Welcome back, draft enthusiasts! I was surprised at the amount of mail I got on my last Limited article here and the requests to do Draft. With the Standard world essentially put on hold thanks to the double shot of the Commander decks being released this weekend along with the looming B/R announcement on June 20, 2011, there seems to be a slight uptick in drafting on MTGO. Before I jump into Draft, though, I want to briefly talk about Standard and the potential future of the format.

Over the past month, I’ve seen a lot of posts, videos, and podcasts talking about the potential for banning, whether Caw-Blade deserved a ban, and what precisely should be banned if one is to be applied. Right now, I’m firmly in the camp that Jace and Stoneforge Mystic are both ban-worthy cards, and I wouldn’t shed tears to see both leave the format. If they were to leave one and kill Squadron Hawk I also wouldn’t be greatly saddened, though I believe that whatever was spared the axe would be the immediate centerpiece of the next “best deck.”

A lot of this can all be traced back to power creep and the regularity of information dissemination among people thanks to sites like this one, the SCG Open series, and the sheer number of deck lists and testing tools available. These factors have been mentioned at one point or another but are overlooked in the mainstream conversations about the upcoming banning. After listening to the reasons that these cards should/shouldn’t be banned, it can do you a lot of good as a player and deck-builder if you look at some of the root causes involved.

Power creep is a subject that really needs a deeper breakdown, and perhaps when I have some additional free time, I can give it the research the topic deserves. Long story short, though: You can see huge power-creep marks in certain areas of the game, and then a lot of subtle power creep and power wane in other card types and deck archetypes that were amazing once upon a time. The easiest place to start as a total newbie in this field is looking at when the planeswalker subtype was introduced and what it did to change how the typical Magic game played out. Subgames* were a topic rarely discussed outside of certain matchups and Shahrazad, and now are commonplace thanks to the universal use of planeswalkers in every format of Magic.

* For those who aren’t familiar with the concept: A subgame is effectively a “game-within-a-game” where success or failure has a large bearing on the actual game of Magic you’re playing. The most obvious Standard example is the utmost importance placed on killing Jace, the Mind Sculptor, since the amount of card advantage he can give an opponent over time is nearly impossible to overcome. Subgames don’t necessarily need to be about planeswalkers; it often references a single aspect of an opponent’s deck that has to be dealt with before you can continue with your game plan. Another basic example would be playing burn against a deck with Circle of Protection: Red; the subgame becomes beating the Circle or finding ways around it.

Enough about the abstract and information-gathering aspects of the B/R decision, though; the title of this article is “Drafting Strategies,” and that’s what I aim to deliver here. This past week, I spent all my time Magic-wise drafting Scars block and breaking down the synergies and draft archetypes of MSS and which ones carried over. Now, PBS draft is quite similar to MSS in terms of color balance and how many favorite archetypes play out. The differences are that the format is slower and more complicated, and color reads are harder to follow than in other formats. Phyrexian mana is a game-changer for those who traditionally would commit to a color, and reinforces notions of others that staying open as long as possible is the best course of action.

From what I’ve seen and discussed with other experienced drafters, there are two schools of thought for color signals and commitment when it comes to PBS draft. The first is that you stay as open as possible and bypass certain strong picks to remain open in color. The most common example of this I see is when people refuse to take a card like Lashwrithe or Enslave early so they don’t need to commit to Black or potentially waste their first pick if it doesn’t work out. NPH supports this, with Phyrexian mana allowing less powerful cards to be played in any strategy and a good deal of strong monocolored cards at common along with the Splicer sets. This allows you to commit to any heavy-color bombs you see in Besieged, which are typically far stronger than what you can get in NPH and can lock you into a second color safely. The drawback of this method can be described best by LSV’s issue at GP: Kansas City this past weekend. “I stayed open for the entire draft for no reason and then I didn’t get passed a single Necropede or Cystbearer,” he groaned about Pack 3. “Ichorclaw Myr or even an Arrest would have been fine. I am playing five cards from Scars and they are not even very good cards.”

The other common way players tend to go is staying open until they see a bomb-esque card being passed, and then they jump into the color and attempt to cut hard. They can try this and often not get punished since even if the strategy fails they can net one and a half packs of solid picks from that color and use Scars to focus purely on the secondary color if the opponent didn’t budge. Very few people will commit to signals in the first few picks unless they get shipped what (to them) is a clear bomb thanks to the openness of the format. You most commonly see this in green which isn’t a strong color in New Phyrexia and often you can pick up a plethora of strong cards without even using your first few picks. Nobody sees anything that makes them jump up for glee and you get rewarded, the same can be said for blue Infect cards which in a vacuum are great but in the 8-4’s frequently go 6-10th pick.

Being willing to commit as early as the first or second pick isn’t something that should be looked down upon when done for the right reasons. Michael Jacob went so far as to say that he would likely ship a card like Life’s Finale, one of the strongest cards in the entire format, simply to keep himself open early. That’s a very strong statement to send and in essence is the kind of willpower you need to really stick with the ‘stay open and non-committed’ strategies. Obviously this means if you follow the opposite and are willing to commit when you see a bomb and have a back-up plan the rewards can be huge. For me that means going into Blue or Green at the drop of a hat if I see a bomby card early and try to force my way into the color while keeping an eye on what complimentary color I can net. Why Blue And green? I’m less likely to be fought over Green spells as they don’t particularly impress people and the color is wide-open if you’re willing to jump into Infect or battle with six drops all day.

Personally I’m more inclined to commit early if I see a powerful enough card or if I get a ridiculously strong signal like someone passing that type of bomb to me. If you ship me Enslave I’m definitely going all-in at least for pack one and two, but I’m not touching the Black Chancellor which someone else may see as a bomb. They all have their merits, but I find you’ll get punished more often than not at lower draft levels when you keep yourself open. People are awful at sending signals and are willing to jump colors at the drop of the hat, so at least if you cut them hard enough you may be able to convince them to stay out of your way.

The four basic points of Scars block draft seems to be as follows:

• Raw power trumps synergy.
• Board development is more important than everything else.
• Every ground attacker smaller than a Hill Giant is cannon fodder after turn four (Infect excluded).
• The majority of decks will roll over and die if they don’t hit their first five land drops.

There aren’t any elaborate long term plans to pull off in this format, or cute engines to set-up and wipe people out. Many times the matches will simply come down to tight play and winning long attrition wars. Naturally, the Blue and Black decks have an edge here, but many times how much fat you can keep in play will determine the winner. Same goes if you can curve out and take down a four drop, often you can get so far ahead in tempo and damage that the opponent needs to land a two for one to stay in the game.

The “first five land drops” thing has been sort of a “duh” for seasoned drafters for a while now in slow formats like these. However, I mention it because I see a lot of people skimp on the mana and run sixteen to seventeen land, when they really want to be running eighteen, or in a few cases nineteen, since they have enough draw to get out of gluts and enough expensive quality to justify it. Also, don’t be scared to run a couple of vanilla dorks that are cheap if you feel the deck is too weighted towards the backside. It’s one thing to have a lot of good draw and fat along with a few tricks, but if you fall too far behind on tempo, a good aggressive deck can hit your first few drops and put you in do-or-die mode by turn 6 or so.

Archetypes

Dinosaurs didn’t get better with New Phyrexia but it also didn’t lose very much in the transition, this is a strategy that moved laterally in terms of viability. Cards like Fangren Marauder go later than they normally would thanks to a weak selection of cards in NPH and also leads to cards like Maul Splicer and Brutalizer Exarch in NPH to go later than they normally would since people hate committing to the color. Additionally the Infect creatures going later mean that you have a great chance of picking up cheap defenders that can actually stomp on opponent’s ground attacks without needing to luck out on a Wall of Tanglecord.

For the most part Green isn’t as essential a piece of the deck as it once was, acceleration is less important with less Infect and aggressive players at every table and giant monsters flow freely in multiple colors. If anything Red now has the highest number of big dumb guys that will commonly table at FNM or in 8-4’s simply because they don’t fit into much or are underrated by the people that would normally pick them up.

Ari Lax had a sweet article on Dinosaurs go up recently and the biggest piece of information I’ll share without giving away the meat of it is that you shouldn’t be hoping for Scars of Mirrodin to bail you out. You need to have a plan of action in Besieged and Scars cards have just gotten so much worse for the non-Infect decks it’s depressing to think about. Obviously removal and giant beaters are still going to be safe picks, but for the most part there isn’t a lot of action in SOM to look for. If you can net more than 5-6 solid playables out of SOM you’re doing well for yourself or you happened to hit a sweet spot in an 8-4.

The most common color combinations I end up in for Dinosaurs is U/G, G/B/x and G/R/x.

Blue/Black

This is one of the best archetypes in the format, because it’s nearly impossible to get cut out of both colors early. By going into the two deepest colors, you basically insure you’ll get a certain amount of quality out of the first five or six picks or so, while not getting left with unplayable junk later. You also have access to the best uncommons in NPH and Besieged in these colors and can cash it on people failing to commit to either color early on. Netting a card like Lashwrithe 4th pick when you’ve already got two black removal spells and a Spire Monitor is a nice place to be. The best part is that while black does get weaker as the packs progress, double black cards like Grasp of Darkness and -1/-1 cards like Fume Spitter are commonly slept on except by B/W aggro and B/x Infect drafters. Meanwhile you can still cash in on a multitude of flyers or go the poison route since you have access to the best Infect guys in pack one and then again in pack three.

Green/Blue or Green/X Infect

You should reread my past article here or on ChannelFireball if you want to know the many reasons why I love UG Infect and Dinosaurs as archetypes. I can summarize though if you’re in a rush or lazy though.

• Blue’s very strong uncommons in all packs makes up for the weaker first picks you’d usually end up with by going strong Green early.
• Blue’s evasion creatures make for a great plan B and for whatever reason Impaler Shrike is unloved by the masses even though they slobber all over themselves for a Sky-Eel School.
• Blue has great poison creatures to go along with Green in the next two packs which are almost always underrated since committing to Green or Infect requires far more willpower.
• Green’s late-game is nearly unparalleled unless bombs come into the picture, basically anyone who wants to battle you late in the game is going to lose to your beasts. Against Dinosaurs you can always throw your guys into theirs and turn them into realistic threats instead of the absurdity a 6/5 or 5/7 is against.

Infect in general is pretty impressive in any color though, G/W Infect is underrated at times and this past weekend I got the following in the top eight draft of a Sealed tournament I won.

1 Mirran Mettle

1 Withstand Death

1 Revoke Existence

1 Viridian Claw

1 Pristine Talisman

1 True Conviction

2 Lost Leonin

1 Viridian Emissary

1 Porcelain Legionnaire

1 Blading Souleater

1 Cystbearer

1 Viridian Betrayers

1 Rot Wolf

1 Phyrexian Digester

2 Corpse Cur

3 Blightwidow

1 Glimmerpoint Stag

1 Plaguemaw Beast

1 Spinebiter

This is close to the ideal for an Infect deck another pump spell over Withstand Death, another 2-drop and a Glistener Elf would basically make it perfect for me. Sure I could conjure up a version with Contagion Engine as well, but all and all if you go G/W this is the kind of deck you want to aim for. Odds are you won’t get it, but you can come surprisingly close and often net similar versions (Shriek Raptor over so many Blightwidow, Priests of Norn and Tine Shrike somewhere in there) and have plenty of success.

Black/Red

While I’m not a huge fan of this color combo I can’t argue against the effectiveness it has in the 8-4 queues. In general the basic game plan you’ll have is one of the simplest and oldest ways to draft, just pick up all the removal you can and make the rest of your deck later. Nearly all the non-conditional removal is in Black and Red and the amount of cheap creature kill you can pick up is quite large. Normally this would be a non-factor as people will obviously snipe enough so nobody has a critical mass, however that isn’t necessarily the case due to how people approach PBS draft. As I wrote earlier staying open and non-committed is a big thing and what happens is you can often double costed and ‘weaker’ Black removal in NPH later than you normally would.

What this means is taking cards like Artillerize, Parasitic Implant, Into the Core, Grasp of Darkness, Flesh Allergy and Turn to Slag all last far longer than one would normally expect and between targeting the premium removal already you can get paid out. Filling out the rest of the deck then becomes a matter of what else you grabbed and what role you want to take in each match. Nabbing a couple of Red fatties, a late Bleak Coven Vampires and some random creatures to fill out your curve put you in the controlling late-game role. This also makes cards like Caress of Phyrexia, Phyrexian Rager and Morbid Plunder a lot more important to your plans and should be ranked accordingly pre-draft. If you want to try for a more aggro role you often have to be proactive as cards like Mortis Dogs and aggressive Black and Red creatures are in higher demand then the random six-drops.

White Aggro

I’m not a fan of White aggressive strategies at all, but I’ve seen them succeed when they got the right set of cards to make the curve work. By far the most important aspect of the deck is the curve and quality of early drops you want to be playing. Where decks like Dinos and UB can shrug off taking creatures and finishers early if it has too, you have to keep it in mind at all times with a White aggressive strategy. Drafting Leonin Skyhunter and Glint Hawk Idol is a hell of a lot more important than a random Glory Seeker and maxing out on two and threes is going to be better than taking more powerful fives and even fours most of the time. This also means bypassing removal if it comes down to it, because honestly your best guys won’t need the help. In NPH, the early Phyrexian drops are big game and the same goes for Suture Priest which is one of the best early drops in the format, especially in multiples.

The upside about this type of strategy is that you’re less likely to get bitten by flooding out or mana screw compared to the decks that absolutely need to hit land drops every turn to function. It also allows you to cut down on your mana base going to sixteen or fifteen in a format where many people consider eighteen and are on the draw at all times. In essence this strategy has the same flaws as an Infect plan, but the cards are more likely to get sniped by UW flyers and less knowledgeable players. That said you can profit off cards like Vapor Snag, Dispatch and other late picks that can temporarily clear blockers and you can demolish them in the meantime.

That ends my basics on this draft format and I hope that my experiences with the format help you out in some way. Best of luck to you in the queues!

Josh Silvestri

E-mail me at josh dot silvestri at gmail dot com