I'm so tired of Standard right now. This has been my least successful standard season in 14 years. That's okay though, I still have drafts to pick me up and make me feel better. Many people have been enamored by the current Rise of Eldrazi draft format right now. Expensive Mythic Rares, entertaining themes, yay so much fun.

As with past drafting formats, it's an inherent objective to grab creature removal first. I don't have to explain the value of Vendetta, Induce Despair, Staggershock, Heat Ray, but do you know how good Narcolepsy, Guard Duty or Lust For War are? While one would consider you lucky if you could get 2 or more Vendettas or shocks, the enchantments I mentioned above can be snagged in multiples easily. Despite Guard Duty's setback of not removing the creature from combat situations it's still a very cheap solution to what could be a HUGE beating from an opponent's beastly champion. Lust for War isn't removal per se, but it does force your opponent to run his wimpy guy into your bigger guy as a sacrifice, but your opposing mage takes 3 for the sacrifice. Now if you have a big strong wall on your side you can put your opponent on a 3 damage per turn clock.

Now, I'm not going into the rares and how they're first picks over anything else because that's a given. Uncommon removal is an obvious in such cases as Corpsehatch or Forked Bolt. Remember, I'm judging the colors in the article based on commons and uncommons and NOT rares. For the most part, drafting ROE is very easy and with that being said, theme will impact your decision in draft and sometimes you have to make a themed decision quite early. The first, let's discuss the easy to identify Eldrazi Clan.

Eldrazi are expensive, Emrakul is too big to cast and build around. Artisan of Kozilek is very good and has an excellent ability. Kozilek is one of the best Eldrazi guys to benefit AND build on. Ulamog is just as good as Kozilek for his cost and ability. Pathrazer and Spawnsire are probably my least favorites, Pathrazer is a bit harder to "chump block" but the cost for this weak body of 9/9 doesn't provide as much benefit as his homies. Ulamog's Crusher is an easy E-gang guy to build around and probably one of the overall best ones to play. 8cc isn't too harsh of a toll and his 8/8 body and Annihilator 2 ability is very good for the price. In order to play Eldrazi guys, you're usually going to find yourself playing in either red, green or black. The reason for this is because those are the colors that have the Eldrazi Spawns. Obviously providing a creature or effect AND a spawn token bringing you closer to casting the big bombs.

Green can partner with the Eldrazi quite well with acceleration and by land searching makes green my personal favorite in ROE draft. I'm a big fan of Growth Spasm and Ondu Giant because I enjoy playing 5 colors so it gets a much needed land, and in the spasm's case, it gives you a spawn token. Regardless of that, green has a myriad of spawn token generating spells and creatures to get you into Eldrazi range.

Also in green is Overgrown Battlement. This can also benefit the Eldrazi theme, but has a theme of it's own that it can benefit from. Overgrown Battlement has become a very attractive first pick as it provides multiple mana and acceleration with defenders of any kind.

Aura Gnarlid is another first pick card that can benefit from Auras that both you and your opponent play. Drake, Snake and Mammoth Umbras are HUGE gains teamed with the Gnarlid here. The other colored Umbras (Drake and Mammoth) are very high picks to many drafters, Snake Umbras can be found quite late. One of the bad things about this archetype is that it is susceptible to 2 for 1 card disadvantage. Attempting to play an aura on a creature and that creature is removed, therefore fizzling the spell can be a bad thing.

Blue is considered by many to be the strongest/weakest color. Two clear directions for blue are the the flyers most often or 'Level Up". This mechanic was adapted from the popular Yugioh ccg that allows additional costs to a creature that provides greater power or unique abilities. There are a couple of cantrip/card draw opportunities which always seem helpful. As mentioned before, Drake Umbra is quite the surprise and can end a game quickly. I'm also a fan of Eel Umbra due to the flash ability allowing it to become somewhat of a counter to any spell or effect that may destroy that ever so important creature. Narcolepsy is one of the few blue cards that serve as removal and are found often times very late in a draft.

Speaking of removal, Black is full of it. However, the typical black curve seems to be heavy on early and late phases of the game. Null Champion, Nirkana Cutthroat, Zulaport Enforcer are all popular for early beatings and provide huge benefits in the level up category. Removal such as Vendetta, Last Kiss and Corpsehatch are top level removal spells, whereas Induce Despair and Bala Ged Scorpion are late draft treasures to be discovered. Cadaver Imp is a very easy find mid draft and should be considered early when you have a bomb creature or two.

Red is the support color of the set. It doesn't provide alot of MVP calibre creatures in the common/uncommon domain, but does provide excellent removal in the form of Brimstone Mage, Forked Bolt, Staggershock and Heat Ray and small time removal in Spawning Breath or Wrapped in Flame (which can be amazing with its second ability). Explosive Relevation is Red's worst removal option, whereas I've seen many a mage burned down by Lust for War. Giving a 1 powered creature the Lust nets you a 3 to 1 damage ration which opposing mages quickly search to find ways to destroy their own creature.

White is my second favorite color in ROE draft. With a plethora of creature options that are both cheap and powerful, white also has a bit of removal as well in the form of Oust, Spite and Guard Duty which are all mid draft picks. Time of Heroes is arguably a very good card for the level up theme.

Moving on to artifacts... Dreamstone Hedron, Prophetic Prism and Warmonger's Chariot are the most commonly used artifacts in draft. I really like the prism as it allows me to filter many to support my usual five color drafts.

I recently participated in a draft where I started packs one and two with a very strong Blue/White level up deck. In pack 3, I opened up Sarkhan the Mad. Since I'm not much of a supporter of passing bombs, I followed up Sarkhan with 2 Prophetic Prisms and used 1 Swamp and 1 Mountain to breeze through the draft. Sarkhan is pretty good. Or so I hear.

I ended up the weekend 21 and 12 in draft matches this weekend, which wasn't too bad. I wanted to note that because WotC and or convention promoters did NOT allow vendors to sell sealed product, PRICE GOUGING from random people for a 3 booster draft set got as high as $12 per set!!! Also, 8 man "Win A Box" Standard queues were $18 to participate!!! Making a box $144 for the convention's sponsors... RIDICULOUS!!!

I wasn't very pleased with the show's promoters for only having 600 playmats and 1200 Umezawa's Jitte for the giveaways either. While I do understand that supplies are "limited", the mats and cards can be sold for what could be a $10 discount off of the price of entry for the GP, perhaps the show's promoters should've given 2 boosters as compensation.

Congrats to all of the successful Floridians at this weekend's Grand Prix! I'm off to Puerto Rico, where I will attempt to win the LCQ or bask in the sun! See you there!