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Power Drafting - Team Drafting

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I recently got together with a couple of my closest friends to celebrate my birthday. Unfortunately, a few of the invitees had to cancel at the last minute. Fortunately, that left me only with guests that were Magic players. Now we could draft Magic 2011 guilt free. My girlfriend Rada and I did a six person draft with four former pro players, all of them members of team Your Move Games: Hall of Famer Rob Dougherty, Chad Ellis, Danny Mandel and Anthony Shaheen.

We decided to make it a three on three team booster draft. Rob, Chad and Danny formed one team and Anthony, Rada and I were the other. Rada and I probably draft M11 5-7 times a week. The others were about to do their first draft with the new set. Time to see if their past experience and excellence at drafting could make up for their unfamiliarity with M11. At least in Rob's case, he is still an active pro. He played in Pro Tour San Juan and I'm expecting him to play in Amsterdam.

In the end, I think which players had winning records and which ones didn't was largely based on one factor. The winning decks were specific archetypes, not just powerful cards with a mana curve. This is one of the most important things to think about before and during a draft: how will the cards you draft work together? Can you make a good card in your deck even better because of how well it works with the rest of your deck? I think too many people do the following when they draft:

  1. Start by taking the best card in the pack, regardless of color.
  2. After a few picks, try to decide what two colors seem to be coming to you.
  3. Take the best card in the pack as long as it is one of those two colors.

Even worse is when you don't make up your mind on what two colors you are playing until the end of pack two or the beginning of pack three and either end playing three colors or not having cards to sideboard in. This also happens when you counter-draft a lot. Counter-drafting is way overrated:

  1. You want to send clear signals to the people you're feeding. If they get a late bomb from you that's not in your colors, you are sending them a strong signal which will help keep them out of your colors when they are passing to you.
  2. You are often passing up a chance to get a card in your colors that you may end up needing for your deck or sideboard.
  3. While you're counter-drafting, you might pass a card in your colors to the player next to you that they like that might get/keep them in your colors.

Also, in most drafts, you are guaranteed not to play the people sitting next to you in the first round. Thus the chances of playing the person you counter-drafted against aren't particularly high. The one situation where I do counter-draft is in the third pack, when there just isn't anything in the pack that is remotely useful to me.

Team drafting uses slightly different strategy principles than regular drafting. Many people feel that counter-drafting is even more important when team drafting. I don't agree, especially if we're talking about early in a pack. There are five possible outcomes when I counter-draft early in a pack during a team draft:

  1. I counter-draft a bomb. My opponent is in that color and has to take a lesser card for his deck.
  2. I counter-draft a bomb. My opponent isn't in that color and takes the best card for him.
  3. I pass a bomb, taking the best card for me. My opponent is in that color and takes the bomb.
  4. I pass a bomb, taking the best card for me. My opponent isn't in that color and passes the bomb.
  5. I pass a bomb, taking the best card for me. My opponent isn't in that color and counter-drafts the bomb.

Number one is the best case scenario when I counter-draft. In that case I get nothing and they still get something. Not exciting for me. In number two I wasted my early pick and didn't hurt them at all. Possibility three is the worst case scenario and at least I got a solid pick for my deck. Situation four is the best possible scenario: I got a high pick for my deck and my teammate got a bomb that is very likely to be in his colors, since the two people next to him aren't in that color. The fifth outcome is also excellent, I got a high pick for my deck and my opponent wasted their pick.

So in the two counter-draft scenarios one is very bad and the other is just okay. In the three situations where I don't counter-draft, one is kind of bad and the other two are great for me. So a good outcome is more likely for me and my team when I don't counter-draft than when I do. I'm obviously not a statistics expert, but the logic seems sound to me.

I think power-drafting is important when team-drafting. If I draft weak colors because I think they are being under-drafted, I might end up with a good deck. Even if I do, it's still hard to 3-0 with weak colors. Is 2-1 worth setting up your opponents with easy access to the powerful colors? This concept greatly helped my team in our draft.

In my first pack, two cards stood out to me: Lightning Bolt and Aether Adept. I often take the Adept in this situation when I'm in a regular draft. In this scenario I decided to take the Lightning Bolt and pass the Adept to Danny on my left. I think Lightning Bolt is more powerful than the Adept, but I favor Blue to Red in M11 draft. I figured both Danny and I could splash the Bolt if we didn't get much Red, but the Adept isn't really splashable. I also figured Danny was more likely to pass Rada the Adept than the Bolt.

Another thing I like to do in team draft is to try and starve the other team of removal.

My second pack featured a Doom Blade from Rob on my right and since Black is my favorite color to pair with Red in M11, it was an easy second pick for me. Another thing I like to do in team draft is to try and starve the other team of removal. Not only is having lots of removal good for my deck, but if my teammates have any powerful creatures it will be harder for our opponents to kill them.

My third pick I took Chandra's Spitfire and then I took Fire Servant with my fourth pick. After only four picks I had the makings of a deck with good synergy. Since I had the Spitfire and the Servant, I prioritized direct damage. In that first set of packs I took both Fling and Lava Axe slightly higher than I normally would have. The only other decent Black card I got in pack one was a Stabbing Pain. I wasn't too concerned about this for a several reasons. I had gotten enough good red cards that I still might go mono-red. I wasn't having trouble getting enough playables. Both of my Black cards were good even if I didn't end up running many Swamps. Since I hadn't seen many Black cards, it was likely Danny wasn't drafting Black and I would get good black in the other direction.

When I opened my second pack, it wasn't exciting for Red or Black. I took a Gargoyle Sentinel, which I felt was a solid addition to my deck. The most exciting cards in the pack were Sun Titan and Serra Angel. Since they were both White, there was even more reason not to counter-draft, but passing them was still a little painful. I also take good artifacts higher in team draft, because my opponents are obviously in that "color." Danny passed me an Assassinate in the next pack and this helped solidify that I was going to play Black in addition to Red.

The third set of packs was the most exciting for my deck. I first picked a Fireball and then got passed a Chandra Nalaar by Rob (he said Happy Birthday as he passed the pack!) In addition I was delighted when a Crystal Ball made it back to me seventh pick, which I feel kind of exposed my pro player comrades inexperience with the power levels of the new cards in M11, since I think Crystal Ball is incredible in Limited. This is the deck I ended up playing:

[cardlist]

[Lands]

9 Mountain

8 Swamp

[/Lands]

[Spells]

1 Fireball

1 Lightning Bolt

1 Chandra's Outrage

1 Chandra Nalaar

1 Lava Axe

1 Fling

1 Stabbing Pain

1 Doom Blade

1 Assassinate

1 Mind Rot

[/Spells]

[Creatures]

1 Chandra's Spitfire

1 Reassembling Skeleton

1 Earth Servant

1 Canyon Minotaur

1 Fire Servant

1 Vulshock Berserker

1 Goblin Tunneler

1 Bloodthrone Vampire

1 Nightwing Shade

1 Gargoyle Sentinel

1 Crystal Ball

1 Barony Vampire

1 Fiery Hellhound

[/Creatures]

[/cardlist]

Goblin Tunneler was my weakest card. I could have played a Berserkers of Blood Ridge instead, but I needed a two drop way more than a five drop. Not only can the Goblin trade with some opposing two drops, but it is pretty good with Bloodthrone Vampire, Nightwing Shade, Chandra's Spitfire and especially Fiery Hellhound.

My teammates both drafted Black as well: Anthony went Blue/Black and Rada White/Black. The opposition had a monopoly on Green (which is fine from a power drafting perspective): Rob was monowhite, Chad was Green/Blue and Danny was close to mono-green, splashing for Doom Blade and Pyroclasm. Not only did they crush us at Laser Tag, they also beat us 5-4 in the draft. Rob 3-0, Anthony 2-1, Chad 1-2, Danny 1-2, Rada 0-3 and myself 2-1.

I'm pretty sure I had the best deck there. Unfortunately many things went wrong in my match with Rob. The fact that he was playing mono-color and I wasn't turned out to be huge. Despite playing more Mountains than Swamps, I spent most of game one with only one source of red. Chandra and Chandra's Outrage sat in my hand as my life total slowly ebbed away under Rob's assault. It didn't help when Rob used Safe Passage to three for one me, when I used Fling during combat. Game two was worse. I stalled at three land, none of which were Swamps. Rob's mono-color aggression wasn't forgiving.

My matches with the two Green players went much better. In game one against Chad I was able to get Chandra into play while he was tapped out (he had Mana Leaks and Cancel) and the board was somewhat stalemated. Eventually I usually Chandra's -8 ability and the game was over. Game two was scarier as he played three Foresees, while I barely held off his combined air and ground attacks. In time I got my Crystal Ball and that helped me get the last few spells out of my deck. He countered Chandra and then later countered a Fling which was extremely painful, especially since I had just Mind Rotted him down to zero cards in hand. Fortunately my Fire Servant enabled me to use my Fireball to kill both his Harbor Serpent and his Azure Drake, which took much of the pressure off of me. It was starting to look like the only way I could win was by decking him until I Lava Axed him for ten damage (thanks Fire Servant.) Then I attacked with all my ground creatures after tapping one of his with Stabbing Pain. Unfortunately for Chad, his two Cloud Elementals could only watch helplessly as my attackers outnumbered his blockers and finished him (he started the turn at 11.)

My games with Danny were interesting in large part because he had two Fauna Shamans, but my massive quantity of removal was too much for his deck to handle. Especially since he didn't even have the permission and card drawing that Chad had to try and overcome my advantages.

I wasn't surprised that Rob, Anthony and I were the people with winning records. This was because we drafted decks that were powerful archetypes, not just good cards. Here are what I consider to be the best archetypes in M11:

  1. Blue/Black control
  2. Red/Black control
  3. Blue/White aggro
  4. Red/White aggro
  5. Red/Green aggro
  6. Blue/Red aggro

I also consider any non-green mono-color deck to be a good archetype, if you can get the cards for it. My main problem with Rob drafting mono-white is that it was a team draft. He hung his teammates out to dry. One of the main reasons Anthony and I had such good decks was that we were both sitting next to Rob, who wasn't taking cards in any of M11's three power colors: Red, Black and Blue.

Rada is one of the top limited players at our local game store, but she was in a tough situation in this draft. Not only did her deck not have the "sitting next to Rob" bonus, but she was up against three pros that have been playing Magic longer than she's been speaking English (about eight years, she's been playing Magic for less than four.) While it's possible to draft a decent Black/White deck, it doesn't have as good of synergy as, say, Blue/White, Blue/Black or Red/Black. Black was probably a little over-drafted at our table and after Rob took Serra Angel, Anthony counter-drafted the Sun Titan, removing any possibility that Chad might let it slip to Rada.

Danny was in a particularly awkward seat. I was cutting off Red and Black in front of him and with Rob drafting mono-white two seats in front of him, he didn't see any White either. This left him with Blue and Green as the colors he had the best access to. He ended up with a decent deck, all things considered.

Chad had a deck that was filled with high quality cards. He had solid green creatures, good flyers, lots of card drawing and lots of permission. He even had a couple combat tricks like Giant Growth and Unsummon. His deck still had a couple problems though. Except for combining Unsummon with a counter he couldn't deal with problem creatures on the board. In addition, his Blue package of flying, card drawing and permission goes better with a color that has a lower curve than Green.

Fortunately for Rob's team, he vindicated his risky team draft strategy by going 3-0 and carrying his team, which is the position he put himself in after leaving Anthony and I so much freedom in the draft. In addition to learning some of the things that make team draft strategy different than individual draft, I hope you will take this lesson to all of your drafts: draft an archetype with synergy, not just whatever seems to be coming to you.

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