Community

Compared to Steve's usual high standard of analysis, I thought that this was uncharacteristically fluffy.

Some 'solid' home truths about drafting generally, a quick summary of the archetypes, all of which have their place, but you seemed to step around making any bolder statements.

I know most pros prefer to draft a couple of thousand times before they truly assess a set's ability, but I'd hoped for something more intuitive from a player like Steve.

My own experience, as in having played this set in sealed ONCE and drafted ONCE, is that poison is very good indeed but you need to get a couple of decent equipments, and by far the most useful seemed to be bladed pinions - evasion AND first strike - and (believe it or not) sylvok lifestaff . The ability to play and equip for , and keep you in the game on life, is not to be underestimated. I also don't think you need to play both infect colors - black-red (with red for removal, black and colorless for infect) worked very well for me (running about 7 or 8 infect creatures, including vector asp , and two contagion clasp ). You must, however, have a late game strategy if the board gets stabilized. Proliferate is the most obvious.

I have also found moriok replica to be insanely good and underdrafted. At worse, if black is your splash deck, they're a grey ogre . Again the lifestaff is kind of ideal with them. I literally held onto a game on the last turn against two unblockable creatures by equiping one replica, sacking it for net gain 1 life, drawing another, casting and equiping and sacking it for another net gain 1 life, and that 2 life was all i needed not to die next turn (plus I had recharged my hand by 3 cards).

That particular deck was a blue-red four color deck. For mana management I had two trinket mage to draw into two horizon spellbomb (or i could draw into two sylvok lifestaff ). No mana myr - I find them too vulnerable. I ran three moriok replica , two sylvok replica . I was also running furnace celebration[c] and [c]culling dias , heavy balista and soliton , and a couple of vedalken certarch for good measure. Sounds like a bit of a mishmash but it worked, my early game was simply about not edging out card advantage. My late game was very strong - most cards became two-for-one with all the interactions, and the certarchs came online.

Steve said :

One of the most important things to keep in mind when  you are drafting a  metalcraft deck is that you want to end up with at  least fourteen (but  preferably sixteen, or even eighteen) artifacts to  be able to reliably  turn on metalcraft and keep it on even in the face  of removal spells and  combat steps.

I think these numbers are a  little too high. Solidifying metalcraft is good, but the thing is, when  you're trying to cram in as many artifacts as possible in your 40,  thinking you have to reach such a high threshold as 16 to be really  safe, you risk ending up choosing mediocre artifacts over much better  colored cards, while the real threshold you should reach is probably  lower. Also, that threshold varies depending on how much your deck  relies on its metalcraft cards and how good those cards are without  metalcraft. In my experience, 13-14 is usually enough artifacts to play  even cards that are outright bad without metalcraft, such as Auriok Sunchaser . If I have such cards in my deck, I will be willing to  include artifacts over stronger colored cards to the point that I reach  about 14 artifacts, but not more. I'd be willing to play as few as 11-12  in order to include stronger colored cards if my metalcraft cards are  all still reasonably live without metalcraft, such as Ghalma's Warden and Chrome Steed .

Of course, that only applies when the worst colored cards you're  considering are clearly better than your worst artifacts. There's no  problem in reaching any number of artifacts if those cards are truly  better than your colored options. And when an artifact and a colored  card look about as good in the abstract, the artifact should usually get  the nod.

In-game, when you have just the 3 artifacts on the battlefield but not  more, be aware of the instant-speed removal that could trick you and  play accordingly. You should be fine.

Oct 12, 2010 -- 1:19AM, Highwayman wrote:

No mana myr - I find them too vulnerable.

Take my advice as you will, but I think you should really reconsider. The mana myr's vulnerability only really matters against the few removal spells that kill specifically 1-thoughness creatures while giving card advantage, the only common one being Instill Infection . Occasionally, you'll get blown out by Arc Trail , that's true, but it's only one uncommon. Otherwise, if your opponent wastes a real 1-for-1 removal spell on your mana myr, you should be quite happy unless you're mana screwed.

The benefits of playing mana myr far outweighs their vulnerability. Mana acceleration, being an artifact for metalcraft and a body for carrying equipment in the late game is way too god a package to pass on, at least when the produced mana is on-color. They can also help you splash, but it's true that you shouldn't count too much on them for that purpose.