When I started out with the idea for this series, I didn't realize just how much I draft. StarCityGames.com updates five times a week. As I've been sick and its the holidays, I've been drafting something like two or three times a day. Rather than making articles to rival Oscar Tan and Friggin Rizzo in length, I'm going to do what ESPN does all the time - run SportsCenter.

For those not in the U.S. (and who don't get it on the satellite feed or what have you), Entertainment Sports Network is an all-sports TV network that has a featured show called SportsCenter in which they show the highlights from the day in sports as well as present stories of interest. So you will be getting less barebones facts, but you will see more commentary and strategery witticisims. Or something. Also, I was told from Mr. Knuts that I was only getting one article per week, so I have to definitely pick and choose which ones to write.

On another note, I should probably address the posts in the forums that jibed me for making fun of others, and for being too arrogant and condescending. I'm sorry. I should have left the guy's name out who screwed up - there wasn't any real need to mention his name. As for the folks who say I'm getting my jollies at the expense of others, I find screw ups, even my own, to be funny. If I've slipped and fallen on my butt, I'm usually the first one laughing.

In one draft I had last night (one I won't discuss, even though I won), my mid-1700 opponent and I both screwed up enough to make a comedy of errors. This included him Duplicant'ing a Nim Shrieker to get a 0/1, me clicking through a turn, and him conceding when he didn't have to. So if I haven't mentioned their name already, then I won't purposely mention their name for the laughs.

In any event, to precurse this article, you get to see a brainstorming session for Extended with Seth Burn, and some highlights of drafts. Some are even quite good as I find the following things: I still make occasional dumb errors, everyone has their foil, and Jean Claude Van Damme is sadly the best actor in Kickboxer, aside from the obligatory old Asian guy who trains the White guy in the ancient martial arts.

OLS Draft - Opponents: Squire1966 (1490 rating), Silver Noah (1645), Taledan (1648)
I had a pretty solid B/W deck featuring Cruel Revival, Twisted Abomination, Undead Warchief, Crypt and Spectral Sliver, Skinthinner, Daru Lancer, and some other solid spells.

Squire was mono-Green (and you wonder why they're at 1490?) and played Animal Magnetism both games. The first time it hit Wirewood Elf instead of Vexing Beetle (don't hide those chuckles and snickers, I can hear them already). In game 2, it hit Defiant Elf as my only choice. Come on folks, if you want to be awful and play mono-Green, that's on you. I'm not going to prevent you from having some kicks while you try and mash people with your Forests.

I'll give him credit, he picked three Stonewood Invokers, which are fine weenies, and a good addition to any draft deck with Green in it, but at the very least understand the synergy between your cards. Don't run a five-mana sorcery that's going to net you some tiny dork. Run the big fat guys! Where are the guys who begin with Krosan; the big fat beaters, guys with power and toughness larger than half of my team combined?

Make your spells at least halfway worthwhile. Bad cards with synergy are better than bad cards that don't even interact well with each other (for those who don't remember, Editor Knutson pointed this out in the last article when he reminded people what Forge Armor could do when it was eating a Dross Scorpion).

I lost game one to Noah when he hit a Siege-Gang Commander and I couldn't find a fifth land to unmorph my Skinthinner or play the Cruel Revival in my hand. I was eventually able to get a fifth land to Revive the banger, but he'd killed my 'Thinner and a morphed Daru Lancer to gain serious card and tempo advantage.

He finished me off with a large Enrage on a Goblin token while I was tapped out from the Revival. For those who haven't drafted a lot, OLS was (is) an eighteen land format nearly all of the time. Decks had something anywhere from sixteen to twenty-one creatures in it and was so combat oriented that missing one of your first five or six land drops most often meant that you weren't going to win. [This isn't precisely correct, as it switched to seventeen in OLS (as opposed to OOO, and OOL), but it's crose enuff. - Knut, drinking Labatt's] This is slightly less of a factor in Mirrodin as you've got a weaker creature base and powerful Equipment to make them better. Tempo is downgraded a bit over quality of spells and deck synergy, so you're able to run sixteen lands and in general a lot fewer creatures.

I mulliganed to four in game two versus Noah, so I pondered just scooping it there and saving me the time, but he drew a lot of lands and his spells, while they were good ones, were few and far between. Scattershot took out Smokespew Invoker, Skirk Marauder took out a Dragon Shadowed Embalmed Brawler, Astral Steel took out a Goblin Turncoat and Carbonize and the face up Marauder took out Daunting Defender. He was eating away small chunks of my life with Aven Farseer, but Crypt Sliver was holding off its Bladed cousin. Eventually, I drew into the Undead Warchief and Twisted Abomination came into play returning Dragon Shadow into play. He conceded on turn 14 with twelve lands in play. I truly outplayed him here (insert sarcasm tag).

Game 3 showed exactly how important tempo is in this format. I had a turn 2 play in Crypt Sliver before his turn 3 Blade. I attacked, and he let his Blade die (a mistake I think, I don't know... I like 3/2 regenerators myself) to trade with it. Aphetto Exterminator went two-for-one with his Glory Seeker and morphed Battering Craghorn and Skinthinner took out his Skittish Valesk. He was never able to mount any serious defense to the swarm of Screeching Buzzards and Goblin Turncoats coming his way.

Taledan had a solid W/U deck, but Sigil of the New Dawn is a bit slow and wasn't able to keep him from all the Zombies made huge by Undead Warchief. Although multiple Daru Cavaliers and Sigil are amusing, he had no choice but to concede on turn 7. See previous comments about bad cards with synergy better than bad cards in general (this guy at least made the finals because his cards worked well together) and the ones about tempo.

The last game showed how good Dragon Shadow can be against W/U as a second turn Turncoat got Fearless and went all the way. Exterminator showed up again to two-for-one. Yay. Draft won.

MMM draft. TalynEoC (1530), DrObvious (1674), W4r Wiz4rd (1765)
I had a R/U/b deck with Myr Enforcer, Sun Droplet, two Grab the Reins, two Somber Hoverguard, Pewter Golem, Betrayal of Flesh, Detonate, and Domineer.

I won't bore you with the details of this one, but there were some very amusing points of it that I need to mention. I was beating with a Wizard Replica in game 1 of the first round, when the following happened:

12:14 Turn 11: TalynEoC.

12:21 TalynEoC plays Chimney Imp.

...

I've never had this happen to me before, and I was slightly embarrassed as I'd be the butt (rightfully) of many jokes and barbs. The sad part is that I couldn't just wait this out with my Sun Droplet, as he'd put Relic Bane on it, and it was slowly chewing away at my life. As he played a Dragon Blood a few turns later, I actually had to spend an Irradiate on it and get back to Replica flying beats. I eventually ended it by Grabbing his ginormous Nim Lasher and throwing it at his head (I had eight artifacts in play at the time and it had some Blood counters).

I lost game 1 to DrObvious when I missed land drops on turns 3-6. I put up a fairly reasonable fight on that and a couple of mana Myr.

Games 2 and 3 weren't really close as Lightning Greaves kept a lot of his removal dead and Domineer'ing his Mirror Golem was devastating. Grab times two is also"not bad," I hear.

In the finals, I drew a boatload of mana and even Grabbing his Mask of Memoryed Skyhunter Cub into his Soldier Replica wasn't enough to keep me alive from a bunch of weenies and Auriok Bladewarden game 1. The second game got me color screwed, as I drew three Islands and nothing to really work with. I lost on turn 7 holding a grip of two Grab, Betrayal, Terror, War Wagon, Pewter Golem. Bleh. I also walked a guy into a Predator's Strike that I'd seen earlier. Oops is a four letter word.

In my next Mirrodin draft, I had a pretty good W/R/b deck with Megatog, Vulshok Battlegear, Pewter Golem, Sun Droplet, two Goblin Replicas, Slith Ascendant, Bonesplitter, Betrayal of Flesh, and Arrest.

I lost game 1 to 10792 (1766 rating), when I couldn't draw a fourth land before he got Living Hive. Looking at the replay, I didn't really need to scoop, as unless he had a trick, I could have played another creature from my hand and gone to two life, but unless I drew Arrest (literally, my only out), I wouldn't have won. Still, you never know when fate is going to smile on you, so that's my fault for getting frustrated and scooping when all the chips were already in.

In game 2, I was able to Replica his Fabricated-for Crystal Shard, but he @#*%&'ing played Trash for Treasure to get it back and do stupid pet tricks with Viridian Shaman and Wurmskin Forger.

Nothing like a first round loss to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, right? Again, his deck had synergy and when you combine lumps of coal, occasionally you hit a diamond.

Extended Thoughts
Enough of those ugly janky thoughts. Lets move onto something more mind bending - throwing a grenade into the current extended metagame. Some other website recently reprinted an old Eric Taylor article describing percentages, and he made note of a Rock-Paper-Scissors metagame. As it currently stands, we do not have an R.P.S. metagame, as there are more than three viable decks, and none of them have an auto win over the other. Basically, we have a lot of Rocks throwing cardboard Paper while Running with Scissors. The hope is to find a grenade that will bust all these decks apart. With U/G rising back in popularity due to it being relatively inexpensive (and most people having nearly all the cards for it anyway), I thought back to when I stopped playing Madness and why.

T'was two days before the PTQ, and all through my head, danced visions of Goblins all through the stead. Small little men, exploding in haste, Smithing and Shooting at a delirious pace. What cards should I put in, which build should I run? I needed help, so I got off of my bum.

Enter Seth Burn. I've known Seth for a few years via his writing and time spent at Neutral Ground. If you want to play Red cards in Constructed - this is the guy to turn to. It was him and Zvi Moshowitz who tuned the Red Army deck that Zvi took to a top 8 finish at Grand Prix: Atlanta. The Red Army was a Goblin Bidding deck that utilized Burning Wish to fetch a whole host of tutor cards to augment the ability of the Goblins to simply explode. The GP: Atlanta deck can be found here. Extended brought with us a whole new host of possibilities however. Was Living Death better than Patriarch's Bidding? What other sorceries did we have access to? Was this even a good metagame choice?

That last question was the main one that had to be answered first. I knew it was a savage beating versus U/G, because we'd tested this back when he was first building it last summer and it utterly smashed. No matter how many Roar of the Wurms or turn 2 Wild Mongrel's it got, the little Red men would just get angry and burn a path through. It was something like 7-0 before we realized it was just a very favorable matchup and left it at that. Psychatog's one caveat is that it is susceptible to an early rush before it can stabilize control, and if there's one thing Goblins can do well, its rush.

Rock seemed to be a bit more difficult, but then again, its a bit harder match-up versus nearly everything - that's why its so widely played, it is about 50/50 against everything. On the one side, while they had a decent shot at dealing with the early onslaught, a well timed Bidding would effectively combo them out - something they had little answer to.

So if it can have a favorable match-up with two out of the three major decks in the field and a good shot at the third, it definitely seems like a solid shot. Then came the next debate, Living Death versus Patriarch's Bidding. I'd always loved the utility of Living Death, and was all for having one as a Wish target for the situations when it would be better than Bidding, but when we got down to talking about it, Seth pointed out that versus the big three, it would help them just as much as it would myself. I should generally have the ability to put my own guys in the yard with Siege-Gang Commander, Goblin Sledder, Skirk Prospector, and Mogg Fanatic, so Bidding would get me back everything I wanted.

Living Death might Wrath of God their team, but all of the three had ways to combat it. Tog could just discard another copy of Mr. Teeth, U/G would just empty their hand into the yard, while Rock would sacrifice all of it's guys for life and lands. Given this, and the fact that I'd be killing some of their guys to begin with, it really did seem to be a lot better to make them be able to only get back some of their guys instead of all.

Now what cards should make up the entire deck? Goblins have recently lost two of its most exciting brethren in Goblin Lackey (my namesake on Magic Online), and Goblin Recruiter. Would we still be able to make the deck explosive enough or were we going to just have to rely on our draws? This is what we came up with after much hemming and hawing.

//NAME: The Communist Revolution: Take 2
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Burning Wish
4 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Skirk Prospector
4 Mogg Fanatic
2 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Sledder
1 Sparksmith
10 Mountain
2 Swamp
2 Rishadan Port
4 Sulfurous Springs
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Shadowblood Ridge

Sideboard
1 Hammer of Bogardan
1 Pillage
1 Perish
1 Ruination
1 Obliterate
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Decompose
1 Chainer's Edict
2 Patriarch's Bidding
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Coat of Arms
1 Shattering Pulse

Thirteen Wish targets for all contingencies. We really wanted a sorcery that just said"I win", but they were all cut for far-ranging utility. As funny as casting Plague Wind or Insurrection might be, it really shouldn't be necessary if the deck plays even close to correctly. Basically, this deck decides to send cannon fodder into the red zone every single turn and use the poor bait to fuel Sharpshooter zaniness. Then, when it hits a road bump, you have a backup plan that should simply win the game for you.

Goblin Matron acts as a tutor for situational and explosive goblins like Siege-Gang as well as being food for Cabal Therapy. Some of the two- and one-ofs are there for simple reasons. You definitely want more than eight one-drops, and there has to be another way to utilize Sharpshooter. Gempalm Incinerator is pretty obvious, as you get card drawing and removal all in one. The two Siege-Gang's are probably raising the most eyebrows. This is one of the most explosive, important cards in the deck, so why are there only two? The simple fact is that with Matron, you can go and get them whenever you need them and not have to deal with the four Mountain, three Gang Banger draw.

As for the sideboard, we debated this for most of our two-hour phone call, and I changed one thing after conceding to other points. I wasn't a huge fan of Chainer's Edict, because I felt it would be rare where my opponent had only one guy in play, but Seth was adamant about this. Hey, I'd called the guy up to take his advice, I should shut up and listen, right? So I did. The two Coat of Arms however are something I changed after we hung up and I tested some on Apprentice.

Chill and Engineered Plague suck. After sharing this idea with some friends on IRC for thoughts and suggestions, we had the following conversation after we each did some testing.

[@CubsWoo] This may be the best deck ever, frog
[@CubsWoo] that Everyone Has Unintentional Hate For
[+KrmtDfrog] heh
[+KrmtDfrog] well damn
[@CubsWoo] i just lost to mono black control
[@CubsWoo] ffs
[+KrmtDfrog] oof
[@CubsWoo] because it knew how to Vamp Tutor for 2x Plague

After much cursing and grumbling, I decided I really did need some sort of plan if Engineered Plague hit play aside from packing it in. I could fight the first one by getting a two-toughness goblin into play and the second one with a Patriarch's Bidding. The Tendrils is probably the only other questionable card, but I could definitely see White Weenie making an appearance, and I needed some way around Worship/Silver Knight or just some way of wishing for a kill if somehow they were at two and I couldn't kill them otherwise.

Everything else seems pretty much self-explanatory in their situational uses, so I won't take up more time with them. I really hate decklists that feel the need to list what every single card is there for. I know why you run Counterspell. Everyone else does, too. It's counterspell - no explanation needed. Wild Mongrel - this guy attacks... look writers, if you're writing to at least a semi-competitive crowd (which, at least this series of articles is reaching for), you don't need to treat us like we're four-years old and hold our hand through everything. I assume my reader is competent and so should you.

With that, I step off my soapbox and take you to the tournament.

That I don't play in.

Basically, I should have. I didn't. I have a host of excuses that include being unable to find some of the needed sideboard cards and staying up all night the previous night, but they're just that. Excuses.

My day consisted of picking up someone's collection I had bought online the night before (Birds of Paradise at $5? Masticore, $5? Yaus!), trading well, and losing in the finals of another rochester draft, this time to Zvi Moshowitz, who had a ridiculous mono-Green deck with multiples of Fangren Hunter and Predator's Strike, and a Loxodon Warhammer thrown in for good measure. Along the way I beat Matt Boccio and Gerrard Fabiano; also Steve Sadin and Patrick Sullivan were in the draft and made it seem like Edison all over again.

I looked up my DCI rating just now. That 0-3 debacle you read about in the last article (or skipped through) netted me a loss of 58 points. Now my rating is really garbage, and if I were to end this series now, it would definitely be a Bust. So to heck with this noise, unless I want to defraud myself, its time I actually did something to further these goals. No more fun, gimmicky decks for a while. Rogue is okay, but not if it isn't outstanding. No more not playing in free PTQ's.

As of now, I have a 1662 rating in constructed and that's a bloody embarrassment to what type of play I can be. My Magic Online Limited is 1739, so you get to hear more war stories from the front of Limited, but it is time to put some focus back on sixty-card decks.