(Hello again everybody, I'm back for a third serving. Before I get to work though, just in case he both reads my writing and he was offended, I want to apologize to Gordie Tait for grossly misspelling his name as"Gordie Tate" in my first article. Gordie, any time you want to refer to me as"Nick Morely," or"Nick Moorly," or"that guy with the same first name as Nick Eisel," go right ahead. Now for the real show.) [I'm not sure if this was meant to be funny or not, so I'm leaving it. - Knut, grinning]

Damn, my cell phone is ringing."Hey honey, can't talk right now, in the middle of a draft." *Click*

I'm in The Best Kind of Draft, actually. The kind of draft that cannot tolerate girlfriend interruption. The kind of draft where, if the sky was falling, Chicken Little would run out of breath and die before you paid attention to him. The kind of draft where you get strong signals, and they all lead to one thing: Play Mono-(Insert color here). This time, the color was Black.

Before I get into discussing archetypes, I want to take a little bit to talk about the concept of overall deck strength. If this idea bores you and you want to get on with the strategy, go ahead and do a"control-f" and put in"Cockatrice".

More experienced players, or people who like to pretend they know everything, will often say after a draft"I had the best deck ever and I just got smoked by some random. Magic is stupid." Sure, sometimes Magic plays the tease (a la Beyoncé) and gives you no land, but a lot of times there's something subtler at work. Maybe your deck does have Loxodon Warhammer, and you've got solid numbers like Razor Golem, Skyhunter Skirmisher and tempo beats like Leonin Shikari to go with it, but the question you have to ask yourself is this: how good was the whole card pool? Don't just think about your deck; it didn't materialize in front of you. Sure, you picked it - but the other seven people at your table were pulling cards out of packs while you were, and if the packs everyone opened were strong, there are going to be lots of strong decks, not just yours.

So this would lead you to ask,"How the hell do I know if I have a strong deck then?" I've seen a lot of players cringe when they open up a relatively weak pack with only one or two"good" cards, but those are the times you should be happiest. The ideal situation is the one in which you open up one good card, the person passing to you opens up two good cards (of course passing the one in the same color as the card you've chosen), the person two seats down opens three good cards, etc, around the table. Of course this assumes that cards are all weighted the same (that"good" always means equal, and cards that are"not good" are all the same), but you can get my point without arguing the semantics.

This, I would think, is the underlying idea behind the importance of reading signals, although there's a lot more to be said on the topic, and not at this moment. I'm here to entertain you with thoughts of Magic glory and to provide the specifics on how to go infinite in draft.

One last little side note:

We've all got that friend who can't resist making"clever" jokes that include the names of Magic cards. One of my friends still laughs every time he says,"I summon my mighty Cockatrice." Just thought I'd share.

Black in MD5 is beautiful, and there are four major archetypes that I'd like to talk about today. I've already covered B/W in a previous article about the White draft archetypes, so either I'm repeating a matchup (which I won't do, I promise) or there's another deck that needs mentioning. That deck is mono-Black, and the other decks I'll be covering today are the B/R, B/G, and B/U decks.

Mono-Black:
There was quite a bit of commotion a few months ago when a Mono-Black deck took down a pro event in MMD draft. This deck is stronger yet in MD5, although things do have to work out well in order for you to play it. So, please, after reading this article, don't try too hard to force this; it has to come to you. I'll try to provide you some insight into what I mean by that, so you don't miss a golden opportunity if it presents itself.

Black is exceptionally deep in both Darksteel and Fifth Dawn, but to make mono-Black, everything has to go just right; this means that people downstream of you can't be thinking Black is going to be available. Luckily, Black isn't that great in Mirrodin, so you should be able to cut them off relatively easily (maybe giving you a situation for power levels described like the one above). Most of the time, you'll see a few Black cards running together; Pewter Golem often times runs with Disciple of the Vault, and Nim Shrieker has a penchant for running with Moriok Scavenger. Luckily, Disciple and Scavenger aren't what most players would consider signals that Black is open, so you can pretty safely take the Pewter and Shrieker and consider Black cut in those sorts of packs.

Generally speaking, I would consider a fourth pick or later Nim Shrieker a signal that Black is not being drafted heavily, and that the potential for mono-Black may be open. (Please bear in mind that this small bit on signals is relative to the other cards in the pack - so if you see stuff like Electrostatic Bolt, Skyhunter Patrol, Myr Enforcer, etc, the Black card may not be a signal.) If Pewter Golem is coming around sixth pick, I would consider that a signal as well; or, of course, third pick or later Skeleton Shard or Betrayal of Flesh. If Terror comes fourth or later, that is generally an indicator. Player opinion of other cards varies wildly, so I wouldn't read into them too much.

If you're able to pick up a decent pile of Black cards from Mirrodin (Consume Spirit and Terror obviously being nice here, if you're lucky bombs like Betrayal of Flesh or Skeleton Shard), you'll be well poised for the rest of the draft. Darksteel provides excellent and extremely deep Black, with cards like Dross Golem, Echoing Decay, Chittering Rats, Essence Drain, and Grimclaw Bats all available for you to grab. Almost all of the Black commons are excellent in this set, with the exception of a few (think Hunger of the Nim). Even Scavenging Scarab is marginal to decent if you have an aggressive deck.

Often times, however, these Darksteel cards run together, and you'll be forced to choose between them. Do you pick the Essence Drain or the Dross Golem? Do you choose Chittering Rats or Echoing Decay? We've all had these choices happen to us countless times, and I've also read countless articles telling you to"base it on your deck." When I first started out, I had no idea what the hell that meant, so I'll try to provide some insight.

At any given point in a draft, you want to know how many creatures you have. In Mono-Black, I would feel comfortable with four to five playable creatures after Mirrodin (this includes stuff like Nim Shrieker, Nim Replica, Moriok Scavenger, Leaden Myr, Pewter Golem, and to a much lesser extent Nim Lasher and Disciple of the Vault). If I've got more than that, wonderful, but with less than that, it's time to grab up Darksteel creatures like Oprah off a diet.

So, with that said, if I'm creature light (three or less after Mirrodin) I'll happily take Chittering Rats and Dross Golem over the removal. I'm aware some people advocate always taking removal as your highest priority, but those are the people you'll be smashing with your creatures as they stare blankly with the wrong types of hate. Remember your lessons on Threats and Answers.

As I said when discussing the White archetypes, Arcbound Bruiser is wonderful in many decks, this being one of them, and so is (possibly surprisingly depending on who you are) Arcbound Fiend. Fear in large quantities is not to be underrated - between Dross Golems, removal, and your own modular creatures, you can really mess up an opponents ability to block correctly.

Fifth Dawn offers quite a bit for the Black drafter, moreso than Mirrodin, which is why I think this archetype is viable more often now than in MMM and MMD. Obviously there is the monstrosity that is Cranial Plating - don't get your hopes up too high, because if you don't open it yourself, you most likely won't see it as almost everyone overrates this card (not that it isn't great). Blind Creeper is very good, and Fleshgrafter is always a welcome (and most often relatively late pick, coming anywhere from 5^th-10^th) addition to the deck. It is nice at this point to pick up some Thermal Navigators to combo with your modular creatures (which you will almost invariably have, since it's tough to fill up a mono-color deck without at least having drafted a few of these along the way), and if you have a lower curve (with mostly two- and three-mana creatures), Cackling Imp. The Imp is actually not as superb as 2/2 fliers have been in other sets - in 888 draft we even settled for Dusk Imp, but here he often times proves too slow to be of much interest.

Before I close with this deck and head into the next archetype, I want to bring up another point about something players often do incorrectly. MTG:O allows you to check the average casting cost of your deck, but what you really should be doing is checking the average casting cost of your creatures. It's wonderful to have a program do the math for you, but if you overlook the fact that most of your"two drops" are spells, you'll die holding a grip full of monsters. That's the equivalent of turning off Scooby Doo before they unmask *gasp* Old Man River from down at the Mill! And he would've gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids!

The B/R Deck:
The B/R Deck gets me going. Picture yourself as Rocky, climbing up the stairs, ready to pound in anyone that gets in your way. With the B/R deck, you're going to be grabbing tons of removal early and then pounding their face in with mediocre (or if you're lucky, good) creatures, or at least ones with high offensive ratings. Your opponent will be deploying creatures as well; in the B/R deck, you'll be knocking them out for the count with your Echoing Decays, Shatters, Lose Hopes, and eventually Rain of Rusts and Essence Drains. Picture yourself back in the good old days (or if this makes me sound old, the uh, diaper days) where you used to play Mike Tyson's Punch Out, advancing steadily from Glass Joe to Von Kaiser to E. Honda, all the way up to Mike himself. That's how you'll be piloting the B/R Deck. You'll selectively punch holes in your opponent's team, all the while dropping creatures and smacking for a few damage.

So how can you do all this at once, you ask? The beauty of removal is that a good chunk of it (barring Essence Drain and Consume Spirit and such) costs less mana to cast than the actual threats themselves cost. Have you ever played turn 3 Razor Golem or turn 4 Hematite Golem only to cringe as your opponent spends one mana to Electrostatic Bolt it? I've wept bitter tears a la Kate-Winslet-at-the-end-of-Titanic over these types of sinking-into-the-ocean-that-is-my-graveyard tragedy. Alright, no more hyphens, I swear. For now.

But in all seriousness, removal is efficient. You gain (what I view as a part of Tempo) Mana Advantage on your opponent when you cast efficiently. This is not a new idea; I'm just calling it Mana Advantage because I find it's easiest to think of it like that. All of those articles telling you how the Red Deck Wins because it can kill all the blockers while still popping out threats - that's the same concept that you can apply to this particular deck.

Alright, some specifics; like I said, you'll be taking removal pretty high, so that translates into less quality for creatures. Things that are two-in-one care packages, like Goblin Replica, and Vulshok Sorcerer, are beauties in this deck. You don't waste spots on extra cards, and you gain options. You probably won't have to use G. Funk Replica to take down their artifacts (since Red already has tons of artifact hate) but you can if you need to. Also, you want to be grabbing guys with big power. The Nim would be nice as a collective, except for that little problem that you might not have many artifacts. Assess your relative situation to determine this. If you wind up with more than fourteen artifacts, they'll be good; ten to thirteen, they'll be passable; nine or less and you're stretching it. I know you can't tell how many you're gonna have while you're actually picking them, but this is something to be aware of. It's a risk, but one that you can probably build through. If possible, grab big early beaters like Blind Creeper.

The B/G Deck:
What I have to offer you in the way of B/G is not so much advice on how to play this deck properly; I'm going to instead tell you what doesn't work. As far as I'm concerned, this archetype is pretty weak. I've drafted this many times in an attempt to heal my neglected lover's heart, when the signals have been coming, (one time I even got passed Glissa) and I've won with it precisely zero times. I always feel like I have a bastardized version of B/G Cemetery (from Standard) when I play this deck - only there's no such thing as Oversold Cemetery in Mirrodin Block. You've got some cool tricks, maybe some graveyard manipulation (like Moriok Scavenger) but it just never seems like enough to get the job done. The deck seems slow and clunky, and no matter how hard I try, I can never get enough early men to stall them or to put the beats down of my own. So, if you have found some secret tech, please share.

The B/U deck:
The last deck that I have to talk about today is near and dear to my heart, mainly because it's always been an archetype that I've enjoyed in every format, and in almost every format it's pretty much the same. Black and Blue is a staple terrorizing combination of removal coupled with evasion, and this combination wins games. You've got great men like Neurok Spy, Neurok Prodigy, Spire Golem, and of course the Hoverguard family - put them all together thrown in with Blind Creeper and his tag-team partners Dross Golem and Chittering Rats and you have a nasty engine that could rival the 1985 Bears. [MmmmMonsters of the Midway! - Knut, sadly realizing those days are long past.]

The idea behind this deck is similar to the White Black deck; this is a race, plain and simple. You've got threats you're gonna drop, and you're gonna put your foot to the floor smashing these guys through to your opponent's dome. Grimclaw Bats are beautiful here, as they also round out your curve nicely. Bonesplitter? It's great. Vulshok Morningstar? Also great. Anything that can turn some early dorks into late game machines is greatly appreciated in this deck.

Similar to the White Blue deck, though, you want to have access to Blue's bounce so that you can fully capitalize on all of their play errors. Most opponents will at some time nuke something with their removal that is not relevant to you - great, let it die. But when they hit that something special that you actually do need to win the game, that's when Regress and Echoing Truth come into play. I've seen Into Thin Air work, but I would really recommend against it unless you've got scads (yes, scads) of artifacts.

So, gun for evasion, and good fliers, much like in White/Blue. I think Advanced Hoverguard gets the nudge over Cackling Imp, just because the point of evasion is that they can't stop it anyway (and why would you want to reduce the amount of damage you can push through?) So, most of the time I like the Hoverguard's ability significantly more, as he's got the tights that are the Neurok Stealthsuit already strapped on.

I'm tempted to leave you with a joke about strapping things on, but instead of offending everyone, I'm going to say good luck.

So Good Luck.

Whoop some ace for me,
Nick Morley
hothalfjap on MTGO