To Redraft or Not To Redraft?

Drafting is awesome.  Standing around afterwards for 15 to 30 minutes in a group looking at a bunch of cards and hoping no one chooses the one you want is not.

I'm using the term "Redraft" because the more common "Backdraft" means something else to me.  (I can write about that at another time.  I just looked and it's not on my list of wacky formats!)  Redrafting means that after the tournament, everyone returns the rares, mythics, foils, and time-shifted cards they drafted to a table.  Then the player who won chooses one of the cards.  The runner up chooses next, and so on through the group.  After everyone's picked, the winner chooses again, and so on.  Usually there are about 3.5 rounds, due to the foils.

Redrafting affects the draft process significantly: instead of choosing the excellent rare card you opened that is either terrible in limited or doesn't go with the pool you've drafted so far, you get to take a card better for your deck.  Unfortunately, there are also disadvantages. 

My draft group needs to make a decision about whether to continue redrafting or not.  Please read these Pros and Cons and then either leave a comment here or email me to vote.  I'm proposing an extra $1 cost to the draft and then giving that much in future credit to the winner of the draft.

Since I'm leaning against redrafting currently, I'll antagonize myself by putting the cons first:

Redrafting Cons:

• Discourages Wacky Drafting.  Instead of opening cooler old packs, you'd rather open the cheapest packs you can get a hold of and draft those, hoping someone else opens something juicy.
• The pros leave with all the dual lands.  When drafting lots of Rav/Guildpact/Diss years ago, someone in our group noticed that one of the regular drafters left with a dual land each time.   Without fail.  On the other hand, the less-skilled players never took home very valuable cards.  (Some may not see this as a disadvantage.)
• Players want to replace packs they open with $$$ inside.  In order to encourage people to open Battle For Zendikar in the future, I've pre-emptively told players they can replace any pack they open that contains an "Expedition Dual".  Instead of redrafting the dual land, they can stuff that opened pack into their collection and buy and open another pack.  This rule should, of course, apply to any player that opens a pack with anything they don't want to risk to the redraft process.  That means my players need to remember to bring a bunch of extra cash if they are getting packs from me.  
• This sucks extra for players who can't afford to spring for a replacement pack.
• It also means the prize pool won't have many cards worth over $6: players who open cards worth more than that should probably replace those packs.
• Everyone has to stay to the end.  Need to leave early?  Sorry, you can't, because you won't be able to redraft.  This sucks for a lot of people who just don't want to stay 3-4 hours for the full tournament.  Even worse if someone has to leave unexpectedly.
• Redrafting takes time.  The games are over.  Everyone wants to be doing something else, but instead everyone is looming over a table with the cards laid out.  All too often the current person is taking a long time because they have no idea which card they should be picking.  Trying to determine the most valuable card takes a lot of time.  Trying to do it while a bunch of people are waiting for you is even harder.  
• Missing cards sucks.  Sometimes the redraft is held up because there are rares or foils missing.  Everyone gathers around and looks through each others' card pools, but to no avail.  Sometimes cards have been handed around a bunch or maybe there's even a dishonest player amongst the group.  (Twice in the past month our redrafts have been held up at the FLGS because cards are missing.)  This can easily extend the wait 15-30 minutes and leaves a bad taste when things are unresolved.  This almost never happens among close groups, but can really suck in situations where not everyone knows everyone else super well.

Redrafting Pros:

• Free prize support.  Want to draft and have a prize?  Redrafting adds no additional cost and let's many people walk away with at least one card they might want.  (Pros get a good card, and novices usually find something they might be interested in playing.)
• Draft the best limited cards.  There's no reason to make a drafting choice based on the $ value of a card.  Always choose the best card for your deck, because you can redraft anything worth money.
• Novices don't regret passing money.  It's okay to pass valuable rares in a pack you open, because they'll go in the redraft anyways.
• Rares see more play.  Rare cards make their way around the table until they find a player's deck to fit in, instead of being gobbled up by someone who just wants it for the money.
• Pros attend.  Redrafts are usually casual events, but the local gurus will come attend them for the chance to walk away with a great card opened by any of the other people there.  This encourages all the players to play well and seems like it would improve everyone's skill.  In order to get the same result without redrafting, some other prize support is needed, which increases the cost to everyone.

Take all this in to account, then let me know how you feel, either in the comments or by emailing me.  Did I forget a point on either side?  Let me know and I'll add it to the list!  (Again, either in the comments or via email.)

Simic Shuffleupagus

Last night I played a UG Shuffleupagus build.  I really have a hard time deciding which colors in WUBG to run.  (Even Red has some cards similar to Cranial Extraction: Slaughter Games and Thought Hemorrhage.)  I was in the process of building WUB, but then I decided that I would probably be wanting more creatures, so I switched over to UG at the last moment.

Here's the list I ran:

Main deck:
4 Psychogenic Probe
4 Psychic Surgery  (These were actually pretty useful!)
4 Cosi's Trickster
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Serum Visions
4 Loaming Shaman
4 Riftsweeper  (I only whiffed on these, like, once!)
4 Lantern of Insight
2 Bribery
2 Blessed Reincarnation
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Breeding Pool
10 Forest
4 Island

Sideboard:
4 Deglamer
4 Unravel the Aether
3 Memory's Journey
2 Remand
2 Bribery


It didn't go so hot.  0-3-1, with only two total game wins.  Yikes.  Here's how it played out.

Round 1, I lost to Cody's Splinter Twin.  In the first game I mulled to five to get a land, then had no gas and lost quickly.  For the second game, I sided in all of my Deglamers and Unravel the Aethers, which was fun.  (Keranos doesn't look so indestructible when he gets shuffled back in.)  Although I didn't fall to a splinter twin combo, I couldn't keep up with the little beats and lost.

In the second round, I played against Evan's WUR deck.  (I don't know what it's called.  Sphinx's Revelation and other good stuff, I guess.)  This was a real battle!  Two control decks: time was called during game 1.  I had two Psychic Surgery out early on, and did get close to winning.  At one point, he was down to 2 life.  Later he had only three cards in his library at another, but he bounced back with Elixir of Immortality.  (Thankfully, it's a shuffle effect!)  He was finally able to transform a Delver of Secrets and win that way on the third turn after time, but he did have 16 cards in exile.  This was a really intense game and my favorite of the night.

I played against Katie's Cats Zoo-type deck in round 3.  I fared way better against this than I expected I would!  I held off her creatures in game 1 and got a Psychogenic Probe out for shuffling damage.  She went for the 5-life land (fetch for an untapped shock land with 2 shuffle damage) at one point, and I squeaked through a win off of Riftsweepers and Cosi's Tricksters.  She sided in Ancient Grudges for game 2 and beat me pretty soundly.  Game 3 went to time, with no one winning.  Hooray, I pulled off a draw round! :-P

In round 4, I played against Mike's BG deck full of big dudes.  I took game 1 by Psychic Surgerying away all his lands, but lost games 2 and 3 to big Phyrexian Obliterators and Wurmcoil Engines.

Lessons Learned:

I thought this would do better than it did.  It was certainly fun resolving Blessed Reincarnation, and Psychic Surgery really carried itself!  Two shuffles and slowing down an attacker is great!  In the end, I do think that White would be more fun than Green, and I might rather go for Black than Blue.  Yeah, maybe go Orzhov next time.  I really do want to find the best Shuffleupagus build! :) 

Updated Zombie Horde Deck List

Last winter, a talented Magic friend of mine sat down with me to beef up my Zombie Horde deck.  I've been asked for the list, so I figured I'd just provide all the details right here.

Rules:

* Survivors have 40 life total.  I don't care how many people are actually playing.

* The zombie deck gets 25 cards/player.  My list goes to 100 cards; for more players, I am considering adding more zombie tokens.

* The players get some free turns based on the challenge level they pick.  (Players don't draw their first turn.)

Challenge level:
Novice: Players get 4 turns before the first zombie turn
Normal: 3 turns
Challenge: 2 turns
Professional: 1 turn
Legendary: Zombies go first.

Everything else follows the rules originally laid out.

Without any further ado, here's the list:

59 Zombie tokens
8 Zombie Giant tokens
1 Gloomdrifter
1 Unbreathing Horde
1 Forgotten Wastes
2 Delirium Skeins
1 Army of the Damned
1 Twilight's Call
2 Bad Moon
1 Plague Wind
2 Nested Ghoul
1 Death Baron
1 Grave Titan
1 Vulturous Zombie
1 Noxious Ghoul
1 Undead Warchief
1 Living Death
1 Endless Ranks of the Dead
1 Zombie Apocalypse
1 Call to the Grave
2 Vengeful Dead
1 Grave Pact
4 Cackling Fiend
2 Soulless One
2 Syphon Flesh
1 Infectious Horror
(100 cards)

Modern UB Shuffleupagus

Shuffleupagus is my favorite deck.  I saw MaGo's preview for Psychogenic Probe back in the fall of 2003, and immediately went about trying to build a deck that would kill people via probe damage. 

I took a UBR to a standard PTQ (Mirrodin-Kamigawa time) after a lot of work, hoping I would do well.  I felt especially good against Tooth and Nail, due to my Cranial Extractions and Bribery.  I faced Tooth in my first match, but stalled out after extracting the Tooth and Nails.  I remember getting beaten up by a hard-cast Solarion.  Ugh.  I had a bunch of fun in the lower brackets from there on out, but I couldn't keep up with the middling aggro creature decks to get back into a good position.  I did have some exciting moments.  Since I was often going through my opponents' decks, I did well with Mindblaze.  One time, I had it on the stack, certain death for my opponent.  They responded with Twincast, but whiffed on the guess.  Whew!

Mirrodin cycled out of standard, then later out of Extended.  Thankfully, Modern arrived, happily going all the way back to Mirrodin.  Psychogenic Probe is relevant again!  And just barely.  There are so many good colors to use the probe with in Modern, but I decided to go with UB.  Here's the decklist:

Main deck:
4 Psychogenic Probe (obviously)
4 Cosi's Trickster (yes!)
0 Psychic Surgery (Why does this have to cost 1U instead of just U?  Booo.)
4 Lantern of Insight
4 Serum Visions
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Bribery
4 Remand
4 Bitter Ordeal
4 Cranial Extraction (I probably even know what's in your hand...)
4 Ghost Quarter (Combos really nicely with Bitter Ordeal)
4 Watery Grave
3 Swamp
14 Island

Sideboard:
4 Surgical Extraction
3 Blessed Reincarnation
3 Mimeofacture
1 Bribery
1 Counterbore
1 Acquire
2 Thada Adel
(I probably need some Learn from the Past in here...)

Modern is tomorrow!  We'll see how the new Shuffleupagus does!  I'm expecting there to be lots of Tron, so maybe I can Bribery up an Emrakul.

Modern R Norin: List and first Outing

Back for Lorwyn/Shadowmoor/Time Spiral standard, I ran a RW deck with Norin the Wary that included Pandemonium, Cloudstone Curio, Keldon Marauders, and other fun things.  More recently, I built a Norin EDH deck.

And then last week I noticed a card I wasn't aware of: Impact Tremors.  Boom.  I put together a Modern deck and took it to Black Moon games last night.  Here's the deck I ran:  (Quick summary: Impact Tremors, Genesis Chamber + Norin and dash creatures.)

4 Impact Tremors
3 Genesis Chamber (I couldn't find a fourth in time!)
2 Outpost Siege
1 Purphoros
4 Norin the Wary
4 Glitterfang
4 Mardu Scout
4 Lightning Berserker
3 Zurgo Bellstriker
2 Hordeling Outburst
4 Screamreach Brawler
1 Goblin Heelcutter
24 Mountain

I played 4 rounds last night:

Round 1, I lost 0-2 to a WUBR deck.  Elesh Norn kicked my butt game 1 and I sided into stuff that was too conservative for game 2.  I didn't realize how potent I could be until the next round...

Round 2: Won 2-1 to my own Spiteclasm deck, piloted by my friend Matt F.  He won game 1 handily, but I pulled off a turn 5 win to take game 2.  First turn Norin followed up by either Impact Tremors or the Genesis Chamber is very strong!  In game 3, Matt got hit by the mana screw, and I won within 10 turns.

Round 3: Won 2-1 against a Jund deck run by Nate, who was my other head in 2HG sealed last month.  (We went 2-1 to take second place of 4 teams.)  I lost game 1, but got to stack up my trigger cards (tremors, chamber, Outpost Siege, Purphoros) the next two games, which pulled the win off for me.  Turns out that Outpost Siege is really strong against Goblin Rabblemaster: the goblins have to attack and two dying Myr can kill the master.

Round 4: Lost 1-2 against Merfolk.  I won game 1 handily, but couldn't handle the onslaught in games 2 and 3.  I should have mulliganed down to 5 for game 3, but I kept an okayish 6-card hand.  I really needed to get the turn 2 Norin + support to make this one happen.  Tough.

Summary: 2-2, not too bad for a deck I threw together the night before (with essentially no sideboard).  Future plans: I heard today about the RW version, Soul Chamber, though I really want to keep the Impact Tremors and dash creatures.  Perhaps I can fit the white in just enough to fit 4 Soul Warden and 4 Soul's Attendant.  Also, Blood Moon really needs to be in the main deck, but they were sitting happily in my Spiteclasm deck, which Matt took to 1-3.

Spiteclasm Decklist

For the past year(ish), I've been running a modern deck I designed.  It's based on creatures like Spitemare and Boros Reckoner and damage-based soft board wipes, like Pyroclasm.

Some have asked for the decklist, so here is the current version:

4 Spitemare
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Pyroclasm
4 Whipflare
4 Volcanic Fallout
4 Earthquake
4 Magmaquake
1 Flame-Wreathed Phoenix
2 Skred
2 Blood Moon (I should probably have more)
4 Boros Signet
23 Snow-Covered Mountain

The board has more phoenixes, skreds, and also utility things like Yamabushi's Storm and Rolling Temblor.

The Skred/Snow-Covered Mountain combo was a suggestion by John J.

Another friend, Aaron D., alerted me to Humble Defector, which seems like it definitely needs to find a place in here. :)

This deck is super fun to play with!  In it's first tournament, it went 3-1, and most recently I nearly won a tournament, but lost in the last round to the winner, one of my students.

Modern Witch-Maw Cascade

On Tuesday night I took a new deck to Double Midnight comics in Manchester, NH.  (First time there!)  The deck is WUBG and highly relies on the cascade mechanic.  Here's the list:

2 Plains

2 Swamp

5 Island
11 Forest

2 misty rainforest

1 verdant catacombs

1 windswept heath

4 Captured Sunlight

2 Early Harvest

2 Time warp

4 enlisted wurm

4 deny reality

1 enigma sphinx

4 urban evolution

2 harmonize

2 gaea's blessing

3 unexpected results

4 search for tomorrow

4 sakura-tribe elder

The basic plan is to stall/control with captured sunlight, sakura-tribe elder, deny reality, and time warp, get some enlisted wurm and enigma sphinx out, then keep swinging while taking lots of turns.  Taking lots of turns isn't too hard if the two gaea's blessings keep the deck cycling.  The time warps and other cascade/utility cards will keep coming back and you'll have plenty of land to keep doing things.

Land is one of the exciting things about this deck.  It's very easy on turn 7 to have 15 land on the board.  There's no Explore, but the Search for Tomorrow and Sakura-Tribe Elder will help get lots of stuff out.  And, since all the lands that stick around are basics, cascading into Early Harvest can double the length of an early turn.  Unexpected Results often really nice, and whenever I played it, my opponents were actually pretty excited to see what I'd get.

Here's how it went down.

Round 1: Bye.  Dang it!  Is my rating that low?  Matches: 1-0.

Round 2: I played Green (and Red?) Tron, which gets the Urza's lands going, and then drops big things.   In game 1, I ended it pretty early, using Deny Reality to keep the Urzatron offline.  I won with two Enlisted Wurms on the board and a Time Warp to hit for 20.  Game 2 and 3 didn't go my way, though, with Urzatron sticking around and him getting him the fat beats.  Emrakul killed me in game 3.  Oof.  Matches: 1-1, Games: 1-2

Round 3: Mono-green devotion/Genesis Wave had my number.  Ouch.  Two games quickly lost.  My opponent, Thomas, was really nice and we played a bunch of games afterwards with me running my Pyroclasm-Reckoner deck.  I won them all, but he kept really trying to take me down.  Matches: 1-2, Games: 1-4.

Round 4: I played against Mono-white Hate-bears.  Unfortunately, Leonin Arbiter is really good against all my fetching and Thalia is good against cascade.  I did manage to win game 2 by paying for the searching on an early arbiter, and quickly ramping up.  I couldn't keep up on game three, however.  Matches: 1-3, Games: 2-6.

Round 5 (final): I lost two straight games to UB mill.  I thought I'd be able to win easily due to Gaea's Blessing, but Nick was quick to Surgical Extraction those whenever I cast them.  I did not think that I would ever be missing Whirlpool Warrior.  I sided in two more blessings and 3 Serene Remebrances for game 2, but his sided Leyline of the Void was too much.  Drat!  I really thought I could pull that one off.  Matches: 1-4, Games: 2-8.

The deck didn't fare as well as I'd hoped.  The big problem is a lesson I haven't learned since playing a deck based around Time Stretch and Gurzigost at the Boston Regionals in 2003: taking lots of turns isn't a great win condition.  This deck would probably be a lot better if the Time Warps were replaced with Bribery or something.  Still, this deck is a lot of fun, and it was great to get a bunch of attention when the cascades started to go off.