With the lands being picked so high I often find myself simply trying to pick the absolute best card or if they seem even what I would want to play until deep in the first pack. Normally I would expect to be able to nail down a color.
Is this the best approach. I seem to have to take lands over good business spells and then end up with crap ones later. Then in pack 2 I see crazy good stuff come from the left and I start wondering if I should switch. For example I'm drafting URw Jeskai and get passed a pile of nice Temur cards where the Jeskai stuff is kind of iffy. Think Snowhorn Rider vs Jeskai Student. Of course I'm not going to see much green from the right when I go to pack 3 and the fixing I've picked up is probably 90% wrong.
Any tips?
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I don't really have any tips, except to say that I've been experiencing similar problems. The popularity of the 5 color deck tends to wreak havoc on signals. Someone going 5 color near you (poorly, forcing it) can really hurt your chances at the table. It means you get very little fixing and they never pass you a choice uncommon in the later packs since nothing is "off color" to them. Their deck usually sucks but they also tend to take down the people drafting near them by stealing all the value and wasting it in their inconsistent mess of a deck.
The best draft decks come from cooperating with the people near you. Forcing 5 color is the antithesis of cooperating. Usually all you're guaranteeing is that the person sitting farthest from you has the best shot at success.
Agreed with Phyrre. Check out the results of the forum draft and see what a mess of decks there were! Signals were all over the place in that draft, with the BW guy to our right passing all kinds of really good black cards in packs 1 and 3 which really made me shocked to find out they were BW all along.
I would be giving myself too much credit if I said I had real, solid tips to give, but here are the things that have been working for me over the past couple weeks of drafting a few times a week.
1) Don't be afraid to abandon your first pick. Your instinct to make the first few picks based on power level is correct I think, although it's fair to let color concerns be tie breakers.
2) Settle into something by the middle of the first pack. We've all had that situation where we think we're getting good Sultai cards in pack 1, and then out of nowhere Jeskai is clearly what's open in pack 2. I don't have a good explanation for that, but if you plant your flag in green or blue for example in pack 1, then at least you can snag some of those Jeskai cards and audible towards a Temur build. (Just as an example.) The only drafts that I really feel are train wrecks are the ones where I keep trying to snag strong cards that are going around inexplicably late assuming they are signals even into pack 2 or 3. The power level of cards in Khans is concentrated in a narrow enough band that you don't have to do that. Build a consistent XY or XYz deck and your cards will be close enough in power level to compete even if you had to let one or two big ones go by.
3) Absent any other plan, I look for green, red and blue according to what seems to be open. I find that they're underdrafted relative to white and black. Abzan and Mardu are very popular from what I can see. The kinds of cards that I see going around "too late" in my opinion are often things like Savage Punch, Crippling Chill, Mystic of the Hidden Way, Arrow Storm, etc. By being in some kind of flexible UG or UR base that can accept those cards as they come I'm not fighting over the few good black commons that have often dried up in the third pack.
4) If you are relying on powerful cards, make sure your deck is built to make it to the late game, and then play it that way. If you are relying on consistency from solid commons but you don't have any haymakers, make sure your deck can win before the 5C or Villainous Wealth deck can stabilize. Trumpet Blast/Barrage of Boulders/Ride Down, etc. are key cards to look for in that situation.
5) Assume that you will see 0 fixing in pack 3. That means you either have to be proactive about it in pack 1 and most likely take it over some good cards, or you have to chase it in pack 2 and definitely take it over some good cards. In a way this goes back to point 2 - a lot of the cards that you are tempted to take over fixing are replaceable in some way later on.
Anyway, that was just basically stream of consciousness, there are some points in there that are probably debatable, especially about mana. That's a part of the format I'm still struggling with.
I think a big part of the problem is the design of the set.
I think we've never had a set with the colors setup like KtK. In two-colors sets like RtR, the color pairs were widely and clearly separated. IIRC, RtR also had more gold cards as-fan than KtK, and that was done on purpose n KtK. Other multi-colors set like Alara had strong gold-card and shard identity that made each shard separate.
The crux of the problem is this: a clan can be open while its colors are not.
I've had this problem repeatedly: you get good clan gold cards (for example, in my last draft I received late bear's companion and temur charm), but the colors making up that clan are not very open. If we assume the simplified picture of every drafter picking a clan, this is almost guaranteed: each of your immediate neighbor will share at least one color with you. Often, more. Good mono-color card don't get very far. Given that the gold cards are much rarer than mono-color cards, this gives confusing mixed signals.
Add to that 4- and 5-colors drafters, the dual-lands at commons and the banner going late, it makes signal reading hard and color jumping frequent.
I've had the same problem. I drafted a little early on but gave up quickly and went back to drafting triple M15 which I was enjoying. When the prices got steep on M15 packs I tried drafted Khans again but after a few drafts found myself getting similarly frustrated with the format and I've just stopped drafting for the time being.
I think this is the quickest I've given up on a draft format since Avacyn Restored.
The big problem is WotC went overboard on the mana fixing. Ten duals at common, they were asking for trouble. Hopefully they heavily cut back the fixing in Fate Reforged.
In the example of snowhorn v student i'd definitely take the snowhorn. As a URw deck white is your third color with the least sources so a just okay white 2 drop might not make the cut even if you do remain wholly focused on being jeskai, while the snowhorn is a powerful get if you wind up swapping to temur or finding the fixing to go 4/5c. It's often a near thing though, like i'd take the snowhorn against a jeskai student but i'd take a kill shot over the snowhorn and i'd be pretty torn on something like an alabaster kirin and need to go into more detail on what my white pool looks like and how strong those temur cards you saw going by are.
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I have experienced the same issues, but I view these issues as part of the great fun and challenge of KTK drafting rather than a frustration point. Often after a draft I am left with a feeling that I had to pass powerful cards and my deck is only so-so, only to end up going 3-0 or 2-1 and wondering what went right. I rarely end up feeling that my deck is bad, though, because KTK commons are so deep in playables than it is in my view easy to compete with the luck factor of good vs bad draws.
In the middle of a draft if I have a choice between a worse-than-average card such as Jeskai Student in my colors or a good card not in my colors, then I will almost certainly take the good card as long as the good-vs-mediocre difference is great enough. I figure that I can always pick up playables late in the draft if I am really scrounging to fill my deck. Sometimes if the colors are so off -- such as opening Sorin, Solemn Visitor in pack 3 while I am drafting green-blue-red Temur -- then I just pass it without a second thought, so I don't really follow any real guidelines, it just depends upon the situation.
I generally do not worry much about signaling in either direction during a KTK draft, because it's too unreliable and could hurt my deck if it influences my picks. Something obvious, such as seeing a pick 4 obviously-great one-color card, would influence me, though. I don't have a problem abandoning an early pick, especially considering that I often take ticket value (such as a rare land) in pack 1 anyway so a decent amount of the time the card doesn't even go in my deck.
My advice is to focus on two colors with one as more of a splash. I've had a lot of success with this and it doesn't rely on fixing lands. So, sometimes, I only wind up with 2 or 3 fixing lands. But, it doesn't matter much to me because my third color doesn't really matter a whole lot until turn 5 and I really only need one of it.
For example, (as the main example I know) I have drafted Mardu all but once the whole time KTK has been out and my deck has literally always been 2-1 or 3-0. Usually, I go W/B/r, but I have had some success with W/R/b as well. If I have a bunch of W/B warriors early on like Chief of the Scale, Mardu Hordechief, and Disowned Ancestor then I can use red as my color to do powerful things on turn 5+ such as dropping Mardu Roughrider, flipping Pony Patrol, or casting Burn Away if I need to.
With this basic strategy, I can usually play 4 or 5 sources of the light color and odds are good that I will have at least one source of that color by the time I want it.
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Is this the best approach. I seem to have to take lands over good business spells and then end up with crap ones later. Then in pack 2 I see crazy good stuff come from the left and I start wondering if I should switch. For example I'm drafting URw Jeskai and get passed a pile of nice Temur cards where the Jeskai stuff is kind of iffy. Think Snowhorn Rider vs Jeskai Student. Of course I'm not going to see much green from the right when I go to pack 3 and the fixing I've picked up is probably 90% wrong.
Any tips?
The best draft decks come from cooperating with the people near you. Forcing 5 color is the antithesis of cooperating. Usually all you're guaranteeing is that the person sitting farthest from you has the best shot at success.
I would be giving myself too much credit if I said I had real, solid tips to give, but here are the things that have been working for me over the past couple weeks of drafting a few times a week.
1) Don't be afraid to abandon your first pick. Your instinct to make the first few picks based on power level is correct I think, although it's fair to let color concerns be tie breakers.
2) Settle into something by the middle of the first pack. We've all had that situation where we think we're getting good Sultai cards in pack 1, and then out of nowhere Jeskai is clearly what's open in pack 2. I don't have a good explanation for that, but if you plant your flag in green or blue for example in pack 1, then at least you can snag some of those Jeskai cards and audible towards a Temur build. (Just as an example.) The only drafts that I really feel are train wrecks are the ones where I keep trying to snag strong cards that are going around inexplicably late assuming they are signals even into pack 2 or 3. The power level of cards in Khans is concentrated in a narrow enough band that you don't have to do that. Build a consistent XY or XYz deck and your cards will be close enough in power level to compete even if you had to let one or two big ones go by.
3) Absent any other plan, I look for green, red and blue according to what seems to be open. I find that they're underdrafted relative to white and black. Abzan and Mardu are very popular from what I can see. The kinds of cards that I see going around "too late" in my opinion are often things like Savage Punch, Crippling Chill, Mystic of the Hidden Way, Arrow Storm, etc. By being in some kind of flexible UG or UR base that can accept those cards as they come I'm not fighting over the few good black commons that have often dried up in the third pack.
4) If you are relying on powerful cards, make sure your deck is built to make it to the late game, and then play it that way. If you are relying on consistency from solid commons but you don't have any haymakers, make sure your deck can win before the 5C or Villainous Wealth deck can stabilize. Trumpet Blast/Barrage of Boulders/Ride Down, etc. are key cards to look for in that situation.
5) Assume that you will see 0 fixing in pack 3. That means you either have to be proactive about it in pack 1 and most likely take it over some good cards, or you have to chase it in pack 2 and definitely take it over some good cards. In a way this goes back to point 2 - a lot of the cards that you are tempted to take over fixing are replaceable in some way later on.
Anyway, that was just basically stream of consciousness, there are some points in there that are probably debatable, especially about mana. That's a part of the format I'm still struggling with.
I think we've never had a set with the colors setup like KtK. In two-colors sets like RtR, the color pairs were widely and clearly separated. IIRC, RtR also had more gold cards as-fan than KtK, and that was done on purpose n KtK. Other multi-colors set like Alara had strong gold-card and shard identity that made each shard separate.
The crux of the problem is this: a clan can be open while its colors are not.
I've had this problem repeatedly: you get good clan gold cards (for example, in my last draft I received late bear's companion and temur charm), but the colors making up that clan are not very open. If we assume the simplified picture of every drafter picking a clan, this is almost guaranteed: each of your immediate neighbor will share at least one color with you. Often, more. Good mono-color card don't get very far. Given that the gold cards are much rarer than mono-color cards, this gives confusing mixed signals.
Add to that 4- and 5-colors drafters, the dual-lands at commons and the banner going late, it makes signal reading hard and color jumping frequent.
I think this is the quickest I've given up on a draft format since Avacyn Restored.
The big problem is WotC went overboard on the mana fixing. Ten duals at common, they were asking for trouble. Hopefully they heavily cut back the fixing in Fate Reforged.
In the middle of a draft if I have a choice between a worse-than-average card such as Jeskai Student in my colors or a good card not in my colors, then I will almost certainly take the good card as long as the good-vs-mediocre difference is great enough. I figure that I can always pick up playables late in the draft if I am really scrounging to fill my deck. Sometimes if the colors are so off -- such as opening Sorin, Solemn Visitor in pack 3 while I am drafting green-blue-red Temur -- then I just pass it without a second thought, so I don't really follow any real guidelines, it just depends upon the situation.
I generally do not worry much about signaling in either direction during a KTK draft, because it's too unreliable and could hurt my deck if it influences my picks. Something obvious, such as seeing a pick 4 obviously-great one-color card, would influence me, though. I don't have a problem abandoning an early pick, especially considering that I often take ticket value (such as a rare land) in pack 1 anyway so a decent amount of the time the card doesn't even go in my deck.
For example, (as the main example I know) I have drafted Mardu all but once the whole time KTK has been out and my deck has literally always been 2-1 or 3-0. Usually, I go W/B/r, but I have had some success with W/R/b as well. If I have a bunch of W/B warriors early on like Chief of the Scale, Mardu Hordechief, and Disowned Ancestor then I can use red as my color to do powerful things on turn 5+ such as dropping Mardu Roughrider, flipping Pony Patrol, or casting Burn Away if I need to.
With this basic strategy, I can usually play 4 or 5 sources of the light color and odds are good that I will have at least one source of that color by the time I want it.