Comments on: Standard Spike: M12 Draft

By: _ShipItHolla

_ShipItHolla — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 01:44:46 +0000

You’re all making some solid points about the flaws in my drafting strategy. I have definitely been overvaluing Timely Reinforcements, most likely because I used it to great affect in previous drafts, but the card really is too conditional to be as good as I make it seem. Also, the speed of the format has been slightly exaggerated making Timely Reinforcements also slightly worse.

When picking in the future, I will at least be taking Lawkeeper ahead of Timely Reinforcements.

By: Alcarin

Alcarin — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 01:50:05 +0000

What do you think about 2x (or 3x) Jace’s Erasure plus 2x (or 3x) Merfolk Mesmerist? Seems like you could definitely have gone control/mill with your Pride Guardians, blue 2/4s, and DoJ… Do you think that would be a reasonable strategy? I’m pretty new to MTG, so I’m not sure, but it seems like it.

Also, how did you discount black so early? You could have had several doom blades, sengir, and a few other decent things… What was it about blue that made you decide that?

Thanks,
Alcarin

By: Deathcloud9

Deathcloud9 — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 20:45:57 +0000

I think the problem is that his picks were guided by prior formats– where Black and White are typically hard to coincide together. What I see for his deck though was a good chance to splash Black. I’ve also heard that timely is a good card, but I don’t believe he was playing the card correctly (seeming to think that it only did something if you had less life totals). If he played more aggressively, the opp would have had to overextend into tokens beating him down. With the looter on board however (likely one or two he passed), he wasn’t able to get a good foothold in the match.

Lawkeeper would have been able to hold board position while setting up a better turn, and Looter would have been able to allow for a Black Splash. It seemed after picking a vanilla 2/4, he decided to go all in blue not play his 6/6 flying bomb.

He also picked an Auramancer over a BoneBreaker Giant before he really had a blue commitment. His next pick would have been the Minotaur 5/5 beater. I believe there was a good case for a W/R. (Late Shocks,etc.).

In disregarding Black he passed Sengir Vampires, Doom Blades, and multiple other cards (the only thing he really gained by going blue was a Mind Control). These, combined with DOJ, would have been pretty powerful.

By: fiffo

fiffo — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:45:18 +0000

i think he should have played the day sooner, he let him loot too many times..

By: ContraEgo

ContraEgo — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:31:02 +0000

In the second round, around 13:00, I think it was better to cast the Timely Reinforcements instead of the Day of Judgement. This would force him to play out other creatures, since the tokens would trade with the hound. Reinforcements is not good after sweeping, especially if you are going to play any creature immediately.

By: Ron

Ron — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 06:03:10 +0000

I do however LOVE the site design. It looks really slick!

By: Ron

Ron — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 06:00:54 +0000

Yeah, I can see how it seems like hindsight, but it honestly isn’t. Obviously there’s no way to prove I was wincing while watching the draft portion :-P. I’ve drafted this a fair bit in RL and just thought I’d give my thoughts. My intention isn’t to dis the drafter but rather to engender discussion. It’s hard to value cards coming right from standard, where timely reinforcements is a blowout.