Krbmeister's AVR Draft #3

http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=3af5g

This is my first time drafting mono black. I was able to get a ton of removal so I was happy. I typically play a more aggressive style which I think made my deck torn on how to work. There's a great article about the control/aggro mono black deck (http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/li/196) which I wish I had thought about more while drafting. Now I know for next time!

I was pretty happy with my deck. Ended up going 1-2 though. I have to credit some of this to miss plays. There were definitely some tricks I missed. M2G3 with a dead heat and I was just one turn too slow.
I didn't see a single butcher's ghoul or blood artist which was a bummer too.

P1P3: Black seems good here. It's not typically my first choice but there are three great cards for black and not much else. What's the pick here?

P1P5: Grave exchange just seems so slow. Is the creature better here?

P2P1: Slaver over Mist Raven? Raven would have definitely pushed me to BU but mono black was just looking so good.

P2P2: Splinters vs Death wind?

P3P1: Amass vs Appetite?

P3P4: What's better? Second Seclusion or Second Taskmaster?

P3P5: Grave Exchange is the better pick here going more control. By this point I shouldn't have been looking for cheap stuff.

Deck Construction: Looking back now, I should have been thinking about more control. Set up board states to effectively utilize my double barter in blood. Take out the hunted ghoul and crypt creeper for the grave exchange and predator's gambit (probably should have had more grave exchanges anyway instead of those cards). Is the moonsilver spear worth playing? It may be slow but 4/4 flying angles are great! I paired this with the bloodflow connoisseur and homicidal seclusion and just got a +1/+1 counter with every attack for a win.

Is it worth it to splash blue? What about with a mist raven too? I just think it's so much nicer to not have to worry about the mana base here.

Thanks for all the help everyone!

Oraymw's AVR limited overview part 2

Seriously guys (and gals!), what are you still doing here.  Click the hyperlink already.

Christian's AVR Draft #1

http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=3a4d9

Hey all.  Allow me to present my first AVR draft to go public.  Brief background: I've played casually since 4th edition.  I got into limited just as Mirrodin was ending and Champions was coming up (awful time to get started), and really got hooked during Ravnica.  I've screwed around with limited ever since.  This draft was my 5th AVR draft ever, so please be harsh and help me learn.  Now on with the show.

I felt very uncomfortable after the first pack.  I generally avoided black and white since I was getting green aggressive cards, and I'd rather be aggressive than not.  Pack two looked a lot better.  Still, even during deckbuilding, I felt like I had only a mediocre GR aggro deck.  It sported an aggressive curve, but had few big plays outside of the Burn at the Stake and very little reach.

However, the deck performed much better in the games than it looked on paper.  Joint Assault + Hanweir Lancer led to more than one blowout, and I drew Burn at the Stake in 5 of my 6 games.  Three of those went to the dome, and twice I used it as removal to keep a giant flier from murdering me in my sleep.  I drew my low drops early and often and never saw turn 9.  Three of my games ended on turn 5.  The scariest thing I saw on the other side of the board was T3 Triumph of Ferocity, T4 Mist Raven, T5 hardcast Blessings of Nature for a 6/6 flier.  Even still, I had 5 guys on the board and killed him on turn 6 (though I needed the +1/+1 from Snare the Skies to get there).  Ultimately, none of my opponents were doing anything quickly, and I either didn't stumble or recovered quickly.

Despite the success, I have a couple major questions to pose to you all.

1) P1P3: Ranger vs. Wolf vs. Ringleader - I think Ringleader is the most explosive, and Ranger is the safest pick.  I was happy to have the Ranger in my pile as he found my 3rd mountain on more than one occasion, opening a game-ending witchunt.  However, outside of 2RRR rares, is the Ringleader just better?

2) P2P1: Striker vs. Pillar - classic question.  I believe the Striker is the choice, but am open to other ideas.

3) P2P6: Justice vs. Revolt - I believe Revolt was the pick here and I chose wrong.  As much as I like the reach from Justice, what happens if its the last card in your hand?  Eeww.

4) P3P3: Spider vs. Nightshade Ugly Man - I have no idea, though I suspect the answer is "they're both about equal."

5) Deckbuilding: Pathbreaker Wurm - I shouldn't be including him, right?  I loved Joint Assault whenever I drew it, and I think the second one is just going to be better than a 6-drop.  Alternatively, this could have been Scroll of Avacyn for more consistency.

6) Deckbuilding: I kept finding that Mad Prophet was underwhelming in the 4-slot.  Having haste was nice to put another body into the red zone sooner, but whenever I sided in Eaten by Spiders, I usually took the second Prophet out.  Thoughts?

Krbmeister's AVR Draft #2

http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=3ac2e

Here's my second AVR draft. It wasn't quite as exciting as the first. I went 0-2 plus a win from a bye. I got sucked into white from my first two picks and never quite found what I wanted the deck to do. Got some of the cool human cards but I think the deck was just split trying to do two different things but wasn't good enough at either one. Definitely could use some help figuring out how to have done this better.

What's better? Lightning prowess or Guies of Fire?

Is Burn at the Stake playable? What about Angel of Jubilation? Defy Death?

Oraymw's AVR Draft #2

http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=3a6nv

I ended up in UG again, no surprises there, but it's definitely where I want to be. The draft portion went really well. I could have picked up some strong Red and White cards in pack 2, but passing them on seemed pretty good, since I really got hooked up in pack three.

My questions are as follows:

1. P1P9 seems like it shouldn't matter much, but I'm interested in what people think about taking the sideboard card over the distraction.
2. Should I have jumped into Red or White in pack two, or was I right to keep passing it down the line?
3. This is the big one. P3P3... do you take Mist Raven or Soul of the Harvest?

As for deckbuilding, I decided to cut the Deathwind / Abundant Growth package. Keeping it would have meant cutting both Spectral Prisons, which just doesn't seem right. However, there are plenty of matchups where Spectral Prison sucks, and in those matchups, I'd be perfectly happy to cut the Prisons for the Death Wind package. I also decided to leave out the Pathbreaker Wurm in favor of a second Nettle Swine.

So, my questions for this one are:

1. Do you put in the Deathwind package, or keep the two Prisons?
2. Do you put in the Wurm over the Nettle Swine?

As for the games:

M1G1 – I go up against BR. He gets down an early Scalding devil, but I rip two Islands in a row, and get down Fettergeist, and then Mist Raven on a Hanweir Lancer. Tandem Lookout + Mist Raven was a pretty severe beating. He managed to get a really big Havengul Vampire after playing Thatcher Revolt.  But Crippling Chill + Trusted Forcemage closed out the game.
M1G2 – T3 Fettergeist, T4 Mist Raven, T5 Druid’s Familiar is a pretty severe beating. I accidentally let my Fettergeist die, but filled my board with Borderland Ranger and Scrapskin Drake. Into the Void + Peel from Reality + Crippling Chill finishes him off.

Match 2 – My opponent was WB. The replays didn’t work here, so I can’t recount the games, but he mulled to five in the first, and I crushed him. Game 2, I got Fettergeist into Trusted Forcemage and crushed him again.

M3 was against clanmate Duerstine. His deck was a pretty good RG build. In the first game, I got off to a pretty good early start, and had him up against the wall, but then he dropped both Ulvenwald Tracker and Zealous Conscripts in the same game for a huge tempo swing. The next turn, he started picking off my guys. I had him at two life with a Scrapskin Drake, but he killed that. I managed to rip a Mist Raven, bounce the Tracker and survive the backswing. He didn’t have removal, so I won.

Game 2 was over pretty quickly. He drew all lands, I drew all creatures and tempo spells.

 Let me know what you think.

Deranged Hermit's AVR #1

http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=39yy8


Just wanted to pass you along this draft from the other night, the only real archetype i've gotten excited about. UR humans splashing white for righteous blow removal. Went 2-1 beating two watered down UG decks, losing to a super efficient BG deck that ended sweeping the draft (i actually gave him his only game loss, i got a cookie for that).


Draft Analysis:

I dont think anyone in this draft knew that they were all supposed to be drafting Green, self included. And in it's wake, 3 of my opponents seemingly were picking up each others scraps in trying to take the open green cards being passed around the table.  Blue was also somewhat heavily drafted, as it should be, and I was left without many of the critical cards you want to see in U... like Into the Void, Crippling Chill, Latch Seeker, Gryph Vanguards, and no multiples of Wingcrafter or Mist Raven.

But what I did end up with was a very aggressive URw humans build (13 humans + thatcher revolt), with several bounce and blink options. Zealous Conscripts was my bomb, and top end of my curve. 11 creatures early in the curve, not includeing a Thatcher Revolt. The interaction between the various blink effects and Kessig Malcontents won me several games. And then in the last game, I was finally able to play my conscripts late in the game (with a very comfortable board position), and just for kicks I flickered the conscripts and the creature i already stole (which permanently steals him, while stealing a 2nd permanent for the turn). Most would say that's a solid turn.

Also, I have become more impressed with the Nephalia Smuggler. He's a poor man's Deadeye Navigator, and he's just pure value. For four mana and a 2nd relavent creature, you have a permanent blocker (which eliminates un-fun things like lifelink), and gets you an additional trigger on your 187 ability. This is awesome with cards like Mist Raven, Malcontents, Gryph Vanguard (if I had any), the Conscripts (if I played him more than once in the draft) and other soulbonding necessities.

I'll be looking to draft U heavy decks in the future, pairing with G or R for all the reason listen above.

Krbmeister's AVR Draft #1

Hey everyone! I'm pretty new to MTGO relatively new to drafting. I've been playing off and on since Scars but I've recently had the desire to really study the game and get better. Hopefully watching your drafts will help! After reading Oraymw's article, I went in wanting UG (view the draft here!). The cards I got certainly helped push me that way. I ended up with a deck that was certainly powerful but had it's holes (specifically at 2 cc). But I ended 2-1 including a second round bye.

If you're interested to see the draft in real time or watch the matches, I posted them on youtube. I really like all the videos on MTGOacademy.com and figure I can make similar videos, only theirs are typically much better. Especially since they don't use software that cuts out in the middle of matches. But if you're interested, I'd love to hear what you think of my deck and how I played it. Thanks!