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?).
2 comments:
Thanks for hosting! And the Mountain Dew!
While you were taking the best card for the format, it is always important to think about what message you are sending, yes I realize you explained this. Don't feel too bad about the mistakes you made, This is a new format and people are still figuring things out. learning interactions may be much more important that winning games early on in the draft season. Once you have a solid foundation to what is good in scars it will help you build on that when the format is shuffled a bit again with Mirrodin Besieged.
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