Hi, everyone. I am currently flying back from Pro Tour Dark Ascension, and while I didn’t do well, I had a lot of fun and learned quite a bit about the formats and from the mistakes I made. If I could go back, I would have done a lot of things differently, including playing a different deck, doing more testing, and getting more sleep the night before the event. But for now, I’m going to have to live with the choices I made for the Pro Tour.

Pro Tour Dark Ascension was the first Pro Tour ever that was not open to the public, and there were no side events at all. So, once I was out of contention, I was a little bummed that there would be nothing magical to do the next day. However, Wizards actually did something special for the players who didn’t make the cut for Day 2. On Day 2, those of us who weren’t fortunate enough to make it were given the opportunity to do infinite free Drafts. I took full advantage of that and drafted as much as I could. One good thing about not paying for Drafts is that I was able to try out some different things and build some interesting decks.

There are some cards in triple Innistrad Draft that weren’t very good, but when Dark Ascension was released, those cards suddenly became decent. Today, I’m going to talk about a few of those cards.

Mill

The first of these cards are Dream Twist and Curse of the Bloody Tome. Sometimes, attacking with creatures is not the most efficient way to win, but rather, it’s to mill your opponent out. Here’s an example of this type of deck—it’s one of the decks I drafted last weekend:

"The Mill Plan"

• Creatures (10)
• 1 Ashmouth Hound
• 1 Delver of Secrets
• 1 Headless Skaab
• 1 Niblis of the Breath
• 1 Makeshift Mauler
• 1 Shriekgeist
• 1 Snapcaster Mage
• 1 Stitcher's Apprentice
• 2 Stitched Drake

• Spells (14)
• 1 Brimstone Volley
• 1 Forbidden Alchemy
• 1 Harvest Pyre
• 1 Faithless Looting
• 1 Secrets of the Dead
• 1 Thought Scour
• 1 Wrack with Madness
• 2 Chill of Foreboding
• 2 Dream Twist
• 2 Curse of the Bloody Tome
• 1 Runechanter's Pike

• Lands (16)
• 10 Island
• 6 Mountain

Buy This Deck

The basic strategy for this archetype is to filter through your deck with cards such as Faithless Looting and Forbidden Alchemy, then play defensive creatures such as Headless Skaab and Makeshift Mauler to stall the ground. Then, you play mill spells such as Curse of the Bloody Tome and Thought Scour to win. Chill of Foreboding is very strong in this deck because it helps you to mill creatures so you can cast your Zombies, it mills your Dream Twists and other flashback cards, and it mills your opponent, therefore helping you win the game. Thought Scour is a great card in the deck because it gives you a lot of options, and it replaces itself. You can mill yourself on turn one or two to set up a turn-three Stitched Drake—or mill your opponent for his final few cards.

In Dark Ascension, you mainly want to look for rares such as Increasing Confusion and Geralf's Mindcrusher. If you’re passed one of those, the archetype is most likely open. After that, the pick orders are mill effects (Chill of Foreboding, Thought Scour), followed by removal spells, then finally creatures. With this archetype, it really doesn’t matter what your creatures are, and you really don’t need that many. It’s important to draft defensive creatures that hold the ground. Headless Skaab really shines here, as does anything with undying.

When it’s time to open your Innistrad packs, you want to aggressively pick removal over anything else. If you see a Burning Vengeance, take it—it is very good in this type of deck. Harvest Pyre is an excellent removal spell in this deck because you will be milling a lot of your lands and other cards that you don’t mind removing.

For creatures from Innistrad, Delver of Secrets is great in this deck. It’s cheap, and you’re going to be playing many instants and sorceries, so it will transform often. Also, it’s bad in a lot of Draft decks, so it will most likely table for you. It’s a great alternate win condition. If you transform it early, it can get in for a ton of damage. If someone opens a Delver at the table, be sure to pick it up.

Curse of the Bloody Tome and Dream Twist round out the deck. They are usually quite bad, so you should pick them pretty late. If you see one early, you’ll most likely see it come around again. One thing to keep in mind when playing the deck is this: The deck is a control deck with a combo kill. You want to take control of the game with your removal and creatures and finish off your opponent with the mill effects. Curse of the Bloody Tome is a fine turn-three play, but you don’t really want to be casting your Dream Twists instead of casting a guy. In addition, don’t just waste a Dream Twist on your opponent for no reason. Sometimes, depending on the situation, it’s best to mill yourself—especially if you need certain things in your graveyard, like creatures for Stitched Drake or flashback spells for Burning Vengeance.

Finally, there are a few cards that are not too great but actually fit into this deck. Trepanation Blade is a slow Equipment that usually isn’t very powerful, but when you are trying to mill your opponent out, it is actually quite good. Runic Repetition is another fine card in this deck because you can rebuy a Dream Twist or a Chill of Foreboding for the maximum amount of milling. At worst, you can always bring back a decent removal spell—like Geistflame.

Tokens

Another card from Innistrad that became way better with the release of Dark Ascension is Intangible Virtue. In triple Innistrad Draft, Intangible Virtue just didn’t do enough. Dark Ascension changed that. Now, there are enough token generators to make the card very good. Here’s a deck that I drafted to a 3–0 finish in one of the team Drafts I did:

"The Tokens Plan"

• Creatures (12)
• 1 Avacynian Priest
• 1 Elgaud Inquisitor
• 1 Elder Cathar
• 1 Falkenrath Noble
• 1 Midnight Banshee
• 1 Thraben Sentry
• 1 Loyal Cathar
• 1 Mausoleum Guard
• 1 Niblis of the Urn
• 1 Wakedancer
• 2 Doomed Traveler

• Spells (11)
• 1 Midnight Haunting
• 1 Victim of Night
• 1 Gather the Townsfolk
• 1 Lingering Souls
• 1 Reap the Seagraf
• 2 Altar's Reap
• 1 Army of the Damned
• 1 Moan of the Unhallowed
• 1 Dead Weight
• 1 Intangible Virtue

• Lands (17)
• 8 Plains
• 8 Swamp
• 1 Shimmering Grotto

Buy This Deck

W/B tokens is among the strongest archetypes in Innistrad Limited. There are so many token generators in this format, and if you draft them aggressively and are able to pick up an Intangible Virtue, you’ll have a hard time losing.

The best card in the deck is, without a doubt, Lingering Souls. Four 1/1 flyers for 5 mana is just amazing, and unless there’s a bomb rare in the pack, Lingering Souls is going to be your first pick.

The Dark Ascension rares that shine in this archetype are Thraben Doomsayer, Increasing Devotion, and to a lesser extent, Requiem Angel. After the rares, the pick order for this archetype is: removal spells first then creatures or spells that make tokens. Gather the Townsfolk is really good, and Elgaud Inquisitor is another very strong card. There are also a few spells in Dark Ascension that make Zombie tokens, and those are fine, too.

Innistrad provides us with many good options. Midnight Haunting, Doomed Traveler, and Mausoleum Guard are great ways to make Spirit tokens. Altar's Reap is an amazing draw spell in this deck—you have a lot of guys that you actually want to die, and you also usually don’t mind giving up a token for a few cards. If you can afford to splash red, Rally the Peasants is another card that really shines in this archetype. Of course, Intangible Virtue is also great in this deck.

W/B tokens is a strategy in which Equipment is amazing. Butcher's Cleaver and Silver-Inlaid Dagger are solid, and Runechanter's Pike is better in this deck than most other archetypes because most of the token generators are instants and sorceries. Avacyn's Collar is another great Equipment if you have a lot of ways to make Human tokens.

One thing about very situational cards, such as Intangible Virtue, is that they are just bad in most decks. That means you can pick them up pretty late in a Draft. If you open it or see it second or third pick, you may be able to wheel it, and don’t be surprised to see Intangible Virtue as late as seventh pick. No one will take it—it is just an awful card unless it’s in the right deck.

This type of deck is very good because once Intangible Virtue is in play, all of your tokens go from being dorks to being huge threats that must be dealt with. Since most of the cards in the deck make multiple tokens, you can gain huge a amount of card advantage with a single Midnight Haunting or Gather the Townsfolk.

One card to watch out for is Sever the Bloodline. It’s a rare, so it won’t come up very often, but it’s something to keep in mind when drafting. I actually lost a game I thought I’d won after I topdecked my eighth land for Army of the Damned and my opponent untapped and cast Sever the Bloodline. That was a huge blowout. If your opponent has one, be sure to play around it by having sac outlets such as Disciple of Griselbrand or the new card from Dark Ascension, Faith's Shield. If you are prepared, wrath effects are relatively easy to play around.

Flexibility

One thing to keep in mind when drafting these very specific archetypes is that sometimes you don’t find the cards you need, and the deck just doesn’t come together. That’s why it is very important to stay as flexible as possible. Luckily, most of these cards are good on their own, so if you are unable to find your Intangible Virtue, you still end up with a fine deck. With the mill deck, however, it may not work out that way.

If you are drafting the mill deck, if there are no Dream Twists or Curses in the Innistrad packs, it’s best to abandon the plan and just build a U/R control deck. The cards you are taking are good enough to build a nice deck. As long as you draft correctly, you should have enough efficient threats and removal to make it work.

I hope I’ve given you some insight and some fresh ideas for some things to try in your next Draft. I hope that you try out these decks and impress your friends and crush your opponents.

Next week is Grand Prix: Lincoln, and I will be attending. The location is not one I would have chosen, but I’m sure WotC had their reasons for deciding to hold a Grand Prix in Nebraska. It’s not going to be very fun flying from a warm, tropical location to a place where they just got twelve inches of snow. The Grand Prix is Modern, and I really like the format, which is the main reason I chose to attend this tournament. I think the format is amazing, and there are so many different decks that are available that it’s very possible to play against a different deck every round. There are so many interesting cards in Modern, and there’s plenty of room for innovation.

Wrapping Up

Next week, I’m going to focus on more decks in the Modern format. Dark Ascension gave us a lot of sweet, new cards that can not only fit into existing Modern decks, but that can forge the way for some new archetypes to emerge. Be sure to join me next week for the latest Modern tech.

Thanks for reading, and good luck qualifying for the Pro Tour! Follow me on Twitter @AllWeDoIsWinMTG.