We're not in Kansas anymore. Cause puns and stuff.

By the time this post goes up, I should be somewhere north of my Norman home, on the way to Kansas City to sling some spells. For the past few months I have been behind the wheel of a self made Red list that I am quite comfortable with. That being said, I intend to take a Red deck to the legacy portion of the event Sunday as well. My Standard list for Saturday will be as follows:

Mans: 19
4 Stromkirk Noble
4 Stormblood Beserker
3 Grim Lavamancer
3 Chandra's Phoenix
3 Hero of Oxid Ridge
2 Reckless Waif

Instants: 13
4 Incinerate
4 Gut Shot
3 Brimstone Volley
2 Ancient Grudge

Artifacts: 4
4 Shrine of Burning Rage

Planeswalkers: 1
1 Koth of the Hammer

Lands: 23
4 Rootbound Crag
17 Mountain

Sideboard: 15
3 Blasphemous Act
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Koth of the Hammer
1 Reckless Waif
3 Arc Trail
3 Vulshok Refugee
2 Burn the Impure

As for the Legacy portion of the event, I will be making even more red mana enter my pool and turn into some sweet direct damage with the burn list that follows.

Mans: 12
4 Goblin Guide
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Hellspark Elemental

Instants: 12
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Fireblast
4 Price of Progress

Sorcerys: 16
4 Lava Spike
4 Chain Lightning
4 Flame Rift
4 Rift Bolt 

Lands: 20
2 Barbarian Ring
18 Mountain

Sideboard: 15
3 Tormod's Crypt 
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Smash to Smithereens
4 Pyroblast
2 Reverberate

We will see how playing mono red works out for two days running. I know I will auto lose to tendrils going off before turn 3. However 4 mind break traps will do nothing for my success so I'm just going to try and push as much damage as possible and get my pyropillars on line. I feel as if my deck should have a surprise element against everything (mostly the players) in Kansas City, so maybe I'll take down some matches.

As a special bonus, you will be getting a review of the Star City deliver to tournament site mechanic, as my entire legacy deck, besides the goblin guides, is "in the mail". Here's hoping I actually get to play some legacy. Next week I will have some evaluations on the Legacy and Standard meta games and an adapted standard list for how to beat those Dungrove Elders.

As always, you can find me on Twitter @samdavisboyhero and I will attempt to live tweet as much of Star City Kansas City as possible! Until next time, keep your sleeves clean and your creatures unblocked.

A Limited View of Limited (Part 1)

Drafting can be one of the best ways to expand your skills as a player for a multitude of reasons. However good experiences come from good practice and you cannot practice things that you don't know about. It is doubtful that those of you reading this are professional Magic players and while I hope you all one day will sit down with 7 other folk and draft at a professional level, I am going to start at the very beginning and talk you through drafting, outlining how good drafting works and pointing out what isn't good drafting. 

So you walk in to your local store and pay approximately $15 to participate in a sanctioned draft. Given that it is a local store, there will be between 6 and 30 other people there for any given draft, depending on how strong your Magic community is and how many people in that community like drafting. The draft will start and you will, hopefully, sit around a table with 7 other people, making a pod of 8. Three packs will be set in front of you. If the store owner sees new faces, he or she will likely ask if everyone knows how to draft. Some people will jokingly say no. If you have questions that are not covered in the words above and below, now would be the perfect time to ask said store owner. After that has resolved, he or she will tell everyone to begin.

Now take a moment and look around. How many people are drafting? Is it just your table or is there another pod or two? How many people are actually at your table? What do the people at your table generally like to play? All of these things are important to note. If this is one of your first drafts, I will understand if you don't know the playstyle and colour preference of every player. Instead just check to see how many people are in your pod and if there is another pod.

Now that you know those seemingly insignificant details, you can open your first pack. Look at all the cards in the pack. Pick the card that seems best. If it is one of your first drafts of your life, or of a new set, you will be tempted to auto pick the rare that is worth 5-10 dollars (I have been guilty of this). Don't do it unless you think you will be playing it. It is pack one, pick one. You have a lot more cards to look at. Generally, taking "removal" effects like Doom Blade or Lightning Bolt are good first picks and even though they are commons, don't feel bad about taking them. You likely will not see another. 

Place your card in front of you and pass the remaining cards face down to the left in one pile. Don't get these piles mixed up and if at all possible try not to back up packs on a person. Just because you know which one they should be picking up doesn't mean that the person you are passing to knows which stack they should be picking up.

The pile that was just passed from your right will now have one fewer cards, clearly. As a general rule, I like to look at the uncommons in packs first as they, more often than not, determine how reliable and solid your deck will turn out to be. Take a card and pass the pack down. We all learned this in 1st grade so hopefully this concept should be easy to grasp. Oh and you must take one card and only one card. Easy enough.

Try and stay in one or two colours in your first pack if possible. Now if you note that there seem to be a lot fewer good cards of one colour or that there are no cards of that colour (Green), you can likely assume that the people to your right are in that colour. Congratulations! You have just read your first signal. Signaling is an important part of drafting as it allows everyone to build functional decks without stepping on anyone's toes. This creates a better experience for everyone over all.

Now that you have picked the last card from your first pack, take a moment to look at the cards you have been drafting. Things you need to look at are the number of creatures you have compared to the number of good solid spells you have and what the average converted mana cost of your picks is so far. That seems like a lot and for the first several times you draft, it will be. Eventually you will do this almost automatically and note that you seem to have a serious lack of creatures or that somehow you only drafted cards with CMC 4 or above. This will let you know what you need to be looking for in this next pack. Keep in mind that you only have about half a minute to really check this over.

Now you are opening your second pack. For the sake of this article, you open a sweet rare that is in your colours. That is called "packing" a card. It is a good feeling. Savor it. Pass the remainder of the pack to the right this time. I know, I switched it up on you. Pick up the pack being passed from your left. Look it over and pick a card. Do it again. And now you are on pick 4 of pack 2. Suddenly you notice that there are no super solid picks for your deck. However there is a super sweet card in another colour (Green). 

Now you will be tempted to "hate draft" that card. Think back to just before the draft. Was there more than one pod? If yes, don't pick that card. Now I know you are thinking "But what if the player to my left takes it then kills me with it?" However you might as well be thinking "What if a player in the other pod has 15 Lightning Bolts?" You cannot control with whom you are being paired to play against and as such, hate drafting loses a lot of its power. Instead take a look at the cards that are in your colours and decide what card, even if you don't intend to place it in your main deck, might benefit you. Take that card instead, pass the pack and check to see if the person to your right smiles or picks a card very quickly. If they do, pat yourself on the back. It means you correctly read that he or she was in Green and you got them a present. 

Look over your cards again and see if you now have a more comfortable amount of creatures to spells and if you have corrected your "curve". The idea of the curve can be difficult to grasp. If you can, think of a line graph. Think of how many cards you have costing one. Then 2, 3, ect. If you make a reasonable hill on this graph then you are doing just fine. However if you again note that you still only have very mana intensive cards, Try to correct this with the upcoming pack. 

Open up that last pack, pick a card and pass it back to the left. Finish out the selection process and proceed to building your deck. Your deck must be a minimum of 40 cards, including land. I personally do not recommend going over this except in very rare circumstances. I suggest you play 23 cards and 17 land, if you are just starting, or the format is new. Once you know that you really like playing an aggressive deck you can go up to 24 cards and 16 land (because generally aggro decks have a lower converted mana cost and thus will require less land). Similarly if your deck has 18 removal spells and 4 sweet dudes that cost 4-7 mana, I would suggest playing 22 cards and 18 land to ensure that when you want to play your "bomb" you will be able to have removal spell mana available to you as well. However these nuances take time to learn in different formats, even for experienced players. 

Now that you have built your deck, you are ready to play some Magic. In the second installment, I will be taking you through some common play mistakes and some secret tech as far as playing and the drafting  process. If you can't get enough of me, you can pester me on Twitter or relax and listen to one of our podcasts. 

Until next time, keep your sleeves clean and your foils flat.

You have to start somewhere

Hi. I'm Sam. I play, and now write and podcast about, Magic: The Gathering. Under my belt I have only a year of "competitive" play, largely at my local store in Norman, Oklahoma. If you're ever in the area you can find me slinging the spells most Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at Wizard's Asylum. I have managed such hi-jinks as Top 8ing the M12 Gameday while only winning one actual game in the Swiss rounds. However, I feel that there are enough Magic blogs that are chocked full of war stories so I will attempt to spare you most of the details of my actual play and instead focus on hi-lighting decks I want to be playing, and that you, dear reader, may desire to be playing. I also would like to share with you my opinions of sets, individual cards, and the Metagame as a whole.

This being my first post, I want it to be something that is unrelated to the current metagame and a solid post that players both new and old might be able to garner something from. Essentially, everything that follows should be timeless advice that I have collected on my road to being an ever so slightly better player than the person who brought Red/Green Kiln Fiend to the M11 Game Day.

1. Play a deck that fits you.

I know that this seems obvious, and if you missed the Standard that included the Zendikar and Scars of Mirrodin blocks you may not fully understand what exactly I mean, however the easiest way to put this is: if a control deck is dominating the format and you are not a control player, don't play that deck. Play your Tier 2 combo deck or your Tier 1.5 aggro list. Your comfort level with the deck will show through over the course of a long tournament. After 5 rounds of Magic, sitting down with a deck that feels fun and suits you compared to sitting down with a deck that grinds your mind and exhausts you can be the difference of making Day 2 of a tournament or wondering why you bothered to get that extra night at the hotel.

2. Think about your play.

Another seemingly obvious suggestion, two seconds before making plays can make all the difference in the world. When you look at your opening seven, count your cards even if it is a snap keep and think about the first few plays. Before making the obvious play, two seconds to see what else you could do can open up a better line of play. Even before dropping a land, make sure it plays to whatever you could draw the next turn. If you have double white cards you can draw and no turn one play, drop the plains. Next turn you can drop the mountain and play the (1)R dude in your hand without a problem. Rather than drop your mountain and bluff a burn spell then look at your hand in sadness with a superior WW dude off the top of your library.

3. Draft


If you desire to become a better player, go to your local store and spend $15 when you can, and draft. You will find interactions you will never see just looking at the cards in a visual spoiler or even in constructed Magic. Don't confuse these interactions as being constructed playable. Instead just realize that the more you get to think about cards, which draft lends itself to 100%, the better you understand the game of Magic and the better you will become as a player.

4. Losing happens


This can be especially hard to learn. Games you feel like you "should" win and lose because your opponent topdecks their single copy of whatever card blows you out of the game will happen. It will happen more than you feel is statistically likely. You will get land flooded and land lite more than you think you should. It doesn't matter. That is part of the game of Magic. Shuffle up your cards and go to the next game. Next time you sit down across from a player, just remember that anything can happen in your game and you should never be overconfident.

5. Magic is a community.


While this advice does not technically make you a better player, remembering this when you walk into your local store can have a huge impact on your game in the long term. Playing Magic with people you like, traveling to tournaments with people you like, and spending time with people you like makes the Magic experience worth whatever time you invest into it. You will make friends with people at the shop you frequent and they will often have more or different experiences with the game than you will. Listening to them and learning what you can has the potential to make you a better player. You should also remember that people will talk amongst themselves and if you super undercut someone on a trade or seem like you might be cheating in a round, many of the store regulars will know about it. Be a good person and play nice with others. That is the best advice I can give for Magic, and life.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below and check out my next post which should cover the deck I think I should be playing after States, this coming Saturday. You can contact me on Twitter @samdavisboyhero and if you cannot wait until Monday, check out the most recent podcast of Planeswalker's Asylum over on Couch Pirate Radio.

Until next time, keep your sleeves clean and your hand full.