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The focus of my Magic attention of late has been Drafting, because of the "Drafting With" series. After providing you with 30 daily drafts over the past month and a half, I figured it would be a good time to look back, analyze them, and write an article about the "Drafting With" series, to answer some questions and to explain some decisions.
It all started when I got the opportunity to pick up where Rich and Kenji left off (for their own reasons). At the time, Lorwyn was still new to Magic Online, and I had never drafted Lorwyn online (although I had drafted it regularly with paper cards). I thought the series would be something very interesting to do, as I was always a big fan of Rich Hoaen and Kenji Tsumura and the “Drafting With” series. I never expected to be - or to become - as good as them, as to me they're clearly the first and second best Limited players in the world. I don't know who might be the third, since the gap is wide after them.
But by showing you my draft picks from 1 to 45 from all drafts, I was not only sharing my decisions and offering you a guided view. I was also looking forward to sharpening my Limited game after a very long Constructed season. I was looking forward to drafting with regularity, at least five times a week; to thinking carefully over all my picks and decisions; and to later sharing the final results with the readers and receiving the feedback, criticisms, and advice.... anything that would help me draft better in the future.
After 30 drafts, I certainly feel I'm a better drafter than I was when I started doing the series. I acquired a lot more experience with the Lorwyn set, got to try more cards and more strategies, and there were many helpful comments that helped me realized some points I was missing. However, not everything was roses, and soon I started comparing this task to being a sports coach. No matter what you do, be it right or wrong, everyone has their own opinion and will voice it when they disagree, as it's impossible to go through picks 1 to 45 and have everyone agree with them all.
I broke down some statistics of the first 30 drafts, the number of times I drafted an archetype and the total score combined.
Elves: 9-2 (6 Drafts)
Blue/Black Control: 6-2 (5 Drafts)
Merfolk: 6-2 (4 drafts)
Random Non Tribal decks: 3-4 (4 Drafts)
Goblins: 4-1 (3 Drafts)
Elementals: 4-1 (3 Drafts)
Treefolk: 4-1 (2 Drafts)
Kithkin: 1-2 (2 Drafts)
Faeries: 0-1 (1 Draft)
What basic conclusions can we achieve from this sample?
The first one I'll admit: there were a lot of wins, and some were with suboptimal decks. There was a week in which I had a good streak, as opposed to some times where I just couldn’t win. In the first 30 drafts, I managed to split the finals half of the time. Without being remarkable, it's good enough to pay for the packs used, which means a very small money loss: just the equivalent of the Event Tickets required to sign in.
Another thing that’s pretty clear is that it doesn't pay to simply draft a “good cards” deck with no tribal theme, as I never made the finals in any of the four drafts when my deck wasn't focusing on a creature type.
How can you explain just a single Faeries draft? The reason is that I moved on from it. The draft in which I considered Faeries had many Faeries, enough to play with Spellstutter Sprite, but lately every time that I draft Blue/Black, even though I have some Faeries and Dreamspoiler Witches (a very important card in those decks), I wasn't focusing on drafting Faeries but on drafting a Blue/Black control deck.
Some people pointed that Merfolk was a solid strategy, since it usually gets you a 2-1 score at an eight-man pod, and the results seem to indicate that. My opinion is that Merfolk can have many angles of attack, many possible strategies, but you'll need certain power cards for them to work, like Drowner of Secrets or Summon the School.
Despite being only two drafts, Treefolk managed to make the finals both times. Treefolk is not the easiest of the tribes to get, but when you do, they sure are powerful. So far for me, Red's main tribes (Elementals, Goblins, and Giants) are pretty hit and miss, and are tribes that I personally don't favor that much.
I'll be talking in more detail about some of the tribes I tried to draft during this period, strategies that either served me well or that I was very receptive to when going into draft. The first one has to be Elves, as people connect that tribe with me, and because in chronoclogical order the elves were my first big plan.
Drafting Elves
When the “Drafting With” series started, I didn't like Elves any more than you, but they were clearly the most underdrafted tribe. In my very first draft, I had 3 Lys Alana Hunmaster by pick 4. I’ve said it countless times... I don't like Green, either for Constructed or Limited. Hlowever, I felt Blue and particularly Faeries were overdrafted at the beginning, so I tried to stay away from those Pestermites. As the series went on, I realized I was winning a lot with the Elves, and not just because of luck like in other drafts. The decks were good indeed. I might have started drafting Elves a little too often, every time that I saw Lys Alana Huntmaster fourth pick or later. Some comments on the forums made me realize I was evaluating the card too high. Besides, the archetype was no longer underdrafted, and it was getting harder to pick up really good Elves decks.
The strength of the Elves deck is unlike other tribes, where you need some engine to get things going. In Elves, if you do have many of them, you will somehow overrun the opponent. Plus, despite Lys Alana Huntmaster being a high pick, other very good cards for the Elf archtype rank a lot lower, like Elvish Branchbender and Gilt-Leaf Ambush.
There are two different approaches to drafting Elves. The most obvioius one is picking the Green Elf cards and complementing them with Black for extra Elves, removal, and overall good cards. Examples would be Moonglove Winnower, Eyeblight's Ending, Weed Strangle, and Warren PIlferers. I ended up with some good Green/Black Elves decklists, with very solid Elf themes as well as a rare or a Shriekmaw to top it off. Another more radical approach, which I tried a couple of times, is the almost Mono-Green deck that splashes White for two commons: Oblivion Ring, because it's good and deals with permanents that Green can't handle, and Surge of Thoughtweft, as it’s a key card in a deck that centers around making many, many 1/1 tokens and then attacking for ten or twelve damage. For me, this is one of the best examples of this unorthodox strategy, the perfect Green Elves splash White deck, and it was one of the most criticized Drafts so far.
10 Forest
5 Plains
1 Mosswort Bridge
1 Vivid Grove
1 Fistful of Force
3 Leaf Gilder
2 Lignify
2 Surge of Thoughtweft
1 Elvish Branchbender
2 Gilt-Leaf Ambush
1 Gilt-Leaf Seer
1 Imperious Perfect
1 Jagged-Scar Archers
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Briarhorn
1 Elvish Promenade
2 Lys Alana Huntmaster
2 Nath's Elite
1 Vigor
Drafting Kithkin
At some point it became clear to me that I wasn't the single Elf drafter at the table. For a brief period of time, I turned to the Kithkin, the new underdrafted tribe of the block. The reason I did this was because of Plover Knghts, and how late they were coming. Kithkin decks relying on bears just weren’t getting there. I managed to draft nearly Mono White Kithkin deck, but they are still a little below par in power.
17 Plains
1 Avian Changeling
1 Cenn's Heir
2 Goldmeadow Harrier
1 Hillcomber Giant
2 Kinsbaile Balloonist
1 Kinsbaile Skirmisher
2 Kithkin Greatheart
2 Kithkin Healer
1 Militia's Pride
2 Neck Snap
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Plover Knights
1 Purity
1 Runed Stalactite
1 Springjack Knight
1 Surge of Thoughtweft
1 Triclopean Sight
1 Wizened Cenn
Despite being underdrafted, they weren't as powerful as the underdrafted Elves, so I decided I would try for them no longer. If possible I’d avoid them as they aren't the most exciting archetype to draft, especially in a world with as many routes as Lorwyn.
Drafting Blue/Black Control
This is the strategy I've been using most often of late, though I'm not really forcing it. What happened was this: I’d open or get passed Mulldrifter an insane amount of time, and it’s a card I value very highly (probably higher than anyone else). From there I’d go Blue/Black most of the time, not really commiting to a tribe. The key here is to stay alive, and win the long game through superior and powerful cards, or card advantage, trying to avoid engaginh in a direct creature combat, as coping with that is tricky. Summing it up: you need tricks, evasion, and better cards than the vanilla curve creatures. This is a sample Blue/Black control deck.
7 Island
11 Swamp
1 Boggart Loggers
2 Dreamspoiler Witches
2 Eyeblight's Ending
1 Ghostly Changeling
1 Glen Elendra Pranksters
1 Hornet Harasser
1 Moonglove Winnower
1 Mulldrifter
2 Nameless Inversion
1 Paperfin Rascal
1 Peppersmoke
1 Sentinels of Glen Elendra
1 Skeletal Changeling
3 Warren Pilferers
1 Weed Strangle
1 Whirlpool Whelm
1 Aethersnipe
This is my favorite strategy at the moment. Do not depend on tribes, but depend on the concepts explained above. Being Blue means that this strategy is sometimes impossible to execute. It's not the strategy with which I’ve achieved the best results, but it is the one I like the most. However, I don't feel it's always viable, so I'll probably become more flexible or change to different tactics in the near future.
Thirty drafts from now, things will have changed for sure with the inclusion of Morningtide. I'm curious to see what I will think about these drafts at the sixty draft mark. Meanwhile, keep posting your comments on the drafts in the forums, as they all have valuable information that has helped me improve as a drafter. And the consequence to that is better drafts for you to follow. Many thanks to everyone who has commented thus far.
Tiago
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