Urza's booster draft strategy
Richard Young
found out that I just had no clue what it was I was supposed to be drafting.
The usual stuff (fliers, evasion critters, pestilence is broken) I know
about but I haven't drafted saga/legacy before and found that I didn't know
what the strongest archetypes are in this format.
Does anyone have some insights in to drafting in Urza's? Stuff other than
'black is broken' would be useful.
Cheers
Richard
Richard Young
Jarno Kokko
With Saga+Legacy, Big Meat(tm) is surprisingly good. Of course if you fill
your deck with expensive cards, you can't win, but currently I prefer to
draft a deck I like to call 'counter-meat' - a green/blue deck with 4-5 good
fatties (winding wurm etc.), bunch of good flyers (pendrell drake,
weatherseed faeries etc) and good mid-sized stuff (treetop rangers, albino
troll, pouncing jaguar etc) coupled with 3-4 counters
(sink/rewind/miscalc/intervene) and couple of other 'tricks' (Symbiosis,
snap, rescind, silk net etc.)
If you can get blue or green 'coat' (Embraces or Blanchwood Armor) or some
broken rare (morphling, child of gaea...) you're golden.
Hard part is to draft a deck like this while keeping the mana curve in mind.
It's much easier with rochester draft.
In booster draft, if I don't get any good green/blue stuff in first 1-2
boosters, I then prefer to go black (either black/green (meat/removal) or
black/red (straight out 'go for the throat'))
White I try to stay away, unless I open stuff like Herald of Serra.
Blue is also usually weak unless coupled with fatties that can keep the
ground locked while blue flyers do their job. Black/Red can also suck unless
you draw tons of removal and straight out burn (Lava Axes are great in
multiples if you can drop them after your weenies have first done 6-10
points in...:)
You just need to go with the 'flow' and pick the strongest stuff you're
presented in early on, and then commit to colors and *stick to them*.
Sometimes you get hosed, especially in booster draft, since you can't see
what your neighbours are taking, but usually it pays to 'force' a color
early on, and not just switch around randomly and confuse your left side
player. It pays when the drafting direction is switched around.
-- Jarnis (Jarno Kokko) -- jar...@megabaud.fi ----------------------------
"Well, look at that - the sun's coming up..." Babylon 5 1993-1998
Dave Meeson
> I went along to a booster draft last night and did OK I
> guess, 3-3, but found out that I just had no clue what it
> was I was supposed to be drafting. The usual stuff
> (fliers, evasion critters, pestilence is broken) I know about
> but I haven't drafted saga/legacy before and found that I
> didn't know what the strongest archetypes are in this format.
>
> Does anyone have some insights in to drafting in Urza's?
> Stuff other than 'black is broken' would be useful.
I was going to save this for next week's column, but since you asked
...
First though, the strategy as presented to the public after PTLA:
"Draft Black, and if you can't draft Black, force Blue/White." -Zvi
Now, this comment was made for Urza's Saga draft only, and it didn't
take Legacy into consideration. And depending on the makeup of your
draft (be it Saga/Legacy/Legacy or Saga/Saga/Legacy), drafting strong
Black in the first pack does not necessarily mean strong cards in the
second or third packs.
Saga's black cards are very strong. Good creatures, excellent
removal. You've already noted how broken Pestilence is in this
format. Black drops off a little going into Legacy - the Phyrexians
are OK at best, but there are more efficient forms of creature removal
available to you from the Saga packs. Giant Cockroach is a solid
draft creature.
Green is terribly strong in Legacy, and not just the rares: commons
like Simian Grunts and Rancor make Green a good pick in the later
rounds. You can work this knowledge to your benefit by possibly
picking weaker cards earlier in the draft - by the time the Legacy
pack is opened, you could be locked into the Green, forcing your
neighbors to pass you these nice commons.
However, above all this, it's important to remember basic draft
strategy, and that is: Be flexible. If you go into a draft with your
mind set on exactly what colors you intend to draft, you will
absolutely not end up with the best deck. And do not hold yourself to
the colors you choose for your first four picks, as this will surely
cause you to feed your neighbor some outstanding picks.
As long as you KNOW the card sets, you should do OK.
A funny note: After a particularly horrible Te/St/Ex draft, I was
talking to Seth, one of the local guys, and he was telling me about
how easy it was to play Blue in the draft. He explained to me about
how, by the time the Exodus pack rolled around, everyone had locked in
their colors, and was passing him all those wicked fliers from Exodus:
He ended up with a deck with an Ephemeron, 4 Wayward Soul, a Silver
Wyvern - just nasty stuff. I took this knowledge into a Te/St/Ex
draft at a Qualifier and drafted Blue/Green ... and then got
absolutely nothing passed to me in the Exodus packs. =) Well, it was
foreign boosters ... maybe I did ...
Dave
Proud owner of a Chinese Coat of Arms from that draft
mee...@stelnj.com
KShir10368
pack and wish I could draft 7 or 8 cards out of the bunch.
With Legacy, I prefer black because of the utility creatures. After that, I go
for either green or blue depending on where the fat critters are.
Creature removal is great, but "indirect removal" is good, too. In one
tournament I won, I had a Palinchron and a King Crab. That, plus 2 Giant
Cockroaches, took me all the way for the win.
If I don't have enough strong cards to make a two-color deck, I like to put
in cycling cards even if they are not in a color I'm playing. That effectively
shrinks my deck to accomodate the good cards I do have.
Richard Young
found out that I just had no clue what it was I was supposed to be drafting.
The usual stuff (fliers, evasion critters, pestilence is broken) I know
about but I haven't drafted saga/legacy before and found that I didn't know
what the strongest archetypes are in this format.
Does anyone have some insights in to drafting in Urza's? Stuff other than
'black is broken' would be useful.
Cheers
Richard
NFLed
I have a web site with my opinions for ratings of every card
for their value in drafts (and sealed) for every set from
Mirage through Legacy (no 6e yet). The page is nothing
fancy, just my opinions of all the cards (your mileage may
vary) and it's at:
http://members.aol.com/nfled/magic.html
I don't play any Constructed so I guess you can say that
I'm a "specialist" in Limited.
Ed B.
Richard Young
>I have a web site with my opinions for ratings of every card
> for their value in drafts (and sealed) for every set from
> Mirage through Legacy (no 6e yet). The page is nothing
> fancy, just my opinions of all the cards (your mileage may
> vary) and it's at:
>
>http://members.aol.com/nfled/magic.html
>
>I don't play any Constructed so I guess you can say that
> I'm a "specialist" in Limited.
>
>Ed B.
Thanks for all your opinions guys - and my apologies for the multiple posts,
something wrong with the server I think.
I was interested to look at Ed's website and see how he'd marked the cards
but more interested to see that in both Legacy and Saga -white- has the
highest average! Does this just mean that black has a fair amount of rubbish
in it as well as some very good cards or just that white has excellent
utility and less game breakers?
I also hear what you're saying about flexibility - its very easy to go
drafting certain of what you want to be playing. I went green and blue on
Tuesday and though there was some decent stuff in there I did have some
horrors - not enough creatures so I went with the Beebles! Gordon Benson had
stolen all the good blue fliers and I was left with some truly horrible
choices but ended banking on people playing artifacts!
It actually worked - they kept a Ring of Gix off the table for a long time
and in a previous game someone dropped an artifact and next turn I dropped
three beebles. Game over when added to my treetop ranger!
Still more luck than good judgement I think - oh well, what more can you
expect from Team Pants - :-)
Cheers
Richard
Team Pants
"No, you're wrong - The beebles are just a beating!"
Rüdiger Hesse
Original message :
> I went along to a booster draft last night and did OK I guess, 3-3, but
> found out that I just had no clue what it was I was supposed to be drafting.
> The usual stuff (fliers, evasion critters, pestilence is broken) I know
> about but I haven't drafted saga/legacy before and found that I didn't know
> what the strongest archetypes are in this format.
>
> Does anyone have some insights in to drafting in Urza's? Stuff other than
> 'black is broken' would be useful.
>
Answer :
Well, I had a Urza's-Legacy-Draft, a week ago and I made a winning deck out of
UG-Fliers. We played 3 rounds, swiss-style, and not only I won every round, I
had only one defeat in all the matches. (7 matches - 6 victories, 1 defeat).
So I think it could be an idea, exspecially because nobody thought about this,
therefore it is no archetype.
The Deck (as I remember)
Creatures (17)
3 Cloud of Faeries
2 Weatherseed Faeries
2 Vigilant Drake
2 Thornwind Faeries
1 Raven Familiar
1 Jhoira's Toolbox
1 Ticking Gnomes
1 Thran War Machine
2 Multani Acolyte
1 Lone Wolf
1 Simian Grunts
Spells (9)
2 Snap
2 Miscalculation
3 Frantic Search
1 Rancor
1 Crawlspace
Lands (14)
5 Island
6 Forest
1 Faerie Conclave (14)
___
40
Sideboard :
2 Intervene
..
1 Harmonic Convergence (the only card I once used from the sideboard)
Interesting was to see, what the killer-cards were.
Lone Wolf
Vigilant Drake
Snap
Yes, you saw right.
The Lone Wolf was every time the two damage I needed for victory - I always
saved him for the last attack, and never sacrificed him against a bigger
creature.
The Vigilant Drake is in UL immortal, because there is nothing common to stop a
3/3 Flyer (swat or radiant's judgement is unuseful)
Snap is a self-explainer.
I would liked to draw more Rancor or one more Simian Grunt, but no chance.
CUSOON
Ruediger
Lukasz Gieron
>I love drafting Urza's Legacy. There have been a lot of times when I open a
>pack and wish I could draft 7 or 8 cards out of the bunch.
>With Legacy, I prefer black because of the utility creatures. After that, I go
>for either green or blue depending on where the fat critters are.
> Creature removal is great, but "indirect removal" is good, too. In one
>tournament I won, I had a Palinchron and a King Crab. That, plus 2 Giant
>Cockroaches, took me all the way for the win.
Why do you guys think that Giant Cockroach is good? I can't see
anything good in it.
--
----------------- Lukasz Gieron -------------------
-------------- ma...@friko2.onet.pl ----------------
"Card abilities are based on card text, not artwork"
Official Magic: the Gathering standard floor rules
NFLed
>>I have a web site with my opinions for ratings of every card
>> for their value in drafts (and sealed) for every set from
>> Mirage through Legacy (no 6e yet). The page is nothing
>> fancy, just my opinions of all the cards (your mileage may
>> vary) and it's at:
>>
>>http://members.aol.com/nfled/magic.html
>>
>>I don't play any Constructed so I guess you can say that
>> I'm a "specialist" in Limited.
>>
>>Ed B.
>
>Thanks for all your opinions guys - and my apologies for the multiple posts,
>something wrong with the server I think.
>
>I was interested to look at Ed's website and see how he'd marked the cards
>but more interested to see that in both Legacy and Saga -white- has the
>highest average! Does this just mean that black has a fair amount of rubbish
>in it as well as some very good cards or just that white has excellent
>utility and less game breakers?
Thanks for checking out my site. Unfortunately, the summaries
I give (and of course these are only my opinions, I'd be
shocked if anyone in the world agreed with every one of
them or even with a large majority of them) involve averages
which means that one worthless card in the bunch drags it
way down; relatively speaking, white has few worthless
cards (ROP: Lands and Planar Birth notwithstanding).
Also, the ratings for the common cards are more important
than those for the others since most of what you'll see are
common cards. Black commons are great in both us and
uy. Black's uy creatures are fairly weak in terms of
beatdown; while Giant Cockroach is not a good card
compared to similar creatures of other colors, if you
have a lot of removal (black's specialty) then this
creature can serve as your beatdown. Generally,
though, it'd be best to have the beatdown in another
color (or else in us).
It may be more telling to say "how many cards are rated
2.0 or better" or whatever.
In any case, my ratings show me that while some colors
are somewhat overall stronger than others (black us
commons are so strong and of course commons are
very plentiful), no color should be overlooked if you
are given good cards of that color. Personally, I don't
like usuy red that much but even a bunch of goblins
et.al. can be powerful when augmented with some
very good stuff like an Embrace, Arc Lightning, and
Heat Ray.
It's always interesting to me to be on netdraft (playing
booster draft tourneys on the internet, free download
from www.dragonstudios.com) and hear someone say
something like "I can't believe Serra Avatar (or
whatever card) made it to me on the 3rd pick!" when
I don't consider it strong in draft. Different strokes
for different folks, I guess.
Ed B.
NFLed on everywhere
GLDNPLAYA5
how d dyou get away with 12 lands or even the 14 you say you have thats crazy
and what do you mean nobody thought about this do you think ground stall with
fliers is a new thing to do in draft your crazy anyways all i gotta say is i
guess you got good land draws
David Chapman
news:slrn7ka2b...@localhost.localdomain...
> On 20 May 1999 20:02:06 GMT, KShir10368 <kshir...@aol.com> wrote:
> >I love drafting Urza's Legacy. There have been a lot of times when I
open a
> >pack and wish I could draft 7 or 8 cards out of the bunch.
> >With Legacy, I prefer black because of the utility creatures. After
that, I go
> >for either green or blue depending on where the fat critters are.
> > Creature removal is great, but "indirect removal" is good, too. In
one
> >tournament I won, I had a Palinchron and a King Crab. That, plus 2 Giant
> >Cockroaches, took me all the way for the win.
>
> Why do you guys think that Giant Cockroach is good? I can't see
> anything good in it.
>
Because it's a 4-power creature for 4cc in an environment with low creature
removal - especially versus black creatures. Your opponent has 3 options:
block it with a super fattie (if he has one) and let a better creature live,
block it with an ordinary creature and lose it, or let it through and take 4
damage. These are not ideal choices.
--
Restate my assumptions: 1. Mathematics is the language of nature.
2. Everything around us can be represented and understood by numbers.
3. If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge.
Therefore, there are patterns everywhere in nature.
sent...@globalnet.co.uk
David Chapman
news:19990522032152...@ng-ck1.aol.com...
> >Creatures (17)
> >
> >3 Cloud of Faeries
> >2 Weatherseed Faeries
> >2 Vigilant Drake
> >2 Thornwind Faeries
> >1 Raven Familiar
> >
> >1 Jhoira's Toolbox
> >1 Ticking Gnomes
> >1 Thran War Machine
> >
> >2 Multani Acolyte
> >1 Lone Wolf
> >1 Simian Grunts
> >
> >Spells (9)
> >
> >2 Snap
> >2 Miscalculation
> >3 Frantic Search
> >
> >1 Rancor
> >
> >1 Crawlspace
> >
> >Lands (14)
> >
> >5 Island
> >6 Forest
> >1 Faerie Conclave (14)
> >
> >___
> >40
> how d dyou get away with 12 lands or even the 14 you say you have thats
crazy
> and what do you mean nobody thought about this do you think ground stall
with
> fliers is a new thing to do in draft your crazy anyways all i gotta say is
i
> guess you got good land draws
It could have a lot to do with his having only 3 cards that cost more than 3
to cast. A bit of simple mathematics tells us that to draw 3 land by turn 3
(i.e. in the first 9 cards) he needs to play 1/3 land. 1/3 of 40 is 14
(rounded up).
It could have something to do with his having 6 cards that allow him to draw
when he plays them and 5 cycling cards in his deck. When 25% of your deck
is manipulation, you tend to get good land draws.
Oh, and is it true that you are required to take an exam in spelling,
punctuation, grammar and politeness before you can sign up for AOL, and they
only let you in if you fail it?
NFLed
>> >Cockroaches, took me all the way for the win.
>>
>> Why do you guys think that Giant Cockroach is good? I can't see
>> anything good in it.
>>
>
>Because it's a 4-power creature for 4cc in an environment with low creature
>removal - especially versus black creatures. Your opponent has 3 options:
>block it with a super fattie (if he has one) and let a better creature live,
>block it with an ordinary creature and lose it, or let it through and take 4
>damage. These are not ideal choices.
There's another option and that is to block with one of the
very plentiful 2-power creatures (hardly a super fattie) in
the environment. There are about 25 common spells
(including creature spells) which can stop this card in
legacy alone.
In my opinion Giant Cockroach is over- rated except for
two factors: it's the highest-power common or uncommon
black creature in legacy (useful if your other color does not
have high-power stuff) and if you're able to have lots of
removal (one of black's strengths) then its low toughness
is not as important. On the plus side it can stop some of
the green fatties.
Still, it's only a slightly-below-average card overall but
sometimes you've gotta include such cards especially
to avoid not playing enough decent-power creatures.
Actually, from most people I talk to it isn't really over-
rated anyway, just an average card but not bad.
Ed B.
KShir10368
But, draft and sealed are different. It can black and kill the other guy's fat
critter. If you give it any kind of evasion (as I did with an enchantment that
made it unblockable), then it becomes a huge threat.
Remember, a lot of the cruddy cards in any set take on a whole new
significance in a limited environment.