MTG?

[Violence]

Mmm... you played in an NPH BSG SOM draft... that must've been hard, but from what it sounds like, you got some Blighted Agents, aka 007's, so it couldn't have gone too badly.

Here's my general impression of the current draft format, if you're curious. I'm a decent, better than FNM level but haven't top 8'd any PTQ player.

To me, this draft format is all about staying midrange, and tempo. As long as you can keep your opponent on the back foot by aggressively curving out with early drops, you should win.

New Phyrexia: I think Black is the strongest color here, along with red. The reason is all the removal in there. Dismember is ridiculously powerful, and the two proliferate removal spells: Grim Affliction and Volt Charge are excellent. Things with 1 toughness in this set tend to be pretty strong, like Porcelain Legionaire, and Razor Swine, so keeping that in mind, cards like Leeching Bite and Pith Driller get that much better. Viral Drake is amazing, never pass it if possible. The key thing I try to take in this pack are either removal spells like Parasitic Implant, Artillerize, Gremlin Mine, etc, Phyrexian Mana combat tricks like Apostle's Blessing, Mutagenic Growth, Marrow Shards, and 4 mana for 4 power creatures, like Mortis Dogs, and Slash Panther. Tempo cards like Vapor Snag are highly underrated in this format, and I like to pick one up late so that if I'm the beatdown player, and they play a big creature to stabilize, I can simply Vapor Snag to take an extra turn on them and turn my board position into a win. The midrange deck just needs one more swing to win the game. There's just a lot of good stuff in these packs, as long as you have a slight sense of value and pick order, you should be fine.

Mirrodin Besieged: Sticking with the midrange idea, there are lots of excellent cards to help your cause here. Piston Sledge, Rusted Slasher are excellent cards in any deck, especially if you managed to pick up any Mycosynth Wellsprings or Ichor Wellsprings. For a bit of top end, Green has Fangren Marauder as a beatstick and Red has Kuldotha Flamefiend. Green and Red both have great midrange creatures in Tangle Mantis and Ogre Resister. Black has Nested Ghoul and Phyrexian Rager as great additions to the midrange beats and great removal spells in Spread the Sickness, Virulent Wound, and Go for the Throat, Blue has aggressive fliers like Serum Raker, and an excellent tempo card in Quicksilver Geyser. Red had some great removal and two for one potential with Blisterstick Shaman and Burn the Impure, while White has efficient fliers like Leonin Skyhunter.

Scars of Mirrodin: The name of the game is to draft powerful value, removal, mana ramp, and/or efficient beats. Skinrender. Oxidda Scrapmelter. Arc Trail. Galvanic Blast, Grasp of Darkness, Trigon of Corruption, Trigon of Rage, Tumble Magnet, Chrome Steed(if you have the deck), Glint Hawk and Glint Hawk Idol, Slice in Twain, Molder Beast, Barrage Ogre, Acid Web Spider, Razor Hippogriff, Sky Eel School, all decent cards.

Round out into a deck with mostly 3, 4, and 5 drops with decent amounts of removal, and make your turn 3-5 your strongest, take the initiative and keep your opponent from stabilizing with your removal spells. Try to get full value out of 2 for 1s, and take tempo where necessary.

[Kirby]

Mmm... you played in an NPH BSG SOM draft... that must've been hard, but from what it sounds like, you got some Blighted Agents, aka 007's, so it couldn't have gone too badly.

Yep, that was one of the card types I ended up with.

...
New Phyrexia: ...

It sounds like you are looking for specific things in the different packs, which is interesting to me. I didn't try to look for any particular thing in any particular pack as much as to try to balance out my deck with creatures and other spells. On one hand, I can justify doing this since I didn't know what would show up in any of the decks.

On the other hand, though, I suppose if you know what you can actually end up getting in a deck, you can make more informed decisions on the cards to select from the packs that you open early.

Round out into a deck with mostly 3, 4, and 5 drops with decent amounts of removal, and make your turn 3-5 your strongest, take the initiative and keep your opponent from stabilizing with your removal spells. Try to get full value out of 2 for 1s, and take tempo where necessary.

I'm assuming that you mean cards that are priced at 3, 4, and 5 mana when you mention drops. Your comment about removal is similar to what my third opponent explained to me when I asked him for some pointers. Although, he may have favored removal even more, as he valued it quite highly. He also really recommended cards that did multiple things (eg. artifact creatures that provided a second effect). I assume this is what you mean by 2 for 1s.

There are two things that I don't understand:
1.) How can you control what turn will be your strongest? I typically cast what seems reasonable at a time that I can afford. If turn 3-5 is to be my strongest, does this mean holding back on some spells that I could otherwise cast earlier?

2.) What do you mean by "take tempo"?

As a sidenote, my third opponent, which is the guy that gave me the most tips, mentioned that the deck I built was an "aggro deck". I'm not sure if this corresponds to the strategy that you indicate here (I hadn't intended to make any particular type of deck).

[CSamurai]

Mmm... you played in an NPH BSG SOM draft... that must've been hard, but from what it sounds like, you got some Blighted Agents, aka 007's, so it couldn't have gone too badly.

Yep, that was one of the card types I ended up with.

...
New Phyrexia: ...

It sounds like you are looking for specific things in the different packs, which is interesting to me. I didn't try to look for any particular thing in any particular pack as much as to try to balance out my deck with creatures and other spells. On one hand, I can justify doing this since I didn't know what would show up in any of the decks.

On the other hand, though, I suppose if you know what you can actually end up getting in a deck, you can make more informed decisions on the cards to select from the packs that you open early.

Round out into a deck with mostly 3, 4, and 5 drops with decent amounts of removal, and make your turn 3-5 your strongest, take the initiative and keep your opponent from stabilizing with your removal spells. Try to get full value out of 2 for 1s, and take tempo where necessary.

I'm assuming that you mean cards that are priced at 3, 4, and 5 mana when you mention drops. Your comment about removal is similar to what my third opponent explained to me when I asked him for some pointers. Although, he may have favored removal even more, as he valued it quite highly. He also really recommended cards that did multiple things (eg. artifact creatures that provided a second effect). I assume this is what you mean by 2 for 1s.

There are two things that I don't understand:
1.) How can you control what turn will be your strongest? I typically cast what seems reasonable at a time that I can afford. If turn 3-5 is to be my strongest, does this mean holding back on some spells that I could otherwise cast earlier?

2.) What do you mean by "take tempo"?

As a sidenote, my third opponent, which is the guy that gave me the most tips, mentioned that the deck I built was an "aggro deck". I'm not sure if this corresponds to the strategy that you indicate here (I hadn't intended to make any particular type of deck).

Tempo is about, as I understand it, controlling the flow of the game. Some decks have a 'high' tempo, they develop quickly, and keep the pressure on. Some decks have a low tempo. They seek to slow the game, and develop a win by breaking the opponent's tempo.

Very high tempo decks are refereed to as 'aggro' sometimes, especially if they can't afford to fall behind on the creature count at all.
Very slow tempo decks are often called 'control' decks, in that they focus on counterspells and removal effects that prevent the opponent from getting a clear advantage, while waiting for your powerful game ending spells to come out.

Used to be Five Colour Control (FCC) was the rage on the pro tournament, so they've gimped control lately, cutting reprints of various counterspells and limiting the combinations of control effects, they've essentially 'killed' pure control decks.

In Alara, most of the 'winning' decks that you could easily build in the draft were high tempo aggro decks, centered around some of the ridiculously high damage for cost creatures.

Don't know much about the tempo of various builds in the current expansions.



What Violence means by 'make turn 3-5 your strongest is that you should plan on having enough mana to get mana every turn for the first 4-5 turns, and plan on having enough cards in the 3-5 mana range to make the these turns where your strategy 'gels'.

[CSamurai]

1.) How can you control what turn will be your strongest? I typically cast what seems reasonable at a time that I can afford. If turn 3-5 is to be my strongest, does this mean holding back on some spells that I could otherwise cast earlier?

Also, sometimes it is best to hold back on spells/creatures. If you're playing someone who you suspect has a high removal count, or high counterspell count, you want to draw out some of those cards, and try to get them to drop removal on creatures who aren't your 'big bad', but are big enough to need removed. For instance, if you've got an early 3 power creature, and your opponent doesn't have anything to block him with, and a 5/5 creature in your hand.. Even if you can cast the 5/5 creature, hold off, try to play smaller things, and goad the opponent into wasting his removal on your smaller creatures.

In this same vein, even if you /can/ cast a removal, sometimes it's best to hold off for a few turns, try to get some creatures out instead, and hold off on wasting cards. These sorts of deep tactics require knowing how long you can afford to let your life points drain.

Back when I started, I played a blue red counterspell/ direct damage deck without a single creature in it, and I often managed to win with only 1 or 2 life points left. Or everything fell just right and I won with 20. But the point is, don't feel you have to cast something every turn, especially if you're ahead on the field of creatures.

Learning to recognize who's playing what deck is a skill that requires a lot of research and play. For instance, if you see a red black deck that is slow to pop creatures, fear the removal/direct damage combo.

If your opponent is dropping a hand full of creatures like there's no tomorrow, drop bigger creatures and hold off on using removal spells...

All these sorts of strategies and tricks require you to know your opponent's possibilities, which can be done with card lists and studying pro builds, to see what's popular. A lot of people in draft come in with a few ideas in mind, regardless of what's in the first pack. Those ideas are often influenced by recommended builds online.

Draft can and will screw you, especially if you're not good at reading signals. If you get passed a 'great' card of a certain colour, it means your friend to one side or another didn't want that colour. If you notice after a pick or two that you're not getting anything of colour X, it means he's trying to pull that colour. Learning to read these signals, and effectively pass signals, is one of the hardest parts of high level draft play.

It is, to be precise, a part I suck at, and thus why I don't often play Draft.

I'm impressed you've managed to spend so little on the game so far actually. Usually when I catch the bug, I go buy a box or two so that I don't have to worry about 'having the cards I want' and can build anything I desire.

[Kirby]

...

I'm impressed you've managed to spend so little on the game so far actually. Usually when I catch the bug, I go buy a box or two so that I don't have to worry about 'having the cards I want' and can build anything I desire.

Hehe. Well, mrs_kirby might also have something to do with it. She says that these days, she is liking go more and more.

I guess it's not fair to claim that that's the only reason. I'm pretty cheap, all in all. For example, I skipped out on our company potluck because they made you pay 5 USD to participate.

[Violence]

Ah, ok... Let's explain two basic concepts: "curving out" and "card power."

Curving out simply means you use your mana efficiently. For example, Turn 1 Copper Carapace, Turn 2 Blighted Agent, Turn 3 Equip Carapace, Swing, Turn 4, Piston Sledge, Mutagenic Growth, swing. The reason this is so powerful is because you used your mana efficiently all four turns. This is a nuts draw, one of the best things you can possibly get. In general, in this format, you want to stick to the 3-5 slots, in my opinion. That means that you don't need to worry so much about dropping something on turns 1 or 2, as long as you can go, Turn 3 Creature, Turn 4 Creature, Turn 5 Creature.

Here's what I mean. Say you play Turn 3 Moriok Reaver. That's one of the strongest(albeit vanilla) 3 drop creatures in the format. Then you follow up with Turn 4 Ogre Resister and Turn 5 Molder Beast. If your opponent missteps on his creatures during these turns, or if you have removal, you're going to be beating for 3/7/12 damage on subsequent turns. You control this by having a deck that has mostly 3 drops, 4 drops, and 5 drops.



Let's discuss card power for a second.

No matter how much you play Magic, card power is a concept that's essential to learn. basically, it's how many cards you have access to. You start with 7, and if you go first, your opponent starts with 8, one more than you, in exchange for going second. Let's say that he plays Carapace Forger on turn 2, and you immediately Galvanic Blast it. Did you gain anything? You basically traded your sweet removal spell for his mediocre creature that was nowhere near pumping itself with metalcraft. Card power wise, you guys are still even, having traded 1 for 1. Now imagine that he plays Turn 2 Gold Myr, Turn 3 Tine Shrike. You play Arc Trail, killing both. This is a 2 for 1, because you traded your 1 card for 2 of his. This is what I mean about getting value. You have essentially taken the lead. Other ways to get 2 for 1s are to play a creature that kills a card, like Skinrender, Oxidda Scrapmelter, or sometimes Pith Driller/Blisterstick Shaman; You can also play a creature that gets you another creature or card, like Phyrexian Rager, Myr Sire, and Oculus. Spells that can kill something and draw you a card, or that get you two cards, are two for one's as well. Slice in Twain, Morbid Plunder, Tezzeret's Gambit, Remember the Fallen, are good examples.

Now let's look at a card like Vapor Snag. This is a 1 for nothing, in terms of card power. You play it, and you won't kill anything(unless it's a token), because they still have their creature. However, it's a great tool to have. Let's look at our situation from before.

You play first. Land Go.

Opponent: Land Go.

You: Land Go.

Opponent: Land, Wall of Tanglecord.

You: Land, Moriok Reaver.

Opponent: Land, Auriok Replica.

You: Swinging is not beneficial. Play Ogre Resister, pass.

Opponent: Land, go.

You: Swinging is not beneficial. Play Molder Beast, pass.

Opponent: Land, complain about getting mana flooded, go.

You: Quicksilver Geyser, bouncing both creatures back into his hand. Swing with everything. Opponent takes 12, down to 8.

Opponent: Land, recast Replica and Wall.

You: Swinging is now beneficial. Swing with everything.




Why did this scenario change?

Let's say your opponent has a Wall of Tanglecord and an Auriok Replica out. You swing with Moriok Reaver, Ogre Resister, and Molder Beast. Your opponent will block Molder Beast with the Wall, block Moriok Reaver with Auriok Replica, and take 4, going to 16. However, you have just traded your 3/2 for his 2/2, and next turn, he may have something to stabilize.

However, when he's at 8 life instead of 20, taking 4 is now half his life. Because you played a tempo card, Quicksilver Geyser, which did not gain you any amount of card power, but allowed you to smash in, you managed to take the initiative, and your opponent now is on his back foot. After trading creatures, and taking 4, now both your creatures can deal lethal damage. He's on the ropes.

That's what I mean, use cards to get damage in. Your Quicksilver Geyser essentially became a spell that dealt your opponent 12 life, which is why it was so good in that situation. Playing good midrange creatures, removal, and taking a fast tempo is something that's really hard to deal with in this format.

[Kirby]

...
Card power wise, you guys are still even, having traded 1 for 1. Now imagine that he plays Turn 2 Gold Myr, Turn 3 Tine Shrike. You play Arc Trail, killing both. This is a 2 for 1, because you traded your 1 card for 2 of his. This is what I mean about getting value.

This is pretty fascinating. I hadn't considered the ratios of cards in determining the value of a play.

...
Opponent: Land, complain about getting mana flooded, go.

Haha.

...
However, when he's at 8 life instead of 20, taking 4 is now half his life. Because you played a tempo card, Quicksilver Geyser, which did not gain you any amount of card power, but allowed you to smash in, you managed to take the initiative, and your opponent now is on his back foot. After trading creatures, and taking 4, now both your creatures can deal lethal damage. He's on the ropes.

...

This is a good example, I think. At what point would you say that it's worth giving up card power for taking the initiative in this manner?

[Violence]

Good question! Let's talk about "Clocks."

Let's say both players are at 20 life, and have no hand.

You have 6 1/1 Goblins in play(Yeah I maindecked two Kuldotha Rebirths and got value out of my Ichor Wellsprings, so what?), and your opponent has a lone 2/2. We'll say it's a Chrome Steed, with no metalcraft.

Your best case scenario here is to swing with 6 Goblins. First of all is a situation where he doesn't block, and swings back. Clearly this is bad for him, he takes 6, and you take 2. He is on a 4 turn clock, you are on a 10 turn clock. No decent player would ever not block.

If he blocks, you will lose a creature, and he will take 5.

Let's look at the best case here. He does not drop any more creatures. This is called "On the board" analysis. Do you have him beat on the board? You smash for 5, then for 4 the next turn, then 3, then 2, then 1. 15 damage total, so you don't have him on a clock.

If he were at 9 life, You would swing without any remorse, because dealing 5 and threating 4 puts him on a 1 turn clock. He needs an answer off the top of his deck.

Likewise, if he were at 12, you would swing without any remorse, because he's on a 2 turn clock. he has 2 turns to draw something to stop you from killing him.

But even if he isn't, even in this 20/20 situation, You have 6 creatures and he has 1. You are ahead on card advantage. Would you like to reduce that by 1 in order to deal him 5 damage? Usually, the answer to that is yes. I would reduce my advantage by 1 to reduce his life by a quarter. Next turn, 4 damage? I would probably do that.

However, say he plays a Moriok Reaver after you hit him for 5. Do you want to next turn, reduce your advantage by 2 in order to deal 3 damage? That's probably not a good plan, unless he is at 4, in which case, it's conceivable.

Information, however, changes this greatly. Say he is at 9 life, and you swing for 5, his Chrome Steed blocks a goblin, then next turn, he plays Morbid Plunder, returning Moriok Reaver and Kuldotha Flamefiend from his graveyard, then plays Moriok Reaver with his remaining 3 mana. Next turn, you know that he's going to wreck all your goblins, which will then be useless because of his army of huge guys, so you want to cash in for whatever you can get, so you swing, he blocks 2, and takes 3, going to 1. You just have to hope your next 1-2 cards can deal him a damage. Spikeshot Elder, Victorious Destruction, Galvanic Blast, Geth's Verdict, Blisterstick Shaman, etc.

In general, you have to weigh how much damage you're dealing for how many cards you're losing. You don't weigh damage in amount, you weigh it in the ratio to how much life they have. 5 damage is awesome when he's at 20, and not so awesome if he's at 40.

[Kirby]

Thanks for that explanation on clocks. It makes a lot of sense.

While reading the explanation, one card that one of the guys I play at work uses a lot came to mind: Soul Conduit. I think he has four of these in his deck, and I'm a little lost on strategy when I am playing a deck that is focused on stronger creatures.

Let's say that you have a deck that doesn't have much artifact control. Do you still take the same approach? What do you do when your opponent pulls this card out?

He uses this card almost every game lately. I suppose I should make more of a control deck?

[Chew Terr]

6 is pretty expensive. It's kind of a 'win condition' kind of card. If you have a similarly powerful 6-drop, there's as good a chance it will win the game for you. Your strategy doesn't have to directly counter his, it just has to be able to win as fast. So building towards a more 'tempo'/speed deck could help you win before it can save him.

Also, if you're doing something like an infect deck for instance, soul conduit won't help him at all. Not to mention that most colors do have SOME artifact destruction, nowadays.

[Kirby]

6 is pretty expensive. It's kind of a 'win condition' kind of card. If you have a similarly powerful 6-drop, there's as good a chance it will win the game for you. Your strategy doesn't have to directly counter his, it just has to be able to win as fast. So building towards a more 'tempo'/speed deck could help you win before it can save him.

Also, if you're doing something like an infect deck for instance, soul conduit won't help him at all. Not to mention that most colors do have SOME artifact destruction, nowadays.

Ah, that makes sense. I just need to be faster with such a deck, huh.

Sometimes at lunch, we play 2 vs. 2 instead of every person for themselves. When we do this, we play with 30 life per team, instead of 20 per person.

I suppose the same principle applies, though.

[Chew Terr]

Basically, if your deck is fast, you don't have to worry about it always. If your deck is slow, artifact/enchantment/creature removal is more often necessary. I tend to like slower stuff, so I like doing more counterspells and control stuff so that I can deal with stuff like this. However, if you're fast, it's less of an issue.

And faster decks seem to win more anyways. Slow can just be fun.

[Violence]

Soul Conduit, huh? The ol' Phyrexian Unlife, Soul Conduit switcheroo, I assume.

He needs 6 to play it, and then another 6 to use it. I would suggest either using Artifact/Enchantment destruction spells, or yeah, just beat his face in faster. You could also keep up counter mana, or bounce it on your turn to make him replay it again(Tempo, remember?)

[Violence]

What're people looking forward to in M12?

The big reprints so far are Oblivion Ring, Grim Lavamancer, and Solemn Simulacrum.

I'm looking forward to Skinshifter, personally.

[shapenaji]

Soul Conduit, huh? The ol' Phyrexian Unlife, Soul Conduit switcheroo, I assume.

He needs 6 to play it, and then another 6 to use it. I would suggest either using Artifact/Enchantment destruction spells, or yeah, just beat his face in faster. You could also keep up counter mana, or bounce it on your turn to make him replay it again(Tempo, remember?)

If he's playing it the way I would, he's using treasure mage, grand architect, etc... in that case, there's a good chance that if he gets it out, he'll use the combo immediately, I'd bank on countermagic, if it hits board, you should be toast, so artifact destruction may not be as valuable.

Edit: actually, just enchantment removal is probably a safer bet, the danger is less in the soul conduit than it is in the phyrexian unlife. And he's going to be relying on that one heavily.