Initial Technology – Drafting M10 | Magic: The Gathering

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Pingback LSV’s Pick Orders for Drafting M10 says: July 13, 2009 @ 9:37 pm

[...] gives us his pick orders for the commons and uncommons of M10. The good news is that pick orders are possibly more useful [...]

MckHick says: July 13, 2009 @ 10:04 pm

Good article. It’s nice to see that I am grasping foreign formats better and better, since my own list of the top 15 commons was eerily similar to yours. Things that were huge that I saw at the pre-release were specifically doom blades, gravediggers, howling banshees, and courser centaur. Maybe I’m over-evaluating the centaur but he was a powerhouse for me possibly Top 20 in my eyes, and about the only thing that straight stops him without any loss of casualties is horned troll, something that I doubt many people will be running multiples of.

Jason says: July 13, 2009 @ 10:43 pm

From the looks of it red was the shallowest color in the set. Sure it has lightning bolt and Seismic strike, but short of those it doesn’t seem to have much.

Also whats your thoughts on the 1/4 blocks everything guy?

lsv says: July 13, 2009 @ 10:55 pm

The 1/4 is decent, and I think pretty much all the White commons besides Lifelink, Holy Strength and Angel’s Mercy are very playable, although Soul Warden is on the lower end.

joe says: July 13, 2009 @ 11:36 pm

LSV, you don’t like lifelink as pseudo-removal? : /

tony says: July 13, 2009 @ 11:36 pm

The pick orders seem pretty much right on point comapred to the 7-8 M10 drafts I have done so far. I do place howl of the night pack pretty high because of how much slower this format is comapred to shadowmoor/eventide.

Also, easily the sickest card interaction I have seen so far is ant queen + soul warden.. just gaining sill amounts of life..

Adsy says: July 13, 2009 @ 11:48 pm

Joe, Lifelink doesn’t work as faux-removal like Spirit Link used to unfortunately. If you put it on your opponents creature, the opponent gets the life gain from the Lifelink.

Alex Cuevas says: July 13, 2009 @ 11:51 pm

First of all, great article. Very to the point, and has a lot of useful information. However, I disagree with a couple of the orderings.

First, in white – I would actually put Harm’s way above Armored Ascension… although amazing unanswered, there is so much unconditional removal in the format, as well as stuff like Deadly Recluse / Righteousness / other blocking shenanigans, that I would rather have Harm’s Way above it. Just an amazingly versatile, powerful, and cheap card with acts as great removal in such an aggressive color. I would still keep the Ascension as 5th, probably. (keep in mind that when you are not in mono-white, Ascension risks being a slightly improved oakenform)

Blue I pretty much agree with completely… as you said, very straightforward color.

As for black, I also agree that the cards are very difficult to evaluate, considering the existence of mono-black… for this reason it might be wise to make 2 lists, one for mono black and one for black paired with another color. That being said, if black is your main color or you are playing mono black, such that you can consistently cast Sign in Blood, I would rank it below Black Knight on your list. It is much better in black than Divination in blue, I would say, as not only is the two-drop slot incredibly important (black’s 3-drop slot is loaded with common playables, not so much two-drops), but also the life loss is almost negligible when you consider the dearth of black life gain effects in the format. For this reason, I would also rank Child of Night on that list, and I think Dread Warlock should be there too (his evasion is almost better than flying, really). I’d put them up there in favor of Mind Rot and Drudge Skeletons. Feel free to discuss, as Black’s card evaluations are the hardest of all of the colors’.

Lastly, for Green, I would put Howl Of the Night Pack above Craw Wurm (and definitely above Enormous Baloth). As I noted above, there are tons of unconditional (or nearly unconditional) removal spells in the format, so the ability to produce multiple threats is very important. Given all of green’s mana fixing, and its strength as a main rather than peripheral color, I would reasonably expect to hit 4 or more on each Howl, which is far better than Craw Wurm and Baloth IMO.

john says: July 14, 2009 @ 1:33 am

8th on release day, 1st in sealed the second day, and 1st in the draft later that night going W/U/g, and G/R/w respectively.
Albeit, I did get Baneslayer, Serra Angel, Guardian Sereph, Cloak, 2x Pacifism, 2x Wind Drake, etc. on day one – and-
Ajani, Siege-Gang, Platinum Angel, Earthquake, 3x Llanowar Elves, etc. during the draft.

…not attacking into divine verdict with Platinum Angel wins games. I guess topdecking a Lightning Bolt to kill their Prized Unicorn when you know they have divine verdict does too

unknown says: July 14, 2009 @ 2:49 am

i read all of the articles on here and SCG and other magic content web sites and normally I like your stuff… This however, just feels like you couldnt come up with a good idea… it was BORRRRRING!!!

SOrry mate… but it was sorry…

Im not hatin I think you are great.

Just this wasnt

get excited man! Or just do videos if you dont have anything interesting to write about… the videos are great

Handsome says: July 14, 2009 @ 2:50 am

I’m surprised that you ranked Rise from the Grave so low. Killing their Serra Angel, taking it with Rise from the Grave… I did this countless times at the prerelease.

Kenyon says: July 14, 2009 @ 3:35 am

Not impressed with safe passage? I think it’s better than undead slayer and griffin sentinel. I’m also suprised that elite vanguard didn’t make your list. It seems hard to believe that the core set has gotten so strong that uncommon savannah lions with a relevant creature type aren’t good.

TheSIN says: July 14, 2009 @ 6:29 am

No love for Awakener Druid? That guy is nuts.

Will says: July 14, 2009 @ 6:48 am

Wow, Sign in Blood below Drudge Skeletons and Divination below Horned Turtle. I would have though lsv liked drawing cards more than those orders would indicate.

I totally agree with the first four paragraphs of this article. I left the prerelease a little bit disappointed because the Limited format was so…simple. I’ll be interested to see if GP:Boston shows it to have more depth than I first thought.

J_Klimek says: July 14, 2009 @ 6:50 am

Safe Passage was like a one sided Wrath for me all weekend. Elite Vanguard is great in all soldiers, but without some Smiths he gets outclassed pretty quickly.

Hoosegow says: July 14, 2009 @ 7:26 am

Awakener Druid straight up won me a couple games last weekend.

bane2000 says: July 14, 2009 @ 8:44 am

Blue and Red look bad on paper, but i drafted a U/R deck and won the pre-release quite definitively… I think if you try to draft those colors they are much better than they seem.

Lucas Siow says: July 14, 2009 @ 9:05 am

way underrating safe passage i think

EuroRunner says: July 14, 2009 @ 10:39 am

I concur with the opinions on safe passage. On two separate occasions i ran out siege gang commander into a follow-up overrun only to have it countered in combat via safe passage.

How’s this for ridiculous; Harm’s way + goblin artillery. Move to my end step with 6 life, my opponent(Nate Bramlett for anyone who plays in midwest PTQ’s) go’s activate artillery harm’s way two from him to me, untap, upkeep, do it again? Ridiculous

Stan says: July 14, 2009 @ 10:49 am

awakener druid IS nuts, it should make your list LSV, although it is WAY better in sealed than in draft, but still, its good.

Brad says: July 14, 2009 @ 11:29 am

I’m going to have to agree with Alex’s comments from yesterday. I drafted B/U with 4x weakness 2x Consume Spirit 2x Doom Blade and a Rise From The Grave. All I needed after that was my Dread Warlock, my Phantom Warrior and some drakes and I owned the draft. Evasion + Removal = I win.

Zrs1 says: July 14, 2009 @ 11:57 am

I think that U/R is very underated. I drafted U/R during the pre-release and realized how strongly everyone want to play green. So when you realize that no one wants to takes air elementals your stuck in blue and a 5th pick sleep always helps with mind control. Red is really strong in draft. Having creatures with firebreathing is amazing and causing your opponent to automatically go on the defensive. Along with red having removal in the for of direct and reusable damage, goblin attillery and pyromance, it makes for a great draft. Even though you left the counterspells low on the totem pole having 6 counterspells in my deck was fine.

I also think that your evaluation of black was correct. I also did another draft i won with a B/R aggro deck. This does essentially the same thing with red but throws in recursion and removal for black. I had 0 doom blades, tendrals, or fireballs and did fine. The goal is to draft evasive creatures that 2 for 1 your opponent without causing you to majorly slow down.

Oh and by the way Rod of Ruin, although on the high end of the curve, and gorgon’s flail are amazing in any deck and should be fairly high on your order for drafting.

lsv says: July 14, 2009 @ 2:06 pm

I really like defensive guys, although it’s certainly possible that the draw2′s are better than them. Drudge Skeletons in particular can just shut down some pretty enormous men, and some green decks can’t really do anything to get rid of it, although Entangling Vines does a good job.

Rise from the Grave is good, but I have trouble seeing myself take it over most of the good cards that work on their own. If you end up a little lacking in removal, or neither of you plays a really good creature (which is possible) than it is just a solid card instead of an insane one. Its value definitely goes up with removal / bombs though, and can become quite a high pick later in the draft.

Robb says: July 14, 2009 @ 2:24 pm

How is Safe Passage not even in the list, and Undead Slayer, a Gray Ogre 80% of the time, is in it? Some are calling it the best common in the set.

Falkor says: July 14, 2009 @ 2:37 pm

lsv

One of the things that I noted at the prerelease as far as synergy in the core set that is lacking from most core sets was the increasing power of certain cards when played in a mono-color deck.

White and Black both seem deep enough that they can support mono-colored decks, and Red becomes substantially better (as you mentioned) when you can reliably support some of the non-splashable uncommons like Dragon Whelp.

Even Blue can be somewhat difficult to run without some fixing when some of its best cards have UU costs like Illusionary Servant, Air Elemental, even its strong rares like the Djinn and Traumatize.

So, if I noticed one synergy in the core set that is generally lacking is the subtle shift to mono-colored drafts to increase some of the power level of late pack picks.

Noellad says: July 14, 2009 @ 2:41 pm

Awakener Druid seems ok as a surprise attack, but every time my opponents cast it this weekend, I had removal for their new treefolk. I was basically able to 2 for 1 them by getting rid of a threat and a mana source, then they’re just left with a 1/1 to chump block with.

dipstik says: July 14, 2009 @ 3:08 pm

child of night + rightousness was awesome

Stan says: July 14, 2009 @ 4:28 pm

@noellad were you playing in sealed or draft?
in sealed the druid is nuts, but in draft its not as good, but still, if they kill your 4/5 man-land, they probably wasted a good piece of removal like a doomblade etc.. on your land. you can compare it to token producers i guess as you get two guys for one card. On turn 4 he’s good, and then they kill it, but then you have a better follow up threat like the 4/4 trample guy that they wished they killed, not to mention that you can really clog up the board quick with the druid and the centuar 3/3 for three and then a cudgel troll, etc…

Tokwana says: July 14, 2009 @ 6:34 pm

Ilusionary Servant should be higher in your blue pick list. I understand that it turns Giant Growth or other random target spells into removal…but most of these spells are removal anyway. I would pick a Servant over Snapping Drake, an extra two points of toughness for -1 mana? Seems good. Of course, if I am looking to splash blue it would be iffy due to the double blue, but Servant should definitely get more love here.

Mike says: July 14, 2009 @ 7:00 pm

Hey, what about levitation??

That card made me win almost all the matches last weekend.

Marauder21 says: July 14, 2009 @ 7:49 pm

Way underating Safe passage and you’re overrating Undead Slayer.

Figazin says: July 14, 2009 @ 10:19 pm

I laughed a lot wheen seeing the cards that show up when overrun is highlighted. Lol

Great report

M. says: July 15, 2009 @ 9:05 am

I didn’t notice it, but the several Overrun’s are definitively funny! I got one yesterday first booster third pick…

SteakAndAlePie says: July 16, 2009 @ 9:50 am

When you evalueate rares please include Overrun. I want to see how it stands besides Baneslayer Angel and Ant Queen

No love for Safe Passage irritates me. Maybe you just forgot the card?

Dave says: July 17, 2009 @ 8:24 pm

Thanks for a Great Article,

Here is some feedback from me,

I agree with most of the top picks in each color – some of those i would disagree with has already been pointed out.

However, M10 is an expansion where the speed of each color is pretty equal, but blue has been and also here, it can’t catch up with a green or white “Creaturemassive” deck. I tried splashing blue for cards like Sleep and Essence Scatter (a truely undersestimated card, at least on my drafts – and sealed decks), but i found it best to keep out of. Well, if more people would reason like me, blue would be fully open to even go monocolored – but still it wouldn’t be able to keep up with the style of which Green or White agro would be seen.

At my prerelease, i opened a very overpowered pool with 2 Overruns, 2 Kalonian Behemoth, 1 Garruk for example – but on my way to top8 i was threatened a few times actually, by the power of flyers, especially white and blue ones. And that’s another thing to watch in your draft pools – if you see a lot of flying fellows beeing passed around, don’t be afraid to drop your color and picking them – a 3/2 flyer for 4 mana is actually really heavy in this format, however a 2/1 flying white common could stop him…

With all this said – as the weakest color of M10 in draft probably is red. But depending on the meta of drafters, white and green could be a bit hard to get hold on – so if you’re following the stream and going that way – you will be playing threecolored, and there is not much manafix, besides the green ones – therefore, if you wanna pick the white/greens, make sure to start with the green cards, mostley the green commons + terramorphic expanse, at least this is what i’ve reckon from my latest drafts with, mostly, experienced drafters.

Good luck everyone, and thanks again for a nice article – and as you said, I don’t see how m10 is supposed to be the official format of the GPs, and a bit booring perhaps..

hubbard says: July 20, 2009 @ 3:59 am

top 4 a prerelease with UG lost vs GW in finals (32) he had 2 hurricanes in sideboard
top 1 a release with UW win vs GW in finals(26) serra angel ftw
top 2 a release with Mono-B lost vs Mono-U in finals (21) he had 3 mind control and 3 air elemental (shure)
top 2 a release with UW lost vs UW in finals (19)i had to mull to 4 last game

In my experience U/W are the top choices followed by G
Mono-B is just so good i would draft that everytime
And R its only good for splash (bolt,pyromancer and pyroclasm)

this article helped me a lot, thx a lot for it

Wes says: July 27, 2009 @ 3:12 pm

Mono-B is so strong in this format. Sure, you won’t be passed doom blades, but Tendrils of Corruption takes over games if you have enough Swamps and your opponent doesn’t clog the board with Illusionary Servants. The Shade is one of the strongest cards in the game if you have the mana to support it. The double B cards that are so difficult to run in decks that splash black are insane in mono-B. Sign in Blood gives you a steady stream of answers/creatures, the Warlock gets through all the pesky creatures of other colors, Black Knight is first-pickable in later packs due to the lack of good 2-drops, and it’s just plain good. If you’re trying to play mono-black, you will want to take those insanely good splashable cards as soon as possible (Rise from the Grave, Doom Blade, Gravedigger, etc.) and consider holding off on the Tendrils, Shades, etc. It can be a bit of a catch-22 because these Swamp-intensive cards might signal to others that mono-B is still open, so be careful.

@lsv: I have to agree with some of the other posters. Illusionary Servants are just sick. I would have preferred them as the 4/4′s they were originally, but then they’d be over-drafted and W/U flying beats would have been sickly overpowered. Sure, they die easy, but when your opponent is tendrils-ing them, they get no life from it. Often times, your opponent is forced to waste doom blade, pacifism, lightning bolt, etc. on it because there simply aren’t any other serious threats and they don’t have one of those stupid little tricks in hand. Then, you can drop your Air Elemental, Serra Angel, or other bomby flier.

Julian Barrett says: July 28, 2009 @ 8:55 pm

this article is true to what i’ve experienced. I won my prerelease off a Green-blue deck splashing red for fireball(two rangers, a rampant and an expanse). Mind control is absolutely insane because it’s essentially a free bomb. there’s nothing like enchanting a baneslayer and going to town. and even then, i also stole an elvish piper and managed to sneak a craw wurm and an air elemental into play before my opp wasted a bolt on it.

I’ll be at GP boston with a bunch of friends and i hope to see you there, LSV.

Just not, you know, across the table in the first round.
>_<

James Gray says: August 1, 2009 @ 2:11 am

Howl of the Night Pack has always been a huge threat. I think it is usually higher on the list than shown here. If Tendrils of Corruption is high on the list despite wanting to be in a mono color deck, then Howl of the Night Pack should be higher on the list.

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Initial Technology – Drafting M10

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Luis Scott-Vargas

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