Comments on: Making the Right Pick

By: Edison Huff

Edison Huff — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 01:06:50 +0000

Hey I wasn’t sure how to contact you Dustin, but I saw your balancing suspend modern deck and was wondering how much testing you had done, and what variations you have tried.

I was thinking about changing the mana base / cascade /suspend options around and was wondering what matchups you brought in boom/bust.

By: Bob Lang

Bob Lang — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 07:22:42 +0000

First of all, LMFAO at the three tries to spell “Sentence.” That made my week and it’s only Monday.

I am relatively new to Magic and I thoroughly enjoy drafting online and at FNM. In fact, I just finished 3-1 for the first time last week (lost my first match when I got mana screwed and they top decked the perfect card).

Anyhow, I brag I brag. lol… from my limited experience in drafting, I find I am having more success the more I simplify the process. Yes, last week getting a second and third pick Ascended Lawmage made my decisions easier going forward, but it also told me what the persons to my right was NOT doing. They were not in Azorious. I always heard of signals, and everyone trying to figure out what people were doing, that no one had ever told me it was far easier to figure out what people were not doing. I didn’t know if they were in Gruul or Orzhov or Simic. I had no idea what they WERE taking. But I most certainly could tell what they were not taking and I loaded up on every blue and white card I could get my hands on when there were no gates or gatekeepers (so much fun to play I just can’t help myself).

It was… an epiphany for a new player like me. Find a simple thing to focus on, then use that to build on. For me, it was what good cards are not being taken and letting that guide me to the colors I will have the best chance to get. That may be the point of this whole article, and I may have totally missed it and all along been trying to figure out how people could figure out what I WAS taking instead of what I wasn’t. But I thought I would throw in a fairly new player’s perspective.

By: Chucke Johnsons Jr

Chucke Johnsons Jr — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 05:06:35 +0000

*sentance

By: Chucke Johnsons Jr

Chucke Johnsons Jr — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 12:35:07 +0000

*sentence

By: Chucke Johnsons Jr

Chucke Johnsons Jr — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 10:41:04 +0000

THis is an bad article! Jus take tha money > tha bombs > tha removal > other stuff.

Thats the entire flowchart in one sentense for ya’ll.

By: The_Great_Dustini

The_Great_Dustini — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 05:03:05 +0000

Fishy, you might be confusing what philosophers call “epistemic” vs “metaphysical” issues. Epistemic in this context refers to what we can know, while metaphysical refers to how things are. The point of my article is not that we can always know the correct pick , but that there is a correct pick that we should try to discern. Even if we the complexity is beyond us, that doesn’t disprove my point. The idea is that we should move past the notion of “preference” whenever we can’t figure it out, and instead habituate an investigation of the reasons why some picks are better than others. Usually packs can be narrowed down to just a few cards under consideration, and having a framework in mind (i.e. a list of relevant factors) is helpful toward that goal.

By: mike

mike — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 02:36:27 +0000

@Fishy

Also the `atoms in the universe` argument sounds impressive but in practice is not useful or even an accurate description of a draft. Nobody is going to p1p1 mending touch or a whole host of other cards. The vast majority of decisions are so bonkers that it does not make sense to analyze them even if we had the computing power.