safety comes with a cost, namely not improving the infect deck. Myr is wonderfully defensive, and sometimes you can do tricks, but none of that is what an infect deck wants to do.

  Pack 1 pick 5:

  My Pick:

Thrumming Bird was in my head, but if that was my thinking the pick should probably be Neurok Replica. Obviously a metalcraft deck is implied in these packs, but I felt somewhat committed. I do think Dais is extremely underrated, and I’m never unhappy to have one in my deck. It even turned out to be correct here, although Replica is still the correct pick.

  Pack 1 pick 6:

  My Pick:

Obviously the implication of a proliferate deck. I find Throne another underrated card. Even if you sacrifice itself, another Tumble/Censor/Dais/Poison counter has genuine value. Strider Harness crossed my mind, but I felt the deck was so lacking at this point some gamble was needed.

  Pack 1 pick 7:

  My Pick:

I think the Goblin is trash, but what else are you going to take?

  Pack 1 pick 8:

  My Pick:

A welcome late Myr, but at this point I’m starting to wonder how this deck can ever win.

  Pack 1 pick 9:

  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 10:

  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 11:

  My Pick:

I thought about the Bonds here, but the last few picks implied a G/U metalcraft/proliferate style. I don’t think that deck exists, but clearly the infect plan was getting waylaid.

  Pack 1 pick 12:

  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 13:

  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 14:

  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 15:

  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 1:

  My Pick:

I’ll start with the easy stuff: Contagion Clasp is one of my favorite cards in the format. As its a run, the choice of Slagmelter/Clasp comes up (un)commonly. P1p1 I’ll take Clasp everytime. It’s a remarkable card in that it fits
everywhere
. Scars has a bad habit of providing dead packs if you’re not in strategy X. Clasp is the ultimate enabler, plus it kills sh–.

And it even helps with poison. But so do creatures with infect, and that there are a lot of. Two things that led me to Clasp were its synch with the possibility of a proliferate deck, and the depth of infect made it possible one would table. If I were absolutely dedicated on infect, one of the 2cc cards may be better. Clasp was hedging, but at least it was hedging with quality.

  Pack 2 pick 2:

  My Pick:

Necropede was more hedge. Painsmith is arguably stronger in an infect deck, even though this deck just needed more infect creatures anyway. But it was the counter distribution power I particularly liked, with Throne and Dais.

  Pack 2 pick 3:

  My Pick:

My choice was between Replica or Leaden Myr, with I suppose Rust Tick an option too. The Replica was a color committment, but it seemed worth the price. A fine card, but I still feel directionless.

  Pack 2 pick 4:

  My Pick:

This pick was a miss. If I’m green, infect or otherwise, Tanglewurm is the right choice. It also demonstrates my lack of focus on what the deck is trying to do. Sometimes I don’t know by the middle of pack 2, but it implies an error somewhere.

  Pack 2 pick 5:

  My Pick:

Finally a decision, even if it was made by the lack of anything better to do. We are playing green with infect. Our picks are now honed on a goal. These packs are really bad.

  Pack 2 pick 6:

  My Pick:

Instill Infection is a legitimate pick, I just wasn’t sure I was going to end black. At this point in the draft, G/U was looking more likely.

  Pack 2 pick 7:

  My Pick:

A late Reins also showed blue’s availability. The deck is still a mess, but at least the color decision was chosen.

  Pack 2 pick 8:

  My Pick:

A simple hate draft in another remarkably weak pack. Soul Parry is an underrated card, especially against infect decks. Seastrider is a sideboard card, but considering this blue is paired with green, I couldn’t imagine the Seastrider adding anything of value.

  Pack 2 pick 9:

  My Pick:

An interesting question in a vacuum, I was so low on infect creatures recurring them seemed better than a possibly stronger singlet.

  Pack 2 pick 10:

  My Pick:

Hmmm! A place to put those dumb Forgers. Going the Strike route would mean forgoing the blue, but it also gives access to the black pool. This felt like putting the deck in a direction, which I appreciated.

  Pack 2 pick 11:

  My Pick:

Liquimetal Coating is an interesting card. Aside from weird tricks like hyper-Throne or flexible Oxidda Scrapmelter, its purpose seems to be turning on metalcraft. The problem is that if you’re with metalcraft, you need a glut of artifacts. If you need the Coating to turn things on, you’ve done something wrong.

But what Coating does do is give you metalcraft
fast
. The two common, cheap metalcraft cards are Suncasher and Forger. Coating looks a lot better if it makes your creatures 4/4 and 3/3 flying a turn earlier. With a pair of Forgers, the possibility of speedy craft made the Coating the pick, over say a hate of Saberclaw or Daredevil.

  Pack 2 pick 12:

  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 13:

  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 14:

  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 15:

  My Pick:

  Pack 3 pick 1:

  My Pick:

I wasn’t convinced of the Strike plan, but this pack had little else to offer. Infiltration Lens is ok in this kind of deck, but this exact deck needed more infect creatures, not more evasion. Lens may have been the pick on the sub-metalcraft/hope infect flows scheme, but the draft was going so badly I wasn’t feeling optimistic. I think either choice is defensible.

  Pack 3 pick 2:

  My Pick:

Some blue cards to make infect get through, but if we know we’re green, a removal card is the best choice. Adequate, but not what I wanted out of a second pick. I did make a note of the Molder Beast as a likely card to table, and good with Tainted Strike.

  Pack 3 pick 3:

  My Pick:

This was close with Ichorclaw. Some decks randomly fold to Fallen, which is a nice option to have available. But the Myr is arguably the better card for infect decks, and it minimally makes the chance of the Fallen tabling. I remember agonizing about the decision, and in retrospect I think Ichorclaw is the correct choice, and Obviously I had given up on the proliferate plan at this point.

  Pack 3 pick 4:

  My Pick:

More garbage. The alternate “damage matters” condition sounds ok, but from practice it does not work. I suppose I could have hated here, but mostly I was just feeling despondic about a deck that only half existed.

  Pack 3 pick 5:

  My Pick:

Thank god, a chance to win. I did look at the Liege as a victory condition, but 8 is enormous for a deck with no Spellbombs and only two Myr. No, we needed another Strike here to reasonably try to win.

  Pack 3 pick 6:

  My Pick:

A nice pickup this late. Trigon of Infestion is achingly slow and we didn’t have the removal to try to make it work.

  Pack 3 pick 7:

  My Pick:

It occured to me the deck may be so short on cards a blue splash would be warranted. Thrummingbird is basically another Stinger after all.

  Pack 3 pick 8:

  My Pick:

While I like to have a Wing Puncture somewhere, more infect (in our metalcraft deck no less) is not just welcome, but necessary.

  Pack 3 pick 9:

  My Pick:

This deck needs to try to win, not stay alive.

  Pack 3 pick 10:

  My Pick:

Shocking how not in the right colors we are. Still, happy to get Beast here.

  Pack 3 pick 11:

  My Pick:

And here.

  Pack 3 pick 12:

  My Pick:

  Pack 3 pick 13:

  My Pick:

  Pack 3 pick 14:

  My Pick:

  Pack 3 pick 15:

  My Pick:

This gives you the final decklist:

Final Thoughts

Ughhh. I gave myself a chance to win, but the final product is strung together on hopes and prayers. The Thrummingbird would be pretty easy to play, but it also doesn’t add that much over, say, a Flight Spellbomb. No, this deck felt like it needed to be focused on the objective. I wish the objective was stronger.

As for the games, they were more interesting than I expected. Why don’t you see for yourself?

Round 1:

Round 2:

Round 3: