One of my favorite writers, Frank Karsten: http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/frank-analysis-a-pick-order-list-for-m15-draft/

Due to odd circumstances, I have hardly drafted this set at all... But there are some calls here that go way against what I think we generally discuss here.

For starters... Ancient Silverback is quite low. Heat Ray over Soul of New Phyrexia?

Yeh, I'm not getting the nonlove for Soul of New Phyrexia. Some of the format's biggest pains in the ass are those Intimidate creatures (albeit Heat Ray does them in too), and an above the curve colorless blocker is awesome enough even without the fact that it's also a huge trampler that makes all your stuff indestructible.

I happily pack 1 pick 1 took it when the opportunity came up... then proceeded to play 9 games (5W 4L) in which I never.drew.it.once.

So anyone here takes kird chieftain as first pick?
I don't get what makes this card a good first turn pick.

He did, and I agree with it. It is a bomb and I played against a similar deck like this last week and was run over.

http://forum.nogoblinsallowed.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=5343

It does suffer the danger of locking you into a color pairing at P1P1. If you wind up not playing green, it's a Hill Giant, which isn't what you want to get out of P1P1. It seems like devaluing Garruk because of how it locks you into a color pair at P1P1 goes against the logic of having this rated higher.

If I get a rare land or other junk rare, and there are no Triplicate Spirits, Cone of Flames or Illusory Angels in the pack then I would take Kird Chieftain first pick. I wouldn't be happy about. And I wouldn't let it lock me in to R/G but if that's how the draft ends up, all the better. The only other common I might consider would be Welkin Tern but I'd probably take the ape over that.




There's a couple of differences outside of just locking you into two colors. Kird Chieftain doesn't exactly lock you into Green. Obviously you want green, but it's not required, more of a "soft lock" than the hard lock that Garruk causes. Also, Garruk costs 7 mana. This means you're probably going to need to run 18 lands, so it could be said that Garruk takes up two card slots. It also means Chieftain COULD have a larger impact over the game if he gets out early enough. He could end the game before Garruk even sees the battlefield.

This article's #4 pick also costs 7 mana (and he doesn't shy away from the high casting costs - of the top 9 picks, 5 cost 6+ and all 9 cost 5+). If the 'game's over before you can cast it' argument holds water with Garruk, why doesn't it hold with Hornet Queen?

That is a good point. There aren't many limited decks that have an easier time casting hornet queen than garruk, and certainly they have a roughly similar power level (extremely hard to beat)

I suspect that this list has a strong bias against drafting blue and black. He wants to pair green with white or red, not black.

That seems to explain the slight overrating of kind chieftain and heat ray. I liked his "method" of taking 8 pros and drafting the hell out of the set, but perhaps any small group will have its biases that forced you into certain archetypes.

He also didn't rank charging rhino

Excellent point. And theoretically, Hornet Queen is more difficult to play than Garruk with a requirement of 3 Forests. I wasn't speaking from his perspective but from mine.

I understand the sentiment, but I find it silly to rank Rare/Mythics against other Rares. What I'm more interested in is the Commons and Uncommons that rank above certain Rares. With the extremely rare occasion of a Foil Rare, you're never going to be faced with a decision of Garruk vs Hornet Queen. But the commons and uncommons vs a middling rare comes up quite often in first picks. Also which Commons are better than Uncommons which comes up mostly during pick 2-4 but also happens Pick 1 when you open up crap like Rare Lands or Chained Veil or Grindclock.

Like he says in the article; IF faced with the option of Kird Chieftain vs Garruk or Hornet Queen, take the rare. Not for money. Not for chasing rares to build decks. But because those cards will be opened by you so rarely you will not often get the chance to play with them in limited. Everybody loves winning and I'm not telling you to sacrifice games so you can horse around with some janky mid-tier rare, but Kird Chieftains come up far more often than Garruk and Hornet Queen. This advice doesn't go for PTQs and GranPrixs, only FNMs or $10-$15 games at your LGS.




Which is odd because I feel Charging Rhino sets the pace for the entire metagame. You better be able to deal with a 4/4 by turn 5 in any game, is how I see it. You can't gang block it so you have to actually be able to deal with it.

He put charging rhino among the mediocre picks that you might cut, aka the 17-21st cards of a deck. I would put it slightly higher, as it's not a pick you want before pick 6, and mostly like a good 7 or 8. I do think it's a defining creature for the format because it's the "worse" 5 drop creature.

I think the point was that Frank ranked:
Hornet Queen > Triplicate Spirits, Lightning Strike, etc > Garruk, Apex Predator.
He put them in completely different classes which doesn't make sense. It's also a little confusing how he ranks the artifacts.



This was my impression after a couple sealed tournies, BUT I think that drafts are aggressive enough that T5 rhinos aren't as relevant. Or else you just trade it with the golem. That being said I went T1 Denizen into T2 Generator into T3 Rabblemaster and nearly LOST because I couldn't get through 4/4s.
(I eventually 1.5 for 1'd my self with Raise the Alarm and Scrapyard, but that was after he bought enough time to kill my rabblemaster)

Oh you're right... CFB put in the old art and I missed it. In the comments someone mentioned another card missing... Endless Obedience

14+6+9+10+4+79+64+49+14=249. That is the number of booster-crackable cards that are not basic lands.

Endless Obedience is card 29 in the mediocres. 3 cards straight down from Charging Rhino.