PT:London Report (10th) Part 1

I have a lot to do this week, including all my midterms. I also have a lot to say about London. Booster Draft certainly has its problems, but it is by far the most complicated and the most difficult format. I still prefer Rochester, which gives you more control and has less random elements, but at the same time I discovered practicing for London that Booster is far deeper. And the complete Urza's Block draft format is amazing. Before you can really understand the inner workings of my second, third and fourth booster drafts, you have to understand my draft strategy and my preparation. So the plan is this: I'm going to write this report in a non-linear fashion. First will be the first draft and four rounds, and then I'll flash back to cover my draft strategy before proceeding. But the first draft doesn't require all of that, because of how it turned out.

The table was Williams to my right, then an unknown, then Mike Pustilnik and celebrity deathmatch star Matt Urban, then more unknowns. That meant I would probably be getting good signals from my right but couldn't be sure of passing them to my left. But in general, the table setup would normally tilt me away from what I ended up doing.

I opened my first pack, and there it was: Pestilence. The best common in Urza's Saga, and also the most dangerous. The most important conclusion I've reached is that as often as not Pestilence is a trap. With as many as three or four black mages often locked into the table by the first pick in Saga, often your black will be cut off no matter what you do, and to use Pestilence you have to go heavy black. Same problem with Corrupt, except that it isn't quite at the same level. I'll virtually never pick Corrupt first, considering it a more valuable as an indicator than as a pick, if there's anything else in the pack. Also, the Corrupt common run is much less known than the Pestilence common run. With Pestilence, it's common that the entire table will know it (this happens in draft three). I sat there and thought for the full time about whether there was a better option in the pack than the Pestilence. I couldn't find one; the gateway to my favorite color combination, U/G (again, more on that later) didn't seem that good. I took the Pestilence, prayed the person to my left knew the common run, and waited for pack two.

Pack two was Albino Troll. That's it. Williams could be absolutely, 100% sure I would take it; there was no first pick I could have that would make me hesitate. In fact, one of the biggest factors in this draft is that Williams virtually drafted the first pack for me, especially if you consider Pestilence to draft itself. Third was Smokestack. I wish I could remember more of the contents of these packs, but with no one recording them there's only so much you can remember after a few days where you're trying to cram knowledge into your head. Luckily, a judge showed me how to use the stamps on the cards to reconstruct the order I drafted my cards in, in case I forget, but looking at them now it doesn't seem to be working out; two cards that should have the same stamp don't. In fact, looking at the cards and stamps there were several stamping errors in draft one.

The next few picks hinge on trying to calculate how the cards I've passed are going to affect the players on my left and on what I think Williams is drafting. But again, Smokestack was basically automatic. Williams knew I had it, making my draft a first pick, Albino Troll and Smokestack. But the next pack had Arc Lightning. Again, not only don't I have a choice, Williams KNOWS I have no choice. Arc it is. I now have to have Arc Lightning, Albino Troll and Smokestack. With R/G being the most commonly drafted color combination, my move seems forced. Actually, this was the dilemma: I hate R/G, can't seem to win with it, and rank it 9th out of the 10 2-color combinations. I consider only W/G worse. And G/B is a ton stronger than R/B.

So here's the next choice: Shower of Sparks or Elvish Lyrist. I want to take the Shower because I seem to be in a great red position, but I've been passing weak enough packs that I could be creating just about anything, because the player would solidify in whatever they had if they're not position drafters, and most non-pros aren't. If I take the Shower, I'm heading for R/B or R/G and I hate both. Otherwise, I'd have to abandon my first two picks and throw off everyone. I almost took the Lyrist, but decided that the Arc indicated something weird was going on, that Williams wasn't going to switch on me, played a hunch and took Shower. It seems more obvious a pick in retrospect, but at the time I wasn't sure and taking the Lyrist could have probably destroyed my chance to draft the deck I ended up with if it had caused me to pass up Shivan Raptor in the next pack. Every time Williams passed me another great red card he'd just shake his head laying out the packs and watch me look at them and immediately take the card.

After that, I got Hollow Dogs and Elvish Lyrist and then all the remaining good cards seemed to be red. I picked up Viashino Outrider 11th, Dromosaur 9th, Fiery Mantle 12th, another Shower 10th. I finished out with some junk ( Remembrance, Breach and Hawkeater Moth). I knew I was looking R/G or R/B, because red seemed VERY underdrafted and both white and blue never showed up. I liked my cards, but thought I wasn't going to like my color combination unless it turned out that I went R/U. That was the Gary Wise theory that you don't need a blue Saga card to draft blue as long as it got cut off. You basically just think to yourself: "Good job cutting off the blue for me; I'll take it from here." Then the packs started making it easy. I opened Molten Hydra.

Well, that was easy. Next pack had a Ghitu Slinger. I then took (I think) Viashino Cutthroat and Viashino Bey, passing a Bey to take the Cutthroat since Beys often come back and this table seemed very light on red. Then pack five was just weird. It had Viashino Cutthroat, Vigilant Drake and Defender of Law. I decided not to take the Cutthroat because I didn't really want it that much if (as I expected it to) the Bey came back. So the question was whether to take Drake or Defender. I decided that if that Drake got to me I could easily get a few Snaps, so I'd try to splash blue if it came and took the Drake. A pack later with a Ghitu Encampment, I quickly regretted not taking the Defender of Law. I was going to be at least virtually monored and he was really bad for me, while Vigilant Drake wasn't really a problem and realistically I even had another two packs to get a Parch the way red was being drafted. Still, not having seen a Weatherseed Faeries or RoP:Red (or other Defender) was a very good thing. Next I got Avalanche Riders. The rest of Legacy was just scooping up the red cards I passed the first time: The Viashino Bey, Granite Grip and two Pygmy Pyrosaur. When drafting red this heavy the biggest question in Legacy and Destiny is often when to gamble that a card will come back. I still wasn't sure about whether I would splash, but I now had three good reasons not to ( Fiery Mantle).

At this point I know that I'm probably getting at least three shots at any red card short of Bloodshot Cyclops, and might have first dibs on all the Scent of Cinders. I open Scent of Cinder, obviously the best common for this deck, and take it. I look over and Williams is shaking his head. When I look at the pack I see why: He passed me Bloodshot Cyclops. This is a move Gary Wise thinks is always a mistake: He'll splash for Chuck. I'm not sure it's so automatic, and it didn't live up to its reputation in play. After that I got Keldon Champion, 2 Flame Jets, Reckless Abandon, Goblin Masons and Hulking Ogre. Near the end I picked up 2 Goblin Gardeners just in case. I was disappointed there was only one Scent, but that was certainly solid. When I looked at what I'd drafted, I actually had more playable cards than I could use. I had the option of splashing for Albino Troll or Vigilant Drake as well.

After the draft, I learned that Williams will not touch red in this format, and he also said that there were some very questionable picks going on to his immediate right. That's what set up this powerhouse. Given what I'd passed, which wasn't all that much, I expected to 3-1 or 4-0 with the deck.

I didn't play Granite Grip, even though it's downright huge

Round 1: David Williams, U/W

He's got a good W/U deck, but my deck and draws are insane. Game one I drop the Beys and get more power on the table than he can deal with, removing his blockers with burn. He quickly scoops. Game two was more interesting. He got a chance to cast his big creatures, and he got Anthroplasm down and up to 7/7. But I had Fiery Mantle, which forced him to trade his giants for cards like Goblin Masons. In addition, I kept topdecking and finished him off with a Reckless Abandon.

Round 2: W/B

This is the round that cost me my top 8. He's playing multiple Congregates, which I remember when I see the first one in response to my killing him game one and remember where he was sitting. Congregate lets him win the race with a Soul Feast. Game two he doesn't draw anything to stop the attack that I can't kill. He gets multiple Congregates off but that doesn't help if you can't race and can't stall. Game three we developed, I stayed at 14 and got out Molten Hydra. Except for the Hydra I couldn't attack, and I didn't want to risk it. I knew when I drew the 9th land the Hydra would be fast enough, even with only one minute and a half on the clock. Suddenly time is called. I ask if they just called time with time still on the clock; a judge confirms. I don't think to appeal, which they did in the feature matches and got the extra time. Apparently whoever adjusted the clock to British energy units this round didn't do his job right this round and they realized it midway through. We got the real 50 minutes. But that threw us both off, I guess. On turn three of the five extra turns I put the last counter on the Hydra I need to kill him. In response he casts Scent of Nightshade for one, showing me Soul Feast.

I don't just not realize the Hydra still taps to kill him.

I don't just not realize I can do it on his upkeep step without losing the Hydra.

I don't even realize I can kill him IN RESPONSE TO SOUL FEAST!

In fact, I don't realize I just turned a win into a draw until I'm saying what happened between rounds and, well, it doesn't quite add up in my head anymore. So if anyone's wondering, that's where I lost the ProTour. I would have had an easier time, not a harder one, with the win instead of the draw. It's weird, but the top table was nothing compared to table four in draft two. After that, I'm at the top of the swiss so I get the same pairings, get to 10-1 instead of 9-1-1 and draw in with a smile. Ever since I spent enough time on Magic to really understand what was going on, I could almost always figure out what my mistake was when I lost. It's been almost karmic: If I draw the wrong land my mana ratio is wrong by one. If I should be drawing first and play first the game stalls out and I pay. I'm not saying I played badly in London - overall I think I played much better than my opponents. But I was far from perfect.

After that, the deck keeps working right and I more or less cruise; I don't remember the details and they're not that interesting anyway. What I do remember is that the deck worked amazingly, and that I never untapped with the Bloodshot Cyclops. Somehow they always found a way to kill or counter it. But the Hydra cleaned up. With a one color deck, more bombs than most two color decks and a really solid mix of other cards as well as the ability to often burn people out, this is one of the best decks I've had in this format, especially if you consider that I passed no real bombs and nothing anti-red. I never even faced a Mask of Law and Grace. It was also the only monored deck I drafted outside local events, where there's one deck that I can't remember whether I ended up using a few blue cards or not. Still, I knew from my practicing exactly what to do if the chance did come along.

So I went 3-0-1 with that deck, and looked at one of the strongest tables I've seen in a long time.

End of Part 1.