Pirate Draft League update

Alright, alright, alright everybody. We've had two more drafts on the HMS One Eye and the latest standings are as follows...

Name	Record	Points/Event
Owen T. Jacob B. TooSarcastic Kurt K. Nate L. Tim N. Jonathan B. Brendan H. Matt F. Greg O. Ryan S. Alexis R. CBG Nick P. Ash O. John D.	3-0 8-1 2-0 2-1 2-1 4-2 7-4 3-2 2-1 3-5 1-2 1-4 2-9 0-2 1-4 0-2	8.00 7.62 7.00 7.00 6.00 6.00 5.50 5.00 4.57 3.57 3.00 3.00 2.82 2.00 1.57 1.00

Some reminders: points are awarded per event with 8 points for first down to 1 point for 8th. Events with more/fewer players are normalized to this scale (hence the weird totals for some people).

Finally, I still suck. Drafted a terrible red/green metalcraft deck this last time. Deservedly went 0-2. Maybe I need to get a hook to be more intimidating.

M11 MTGO

Pick one, pack one. Day of Judgment or Foil Day of Judgment?

Force Spikes and increasing Magic's popularity.

So if you haven't checked out Force Spikes, the new podcast by Milwaukee locals Jon and Greg, you really should. They are fun to listen to, regardless of whether or not you agree with them! Case in point, this last episode I had some things to say about their suggestions for how Wizards should continue to increase Magic's popularity. I put a post in the MTGcast forums explaining my... point of view, but for some reason it never made it past moderation. Hm. I didn't think it was TOO much of a flame. See for yourself below. But first listen to this week's ForceSpikes podcast to draw your own conclusion!

"I think that you may have been a bit off base with your suggestions for how Magic could expand its player base.
First of all, I believe that the biggest factor in Magic's recent growth has been the Xbox Duels of the Planeswalkers game. I feel like this was mentioned somewhere on the mothership, but I don't know where I read it, so I'll call it my opinion since I can't cite my source.
Second, I think this example is indicative of a weakness in your thinking; Magic grows most when CASUAL players are introduced from other CASUAL gaming media, not from other competitive avenues like Poker. You're thinking a little too much like Spikes. Please remember that most of Magic's profit will come from the massive number of less engaged, casual gamers, not the tiny percentage of players who participate in PTQ and higher level tourneys.
Take your collective musings on having a spokesperson from the Magic/Poker community. This seems like an awful idea. First, most Magic players (who recall are casual players) don't know ANYONE who plays Poker or Magic professionally. Wizards would have to convince them to care. Second, and much more of an issue, is that Wizards would have to find some sort of perfect human who is well spoken, photogenic, one of the best gamers alive (i.e. doesn't fall off the train the next year being a paid spokesperson) AND has a reputation squeaky clean enough to be on the payroll of a company owned by Hasbro. I'll guarantee you the last point ain't trivial. Making one or several people the public face of your product is a huge PR liability! Don't you think that Wizards has thought about this before? Even if a guy like maybe Kibler could fit all the criteria at THIS MOMENT, if over the next year his clandestine cake-sitting prostitute fetish, or one of a million far less humiliating "personal interests" comes to light, Hasbro takes it sleazy from every conservative alarmist looking to paint Magic as the next thing for parents to freak out about. It's way too much of a liability. This is fundamentally a kid's game, remember.
So I think that Wizards should keep doing what they're doing- make further inroads into another, far more popular gaming arena than pro Poker: video games. This was also a a medium that was considered geeky a few years ago, but now has mainstream appeal. Magic does well to align itself with such a massively popular, mainstream medium. When Wizards wants to address potential new players they can turn to public shills for hire like the Frag Dolls (for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kQbZUGXad4), who are not employed per se by Wizards and who are still easy on the eyes. Then Wizards can promote it all on Facebook, another medium over which they can exert perfect control.
Sorry for the rant, but that part of the podcast really grated on me. Also, the second part of the show about tourney reports was great, and as is the case so often, things that are already great are much less exciting to write about!"
T

Wait, what?

WoTC has declared it and it is so. Starting with Mirrodin Besieged, small sets will be drafted before large sets so starting in early February, you'll be drafting Besieged/Scars/Scars.

Honestly, I like this change a lot. It was always a bit random to have your deck 80% complete and then see what delightful goodies did or did not await you in pack three. The new set should have a much greater effect on the environment now. Plus, it should be easier to adjust to the new set, since packs two and three will be familiar to you. Overall, I'd say this is all to the good, though it throws yet another wrench in the philosophical perfection of Carroll Draft. Oh well, that ship really sailed a long time ago.

So, Scars colors?

Well, what colors would you like to be when playing Scars? Me, I 2-1'ed in another draft with a red deck so I think I am gonna say red. Turns out removal is still good and with solid interactions with the main theme of the set (artifacts), red is very strong. Black has great removal as always (hi, Skinrender and Carnifex Demon!), white has a nice weenie metalcraft deck, green has infect and elves (what up, Ezuri?) and blue is blue (although it seems less blue to me than usual...).

It's actually starting to get to the point where I'd like to force red, but it's easy to end up with a pile of Ferrovores and Goblin Gaveleers in that situation. Better to let it come to you. I think.

Agrees with Tabasco

In the case, the agreement would be synergy. I've drafted twice more since the last time we spoke and went 1-2 and 3-0, but both times, I managed to draft a synergistic and powerful deck. Finally. My first 3 drafts in the format netted only 2 match wins between them and I constantly felt like I was missing out during drafting. The key to the format appears to be getting in to the right strategy early on and sticking with it. I have yet to successfully see something "open" and be able to switch into it. There are too many holes to fill without focus. The nice thing about this is you will get some awesome gifts late if the table is likeminded in its focus.

On Thursday night, I drafted what I thought was a killer infect deck, but I lost 1-2 twice to solid midrange/tempo decks that were able to disrupt me just enough to win. I was pretty salty about losing (especially since I had seen the possibility of not being 2-7 in the format anymore) but that's the correct strategy for beating infect so yay.

Last night, I opened Ezuri, Renegade Leader pick one pack one and decided to value Ezuri's Archers and Carapace Forgers highly. I solidified green with Molder Beast and a Slice in Twain, and also grabbed a late Blade-Tribe Berserkers and a very late Turn to Slag. Incidentally, this would put me in conflict with TS who was trying to find colors and eventually played RW. I passed him some solid but unspectacular Black cards in pack one, but by the time he realized it was open, the player to his left was solidly in Black, squeezing him for removal from both ends. Highlights of packs 2 and 3 were double Arc Trail (including a 5th pick!), a Myr Propagator and a total gift Ezuri's Brigade. I filled it out with some mediocre equipment, two mana myrs and the best spellbomb

Creatures	Spells	Land
Blade-Tribe Berserkers Carapace Forger Copperhorn Scout Ezuri, Renegade Leader Ezuri's Archers Ezuri's Brigade Iron Myr 2 Molder Beast Myr Propagator Perilous Myr Silver Myr 2 Sylvok Replica	2 Arc Trail Galvanic Blast Horizon Spellbomb Liquimetal Coating Slice in Twain Strider Harness Sylvok Lifestaff Tel-Jilad Defiance Turn to Slag	10 Forest 6 Mountain

I went 6-0 with this deck and while there were a couple close calls, I felt pretty much in control, even after I mulled to 6 in games 5 and 6. It's a very powerful deck. Favorite play was four lands, U Myr and Sylvok Lifestaff in play, tap 3 to play Strider Harness, tap Forest to play Copperhorn Scout, tap the Myr to attach Strider Harness, attack for 2, untap the Myr, use the Myr attach the Lifestaff in second main. Close second was Turn 6 hasty 9/9 trampler (Ezuri's Brigade with Strider Harness and metalcraft) with the promise of more to come since Ezuri, Repeatable Overrun was on the table. Yay for winning a draft for once.

"Synergy" is the strongest draft archetype

This week I am back with a deck I went 3-0 with in a 6 man draft (I wish we had gotten 2 more) because my deck was streamlined and synergistic. First the list and then some interactions.

Sylvok Lifestaff
Kuldotha Rebirth
Galvanic Blast
Liquimetal Coating
2x Shatter
Revoke Existance
Myrsmith
2x Perilous Myr
Contagion Clasp
Arc Trail
2x Ferrovore
Furnace Celebration (foil)
Vulshok Replica
Arrest
Rust Tick
Chrome Steed (foil)
Oxxida Scrapmelter
Golem Artisan
Saberclaw Golem
Wurmcoil Engine
10 Mountain
7 Plains

There are a few things going on here that are awesome, Liquimetal Coating is by far the MVP of the deck, and every time it was in play I won. It really shone when it turned my 2 Shatters, Revoke Existance, and Scrapmelter into Vindicates as well as allowing me to lock down any permanent with Rust Tick. It also served as a way to turn lands into fodder for Ferrovore and the Kuldotha Rebirth. Speaking of Ferrovore, he is why synergy is important. In a vacuum he is just a grey orge with and ability to trade one of your permanents for 3 damage, but when you throw in Furnace Celebration and 2 mana you get a shock in as well, you start to build incremental advantage. If that artifact happens to be Perilous Myr, you turn 2R into 7 damage, 4 of which can be used as 2 shocks or even go straight to the face.

I was lucky enough to begin the draft with Wurmcoil Engine, and picked up early removal, of which this deck has 4 removal spells (not counting the shatter effects). The solid removal allowed me to survive long enough for some Golems to clean up. Luckily my first pack paid for the draft even if I hadn't won, and it is even sweeter that I did.

Mirrodin Besieged

Hey all, look. Shiny new Mirrodin Besieged previews. Not there. Scroll down. There. So, this is apparently part of WoTC's continuing attempts to make colors irrelevant, right? Because Hill Giants with a life loss/gain are totally colorless. Monobrown ftw!

Announcing the Pirate Draft League!

My enjoyment of Magic has combined with my selective OCD to make me want to keep track of the 8 mans at my apartment. Who benefits from this? I have no idea. Nonetheless, I have started keeping track of all the juicy statistics from the Scars drafts and will be posting about them occasionally, in addition to using them for a really awesome purpose. I hope to host some Team Rochester later in the year and these rankings will be used to seed the teams in the hopes of a little competitive balance for "the most skill-intensive format ever", as J-Bro keeps referring to it. The damages so far...

Name	Record	Points/Event
Jacob B TooSarcastic Kurt K Brendan H Tim N Jonathan B Alexis R Ryan S CBG Ash O Greg O	6-0 2-0-1 2-1 3-2-1 2-1 3-3 1-4-1 1-2 1-5 1-2 0-2-1	8 7 7 5 5 4.5 3 3 2.5 2 2

I have pseudo-anonymized the data so it doesn't show up on Google, but if there is an a/k/a you'd like associated with your data or you'd prefer to not be included in the public data, please let me know. I'm also going to look into a venue for larger than 8 mans, though it's difficult to find a place for evening play.

Edited to clarify: Points are not match points from the event, but event points awarded by me. 8 points for 1st right on down to 1 point for eighth. Just in case you were confused.

Finally, I got a match win last night and actually drafted a deck (U/W fliers) instead of a pile of shit, so I'm happy, despite my 1-5 in Scars draft so far.

Tabasco's first Scars draft

Ok, so I finally get a chance to draft the set and upon opening my pack decide what strategy I want to employ. I opened on Geth, Lord of the Vault (must be nice). Yes! I am definitely in black, but do I still try for the poison deck or just play my bomb and pick other good cards? Geth is the kind of card that goes in an infect of a non-infect deck because his ability to stall the board is so good 5/5 walls that mill your opponent are fine especially since I get to take stuff in the process. My next few picks are solid artifacts and I start to develop a solid metalcraft strategy. I will post the list and then go over a few choices I had to make building the deck.

Memnite
Vedalken Certarch
Plated Seastrider
Disperse
Culling Dais
Leaden Myr
Perilous Myr
Trinket Mage
Snapsail Glider
Strider Harness
2 Tumble Magnet
Neurok Replica
Chrome Steed
Rusted Relic
2 Bonds of Quicksilver
Lumengrid Drake
Argent Sphinx (foil)
Golem Artisan
Geth, Lord of the Vault
Argentum Armor
Myr Battle Sphere (foil)
6 Swamp
11 Island

Sideboard (only on color cards):

Exsanguinate
Necrogen Scudder
Sky-Eel School
Stoic Rebuttal
Halt Order
2 Instill Infection
Quicksilver Gargantuan
Sylvok Lifestaff (these three
Flight Spellbomb are potential
Origin Spellbomb trinket mage targets)

Yes, that is 5 ridiculous rares I cut the Gargantuan because my high end was already high enough and he is the only one who doesn't quite win the game on his own (Geth, Battlesphere). I opened very well in this draft, P1P1 Geth, P2P1 foil Myr Battlesphere, P3P1 Argentum Armor, I also received the foil Argent Sphinx and Quicksilver Gargantuan P2P2 and P2P3 respectively. I also noticed that it was good I was U/B because all the late commons I was getting were still on color.

I initially chose to run the Bonds of Quicksilver over Instil Infections because they kept a creature tapped that I used tumble magnet on. I boarded the instills against infect deck though. My curve was pretty bad, so I ran things like plated strider to ensure I could get to the late game where (I assume) my bombs would dominate them. I would be interested in hearing what people would have built differently.

Round 1: I played Caleb and he has a pretty good infect deck with solid infecters like Ichor rats and some cystbearers. I end up losing to Contagion Engine + Trigon of Infection after he flooded (turn out those two permanents just win it when I had 1 poison counter from an Ichor rats) I had boarded in my counterspells and instills against him as well as swapped an island for a 7th swamp but it proved to be not enough.

Round 2: I play Garth with a mono-white deck that had some fog effects and solid flyers as well as Golem foundry, I end up winning it with bombs and had a board on turn 4 of one of our games consisting of Vedalken Certarch and 2 Tumble magnets.

Round 3: I play Will with a W/U metalcraft deck. His deck doesn't really have a strong central theme except he has a bunch of stuff that is good with Metalcraft and the same stuff that is bad without. He has a few cute interactions like Neurok Invisomancer + Trigon of rage as well as a few other evasive guys. He also has a Contagion Engine

I end up 2-1 which is good for 1 Pack (kinda lousy), but I lost round 1 and Caleb went 2-1 so he had better tie breaks. I open the Pack and it turns out to be a MOX OPAL!!! turns out it doesn't matter how many packs you get as long as you open a sweet mythic worth some money. I definitely learned that the draft format is not as quick as I thought it was (it doesn't quite rival that of Zendikar). Contagion Engine is stupid good, and slops to the guy who PASSED IT to Caleb. There are only a few cards I can accept being taken over CE and they are all mythic and have the card type planeswalker, maybe Mox Opal although it is worth less than the planeswalkers and doesn't win you the game like they do.

Scars Draft #1 - Birthday Draft

So I had seven of my closest Magic buddies (i.e. those who were able to check attending on Facebook) over last night for birthday brownies, school fundraisers and some Scars booster draft. How did it go? For me, not well, other than the fact that I had a lot of fun. I drafted poorly and the deck drew poorly, which is a recipe for 0-3. Recipe was a success. Obviously I have no control over how the deck drew, but where did I make the mistake in drafting? Read on, gentle walker of the Blind Eternities.

...Ok. I am going to admit something to you. I am going to reveal my first pick from the draft and I am going to take the abuse that comes with it. Just remember, I freely admit this was wrong, wrong, wrong. I fan the opening pack and first pickable cards include Spikeshot Elder, Oxidda Scrapmelter, Volition Reins and Myr Galvanizer. I took the Scrapmelter. This was a fucking stupid pick. In a vacuum, Spikeshot is better. Shipping it left indicates Red is wide open, something I don't want to do if I am taking Scrapmelter. Volition Reins is very strong and was the only Blue in the pack. Myr Galvanizer is strong and leaves my options open. Scrapmelter was wrong, wrong, wrong and it only got wronger. Ordinarily, I wouldn't focus on the first pick so much but this was so clearly where my draft went completely on tilt. Picks 2 and 3, I get 2 Turn to Slag and then Red completely dries up. No Red cards appear in the packs for at least six picks. Black is reasonably open and so I start going that way, but I'm not getting any equipment, mana myrs, infect cards or really anything I am excited to play. About the only playable thing the rest of pack one was a Necrogen Scudder around 6th or 7th.

So pack two starts and I open Carnifex Demon! Okay, here I am on the Black/Blue plan but without anything super solid. Of course, there is no Red coming from my left due to the horrible first pick, but I get a couple Bonds of Quicksilver and a couple reasonable Blue fliers. Still no good equipment (got a Strider Harness but that's it) and I am sad panda. Oh! I got a Volition Reins too.

Pack 3 and here we are, still no good stuff flowing and somewhere around 6th pick a Shatter is in the pack...gah...what? I should have picked it. Especially because the next pack had another. Somewhere in there was another Oxidda Scrapmelter too. My deck would have been so much better if I had taken these three cards and played a Black/Red deck with Carnifex, Scudder, and 2 each of Scrapmelter, Shatter and Turn to Slag, with random artifacts filling out the low end of the curve. As it was I ended up with a pile of anti synergy that failed me to the tune of 0-3 in matches, 1-6 in games. There's nothing to be learned from a recap of the matches because my fate was sealed when I took the Scrapmelter over Volition Reins pack 1, pick 1.

On the other hand, it was super fun to get to do my first non cube booster draft in over a year (yes, that's me being defensive) and I loved having people over, despite the cozy surroundings of the apartment. Thanks everybody for coming and watch my Facebook for an invite to a very special RGD draft in the next couple weeks (still trying to figure out the perfect night, can people do Mondays?).