I've decided to start up one of my personal favorite types of drafts. Anything goes. And for those of you who have never done this any card in Magic is viable to be in a pack. It'll be a 15 card pack with 1 rare and 3 uncommons like the normal layout.

And to make the packs more fair there are at least 2 cards of every color to start off with in each pack.

Also Un cards are not in the packs.

Pack 1:

Windbrisk Raptor
Gallantry
Terrain Generator
rathi Berserker
Takenuma Bleeder
Horned Turtle
Evolving Wilds
Banewasp Affliction
Wall of Fire
Tidal Flats
Nantuko Disciple
Ceta Disciple
Tilling Treefolk
Trollhide
Fireball FOIL

FIREBALL

As reluctant as I am to pass windbrisk raptor in what looks to be a relatively slow format, I'm afraid I have to agree with rstnme.

Yeah... a 5/7 flyer that has lifelink on the attack is pretty strong in a format like this, but Fireball is fireball, so I'll pick fireball

On a side note, whoever felt tidal flats was worth printing should be hit in the head with a brick. "So, what's better than a card that does nothing? Oh, I know! A card where you need to read a whole freaking novel just to realise at the end that it does nothing!"

DON'T BE RELUCTANT IT'S SHINY

Fireball even kills the raptor.

SHINY

Pack 1:

Fireball

Next...

Hunting Pack
Iron Star
Prosperity
Goblin sky Raider
Samite Healer
Homing Sliver
Sandstorm
Confound
Murk Dwellers
Festering Goblin
Ekundu Griffin
Basal Thrull
Slagwurm Armor
Doomed Traveler

It's all pretty much crap... I guess we take the flyer (no, not the goblin). In formats like these, evasion is critical. So Ekundu Griffin.

Confound is totally playable. It's a cantrip, and it nixes removal. These chaos drafts are sometimes slow, and sometimes they're full of badass removal from the olden days, like Fireball. And 'draw a card' is about the sexiest thing you can pick on a magic card.

Still, I think it's Ekundu here, I just think confound deserves a nod.

Confound's playability is highly dependent on the rest of the cards. This early in the draft, it's hard to know how much removal will be in the draft. It would be something I'd be willing to pick pack 2 or 3 after seeing a bunch of removal. Right now we've seen fireball, which we took, and nothing in this pack.

That said, I did just notice that confound can counter spells that target your opponent's creatures as well. At first I thought it could only counter spells that targeted your own creatures (like Turn Aside). This means it can counter tricks as well, which makes it slightly better. Even then, we only saw galantry and trollhide... It's hard at this point to tell how good or bad confound will be.

While chaos environments are inherently random, I haven't played many limited games where spells didn't interact with creatures. I just think a 4-mana 2/2 with two tier-one abilities is better. Plus white/red decks tend to be more aggressive, which is my play style, whereas red/blue decks play less creatures and focus a lot more on tempo plays, which is my weak point in magic.

Just to be contrary... I think we should take the goblin sky raider. It's not THAT much worse than the griffin and if there is one commonality to all sets is that there be goblins.

Oh, who am I kidding, it's lots worse than the griffin, isn't it?

I might play it if I had 14 other goblins and 8 goblin grenades.

It takes twice as long to kill a player with it, so yes, it is much worse. As a rule of thumb, I don't play 1 powered creatures that do nothing but attack (unless they have the ability to pump their power). There are some corner cases where they are worth it (say, in M12 to get bloodthirst), but I don't see it happening in a chaos draft.

First strike is better than one mana cheaper and tribal.

Take grifin.

About when I realized:


I decided to write:

Pack 1:

Fireball FOIL
Ekundu Griffin

Next...

Balduvian Trading Post
Civic Saber
Gaea's Embrace
Soul Strings
Lys Alana Huntmaster
Flame Spirit
Malicious Advice
Dromad Purebred
Reviving Dose
Ribbon Snake
Tormented Angel
Furious Assault
Viscerid Armor

Gaea's Embrace is a bomb.

God there's a lot of crap in this format! How many 1/5s does a pack need?

This is also why I'm not a huge fan of chaos drafts. Lys Alana Huntmaster is usually a pretty powerful card in its format, but here, it's just another 3/3 for 4. You end up with a bunch of cards that are essentially vanilla.

Anyway, yeah gaea's embrace is basically a bigger, more badass trollhide, which is already pretty solid as far as auras go. I'm all for paying 1 more mana for the additional point of p/t, the trample and the cheaper regen!