Madrid would be the big comeback. Summer Series, mo' money, mo' pro points. I practiced with daily modo drafts, went to pre-releases and even got together in Ghent for a whole day of drafting.
That doesn't mean I/we had a clue though. I "kinda liked" monored, but had no idea it was going to turn out to be everyone's pick for "best draft archetype" I read about in the coverage of various events on magicthegathering.com.
I also knew I'd like to draft a deck that was able to cast Unmake.
That's about it.
I somehow tricked StanV into buying a ticket to Madrid. His sudden rise in spellslingin' appetite quickly switched to
Man,
I hate
Spain
GPs
Spaniards
Magic
Spain
You can still be a racist when you're black, Stan!
But it was too late, he bought his ticket, so he was going. Only the legendary Gert Coeckelbergh had the balls to buy a ticket and then not go because "he didn't feel like it".
(true story)
Saturday
I absolutely hate it when people talk about the 'broken sealed deck they openened & registered, but then had to give away', so I'm not going to do that.
What I am going to do is list my card pool and try to go through my deck building process. But doing so in real life is hard enough, I have no idea how much you can learn from the textual approach. I think it's pretty hard to build a deck when you can't pick up the cards...
The Pool
Artifacts
1 Cauldron of Souls
1 Thornwatch Scarecrow
2 Shell Skulkin
1 Wingrattle Scarecrow
Lands
1 Sapseep Forest
White
1 Strip Bare
1 Pale Wayfarer
1 Barrenton Medic
1 Rune-Cervin Rider
1 Armored Ascension
2 Recumbent Bliss
Blue
1 Deepchannel Mentor
1 Put Away
1 Cerulean Wisps
1 Ghastly Discovery
1 Whimwader
1 Merrow Wavebreakers
1 Parapet Watchers
1 Dream Thief
Black
1 Ashenmoor Cohort
1 Blowly Infestation
1 Disturbing Plot
2 Meroow Bonegnawer
1 Gloomlance
1 Syphon Life
Red
1 Intimidator Initiate
1 Bloodmark Mentor
1 Power of Fire
1 Boggart Arsonists
1 Knollspine Dragon
Green
1 Tilling Treefolk
1 Monstrify
1 Flourishing Defenses
1 Viridiscent Wisps
1 Hungry Spriggan
1 Aerie Ouphes
UW
1 Worldpurge
GW
1 Medicine Runner
1 Shield of the Oversoul
1 Raven's Run Dragoon
UB
1 Gravegill Duo
1 Helm of the Ghastlord
1 River's Grasp
1 Wasp Lancer
BR
1 Emberstrike Duo
1 Fists of the Demigod
1 Manaforge Cinder
1 Murderous Redcap
GR
1 Scuzzback Marauders
1 Morselhoarder
1 Manamorphose
1 Giantbaiting
1 Runes of the Deus
RW
1 Fire at Will
UR
2 Inside Out
1 Clout of the Dominus
1 Noggle Ransacker
1 Noggle Bandit
1 Noggle Bridgebreaker
UG
1 Fable of Wolf and Owl
1 Favor of the Overbeing
1 Spitting Image
1 Shorecrasher Mimic
1 Selkie Hedge-Mage
2 Sturdy Hatchling
BW
1 Restless Apparation
1 Nip Gwyllion
1 Beckon Apparition
2 Nightsky Mimic
Should be 75 cards, if it isn't, an irrelevant card is probably missing.
I'll go through the steps I took to build me deck. Maybe you can learn something that way. Or maybe you can teach me something, if you point out my mistakes!
1) I sort my cards by colors because the dumbass who registered my pool didn't. I think he gets a warning or whatever if I call a judge and I might get some extra time. But I'm not sure about this, so I just quickly sort the cards...
2) I cut the crap.
I make one 'if I really have to' pile, which contains crap that might make the deck if certain conditions are met (eg. I want to make a 2 color deck and need an extra 'playable': cards like Pale Wayfarer, ...). The hybrid aura's without enough ways the get there also find their way quickly in this pile.
I sort my other cards by color, and thanks to the hybrid card this means a lot of piles. I seperate the really good cards, cards that draw my attention, from the other playables in that pile.
3) I try recognize the most powerful cards in my pool. I'll be trying to play as many of these as possible, as long as they are supported by a solid base of other playables.
4) I eliminate at least 1 color, but I keep in mind possible splash options (for example, if your red is clearly not going to make the deck as a main color, you might still want to play that Puncture Blast).
This step reduces the number of piles, since you will also rebuild your hybrid piles (say you remove red, you can put you can merge your UR pile with the blue cards, etc...).
5) I stare at the cards still on the table for 10 minutes, until I can 'see the matrix'.
Well maybe not for the whole 10 minutes, but I see the people around me already building, when I'm still sitting there, staring. I try to see which colors are deep enough to be a base color of the deck, I keep in mind the cards that 'excite me' and keep in mind possible options for splashing.
Obviously removal is crucial, but also some plan, the way your deck will be winning.
6)I iterate through a couple of builds and hope I made the right decisions when I start writing down my deck with 5 minutes left on the clock.
In practice, for this pool, it means something like this:
(exciting cards get tagged with a *)
The Pool, filtered
if I really have to
2 Shell Skulkin
1 Thornwatch Scarecrow
1 Pale Wayfarer
1 Put Away
1 Ghastly Discovery
1 Blowly Infestation (might be good in the right deck, not a bad per se, more kind of a possible flagship -to use the Floresian term)
1 Intimidator Initiate
1 Bloodmark Mentor
1 Tilling Treefolk
1 Flourishing Defenses (again, possible flagship. I underrated this card, and it seems to have gotten better with Eventide).
1 Gravegill Duo
1 Helm of the Ghastlord
1 Manaforge Cinder
1 Manamorphose
1 Giantbaiting
1 Runes of the Deus
1 Noggle Ransacker
White
1 Barrenton Medic
1 Rune-Cervin Rider
*1 Armored Ascension
*2 Recumbent Bliss
Blue
1 Cerulean Wisps
1 Whimwader
1 Merrow Wavebreakers
1 Parapet Watchers
1 Dream Thief
Black
*1 Gloomlance
1 Syphon Life
Red
*1 Power of Fire
1 Boggart Arsonists
*1 Knollspine Dragon
Green
1 Viridiscent Wisps
1 Hungry Spriggan
*1 Aerie Ouphes
GW
1 Medicine Runner
1 Shield of the Oversoul
1 Raven's Run Dragoon
UB
*1 River's Grasp
1 Wasp Lancer
1 Wingrattle Scarecrow
BR
*1 Murderous Redcap
GR
1 Scuzzback Marauders
1 Morselhoarder
RW
1 Fire at Will
UR
2 Inside Out
1 Noggle Bandit
1 Noggle Bridgebreaker
UG
*1 Spitting Image
1 Shorecrasher Mimic
*1 Selkie Hedge-Mage (only when you play enough Islands)
*2 Sturdy Hatchling
BW
*1 Restless Apparation
1 Beckon Apparition
2 Nightsky Mimic
So now the pool is somewhat filtered and easier to grasp.
The UG package was a clear standout, I would be trying to play at least one of those colors.
White has 2 Recumbent Blisses, Armored Ascension + Restless Apparation. The latter two require a heavy white commitment though, and it's clear that this pool coudln't really pull that off.
Red has Power of Fire, Murderous Redcap, Scuzzback Marauders and a Dragon. But pretty shallow and no real splashing options, except for maybe Power of Fire.
Blue is pretty deep and a fine candidate for a base color.
Green has the UG cards and a couple of really solid guys.
Black has Murdurous Redcap and Gloomlance, but again, pretty shallow.
So I started with a Blue base. The easiest next step, was adding green. Splashing 2 Recumbant Bliss was kind of a no brainer for me. That was the deck I had when 15-20 minutes of the 30 we had for deck building, had passed.
The deck looked ok, but didn't have a lot of removal. And I still had a couple of good cards in my sideboard, which I'd love to play: River's Grasp, Gloomlance and Murderous Redcap.
I looked at the green cards I was about to play, and noticed that they were mostly 'just guys', except for Aerie Ouphes, which is way more.
So I tried UBw. I wasn't really satisfied, but it seemed better than the UGw deck.
Here it is:
The Deck
1 Beckon Apparition
2 Nightsky Mimic
1 Shorecrasher Mimic
1 Wingrattle Scarecrow
1 Parapet Watchers
1 Dream Thief
1 Noggle Bandit
1 Selkie Hedge-Mage
1 Wasp Lancer
1 Syphon Life
2 Recumbent Bliss
1 Noggle Bridgebreaker
1 Murdurous Redcap
2 Sturdy Hatchling
1 River's Grasp
1 Merrow Wavebreakers
1 Whimwader
1 Gloomlance
1 Spitting Image
The mana is a little icky, and I'm not really sure what the optimal configuration is. 3 lands for 2 splashed cards has always been my rule of thumb, so 3 Plains. I chose for 9 Islands and 6 Swamps instead of 8/7, because I although I don't need a lot of blue, I'll need at least one every time. 6 Swamps for a couple of BB cards, seemed reasonable to me, since they're still good late game (although Redcap is a much bigger beating on turn 4).
Another thing I wasn't sure of, is Syphon Life. It seemed decent in testing, but this isn't an aggro deck that needs somethign to deal the last points. Also, I already had something to do with my spare lands. This should probably have been a Cerulean Wisps or Inside Out, and I boarded it out most of the time. When Peter Vieren pointed out that 'it's just an Urborg Syphon-Mage without the body', I felt pretty awkward. I hadn't thought of it that way.
That's it for part 1...
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