Magic the Gathering Online Drafting

- 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 organized and sorted my deck and played a quick hand of online poker on my laptop to relax.

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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-Bryan Dowse

Last night I started my first online Magic2010 draft. I first picked a Djinn of Wishes and went from there. There was nothing else really in the pack, and it was the best card by far. Also, blue seems underdrafted right now so I’m happy picking it up early and forcing blue. The second pick Wind Drake just solidifies my blue choice. A Goblin Artillery third pick generally means that red is open so I pick that up; the other notable cards are the Gravedigger and Stone Giant.

Pick 4 however gets a bit interesting. The only red or blue card in the pack seems to be a Cancel. Instead of a solid red card, I see a nice Rise from the Grave. I take it since my only red card is an Artillery; I could be black if it keeps coming.

At this point I have 2 solid blue cards, one red card, and one black card. (continue reading…)