Have you ever answered a question about a draft pick with"Is your deck good or bad?" Pros do it quite often, and average players seem to have a problem understanding this concept. I laugh when I read Limited articles on draft picks. No draft pick order is black and white. There are many circumstances when you pick different cards, depending on the context of your deck. I have seen Ben Stark take Seat of Synod over Grab The Reins. I have taken Chittering Rats over Barbed Lighting. I have seen Gerard Fabiano take Disciple of the Vault over Pewter Golem. Are we saying that Seat, Rats, and Disciple are better than the other three cards? Not at all. But what I will try to show you in this article, is that many times your picks are affected by your deck, and most importantly, your picks should be affected by the current quality of your deck.

One of the biggest arguments that we had in Hong Kong was the Spikeshot Goblin vs. Electrostatic Bolt dilemma. Me, Gommersall, Walls, and Stark spent days talking about it. Spikeshot is a better card most of the time, but we all agreed that Electrostatic Bolt is better in a good deck. What does that mean? Spikeshot excels with a way to pump it, and if it lives more than a turn with a two or three power, it's really hard for you to lose the game. The Bolt, on the other hand, is an excellent card all by itself. You will never be disappointed about drawing the Bolt, where you might be disappointed about drawing the Spikeshot without a way to pump it.

In one of the most popular archetypes (U/R Affinity), the Spikeshot Goblin never acts as more than a Granite Shard. Bolt, on the other hand, always acts as a cheap and excellent spot removal spell that gains you lots of tempo and momentum. If I am drafting W/R Equipment deck, Spikeshot is one of the top five cards I want to open, right after Loxodon Warhammer, Mask of Memory, Grab the Reins, and Solar Tide. Now that Darksteel is in the picture, it's close to impossible to know if you have a good deck or not by the time you open pack two, but you get my point.

In Darksteel, they have made the perfect card to illustrate my point in Eater of Days. If your deck is bad, this guy should make the cut every single time. You can get some free wins by just dropping this monster on turn 4 and forcing your opponent to find a fast answer. But, if your deck is good, you should never, ever think about playing him. You don't want to lose a game because you gave your opponent two free turns. Timestretching your opponent and not having a 9/8 flyer will result on a big"L." I am a big fan of Eater, especially if you have Lightning Greaves in your deck, but that's for another article on how bad I really am.

During playtesting for Amsterdam, my team CMU-TOGIT had many draft pick discussions. I remember one afternoon talking about Slith Ascendant vs. Skyhunter Patrol. Everyone thinks Slith Ascendant as a very good uncommon, and I wouldn't be surprised if most people would take it right away without even thinking about the Skyhunter Patrol, but is that right? I think Patrol is much better. It takes three attacks with a Slith to do the same damage a Patrol would do. The Slith is only better if it comes down turn 3, and that's not very easy due to the double White requirement.

If you need a blocker, the Slith does nothing, whereas the Patrol keeps many of the format's commons at bay. But if your deck isn't very good, the Slith would be the right pick. You can mise free wins by being lucky enough to drop him on turn 3 when your opponent doesn't have an answer. The same argument goes for Slith Predator or Slith Firewalker. Those cards are pretty bad anytime after turn 2, but it's worth having them in your deck because of the"Ooops I win" draws they sometime give you.

Kai and I had a discussion once about this type of stuff. It was during Onslaught block, where I was in love with Wave of Indifference. Kai told me it was only good in bad decks, since it will randomly win you some games. I noticed how my decks were always bad, and hence I ended up being in love with Wave... Kai is usually right about everything Magic-related, and I do have to agree with him that cards that make your opening hand bad like Wave of Indifference are only good in bad decks and not in good decks.

During the top 8 at Grand Prix: Hong Kong, I covered Gabe Walls's draft. In the middle of the draft, he realized that his deck was becoming really bad. To correct for this, he made some very unconventional picks to try and salvage his draft. He ditched Green all together and started drafting Nim Shriekers and Nim Lashers higher than usual to try and make the most synergetic deck, instead of the most powerful deck. His plan was to draft lots of Modular creatures in the third pack, but was very unlucky because the packs hated him.

Another advantage of drafting mono-Black was that in pack two, he could draft off-color artifact lands to power up his Nims. Needless to say, his deck turned out pretty bad with only two artifact lands and literally no Modulars. Was the gamble to forego card quality over synergy worth it? Gabe was not rewarded in Hong Kong, but it's a question that is impossible to answer, since the packs will always be different. It's more of a preference thing. I would never have ditched the Green, and would have tried to just draft the best cards of two colors and lose because of mana issues and because the cards didn't work well together, but not because I had a weak deck.

A few months ago, I told the world that Blinding Beam was the best White common in Mirrodin. I was having a discussion at GP: Munich with many top Europeans players, and I couldn't explain how good the Beam really is and how it's better than Arrest. Nassif (and I quote) said,"Antonino, your pick orders might be what you call unconventional, but here in Europe we call that bad." Blinding Beam allows you to steal games you have no business on winning. I can hear BenS on my right shoulder telling me how bad I am, since Beam stops two creatures for two turns and Arrest kills a guy for the entire game.

But Beam doesn't do that. Beam stops all their guys for two turns, if you cast it correctly. Beam allows you to win any damage race, and like I mentioned a second ago, it allows you to steal games you have zero business winning. I have lost plenty of games where I resolved Arrest, and to this day I have yet to lose a game where I drew a good mixture of spells and creatures and cast Blinding Beam.

Another card I pick way too high and get ridiculed for is Chittering Rats. The Rats are the best Black common in Darksteel, though there are many arguments for his two counterparts Echoing Decay and Essence Drain. What I love about the Rats (other than the pure card advantage), is that they cost three. Lately, three seems the casting cost I have the biggest hole for in my drafts. I think I prefer having two or three Rats in any draft instead of two or three Echoing Decays. The Rats are best in multiples, and that is why you have to take them so high. If you take Decay and Drain over them, it's pretty safe to say you wont have more than one, and if you're lucky, you'll get two. But if you take the rats really high, then you guarantee yourself a bigger chance of getting them in multiples. They are so devastating and annoying to play against. Two Rats in the opening hand is better than my mom's Lasagna, and she's native. Have you guys ever Ratted someone after they mulligan? It's like kicking someone when they are already on the floor. So unfair... and yet so fun.

One pick that I can't understand is Spire Golem vs. Vedalken Engineer. These two commons run together and they are both so good. I guess it all depends on your deck to determine which one is better. I love Myr, and the Engineer is like a Myr on steroids. If you activate him on turn 3 and turn 4, it's like racing with Jeff Gordon vs. being in MattR's BMW. I'm not really sure if you ever seen MattR drive, but he has to be the only person to ever get pulled over for not going the minimum on the highway. If your deck is full of expensive artifacts, the Engineer seems like the right choice and vice versa.

Would you guys think I am crazy if I said that Viridian Longbow was better than Bonesplitter? Well I don't blame you guys, but every time I see this card in action, I start believing that. I think the Longbow is up there, and many arguments can be made for it. When Mike Turian used to tell me that Longbow was better than Scimitar, I kept thinking how crazy he was. Nowadays, the only thing I can think of is how much of a genius the guy really is, and how much the game will miss him. We had a discussion on what the top three commons you want to open in sealed deck are, and I think the Longbow was second behind Spikeshot. The only thing I am sure of (other than which donut flavor is my favorite) is that, if a Longbow is staring at me in pack two along with a Bonesplitter, I will think really hard about which one to take and then take the Bonesplitter. A month ago, I wouldn't have even thought about it.

The last card I would like to talk about is Darksteel Pendant. At first, I believed the card was a decent 23rd card. Then I was made fun of for playing it, so I stopped. That was wrong on my part though, because if you ever have a feeling a card is good, find out on your own if your instincts were good or bad. That's how you actually improve them. Don't be like me and put too much emphasis on what other say.

I mean, to get better at this game, you should listen to the best and try to follow their footsteps, but even Kai himself its not always 100% right. After talking to Raphael Levy about the Pendant, he convinced me that it's actually good. I am not sure if I would go as far as saying the card is good, but its definitely playable. It's what I call a poor man's Serum Tank. The card excels when the game goes long, and after using it three or four times, you have gained back your investment. My favorite thing about the card is that it costs only one to use, meaning that it allows you to use all your mana, every turn, like on turn 6, when you played a five-mana dude, or turn 5, when you paid four to cast spells, etc...

In conclusion, next time someone answers your question on which card to take with:"It depends on how good your deck is," you will have a better idea what they really mean. 'Til next time, I hope you enjoyed this article and remember to activate the Pendant in your opponent's end of turn or during your upkeep.

Cheers,
Antonino De Rosa