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The Importance of Taking Cheap Spells Early in Zendikar Draft
January 5, 2010
Brian David-Marshall and I were talking about draft picks the other day when he brought up an incredibly important concept that I had up until that point been unable to properly articulate.
“Good, cheap spells make the rest of your deck better, whereas expensive spells and splashes place a burden on the rest of your picks and deck in exchange for powerful effects.”
He goes on to compare early drops versus marginally better expensive spells:
If you don’t see any good early drops, then you won’t be able to draft any good early drops. If the early drops that you see are sitting next to extremely impressive mid to late drops, then you are often going to have to take the more impressive card.
However, if it’s early in a draft and you have a choice between an early drop and a marginally better expensive spell, you should almost always go with the inexpensive option. The equity that you get out of having that cheap spell in your stack outweighs the value you would gain by having a card that is slightly more powerful in the abstract. You can find an easy substitute for a decent-good four-drop. You can’t find an easy substitute for a relevant one- or two-drop.
Zendikar Draft Pick Orders of the Top 5 Commons in Each Color
October 20, 2009
Magic The Gathering pro, LSV, gives us his commons pick orders for Zendikar draft in this article.
Also, he talks about allies, Hedron Crab, and the Harrow ramp deck. But the best thing to catch from his article is to learn for his mistake. He tried to draft control in the Grand Prix and Pro Tour, but he didn’t do very well. In fact, he went a combined 2-7. So, he switched to drafting mostly aggro and his results have been better.
Zendikar Draft Tips: Landfall, Cheap Aggro Dudes, and Equipment
October 16, 2009
Josh Utter-Leyton has a new article on Zendikar Draft and he goes over landfall, cheap aggressive creatures, equipment, and a common land.
Here are some of his points.
Landfall is a good linear strategy, so the more landfall cards you have, the better. If you have multiple landfall cards on the battlefield, then each land drop is going to have a big effect.
Steppe Lynx is one of white’s top five commons.
He likes Plated Geopede and thinks Trusty Machete is one of the best cards in the whole set.
Plated Geopede is definitely Red’s second-best common; Bladetusk Boar and Torch Slinger aren’t even especially close.
Trusty Machete is my choice for the very best card pack 1 pick 1; there’s not a single card in the set I would take over it. Even once you are settled into a color, I’m not convinced that any of the commons are better. At uncommon and rare, I can just about count on two hands the number of cards I would want over Machete once in their colors, and Machete is still very close to all of them.
He likes Adventuring Gear and thinks it could actually be better than the top commons in the five colors.
He is not impressed with Explorer’s Scope, Grappling Hook, and Blade of the Bloodchief.
He talks about Soaring Seacliff as an interesting combo with Ruinous Minotaur, Oran-Rief Recluse, and Tajuru Archer.
How to Play Lands in Zendikar Limited
September 15, 2009
Landfall is going to add some complexity in Limited, which I like. Normally, you just play all your lands save one or two automatically, since that is the best play. You might draw a card draw spell (you do have card draw in all your Limited decks, right?), and having your lands in play is going to be best. Now, you have to think about purposely missing even your fourth land drop. If you have a ton of Landfall, you can’t afford to waste land drops for nothing, as that is almost like missing out on a free spell. If Landfall is that good, you will definitely be playing more than 17 or even 18 lands in some decks, which sounds excellent to me. Lessening the chance of mana screw without getting flooded is always a good thing.
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