1) White was highly underdrafted. Many teams noticed this by mid-pack 2, but none moved into it.
2) Green was probably overdrafted.
3) Everyone was trying for Red, it seemed like.
Commons that did not show up in this draft:
Broodhunter Wurm (no big loss)
Clutch of Currents (sorry, blue drafters)
Goblin War Paint (cf. Wurm)
Outnumber
Remember, the likelihood a draft has 0 copies of any given common is ~10%. (You can use either the Binomial or Poisson distributions to calculate this.)
Commons that showed up 5 times:
Cliffside Lookout
Nettle Drone (!) (I would give this as a reason many people went into Red, but 4 of them were in Pack 3 packs.)
Roilmage's Trick
Sure Strike
Swarm Surge
Finally, I realize that many teams were quite upset with the packs. I understand and even feel for them. However, at a certain point people were speculating that I was deliberately fixing the packs so as to impact the draft experience. I would like to take this opportunity to say that I would never do this. These are legitimate packs that I opened, and I transcribed them exactly. I do not play favorites with how the cards are assigned, and I strive to be fair to all teams at all times so as to recreate a normal draft experience as much as is possible.
scott, in case it wasn't clear, I just want to make sure you know that it was a joke when I said I wondered if you were carrying out some sick social experiment where you give us cruddy packs.
Well, team E, two spot above us in pack 1 and 3 was drafting blue. If you look at pack 3 in particular, they cut us off of almost all the blue playables. The packs mostly supported one blue drafter and we were getting 2nd picks in two packs out of three...
PS: ...and, oh wow!, in the 2nd pack they got 2 sky spawners and we then passed them halimar and rush of ice... but getting two spanner in the only two packs we could not cut them off... what (bad for us) luck!
Well, team E, two spot above us in pack 1 and 3 was drafting blue. If you look at pack 3 in particular, they cut us off of almost all the blue playables. The packs mostly supported one blue drafter and we were getting 2nd picks in two packs out of three...
They took a few cards in pack three I would have loved to have (Grip of Desolation and Kozilek's Channeler in particular), but the only blue one among them in pack three is Cloud Manta. I think our deck turned out fairly well, so it seems the draft supported two UB drafters.
I always forget what incubator drones are. Not a great card indeed. The fact they ended-up in mostly UB didn't help us. Given that red was over-drafted, it might have been hard to do much better. (Then again, if we had not passed red in the first pack, maybe things would have turned out differently?)
PS: here is my version of Team C deck. Me and jar75 are debating the last 1 or 2 cards of the deck:
pierre: I don't think so, honestly. There was enough reason to go into Red that it would always have been 'overdrafted'. Though, I'm not sure it was, given that people were never really 'cut' out of Red.
Then when you consider there were 3 or 4 Nettle Drones in the last pack...
I was actually fairly impressed with Team A's GB sac deck. It may be a weak archetype, but they persevered.
Well, congratulations scott on opening two Kioras. That was pretty nice value. Also, I really like the way you've organized the results. We need decklists.
Golden wants to cut the Aggression and the Stalwart in favor of a Makindi Sliderunner and a Brutal Expulsion, on the basis that it makes the curve better. I prefer it this way on the basis that the deck is already very susceptible to awkward draws and putting in those cards makes the deck even less consistent. Thoughts?
5 mana steal a bear is probably better than the 3rd counterspell, but maybe no one will expect the 3rd one (or _5th_ one counting the nullifiers)
Team Drone's deck: (Rujasu's build) - we were passing to you. We were certain you were in UB after we passed nullifier.dec. I think team E to our right was also in blue.
Only card we are arguing over is Nightwatch in the main vs. Nursery. Maybe we could cut a mountain as well, only mana sinks are Rolling Thunder and Sharpshooter, and no 6 drops (wuuuuuut)
I think that's what we roughly agreed on, plus or minus a few cards.
We basically couldn't agree on a direction, torn between 3-color control and RG Landfall aggro. Depending on who was voting on which days, we ended up taking bits and pieces of each, and grabbing fixing either way. We ended up with this midrangey control deck with random Landfall guys.
We have a pretty good matchup against X/2s and Scions, at any rate.
Well, the first Kiora was P1P1. IMO that's always an awkward spot to see Kiora, since you don't want to commit to green so soon. We took Complete Disregard over it. We later ended up green anyway, so we grabbed the second.
EDIT: Those red and UB lists all look pretty good.
You ended up drafting a very similar deck to ours in a lot of ways. You got more on the landfall end while we got more of the ramp-y stuff, but the strategy seems largely the same. I think if we were playing, Team G would be advantaged because while your early game is better than ours, it's cluttered up with chaff like Territorial Baloth and Rising Miasma, which don't do anything, and your actual endgame stuff isn't exciting. On the other hand, your game vs actual aggressive decks looking to win early looks a ton better than ours. We're thinking it's pretty likely for us to just get run over by exactly the sort of decks your deck would shine against. So that's interesting.
I'm interested in how you decided what to maindeck. I would have guessed that cards like Rising Miasma would be super overkill in a deck that already has a decent curve, good early beef, and a Radiant Flames already in the main. Good card to side in, but not what I would call a maindeck card, especially on a splash. Also, you aren't maining the Slab Hammer, which I would think would be at its best in the main, and looking to side it out after people bring in answers to it. Plus it's easy on the mana.
You ended up drafting a very similar deck to ours in a lot of ways. You got more on the landfall end while we got more of the ramp-y stuff, but the strategy seems largely the same. I think if we were playing, Team G would be advantaged because while your early game is better than ours, it's cluttered up with chaff like Territorial Baloth and Rising Miasma, which don't do anything, and your actual endgame stuff isn't exciting. On the other hand, your game vs actual aggressive decks looking to win early looks a ton better than ours. We're thinking it's pretty likely for us to just get run over by exactly the sort of decks your deck would shine against. So that's interesting.
I'm interested in how you decided what to maindeck. I would have guessed that cards like Rising Miasma would be super overkill in a deck that already has a decent curve, good early beef, and a Radiant Flames already in the main. Good card to side in, but not what I would call a maindeck card, especially on a splash. Also, you aren't maining the Slab Hammer, which I would think would be at its best in the main, and looking to side it out after people bring in answers to it. Plus it's easy on the mana.
Yeah, Team G would have the edge if the game dragged on. We would hope to Landfall aggro out before your big guys came online. We can wipe out your Nettle Drones and mana dorks, but we can't match that Eldrazi endgame.
We passed Breaker of Armies at some point for Tajuru Stalwart. We were concerned about curve. In retrospect Breaker was probably better, especially in combination with our weenie removal. We also passed a Plated Crusher at some point, thinking GGG might be a bit too ambitious. Maybe the payoff is worth it.
Maybe the main should have +1 Slab Hammmer +1 Swell of Growth to enable more Landfall tricks, with Rising Miasma in the board. I'm always hesitant to run Slab Hammer in decks with 8-drops, though our curve is mostly low. I think some others wanted Slab Hammer and Swell main; those slots weren't necessarily decided. We didn't have quite a low enough curve to play Landfall aggro, which was the point of debate. We'd have needed 2 more Makindi Sliderunner/Snapping Gnarlid and a Valakut Predator. My reasoning was that against most decks we would probably have to take a defensive role, so we could just grind X-for-1s against the faster creatures and then finish with midrange guys. Miasma kills almost nothing in our deck and can be awakened later, so there are some perks. Against a deck like yours, we would definitely have to be the aggressor, trying to win before you hit your bombs. So then post-board the slower control tools would go out for Slab Hammer and combat tricks. But in general I guess we could start with a more aggressive main and shift to more defensive post-board against faster decks.
Just so everyone is aware, I could run another--I have the packs for it--but from the lower participation as the 2nd 8-Way progressed, I am assuming people are all 'BFZed out'. I am planning to set up/start OGW-OGW-BFZ 8-Ways as soon as I have cards.
In other news, I will be able to say more in a month or so, but right now it looks like my PhD dissertation will be doing the exact type of Magic Limited analysis that I have hoped to do with this. So... I will want to pick brains.
Sene: That's not quite true. I can't set up teams or folders or anything like that; that requires Admins, I believe.
'Weird' is certainly a word that I would use to characterize this draft. From the cards available in the draft, I was actually expecting a better experience in the second draft than the first, which I don't think most people would agree with.
Trying to figure out why. Something I did note was that it seemed that almost all drafters were actually drafting the 'best deck' for the team two seats to their... left, I think. That's how it 'felt'. I am attempting to come up with heuristics to describe this.
As another interesting case, there were three Kor Bladewhirls in the draft. A [i]correct/i] team (that is, one in White, Team F I believe) got one 13th pick in Pack 2.
Anyway, something else that will be noted whenever the forums become available is that [i]almost everyone[/i] noted a drop in card quality at P1P6, I believe. This is, generally, a sign that whatever you're drafting is overdrafted.
Sene: That's not quite true. I can't set up teams or folders or anything like that; that requires Admins, I believe.
Quite right. I just thought we were referring to this specific draft, but yeah, we've received help from the admins when it comes to actually setting up the forums and adding players.
Anyway, here's our deck, I suppose (Team H). It is somewhat embarrassing.
We took two tightening coils over both mire's malice. In retrospect we should have taken at least one. Not sure which UB deck is better. I would have played the oracle of dust instead of roilmage's trick. Your deck doesn't seem like one where digging is necessary. (The oracle can dig, too, if need be anyway.) There are no bomb to find.
PS: I looked again at the packs. Boy! Did we get shafted. In pack 2, we us passing to you, p2p1, p2p2 were amazing for you just at the right time. Meanwhile, in pack 3, we actually got p3p1 and p3p2 the two worst UB packs of the 24! There is one or two packs approaching their level of awfulness, but I do think they were the worst of the lot. Swap those packs around and our deck would be soooooo amazing. I still think ours is slightly better, but not by much.
We took two tightening coils over both mire's malice. In retrospect we should have taken at least one. Not sure which UB deck is better. I would have played the oracle of dust instead of roilmage's trick. Your deck doesn't seem like one where digging is necessary. (The oracle can dig, too, if need be anyway.) There are no bomb to find.
PS: I looked again at the packs. Boy! Did we get shafted. In pack 2, we us passing to you, p2p1, p2p2 were amazing for you just at the right time. Meanwhile, in pack 3, we actually got p3p1 and p3p2 the two worst UB packs of the 24! There is one or two packs approaching their level of awfulness, but I do think they were the worst of the lot. Swap those packs around and our deck would be soooooo amazing. I still think ours is slightly better, but not by much.
Yeah I like your deck more. It has Windrider Patrol and a better high end. Our deck seems like it wants Ruination Guide or the opponent to just do nothing.
Out of curiosity, how many people would like to see the results of the draft in draftcap format? I could probably manage it without too much difficulty. As a bonus, the cards would all be images.
Out of curiosity, how many people would like to see the results of the draft in draftcap format? I could probably manage it without too much difficulty. As a bonus, the cards would all be images.
I'd like this.
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A few comments:
1) White was highly underdrafted. Many teams noticed this by mid-pack 2, but none moved into it.
2) Green was probably overdrafted.
3) Everyone was trying for Red, it seemed like.
Commons that did not show up in this draft:
Broodhunter Wurm (no big loss)
Clutch of Currents (sorry, blue drafters)
Goblin War Paint (cf. Wurm)
Outnumber
Remember, the likelihood a draft has 0 copies of any given common is ~10%. (You can use either the Binomial or Poisson distributions to calculate this.)
Commons that showed up 5 times:
Cliffside Lookout
Nettle Drone (!) (I would give this as a reason many people went into Red, but 4 of them were in Pack 3 packs.)
Roilmage's Trick
Sure Strike
Swarm Surge
Finally, I realize that many teams were quite upset with the packs. I understand and even feel for them. However, at a certain point people were speculating that I was deliberately fixing the packs so as to impact the draft experience. I would like to take this opportunity to say that I would never do this. These are legitimate packs that I opened, and I transcribed them exactly. I do not play favorites with how the cards are assigned, and I strive to be fair to all teams at all times so as to recreate a normal draft experience as much as is possible.
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
PS: ...and, oh wow!, in the 2nd pack they got 2 sky spawners and we then passed them halimar and rush of ice... but getting two spanner in the only two packs we could not cut them off... what (bad for us) luck!
They took a few cards in pack three I would have loved to have (Grip of Desolation and Kozilek's Channeler in particular), but the only blue one among them in pack three is Cloud Manta. I think our deck turned out fairly well, so it seems the draft supported two UB drafters.
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
PS: here is my version of Team C deck. Me and jar75 are debating the last 1 or 2 cards of the deck:
1 Coralhelm Guide
1 Culling Drone
1 Malakir Familiar
2 Benthic Infiltrator
1 Dominator Drone
2 Ulamog's Nullifier
1 Incubator Drone
2 Cryptic Cruiser
1 Windrider Patrol
1 Wave-Wing Elemental
1 Bane of Bala Ged
1 Ruin Processor
2 Horribly Awry
2 Tightening Coils
1 Complete Disregard
1 Titan's Presence
1 Spell Shrivel
Lands (18)
1 Skyline Cascade
1 Mortuary Mire
1 Spawning Bed
8 Island
7 Swamp
1 Salvage Drone
1 Roilmage's Trick
1 Swarm Surge
1 Exert Influence
Curve:
2: ccssss
3: ccccsss
4: ccccc
5: c
6: c
7: cc
Then when you consider there were 3 or 4 Nettle Drones in the last pack...
I was actually fairly impressed with Team A's GB sac deck. It may be a weak archetype, but they persevered.
This was my build of Team G's deck:
1 Conduit of Ruin
1 Breaker of Armies
1 Hedron Archive
3 Nettle Drone
1 Touch of the Void
1 Valakut Invoker
2 Vestige of Emrakul
1 Turn Against
1 Stonefury
1 Akoum Hellkite
1 Seek the Wilds
1 Lifespring Druid
1 Tajuru Stalwart
1 Unnatural Aggression
2 Natural Connection
1 Kiora, Master of the Depths
1 Island
8 Mountain
8 Forest
Golden wants to cut the Aggression and the Stalwart in favor of a Makindi Sliderunner and a Brutal Expulsion, on the basis that it makes the curve better. I prefer it this way on the basis that the deck is already very susceptible to awkward draws and putting in those cards makes the deck even less consistent. Thoughts?
Team Drone's deck: (Rujasu's build) - we were passing to you. We were certain you were in UB after we passed nullifier.dec. I think team E to our right was also in blue.
3 Kozilek's Sentinel
1 Forerunner of Slaughter
1 Culling Drone
1 Valakut Invoker
1 Nettle Drone
2 Dominator Drone
1 Hagra Sharpshooter
1 Firemantle Mage
1 Silent Skimmer
1 Zada, Hedron Grinder
1 Barrage Tyrant
2 Sure Strike
1 Molten Nursery
1 Swarm Surge
2 Touch of the Void
1 Stonefury
1 Rolling Thunder
Lands (18)
10 Mountain
7 Swamp
1 Mortuary Mire
1 Boiling Earth
1 Kalastria Nightwatch
1 Retreat to Valakut
2 Reckless Cohort
1 Dutiful Return
1 Kalastria Healer
1 Belligerent Whiptail
1 Herald of Kozilek
1 Spell Shrivel
2 Salvage Drone
2 Inspired Charge
1 Giant Mantis
1 Brilliant Spectrum
1 Ghostly Sentinel
1 Retreat to Kazandu
1 Earthen Arms
Only card we are arguing over is Nightwatch in the main vs. Nursery. Maybe we could cut a mountain as well, only mana sinks are Rolling Thunder and Sharpshooter, and no 6 drops (wuuuuuut)
1 Akoum Hellkite
1 Kiora, Master of the Depths
1 Stonefury
1 Tajuru Stalwart
1 Seek the Wilds
1 Natural Connection
1 Pilgrim's Eye
1 Fertile Thicket
1 Beastcaller Savant
1 Lifespring Druid
23 Forest
5 Mountain
2 Island
Bleak outcome, given the low EV of Forest.
Well, OK, the real list is marginally better...
1 Oran-Rief Invoker
1 Kozilek's Sentinel
1 Beastcaller Savant
1 Lifespring Druid
1 Pilgrim's Eye
2 Tajuru Stalwart
2 Grove Rumbler
1 Murasa Ranger
1 Territorial Baloth
1 Kalastria Nightwatch
1 Akoum Hellkite
1 Eldrazi Devastator
1 Seek the Wilds
1 Natural Connection
1 Radiant Flames
1 Complete Disregard
1 Rising Miasma
1 Demon's Grasp
1 Stonefury
1 Serpentine Spike
//Lands: 18
1 Fertile Thicket
3 Swamp
8 Forest
6 Mountain
1 Boiling Earth
2 Swell of Growth
1 Sure Strike
1 Island
1 Kiora, Master of the Depths
1 Slab Hammer
1 Spawning Bed
I think that's what we roughly agreed on, plus or minus a few cards.
We basically couldn't agree on a direction, torn between 3-color control and RG Landfall aggro. Depending on who was voting on which days, we ended up taking bits and pieces of each, and grabbing fixing either way. We ended up with this midrangey control deck with random Landfall guys.
We have a pretty good matchup against X/2s and Scions, at any rate.
EDIT: Those red and UB lists all look pretty good.
I'm interested in how you decided what to maindeck. I would have guessed that cards like Rising Miasma would be super overkill in a deck that already has a decent curve, good early beef, and a Radiant Flames already in the main. Good card to side in, but not what I would call a maindeck card, especially on a splash. Also, you aren't maining the Slab Hammer, which I would think would be at its best in the main, and looking to side it out after people bring in answers to it. Plus it's easy on the mana.
Yeah, Team G would have the edge if the game dragged on. We would hope to Landfall aggro out before your big guys came online. We can wipe out your Nettle Drones and mana dorks, but we can't match that Eldrazi endgame.
We passed Breaker of Armies at some point for Tajuru Stalwart. We were concerned about curve. In retrospect Breaker was probably better, especially in combination with our weenie removal. We also passed a Plated Crusher at some point, thinking GGG might be a bit too ambitious. Maybe the payoff is worth it.
Maybe the main should have +1 Slab Hammmer +1 Swell of Growth to enable more Landfall tricks, with Rising Miasma in the board. I'm always hesitant to run Slab Hammer in decks with 8-drops, though our curve is mostly low. I think some others wanted Slab Hammer and Swell main; those slots weren't necessarily decided. We didn't have quite a low enough curve to play Landfall aggro, which was the point of debate. We'd have needed 2 more Makindi Sliderunner/Snapping Gnarlid and a Valakut Predator. My reasoning was that against most decks we would probably have to take a defensive role, so we could just grind X-for-1s against the faster creatures and then finish with midrange guys. Miasma kills almost nothing in our deck and can be awakened later, so there are some perks. Against a deck like yours, we would definitely have to be the aggressor, trying to win before you hit your bombs. So then post-board the slower control tools would go out for Slab Hammer and combat tricks. But in general I guess we could start with a more aggressive main and shift to more defensive post-board against faster decks.
In other news, I will be able to say more in a month or so, but right now it looks like my PhD dissertation will be doing the exact type of Magic Limited analysis that I have hoped to do with this. So... I will want to pick brains.
I'll have my team's deck posted tomorrow. It was a pretty weird draft, with us only really finding one color that felt open (white).
'Weird' is certainly a word that I would use to characterize this draft. From the cards available in the draft, I was actually expecting a better experience in the second draft than the first, which I don't think most people would agree with.
Trying to figure out why. Something I did note was that it seemed that almost all drafters were actually drafting the 'best deck' for the team two seats to their... left, I think. That's how it 'felt'. I am attempting to come up with heuristics to describe this.
As another interesting case, there were three Kor Bladewhirls in the draft. A [i]correct/i] team (that is, one in White, Team F I believe) got one 13th pick in Pack 2.
Anyway, something else that will be noted whenever the forums become available is that [i]almost everyone[/i] noted a drop in card quality at P1P6, I believe. This is, generally, a sign that whatever you're drafting is overdrafted.
Anyway, here's our deck, I suppose (Team H). It is somewhat embarrassing.
1 Culling Drone
1 Halimar Tidecaller
1 Ruination Guide
2 Eldrazi Skyspawner
1 Benthic Infiltrator
1 Dominator Drone
2 Incubator Drone
2 Murk Strider
1 Cloud Manta
1 Kozilek's Channeler
1 Tightening Coils
1 Swarm Surge
1 Titan's Presence
1 Scatter to the Winds
2 Mire's Malice
1 Roilmage's Trick
1 Grip of Desolation
2 Sunken Hollow
1 Skyline Cascade
7 Island
7 Swamp
1 Transgress the Mind
1 Nirkana Assassin
1 Oracle of Dust
1 Brilliant Spectrum
1 Dutiful Return
1 Geyserfield Stalker
1 Ghostly Sentinel
1 Void Attendant
1 Mind Raker
1 Natural Connection
1 Reclaiming Vines
1 Retreat to Hagra
1 Retreat to Valakut
1 Roil Spout
1 Salvage Drone
1 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
PS: I looked again at the packs. Boy! Did we get shafted. In pack 2, we us passing to you, p2p1, p2p2 were amazing for you just at the right time. Meanwhile, in pack 3, we actually got p3p1 and p3p2 the two worst UB packs of the 24! There is one or two packs approaching their level of awfulness, but I do think they were the worst of the lot. Swap those packs around and our deck would be soooooo amazing. I still think ours is slightly better, but not by much.