The New Card Smell #1

[Prophylaxis]

Hello everybody and welcome to my first draft-related article! These articles will be infrequent, however, since I do not have much time with modding mafia, RAF, and being a mod. However, what this article is going to be about is improving your draft skills. I will do this by critiquing a pack and telling you the reasons why to pick so-and-so and not to pick such-and-such, all the while teaching you about card evaluation.

We will be cracking a pack of M13...

The first card up is {Fog}. I will get some hate for this, but Fog is not good. Fog is a card that many people perceive to be better than it looks. It doesn't help you win, you can't blow out stuff with it like {Safe Passage}, and it does basically nothing in your deck. The only useful thing to do is to stall, and that will happen rarely. This is a terrible card.

The second card is {Centaur Courser}. A Centaur Courser is very strong - a 3/3 for 3 is above the curve and it will kill most other three drops. It's also a solid card as well. It's cheap and splashable if you need that extra oomph in creature size. I like Centaur Courser a lot.

The third card is {Bond Beetle}. The problem with stuff like this is that too often, 1/1s or 1/2s aren't worth a card. A 2/2 or 2/1 is playable in Limited but if you're playing 1/1s and 1/2s you'll find that they'll get outclassed on the board very quickly. So onto Bond Beetle. You might like him because of the +1/+1 counter, but I found it's impact on the board to be quite minimal. {Timberland Guide} was playable since you could make him a bear if able. A 1/2 isn't the same as a 2/2. And you're just using the Beetle for what? Chump blocking?

The next card is {Volcanic Strength}. This card has two factors that I like: It has a pretty big bonus (+2/+2) and it's cheap. The problem with it is that it's an Aura. Aura's are bad because they can get you into two for one situations - you lose two cards for one card - and that's very bad in Limited because card advantage is the backbone of winning games in Limited. That said, this card might be OK. It's cheap, but the evasion ability will be lessened because if you're drafting red, other players on the table will be less likely to. This isn't that good, however.

Our next card is {Goblin Arsonist}. I'm a fan of Goblin Arsonist. I like it because it's cheap. You might be screaming, "Why do you like Arsonist when you didn't like Bond Beetle?" Arsonist, when in combat, can trade with bears and generally there will be a lot of one-toughness creatures that you can snip very easily with this little guy. The power level is low but you may find Goblin Arsonist to be better than he looks.

The next card is {Watercourser}. This, like the Centaur Courser, is a very solid card. 2/3s will eat up most 2/2s in combat and this can attack for 4 as well, going on the offensive. This is just a solid card that will get put into many decks. The 2/3 body is very relevant as it will kill 2/2s, 2/1s, and such and survive and this can hit back for fine damage.

The seventh card is {Harbor Serpent}. I wouldn't first pick this. I would wait for this to move around before I play it. The problems with him is that he's expensive and most of the time cannot attack. However, once you get him onto the board, if he's "turned on", then he can be a very powerful fatty that can deal with a number of threats like {Sentinel Spider}. If your opponent is playing blue, then this reaches sick proportions. I would keep him in the sideboard you find a blue opponent, then play this card. Unblockable 5/5? Yes!

The eight card here is {Divination}. Divination, like Watercourser and Centaur Courser, is very solid. Instead of making this a turn three play every time, however, I would play this once you've run out of gas in the mid-late game and need to refuel. When choosing to cast Divination on turn 3 or playing a creature, I would always play the creature and do the Divination some other time.

Our next card is {Glorious Charge}. Sometimes, you want to be the token deck that drafts all the tokens and pump spells. This card would be mediocre in that case. The problem with Glorious Charge is how small the bonus is. You're only getting through for 2 or 3 extra damage, why would you use this over a {Silvercoat Lion}?

Tenth card is {Angel's Mercy}. Like Fog, this card is bad because you're just gaining life. Gaining life is fine when you have it on an {Ajani's Sunstriker}, but pure life gain is always bad. I would not recommend this card at all. Plus, it isn't even cheap!

Our next card is {Jayemdae Tome}. I like this card a lot, but it's bad. The big 800-pound gorilla is that it's Way. Too. Slow. You're paying 8 mana to draw the first card, 12 to draw the second... Isn't {Divination} sweet?

Ooh, our new card is {Rancor}. Rancor is good since it gives your guys semi-evasion and it recurs itself when destroyed, making it very resilient. I'm a fan. Plus, it's extremely cheap. I would recommend this card.

{Rain of Blades} is our next card. This card, once again, is probably unplayable. It's good against the hypothetical tokens deck, but other than that this will probably be a dead card in your hand. Dead cards are very bad in Limited. It's a fine sideboard card - don't maindeck it.

Our final card for today is {Fervor}. Fervor is bad because I have to waste a card slot and three mana to give all my guys haste, and that's not worth a card in my book. I'm just never going to play this.

Now that we've got our pack done, what should we pick? To be honest, the only pick I see here is between {Rancor} and {Centaur Courser}. I would probably pick the Rancor because

1. It's cheap.
2. It recurs itself (returns itself to play)
3. Makes every creature you play better

I hope you enjoyed this article. Comments and feedback are welcomed and suggested.

[Tetsomori]

Ivve won like 10+ drafts with fog.. But yea rancor is a better pick

[Gorzo]

Very good article! I like the idea of going through a pack card by card for a draft pick. Good points on every card, as well. And yeah, this pack has a clear first pick - {Rancor} all the way!

I do have to disagree about {fog} though, as you knew some would you are right, {safe passage} is better, and fog doesn't remove anything. It does, however, force your opponent to miss their combat phase and tap all of their attackers for nothing, plus saves you from that damage, all for 1 mana. Great? No. First pick? No. But playable. Just my 2c

Hope to see more of these articles! I enjoyed reading it!

[smokin terry]

Really enjoyed that. Once I'm able to do a draft this will help a lot. For just a better break down of card effectiveness.

[Tumalc]

Nice job man. I really like the format. I have only been to a couple of drafts and I have not had the best of luck... Articles like this will help me out. Thank you.