Drawing is just part of the game.

I've had my fair share of dealing with people who rare draft and people who try to jam 3-5 color goodstuff decks. If you're at the point of reading signals, your only bet really is to try to read the signals one seat to the right of the person rare drafting. Rare drafting in M15 is really stupid though, bc the set is overall garbage $-wise. Regardless, if this is a personal play group, you can just say you're not going to draft with someone who's rare drafting, and begin a serious discussion about banning them. Rare drafting is a selfish, dick move that defeats the purpose of a playgroup. Picking up an off-color Soul might be a hate draft though, particularly Soul of Theros, which is more or less unbeatable in the format. If this is a store you can complain but there's not a lot that they can do about it, sucks I know.

Usually players on your left drafting goodstuff decks don't affect your draft much because you're only getting one pack from them. If they decide to go into your color pack 2 though it can feel like it's ruining your draft. There isn't much to do about it, because a large number of drafters draft goodstuff decks and move into the color with the most goodstuff cards they have and use that as a method to read signals. There's not a lot you can do about bad drafters.

I feel you though. My last draft was "ruined" when the player to my left was given, explicitly by his friend, all the green cards I was cutting from him pack 1. I went 2-1 for third, losing to the guy who got a pick 6 Cone of Flame The draft before that I got third again, going 3-1, mostly as a result of the guy on my right opening a blue bomb (my color--he was RW up to that point) pack 2 and deciding to force the color pack 2 and pack 3.

I like your deck overall, but I'm beginning to be less and less impressed with Siege Wurm. I think I keep trying to jam it as a 4-drop, and then hemorrhaging my life total on the back swing from my opponent. I feel like Roaring Primadox is where you want to be there. 4-mana 4/4s are good, and you have enough cheap creatures with ETB affects that it could've given you some serious value. A second activation of Totem feels awesome, and a second activation of a wayfinder really fills your yard while ensuring you're hitting your land drops, and zapping your opponent's graveyard while you give yourself some reach with Maggot can be some serious game. That's just my limited Johnny intuition though.

I've come around on Lava Ax too. In previous formats I found it a lackluster 23rd card, but in M15 there is enough cheap evasion at 2, 3, and 4-drops on your curve that a T7 Ax or Stoke the Flames can seal the deal. Forge Devil also does a lot of work killing pretty much every relevant 2-drop, and Scrapyard Mongrel can do a lot of work as well. I still don't think it's better than a 20th card, but hey, if Jon Finkel can jam 3 in a deck I should at least reevaluate my conclusion.

It's in a store. My last two games have been there because they do $10 drafts. I will probably start going back to the other store that does $15 drafts but has a more solid core of players, don't get me wrong there's still a few people over there that have a hard time too.


Primadox.... I picked him up speculating to see a Shaman of the Spring or some Frost Lynx (would have moved to blue because this was around P1p5 I think) but I never did. The only thing in my deck I would want to play multiples of is the Living Totem. Unfortunately in this card shop's "metagame" Mind Sculpt is a thing you have to worry about. I sideboarded Primadox out after game 1 round 1 due to mind sculpt. Played against mind sculpt in 2 of my rounds so he just never made it. I actually replaced him with the Will-Forged Golem since they'really both 4/4 for "4." I rarely payed full price for the Wurm and usually Endless Obedienced him into play.

I did keep getting compliments about my deck being more synergistic than ylthe deck my opponent's were running. All of them seemed to be impressed on one level or another.

I can run the mock draft website from my phone so maybe I'll show up early and run some mock drafts with the other players, explaining what and why I'm picking and seeing what their opinion is as we go along. Maybe they'll learn something along the way.

http://www.channelfireball.com/tag/m15-set-review/

Monk directed me to this website. The guy rates each card out of 5 and justifies his rating with a brief description. Interesting, especially if you have any queries about certain cards.

I will definitely take a look. Thanks

There are also a couple vids of players doing online drafts if you search the main site. Good to hear their line of thought as they make decisions. Particularly when they have two choices to make, and when they have to decide which colours to include.

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles ... ted-stats/

Another great article with useful stats on the meta of the pool.

I was wondering sixty, do you want to post pools after the draft picks and then each build a deck from the same pool to discuss decisions?

I'm wondering if I could run my phones video camera during a live draft showing what's in each pack... problem is, it would be about a 30 minute video. Maybe I just keep the video so I can give more details and not actually post it.

I was just thinking of using the generator for practice?

Yeah, that's an option.

Okay, here's a new one to me. Last night we had 16 drafters signed up. The card shop split us into two pods. We played 4 rounds of best-of-3 in which the fourth round we all played someone from the other pod. Top 7 got prizes.

I've been in groups large enough to split in pods, and some I thought were to large and we should have but didn't. However I've never played against someone from the other pod. Apparently neither had most as there was much grumbling about playing someone you couldn't hate draft against and people not being cut out of archetypes or maybe playing someone with the same deck.... so on and so forth. So, I was wondering if anyone else had seen this before. I've only been back to drafting since M15 came out so maybe this is normal, IDK.

I went to a big draft at a FNM (maybe 6 pods?) in Toronto, Canada last year and they did all the matchups cross-pod.

Here's a sealed pool I played with the other day. I'm posting this from a phone so if the formatting screws up I'll have to detail this in multiple posts, sorry.

Clear a Path x1
Forge Devil x2
Borderland Marauder x2
Inferno Fist x1
Generator Servant x2
Lightning Strike x1
Shrapnel Blast x1
Circle of Flame x1
Wall of Fire x1
Goblin Rabblemaster x1
Krenko's Enforcer x1
Scrapyard Mongrel x1

Void Snare x1
Welkin Tern x1
Ensoul Artifact x1
Invisibility x1
Chasm Skulker x1
Divination x1
Frost Lynx x1
Aeronaut Tinkerer x2
Coral Barrier x1
Jorubai Murk Lurker x1
Statute of Denial x1
Amphin Pathmage x1
Paragon of Gathering Mist x1
Kapsho Kitefins x1
Chronostutter x1

Elvish Mystic x1
Runeclaw Bear x1
Wall of Mulch x1
Plummet x1
Venom Sliver x1
Titanic Growth x1
Satyr Wayfinder x1
Netcaster Spider x1
Invasive Species x1
Hunt the Weak x2
Charging Rhino x1
Carnivorous Moss-beast x1
Ancient Silverback x1
Siege Wurm x1

Oppressive Rays x2
Kinsbale Skirmishers x1
Spirit Bonds x1
Raise the Alarm x2
Dauntless River Marshal x1
Solemn Offering x2
Grist of the Moors x1
Congregate x1
Sanctified Charge x1
Triplicate Spirits x1
Seraph of the Masses x1

Crippling Blight x1
Leeching Sliver x1
Necromancer's Assistant x2
Stab Wound x1
Necrobite x3
Witch's Familiar x1
Zof Shade x1
Flesh to Dust x1
Blood Host x1
Ob Nixilis, Unshackled x1
Covenant of Blood x1

Grindclock x1
Sacred Armory x1
Tyrant's Machine x2
Will-Forged Golemn x2

Evolving Wilds x1
Darksteel Citadel x1
Radiant Fountain x1
Sliver Hive x1

I debated on the build almost the entire 50 minutes. I really wanted to use the red. I probably should have used red. I ended up making a janky Green/Black 18 land deck with all the fat expensive creatures I had available. With Ob Nixilis, blood host and all the green fat there were a lot of creatures that could win on their own or dig me out of a stall. I never got to cast them. My round one opponent was playing Blue/White. He kept my Wall of Mulch tapped down with Frost Kittens. Pushed through extra damage with Welkin Terns and Kinsbale skirmishers and bounced his gargoyle with Stab Wound on it with a Quickling. Game 2 was much the same but I did get some of my bigger things out this time. His Terns and Spirit Tokens were too much as I didn't get a spider till it was to late.

IDK if it was the green or not but what I do know is after I swapped to the following set up for Round 2 I never lost another game. I swept all three remaining opponents 2-0.

Kinsbale Skirmishers x1
Spirit Bonds x1
Raise the Alarm x2
Sacred Armory x1
Tyrant's Machine x2
Grist of the Moors x1
Stab Wound x1
Necrobite x3
Witch's Familiar x1
Zof Shade x1
Sanctified Charge x1
Flesh to Dust x1
Blood Host x1
Triplicate Spirits x1
Will-Forged Golemn x2
Ob Nixilis, Unshackled x1
Seraph of the Masses x1
Covenant of Blood x1

Ob Nixilis was a beast. Flying Trample and the often available protection of Necrobite were enough to destroy most opponents. The tokens I was generating were either chump blocking or attacking into bigger creatures just to add +1/+1 counters to him. I got Sanctifired Charge once and it was a 16 pt blowout on turn 6 the opponent didn't see coming. My eyes lit up when he tapped out to play one creature after attacking with everything else leaving himself defenseless.

The biggest problem with the deck is that there are only 9 actual creatures in the deck, 12 counting RtA and TS but those don't trigger Spirit Bonds. I had to aggressively Mulligan for creatures, even forsaking some 3 and 4 land hands. I even mulled to 5 once. I don't normally Mulligan very aggressive and this was a huge lesson to me in terms of not mulliganing for land but for desperately needed spells. In round two Ob got Oppressive Rays put on him, but you can't Shackle Ob Nixilis. The retardation of my board presence in favor of paying for Rays to continue pressure in that game sold me further on a card I already favored having used him in draft before. The Tyrant's Machines were more than helpful in more than a couple of matches due to my low creature count and they outright saved me and won me the game all combined in one game. I was skeptical about Sacred Armory but felt it was better than anything I left out including the black sliver or Necromancer's Assistant. I did get it in one game where it cause headaches for blocking assignments and allowed me to push through some extra damage in the final round which was between another 2-1 person and for prize positions. Spirit Bonds was very impressive even in this deck, I'd love to play with it again in a draft deck with 15-18 creatures. Splashing Red for Forge Devils and Generator Servant's in the place of the artifacts might have made the deck quicker and probably deadlier, I had thought of the combo of Necrobite/Forge Devil but I didn't want to go into a third color because of all of the double whites and double blacks.

One final note before the round breakdown for the second deck. Along with Mulliganing aggressively I also chose (when I won the option) to Draw First as opposed to Play First. I knew I would be mulliganing and I knew my creature count was low so I knew that card advantage would be the only way I could hope to gain any advantage. There are no 1 drops or two drop creatures I would want to play turn 2. And the tyrants machine doesn't come on line turn 3 so I would need to dig into my library faster than my opponent. This strategy worked out well in the end.

Round 2 was against a Green White deck. He had 2 Charging Rhinos in play at once which I was throwing spirit tokens in front of to chump and pump Ob. Even with Rays on him he was slowly taking over. I eventually had to stop paying for Rays to put a Golemn in play to kill a Rhino. I necrobited a soldier token and took 4 trample from a Siege Wurm to kill it. But Ob eventually got to 9/9 and ate all his spirit tokens one turn and swung for the win the next. Game 2 he Devouring Lighted Ob as soon as he attacked but that left room for Seraph of the Masses and more tokens from Spirit Bonds and Triplicate Spirits to win from the air.

Round 2 I started my mulling to 5 but I've got Geist Spirit Bonds and Raise the Alarm. I get sick draws of Triplicate Spirits, Skirmishers and Sanctified Charge and win a very quick game. That's followed up by a game where my opponent mulls to 5 and gets stuck at 2 mana the whole game.

Round 4 was much easier than expected. She had a lot of creatures so we stalled quite a bit but she would play everything so her hand was empty quickly while I would still hold 3 or so cards. She mind rotted me early one game and got 2 lands while my Sanctified Charge and Flesh to Dust sat safe in my hand. SMH. Once I found anything like Blood Host or even a Golemn or anything else I was normally able to fully take over. Game 2 against her is where Tyrant's Machine earned it's keep while I kept her 1 creature locked down because I didn't have one. Eventually I drew spirit bonds and a kinsbale skirmishers so I slowly started coming back from being at 4 life to her 18. Last turns I was able to tap a creature on her turn and then on my turn to open her up for final damage.