I've been playing in M13 Sealed Deck tournaments for a couple weeks and booster drafting for a couple weeks. I think I've gotten pretty familiar with the environment and can do pretty well in tournaments. I have a few questions about improving my drafting ability.
1) How do you draft blue? I've never been able to draft blue in this environment. It just seems so weak compared to the other colors. I know the good cards to look for, like Sleep, Switcheroo, fliers, and such. However, I don't think blue has enough depth to it. I've certainly lost to blue a couple times, usually due to Sleep. It just seems like it's a color to draft as an afterthought or support than your main color.
2) How do you draft green? I'll start by talking about the other colors first. White, Black, and Red have solid removal, which really helps them out. White and Black get Exalted, as well as evasion and combat tricks. Red is a little tricky to draft, because I don't like it's common creature base, but the removal makes it easier to draft than green, for me.
The problem with green is that nothing leaps out at me that I must draft it. It's got some solid creatures, but that's about it. Prey Upon seems too situational to be reliable 1-for-1 removal, though I'd play it in green, of course. It just seems too easy to deal with their creatures. Again, I've lost to green before, but I just don't like it. It doesn't seem to have any great bombs, evasion, or game-breakers like the other colors have.
3) How do you draft your second color? I think I've gotten pretty good at recognizing and sending signals on my primary color. The problem I generally have is drafting my secondary color. In theory, I would think that the best option would be to read the signals and draft it from there, instead of trying to force a plan through. However, I get a lot of mixed signals, so while I may get some good secondary color picks in Pack 2, I'll lose them in Pack 3.
4) How do you know if you've drafted well? I mean besides your record, obviously. In this format, I've just never really felt good about the decks I've drafted. They always feel subpar to me, even for a draft deck. I rarely seem to have a solid mana curve, as 3-drops seems to be hard to find in this format. My general strategy is as follows.
Look for bombs, removal, and exalted creatures, in that order of priority. Afterwards, look for evasion or other means to break up a creature stall. Finally, just draft a lot of creatures, so that I can sometimes just overwhelm my opponents with them. My matches tend to go by pretty fast, as I tend to not really see bombs or creature stalls very often. That seems to work for me, as I go 2-1 or 3-0 fairly often, between playing on MTGO and my local store. However, I just never feel confident about my deck.
5) How do you decided how many lands to run? So far, I've always gone with 17. It's so critical to hit that fourth land on turn 4 in this format, that I can't imagine running less. I'd run 18 if I had a sufficient number of 5cc+ drops, but I haven't so far.
6) How do you use the draft recorder on MTGO? I don't even know where to look for instructions on it in the program.
3) unless everyone you're drafting with is of high skill, reading signals to choose your second color is kinda weak. Just my opinion, though.
4) never never never never force exalted. chances are someone opened better than you and the colors and cards came to them in the correct way. forcing exalted is just as bad as forcing any other archtype. There's almost always a better pick than just a random exalted dork if you're in the middle of a pack.
5) same as you. I almost never play 18. I find I hit 4 very reasonably with 17.
I tried to answer your questions. I'm not the best drafter ever but I've done a bazillion M13 drafts it seems like and I've sort of gone infinite (with the help of Sealed) on MTGO with this set after bombing out hard with AVR. Others on here are pretty pro though so listen to them if they contradict me
1. I love Blue in this format, but it definitely can feel a bit shallow at times. Obviously Talrand's Invocation is the best non-rare (best non-Jace?) blue card. But you will do many drafts without ever seeing one. If I am drafting Blue I usually try to decide if I am doing aggressive/tempo blue or control blue. Cards like Sleep and Welkin Tern fit best into an aggressive/temp strategy. Other cards like Vedalken Entrancer and Archaeomancer are more controlling. I rate cards like Essence Scatter and Unsummon probably higher than most people. Unsummon is just so flexible. It counters basically every removal spell, it removes key blockers for a turn, counters enchantments. Its rare that I'm sad to see an unsummon in my hand.
Blue pairs well with pretty much every color. UW is awesome in the air, and can provide good removal and tempo, UB can be very controlling or aggressive with exalted support/harbor bandit. UR and UG can work well too.
2. I dislike Green in this set. I just haven't had much luck with it. Obviously there are some neat synergies, particularly with Roaring Primadox, but at uncommon you aren't likely to get one. Rancor is awesome, but again uncommon. Prey Upon has been a little lackluster for me in this set, but at least it is removal. I think Green just needs to have a solid curve of creatures. Centaur Courser is a pretty important card. Green needs some support from other colors though, generally to give it the reach it needs to finish off games.
3. I guess I don't think about things in terms of "primary color" and "second color." Its not unusual for me to be 4 picks in with 4 colors drafted. I try to stay open in the first pack and go from there. This set has enough playables that I usually feel safe doing that.
4. Haha, I never feel good about my decks. My wife says that I always complain after drafting that "this is a 1-2 deck" or something. The problem is I always think about the awesome cards I had in some other draft (like Oblivion Ring or something) and think that the deck is lacking something. But this is limited. No deck has everything, and you will always feel like you are missing something. Obviously playing with the deck will give you a sense of if a deck is good or not.
5. I almost always go with 17, I think the only time I ever went 18 was when I tried nicolbolas.dek and that was cause I didn't have a Gem of Becoming. I cut it down to 16 a lot. I don't know if thats right, but I hate getting flooded more than being short on mana. I pay a lot of attention to my curve while drafting though.
I tried to answer your questions. I'm not the best drafter ever but I've done a bazillion M13 drafts it seems like and I've sort of gone infinite (with the help of Sealed) on MTGO with this set after bombing out hard with AVR. Others on here are pretty pro though so listen to them if they contradict me
1. I love Blue in this format, but it definitely can feel a bit shallow at times. Obviously Talrand's Invocation is the best non-rare (best non-Jace?) blue card. But you will do many drafts without ever seeing one. If I am drafting Blue I usually try to decide if I am doing aggressive/tempo blue or control blue. Cards like Sleep and Welkin Tern fit best into an aggressive/temp strategy. Other cards like Vedalken Entrancer and Archaeomancer are more controlling. I rate cards like Essence Scatter and Unsummon probably higher than most people. Unsummon is just so flexible. It counters basically every removal spell, it removes key blockers for a turn, counters enchantments. Its rare that I'm sad to see an unsummon in my hand.
Blue pairs well with pretty much every color. UW is awesome in the air, and can provide good removal and tempo, UB can be very controlling or aggressive with exalted support/harbor bandit. UR and UG can work well too.
Pretty surprised that neither the OP or the first reply mentioned Invocation, which is undisputably the best blue card in the set, and if not the best uncommon one of the top 3. I also doubt you overrate Essence Scatter or Unsummon (at least compared to other decent drafters) since they're among the top few blue commons, easily.
By an odd coincidence, I was queued for a draft as I was posting this, and I just opened a pack 1 Jace :D.
Green is probably my second or third favorite color in this format (after Red and maybe Black). I think Primadox is pretty overrated and the plan rarely comes together. The 'secret' to Green in my experience is that Sentinel Spider is really, really good. It's one of my favorite commons in the set and can be a massive asset against most of the decks in the format. Giant Spider was always an all-star, but adding 1 mana for 2 power and Vigilance is a pretty great deal.
I don't think there's too much beyond that. Arbor Elf is as great as it's always been. Huntbeast is excellent with rings or auras. There are a lot of very good auras in this format, with Rancor, Tricks and Mark of the Vampire being the most notable. Prey Upon is almost always less awkward than it looks simply because Green creatures are huge, and so it's often a 1-mana (sorcery-speed) Murder. Rancor, Packleader and the others barely even need discussion because they're so amazing.
Pretty surprised that neither the OP or the first reply mentioned Invocation, which is undisputably the best blue card in the set, and if not the best uncommon one of the top 3. I also doubt you overrate Essence Scatter or Unsummon (at least compared to other decent drafters) since they're among the top few blue commons, easily.
By an odd coincidence, I was queued for a draft as I was posting this, and I just opened a pack 1 Jace :D.
The problem is that people try to seal or draft blue is that they draft the UB or UW without 2-3 evolving wilds/duals, because without it the mana doesn´t work¨.
I usually draft my second color by using the first few picks on my main color and when I see a very good card get passed to me I immediatly going to the other one, don´t be afraid to switch colors, there are enough good cards
Just to make sure, Volcanic Geyser is pretty much an auto-first pick, provided there are no other bombs in the pack, right?
I seem to see this card a lot, but the mana requirements concern me as a first pick. It means that I have to heavily commit to red for it to work, due to the RR mana cost. If I get cut off from it, then I'm screwed, especially since red's creature base isn't that exciting.
That said, I drafted 2 Geysers, 2 Flame of the Firebrand and surprisingly went 3-0 with a White/Red deck. I didn't think the deck was that strong, being forced to run a Hill Giant, just to get up to 16 creatures, including Guardians of Akrasa. However, I did have a lot of removal and weird ways of getting around blockers, like Intimidate, Goblin Battle Jester, a couple fliers, and Angelic Benediction.
BTW, Angelic Benediction is really good, right? I seem to get passed that card a lot, yet I would interpret being passed it as white being completely open.
Just to make sure, Volcanic Geyser is pretty much an auto-first pick, provided there are no other bombs in the pack, right?
I seem to see this card a lot, but the mana requirements concern me as a first pick. It means that I have to heavily commit to red for it to work, due to the RR mana cost. If I get cut off from it, then I'm screwed, especially since red's creature base isn't that exciting.
That said, I drafted 2 Geysers, 2 Flame of the Firebrand and surprisingly went 3-0 with a White/Red deck. I didn't think the deck was that strong, being forced to run a Hill Giant, just to get up to 16 creatures, including Guardians of Akrasa. However, I did have a lot of removal and weird ways of getting around blockers, like Intimidate, Goblin Battle Jester, a couple fliers, and Angelic Benediction.
BTW, Angelic Benediction is really good, right? I seem to get passed that card a lot, yet I would interpret being passed it as white being completely open.
Not really, Geyser is strong but it's sure as hell no Fireball. You can't just throw it and a mountain into any deck and play it and it will rarely get you a 2 for 1 while Fireball can do so fairly consistently. Costing one extra mana is a pretty big blow too. Instant speed is nice and all but it's not really that big of a deal once you consider how much the card is losing from Fireball in exchange for it. Off the top of my head I'd take any of the following non-rares in a P1P1 situation before I ever take a Geyser:
Talrand's Invocation, Flames of the Firebrand, Murder, Searing Spear, Oblivion Ring, Pacifism, Vampire Nighthawk, Serra Angel. I might be forgetting some cards too and there's others that are pretty close.
As for Benediction, its value depends on how aggressive you are. If you're a controlling deck it's obviously quite worthless to you, but in a deck with a lot of exalted being able to falter your opponent's best blocker every attack and get in with a large exalted dude can be pretty awesome. Something to keep in mind is that it's a card that also becomes terrible to draw when you're behind in a race.
Just to make sure, Volcanic Geyser is pretty much an auto-first pick, provided there are no other bombs in the pack, right?
I'm not convinced it is. The double Red not only makes it unsplashable, it also reduces the damage by a point relative to Blaze, Fireball and the like. As a result, killing big things with it can sometimes be awkward and you can't kill small things efficiently.
I also don't like being Red. As such, whilst I'd first pick it from some packs there are a lot of cards I'd prefer, including even some Commons.
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I don't like Volcanic Geyser at all. Maybe it's because I've been watching Sam Black streams all day (I think he passed it 5th pick when he was already in red, for example) but it just seems actively bad. The average end-game landcount in this format seems to be somewhere between 5 and 7. At 5 mana it's a worse Searing Spear. At 7 it's probably hoping to go right to their face, at which point I'd rather have a Chandra's Fury (which is an amazing card, by the way). It's just clunky and slow in a format that rewards efficient, aggressive decks.
I don't like Volcanic Geyser at all. ... It's just clunky and slow in a format that rewards efficient, aggressive decks.
My thoughts exactly. I pick Sentinel Spider over it. You rarely go to the face with it (since board stalls don't happen in m13 as much and there are powerful threats you need to answer early on), so it's about comparable to turn to slag. Good threats > clunky removal.
I don't like Volcanic Geyser at all. Maybe it's because I've been watching Sam Black streams all day (I think he passed it 5th pick when he was already in red, for example) but it just seems actively bad. The average end-game landcount in this format seems to be somewhere between 5 and 7. At 5 mana it's a worse Searing Spear. At 7 it's probably hoping to go right to their face, at which point I'd rather have a Chandra's Fury (which is an amazing card, by the way). It's just clunky and slow in a format that rewards efficient, aggressive decks.
It's clear that geyser isn't the top red uncommon, but don't take it too far. Geyser is the most flexible removal spell for red, period. Drafting a geyser or two means you have defenses against some of the more annoying miser wins, i.e. mark of the vampire on a tormented soul or sentinel spider, or dealing with "kill me or lose" cards like krenko or odric.
The reason most people don't actively draft red or green is because we've been conditioned to value hard removal over soft removal, and evasive creatures over big creatures, especially for core set drafting. The irony is that red and green arguably play a better tempo game than blue and white in this format. Yes, there's always unsummon, sleep, and white fliers, but white and blue lost a TON of the typical early threats they had a couple years ago (elite vanguard, stormfront pegasus, etc.).
Goblin Battle Jester and chandra's fury have routinely impressed me whenever I get the chance to draft them. It feels like red has been given the majority of the "subtle but powerful" limited cards in M13, especially with cards like arms dealer, flames of the firebrand, and cleaver riot.
I absolutely agree that red has an uncharacteristic abundance of extremely powerful tempo-based cards, but that's exactly why I think that Volcanic Geyser is a marginal card. It's true that it's unfair to say that Geyser is a 5-mana Searing Spear, because its flexibility does add to its power. But I also don't think it adds enough. The number of games in which I get to 7 mana seems to be very low, and the number of games where I'm staring at it in my otherwise-empty hand with 3 land on board is surprisingly high. It's a terrible card at 3 and 4 mana, a marginal card at 5 and 6 mana and a good card past there. But I really don't want to ever get to that point, which means that I'm playing a bad/marginal card the majority of the time.
I have taken searing spear over geyser a couple of times.
You have to spend 5 mana on Geyser to get the *same* effect as searing spear, sure it is possible to spend more for extra effect, but being able to take out an early creature in a race is pretty damn good.
Hell, I often see Turn to Slag go pretty late and as a removal spell, its more efficiently costed than geyser (sure it can't go to their face but still)
How do you feel about drafting Blue & Green together?
Generally, I would think it would be a horrible combination. However, when I got Rancor, Invocation, 3 Faeries, Garruk Primal Hunter, and Predatory Rampage, I kind of had to go with the signals. I also managed to pick up 2 Arbor Elves that guy me a T3 Garruk once. I ended up going 3-1 with the deck, only losing to a deck that got T4 Mark of the Vampire in both games. Sadly, I never saw any Unsummons and only one Prey Upon that I passed.
How do you feel about drafting Blue & Green together?
Generally, I would think it would be a horrible combination. However, when I got Rancor, Invocation, 3 Faeries, Garruk Primal Hunter, and Predatory Rampage, I kind of had to go with the signals. I also managed to pick up 2 Arbor Elves that guy me a T3 Garruk once. I ended up going 3-1 with the deck, only losing to a deck that got T4 Mark of the Vampire in both games. Sadly, I never saw any Unsummons and only one Prey Upon that I passed.
It's a pretty awkward color combination (as it usually is in coresets). There's some synergies like Tricks of the Trade plus Primal Huntbeast, Sleep plus all of the big green bruisers, and Archaemancer plus Roaring Primadox plus sweet spell you can draft for but for the most part these colors don't work particularly well together. U/G by its nature just lacks much in the way of removal/interaction spells compared with the other 3 colors and even with Prey Upon around it's still a problem. Of course if you end up with a deck full of bombs/good cards like in your case then it doesn't matter too much if the colors don't mesh well.
First off, I am biased and blue is probably my favorite color but I think its great in M13. The main problem I see is people not drafting very good archetypes. Welkin terns and Sleeps do not go into controlling decks! People keep saying that with core sets you just take the best cards disregarding archetypes and I have found that to be very counterproductive. If you draft removal the first 5 picks of your draft you can probably be safe to assume you're going to be more controlling and you should value cards differently. The same goes if you draft 5 good exalted creatures to be begin with...don't draft controlling cards!
and those aren't even some of the monster rares it has. Green is a very solid color but it does need another to work well (and not white unless you get an abundance of Pacifisms). And having Farseek makes it a no brainer to add a 2nd or even 3rd color!
While receiving signals is a great skill, it also depends on the skill level of your opponents. I'm not sure which draft queue you go into but 8-4's generally have the better drafters. In there you will be able to see much clearer signals than say swiss where people are who aren't as good or don't have a lot of experience in this format. Generally you want to stay allied colors because all the allied cards (ie Arctic Aven) are very strong. Another thing to consider is what kind of deck your first color is shaping you. If you are controlling and in blue you might want to force black. However, being in blue with an aggro-ish deck you might want to force white or red.
Ah yes, this is the key haha. I think this also comes down to deciding your archetype during the draft. If you have drafted an aggro deck you should obviously have a lot of cheap threats with removal and combat tricks. And control should have removal and big game enders. Creature count, number of lands, and curve should all be based on your deck's archetype. I'm not sure what you mean with lack of 3 drops because the past few drafts I've had an overabundance of 3 drops (maybe I've taken them all from you?). I think every color has decent three drops and you should definitely not be playing anything your first 3 turns!
If you are referring to the text recorder that people use to post in the draftcap section go to Menu->Settings->Game Play and under Advanced Settings there is a check box for enabling the draft recorder
Green is a very solid color but it does need another to work well (and not white unless you get an abundance of Pacifisms). And having Farseek makes it a no brainer to add a 2nd or even 3rd color!
G/W is a great color combination. Pacifism and Divine Verdict give you outs to problematic creatures like Arctic Aven and Vampire Nighthawk, and white's exalted guys and combat tricks let you break through blockers. Prized Elephant basically exemplifies GW's gameplan in a nutshell: smash your opponent with large, efficient creatures (3/3s for three, 4/4's for four), utilizing exalted and combat tricks to break through blockers (Elephant makes a great un-chumpable exalted champion due to the trample).
I don't like farseek much in this format, and I rarely find myself splashing. Farseek can be ok if you have a higher curve, but most of the time I'd rather be curving out 2-drop, 3-drop rather than farseek, 4-drop. T2 bear, t3 exalted guy, swing for 3 is a better start for most decks than t2 farseek, t3 hill giant (who can't actually block an exalted bear unless you want to trade down). If you want acceleration, Arbor Elf is where you want to be.
I dislike splashing for the same reason - you want to curve out in m13, and whatever you're splashing usually isn't worth the cost of stumbling early because of color issues. I only like splashing if I have rock-solid mana (4 splash sources, running only 1 off-color basic - i.e. 1 splash basic, 2 wilds, 1 farseek).
What do you think about playing in MTGO Swiss drafts vs. 8-4 queues?
Theoretically, 8-4 queues should have better competition and send better signals, so that it would be better practice for a PTQ Top 8 (my goal). However, I've heard others say that there's still plenty of poor players in the 8-4 drafts too. Even if it's a better test of my skill, my problem with them is that it's single elimination. While that may be a better test of skill, all it takes is one bad draw, and the experience is wasted. I can't go 2-1 after dropping the first or second match. I would think Swiss would be better, because it guarantees me more experience per tournament. Although, even if I lost in the first round of an 8-4 draft, I would still have the draft recording to look back on. What do you think?
What do you think about playing in MTGO Swiss drafts vs. 8-4 queues?
Theoretically, 8-4 queues should have better competition and send better signals, so that it would be better practice for a PTQ Top 8 (my goal). However, I've heard others say that there's still plenty of poor players in the 8-4 drafts too. Even if it's a better test of my skill, my problem with them is that it's single elimination. While that may be a better test of skill, all it takes is one bad draw, and the experience is wasted. I can't go 2-1 after dropping the first or second match. I would think Swiss would be better, because it guarantees me more experience per tournament. Although, even if I lost in the first round of an 8-4 draft, I would still have the draft recording to look back on. What do you think?
I agree with this entirely.
Also the overall payout, and thus EV, is the same in swiss as it is in 8-4s (unlike 4-3-2-2s which payout less packs in total). So unless you believe that you have quite a significant edge on the 8-4, field you're better off doing swiss.
People often talk about the low skill level of Swiss events, but I'm not so sure. I play both 8-4 and Swiss and I feel like I get the same number of free wins from bad players/bad decks in each. Perhaps it's skewed a bit, but not enough to warrant all of the discussion that people give it.
For people just drafting for fun, I think Swiss is usually the way to go simply because one bad draw won't end your night. If you're trying to go infinite, 8-4 is the way to go. Especially with low-value sets with M13, it's just not possible to do it with Swiss.
How early would you pick Sleep, if you're not in blue yet?
That card has been game-breaking to me. I had a recent draft where I had an opportunity to second-pick Sleep, but I passed on it, in favor of an exalted creature in the color of my first pick. Eventually, I went into blue anyway, and had a solid deck, but I had no game-breakers. Is Sleep good enough to have picked that early?
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1) How do you draft blue? I've never been able to draft blue in this environment. It just seems so weak compared to the other colors. I know the good cards to look for, like Sleep, Switcheroo, fliers, and such. However, I don't think blue has enough depth to it. I've certainly lost to blue a couple times, usually due to Sleep. It just seems like it's a color to draft as an afterthought or support than your main color.
2) How do you draft green? I'll start by talking about the other colors first. White, Black, and Red have solid removal, which really helps them out. White and Black get Exalted, as well as evasion and combat tricks. Red is a little tricky to draft, because I don't like it's common creature base, but the removal makes it easier to draft than green, for me.
The problem with green is that nothing leaps out at me that I must draft it. It's got some solid creatures, but that's about it. Prey Upon seems too situational to be reliable 1-for-1 removal, though I'd play it in green, of course. It just seems too easy to deal with their creatures. Again, I've lost to green before, but I just don't like it. It doesn't seem to have any great bombs, evasion, or game-breakers like the other colors have.
3) How do you draft your second color? I think I've gotten pretty good at recognizing and sending signals on my primary color. The problem I generally have is drafting my secondary color. In theory, I would think that the best option would be to read the signals and draft it from there, instead of trying to force a plan through. However, I get a lot of mixed signals, so while I may get some good secondary color picks in Pack 2, I'll lose them in Pack 3.
4) How do you know if you've drafted well? I mean besides your record, obviously. In this format, I've just never really felt good about the decks I've drafted. They always feel subpar to me, even for a draft deck. I rarely seem to have a solid mana curve, as 3-drops seems to be hard to find in this format. My general strategy is as follows.
Look for bombs, removal, and exalted creatures, in that order of priority. Afterwards, look for evasion or other means to break up a creature stall. Finally, just draft a lot of creatures, so that I can sometimes just overwhelm my opponents with them. My matches tend to go by pretty fast, as I tend to not really see bombs or creature stalls very often. That seems to work for me, as I go 2-1 or 3-0 fairly often, between playing on MTGO and my local store. However, I just never feel confident about my deck.
5) How do you decided how many lands to run? So far, I've always gone with 17. It's so critical to hit that fourth land on turn 4 in this format, that I can't imagine running less. I'd run 18 if I had a sufficient number of 5cc+ drops, but I haven't so far.
6) How do you use the draft recorder on MTGO? I don't even know where to look for instructions on it in the program.
Thanks for the discussion.
2) rancor
3) unless everyone you're drafting with is of high skill, reading signals to choose your second color is kinda weak. Just my opinion, though.
4) never never never never force exalted. chances are someone opened better than you and the colors and cards came to them in the correct way. forcing exalted is just as bad as forcing any other archtype. There's almost always a better pick than just a random exalted dork if you're in the middle of a pack.
5) same as you. I almost never play 18. I find I hit 4 very reasonably with 17.
Trade with me so I can build my cube!
1. I love Blue in this format, but it definitely can feel a bit shallow at times. Obviously Talrand's Invocation is the best non-rare (best non-Jace?) blue card. But you will do many drafts without ever seeing one. If I am drafting Blue I usually try to decide if I am doing aggressive/tempo blue or control blue. Cards like Sleep and Welkin Tern fit best into an aggressive/temp strategy. Other cards like Vedalken Entrancer and Archaeomancer are more controlling. I rate cards like Essence Scatter and Unsummon probably higher than most people. Unsummon is just so flexible. It counters basically every removal spell, it removes key blockers for a turn, counters enchantments. Its rare that I'm sad to see an unsummon in my hand.
Blue pairs well with pretty much every color. UW is awesome in the air, and can provide good removal and tempo, UB can be very controlling or aggressive with exalted support/harbor bandit. UR and UG can work well too.
2. I dislike Green in this set. I just haven't had much luck with it. Obviously there are some neat synergies, particularly with Roaring Primadox, but at uncommon you aren't likely to get one. Rancor is awesome, but again uncommon. Prey Upon has been a little lackluster for me in this set, but at least it is removal. I think Green just needs to have a solid curve of creatures. Centaur Courser is a pretty important card. Green needs some support from other colors though, generally to give it the reach it needs to finish off games.
3. I guess I don't think about things in terms of "primary color" and "second color." Its not unusual for me to be 4 picks in with 4 colors drafted. I try to stay open in the first pack and go from there. This set has enough playables that I usually feel safe doing that.
4. Haha, I never feel good about my decks. My wife says that I always complain after drafting that "this is a 1-2 deck" or something. The problem is I always think about the awesome cards I had in some other draft (like Oblivion Ring or something) and think that the deck is lacking something. But this is limited. No deck has everything, and you will always feel like you are missing something. Obviously playing with the deck will give you a sense of if a deck is good or not.
5. I almost always go with 17, I think the only time I ever went 18 was when I tried nicolbolas.dek and that was cause I didn't have a Gem of Becoming. I cut it down to 16 a lot. I don't know if thats right, but I hate getting flooded more than being short on mana. I pay a lot of attention to my curve while drafting though.
6. Hmm, no idea. Sorry.
Good luck!!
Pretty surprised that neither the OP or the first reply mentioned Invocation, which is undisputably the best blue card in the set, and if not the best uncommon one of the top 3. I also doubt you overrate Essence Scatter or Unsummon (at least compared to other decent drafters) since they're among the top few blue commons, easily.
By an odd coincidence, I was queued for a draft as I was posting this, and I just opened a pack 1 Jace :D.
I don't think there's too much beyond that. Arbor Elf is as great as it's always been. Huntbeast is excellent with rings or auras. There are a lot of very good auras in this format, with Rancor, Tricks and Mark of the Vampire being the most notable. Prey Upon is almost always less awkward than it looks simply because Green creatures are huge, and so it's often a 1-mana (sorcery-speed) Murder. Rancor, Packleader and the others barely even need discussion because they're so amazing.
Talrands Invocation is depressing when you are holding an essence scatter.
I usually draft my second color by using the first few picks on my main color and when I see a very good card get passed to me I immediatly going to the other one, don´t be afraid to switch colors, there are enough good cards
My errata'd commons cube
I seem to see this card a lot, but the mana requirements concern me as a first pick. It means that I have to heavily commit to red for it to work, due to the RR mana cost. If I get cut off from it, then I'm screwed, especially since red's creature base isn't that exciting.
That said, I drafted 2 Geysers, 2 Flame of the Firebrand and surprisingly went 3-0 with a White/Red deck. I didn't think the deck was that strong, being forced to run a Hill Giant, just to get up to 16 creatures, including Guardians of Akrasa. However, I did have a lot of removal and weird ways of getting around blockers, like Intimidate, Goblin Battle Jester, a couple fliers, and Angelic Benediction.
BTW, Angelic Benediction is really good, right? I seem to get passed that card a lot, yet I would interpret being passed it as white being completely open.
Not really, Geyser is strong but it's sure as hell no Fireball. You can't just throw it and a mountain into any deck and play it and it will rarely get you a 2 for 1 while Fireball can do so fairly consistently. Costing one extra mana is a pretty big blow too. Instant speed is nice and all but it's not really that big of a deal once you consider how much the card is losing from Fireball in exchange for it. Off the top of my head I'd take any of the following non-rares in a P1P1 situation before I ever take a Geyser:
Talrand's Invocation, Flames of the Firebrand, Murder, Searing Spear, Oblivion Ring, Pacifism, Vampire Nighthawk, Serra Angel. I might be forgetting some cards too and there's others that are pretty close.
As for Benediction, its value depends on how aggressive you are. If you're a controlling deck it's obviously quite worthless to you, but in a deck with a lot of exalted being able to falter your opponent's best blocker every attack and get in with a large exalted dude can be pretty awesome. Something to keep in mind is that it's a card that also becomes terrible to draw when you're behind in a race.
I'm not convinced it is. The double Red not only makes it unsplashable, it also reduces the damage by a point relative to Blaze, Fireball and the like. As a result, killing big things with it can sometimes be awkward and you can't kill small things efficiently.
I also don't like being Red. As such, whilst I'd first pick it from some packs there are a lot of cards I'd prefer, including even some Commons.
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My thoughts exactly. I pick Sentinel Spider over it. You rarely go to the face with it (since board stalls don't happen in m13 as much and there are powerful threats you need to answer early on), so it's about comparable to turn to slag. Good threats > clunky removal.
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It's clear that geyser isn't the top red uncommon, but don't take it too far. Geyser is the most flexible removal spell for red, period. Drafting a geyser or two means you have defenses against some of the more annoying miser wins, i.e. mark of the vampire on a tormented soul or sentinel spider, or dealing with "kill me or lose" cards like krenko or odric.
The reason most people don't actively draft red or green is because we've been conditioned to value hard removal over soft removal, and evasive creatures over big creatures, especially for core set drafting. The irony is that red and green arguably play a better tempo game than blue and white in this format. Yes, there's always unsummon, sleep, and white fliers, but white and blue lost a TON of the typical early threats they had a couple years ago (elite vanguard, stormfront pegasus, etc.).
Goblin Battle Jester and chandra's fury have routinely impressed me whenever I get the chance to draft them. It feels like red has been given the majority of the "subtle but powerful" limited cards in M13, especially with cards like arms dealer, flames of the firebrand, and cleaver riot.
You have to spend 5 mana on Geyser to get the *same* effect as searing spear, sure it is possible to spend more for extra effect, but being able to take out an early creature in a race is pretty damn good.
Hell, I often see Turn to Slag go pretty late and as a removal spell, its more efficiently costed than geyser (sure it can't go to their face but still)
Generally, I would think it would be a horrible combination. However, when I got Rancor, Invocation, 3 Faeries, Garruk Primal Hunter, and Predatory Rampage, I kind of had to go with the signals. I also managed to pick up 2 Arbor Elves that guy me a T3 Garruk once. I ended up going 3-1 with the deck, only losing to a deck that got T4 Mark of the Vampire in both games. Sadly, I never saw any Unsummons and only one Prey Upon that I passed.
It's a pretty awkward color combination (as it usually is in coresets). There's some synergies like Tricks of the Trade plus Primal Huntbeast, Sleep plus all of the big green bruisers, and Archaemancer plus Roaring Primadox plus sweet spell you can draft for but for the most part these colors don't work particularly well together. U/G by its nature just lacks much in the way of removal/interaction spells compared with the other 3 colors and even with Prey Upon around it's still a problem. Of course if you end up with a deck full of bombs/good cards like in your case then it doesn't matter too much if the colors don't mesh well.
First off, I am biased and blue is probably my favorite color but I think its great in M13. The main problem I see is people not drafting very good archetypes. Welkin terns and Sleeps do not go into controlling decks! People keep saying that with core sets you just take the best cards disregarding archetypes and I have found that to be very counterproductive. If you draft removal the first 5 picks of your draft you can probably be safe to assume you're going to be more controlling and you should value cards differently. The same goes if you draft 5 good exalted creatures to be begin with...don't draft controlling cards!
You are right in saying green has the worst removal...so value Prey Upon highly. Green also has some of the best creatures such as:
and those aren't even some of the monster rares it has. Green is a very solid color but it does need another to work well (and not white unless you get an abundance of Pacifisms). And having Farseek makes it a no brainer to add a 2nd or even 3rd color!
While receiving signals is a great skill, it also depends on the skill level of your opponents. I'm not sure which draft queue you go into but 8-4's generally have the better drafters. In there you will be able to see much clearer signals than say swiss where people are who aren't as good or don't have a lot of experience in this format. Generally you want to stay allied colors because all the allied cards (ie Arctic Aven) are very strong. Another thing to consider is what kind of deck your first color is shaping you. If you are controlling and in blue you might want to force black. However, being in blue with an aggro-ish deck you might want to force white or red.
Ah yes, this is the key haha. I think this also comes down to deciding your archetype during the draft. If you have drafted an aggro deck you should obviously have a lot of cheap threats with removal and combat tricks. And control should have removal and big game enders. Creature count, number of lands, and curve should all be based on your deck's archetype. I'm not sure what you mean with lack of 3 drops because the past few drafts I've had an overabundance of 3 drops (maybe I've taken them all from you?). I think every color has decent three drops and you should definitely not be playing anything your first 3 turns!
If you are referring to the text recorder that people use to post in the draftcap section go to Menu->Settings->Game Play and under Advanced Settings there is a check box for enabling the draft recorder
It's almost always correct to take Spear over Geyser, the exception being when you have 3-4 spears already and want to diversify your removal.
G/W is a great color combination. Pacifism and Divine Verdict give you outs to problematic creatures like Arctic Aven and Vampire Nighthawk, and white's exalted guys and combat tricks let you break through blockers. Prized Elephant basically exemplifies GW's gameplan in a nutshell: smash your opponent with large, efficient creatures (3/3s for three, 4/4's for four), utilizing exalted and combat tricks to break through blockers (Elephant makes a great un-chumpable exalted champion due to the trample).
I don't like farseek much in this format, and I rarely find myself splashing. Farseek can be ok if you have a higher curve, but most of the time I'd rather be curving out 2-drop, 3-drop rather than farseek, 4-drop. T2 bear, t3 exalted guy, swing for 3 is a better start for most decks than t2 farseek, t3 hill giant (who can't actually block an exalted bear unless you want to trade down). If you want acceleration, Arbor Elf is where you want to be.
I dislike splashing for the same reason - you want to curve out in m13, and whatever you're splashing usually isn't worth the cost of stumbling early because of color issues. I only like splashing if I have rock-solid mana (4 splash sources, running only 1 off-color basic - i.e. 1 splash basic, 2 wilds, 1 farseek).
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Theoretically, 8-4 queues should have better competition and send better signals, so that it would be better practice for a PTQ Top 8 (my goal). However, I've heard others say that there's still plenty of poor players in the 8-4 drafts too. Even if it's a better test of my skill, my problem with them is that it's single elimination. While that may be a better test of skill, all it takes is one bad draw, and the experience is wasted. I can't go 2-1 after dropping the first or second match. I would think Swiss would be better, because it guarantees me more experience per tournament. Although, even if I lost in the first round of an 8-4 draft, I would still have the draft recording to look back on. What do you think?
I agree with this entirely.
Also the overall payout, and thus EV, is the same in swiss as it is in 8-4s (unlike 4-3-2-2s which payout less packs in total). So unless you believe that you have quite a significant edge on the 8-4, field you're better off doing swiss.
For people just drafting for fun, I think Swiss is usually the way to go simply because one bad draw won't end your night. If you're trying to go infinite, 8-4 is the way to go. Especially with low-value sets with M13, it's just not possible to do it with Swiss.
That card has been game-breaking to me. I had a recent draft where I had an opportunity to second-pick Sleep, but I passed on it, in favor of an exalted creature in the color of my first pick. Eventually, I went into blue anyway, and had a solid deck, but I had no game-breakers. Is Sleep good enough to have picked that early?