AuthorNick Eisel

The experiment works like this. I build the packs for an entire 8-man booster draft (twenty-four packs). I then build the same set of packs again, making two copies of the exact same draft. I have my CMU cohorts sit down and draft once, and then for the second run of the same draft, I move the packs back three seats so that different people are drafting different packs even though both of the drafts are identical. The object, of course, is to see how different people draft the same exact set of packs.

In the past, playing four or five colors in a forty card deck usually meant that you had a base color of Green so that you could find the mana of your splash colors. Invasion block and Urza’s block stand out in my mind specifically, since this strategy was not only viable, but also one of the defining archetypes of the format.

The times have changed, however, and here we are smack dab in the middle of triple Mirrodin Limited. While the above statement remains true, as Green’s common list contains Journey of Discovery, a new race of dorks has arrived to give every color the opportunity to splash: The Myr.

Wizards has apparently taken a liking to the Blue/Red color combination in the last two blocks, as it has been completely dominant in the format before either of the small expansions are released. Last year it was Sparksmith, Lavamancer’s Skill, and Mistform Wall. This year it’s Electrostatic Bolt, Spikeshot Goblin, and Neurok Spy. Go figure.

While I wouldn’t go as far to say the U/R is absolutely unbeatable in triple Mirrodin Limited, I’ll say that there have been very few times when I’ve had a solid version of the archetype that I’ve actually lost.

Thinking about Equipment tends to make me all nostalgic with regard to the medieval era. The time where donning a sword and six hundred pounds of plate mail was the cool thing to do. The artwork on the Equipment cards themselves only pushes this statement to the next level, as they actually look like medieval weaponry.

This new card type has had a huge impact on the Limited format and since no one else has stepped up to the plate to address the issue, I’m more than happy to offer my thoughts.

Just a couple days ago, Tim Aten posted his Red pick order for Mirrodin and I was absolutely shocked at how different it was when compared to mine. Now don’t get me wrong, Tim can certainly play with the best of em’ and I’ve always had lots of respect for his game. Heck, we even ran a team PTQ together a while back with Kenny the Shungfather. I just can’t understand how his pick order could be so different than mine and I feel inclined to share my own findings.

At the end of pack one, Nick Lynn makes the mistake of talking.
“I’m drafting Mono-Artifact.” – Nick
“You’re drafting Mono-Idiot.” – Turian

Stupidity level rising.

With Mirrodin almost ready to be released on Magic Online, I’ve received a number of emails regarding the makeup of a successful draft deck in the new format. How many Lands? Spells? Creatures? Equipment? As with most things in Magic, the number of Spells and Equipment tends to vary from deck to deck. Two important constants that I’ve found though are the amount Creatures and Land you want to have. Usually I’d never want to run less than twelve creatures, and fourteen or more is gravy.

Now let’s talk about Land. For those of you who have been unable to get a good amount of experience in the format as of yet, you need to know that the standard rule has just been thrown out the window…

Is it possible to get passed a fourth pick Skeleton Shard, fourth and fifth pick Betrayals of the Flesh, plus a fifth pick Plated Slagwurm and not win?

If this draft teaches you anything, it should be that choosing the right path early in the draft is incredibly important if you plan on sticking to it. Oscar chose a less-than-optimal route during the draft and then refused to switch out of it despite being given numerous opportunities. If you do happen to make a bad judgment call early in the draft and realize it, you can still salvage it by switching out later when you’re given the opportunity.

When a card exists that a five-year-old kid could use to win a Limited tournament full of pros with, and that card isn’t even a rare, you know we’ve got problems on our hands… And this single uncommon is better than every single rare in the set. Glissa Sunseeker? Molder Slug? Oblivion Stone? Megatog? It’s no contest… And if you don’t think that this is the best card, then you’re not playing it right.

Don’t feel bad, though. A lot of people aren’t.

When I first saw that Annul was coming back, I was a little worried that it might actually be good this time around. Thankfully, though, my fears have been partially assuaged as the card is simply too unreliable. The problem with Annul is that none of us want to be stuck with it in our hand. This leads to the usual eagerness to cast it, and often on the first decent artifact that goes on the stack. This is obviously a big problem with the card, as anybody with a brain is going to cast their worst spells first if at all possible. If you sit on Annul too long, they’ll just beat you with the garbage creatures that you didn’t counter and you can sit and look at the artwork all day while it goes to waste in your hand.

Nick wanted to follow one of his own drafts, but he couldn’t keep up in real life… So he decided to follow Mike Turian, who’s the man the pros turn to when trying to figure out how to break Limited formats. Walk with Mike Turian, as Nick goes over the picks in detail and talks about what cards are strong in Mirrodin draft!

Basically, what happened was that I was sure I was running red for most of the draft, and my second color continued to evade me as I was continually passed high picks in other colors. In the end, I accumulated an excellent set of cards to compliment my red – thirty-seven playables – with the problem being that I had about an equal number for each of the other four colors. Quite a predicament! So how would you build it?

Piemaster wrote an article a few weeks back about how he believes a lot of the older walkthrough articles were pretty much null in terms of benefits that a player could glean from reading them. A lot of the time, this was simply because the draft required little skill to navigate, or stupid bombs were dropped into the player’s lap and he easily won. For this walkthrough, I decided that I wouldn’t be satisfied with a draft that could be classified in any of these ways and I would continue covering my drafts until I found a suitable entry for this article. Thirteen drafts later, here I am – and let me tell you how sick of Eighth Edition I am.

Now that we’ve got our weapon of choice assembled, we can move into battle. Since it would take entirely too long (as if this article wasn’t long enough already) to cover each and every game of the draft, I decided right away that I would outline the games in which a critical mass of important and difficult decisions was not achieved, and go in detail on the games where I could have possibly made a small misplay due to tough calls.

Since the release of Mirrodin, I’ve overheard a number of conversations focusing on the topic of Spikeshot Goblin and its power level in comparison to the Limited wrecking ball from Onslaught that we all know as Sparksmith. Every one of these discussions has been concluded with statements like”While Spikeshot is clearly very good, he’s nowhere near as powerful or dominant as Sparksmith was.” Let me give you many reasons why those people are wrong.