So, the first weekend of drafting is pretty much over, what are people's thoughts?


My thoughts:
I drafted twice. First time I went blue/white, second time green/black.

I played against red/black aggro twice, and green/blue clue deck.

The clue deck seemed like super fun synergy time. Green/black was just big dudes. Blue/white was really jsut a missmash of cards that went tempo game. I would have won with it, but I didn't draft enough cards to trigger delerium.

Delerium is generally easy to get, but you have to keep in mind during draft if you plan to need it or not.

Overall I think that the uncommons are going to define this draft above anything else.

Pack Guardian. That card will win more games than Avacyn.

I used pre release winning to do a 2 man sealed pool and tried B/R madness
in my 1st SOI draft friday I went B/R madness

Archtype Staple Call the bloodline

in both times had this card that was a full on all-star and a card i would say NEVER PASS if your in madness, and probably shouldn't even risk it wheeling if you think your the only madness drafter. even more so on tables with newer players because it may look attractive to new players, and even with good players. because going forward i'll definitely hate draft it if there is nothing in the pack for me.

really put my opp in the squeeze when you pass and they know your whole deck is basically flash speed.

So my opinion is you wind up in B/X madness be on the look out for this card and slam it and try it yourself

So far:
0) B/R G/R seem to perform well. W/G also seems decent especially with green bear who gives humans double strike.
1) you must have curve, removal is pretty wretched and combat tricks are nasty.
2) no one has any idea how to draft, signals are nuts.
3) despite 1) you can degenerate into durdle-dom if 2 clue decks meet.

4) because of 2) it's very hard to draft synergy so you can get full on madness or full on zombies or full on spirits... but that's OK because good beat down decks are still good. This leads to 1) and 0).

That said - I have had some reasonable controlish builds but I would want multiple bomb rares.

My thoughts across 5 drafts (11-4 in matches):

- There's plenty of fun to be had. It's not as great as original Innistrad (yet), but I've had a blast.
- My draft style is to hit themes hard, usually underutilized ones. As an example, in Oath I drafted BG self-mill/recur and mono-black colorless A LOT. So, keep that in mind. I draft like a Johnny, trying to take advantage of the cards others don't want.
- I've drafted self-mill twice, going 2-1 in each pod. Both decks were mostly blue, utilizing white's defensive cards for support. The decks both felt solid to me, but not overpowered by any means. Clues are a central theme and a lot of the unappreciated blue combat tricks with well to fuel the deck.
- GW Humans has seemed really solid, both the one time I played it and every time I've played against it. It was my one 3-0 deck, though having Thalia's Lieutenant and Declaration in Stone did more work than any theme.
- Delirium takes work. I've played against a ton of delirium decks that just never got there.
- Werewolves have been unimpressive, but I also feel that has a lot to do with play decisions. It's not the most straight-forward deck. I think you should prioritize instants and/or mana sinks to facilitate better transforming turns.
- People are bad at valuing Call the Bloodline. Or it's not as good as it seems. Or you REALLY need to be dedicated to it. Probably the latter. I feel like I won't get to play with it enough because of how much it's overvalued.

I killed someone with their own Triskaidekaphobia. That was hard. Took me like minutes to see the line (which in then end was, kill their lifelinker, swing for 1).

Call is fine, if it can let you play every card in your deck at instant speed, with a bit of discount thrown in. Or, it can just sit there, turning lands into irrelevant chump blockers. Definitely a build-around, the payoff being Temper and Compulsion (and, to a lesser extent, hasty creatures/surprise blockers). Ideally, you pick it up pack two or three, when you already have the removal. It is also nice combined with the one-drop black Vampire that gives counters to all Vampires, but that is an uncommon combo that you won't see often.

It seems to be a common theme that the synergy payoff cards all are uncommon (well, then there's Pyre Hound). LR say that if you're not getting them, you're in the wrong deck.

Call the Bloodline is super good with the Indulgent guy or whatever that gives your team +1/+1 counters.

Also, Madness gives your stuff flash when you have Call out.

I haven't listened to LR in too long (which makes me sad because LSV rocks), but that sounds about right.

I've always drafted build-arounds more highly than the LR guys prefer. I don't mind if my first few picks aren't in my final deck; if I moved off, it was for a good reason. Marshall is exactly the sort of drafter I'm not. He values consistency highly; I value opportunity. As an example, I draft lands much higher than he ever does. LSV is much more in the middle, though all of his memorable drafts are of the "Let's do something crazy" variety.

I enjoy the deck-building aspect of draft. I'm looking for my deck to feel like it's own entity, not some checklist of how to succeed in the format. Which isn't to say I don't draft the archetypes present; I just don't rely on them. Which Marshall almost always does. Which is fine. It's just not me.

Now that 8-mans are online, I'm running them. 2/4 went to the finals, splitting both since my opponents asked so kindly. One was BU Zombie/Spells with Thing in the Ice, Brain in a Jar, 3 Pieces of the Puzzle, 3 Shamble Back, and 2 Rise from the Tides. The other was UR Tempo, which I've drafted a few times and have quite liked. Bunch of prowess dudes, burn spells, cheap blue investigate cards, and a touch of madness. I love it's ability to come out fast and stay ahead. Reminds me of the Khans UR decks that were initially underappreciated and turned out to be so good.

Marshall and LSV don't draft what they preach in LR. In particular, in the first SOI draft Marshall put on CFB, he first-picked Diregraf Colossus over Fiery Temper. Which is a Johhny pick. Or, as he said, he wanted to try out the rare, even though Temper is probably the stronger card. And then he picked Triskaidekaphobia and went UB control. He could have had a great RB madness deck. He passed Call the Bloodline, Indulgent Aristocrat, Falkenrath Gorger. This is fine, all I'm saying is that if you listened to LR, you would pick Temper. And probably win the draft.

LSV had Diregraf as a 4.0 to Fiery at 3.5. Does Marshall publish numeric card-by-card rankings?

They've also stressed in the last few sets how important it is to take rares early in the format since you get less reps with them and thus don't know how great/horrible they are. Which his draft went right along with. So I wouldn't say that's against their preaching at all.

I got paired against Randy Buehler last night. He never showed up.

Last two 3-0s: WG Mostly humans and GU grind it out.

Humans feels like a very consistent deck to me, reminiscent of how good it was in original Innistrad. It has plenty of good small creatures including 1-drops, and the auras are actually incredible at closing out games. Intrepid Provisioner is completely underrated for some reason.

UG has a lot of interesting things you can do with it. My version ran a bunch of token making enchantments, defensive creatures, and fatties to close it out. Each game I won, I had less than 5 cards in my deck. Could have really used an Epitaph Golem for insurance, but I never decked. My deck just aimed to slow them down then overwhelm them with card advantage and tokens. Worked fairly well.

Channel Fireball had Intrepid Provisioner as a key card for G/W humans, which it is, although I think I like the White pump all guy better. I've done three drafts, only one of which I actually got to play. The first one was a crazy draft where I got two mythics and seven rares! Then my first and last opponents dropped out and I lost the second game to time because of a poor connection.

My second game was g/w humans/clue with a black splash for Murderous Compulsion and Anguished Unmaking and it was solid. Thalia's Lieutenant was massive as was the combo of Ulvenwald Mysteries and Tireless Tracker. I lost the final game 2-1 to a solid white/black Delerium/Equipment build which hit Delerium all three games. I won game one with a quick lieutenant and solid curve. Game two I lost due to misplay (I Anguished a Sinister Concoction so I could get the tracker combo going, but they played Accursed Witch and I couldn't safely let it through) and them getting a bunch of fliers. Game three I missed drops on turn 4 and 5 thanks to drawing lands and never caught up.

My third game I posted the deck on the forums but didn't actually get to play it.

All in all though, seems like white is pretty strong and synergy seems more powerful than usual in this set. Had a lot of fun though. Gonna play again tomorrow as it's my "day off" and the connection is better in the middle of the day.

What do y'all think of SOI blue in general?

I think blue is a good support color. It's decent with white (fliers), or black (zombies... that bounce/discard spell is nice and I like the Frost Zombie). UG clues is not terrible either although you need some actual finishers. Not a big fan of UR, although I like Geistflame a fair amount.

Last draft I had a pretty terrible deck in a 6 man pod, but I had Call the Bloodline and Indulgent Aristocrat with a couple of vampires and 2 madness burn spells, and managed to squeeze out a 2-1.

The key card for GW is Dauntless Cathar. Get to 4 mana with 2 humans, opponent can never enter combat again.

Prob was duo-queued or he had to start doing PT stuff, or was just joining drafts to try and learn as much as he could before coverage?
This is assuming he is doing coverage for the PT.

Just did my first draft. Went 1-1+bye, winning match 1 easy and losing match 2 to Jace. I played BW equipment, seemed OK.

My only draft of SOI so far started with a Sorin, Grim Nemesis, which led to a grindy GW investigate deck splashing black. I was hesitant on playing two Thraben Inspectors, but they did great work in the deck. I basically just tried to clog the board every game until I could win the game with flyers or Sorin. Shoutouts to Reaper of Flight Moonsilver and Survive the Night.

I went 2-1 overall, losing my match against a solid werewolf deck with Arlinn Kord. The werewolf transformation minigame was interesting, and it was a relief in the next match when I realized I didn't have to cast a spell every turn.

I also played against a really cool all-in UR instant/sorcery strategy with multiple Pyre Hounds, a Thing in the Ice, and two Rise from the Tides. I died to 13 zombies in game 2, but his deck wasn't consistent enough to win the match.