I came into 2005 with several Magic goals, and one of them was to make myself a better drafter (another was to improve my "Fat Man Dance"*, but that's not the topic today). I don't believe that I was a bad drafter before, but I was the definition of mediocre, and I had every intention of improving.

In order to make the move from where I was to where I wanted to be, I had to figure out what I was good at and what I was bad at. I think this is an area where most players can improve. We probably are all a little hesitant to admit our deficiencies. In my case, I think I'm pretty good at knowing the value of cards (or, at least memorizing Eisel's lists, which is what I really do), and I'm fairly decent at reading/giving signals. Where I felt I really needed some work was in the areas of a) drafting an archetype instead of drafting a bunch of good cards, and b) in-game strategy/game planning. I needed a plan to improve those areas, and the one I came up with was this: I would force the same archetype every single time I drafted. My theory was that this would minimize the importance of the things that I believed I did well (card valuation/signals — doesn't matter how you value Cage of Hands against Yamabushi's Flame if you go in knowing you'll always take the Cage) and maximize the importance of the things I needed to work on (drafting archetype-synergy/knowing my game plan and playing to that — necessary if you're going to quite often pass the more powerful card early to take a card that fits in the deck you're trying to force). To that end, this was the rule I followed while drafting once a week at my store (FNM — 3 rounds of swiss draft) for the last 34 weeks [! - Seamus] of the KBC block:

I would attempt to force U/W control every week unless a bomb rare forced me out of it, or if I was cut very hard out of it.

Now let me throw in a disclaimer right here. I don't suggest that you force any archetype for the rest of your drafting life. This is a focusing tool to help you get better at very specific parts of the game. I certainly don't suggest you rush right out and try to force U/W in triple Ravnica. That just might be bad for your rating. I would suggest forcing for a short period of time, maybe 6-10 times if you have a regular draft, but you mileage may vary — do it until you feel like you've learned something. Here are my results...

I'll start with a hard stats breakdown of the results from the 34 weeks. During the time frame I was able to draft U/W 28 times. Of those 28, 26 were exactly the type of control oriented U/W I wanted to force, 2 were more aggressive U/W decks (both times Jitte forced a somewhat more aggressive plan-go figure). Twice during that time I opened bombs that caused me to move out of U/W (I opened Kumano, Master Yamabushi the first time. The second time I was heavy White with only a couple of decent Blue cards after Champions and then cracked a Fumiko the Lowblood in Betrayers). The other 4 times I was cut out of U/W. My match performance record was 61-32-6 (I received 3 byes for those of you who do the math — and I didn't count those as wins), which puts me at 61.61% match win percentage. My Limited rating went from 1713 the day I started to 1768 at the end of CHK block draft (events are 8k, I got as high as 1776 the second to last week of the season). In slightly softer numbers, I had a lot of significant confidence building wins against the better players at the store, including several wins against players I had not previously beaten.

So, I think the hard (and soft) evidence seems to indicate that I improved. The question is "What did I learn, and how did it help me improve?"

When "Solid" Is Good Enough

Don't get me wrong, I love set reviews. They give me a chance to learn a lot from the Pros about the power level of the new cards, and they are great tools, however they really do sort of exist in a vacuum. Until you've played the set a fair amount of times it's fairly hard to value the cards within the context of a certain archetype (and to be fair, most of the reviews I've seen of Ravnica have been very upfront about the power of the cards often being different from the value of the cards in any given deck). In my case, the pre-Saviors set reviews generally maligned Blue to a large extent and White to a slightly lesser extent. I was very worried about my formally powerful archetype going quickly downhill with the loss of a set of Champions. What I learned as I played it out though was that, while there were certainly no commons on par with Kabuto Moth in White or Teller of Tales in Blue, there were plenty of cards that filled quite admirably in the spots of some Champions mainstays. Is Moonbow Illusionist as good as Soratami Rainshaper? No, but it doesn't always have to be. If you're goal is to clutter the ground and then pound through the air, well, the Illusionist does that job just about as well as the Rainshaper. Certainly, you would want the more powerful card in every case, but the moral is this: Keep your main goal in mind when you value the cards to get a truly accurate version of their value to your deck. Forcing an archetype every time you play makes this process easier and more intuitive, as you are going to be forced to play with all of these cards eventually, and you can quickly gauge how well they fit into your plan. In the case of Rainshaper vs. Illusionist in U/W control, most games tended to play out very similarly; the opposition uses a lot of removal trying to break through your defenses and stop your aerial counterattack. You just keep playing threats until one sticks, then win the game with it. The 2/1 flyers are pretty much the same creature once you get to that game state.

Have A Vague Idea Of What Your Deck Will Look Like Throughout The Draft

You can never know exactly what cards you will see as you start a draft, but it is very helpful to have an idea as you go along of what your deck will look like at the end, as this helps make decisions for you as you pick cards. In the case of the U/W deck, after the first 6 or 7 times I drafted it I knew that when the deck was done I wanted it to break down very much like this: 17 land (preferably 9/8 unless I had some reason to skew), 17 creatures (8-11 flyers and 6-9 ground defense) and 6 spells (usually 1-3 utility removal—Cage, Heart of Light), and 1-3 tricks. In conjunction with the previous ideas in regards to valuing cards, this makes a lot of draft decisions easier. Let's look at this issue another way. Before I started working on my system to become better, I often had an experience that I'm sure many of you run into. I would finish drafting and think that I had a great deck. I would build said deck, and feel great sitting down to my first match because I had a ton of powerful cards. After my 1-2, I would then try to figure out what want wrong. Sometimes I would just play badly, but quite often the problem was that I had a ton of great cards that failed to make a great deck (or even a good one, sometimes). Often, I could even think back and see where taking the "less powerful" card in 4-5 instances in the draft would have made my average/bad deck into a really solid deck. I had overvalued card power compared to archetype necessity. If you force draft frequently you will quickly learn to value the needs of your archetype over sheer card power just by sheer repetition. I'm sure some of you are thinking that this idea might work well in regards to the force type, but what about when you're forced to draft something else. My experience has been that my plan has helped me across the board. I am much more conscious now of how I want a final deck to look during the entirety of the draft regardless of what deck archetype I'm drafting.

Start To See The "Big Picture" From Your Opening Hand

This may be the absolute biggest benefit to this drafting tool, and I think it may be the biggest difference between player's skill levels when it comes to Limited format play. I, and I think most players of average skill level, have always had a tendency to look at my opening hand, hope to see 3 lands and 4 spells, and just be thrilled that I was close to that. By playing the same archetype over and over I began to see my opening hands in a different manner. I started seeing opening plays. I started seeing game plan adjustments. Suddenly, that opening hand of Ancient Law/River Kaijin/Moonlight Strider/Blessed Breath/2x Island/Plains didn't just mean I could keep, it meant that I was going to be looking to slow the game down at every possible turn. It meant that I might be very willing to trade that Ancient Law instead of trying to sneak through damage with it, because I needed help off the top if I was going to try to race. It meant that I could play Teller on turn 5 with Strider protection and then untap into Breath mana, making the Teller an even more potent threat than usual. It meant that I wouldn't mind seeing no real threat cards in the next couple of turns as long I was drawing more ground stall and creature control because I was already well prepared to settle in for the long game. I began to recognize these things because I had seen so many similar hands that I could recall situations similar to them and remember what was successful and what wasn't. You learn to utilize the resources you have. Often, in U/W, the resource I had available was my life total. I never won so many games at 1-2 life as I did when I began to realize how sacrificing a little life now could help me get to that position where I had an insurmountable advantage on the board later that would carry me to victory. I guess the best way to describe it is that I began to play games where I was truly aware of what my deck could offer in the way of "outs" and "wins", and that's a great place to play from, as it gives you a lot more options at every play.

Again, let me state that I see force drafting an archetype as a tool to be used for the very specific purpose of improving your card selections during the draft and your game planning/execution during play. It's not something I suggest you do all the time. It is, however, something that I think you will find makes you not only draft that archetype more successfully, but also will add to your overall skill level regardless of what you're drafting.

Brian Greenway
brian@briangreenway.com
studrbtheory on AIM
+++ Currently listening to really non-obscure artists you've actually heard of, such as:

• Dave Matthews Band — Busted Stuff
• Sinatra Reprise — The Very Good Years
• Arrested Development — Unplugged

* I got some hell from my teammates for not mentioning the team in my first article. I'm part of Team Fat Man Dance (would that make Aten's list of acceptable team names?... nah, probably not) here in St. Louis, and we're an eclectic bunch. Mean age is about 30 or so I think, and the average weight is well above the Surgeon General's suggested poundage. We've been known to bust a mean Cabbage Patch after a big win or cool play, or sometimes just because fat men can dance.