MTG Salvation

Snakes has no need to splash a color ro deal with the hana-lock. Dosan, the Falling Leaf does the job just fine. Add the fact that it's tutorable, and castable as early as Turn 2 in Mono-G...

DOn't get me wrong, Gifts is one of Snakes's most difficult matchups, but the Hana-Lock doesn't bother a well-built deck.

#1 would be Cop: Red, #9 is CoP: Black.

You're running heavy enough black to play Nezumi Bone-Reader. Just 2 is enough, if one gets out at the same time as Shirei, the game ends. Pronto.

Hmmm, something's odd, here. I think we're all just looking at this wrong. Take another look, and count how many support-basted cards you see.

I got to 50 before I decided to stop. Essentially, Wizards is trying to turn U into a strictly secondary color, though good at that role. Did anyone else notice this?

I draft as often as I have money for it, and Limited is just about the only format I actually play.

In any format that includes Saviors, my draft is U/W, and I win. Also, for some reason, I always seem to pick up a Kirin or two, sometimes as late as third pick

While playing U/W in Block draft, I was fortunate enough to open up a Cloudhoof Kirin in my Saviors pack. What's so remarkable about this? nothing, until I got to third pick, where a Celestial Kirin was still in the pack.

Man, I've known of some cheaters and methods of cheating, but this was a VERY useful read. I'm glad to say that my good-luck shuffle is a 10-way riffle that also lets me check my card count, and I set lands in staggered sets of 2.

It's good to know that judges will come over to slow down overly-speedy players and make pile-players fan their lands. Heck, I'll admit to holding my hand so that it looks like one card at the SoK prerelease, though I'd fan and give the right number if asked (happened once, and two of the others made play mistakes because of it).

No matter the set, I have liked just about every one for one thing or another. Though I distinctly hated Mirroden T2, due to Raff, I loved it for Limited, due to the variety of styles playable. I honestly don't care if Ravnica turns out to be a new The Dark, I'll still enjoy trying my best at the various formats.

In Saviors draft at the moment, the format is too far up in the air to really tell what's going to be where. By my experience, however, white tends to be underdrafted in the set. This leads to the sickening Cowed by Wisdom coming around for a second go.

Ok, here's the rest of the cardpool I drafted. One copy of each.

Creatures:
Oboro Breezecaller
Floodbringer
Kaijin of the Vanishing Touch
Mistblade Shinobi
Callous Deceiver (ALMOST made it to the deck)
Shinen of Star's Light
Pious Kitsune
Moonwing Moth
Descendant of Soramaro

Spells:
Cut the Earthly Bond
Curtain of Light
Terashi's Grasp
Thoughtbind
Toils of Night and Day
Minamo's Meddling
Ribbons of the Reikai

I realize I'm a couple short, but I can't find the off-color cards I drafted.

This is in a full block draft, C-B-S in that order

Creatures (13):
1x Kitsune Diviner
1x Kami of Ancient Law
2x Kitsune Loreweaver
1x Floating-Dream Zubera
2x Waxmane Baku
1x Soratami Rainshaper
3x Ninja of the Deep Hours
1x Celestial Kirin
1x Kami of the Painted Road

Spells (11):
1x Sensei's Divining Top
2x Cowed by Wisdom
2x Spiritual Visit
1x Blessed Breath
1x Ethereal Haze
1x Curtain of Light
2x Veil of Secrecy
1x Cage of Hands

Lands (16):
10x Plains
5x Island
1x Cloudcrest Lake

I'll admit to having my fair share of lucky openers (Kirin, Top, and Cage of Hands, specifically) and having White underdrafted at the table. The deck turned out very controllish, while applying evasive pokes to my opponent. I ended up winning, with a 6-2 overall game record.

Things I learned: Veil of Secrecy is a good one, and there is no such thing as a bad Kirin, if you're careful. Cowed by Wisdom and the Waxmanes led to MANY opposing play mistakes, allowing me to slip by against undefended targets for those few, critical points of damage. This deck is NOT good against truly aggro strategies, and I'll admit to lucking out big time against one such deck in Match 3 (Cowed by Wisdom and Kitsune Diviner let me set up, Kirin finishes).

:dance2: :dance2: :dance2: :dance2: :dance2: :dance2: :dance2: :dance2: :dance2:


... Need I say more? This might make a Black Weenie style truly viable, especially considering the Invitational card in Ravnica. 9th comes out this summer, right?

This card already has me planning. It effectively doubles your card count, and in Black Weenie, this can be devastating. So, I've already started plans for Kami/Rav/9th T2. Another BIG thing to note here is the now near-confirmed presence of Hypnotic Specter in the set.

Charge across the Araba is just plain sick. I won a good half of my games because I had two of them in Sealed. Once, I hit a guy at 20 with a set of four 1/1 tokens (Promise of Bunrei ). He was planning to Alpha strike me next turn, so he let it through. Charge, sweeping 4, turned 4 points into 20. The entire Sweep mechanic is just broken, with easily amplified scalable effects. Even the "weakest" of them, Plow through Reito , is a potentially game-turning combat trick.

I do the same thing every draft. All you have to do is stick low to the mana curve, pick up removal, and stay within 2-3 colors.

In this particular draft, the black common Gnat Miser will probably be underrated. The blue flip enchantment will also be good. If you pick up Pithing Needle, don't play it main. You won't know what your opponent's heavy hitters are until too late for that card to be useful.