Magic the Gathering Online Drafting

-Bryan Dowse

I tried playing Masters Edition 3 online since I’ve been told it’s a pretty fun set to draft. Before I started playing I looked over all the cards and had a decent idea of what was good and what tricks to watch out for.

4-5 butt creatures are big in this format, and horsemanship is strong as well. Flying is actually the true evasion since there are only 3 common and uncommon flyers in the set.

I started off fairly well picking up some strong green and picked up what I thought were good green red legends as I saw them including The Lady of the Mountain and Jerrard of the Closed Fist. I followed those up with good mana acceleration like Spoils of Victory and Three Visits

Sadly I didn’t get a lot of removal. I should have taken Desert Twister in pack 3. But overall I had a decent start.

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- Erik Lundblad

So I did my first Zendikar draft recently, and it went pretty well. I made some decisions that I’m not sure I would make again, but it worked out this time. I knew going into the draft that Zendikar is a very fast format, which definitely colored the way I drafted.

First pack, first pick, I took Hideous End over Bala Ged Thief. This ended up working very well for my deck, but if black had not been open, I could’ve had problems, whereas the Thief would be splashable in an Allies deck. Given that choice again, I would probably take the Thief. However, I proceeded to pick up Quest for the Gravelord, Guul Draz Vampire, Arrow-Volley Trap (possible second color), Piranha Marsh, Carnage Altar (never drew it, but seems pretty good), Scythe Tiger (another possible second color), Hagra Crocodile, Mountain, Forest(nothing good in the packs), Magma Rift (11th pick removal, I think I’ve found my second color), Blood Seeker, Caller of Gales, Ruinous Minotaur, Slaughter Cry (15th pick combat trick?).
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-Bryan Dowse

I mixed it up last night and played a 4-3-2-2 online Shards of Alara draft last night. The first pack didn’t have anything too exciting so I took a Hissing Iguanar to leave me open for grixis, naya, and jund. A second pick Branching Bolt set me up for a nice naya or jund deck with a third pick Vithian Stinger solidifying the picks.

But it got interesting when I got a 4th pick Grixis Charm. When dealing with shards, the general rule of thumb is when you see a late pick charm, that’s a good signal that the shard is open. I pick up the charm, since my only green was a Branching Bolt. Pick five I get a second Hissing Iguanar and pick six I get a Magma Spray, very late for such a great card.

I was planning on building a red deck with a splash of grix and jund. It didn’t exactly turn out that way though.
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- Erik Lundblad

2 Standard events in less than a month, I may be becoming a Constructed player. As much as I enjoyed playing 5CC at Gameday, I think Baneslayer Control was the best choice for the metagame (plus, I’ve always enjoyed playing Reveillark decks, which is basically what it is.)

Unfortunately, I ran into some problems getting out of the house and just as I arrived at the tournament site, they were just posting seating for the player’s first round matches.

I was still able to register, but had to take a first round loss.

The Decklist:

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- Erik

I took a trip into the seldom-visited world of Constructed Magic for M2010 Game Day. It’s not that I mind playing constructed, and usually if I can build a competitive deck, I will play in the PTQ’s and such, but I prefer not to netdeck (which is very hard to not do and be competitive these days) and I prefer to play control decks, where Wizards keeps pushing aggro.

A couple weeks ago, I played a home-brew Blue/Black Mill deck using Mind Funeral and Haunting Echoes in an 8-man Standard and went 2-1. I was pleased with the deck’s performance, but did not really enjoy playing it, so I broke down and borrowed the cards I needed to build 5-Color Control, which was not only one of/the top deck in the format, but fit very well with my play style.

The version I ran initially had 1 Baneslayer Angel, 1 Broodmate Dragon, and 1 Bogardan Hellkite, but I was testing against Blightning Aggro with Anathemancers maindeck and having trouble, and I expected a lot of those, so I added a 2nd Baneslayer in place of an Esper Charm. I ended up not playing a whole lot of Blightning Aggro, but still was glad for the 2nd Angel. I originally intended to run 4 Great Sable Stags in the sideboard, but was only able to get a hold of 2 and replaced the others with Path to Exiles, which served me just fine.
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