Each week Ken and I discuss our pick orders with one another before we write these articles. For Blue, our lists diverged by a good deal. Once again, we only included on-color artifacts and Blue cards in the list, and the two biggest disagreements we had were Aether Spellbomb versus Regress and Annul versus Wizard Replica.
It would seem to many of you that I like a challenge. Almost without fail, my card valuations go against conventional wisdom. I assure you I do not take on these cards as a chore. I don’t do it because I lost the coin flip. I don’t do it to make a scene. I do it because I am of the firm belief that I am right. Usually, I am.
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.
You know, year after year I would march to the tune that States should mean more. A few months after the euphoria had died down from winning States in 1999, it hit home that winning really didn’t mean anything. There were few pros playing, so I wasn’t truly the best player in the State that day. I didn’t get an invite or byes to some higher-level premier event. I had a plaque and a bag and a modicum of satisfaction that I was no longer considered a complete scrub by the more competitive players out there, but that was it. I mean, you still have to play fairly decent Magic to win one of these things, so do something to make it matter.
This year, I changed my mind.
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.
When I got my email from Wizards telling me that I had qualified for Pro Tour: New Orleans on rating, I had a decision to make. If I tried my hand at the Pro Tour, I’d be throwing away two more years of Free Money Championships – most people call them the JSS champs, but I prefer Free Money. I won’t lie; playing eight rounds against kids and getting $1,000 to show for it is nice, but it was getting pretty boring. Since many of my friends were also qualified, I chose to go to New Orleans and play for the glory.
You have to admit that War Elemental is one of the spoiler entries that immediately catches your eye. You’re tempted to do some mental weighing. You can just attack with your first-turn creature or fire off an extra Lightning Bolt like a cumbersome Chain Lightning, then every other burn spell in your hand deals at least twice its damage. Normally, its triple-Red, three-mana cost would be enough to merit it just a passing comment, but things have changed with Chalice of the Void… So is War Elemental better and does it raise the value of the three-slot in Type I?
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.
Aaron and I were entranced with the idea of our deck Sacrificial Bam!… But a week later after sweating over what cards to play, we were no closer to a winning deck. We had refined the original concept several times, unearthed tech, but our playtesting showed that, like many aggro decks, we lost to control. Honestly? Control owned us. And realizing that a lot of control was going to be played, a few days before States we both shifted into control.
Through the course of this article, I’ll reveal to you what I consider to be the best Affinity build, show you how to play it, and reveal the theory behind it. It’s the Ancient Tomb and Mind Stone theory, which will be revealed to you inside. The important thing is that you learn to understand exactly why the Affinity deck is so robust, and once you do that, it will serve you in a proportionately greater fashion. You will be able to capitalize on the strengths of the deck – namely the fact that it essentially gets to play cards that aren’t even legal.
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?
