There was some discussion in the forum about how poorly the mob was drafting. I thought it might be interesting to look at the first 8 picks as a whole, since P1P9 and subsequent picks are influenced by what we have already taken.
Here's a breakdown of how I would have picked if drafting alone, set against my making the 'best pick' given what was previously drafted by the mob, followed by the consensus picks:
The key thing I take away from this is that the gold card to start the draft off really set the tone for how the whole draft unfolded. Once P1P1 had been made, it was correct to go into blue and stay there following the UR rare. The only pick where I differed from the mob was Smoke Teller over Jeskai Elder and even that is near even in value given how blue centric we are.
Whereas if I had my druthers for every pick starting from the first, my high valuation of 'big morphs' would see me well on the way to drafting a 5c big morph deck, probably centered on B, with the secondary colour likely to come from white or green, but nothing set in stone. We would still be free to take any bomb rare we open P2P1 regardless of colour, as well as high quality fixers.
I think that this is a good example of the value of staying open and uncommitted by taking essentially colourless cards in morphs and fixing.
Thoughts? Comments? Rebuttals? What would you have done differently?
Nice thoughts, I definitely agree this highlights the value of staying open. I'm a big fan of Sultai Scavenger. I didn't see the first 7 picks but, if Sultai Scavenger was in P1P1, I probably would have taken it. It has evasion and will go in any black deck.
Hey, thanks for putting this up. I was meaning to, but somehow it didn't register that we were at 8th pick already. Oh, and of course an extra-special thanks to Sene for running the forum draft, I know these are a lot of work, and they're much appreciated.
I have two main thoughts on comparing my picks to merl's and to the forum's:
1) I don't know if this tells us much about 1st-picking a gold card specifically; my second pick given p1p1 changed specifically because we already had a playable blue card, causing Singing Bell Strike to edge out Sultai Scavenger for me. A decent monoblue flier, for instance, could have had much the same effect.
2) I'm not as into morphs as merl is. I know you've been advocating a "big morph" deck, and I won't claim to know better, but I am skeptical. My impression so far has been that while the flexibility that morphs give you is valuable, if you overload on them you do risk falling behind on tempo. (And I don't think the format is so slow and grindy that you can just ignore tempo, a la New Phyrexia)
As 3-mana 2/2 creatures, they really are below the curve; I think WotC did a good job sculpting the environment to make grey ogres relevant but not good. And when flipped, one net result is that you've invested a great deal of mana into one creature (well, unless it's Ponyback Brigade :p). As a result, if your opponent has a way to interact favorably with your face-up morph (cheap removal or bounce, an attack made good with a single combat trick, etc), it's a major setback and often a complete blowout if you were under pressure. Another element here is that Outlast (and Delve to a lesser extent) have some of the same "eggs in one basket" issue, so creatures with those abilities fight each other for space, in a sense.
I'm not saying I don't like morphs or think they're good; I think the good ones (the common gold cycle, for instance) you should play all the copies you can get. But I think you can definitely have too many morphs, and my own sense is that the "big morph" deck is likely to be brittle, breaking in the face of what I'd consider even moderate aggression backed by tempo plays.
Again, limited experience, no disrespect intended, and I could be totally wrong. But I think I place much less value on cards like Krumar Bond-Kin and even Sagu Archer than merl does.
sultai flayer
sultai scavenger
mer-ek nightblade
smite the monstrous
sagu archer
hooting mandrills
abomination of gudul
highland game
I'm not sure what keeping track of our alternate picks is analyzing exactly. The forum pool has kinda gotten poor quality cards except for mistweaver compared to the meatier green black options but i'm not sure why other than the rng of the packs. Blue is a weaker color overall, most people run it as a support color than a main color. Were we maybe too attached to blue that we didn't drop it when we should have? I disagree with master the way first pick but it seems at least defensible. Singing bell strike was maybe the point at which we seemed committed to blue. While i really like bell strike, in a pack with sultai scavenger that seems a little overzealous. At the time though, bell strike seemed like a win compared to warden of the eye committing us to a weird jeskai control looking build.
Basically, even if these alternate pools seem stronger overall let's assume we had a pick 1 where master the way was unquestionably the correct choice. Was there a point past that where we could reasonably transition toward the stronger pools or was the nearly mono blue course pretty much the most defensible line even if it hasn't worked out perfectly? Was there a better blue deck to make if we had gone with warden of the eye? What where those guys going for watcher of the roost pick 1 going to wind up as?
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I think the most useful thing we could do with these "alternate reality" drafts is compare them to one another and discuss the differences between each of our individual draft approaches. I agree that comparing these to the forum draft is probably of limited usefulness, since it's more or less a given that drafting by committee is going to be a bit scattershot compared one individual's draft.
Master the Way
Warden of the Eye
Hordeling Outburst
Treasure Cruise? I'd have to see the pack again.
Mistfire Weaver
Crippling Chill
Tormenting Voice
Wetland Sambar
Picking 2-colored cards early on (without forcing them, obviously) is fine in this format. You will almost never have a problem with picking up 22 decent cards and some lands since the playables are plentiful, so you can take a risk with good gold cards early on.
I find it weird to characterize picking a 3-colors morph as to be staying open. re you ever going to run an off-color morph that you can't flip? I'd hope not, so I don't see how picking a morph is 'staying open'.
I'd also say that in this draft it's a bit unfair, as retrospectively, we got better abzan cards passed to us than Jeskai or Temur. As pointed out, it may just be that blue is a weak color and thus picking blue cards early is an error? I sure wish we'd picked the scavenger P1P1. (I voted for master the way, but scavenger was the other card I was eyeing.)
Master the Way
Warden of the Eye
Hordeling Outburst
Treasure Cruise? I'd have to see the pack again.
Mistfire Weaver
Crippling Chill
Tormenting Voice
Wetland Sambar
Picking 2-colored cards early on (without forcing them, obviously) is fine in this format. You will almost never have a problem with picking up 22 decent cards and some lands since the playables are plentiful, so you can take a risk with good gold cards early on.
Yeah, this was close to my approach as well (I think Valley Dasher is probably a better pick than Wetland Sambar, though, and even though at the time I voted for Treasure Cruise pick 4, I'd probably take Jeskai Elder with this sequence). I'd honestly be pretty comfortable with those picks, and I kinda doubt that any other sequence is likely to turn out better.
I'm curious what people think the absolute best set of picks would be, given perfect information.
Honestly, even in this kind of deck, Elder is probably just not worth it. Too small and insignificant. I seem to recall Bloodfire Expert being in this pack, if he was I'd definitely pick him over Cruise. He can very easily punish your opponent for trying to race if you have the deck for it, and the rest of the cards we drafted certainly point to such a deck being possible.
It might just be my style of drafting, which is fairly conservative. But I do know I've never had to run off-color morphs, nor have I seen other people run them. If that's the case, you'd probably be better off with another land.
Could this have to do with different groups having different tendencies to draft land? If most of the people in some group of drafters do not take land very highly, it will be harder to pick up late playables but easy to get enough fixing for 4-5 colors (some forum members have reported this). If, as has been my experience with my local drafters, people take fixing very highly, it will be hard to get enough for more than 2 colors + a splash, but more playables will come around later, and you'll often have a few more than you need.
If so, then we can expect things to become more homogeneous as the MTGO metagame takes shape.
Basically, even if these alternate pools seem stronger overall let's assume we had a pick 1 where master the way was unquestionably the correct choice. Was there a point past that where we could reasonably transition toward the stronger pools or was the nearly mono blue course pretty much the most defensible line even if it hasn't worked out perfectly?
I think that if Master the Way was the right choice P1P1 then the way the draft has unfolded is correct.
Was there a better blue deck to make if we had gone with warden of the eye? What where those guys going for watcher of the roost pick 1 going to wind up as?
I think a triple colour upsized gravedigger isn't a very strong card. That's the sort of card you get in picks 6-10 that cement you in your wedge. I think the power level is far too low to take as a speculative pick early in the draft.
2 Singing Bell Strike (over Warden of the Eye)
3 Hooting Mandrills (over Mer-Ek Nightblade)
4 Jeskai Elder (over Treasure Cruise, Smoke Teller)
5 Mistfire Weaver
6 Crippling Chill
7 Abomination of Gudul
8 Wetland Sambar (over Bitter Revelation and Highland Game)
Here's a breakdown of how I would have picked if drafting alone, set against my making the 'best pick' given what was previously drafted by the mob, followed by the consensus picks:
(* indicates different from mob)
1 Azban Guide (*)
2 Sultai Scavenger (*)
3 Feat of Resistance (*)
4 Blossoming Sands (*)
5 Sagu Archer (*)
6 Krumar Bond-Kin (*)
7 Abomination of Gudul
8 Bitter Revelation (*)
1 Azban Guide (*)
2 Singing Bell Strike
3 Hooting Mandrills
4 Smoke Teller (*)
5 Mistfire Weaver
6 Crippling Chill
7 Abomination of Gudul
8 Wetland Sambar
1 Master the Way
2 Singing Bell Strike
3 Hooting Mandrills
4 Jeskai Elder
5 Mistfire Weaver
6 Crippling Chill
7 Abomination of Gudul
8 Wetland Sambar
The key thing I take away from this is that the gold card to start the draft off really set the tone for how the whole draft unfolded. Once P1P1 had been made, it was correct to go into blue and stay there following the UR rare. The only pick where I differed from the mob was Smoke Teller over Jeskai Elder and even that is near even in value given how blue centric we are.
Whereas if I had my druthers for every pick starting from the first, my high valuation of 'big morphs' would see me well on the way to drafting a 5c big morph deck, probably centered on B, with the secondary colour likely to come from white or green, but nothing set in stone. We would still be free to take any bomb rare we open P2P1 regardless of colour, as well as high quality fixers.
I think that this is a good example of the value of staying open and uncommitted by taking essentially colourless cards in morphs and fixing.
Thoughts? Comments? Rebuttals? What would you have done differently?
Here are my picks:
1 Sultai Flayer
2 Sultai Scavenger
3 Mer-Ek Nightblade
4 Smoke Teller
5 Mistfire Weaver
6 Hooting Mandrills
7 Abomination of Gudul
8 Bitter Revelation
1 Sultai Flayer
2 Singing Bell Strike
3 Mer-Ek Nightblade
4 Smoke Teller
5 Mistfire Weaver
6 Crippling Chill
7 Abomination of Gudul
8 Wetland Sambar
I have two main thoughts on comparing my picks to merl's and to the forum's:
1) I don't know if this tells us much about 1st-picking a gold card specifically; my second pick given p1p1 changed specifically because we already had a playable blue card, causing Singing Bell Strike to edge out Sultai Scavenger for me. A decent monoblue flier, for instance, could have had much the same effect.
2) I'm not as into morphs as merl is. I know you've been advocating a "big morph" deck, and I won't claim to know better, but I am skeptical. My impression so far has been that while the flexibility that morphs give you is valuable, if you overload on them you do risk falling behind on tempo. (And I don't think the format is so slow and grindy that you can just ignore tempo, a la New Phyrexia)
As 3-mana 2/2 creatures, they really are below the curve; I think WotC did a good job sculpting the environment to make grey ogres relevant but not good. And when flipped, one net result is that you've invested a great deal of mana into one creature (well, unless it's Ponyback Brigade :p). As a result, if your opponent has a way to interact favorably with your face-up morph (cheap removal or bounce, an attack made good with a single combat trick, etc), it's a major setback and often a complete blowout if you were under pressure. Another element here is that Outlast (and Delve to a lesser extent) have some of the same "eggs in one basket" issue, so creatures with those abilities fight each other for space, in a sense.
I'm not saying I don't like morphs or think they're good; I think the good ones (the common gold cycle, for instance) you should play all the copies you can get. But I think you can definitely have too many morphs, and my own sense is that the "big morph" deck is likely to be brittle, breaking in the face of what I'd consider even moderate aggression backed by tempo plays.
Again, limited experience, no disrespect intended, and I could be totally wrong. But I think I place much less value on cards like Krumar Bond-Kin and even Sagu Archer than merl does.
sultai scavenger
mer-ek nightblade
smite the monstrous
sagu archer
hooting mandrills
abomination of gudul
highland game
I'm not sure what keeping track of our alternate picks is analyzing exactly. The forum pool has kinda gotten poor quality cards except for mistweaver compared to the meatier green black options but i'm not sure why other than the rng of the packs. Blue is a weaker color overall, most people run it as a support color than a main color. Were we maybe too attached to blue that we didn't drop it when we should have? I disagree with master the way first pick but it seems at least defensible. Singing bell strike was maybe the point at which we seemed committed to blue. While i really like bell strike, in a pack with sultai scavenger that seems a little overzealous. At the time though, bell strike seemed like a win compared to warden of the eye committing us to a weird jeskai control looking build.
Basically, even if these alternate pools seem stronger overall let's assume we had a pick 1 where master the way was unquestionably the correct choice. Was there a point past that where we could reasonably transition toward the stronger pools or was the nearly mono blue course pretty much the most defensible line even if it hasn't worked out perfectly? Was there a better blue deck to make if we had gone with warden of the eye? What where those guys going for watcher of the roost pick 1 going to wind up as?
Warden of the Eye
Hordeling Outburst
Treasure Cruise? I'd have to see the pack again.
Mistfire Weaver
Crippling Chill
Tormenting Voice
Wetland Sambar
Picking 2-colored cards early on (without forcing them, obviously) is fine in this format. You will almost never have a problem with picking up 22 decent cards and some lands since the playables are plentiful, so you can take a risk with good gold cards early on.
I'd also say that in this draft it's a bit unfair, as retrospectively, we got better abzan cards passed to us than Jeskai or Temur. As pointed out, it may just be that blue is a weak color and thus picking blue cards early is an error? I sure wish we'd picked the scavenger P1P1. (I voted for master the way, but scavenger was the other card I was eyeing.)
Yeah, this was close to my approach as well (I think Valley Dasher is probably a better pick than Wetland Sambar, though, and even though at the time I voted for Treasure Cruise pick 4, I'd probably take Jeskai Elder with this sequence). I'd honestly be pretty comfortable with those picks, and I kinda doubt that any other sequence is likely to turn out better.
I'm curious what people think the absolute best set of picks would be, given perfect information.
If so, then we can expect things to become more homogeneous as the MTGO metagame takes shape.
I think that if Master the Way was the right choice P1P1 then the way the draft has unfolded is correct.
I think a triple colour upsized gravedigger isn't a very strong card. That's the sort of card you get in picks 6-10 that cement you in your wedge. I think the power level is far too low to take as a speculative pick early in the draft.