Round 2 will be a normal draft.
There will be five packs of 15 cards, no special rules.
I have adjusted the draft considerably in response to your feedback. ENTER NOW!
Perfect Hand Draft is a method of playing Perfect Hand Magic as we do in our forums, but it uses a drafting method for users to build their decks from. The format is Three-Hand Extra Land Rule. Players draft their card pool from five packs, one at a time, and then choose three of those cards to be their deck submission. After everyone has drafted, those decks are played and scored exactly like a normal PHM round.
How to Enter
Entering the draft is easy, although different from the normal PHM submission process. All you have to do is make a thread in the PHM Draft forum. This area is private: other players can't see your thread in there, so you will conduct your draft in the thread therein, without anyone seeing.
Overview
When the draft is started, each player will be presented with a single fifteen card pack to pick a card from. This pack is the same for all players, and what other players pick has no effect on your draft. After you choose your first card, you are presented with another 15-card pack - "Pack 2" - to choose from. You continue until you have drafted a card from all five packs. All five packs are the same for all players - what you see and choose from is exactly what everyone else chooses from.
After you have drafted a card from each of these five packs, you will then choose three of those cards to build your deck submission from. Again, the format is Three-Hand Extra Land Rule. After all players have finished drafting and made their submission selection, the decks will be posted. The format will always have the Extra Land Rule - each player may play basic land cards from outside of the game and players may play an additional land each turn if they play that land from their hand. Note that with the extra land rule, drafting lands is mana acceleration. Even if Karakas doesn't seem great for its ability in a round - it's still as good as a Mox Pearl.
In the end, you will see the entire card pool that everyone drafted from. All of the options and ideas that you saw were options and paths other players may have taken. The draft is the main challenge of the format. How well can you determine all the avenues other players will take, and adapt to defeat them?
You Draft it: You can Play it
If a card is in the draft pool, you can draft it, put it in your deck, and play it accordingly. There are no rules against what your deck can do, such as forcing discard early or winning quickly. The deck and card balancing is built into the cardpool already, so there are no additional rules about what you can play.
Pack Generation
Packs are generated, semi-randomly. They are not constructed, but they are often tweaked slightly and always adhere to a central card pool with design rules and mapping. Each player has the same options in the draft, so everything is always perfectly fair, but care has been taken to allow multiple competitive options. The cardpool and methodology is very balanced, although the randomness can cause certain avenues to be more successful in a draft. Pack sets with obvious issues are simply discarded - I will ensure the packs are balanced by re-generating for the round.
Guaranteed Wincons
Every pack is guaranteed to contain multiple win conditions. If you you've only been picking removal and disruption, you can rest assured there will be a playable wincon in pack five. There is, of course, no guarantee that you will like any of the wincons therein, but you will absolutely have something you can use.
Dependencies
There aren't any truly dead cards. As part of the pack generation design, if a card is dependent on some other card being in the draft, it will be there. If there is an Isochron Scepter, for instance, there will always be an instant with converted mana cost 2 or less to imprint on it. It will always be in another pack (to ensure you can draft both), and it will be something worth imprinting. The ordering is random, however, so Isochron Scepter could come in pack five and require you to have already chosen that card. Likewise for the Instant coming in pack 2 and Isochron coming in pack 3. Alternatively, cards that aren't dependent on something might not have a go-to card that gets played with it. Karakas does not guarantee a Leyline of Singularity, and Progenitus does not guarantee any way to "cheat" him in; these cards are all fully functional on their own. The pack generator does give a chance that a combo of cards do appear together, however.
Draft and Play Rules
The following are the official rules of the Perfect Hand Draft. They cover the drafting procedures, as well as the game playing procedures. Much of this has been adapted from Mogg's official PHM rules, and credit for their beauty goes to him.
In the event the rules do not cover a specific happenstance or are ambiguous, the moderator of the Draft will have the final declaration of the rules.
1. Drafting
1.1. An entrant enters the draft be creating a thread in the PHM Draft forum.
1.1a. Packs will be displayed and picks will be chosen within this thread.
1.1b. Each entrant's thread is private and can only be seen by that entrant and the PHM Draft Mod.
1.2. The PHM Draft Mod will post the first pack of the round to start the draft.
1.2. Entrants will choose a single card from the pack to add to his or her draft pool.
1.2a. Entrants may only choose a single card from the current draft pack, unless overriden by round rules.
1.2b. Entrants may change their choice only until the next pack has been posted.
1.2c. Entrants are free to get clarifications or rules questions for any card or aspect of the draft before choosing their pick.
1.3. The PHM Draft Mod will then note the chosen card and post the next pack.
1.4. Rules 1.2 and 1.3 will repeat for the draft, until all five packs of the draft have been drafted.
1.4a. Entrants may never change any previously chosen draft picks.
1.4b. The pick for the last pack of the draft may be chaged only up until the PHM Draft Mod responds and notes it in his or her draft pool.
2. Deck Submission
2.1. Upon completing the draft, an entrant determines his or her deck submission.
2.2. An entrant may only submit a deck composed of cards from within his or her draft pool.
2.3. An entrant may not submit the same draft pick multiple times for his or her deck submission.
2.4. An entrant may change his or her submission up until the round's posting.
2.4a. Entrants should make a new reply in his or her thread to change the deck.
2.4b. The last legal deck sumbission will be used for the round's posting.
2.5. An entrant must make all pre-game choices as part of his or her submission.
2.5a. Any round-rule choices must be submitted at the time of the deck building submission and cannot be changed once the round has posted.
2.5b. Any draft-ability choices must also be chosen as part of the deck building submission and cannot be changed between games.
Contents
1. Overview
2. Game Rules
3. Entry Rules
4. Scoring
5. Extra Land Rule
1. Overview
Perfect Hand Magic (PHM) is a competitive strategy game for two or more players. It can be played using pencil and paper; however, it's most commonly played via an online forum. To play the game, each player secretly chooses a specified number of Magic cards which form his or her hand. Once all players have chosen hands, the hands are revealed and scored.
The object of the game is to choose the hand that will score the most points. The score for each hand is determined by the result that it would achieve if it were used to play two games of Magic – one match – against each competing hand; the rules for these theoretical games are covered in Section 2 – Game Rules. During each theoretical game, the player of each hand employs the strategy that maximizes the score for his or her hand, taking into account the strategy of his or her opponent.
A hand scores 3 points for each game that it would win, 0 points for each game that it would lose, and 1 point for each game that would end in a draw. However, a hand scores only 2 points for any match that would have a symmetrical result, regardless of whether the result would be two drawn games or a win for each hand.
The composition of a hand in PHM Draft is limited to the cards drafted. Unlike most PHM setups, there is no ban list, legality list, or extra deck restrictions beyond the draft and building from those cards. All restrictions and legality are already built into the draft pool.
2. Game Rules
2.1. Except for the changes described in these rules, games follow the rules for a normal game of Magic.
2.1a. Changes to the Comprehensive Rules or the Oracle text of a card take effect at the following times:
i. Changes that would take effect during the prerelease for a set take effect during the first round for which cards from that set may be submitted instead.
ii. Changes that would take effect at any other time take effect during the first round for which those rules have been in effect since the start of the round instead.
2.1b. Ignore any part of an instruction that isn't covered by these rules or by the rules of Magic.
2.2. A player's opening hand contains that player's chosen cards.
2.3. Players' libraries begin the game empty.
2.3a. A player doesn't lose the game as a result of being unable to draw a card.
2.4. An effect that would produce a random result produces the result that least benefits the owner of the source of that effect instead.
2.5. Each player is the starting player for one game in each match.
2.6. Players know the identities of all face-down cards and all cards in hidden zones, and players know which decisions have been made by other players.
2.7. If a game would continue indefinitely, then the game is a draw.
2.8. If a loop containing at least one optional action would be repeated indefinitely during a turn, then any player may propose a number of times for that loop to repeat instead. If a player does, then each other player may propose a different number and the loop is repeated for the greatest number of times proposed instead. No player is required to make a choice that would end a loop that crosses multiple turns.
2.9. Cards that have been drafted but not included in a player's deck can be referenced or brought into the game by card effects.
2.9a. Effects, such as Burning Wish, that can bring cards in from outside of the game may only find a card that was drafted and not included in the player's deck.
2.9b. Effects, such as Volatile Chimera, which require drafted cards that are not within the deck function as normal.
3. Entry Rules
3.1. A player's deck is chosen only from the cards that player has drafted, as noted in draft rules above.
3.2. A player's deck submission is always three cards, unless overridden by specific round rules.
3.3. All pre-game choices, such as from round rules and draft effects, must be chosen and locked in as part of the deck's submission.
4. Scoring
4.1. A table of match results is posted at the end of each round. Each row lists one player's result against each other player. A player's points and League points are tallied at the end of his or her row.
4.2. A player may earn bonus League points as specified by the PHM moderator.
4.3. Each player is responsible for determining the match results for his or her hand.
4.3a. Players are encouraged to determine or verify additional match results.
4.3b. An undetermined match result is counted as a loss for both players in that match.
4.3c. A player may challenge any result until the moderator announces that the result is final.
5. Extra Land Rule
5.1 Unless specifically noted in the round's special rules, all games in the Perfect Hand Magic Draft will be played with the "extra land rules" as listed below.
5.1A. Any player may play a basic land of his or her choice from outside the game any time he or she could normally play a land.
5.1b. Any player may play an additional land on each of his or her turns from his or her hand.
Sorry, overlooked this.
Hands will be posted as soon as everyone is done.
We have 10 players in, about half are finished.
The draft rounds won't be nearly as quick as the weekly PHM rounds.
I'm hoping to do this monthly.
vs Magus of the Aesthetic, I can win the game on the play:
swamp, sliver | swamp
attack 20-19 | island, either energy field or scepter+verdict. Energy field doesn't stop smoldering tar and I could break up scepter+verdict next turn, so Magus plays scepter:
attack 20-18, sac sliver (I discard mists, Magus discards energy field) | activate scepter, 19-18
smoldering tar | activate scepter, 18-18
18-17, I win the race from here.
I think my hand did worse. I agree with knobbodi's result and I think I lose another match:
8 - Convoy_Avenger gets mana for Capsize (with buyback) and Beacon of Destruction on turn 11. I get killed by turn 15 at the latest and I can't kill until turn 22.
2-2 -> 0-6
02. Mogg
Mobilization / Nezumi Shortfang / Smokestack
This is complicated. The first half of skill fracture trades for one of his cards every game, I'm guessing smokestack. When Mogg is on the play this is easy.
1a land
1b land, skull fracture, discard smokestack
2a land, nezumi shortfang
2b land go
3a land, tap for discard (discard arcane denial)
3b land, Mobilization, go
4a, land, Mobilization.
Now it is Mobilization vs Mobilization and nezumi Mogg is going to win that one.
When I'm on the play...
1a land, skull fracture, discard smokestack
1b land
2a land
2b land, nezumi, counter with arcane denial
3a land, Mobilziation
3b land, Mobilization
and from there I believe we draw.
1-4
04. Superbajt
Arcane Denial / Skull Fracture / Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
Either one of us can force a draw by discarding our win condition and skull fracture to the other player's skull fracture, then flashing back our discarded skull fracture to take either the win con or the countermagic from the opponent, and if the countermagic gets taken, countering the win con. Of course, this depends on the other guy casting skullcrack for B and passing the turn. So what happens if we do nothing for a long time instead?
When I get to 10 mana, I cast skullcrack for B and you discard skullcrack. I flash it back for 3B and (you discard sorin. I cast Mobilization for 2W, you cast Arcane denial, and I cast arcane denial to counter) OR (you discard arcane denail, I cast Mobilziation for 2W, then next turn you flash back Skull fracture to discard my arcane denail, then you cast sorin and Mobilization eventually beats sorin)
For you to do the same to me, you have to get to 11 mana - I always reach 10 mana before you reach 11, even on the draw. Thus you will cast skull fracture for B at some point, and once you do I'll force the draw.
2-2
05. WhammeWhamme
Arcane Denial / Beacon of Destruction / Skull Fracture
This is basically the same as against Superbajt. I think either of us can force a draw and whoever would otherwise loose should do so.
2-2
vs. 01 knobbodi: Beacon wins race. 6-0
vs. 02 Mogg: OTP I counter Nezumi. 3-3
vs. 03 ManyCookies: Too much flashback. 0-6
vs. 04 Superbajt: Skulls get fractured. 2-2
vs. 06 Personman: I can stop Anurid/Denial and race Sliver. 6-0
vs. 07 Magus of the Aesthetic: Denial/Fracture beats Energy Field. 6-0
vs. 08 Convoy_Avenger: Complex, but I can't see a winning line for CA. 6-0
vs. 09 Anachronity: OTP counter Anurid, win. 3-3
vs. 10 MyNameIsFourteen: Skulls get fractured for the draw. 2-2
3<->7 is 2-2. 7 discards a card on t1; if 7 pitches verdict or scepter he has no way of winning, if 7 pitches Energy Field 3 waits for 8 mana to Frost Titan + Recur on the same turn, then keeps scepter completely locked on the second titan cast next turn. Instead, 7 pitches scepter and waits to verdict -> energy field in the same turn.
3<->8 is 4-1. On 8's play, he can drop Capsize -> Energy Field on Turn 5 before 3 can do the double discard on his Turn 5.
this one definitely felt more interesting than the last one, it's unfortunately been too long for me to remember my exact thought processes, but i remember feeling like i had a sense of the shape of the options and could make choices in light of what i expected to be strong. so whatever changes you made, good job!
I wrote down my thinking as I went for the moderator's feedback benefit. Here it is for you guys, slightly abridged!
-cards I considered serisouly--
Glen Elendra Archmage - Strong contender as a self-defending threat, it answers the first spell that tries to mess with it, though it is probably too slow to win if you don't answer their last threat.
Intruder Alarm - Interesting answer to creature strategies that might also be a combo piece. This appeals much more than Donate. Sad that its in the same pack as Mobilization, they'd go well together. Last round almost every win condition was a creature, but I'd like my removal to answer creature lands if possible.
Thalakos Deceiver - Probably no way to block it in the format, so its a 20 turn clock OR you can steal their best creature threat if 20 turns is too slow to race. Assuming of course, that you untap with it alive.
Mobilization - I think this is the strongest threat in the pack, given how it has inevitability and is hard to remove. If I can play this and two answers, even if their third card is enchantment removal I can built up land and then create a few creatures while holding priority after it hits the table.
I'm going to take Mobilization and hope that the removal spells in packs 2-5 are stronger than these offerings. If that doesn't pan out I'l figure out something different.
-Cards that caught my eye--
Dread - Oooh, a self-recurring threat. Tempting!
Necrotic Sliver - Removal or a threat in one card, but fights with maelstrom pulse pretty hard
Krosan Reclamation - More tempting than Regrowth was, but ultimately not tempting enough. It hurts that I expect this to be a weak combination with my first pick, but I bet some folks will take it and might want to be ready for that.
Maelstrom Pulse - First piece of strong versatile removal I've seen!
Beacon of Destruction - Cool win condition / removal spell that loops itself. Worth consideration.
Garza's Assassin - You made me reread the rules to Recover! Recurrable creature removal seems good
I think this is a simple follow through of my chosen strategy from last pack. I want to be sure I have a solid, flexible, cheap removal spell, especially since there weren't any in pack one. Pick Maelstrom Pulse.
Now I have a good early kill spell and a hard to remove, inevitable threat that is weak in the early game. Over the next two picks I'm gonna try to be a little more open to crazy or narrow things. Graveyard hate is also going to be high on my radar to deal with the recursion options.
Constant Mists - Strong defensive option that recurrs itself. Very good stay alive/force draw card, but it doesn't win games
Meren of Clan Nel Toth - More recursion! I'm ignoring all this recusion but surely somebody has noticed by now.
Skull Fracture - This being here invalidates a lot of decks, but the recursion decks are positioned to fight it. Very few of the cards in this pool cost more than 3B, so the flashback isn't super likely to hit. Trading B and my first turn for their worst card with potential for upside is still very hard to argue with, especially after cheap discard was so strong last round.
Vedalken Shackles - It's a 2 for one creature answer, and it leaves their creature in a place where they cant recur it if they are a recusion deck. It does require minimizing the amount of nonblue lands I play in the early game and that fights with mobilization. But maybe they're good in different matchups, or maybe I'm not playing mobilization.
Pick: Skull Fracture If I can't find graveyard hate, at least I can smash the hands of all those who are, like me, staring in awe as all this recursion goes by.
Noting that the removal options in this pack are also pretty awful. I'm very glad I took Pulse right now.
This was a very hard pick for me - in fact as I type this I'm still not sure what my pick is. I'll skip right to the cards I'm considering.
Devour in Flames - putting a land back in my hand could be a good meta call if everyone else is on skull fracture, but that would require me to have the soul read and even then it is conditional on other aspects of the way the game plays out. pass.
Goblin Trenches - out but only because this is so similar to my current win condition. Noting that this draft has had about 1 token maker per pack now that I think of it.
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad - Gotta give every planeswalker some consideration, and sorin is cool with tokens, but he isn't different enough from the cards I already have.
Thunderscape Battlemage - More discard could be strong, and it can answer enchantments, but I think this is too expensive in a world where I'm expecting to face skull fracture.
It really comes down to 2 cards though.
Summer Bloom - skull fractue, Summer Bloom, and mobilization is a VERY tempting deck.
Capsize - This is a pet card of mine and potentially a good combo with skull fracture too.
Pick Capsize because I don't believe in spending cards on mana acceleration. I may live to regret this.
Well crap. Arcane Denial changes everything. It's obviously a strong pick from this pack and I expect several players will run it. Now that there is a strong counterspell in the pool, I need either
A) a threat I like that gets under arcane denial i.e. one mana (I don't have one now and I don't see one in this pack)
B) a second threat so that I can still win if mobilization is countered (I'm tempted by steel overseer but you'll see below that I'm going another way)
C) a recursion engine to get mobilization back - season's past could be that, but it is so slow!
D) my own Arcane Denial to force mobilization through Arcane Denial if need be and to serve as disruption otherwise.
Pick Arcane Denial
Deck submission is Skull Fracture, Arcane Denial, and Mobilization. Dread and Krosan Reclamation will be very strong against me, I just have to hope that mobilization can keep up after they plow through my initial disruptive elements.
Hey thanks for doing that MyNameIsFourteen! I'ma try to read and respond to some of it later.
For now I just wanted to point out, in case anyone didn't notice: Four of us picked Arcane Denial, and we came in 1st-4th. I spent the whole draft feeling the lack of countermagic, and when the best one suddenly showed up in pack 5 I had to force myself to slow down and read the rest of it just to make sure.
Oh yeah and my other two picks were Mobilization and Frost Titan, if anyone's curious. I wasn't happy with Titan, but I was pretty sure I wasn't running anything from that pack anyway, and it was at least something that had the potential to do two things – lock something down and also win.
pick 1: I think mutavault is a potentially strong pick that you've omitted, since it's ELR. Gaea's Touch is also a surprisingly real card, I think. Overall I do agree that Mobilization is the clear strongest from an overall weak pack, and I also picked it. Notably, nobody ran anything else from this pack.
Donate is obviously potentially very strong, but it's a weird card to pick blind, you're so totally at the mercy of the rest of the draft. Immortal Coil probably just isn't good enough, either, it's too easy to have things in your graveyard or not take damage. I think it's more or less gotta be Illusions. This is the kind of thing that makes me a bit skeptical about the draft format.
pick 2: I was in the same spot as you for this pick, and was also very tempted by Maelstrom Pulse. I really value versatility in PHM in general and especially in a limited-info format like this, so I ended up going for the slightly slower version that's also a wincon, and more easily recurrable. Beacon was the other card I considered seriously, honestly everything else seemed kinda meh. I think it's really a cut above all the other cards you listed. It's also the only nonsliver from this pack that saw any success - somehow nobody ran Pulse! Though I bet several people drafted it.
pick 3: this pick was very straightforward for me since I had sliver, but I did spend some time agonizing about Skull Fracture. In the end I figured pitching sliver to it was fine with anurid, and it was such a scary card that probably other people would draft to avoid it. This doesn't seem to have really happened, as Skull Fracture scored quite well.
I kinda skimmed over Constant Mists, but you're right, it's worth considering. Though not amazing against Skull Fracture.
pick 4: kinda surprised to see that Sorin did the best of cards played from this pack. I thought Anachronity's Summer Bloom call was going to be great when I first saw it, but it seems not so much. Overall this pack had nothing for me, I think Frosty is a slightly stronger card than Capsize and therefore picked it, but it was between those two. I guess I was wrong though, the one Capsize outplaced the one Frosty.
Battlemage is powerful but I agree with your assessment that it's way too slow in this draft.
pick 5: obviously agree with your pick :) I think you were a little too scared of Dread in your analysis, since it was so early in the draft and we didn't know there wouldn't be any Paths (aside from Ulamog) in the draft. In the end I think it would've been quite strong actually.
Oh yeah, Mutavault was on my radar but I dismissed it specifically because I started the previous draft with Mishra's Factory and I wanted to do something different.
Gaea's Touch has strange Oracle text so it doesn't really work right even in land rule formats. ("0: You may put a basic Forest card from your hand onto the battlefield. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery and only once each turn.") I actually asked the Moderater about that and he indicated taht Gaea's Touch will probably be cut from the card pool in the future.
Round 2
Round 2 will be a normal draft.
There will be five packs of 15 cards, no special rules.
I have adjusted the draft considerably in response to your feedback.
ENTER NOW!
Entries
01. knobbodi
Constant Mists / Mindlash Sliver / Smoldering Tar
02. Mogg
Mobilization / Nezumi Shortfang / Smokestack
03. ManyCookies
Frost Titan / Krosan Reclamation / Skull Fracture
04. Superbajt
Arcane Denial / Skull Fracture / Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
05. WhammeWhamme
Arcane Denial / Beacon of Destruction / Skull Fracture
06. Personman
Anurid Scavenger / Arcane Denial / Necrotic Sliver
07. Magus of the Aesthetic
Energy Field / Geth's Verdict / Isochron Scepter
08. Convoy_Avenger
Beacon of Destruction / Energy Field / Capsize
09. Anachronity
Anurid Scavenger / Omnath, Locus of Rage / Summer Bloom
10. MyNameIsFourteen
Arcane Denial / Mobilization / Skull Fracture
Results
XX | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 | PT : AVG
01 | X 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 4 0 | 06 : 67
02 | 6 X 6 0 3 0 6 0 0 4 | 24 : 267
03 | 6 0 X 3 6 0 2 4 0 0 | 20 : 222
04 | 6 6 3 X 2 0 6 6 3 2 | 32 : 356
05 | 6 3 0 2 X 6 6 6 3 2 | 32 : 356
06 | 6 6 6 6 0 X 6 2 3 6 | 40 : 444
07 | 3 0 2 0 0 0 X 0 2 0 | 06 : 67
08 | 6 6 1 0 0 2 6 X 6 0 | 27 : 300
09 | 1 6 6 3 3 3 2 0 X 3 | 23 : 256
10 | 6 1 6 2 2 0 6 6 3 X | 31 : 344
Introduction & Overview
Welcome to the Perfect Hand Draft!
Perfect Hand Draft is a method of playing Perfect Hand Magic as we do in our forums, but it uses a drafting method for users to build their decks from. The format is Three-Hand Extra Land Rule. Players draft their card pool from five packs, one at a time, and then choose three of those cards to be their deck submission. After everyone has drafted, those decks are played and scored exactly like a normal PHM round.
How to Enter
Entering the draft is easy, although different from the normal PHM submission process. All you have to do is make a thread in the PHM Draft forum. This area is private: other players can't see your thread in there, so you will conduct your draft in the thread therein, without anyone seeing.
Overview
When the draft is started, each player will be presented with a single fifteen card pack to pick a card from. This pack is the same for all players, and what other players pick has no effect on your draft. After you choose your first card, you are presented with another 15-card pack - "Pack 2" - to choose from. You continue until you have drafted a card from all five packs. All five packs are the same for all players - what you see and choose from is exactly what everyone else chooses from.
After you have drafted a card from each of these five packs, you will then choose three of those cards to build your deck submission from. Again, the format is Three-Hand Extra Land Rule. After all players have finished drafting and made their submission selection, the decks will be posted. The format will always have the Extra Land Rule - each player may play basic land cards from outside of the game and players may play an additional land each turn if they play that land from their hand. Note that with the extra land rule, drafting lands is mana acceleration. Even if Karakas doesn't seem great for its ability in a round - it's still as good as a Mox Pearl.
In the end, you will see the entire card pool that everyone drafted from. All of the options and ideas that you saw were options and paths other players may have taken. The draft is the main challenge of the format. How well can you determine all the avenues other players will take, and adapt to defeat them?
You Draft it: You can Play it
If a card is in the draft pool, you can draft it, put it in your deck, and play it accordingly. There are no rules against what your deck can do, such as forcing discard early or winning quickly. The deck and card balancing is built into the cardpool already, so there are no additional rules about what you can play.
Pack Generation
Packs are generated, semi-randomly. They are not constructed, but they are often tweaked slightly and always adhere to a central card pool with design rules and mapping. Each player has the same options in the draft, so everything is always perfectly fair, but care has been taken to allow multiple competitive options. The cardpool and methodology is very balanced, although the randomness can cause certain avenues to be more successful in a draft. Pack sets with obvious issues are simply discarded - I will ensure the packs are balanced by re-generating for the round.
Guaranteed Wincons
Every pack is guaranteed to contain multiple win conditions. If you you've only been picking removal and disruption, you can rest assured there will be a playable wincon in pack five. There is, of course, no guarantee that you will like any of the wincons therein, but you will absolutely have something you can use.
Dependencies
There aren't any truly dead cards. As part of the pack generation design, if a card is dependent on some other card being in the draft, it will be there. If there is an Isochron Scepter, for instance, there will always be an instant with converted mana cost 2 or less to imprint on it. It will always be in another pack (to ensure you can draft both), and it will be something worth imprinting. The ordering is random, however, so Isochron Scepter could come in pack five and require you to have already chosen that card. Likewise for the Instant coming in pack 2 and Isochron coming in pack 3. Alternatively, cards that aren't dependent on something might not have a go-to card that gets played with it. Karakas does not guarantee a Leyline of Singularity, and Progenitus does not guarantee any way to "cheat" him in; these cards are all fully functional on their own. The pack generator does give a chance that a combo of cards do appear together, however.
Draft and Play Rules
The following are the official rules of the Perfect Hand Draft. They cover the drafting procedures, as well as the game playing procedures. Much of this has been adapted from Mogg's official PHM rules, and credit for their beauty goes to him.
In the event the rules do not cover a specific happenstance or are ambiguous, the moderator of the Draft will have the final declaration of the rules.
1. Drafting
1.1. An entrant enters the draft be creating a thread in the PHM Draft forum.
1.1b. Each entrant's thread is private and can only be seen by that entrant and the PHM Draft Mod.
1.2. The PHM Draft Mod will post the first pack of the round to start the draft.
1.2. Entrants will choose a single card from the pack to add to his or her draft pool.
1.2b. Entrants may change their choice only until the next pack has been posted.
1.2c. Entrants are free to get clarifications or rules questions for any card or aspect of the draft before choosing their pick.
1.3. The PHM Draft Mod will then note the chosen card and post the next pack.
1.4. Rules 1.2 and 1.3 will repeat for the draft, until all five packs of the draft have been drafted.
1.4b. The pick for the last pack of the draft may be chaged only up until the PHM Draft Mod responds and notes it in his or her draft pool.
2. Deck Submission
2.1. Upon completing the draft, an entrant determines his or her deck submission.
2.2. An entrant may only submit a deck composed of cards from within his or her draft pool.
2.3. An entrant may not submit the same draft pick multiple times for his or her deck submission.
2.4. An entrant may change his or her submission up until the round's posting.
2.4b. The last legal deck sumbission will be used for the round's posting.
2.5. An entrant must make all pre-game choices as part of his or her submission.
2.5b. Any draft-ability choices must also be chosen as part of the deck building submission and cannot be changed between games.
1. Overview
2. Game Rules
3. Entry Rules
4. Scoring
5. Extra Land Rule
1. Overview
Perfect Hand Magic (PHM) is a competitive strategy game for two or more players. It can be played using pencil and paper; however, it's most commonly played via an online forum. To play the game, each player secretly chooses a specified number of Magic cards which form his or her hand. Once all players have chosen hands, the hands are revealed and scored.
The object of the game is to choose the hand that will score the most points. The score for each hand is determined by the result that it would achieve if it were used to play two games of Magic – one match – against each competing hand; the rules for these theoretical games are covered in Section 2 – Game Rules. During each theoretical game, the player of each hand employs the strategy that maximizes the score for his or her hand, taking into account the strategy of his or her opponent.
A hand scores 3 points for each game that it would win, 0 points for each game that it would lose, and 1 point for each game that would end in a draw. However, a hand scores only 2 points for any match that would have a symmetrical result, regardless of whether the result would be two drawn games or a win for each hand.
The composition of a hand in PHM Draft is limited to the cards drafted. Unlike most PHM setups, there is no ban list, legality list, or extra deck restrictions beyond the draft and building from those cards. All restrictions and legality are already built into the draft pool.
2. Game Rules
2.1. Except for the changes described in these rules, games follow the rules for a normal game of Magic.
ii. Changes that would take effect at any other time take effect during the first round for which those rules have been in effect since the start of the round instead.
2.1b. Ignore any part of an instruction that isn't covered by these rules or by the rules of Magic.
2.2. A player's opening hand contains that player's chosen cards.
2.3. Players' libraries begin the game empty.
2.4. An effect that would produce a random result produces the result that least benefits the owner of the source of that effect instead.
2.5. Each player is the starting player for one game in each match.
2.6. Players know the identities of all face-down cards and all cards in hidden zones, and players know which decisions have been made by other players.
2.7. If a game would continue indefinitely, then the game is a draw.
2.8. If a loop containing at least one optional action would be repeated indefinitely during a turn, then any player may propose a number of times for that loop to repeat instead. If a player does, then each other player may propose a different number and the loop is repeated for the greatest number of times proposed instead. No player is required to make a choice that would end a loop that crosses multiple turns.
2.9. Cards that have been drafted but not included in a player's deck can be referenced or brought into the game by card effects.
2.9b. Effects, such as Volatile Chimera, which require drafted cards that are not within the deck function as normal.
3. Entry Rules
3.1. A player's deck is chosen only from the cards that player has drafted, as noted in draft rules above.
3.2. A player's deck submission is always three cards, unless overridden by specific round rules.
3.3. All pre-game choices, such as from round rules and draft effects, must be chosen and locked in as part of the deck's submission.
4. Scoring
4.1. A table of match results is posted at the end of each round. Each row lists one player's result against each other player. A player's points and League points are tallied at the end of his or her row.
4.2. A player may earn bonus League points as specified by the PHM moderator.
4.3. Each player is responsible for determining the match results for his or her hand.
4.3b. An undetermined match result is counted as a loss for both players in that match.
4.3c. A player may challenge any result until the moderator announces that the result is final.
5. Extra Land Rule
5.1 Unless specifically noted in the round's special rules, all games in the Perfect Hand Magic Draft will be played with the "extra land rules" as listed below.
5.1b. Any player may play an additional land on each of his or her turns from his or her hand.
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Round 3 will be the sealed, that I am working the kinks out with now.
If you entered Round 1, please create a new thread for Round 2.
No longer staff here.
Hands will be posted as soon as everyone is done.
We have 10 players in, about half are finished.
The draft rounds won't be nearly as quick as the weekly PHM rounds.
I'm hoping to do this monthly.
No longer staff here.
I gave each of them a friendly prod.
(It's the holidays, so a couple of people busy with friends/family is to be expected )
Side note: the draft pool for Round 3: Sealed is done and ready to go.
No longer staff here.
Below is the incomplete grid:
XX | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
01 | X 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 4 0
02 | 6 X 6 0 3 0 6 0 0 4
03 | 6 0 X 3 6 0 2 4 0 0
04 | 6 6 3 X 2 0 6 6 3 2
05 | 6 3 0 2 X 6 6 6 3 2
06 | 6 6 6 6 0 X 6 2 3 6
07 | 3 0 2 0 0 0 X 0 2 0
08 | 6 6 1 0 0 2 6 X 6 0
09 | 1 6 6 3 3 3 2 0 X 3
10 | 6 1 6 2 2 0 6 6 3 X
CHECK YOUR MATCHES!
As matches are gone over by other players, the grid above will be updated.
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vs Magus of the Aesthetic, I can win the game on the play:
swamp, sliver | swamp
attack 20-19 | island, either energy field or scepter+verdict. Energy field doesn't stop smoldering tar and I could break up scepter+verdict next turn, so Magus plays scepter:
attack 20-18, sac sliver (I discard mists, Magus discards energy field) | activate scepter, 19-18
smoldering tar | activate scepter, 18-18
18-17, I win the race from here.
8 - Convoy_Avenger gets mana for Capsize (with buyback) and Beacon of Destruction on turn 11. I get killed by turn 15 at the latest and I can't kill until turn 22.
2-2 -> 0-6
First off I agree with your assements of my matchups vs 1,3,6,7,8,9. Now let me look at 2, 4, and 5.
10. MyNameIsFourteen
Arcane Denial / Mobilization / Skull Fracture
vs
02. Mogg
Mobilization / Nezumi Shortfang / Smokestack
This is complicated. The first half of skill fracture trades for one of his cards every game, I'm guessing smokestack. When Mogg is on the play this is easy.
1a land
1b land, skull fracture, discard smokestack
2a land, nezumi shortfang
2b land go
3a land, tap for discard (discard arcane denial)
3b land, Mobilization, go
4a, land, Mobilization.
Now it is Mobilization vs Mobilization and nezumi Mogg is going to win that one.
When I'm on the play...
1a land, skull fracture, discard smokestack
1b land
2a land
2b land, nezumi, counter with arcane denial
3a land, Mobilziation
3b land, Mobilization
and from there I believe we draw.
1-4
04. Superbajt
Arcane Denial / Skull Fracture / Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
Either one of us can force a draw by discarding our win condition and skull fracture to the other player's skull fracture, then flashing back our discarded skull fracture to take either the win con or the countermagic from the opponent, and if the countermagic gets taken, countering the win con. Of course, this depends on the other guy casting skullcrack for B and passing the turn. So what happens if we do nothing for a long time instead?
When I get to 10 mana, I cast skullcrack for B and you discard skullcrack. I flash it back for 3B and (you discard sorin. I cast Mobilization for 2W, you cast Arcane denial, and I cast arcane denial to counter) OR (you discard arcane denail, I cast Mobilziation for 2W, then next turn you flash back Skull fracture to discard my arcane denail, then you cast sorin and Mobilization eventually beats sorin)
For you to do the same to me, you have to get to 11 mana - I always reach 10 mana before you reach 11, even on the draw. Thus you will cast skull fracture for B at some point, and once you do I'll force the draw.
2-2
05. WhammeWhamme
Arcane Denial / Beacon of Destruction / Skull Fracture
This is basically the same as against Superbajt. I think either of us can force a draw and whoever would otherwise loose should do so.
2-2
10 | 6 1 6 2 2 0 6 6 3 X | 32 | 356
vs. 01 knobbodi: Beacon wins race. 6-0
vs. 02 Mogg: OTP I counter Nezumi. 3-3
vs. 03 ManyCookies: Too much flashback. 0-6
vs. 04 Superbajt: Skulls get fractured. 2-2
vs. 06 Personman: I can stop Anurid/Denial and race Sliver. 6-0
vs. 07 Magus of the Aesthetic: Denial/Fracture beats Energy Field. 6-0
vs. 08 Convoy_Avenger: Complex, but I can't see a winning line for CA. 6-0
vs. 09 Anachronity: OTP counter Anurid, win. 3-3
vs. 10 MyNameIsFourteen: Skulls get fractured for the draw. 2-2
Or in other words I agree with everyone else.
3<->7 is 2-2. 7 discards a card on t1; if 7 pitches verdict or scepter he has no way of winning, if 7 pitches Energy Field 3 waits for 8 mana to Frost Titan + Recur on the same turn, then keeps scepter completely locked on the second titan cast next turn. Instead, 7 pitches scepter and waits to verdict -> energy field in the same turn.
3<->8 is 4-1. On 8's play, he can drop Capsize -> Energy Field on Turn 5 before 3 can do the double discard on his Turn 5.
01 | X 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 4 0 | 06 : 67
02 | 6 X 6 0 3 0 6 0 0 4 | 24 : 267
03 | 6 0 X 3 6 0 2 4 0 0 | 20 : 222
04 | 6 6 3 X 2 0 6 6 3 2 | 32 : 356
05 | 6 3 0 2 X 6 6 6 3 2 | 32 : 356
06 | 6 6 6 6 0 X 6 2 3 6 | 40 : 444
07 | 3 0 2 0 0 0 X 0 2 0 | 06 : 67
08 | 6 6 1 0 0 2 6 X 6 0 | 27 : 300
09 | 1 6 6 3 3 3 2 0 X 3 | 23 : 256
10 | 6 1 6 2 2 0 6 6 3 X | 31 : 344
I think it's safe to call it now.
PERSONMAN WINS!
No longer staff here.
this one definitely felt more interesting than the last one, it's unfortunately been too long for me to remember my exact thought processes, but i remember feeling like i had a sense of the shape of the options and could make choices in light of what i expected to be strong. so whatever changes you made, good job!
-cards I considered serisouly--
Glen Elendra Archmage - Strong contender as a self-defending threat, it answers the first spell that tries to mess with it, though it is probably too slow to win if you don't answer their last threat.
Intruder Alarm - Interesting answer to creature strategies that might also be a combo piece. This appeals much more than Donate. Sad that its in the same pack as Mobilization, they'd go well together. Last round almost every win condition was a creature, but I'd like my removal to answer creature lands if possible.
Thalakos Deceiver - Probably no way to block it in the format, so its a 20 turn clock OR you can steal their best creature threat if 20 turns is too slow to race. Assuming of course, that you untap with it alive.
Mobilization - I think this is the strongest threat in the pack, given how it has inevitability and is hard to remove. If I can play this and two answers, even if their third card is enchantment removal I can built up land and then create a few creatures while holding priority after it hits the table.
I'm going to take Mobilization and hope that the removal spells in packs 2-5 are stronger than these offerings. If that doesn't pan out I'l figure out something different.
Dread - Oooh, a self-recurring threat. Tempting!
Necrotic Sliver - Removal or a threat in one card, but fights with maelstrom pulse pretty hard
Krosan Reclamation - More tempting than Regrowth was, but ultimately not tempting enough. It hurts that I expect this to be a weak combination with my first pick, but I bet some folks will take it and might want to be ready for that.
Maelstrom Pulse - First piece of strong versatile removal I've seen!
Beacon of Destruction - Cool win condition / removal spell that loops itself. Worth consideration.
Garza's Assassin - You made me reread the rules to Recover! Recurrable creature removal seems good
I think this is a simple follow through of my chosen strategy from last pack. I want to be sure I have a solid, flexible, cheap removal spell, especially since there weren't any in pack one. Pick Maelstrom Pulse.
Now I have a good early kill spell and a hard to remove, inevitable threat that is weak in the early game. Over the next two picks I'm gonna try to be a little more open to crazy or narrow things. Graveyard hate is also going to be high on my radar to deal with the recursion options.
Meren of Clan Nel Toth - More recursion! I'm ignoring all this recusion but surely somebody has noticed by now.
Skull Fracture - This being here invalidates a lot of decks, but the recursion decks are positioned to fight it. Very few of the cards in this pool cost more than 3B, so the flashback isn't super likely to hit. Trading B and my first turn for their worst card with potential for upside is still very hard to argue with, especially after cheap discard was so strong last round.
Vedalken Shackles - It's a 2 for one creature answer, and it leaves their creature in a place where they cant recur it if they are a recusion deck. It does require minimizing the amount of nonblue lands I play in the early game and that fights with mobilization. But maybe they're good in different matchups, or maybe I'm not playing mobilization.
Pick: Skull Fracture If I can't find graveyard hate, at least I can smash the hands of all those who are, like me, staring in awe as all this recursion goes by.
Noting that the removal options in this pack are also pretty awful. I'm very glad I took Pulse right now.
Devour in Flames - putting a land back in my hand could be a good meta call if everyone else is on skull fracture, but that would require me to have the soul read and even then it is conditional on other aspects of the way the game plays out. pass.
Goblin Trenches - out but only because this is so similar to my current win condition. Noting that this draft has had about 1 token maker per pack now that I think of it.
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad - Gotta give every planeswalker some consideration, and sorin is cool with tokens, but he isn't different enough from the cards I already have.
Thunderscape Battlemage - More discard could be strong, and it can answer enchantments, but I think this is too expensive in a world where I'm expecting to face skull fracture.
It really comes down to 2 cards though.
Summer Bloom - skull fractue, Summer Bloom, and mobilization is a VERY tempting deck.
Capsize - This is a pet card of mine and potentially a good combo with skull fracture too.
Pick Capsize because I don't believe in spending cards on mana acceleration. I may live to regret this.
A) a threat I like that gets under arcane denial i.e. one mana (I don't have one now and I don't see one in this pack)
B) a second threat so that I can still win if mobilization is countered (I'm tempted by steel overseer but you'll see below that I'm going another way)
C) a recursion engine to get mobilization back - season's past could be that, but it is so slow!
D) my own Arcane Denial to force mobilization through Arcane Denial if need be and to serve as disruption otherwise.
Pick Arcane Denial
Deck submission is Skull Fracture, Arcane Denial, and Mobilization. Dread and Krosan Reclamation will be very strong against me, I just have to hope that mobilization can keep up after they plow through my initial disruptive elements.
For now I just wanted to point out, in case anyone didn't notice: Four of us picked Arcane Denial, and we came in 1st-4th. I spent the whole draft feeling the lack of countermagic, and when the best one suddenly showed up in pack 5 I had to force myself to slow down and read the rest of it just to make sure.
Oh yeah and my other two picks were Mobilization and Frost Titan, if anyone's curious. I wasn't happy with Titan, but I was pretty sure I wasn't running anything from that pack anyway, and it was at least something that had the potential to do two things – lock something down and also win.
pick 1: I think mutavault is a potentially strong pick that you've omitted, since it's ELR. Gaea's Touch is also a surprisingly real card, I think. Overall I do agree that Mobilization is the clear strongest from an overall weak pack, and I also picked it. Notably, nobody ran anything else from this pack.
Donate is obviously potentially very strong, but it's a weird card to pick blind, you're so totally at the mercy of the rest of the draft. Immortal Coil probably just isn't good enough, either, it's too easy to have things in your graveyard or not take damage. I think it's more or less gotta be Illusions. This is the kind of thing that makes me a bit skeptical about the draft format.
pick 2: I was in the same spot as you for this pick, and was also very tempted by Maelstrom Pulse. I really value versatility in PHM in general and especially in a limited-info format like this, so I ended up going for the slightly slower version that's also a wincon, and more easily recurrable. Beacon was the other card I considered seriously, honestly everything else seemed kinda meh. I think it's really a cut above all the other cards you listed. It's also the only nonsliver from this pack that saw any success - somehow nobody ran Pulse! Though I bet several people drafted it.
pick 3: this pick was very straightforward for me since I had sliver, but I did spend some time agonizing about Skull Fracture. In the end I figured pitching sliver to it was fine with anurid, and it was such a scary card that probably other people would draft to avoid it. This doesn't seem to have really happened, as Skull Fracture scored quite well.
I kinda skimmed over Constant Mists, but you're right, it's worth considering. Though not amazing against Skull Fracture.
pick 4: kinda surprised to see that Sorin did the best of cards played from this pack. I thought Anachronity's Summer Bloom call was going to be great when I first saw it, but it seems not so much. Overall this pack had nothing for me, I think Frosty is a slightly stronger card than Capsize and therefore picked it, but it was between those two. I guess I was wrong though, the one Capsize outplaced the one Frosty.
Battlemage is powerful but I agree with your assessment that it's way too slow in this draft.
pick 5: obviously agree with your pick :) I think you were a little too scared of Dread in your analysis, since it was so early in the draft and we didn't know there wouldn't be any Paths (aside from Ulamog) in the draft. In the end I think it would've been quite strong actually.
Gaea's Touch has strange Oracle text so it doesn't really work right even in land rule formats. ("0: You may put a basic Forest card from your hand onto the battlefield. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery and only once each turn.") I actually asked the Moderater about that and he indicated taht Gaea's Touch will probably be cut from the card pool in the future.