Innistrad Draft - First Impressions
So I drafted Innistrad for the first time last night. Despite my vocal dislike for the set, I entered the draft at TOGIT last night.
I did this for two reasons. I still need cards from the new set, although I have almost everything I need for my current standard deck of choice, Bant Pod; and I knew that the standard tournament was going to be pretty weak overall as no one has enough of the set to field a fully tricked out deck, unless they were playing almost 100% scars block cards pre-rotation. True to my prediction, the entries into standard were anemic. I did want to test out my new mostly tricked out Bant Pod list, though so I signed up for one round then dropped to draft.
Standard FNM
I was paired against a dad, Ned, who was learning to play Magic so that he and his son could play together. This was his first FNM, and his son's second. Will, the son, was also in the tournament and I had helped both of them build decks and prepare for some of the rules interaction and procedural stuff that doesn't matter over a kitchen table but does matter in a tournament setting. We had a 10 minute extension because I had just finished helping another brand new player, Mike, put his deck together for standard as well; taking his forty card deck and upgrading it to a standard sixty card list.
Side Note - I've mentioned this before but cultivating new players is absolutely essential to keeping the game healthy and active. If you see new players in your store, please welcome them, help them build decks, learn rules, etc. Being a jerk only makes it worse for the entire community in the long run. - End Note
So Ned and I battle it out. Ned is rocking a UB list with Zombie Infestation, some blue tricks, and some black removal. Given his understandably small card pool for having just started this exceptionally complex little hobby, it wasn't a bad deck. It was not, however, in any way prepared for the normal competitive lists that frequent our little corner of FNM. My Bant Pod list just ran him over, doing some of the Magical Christmasland stuff I talked about in the primer from earlier this week. He had no real way to interact with my lines of play, and couldn't profitably attack through my team, so he got run over in short order. So even though I had an extension for 5-10 minutes or so I didn't need them, and we finished our two games before time was called.
I always feel bad about smashing new players. I mean I get that this is a competitive environment, which is a big reason I like it, and that he knew this going into it, but I can't help but feel that if a person doesn't get some sense of their own success, either through winning or some other way, then they are less likely to come back and try again. I am very invested in making sure that as many people keep coming out to FNM as possible, for a whole host of reasons, so I always feel like I am jeopardizing that when I take my tournament tuned deck and experience level and just stomp on a newer player. I don't want to give them a false sense of success, but neither do I want to remove any feeling of competitiveness they might have which would help get them to return next time. I make up for it by being, to a certain extent, a host and emcee for them, addressing rules questions they have, and generally making them feel welcome in our community, and not lost in a sea of unhelpful or unfriendly sharks. So, feeling a bit bad for winning, I reported and dropped to enter the draft.
No to get to what you're really here for: Innistrad.
Innistrad is a pretty varied limited environment. There are a lot of different types of decks you can make, even some corner cases, like the deck I ended up drafting.
I do not in any way suggest that you attempt in draft what I attempted if you intend to win a draft. I did not win, but my deck could easily have done so. This does not mean it is a good draft archetype. Be warned.
I don't even remember what my first pick first pack was although I remember I didn't play it, but I know what my second pick was: Parallel Lives. I know there are quite a few token producing card in this set and that Parallel Lives was pretty sought after by the commander crowd as a secondary doubling season, so I grabbed it. I also can't deny the thoughts of a G/W/b/u or whatever color token deck in standard... I then got passed double Intangible Virtue and thought if I could get enough token producing cards, I could possibly draft token.dec. This seemed very fun and had the possibility for rather strong shenanigans, so I started picking token producers very high. I drafted double Doomed Traveler, Mausoleum Guards, Midnight Haunting, two Intangible Virture, the Parallel Lives, and a number of other weenie rush support cards, like Travel Preparatons or Selfless Cathar. My deck ended up with a pretty low curve, a lot of weenies, a bit of removal, and the potential for token producing nuttiness.
Nuttiness was the correct description. When my deck was firing with all cylinders, it killed by turn 4-5 rather consistently. At one point I had out 2 Intangible Virtue, Parallel Lives and my opponent had to block and kill my Mausoleum Guards to stay alive. I made four spirit tokens that were 3/3 vigilant flyers. I attacked for almost 20 the next turn.
I also had the nut draw of human 1 drop, Hamlet Captain 2 drop and Silver-Inlaid Dagger three drop swing for 7.
The deck was a blast to play, had some seriously powerful lines of play, but was not what you'd call consistent. It could draw the Intangible Virtues, then never draw token producers. It could draw token producers and not the enchantments, or it could have both but no way of killing off your own guys in order to capitalize on the enchantments.
If you were crazy enough to try and draft this deck, here are some things I think my deck needed. Draft the new pacifism, Bonds of Faith, very high, as we need removal. Ghostly Possession is very bad both in our deck and against our deck, don't play it in the deck and have outs for an opposing one. You don't have to be white, but I'd recommend it. White has the most common token producers by far. Have a sac outlet. I personally suggest Demonmail Hauberk, as we generally don't have a shortage of little weenies just dying to help us suit up a Hauberk. This allows us to REALLY put on the pressure with our token flyers, otherwise we have to wait for our opponents to be under enough pressure to have to kill our 1/1's or not have any way past them but to attack in.
I did this for two reasons. I still need cards from the new set, although I have almost everything I need for my current standard deck of choice, Bant Pod; and I knew that the standard tournament was going to be pretty weak overall as no one has enough of the set to field a fully tricked out deck, unless they were playing almost 100% scars block cards pre-rotation. True to my prediction, the entries into standard were anemic. I did want to test out my new mostly tricked out Bant Pod list, though so I signed up for one round then dropped to draft.
Standard FNM
I was paired against a dad, Ned, who was learning to play Magic so that he and his son could play together. This was his first FNM, and his son's second. Will, the son, was also in the tournament and I had helped both of them build decks and prepare for some of the rules interaction and procedural stuff that doesn't matter over a kitchen table but does matter in a tournament setting. We had a 10 minute extension because I had just finished helping another brand new player, Mike, put his deck together for standard as well; taking his forty card deck and upgrading it to a standard sixty card list.
Side Note - I've mentioned this before but cultivating new players is absolutely essential to keeping the game healthy and active. If you see new players in your store, please welcome them, help them build decks, learn rules, etc. Being a jerk only makes it worse for the entire community in the long run. - End Note
So Ned and I battle it out. Ned is rocking a UB list with Zombie Infestation, some blue tricks, and some black removal. Given his understandably small card pool for having just started this exceptionally complex little hobby, it wasn't a bad deck. It was not, however, in any way prepared for the normal competitive lists that frequent our little corner of FNM. My Bant Pod list just ran him over, doing some of the Magical Christmasland stuff I talked about in the primer from earlier this week. He had no real way to interact with my lines of play, and couldn't profitably attack through my team, so he got run over in short order. So even though I had an extension for 5-10 minutes or so I didn't need them, and we finished our two games before time was called.
I always feel bad about smashing new players. I mean I get that this is a competitive environment, which is a big reason I like it, and that he knew this going into it, but I can't help but feel that if a person doesn't get some sense of their own success, either through winning or some other way, then they are less likely to come back and try again. I am very invested in making sure that as many people keep coming out to FNM as possible, for a whole host of reasons, so I always feel like I am jeopardizing that when I take my tournament tuned deck and experience level and just stomp on a newer player. I don't want to give them a false sense of success, but neither do I want to remove any feeling of competitiveness they might have which would help get them to return next time. I make up for it by being, to a certain extent, a host and emcee for them, addressing rules questions they have, and generally making them feel welcome in our community, and not lost in a sea of unhelpful or unfriendly sharks. So, feeling a bit bad for winning, I reported and dropped to enter the draft.
No to get to what you're really here for: Innistrad.
Innistrad is a pretty varied limited environment. There are a lot of different types of decks you can make, even some corner cases, like the deck I ended up drafting.
I do not in any way suggest that you attempt in draft what I attempted if you intend to win a draft. I did not win, but my deck could easily have done so. This does not mean it is a good draft archetype. Be warned.
I don't even remember what my first pick first pack was although I remember I didn't play it, but I know what my second pick was: Parallel Lives. I know there are quite a few token producing card in this set and that Parallel Lives was pretty sought after by the commander crowd as a secondary doubling season, so I grabbed it. I also can't deny the thoughts of a G/W/b/u or whatever color token deck in standard... I then got passed double Intangible Virtue and thought if I could get enough token producing cards, I could possibly draft token.dec. This seemed very fun and had the possibility for rather strong shenanigans, so I started picking token producers very high. I drafted double Doomed Traveler, Mausoleum Guards, Midnight Haunting, two Intangible Virture, the Parallel Lives, and a number of other weenie rush support cards, like Travel Preparatons or Selfless Cathar. My deck ended up with a pretty low curve, a lot of weenies, a bit of removal, and the potential for token producing nuttiness.
Nuttiness was the correct description. When my deck was firing with all cylinders, it killed by turn 4-5 rather consistently. At one point I had out 2 Intangible Virtue, Parallel Lives and my opponent had to block and kill my Mausoleum Guards to stay alive. I made four spirit tokens that were 3/3 vigilant flyers. I attacked for almost 20 the next turn.
I also had the nut draw of human 1 drop, Hamlet Captain 2 drop and Silver-Inlaid Dagger three drop swing for 7.
The deck was a blast to play, had some seriously powerful lines of play, but was not what you'd call consistent. It could draw the Intangible Virtues, then never draw token producers. It could draw token producers and not the enchantments, or it could have both but no way of killing off your own guys in order to capitalize on the enchantments.
If you were crazy enough to try and draft this deck, here are some things I think my deck needed. Draft the new pacifism, Bonds of Faith, very high, as we need removal. Ghostly Possession is very bad both in our deck and against our deck, don't play it in the deck and have outs for an opposing one. You don't have to be white, but I'd recommend it. White has the most common token producers by far. Have a sac outlet. I personally suggest Demonmail Hauberk, as we generally don't have a shortage of little weenies just dying to help us suit up a Hauberk. This allows us to REALLY put on the pressure with our token flyers, otherwise we have to wait for our opponents to be under enough pressure to have to kill our 1/1's or not have any way past them but to attack in.
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