I'm sure we've all heard about (and sometimes even played with) the "insane" U/W draft deck... Aboshan, Zealot, triple Battle Screech, etc. And how about that "brutal" R/G deck packed with two Mongrels, three Fiery Tempers, and a Jeska? Yeah, those are the days...
But we can't all be that lucky. Sometimes fate (or, more likely, the guy sitting on your right) doesn't smile on you, and you have to stretch to make twenty-one cards, let alone twenty-three. Well, I'm here to tell you about...
When Drafts Go Bad
In a recent string of casual drafts, I started out rather strong, but for various reasons was pushed into a bad color combination, and got mediocre cards in that combination to boot. Many lessons can be learned from these experiences, about both drafting strategy and how to play a less-than-stellar deck. All of the drafts presented here were in a casual team format, in which the two teams sit in alternating seats, and then each player plays every person on the other team. This will become important in a few situations.
Draft 1
This was an eight-man draft in which my initial plan dried up quickly, and my second plan didn't work out all that well either. My opening pack didn't have any true bombs, but it did have multiple playable cards in every color but red. I personally have a preference for red in draft, so I took the Thermal Blast, hoping to cut off red. My next pack, unfortunately, had nothing worthwhile in red, but did feature an Aven Cloudchaser and another playable white card, and not much else. I assumed this meant my "daddy" was not into white, so I took the Cloudchaser. In the next pack I grabbed another Cloudchaser, followed by a Kirtar's Desire and I was solidly into white. The next pack had nothing in either white or red, though, and I had to take a Whispering Shade. I grabbed a Sandstone Deadfall next, followed by Patrol Hound. None of these packs had contained any worthy red cards, so my Thermal Blast looked to have been a wasted pick. In the rest of the packs, I grabbed a Filthy Cur and a Cease-Fire, and managed to D up a Twigwalker and Still Life.
My opening Torment pack contained nothing of note, and I grabbed a Mystic Familiar. I then saw a Butcher in the second pack, which implied the guy on my left was not in black. This presented the option of going into Black, since I could probably get some good stuff from him. White/black is not normally a good combination, but I really didn't have a good second color so I consigned myself to this plan. The next pack contained a Pardic Collaborator, so I took it, planning on splashing it and the Thermal Blast. My next picks were Cabal Torturer (fourth pick!), another Familiar, Boneshard Slasher, Waste Away, and Putrid Imp, along with some random crap cards.
So far my deck looked somewhat solid, with a decent curve, a fair amount of removal, and several flyers. It was a bit lacking in depth, which didn't really worry me since I should be getting a bunch of good white cards from the guy on my right. I opened a Treacherous Vampire (!), and second pick I got a Shieldmage Advocate. I followed this up with Suntail Hawk, Vigilant Sentry, Stitch Together, Treacherous Werewolf...
And then it all dried up.
My remaining picks were three (count 'em, three!) Lead Astrays, a Filth (which I never even boarded in since all the black players were on my team) and some off-color crap. My plan of getting hooked up in Judgment had failed completely, as I netted only three playable white cards plus some Lead Astrays. Clearly, I had somehow read the signals wrong.
When we went to build our decks, I discovered that the guy two seats to the right (my teammate) had first-picked a Chainflinger over Divine Sacrament! This explained everything, as my right-hand buddy went into white on his second pick, which explained how I got the very early good white cards in Odyssey, but not much in Judgment. I ended up a deck that was not horrible, but certainly not that good either... It really craved threshold, but had no good way of obtaining it. It also didn't really seem to have a plan for winning, but was rather just a collection of cards.
Creatures
Suntail Hawk
Putrid Imp
Filthy Cur
Patrol Hound
Boneshard Slasher
2 Mystic Familiar
Vigilant Sentry
Shieldmage Advocate
Cabal Torturer
Treacherous Werewolf
Faceless Butcher
Pardic Collaborator
2 Aven Cloudchaser
Whispering Shade
Treacherous Vampire
Spells
Kirtar's Desire
Stitch Together
Cease-Fire
Sandstone Deadfall
Thermal Blast
Waste Away
Match 1
My opponent was the guy who had been on my right in the draft, who had a very good W/G deck. I kept a hand with plenty of land, but fairly expensive cards. He had a somewhat aggressive start, but not terribly fast. I started to stabilize, but then he played a Battle Screech. I only had one flyer at the time and had gone to a fairly low life total. I went on the defensive, and it took a long time but he managed to slowly deplete my creature base as his cards were simply more powerful. A key play was when he Pay No Heeded a critical Thermal Blast.
In the second game, I mulliganed once and kept a very similar hand: Plenty of land, not much action. The game ended up remarkably similar, but this one took even longer. We got into a situation where he had three Bird tokens, a Sacrament, a Blessed Orator, and a Floating Shield (white) on one bird, while I had a Cloudchaser, a Shieldmage Advocate, and a thresholded Vigilant Sentry. Every turn, he would attack with three birds; I would block one, pump with the Sentry, he would sack the Floating Shield to save the bird I had blocked, and I would return the Shield to prevent two damage, then he would recast the Shield. (The only other card in his yard was a Sudden Strength, which would have been insane to return.) However, I was still taking two a turn, and he eventually alpha struck for the win.
Match 2
This time my hand had only a couple lands but (to borrow a term from the Sideboard) was all gas. I curved out with Suntail Hawk, Familiar, Patrol Hound, Familiar and Filthy Cur, and quickly got him low on life. He managed to gum up the ground and kill a couple flyers, but a Cloudchaser and Butcher showed up to punch through for the win.
This game was actually a turning point for me in the draft as a whole, as I realized what my overall game plan had to be: Weenie rush early, punch through with flyers late. Once I realized this, the deck seemed to play remarkably similar to a fast R/G deck. I had just enough removal to clear a path for my bears and ogres for a few turns, and I had enough fast flyers to get through for the final few points of damage while using my dorks to stall the opponent's ground forces.
Important Lesson: Always have a game plan. This is fairly obvious in constructed, where decks have plans like "set up a Squirrel Nest-Opposition combo to lock the opponent out of the game" and "delay the opponent long enough to play a broken six-mana blue sorcery for the win." Many people don't realize that this also applies to draft. A perfect example of this is the U/W draft archetype, where the plan is "gum up the ground as fast as you can, then race with flyers before they can punch through your defenses." If you just fly by the seat of your pants, playing whatever you draw, you will inevitably make plays that contradict your eventual path to victory. If you know how you plan to win, it really helps make the early-game decisions such as where to spend removal spells and whether to attack or hold back for blocking.
Getting on with the draft, the second game of this match ends up remarkably similar to the first: Weenie rush followed by flyer beatdown. I apologize for not providing details, but (a) they're really not that important to getting something out of reading this, and (b) I wasn't taking notes since this wasn't even a sanctioned event.
Match 3
I continue the trend of curving out dorks and gaining just enough control to squeak out the victory, but manage to lose one game due to having too slow a start.
Match 4
This was the most interesting match, both because the overall team records were very close at this point in the draft, and because the match itself was fairly close.
The first game was somewhat boring, as I again punched through with flying dorks. The second game ended up being the deciding game of the match. We both got out to fast starts, although mine was a bit faster. He attacked several times with a Barbarian Bully, and I had a choice of either blocking with a bear (which would probably die to him activating the Bully) or letting it come through for four. I asked my teammates if he had any dome damage (i.e. Scorching Missile or Goretusk Firebeast, a.k.a. "Facetongue") and they said he didn't. I did the math and decided to race with my flyers. Once I hit five life, I chumped his Bully with a Patrol Hound (he pitched a land), then attacked him down to five with a Hawk and Cloudchaser and dropped a Pardic Collaborator; all he had was a Bully on the board with an empty grip. He drew a card, thought a moment, tapped all his land (six), placed Kamahl, Pit Fighter on the table and passed the turn. I drew a land, contemplated for a moment, and scooped.
I am disappointed with the loss... But I didn't get too discouraged as there was still one game left and I believed I could pull it out. I draw my 7 and see two swamps and a fistful of white mana symbols. I throw it back and pull a one-lander. I open with Suntail Hawk, and of course fail to draw enough mana to stop his creature rush, making this the most uneventful game of the night. This makes the loss in the second game even more disappointing, as I can't shake the feeling that if I had played more defensively I would have survived the extra turn I needed to kill him. What was especially irritating was I had been informed earlier in the draft that this guy had a Kamahl, but I forgot about it during that crucial game. I don't remember enough of the game to point out any play errors - and overall I think that if I had played more defensively, then he also would have been at a higher life total when he ripped Kamahl, and still would have been able to kill me first.
So what lessons can be gleaned from this experience? The first is that sometimes fate takes a crap on you while drafting; there's not much you can do about that. The second is that reading and sending signals in Booster draft can sometimes be very difficult, but is essential to succeeding at a higher level, especially in Odyssey block. The third is to keep your options open, mostly in the first pack but also otherwise. This often means taking the true"best" card in the pack, rather than a weak card in your color. For example, note that I took a Whispering Shade and Filthy Cur in Odyssey. I could have easily taken a third-tier white or red card instead, but my picks paid off when I got hooked up in Torment. Also, I didn't completely abandon red. I could have taken a lesser-quality black card third-pick Torment, such as Gravegouger, but instead I decided to splash the Collaborator - a much stronger card overall.
The last, and most important, lesson is to always have a game plan. This has been discussed earlier but is worth repeating. An important part of this point is to watch your mana curve, when deck-building but also when drafting. I will usually draft several one- and two-drop creatures, even if I think I won't end up playing them, just in case I have to fall back on "Plan B" if the cards necessary for Plan A don't show up. As a corollary, if you do have enough powerful cards, you don't necessarily need to run bad cards just to make your curve perfect. If your cards warrant a plan of winning the long game, then often a mediocre curve will be good enough as long as you don't run into an insane weenie deck.
There are more lessons to be learned and more experiences to relate, but this article is long enough already so we will continue this at another time. I'll see you then!
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