Subject: Re: Of DojoChat, PTQs, drafting, etc. Author: Dan Brannigan at internet Date: 6/18/98 10:37 AM I'd thought I'd go ahead and write up an excessively long mail about limited strategy now. What strikes me is that the Dojo, though it really should have a lot of limited strategy posted to it, has a noticable lack of good discussion on it, besides simple listing of the strong cards in the different limited environments. Heck, if you wanted to forward this to Frank it might not be such a bad idea. The first rule of limited strategy is a core that is overlooked by a lot of newer players (a category I wouldn't group you into) as vital- the right land distribution. A lot of otherwise solid drafters I've seen fall flat just because of their tendancy to run land light, and attempt to compensate with very weak mana sources (notably dark ritual and lotus petal, and now the far worse culling of the weak... it is pretty hard to get _worse_ than ritual in limited). It may be the fair scarcity of good cards in limited, but the environment forces you to be in a situation where you need to get the utmost utility from your single cards- and this entails never missing a land drop very early on, and being able to play your mana curve very well. Though some would argue with me on this point, I _never_ paris if I hit a very high land draw in limited- even an all land mulligan... though the all land mulligan can be fairly risky. Anyways, I'd play 17 land in a fast draft deck. One popular way of doing what % you should run of the two color lands you get is count the colored casting costs of all your spells, then do a ratio and follow that ratio in your land. If you intend to use the buyback of spells, you probably want to count the colored there (example would be mindgames, count it as UU instead of U for this ratio purpose). I tend not to overanalyze the proper ratio and more just have a feel for it- I tend to overcompensate land wise, I'd much rather hit a glut than a stall in limited. When in doubt, wakefield on land. In draft, if I get a more controllish deck (like the Red/Blue CMU strategy towards TE/SH/SH) I play 18 land. The extra land makes a noticable difference in a 40 card deck. This is why new players get _wrecked_ by going 13-14 land. They'll do great for a number of games, hitting mostly business cards, but they will get mana screwed badly. Also, until you are very, very, very comfortable with draft, never ever break the minimum of 40 cards. Don't go 41 unless you have a very good reason for doing it, and given the choice if you are new to drafting with good players I'd always take a 40 card strategy over a 43 card deck that has apocalypse. Running 40 cards goes a long way to making sure you don't run very janky cards- and causes you to not glut on spells to throw your mana off. It is a fairly simple rule that should help to no end. In sealed, the land becomes a bit more tricky. Because you need to run 3 colors almost always, I tend to play 18 more often than 17, and draw first for the extra card. Most of the other players in my region tend to play first, and the argument for and against drawing/playing is a difficult one in Rath Cycle, because it is far faster than previous limited environments. But, I believe that as long as you got cheap, efficient creature removal in your limited deck, then you are better off drawing first. Possibly exception to this is if both you and your opponents have rootwaters or fireslingers as your only removal, and both are heavy on 1 toughness. But even with both being reasonably common (if hard to get), that situation is pretty rare. Double castings is a much bigger issue in sealed because of the three colors. In draft, I have little compunction about running double colored if the spells are good enough (thunder for example should probably be run if you are playing red in draft, despite the RR, it is just too good). If you are lucky in sealed, you can play one color primarily and squeeze by on doubles for it, and then just run 1 colored in the secondaries, or run 2 similar prime colors with few doubles and a splash of a third with no doubles at all. Your land should probably be 7/7/4, 8/6/4, or similar. As I said, I tend to run 18, so other people prefer different mana ratios. The only final note I have on mana ratios is extra sources. Manakin I'd be likely to use if I got a reasonable number of 4 cc, I probably wouldn't run him only if I was trying to do a shadow speed beatdown. Stalking stones is an excellent extra land, and maze of shadows is a good choice also. They can help round out a 17 colored land complement, though I'd be wary of using them to reach 17 with just 16 colored unless you were going with a very low cc deck. Anyways, enough about mana. TE/TE/TE draft was all about black/red. With its common creature removal, good common beef (in red), and common shadow, I felt very bad if I wasn't running black red. White was okay with shadow, and some creature removal, green had beef but little ways to stop evasion (heartwood and canopy spider) and no removal cept heartwood giant, blue had some common removal (pingers), capsize, allure, counters, some okay flying. Though with the possible exception of fighting drake and winged drake, I didn't really like blue's beatdown ability in TE/TE/TE. Playing U creatures, I noted that a watchdog would usually wreck you, and that's very uncomfortable. TE/SH/SH changed a lot with black being pretty weak in the set. It got deathstroke (creature removal, however conditional, is always good), and some playable creatures- but except for a tremendous rare (Gravepact) is overall the weakest color in SH. This almost ruled out the old Black/red strategy unless you are drafting uncontested, and are able to stock up on red in SH, which is very good. (FAN!). Blue, however, got a tremendous boost in this set, with some good fliers, sift (very good imho), and big blockers. Green got more fat, no removal. But its fat is SO big that drafting green became more viable _as long_ as you get a creature removal splash. If you were able to draft Mono G fat at a table cause everyone was avoiding it, your best hope would be that the creature elim was so divided, the shadow so contested, that no one deck would be able to remove your fat and be able to race you with shadow. But I'd still avoid trying to play all fat, the Rath cycle just has too much good common removal for that to be that viable. White gained a great deal of good creatures in SH- the en-cor is not to be underated as an ability, and with spirit en cor white and TE shadow, white is notably hard to evade. Smite is questionable removal. I only like it if my opponent is playing fat, or playing questionable creature enchantments. Heroes resolve is an even better pick because of the Kor creatures, and heroes resolve already was a pretty good choice. Conviction added onto that strategy, and though white gained no spot removal, it is a pretty good SH color. Red, already probably the strongest in TE, gained a good deal in SH. Shock is great point removal, a very good pick. Flowstone blade is slow, but decent removal. Compartively, I'd say a much better removal spell than cannabalize. Fanning is a very gamebreaking pick, beware that card. If you can actually draft enough red, flamewave is a great limited card- don't let people doubt you. It's not a splash card though.:) Flunkies are a great creature (remember that flunkies can use one another to attack, if a bunch get passed to you in a draft), but their drawback is significant against decks packing a lot of removal. SH had some really good red fat, but most of it is uncommon or rare. Red first picks in SH are something for everyone to fear, though. Exodus analysis. White, I'd judge, overall to be the strongest EX color. Getting both shackles and Kor-chant as common creature removal is just some good. But, I think the bulk of its creatures in EX are very bad. Soul Warden is underrated and overrated alternatively, but I think you could make an argument for it being one of the best common white picks after the removal cards- I consider life gaining to be weak overall but this, like wisdom and tower, is just too much to not be taken into consideration. I'd take soul warden over standing troops or charging paladin, and possibly in the right deck he could be better than visionary, but that's a stretch (at Four Corners, got into an argument with some other players about visionary vs soul warden). The white buybacks in EX I'd avoid playing with the exception of pegasus stampede- allay and the zuran orb one are just too conditional, probably. Blue in EX has a few broken cards, a few middle of the road cards, and some unplayable ones. Dominating licid, if your opponent has no answers for it the round you play it, is a bad place to be for your opponent. Blue got a lot of flying fat, which is always good, and some decent shadow. The problem is besides the licid its removal is mediocre at best, making it similar to green as a fat color, with the possibility of some tremendous cards. Green got a _lot_ of good creatures in EX, with little else. Green has been pretty consistent at that in Rath cycle. The Pygmy troll is a good cheap regenerater for rath cycle, something it had been missing, as both skyshroud troll and carnassid were slow. I don't care much for the alligator- being an easier splash doesn't make up for it by and large being weaker than skyshroud troll, but a regen is a regen, I suppose. Wolverines, Boars, The Bunnies, etc all add to the tremendous fat you can play, while wood elves and avenging druid help make it easier to pull off. The enchantments green got I generally dislike. The +1/+1 1 cc green enchantment per summoned creature would be possibly good against some decks, but I don't like enchant creatures as a general principle that are as easily removed as that. Oath of Druids _can_ be strong, but is difficult to use. Manabind or whatever the new fastbind is called is just bad. Green, of course, got no creature removal. Black is still debateable for the set. I like it better than SH's black, with commons like Death's Duet, and more shadow (the Cutthroat is some good in limited). One card I debate is Mind Maggots. Losing playable (creature) cards is something I despise, but the card won me more games at the prerelease than I thought possible. Having a turn 4 8/8 that is untaretable by banish was just amazing. I still fear about losing to shackles, pacifism,smite, or kor-chant. Possibly should be sideboarded out against white opponents, and I'd be concerned about death stroke, and canabilize/edict make it dangerous to have one or no other creatures respectively. And yet, that dangerous card wraps up a tremendous number of games, probably because even if your opponent has one of the numerous answers to it in the Cycle, they have so few turns to draw the answer that it is very powerful. About other black creatures- The Spike anti-spike is pretty good, maybe wouldn't run it standard, but worth thinking about, carnophage and (lot of debate on this one) grollub are decent creatures of the line. Creature removal wise, slaughter is very, very, very good, and cursed flesh is okay enough to run straight up. Red, out of the three sets, this is the time where I like it the least. Don't get me wrong, it is still strong, but it is a notch below where it is in each of the previous. It got some common fat (with a few common regens you actually see some play out of furnace spirits ability, though to be honest the one game I used it in the prerelease was to kill a spinal grafted fatty), sonic burst and mage il-vec are good removal but the randomness really hurts the cards playability. On the upside, the salamander is a tremendous card- the ability to lock an opponent with 1 toughness creatures, and play sort of a super pinger is very good. Overall, the salamander may be one of the best red creatures, outclassed only by the rare stormbind ogre and wyvern. So, to sum it all up I think the key to Rath cycle draft is pick your two colors carefully, and draft them heavily in the sets where they are strongest, and avoid them in their weak sets. If I were to be given a choice of what colors to draft uncontested, I'd probably go with white/red, because of the stability of white in all 3 sets, and the strength of red in the first two with it being reasonably stable in the last one. However, realisticly, how I'll pick my colors is I'll take a removal for a color that I open to and watch in the first few picks what colors go by that would reasonably assure me what colors they are leaning towards, and play accordingly. If I play black/green, I'd draft probably very little green in TE, mostly green in SH, and probably fairly even between the two in EX depending on what comes up. If I drafted blue/something, I'd probably avoid blue mostly in TE, and take up the good blue in SH. BTW, blue is a good color to consider, since good blue is scarce in TE, so if you open good blue and draft the little good blue that comes around, you could get tons of it in SH and EX where it is strong. Problems are when people open capsize or hunter in TE, they may decide to go blue. Red is a color that is difficult to draft, because burn is such an obviously good choice, the only time you get passed it is when people don't want to commit to red (take a string over a thunder as 1st pick), multiple good red comes up, or people don't have much experience with limited.:) Ideally, people next to you won't be drafting your colors, and your draft will be improved by no small degree, but unless you are playing rochester, you can't be 100% sure. At four corners, I made a very good black/green deck (about 6 or 7 black removal cards, edict, banishes, justice, deathstrokes, etc) and good green fat (3 endangered armaddons, good support), and it turns out the the person to my left and the person to his left both went black/green. There was enough good green/black at the draft that we weren't able to guess that someone so close to us was drafting "our" cards, and denying good early picks. It is because of that lack of information that I prefer Rochester largely, even if that alters strategy in regards to how you receive early picks.