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Welcome to the first of a series of six articles on 8th Edition drafting. Very little has been written on this topic, even though it is being drafted a hell of a lot on Magic Online right now. Kai Budde wrote a primer for 8th Edition Draft on Sideboard a couple of months ago, but I don’t recall ever seeing a comprehensive guide to draft picks in 8th Edition, so I have taken it upon myself to write one. This article will evaluate every card in the set from a draft perspective as well as giving some general info on each color. We’ll start with Black.

Due to our receiving WAY more Champs reports than expected, it’s taken us some time to get caught up. But now that we finally have, we’re proud to announce the grand prize winner of our”Best Champs Report” contest! Without any further ado, StarCityGames.com would like to congratulate John Upton for his report, “Help Name My Janky Second-Place Deck!”. Within a few short weeks, John has won a Pro Tour Qualifier, placed second at his State Championship and written two excellent tournament reports… one of which just won our contest. Talk about being”on a roll”…

For the love of all things holy, ladies and gentlemen of the Magic community – if you want to get better at this game, you have to realize one important thing, and that is that somewhere in the area of 60% of all games of Magic are played with sideboards in… And it’s where most of you lose your games. So listen to me carefully: I have some rules for you to follow. They’re numbered. All you need to do is follow instructions. Trust the Tait.

I can honestly say that last week was one of the strongest weeks we’ve ever had – there were five outstanding articles on Wednesday alone, and the rest of the week was almost as good. However, we put so much content up last week that you might have skipped past some great articles that should not go overlooked. This has been happening a lot – we’ve been looking at articles and going,”You know, those were great reads. Why didn’t more people look at them?” Therefore, every Monday from here on out, we’re going to look back at the week that was and single out articles that we feel deserve special mention….

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.

In a previous article, I discussed the basics of building Mirrodin Sealed. This time, I would like to go one step further, into the realm of those rules we need to modify to fit the Mirrodin format. I’d like to talk about using synergy to build your Sealed deck, and walk you through two sample Sealed decks to show you how you can narrow down your options quickly when you’re dealing with forty playables.

When people evaluate cards for drafting Mirrodin, they often go astray because they consider the best possible scenario. Broodstar is a prime example of this phenomenon. It is not a 10/10 for two mana; it is not an automatic first pick. It is more likely a 4/4 flier for six mana, even in an artifact heavy deck. Sometimes you’ll scowl at your board of an artifact land and a Yotian Soldier as you play your splashy 2/2 flier; other times you’ll Lightning Greaves up a 14/14 and smash for the win on the sixth turn. Like the Archmage, its usefulness hinges on the number of artifacts at your disposal, so draft accordingly. If you’re Blue, you’ll probably want to snag it.

I asked my friend Tom Kelleher, who has so much confidence that we call it”Tomfidence” whether when he goes to a PTQ, he expects to Top 8. He said,”Of course, since I expect to win, I would necessarily have to Top 8 first.” And, not infrequently, he does. Three times, on the way to Maryland PTQs, Tom has stated that”since he was winning today, the rest of you must be along for the ride. Though I appreciate the company.” Twice, he won. So what effect does this ridiculous confidence have on your game, and how can you develop it?

Hi.
My name is Joe Gagliardi and I probably draft more than you. That’s really all I can say that is not misleading in any way about myself. I mean, sure, I had a money finish at a Team Pro Tour (Boston 2003), but I’ve really done nothing special in my years of gaming. However, I play Magic an awful lot, and I think I have a strong grasp on Mirrodin Drafting.

So what am I here to do? Hopefully after reading this, you’ll understand a bit more about the different archetypes in Mirrodin Draft, what cards are better in which archetypes, and why. Plus, I enjoy feedback and discussion, and I hope to inspire some of each. Today I’ll start with what can be a very tricky, but powerful archetype: R/W.