Draft log
Fascing pivot as late as PACK TWO SEVENTH PICK. Which is a little late to be thinking pivot, which is also probably how I missed it. Should I have gone into red here?
Here’s the situation:
Post-game 5-12-21
Going to try something new and start with the end and then work backwards to see what happened. Bad draft? Lost equity on gameplay? I’m still bouncing around a 50% win-rate on Strixhaven, which is certainly lower than I want to be.
1-2
Read morePost-Game: 5-9-21
Post-Game: 5-8-21
Had a great coaching session with LordTupperware (nee Ethan Saks) where we spent some time going deeper on draft and weighing picks. There was a great argument early in pack 2:
Returned Pastcaller is a B+, just a powerful 2:1 that has a real ethreat. Combat Professor has been climbing the ranks and is probably the top mono-white card at B-/C+. But we’re midway through pack 2, so context matters more. (Note 17lands wasn’t installed on my laptop due to corporate firewalls). At this point I had a good base of aggressive white cards but still not settled. Also: I did not have an Environmental Sciences.
I argued with Ethan a fair amount and I think he was right I was wrong. I wanted the Pastcaller because I wanted to increase my ceiling. Ethan argued for the Combat Professor because, while there were whispers of red, it wasn’t super open and I had no splashing tools. Thus the odds that it sits idle in the sideboard are significant. And lo and behold, that’s what happened.
This gave rise to my latest homework assignment: recognizing in draft when the values of the cards change because of context. In the example above, the Returned Pastcaller dropped in value to a B- while Combat Professor in an aggressive white shell rounds closer to B.
Raw Card Power x Likelihood of Playing – (Compromised Pick to Enable Splash)
Draft log
Post-Game: 4-30-21
One of the difficulties of a blog like this is balancing the “gosh isn’t it fun to write about Magic cards” versus “…but not as much fun as actually playing with Magic cards, amirite?” But there was an overnight at the grantparents and–in addition–to sleeping in until 8am, there was also a loosening of the tight trade-offs of available time. To the drafts!
Draft log
Post-Game: 4-27-21
Okay, time to get back in the groove of this whole “writing” thing. Recovered from Kaldheim and back to my happy place: five clean color pairs to find a land and wring that sweet sweet efficiency. Also started Lil Chandra watching her first Magic stream tonight (I had 30 seconds of unsupervised parenting while Benalish Momma was unpacking the bike). Attack of opportunity!
Draft log
Benalish Dad 