First Pack, First Pick
By Chris Harrold
Boosters? What good are boosters? You buy them, you open them, you go straight to the rare and discard the rest of the chaff to the to be sorted later pile. Did you get the £12 land? Or did you get another Nephilim?
As I have matured in my Magic playing I have learnt that every booster is a treasure trove or gemstone mine of potential magic fun. It is no fun anymore just to open the packs and be done – we need to be getting more for our money. The simplest way to do this is to look at each pack as if it were the start of a fresh draft.
Ah… The fresh draft feeling. You crack open the first wrapper and sniff the new card smell – skipping through a flowery field like some loopy woman on a Lenor advert. It’s the start of something good – you can sense it.
But seriously, you open the pack, peruse the contents and think – If I were me, which conveniently I am, and this were a draft, what would I pick first and what sort of signal am I sending to my opponents?
This article is going to be run through of these decisions, with discussion and afterthought. The boosters opened come from an ill fated RGD Rochester draft we attempted. Thankfully most of us escaped unscathed, but some still bear the mental scars.
Pack One
Gaze Of The Gorgon
Goblin Spelunkers
Greater Mossdog
Selesnya Sanctuary
Stasis Cell
Roofstalker Wight
Sewerdreg
Seismic Spike
Lorebroker
Flight Of Fancy
Boros Signet
Stone Seeder Hierophant
Blockbuster
Crown Of Convergence
Selesnya Guildmage
Nothing really to argue about here, but that has never stopped us before. Rather than go straight for the obvious let us discuss the possible alternatives. In the common and uncommon slots we have little of great excitement. Taking a land this early is a mistake, unless you plan to just read what signals you get sent. Similarly with the signet. None of the creatures are really first pick worthy (with one exception). Mossdog is solid and does have the single colour mana symbol. Flight of fancy is another possible choice, as it is easily splashable card draw and evasion rolled into one. Blockbuster has just never seemed to do all that and the Gaze is a card I have never found myself falling for.
The rare we get is the very strong Crown Of Convergence. Without the mana to use the second ability we get a rather inconsistent Glorious Anthem. It only counts creatures, but a good third of your deck is going to be those. It does take away a little bit of the surprise factor and if your opponent should have a Lurking Informant or Vedalken Entrancer then say bye to all your good stuff. However, if you have GW then you will be able to sift away those late game lands and draw what you really need.
The biggest downside to the Crown is that it pushes you into Selesnya, which is commonly regarded as a very weak guild to draft as it does not fall into a 3 set guild pattern. However, this is no reason to pass up the strongest Guildmage of the block. This man just wins games, on his own, with no help from anywhere else. I just suggest you aim to play him for GG rather than WW, as the white ability is the better to have on the splash and GRU is the better colour set to draft.
Signals? Is there anything much to pass. Maybe the person next to us will take the Crown and go into Selesnya too, but I don’t think the crown is worth it. Otherwise you are passing a ‘Dog and a Flight which may put you at risk of losing green next pack – but it’s alright because we would want Izzet anyway!
Pack Two
Mortipede
Dogpile
Selesnya Sanctuary
Wojek Apothecary
Terraformer
Dimir Infiltrator
Grayscaled Gharial
Shred Memory
Disembowel
Sell Sword Brute
Elves of Deep Shadow
Goliath Spider
Dimir Guildmage
Tunnel
Vision
Carrion Howler
This pack writes the rules on how to be mediocre. Nothing here is bomb status and it’s hard to say if anything is really of first pick quality. There are a number of playable creatures in Mortipede, Terraformer and Sell Sword, but nothing I would really want to take first. The Dimir Guildmage is very strong and pushes us in the direction of blue – as the black ability is the less useful. The Elves are acceptable mana fixing, but again not as first pick. Tunnel Vision has been known to win games, if you hope to rip a Junktroller somewhere, but you can be guaranteed it will come back to you. The best pick in this pack however is the Disembowel because it is:
1) Removal
2) Splashable
This would leave us passing barely any signal at all because the pack is so shocking. I expect the Guildmage will go second, so you will need to anticipate the black or blue not coming to you in Guildpact. Hopefully you can push some nice white onto him so that he feels obliged to take the Orzhov. You will have the choice of taking your black in many directions, especially as it is so easily splashed.
Pack Three
Civic Wayfinder
Muddle The Mixture
Screeching Griffin
Sadistic Augermage
Thundersong Trumpeter
Ordruun Commando
Caregiver
Dizzy Spell
Thoughtpicker Witch
Galvanic Arc
Elves of Deep Shadow
Pollenbright Wings
Flaring Flame-kin
Flash Conscription
Chord of the Calling
This is much more of a thought provoking
pack and it starts to become important to think about the draft ahead of you
and not just the most powerful cards in the pack. Sifting the chaff it is easy
to get rid of about 9 or 10 cards, but that still leaves us with the following:
(in no particular order)
Civic Wayfinder – It is difficult to
emphasise how good this card can be. Decks will invariably be 3, maybe even 4
colours with a splash. This guy fixes mana, is an efficient creature and is
easily splashed. He also sets you in one of the strongest colours, because
everyone and their wife wants to play RGU (I know my wife does). Pass this and
just remember to stay away from green.
Pollenbright Wings – In the days of RRR draft
this was a bomb, but now Selesnya is the geek friend who you ignore when you
hang with the cool guys – Who am I kidding? You’re the geek and you don’t have
any cool friends! You will find this card coming as late as 6th pick
nowadays.
Chord of the Calling – Again a card I have not
really had the opportunity to play in draft, but I have been on the receiving
end of an instant speed Ursapine once or twice. As long as you get something
that is worth tutoring for this card is solid. It is a VERY heavy move into
green this early though.
Thundersong Trumpeter & Flash
Conscription
– These both suffer from the simple fact that there is something much better in
red in here. Otherwise they are both playable, if not amazing. The Thundersong
does tie you into two colours early which is also a mistake.
Galvanic Arc – This is the strongest card in the
pack without doubt. It is cheap, it is efficient and it is removal. Even if red
gets cut we can splash this.
By taking the arc be aware of what you
are passing. The Wings, Trumpeter and Conscription are unlikely to go second or
third and you do now make the players to your left fight over green a little
bit. Remember this and try to pass them into colours which will reward you when
the packs switch direction.
Pack Four
Benevolent Ancestor
Thundersong Trumpeter
Vedalken Entrancer
Gather Courage
Golgari Signet
Dimir Guildmage
Necromantic Thirst
Dimir Infiltrator
Sparkmage Apprentice
Viashino Fangtail
Seeds of Strength
Greater Forgeling
Overgrown Tomb
Frenzied Goblin
Courier Hawk
Now don’t lie to yourself. We can all be
bought and if this were anything but a high level draft you probably just take
the land. You can be happy that it has probably paid for the whole thing. The
land aside this pack is far from exciting. Vedalken Entrancer has gone out of
fashion and has faded into obscurity with the whole Dimir mill strategy. The
decision comes down to UB or R as our plan. The Dimir Guildmage is solid and
can easily be splashed into black and blue, as I said earlier. On the red side
we have the Fangtail, which is very solid, and the Forgeling, which can be
difficult for an opponent to deal with.
The downside to all of these cards is
the double colour in the mana cost, which means we are committing strongly to a
colour at an early stage. I personally feel that the Fangtail is the strongest
of all these cards and would be the one making my pile. I would note we are
passing the Guildmage and Forgeling, but it is impossible not to share colours
in this format and also next to impossible to signal off of a first pick.
I hope you have found these discussions
useful and I will look at the other 4 packs from our Rochester at a later time.
Take the money and run!
Chris