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Innistrad draft continues to be one of my favorite all time formats.  Draft in general is an interesting format, where you at times must evolve mid-draft and change your deck strategy based on what is getting passed to you, and what cards are opened in the packs.  Many times I open a strong rare and suddenly find nothing in the same color getting passed to me.  That is the decision time.  Do I pick terrible cards to stay in a color, or go in a completely different direction?  If it's pack one, you may get what you are looking for next pack.  If it doesn't come, you had better jump ship and get another color before you are left holding a pile of worthless cards.
Some things online are over drafted.  Green-white agro or blue-black zombies for instance. ...

This last week I was looking to play some Magic, and knew that making out of the house was not in my future, so I decided to check out the MTGO Thursday Night Magic option and see what was going on there.   I knew if it were constructed, I'd be pretty much throwing away the entry cost to have whatever constructed deck I could throw together get eaten up by the "true" online players, but wanted to play a couple of rounds no matter what the outcome.
I was happy to find that it was an Innistrad draft that night and that for an entry of 12 tickets, you got the draft boosters and 1 booster for every win.  Not a bad deal I think, especially since I wanted to actually play all three rounds.  So faced with this first pack, what would you pick?
  Pack 1 pick 1:




  ...

Sometimes I wish I had more time to play paper Magic.
There are a number of reasons for this.  First, it's expensive to try and support an online and real life card collection simultaneously.  For that reason, I mostly play only in the pre-release and release events online, so that I’ll build a collection while getting in games of my favorite format, limited.  Be it sealed or draft, it is definitely what I’d rather being doing, especially online.  In the real world, I buy cards when a set comes out, usually by the fat pack and a booster box or two.  Since that “cost saving” option isn’t available online, I’ll pay for the cards as I’m going to play and slowly build my collection that way.  This keeps me priced out of ...

So where we in my futile attempt to draft white green?  Oh yes, pack 3 pick one.  Shall we?

  Pack 3 pick 1:




  My Pick:

Flying First stiker at the 3 drop spot is exactly what I was looking for.  The noble or Moan would have been great if I were drafting black.

  Pack 3 pick 2:




  My Pick:

Human that taps things.  Good stuff.  Lumberknot and the Spider also got a look, but I needed tricks like this guy had.

  Pack 3 pick 3:




  My Pick:

He's pretty easy to flip, he's human on both sides, and was the best thing in my color.  See, I skipped on that rare land this time

  Pack 3 pick 4:




  My Pick:

Too many choices this time.  I feel that this card is necessary in many situations,

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Hope that all is well in your part of the world, either Magic the Gathering world, or the real world.  Innistrad has proven to be an interesting and exciting set to play, and especially draft.  The probability that there may be multiple rares to choose from in your first pick of each pack is also something to excited about and leads to some very interesting decisions.

It is now, more than ever, that I wish that the Magic website had a draft simulator for more than just M12.  I suppose they push the core set, to stick with the "keep it simple" idea, and that more newbs practicing drafts will ultimately get more customers, and core sets are less confusing.  However, Magic is an intricate game, and there are some many levels of play, especially when draft is involved,

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So this coming weekend is the 2011 States championships and of course there is something that has come up to interfere with my participation in it.  This seems to be the norm for me as of late, as I find that middle age life and being the father of three beautiful girls sometimes gets in the way of playing a card game that doesn’t involve a gambling addiction.  And that being said, at least it is the only card game that I play.  But seriously, since first becoming involved in Magic, I knew that it was a game that I would enjoy and have to play in some capacity for the rest of my life.  These days it just feels like it hasn’t been enough lately.

As it turns out, I did not get to play in the Innistrad release events, as I had family in town.  That FNM

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