AuthorNick Eisel

If you’ve ever lost a game and then thought to yourself:”I really feel like I should’ve won that game but I can’t pinpoint exactly what I did wrong. I’m sure if a better player like Kai was in my shoes, he would’ve succeeded where I failed”… .Well, believe me when I say that you’re not alone.

But what is the difference between a good player and a bad player? And so I set out to create two Limited decks, each stacked so we’d know what the cards were and what they’d draw, and give them to two sets of players. The results were surprising.

Nick’s back with his series on the tiny decisions in Magic, and this one’s a doozy: You have a base-black deck. What should your splash be? A very in-depth analysis of how you should look at Limited decks, and how a bad choice can lead to cards that have no synergy with the base color’s plan of attack…

Lots of matches are decided by a single turn – or even a single play! Most of the time, we are too lazy to look back and see where we could have played differently to achieve a better result. Things that seem so irrelevant in the progression of a duel could actually be the most important aspect in determining its eventual winner. Casting the wrong creature on a given turn can lead to a loss in a game that was otherwise impossible to lose. So what happens if we start analyzing the plays as closely as possible?

Conventional wisdom says that while forcing a certain deck may work out some of the time, the numbers say that the important cards for the deck will not show up frequently enough to reliably force it. This is simply not so with Goblins in Onslaught draft because of the huge number of cards that the deck can key off of. Cards that aren’t even playable in other decks become powerhouses, simply because they belong to the Goblin tribe. So despite the protests of a couple close friends who have made a good bit of profit off of the Goblins draft strategy on Magic Online, I’m here to share it with you today.

It is clear that Monoblack decks are here to stay in Onslaught Block Limited. The combination of fast aggressive creatures and large amounts of life drain from Shepherd of Rot, Gempalm Polluter, and Vengeful Dead create a very scary combination to play against. Throw this in with the fact that the Black deck can easily splash most bomb rares since it is only one color to begin with and you have one of the top two archetypes in the block to contend with.

Zombies aren’t forgiving towards the unprepared. I can only hope that you’re ready for them.

With all of the strategy articles written in tired and repetitive formats, how are we even sure we’re gaining anything by reading them anymore? I mean c’mon – you can read a million columns on pick orders, and if you still can’t grasp why something is better than something else or when you should stray from the pick order, then you’re nothing but a machine implementing data that may or may not be correct depending on the situation. You’re like the high school student, cramming for a Calculus final; you’ve memorized a bunch of numbers, but you still have absolutely no idea what they mean. So how can you learn the meaning behind the numbers?

I’m not going to dwell on the annoying fact that these two colors seem to be able to overcome any set of obstacles in draft formats. Instead, I’ll give a complete guide to drafting one of what I believe is the format’s top two archetypes. The pros are forcing it for a reason – and it’s not because they like the artwork on Islands and Plains better than the rest of the lands.

The concept is very fundamental and doesn’t come into effect until you are drafting a full block – good cases in point being the past two blocks, Odyssey and Onslaught. The idea is that pack two is extremely favorable to one color (or possibly one color combo), and if you force the color and cut it hard enough in pack one, you should be able to reap the rewards of the higher card quality of that color in pack two. But should you try to force a color that ultimately, you may have no control over?

I can’t say enough good about this card, as I have actually started drafting white again because of it. Before Scourge, I would only touch white for a bomb Onslaught rare, and now I draft white whenever I feel I have a good chance of getting this card in pack three… And it’s not Zombie Cutthroat, Frontline Strategist, Zealous Inquisitor, Noble Templar, or an Aven.

If there’s one thing Magic players hate, it’s landscrew. Both morph and cycling greatly decrease the luck factor involved in Limited Magic, and give drafters plenty of ways to make their deck more versatile in the late and early game respectively. Unfortunately everything cannot be completely good news in terms of set design, and as always, a certain something managed to sneak through the cracks. We’re all overly familiar with this illustrious evil – a piece of cardboard known as Sparksmith.

The two key components of the archetype are mana and explosive effects. This is very important to keep in mind during the draft, because some of the picks are not immediately identifiable. The basic premise behind the deck is to ramp mana quickly and cast large splashable or in-color threats. The deck has an extremely powerful late game, considering that you take Invokers higher and splash a lot of giant creatures – so if you get all of the tools, it is simply too powerful for regular two-color decks.

Well, it’s about time that I set the record straight on the recent events regarding what happened to me at GP Boston. The fact of the matter is that nothing I can say can really affect anyone’s opinion on the issue, and I gave up on doing so early on when I realized this. Anybody can believe whatever they want, and I’m not going to be the one wasting my time trying to convince people to believe my side over hearsay….

I think the real issue at hand is whether or not Mistform Wall is better than the Mistform Dreamer. For quite some time up to (and possibly including) Pro Tour Chicago, it was the general consensus that the 2/1 flier was better, and I was also under this impression.

The real reason Skirk is better than Craghorn is that people just don’t block that much nowadays. From my experience, I’d say about 65% of the time or so I’m able to get a Skirk through… And looking ahead, Legions offers absolutely zero reasons to block a face down creature.

For most Limited tournaments in the past, the preparation has been just that: Limited. But Chicago is different from many of the major Limited tournaments I’ve participated in during my Magic career, because I have a very solid and defined plan. And I’m going to allow you guys to take a look at the terms of my complete and actual plan for Pro Tour: Chicago. We can argue about White another day – if it still sucks after Legions.