PT: London Report (10th) Part 3: Draft #2

When we last left our hero, he was sitting down at table 4 with Charles Kornblith on his left, Gary Krakower on his right, on Gary's right Mike Turian. I looked around the table and there were six pros I recognized. As it turned out, there was also a seventh. Good table. The most important thing about this table was that it had Mike Turian at it. The entire ProTour co-operates with Mike Turian. He almost always drafts green. Because of this, no one in their right mind would draft green next to him. This gives him even more reason to draft green, which also makes him a better green player and drafter, and the cycle continues. Since Turian drafting green is what in game theory is called 'common knowledge,' everyone will react to it and to the fact that everyone else will react to it. To a lesser extent, we know the most likely second color for Turian is red, but any color but blue is possible. He won't draft blue because of everyone's love of Wizard Mentor, which is similar to the reason I won't draft black very often. How does this affect the whole table?

Well, the two people next to him won't draft green. That means that if I were to draft green, I'd be getting cut off somewhat by Turian, but it wouldn't be too bad. In addition, Turian is willing to take green cards much earlier than most people. But he's a really aggressive player. The cards I want are not the cards he wants. So I decided that if I got the chance I would go for the G/U deck, or possibly G/B, since U/W is the most likely color combination for someone to the left of Turian. As always, though, I wasn't ruling any of the eight combinations I was willing to draft out just yet. At this point, Gary notices that he's 4-0 and everyone else is 3-0-1 or 3-1. So he's replaced.

By Steve OMS. Ouch, things just got even harder. Meanwhile, we're all enviously looking at the first three tables, and I'm kicking myself for not tapping that Molten Hydra back in round two. I could have one of the easiest top tables in history, instead I'm at the hardest table of all. Well, here goes nothing.

I open the Blanchwood Treefolk / Befoul pack, with nothing spectacular in the uncommon and rare slots. This is one of the standard common runs, and I already know my answer to this one. I take the Blanchwood Treefolk, passing a pack with a clearly best card, Befoul. That makes Kornblith black and cuts off the green. Good start. Then I get to look at a pack with two good cards. One is Arc Lightning, the other is Lightning Dragon. Now what?

Well, I'm not about to take a nothing card over a Lightning Dragon. But it does mean that I start with a red card and a green card, and it means I have to pass Kornblith an Arc Lightning. In other words, I suspect that I may not end up playing that Dragon. But if Turian doesn't go red, and the red cards keep coming, the Dragon would be amazing and I could abandon the Treefolk. Obviously, Steve OMS isn't going to start red after putting not one but two red players on his left. He probably took a solid card in another color in order to pass the buck to the left. A better player would have known from the commons that it was Pegasus Charger, and known that Steve OMS really likes white in this format. But I didn't know either. Still, in a few packs I figured out he was with white. Someone obviously was, and it probably wasn't Turian.

The third pack had an Argothian Swine in it, and nothing good in blue or red. That was an easy choice. The fourth pack had Pergerine Drake. That was a huge indicator for me, and it's a great card in Blue/Green. Somehow, the red was drying up as well. It turns out Turian wasn't red either, but the red cards just weren't there to begin with, which happens in Saga. In pack five I took Sandbar Serpent, which was dissapointing because that card is much better in White/Blue than Green/Blue. It's basically an overpriced green card with cycling. Next pack I took a Shower of Sparks. The rest of Saga was pretty bad, and all I managed to salvage was 2 Catalog and Stern Proctor. In red I managed to get a Guma and a Dromosaur, but I knew it was probably about to get cut off.

I opened Memory Jar. I hate opening Memory Jar. It's so good you can't not take it, even if you really don't want it. And here I didn't want it. In the deck I was expecting to draft it wasn't going to be very good, and I'd have rather taken a solid creature or Snap or Thornwind Faeries, all of which were in that pack. At this point, I'm looking for those two cards, I'm looking for Simian Grunts and Yavimaya Scion. None of that shows up. Instead, I manage to get a Faerie Conclave, and then get Opportunity. Those are great cards for this deck, but I'm now missing an important piece of the deck and feel like I'm in deep trouble. But instead of the normal mid-level picks, all I get are two Intervene and a Miscalculation, along with two Wing Snare. When I got a late pick Treefolk Mystic, it was probably the happiest I've ever been to see one in a pack. I'm desperately short on real creatures and I know it. The heartbreaking part of Legacy is that every pack has great black and white cards, including a run of three Opal Champions in a row a few packs in, and several Phyrexian Debasers. I feel like I've chosen the wrong colors, and I know that I've probably created two monster decks on my right.

My Destiny pack contains a Fodder Cannon, which is even better in Blue/Green than it usually is. Now I need creatures more than ever, although that helps with my total lack of breakthrough cards. Then I pick up a Plated Spider, which makes me feel a little better. I have to counterdraft a Voice of Reason out of what for me was a dead pack, but two Marker Beetles later I'm starting to think I might get a decent deck. Then disaster strikes: The creatures dry up. I take a Taunting Elf really early, not willing to risk it not returning. I get an Illuminated Wings, a Goliath Beetle and a Heart Warden. Two more Taunting Elves show up later, one of them fifteenth. I leave the table drawing a line across my throat, wondering just how many Taunting Elves I'm going to have to play. I'm not thinking about winning the table; I'm thinking about getting the win I need to make the second day.

I do have enough playable cards to fill out the deck. The problem is, I'm really short on creatures and other than Fodder Cannon I can't really win. Cutting one Wing Snare and one Intervene to make room, this is what I ended up playing:

Add a few decent creatures in place of the bad ones I was forced to play, maybe toss in a cycling land, add a Snap and you have a great deck. As it was, it seemed like a disaster. But the biggest advantage of Blue/Green is that all you need is a way to have extra cards and a way to stop bombs. As it turned out, my deck effectively had both.

Round 5: R/U

I got really lucky, and hit the one non-Pro at the table. In the draft he probably didn't know what hit him. He ended up with a really bad R/U deck, which somehow had no burn or anything very hard to block. As long as I got a decent draw, I could just cast defensive green creatures to stall the game until I managed to win the game, either with one of my card engines ( Memory Jar and Opportunity) or just off the fact that he was forced to play many very suboptimal creatures that were Gray Ogre size or smaller. This is one of my goals when I design Magic decks: To create matchups where you basically cannot lose. This was one of those matchups. I feel relieved I'm going to make day 2. 4-0-1

Round 6: Steve OMS, W/U (Feature Match)

Steve had a very good deck, including a passed Fodder Cannon, a Confiscate and oh yeah: A Masticore. Sure, I can beat that. No problem. Game one we play a bunch of stuff, then I get to Opportunity, draw into the counter I need to stop the Confiscate, and ride the extra cards to victory while his deck gets a suboptimal long term draw. Game two he gets Masticore out quickly and the situation turns ugly. Game three is similar to game one. I know that I'll need card advantage to win this matchup, and need to get to my Annul as fast as possible, so I have both Catalogs in the deck. I get Fodder Cannon out, I find Opportunity, drop the Jar, get a bunch of extra cards. Even a bad deck is good when it draws its good cards, and when Confiscate comes I have the Annul again. I finally win by dropping the Stern Proctor to open the way to get through the last few points of damage. Wow, this deck won two matches. 5-0-1

Round 7: Mike Turian, G/B (Feature Match)

Once I knew Turian's second color was green and that Steve OMS was U/W and not W/B, I knew Turian's deck was going to be good. Indeed it was, with Temporal Aperture and Scrying Glass backing up solid creatures and removal. But I had the mighty Memory Jar and Fodder Cannon, because I'm a good Magic player and know how to open artifacts. Game one I get the Cannon out, which would make things easy normally but my deck doesn't have very many creatures in it. Still, the Cannon kept me on top of the game. I get the Jar and he loses a lot of good stuff. The Glass comes down and he starts getting extra cards, since I've drawn an Annul I can't get rid of. I kill it with Stern Proctor and Annul, then he gets Aperture. I've used Opportunity as well as Jar, which is why I'm killing him, and that lets him Aperture a little without getting decked, but he's going to die two turns too early and tries Aperturing up cards he can't cast without decking himself first. I then have a choice which way to win and attack for the kill to be safe. Game two he gets both card engines out quickly and starts getting extra cards, while I have Fodder Cannon. I'm using it to keep myself in the game. Then I get the Memory Jar again. I use it and find six lands. For a little bit I think I just used my best card and all I got to do was thin my deck, but then it occurs to me that he just discarded about six solid spells and is darn close to being decked. I start hanging back with the Cannon. The game starts slipping away but not quickly enough, and he is decked. Wow. I won the table. 6-0-1

When we return for part 4: Draft #3, and the art of mixed signals.