AVR: First Draft

Well, I didn't get to spend the past week examining draft archetypes (exams, etc.), but hopefully I will have some time to comment on it this week.

I made it to the local AVR pre-release on Saturday. This feels like an awful Sealed Deck format. There are so many cards that are very restricted to one or two deck archetypes in order to be even playable. I opened about fifteen playable cards for red/black aggro, but I had no black removal spells. I ended up playing blue/green control, splashing black for the reanimator enchantment (protip: you can cast this on your opponent's guys if you want to steal them). Every game I resolved Ulvenwald Tracker was a blowout win in my favor, and every game that I didn't draw him I ended up losing by a pretty small margin. Considering I had no ways to filter my draws and a pretty jank deck, I was more or less okay with how things turned out. Sometimes you play tight and your deck just doesn't give you the answers you need.

That being said, I fully expected drafting the set to be awesome. We won/traded for enough prize packs to run a six man team draft. For those of you who have never team drafted before, the way it works is you sit in alternating seats. Drafting is exactly the same as normal, with the caveat that you aren't allowed to talk openly about picks during the draft.

Many predicted that this draft format would be "slow," especially compared to DKA-INN-INN and triple Innistrad, much in the same way that Rise of the Eldrazi was a much, much slower format than Zendikar/Worldwake. When I first perused the visual spoiler, I didn't see it. Yes, you can draft much slower decks in this format, but if your deck isn't prepared for fast decks (and, yes, there are some very fast decks that you can draft in this format) you will drop a lot of matches. There is some insane linear synergy in the aggressive decks that lets them curve out into some really fast starts (more on that later).

Anyway, back to the draft report. I'm fairly confident that the "best possible" deck archetype is some kind of green/red aggro deck, but the green combos so well with other colors (especially white) that trying to draft red/green is pretty difficult. I wanted to play a faster deck in order to punish the other players at the table, all of whom had decided that Avacyn Restored would be much slower than Innistrad/Dark Ascension. I didn't keep track of all my picks, but the gist of it was this:

Pack one: I first picked Riot Ringleader over Gang of Devils, Bloodflow Connoisseur, and three good green cards. I second picked Lightning Mauler over another Gang of Devils and some non-red, non-white stuff. There was a Thatcher Revolt in the pack, which meant that wheeling Connoisseur into the Revolt would put me firmly in red/black. My next few picks were both vampires, Heirs of Stromkirk and Havengul Vampire. I  stayed in red until the Bloodflow Connoisseur pack came back. No Bloodflow Connoisseur (meaning that I would not be drafting black today, as someone else was obviously drafting it), but all the green cards wheeled (interesting, but mostly a sign that my read on the format was just different than the other drafters') and I was able to pick up the red team pump spell (Banners Raised). The next pack had the Thatcher Rebellion, though, so that was an easy pick. I finished the pack out with mostly red cards, Moorland Inquisitor, and the red/white spell land (Slayers' Stronghold), meaning red/white aggro was wide open.

Pack two: First pick Thunderous Wrath (yes!), unfortunately passing Thunderbolt to my friend Al. I found out after the draft that he took that as a signal to move into red; he ended up taking two or three more Thunderbolts (!). Luckily, Thunderbolt isn't a main deck card in red/white aggro, though it is a very important sideboard card against slower white decks packing Seraph of Dawn. The rest of this pack had some more Riot Ringleaders, Thatcher Revolt, Lightning Mauler, some of the white one-drops, the "white Shock," and Falkenrath Exterminator.

Pack three was relatively uninteresting. I fleshed out my curve with Heirs of Stromkirk, Kruin Strikers, and some more red and white aggro cards.

In future write-ups I'll try to take better notes on picks to better communicate my draft strategy. Now, onto the games:

The way playing a team draft works is each player on a team plays each player on the other team in a best-of-three match, and the first team to win five or more matches wins the draft.

Match 1: vs Al (seat 6, to my right).

Going into this match I knew Al wasn't on an aggro plan. I expected some black cards. He wound up playing black/green. His deck was very slow. In our first game, I won the die roll and went:
- Turn one Stonewright. He played Swamp and passed.
- Turn two Kruin Striker, soulbond with Stonewright. Attack for one with Stonewright. He played Forest and passed.
- Turn three Riot Ringleaders, swing with Kruin Striker and Stonewright for four. He played Swamp, Demonic Taskmaster, and passed.
- Turn four Thatcher Rebellion, swing with everything. He blocked Riot Ringleaders with his Demon. I cast Banners Raised and killed him.
Now, even if I hadn't attacked on turns one, two, and three, my turn four swing would have been lethal on an empty board (it's twenty points of damage, exactly). As I was saying before, this draft format supports some highly consistent fast decks.
Game two was a little bit closer. After my first couple of plays he bought some time with Barter in Blood, clearing my board. I reloaded with Heirs of Stromkirk into Riot Ringleaders and Kruin Striker into Havengul Vampire and Thatcher Revolt, killing him. Heirs of Stromkirk is a superstar against non-red decks, allowing you to break through the last bits of damage if they are able to stabilize and gum up the board. Anyway, that's 1-0 (2-0) me.

Match 2: vs Jon (seat 2, to my left).

Jon won the die roll. He opened on Island, go. I opened on Mountain, go, which prompted him to ask when I moved into red. I laughed, saying "Pack one, pick one." He was surprised, since I passed him two Gang of Devils. Jon asserted that the format is "slow enough" that Gang of Devils is a good card. While Gang of Devils seems like a fine card in a more controlling deck, it costs six mana. I was running a deck with sixteen lands and a curve that topped out at four mana (but Jon had no way of knowing this). The fact of the matter is, Gang of Devils is a sort-of-okay card in most strategies. Its best in the slower red/black deck that tries to grind out wins with Blood Artists and demons. With a sacrifice outlet (e.g. Bloodflow Connoisseur), Gang of Devils becomes a decent removal spell, but, again, it costs six. Anyway, back to the game. I was able to get him really low, basically by playing and attacking with guys every turn. He got a turn four Seraph of Dawn, which slowed my clock slightly, but on its own a Seraph of Dawn isn't stopping the red tide. Next turn he enchants it with Infinite Reflections. Now every creature he plays is a 2/4 lifelinking angel. Big problem. I still managed to get him (and keep him) low enough that Thunderous Wrath is live for five straight draw steps, but it doesn't get there. We go to game two. I board in my enchantment removal, since I'm fairly certain Infinite Reflections on Seraph of Dawn is literally the only way his deck can beat mine.

Game two I curve out and kill him in five turns. Game three was more interesting. He had Goldknight Commander and some more dudes gumming up the board and occasionally swinging back. I was able to really mess him up, though, when I cast Thatcher Rebellion (with Kruin Striker and Riot Ringleaders on board), swinging with my team and leaving mana up. In this situation, he has to block something or he dies (I don't remember the life totals exactly). "As is," he can block my human tokens without losing anything (he had a bunch of 3 toughness guys), and if he has two cheap creatures in hand he can swing back for lethal on his turn. He blocks two of my tokens; I cast Banners Raised and blow him out. At this point in the draft, I'm now 2-0 (4-1).

Match 3: vs Marc (seat 4, directly across)

When Marc and I sat down to play, the score was 4-3 (on matches) in favor of my team, meaning that if I or my other teammate (playing against Jon) won the match, we would win the draft, but if we both lost our team would lose. Because Marc sat across from me, I wasn't sure what was in his deck. I had seen parts of his games against my teammates, so I knew he was green/white. I just didn't realize going into it how ridiculous his deck was.

Game one I punted a winnable game. Winning the die roll, I kept a hand that would let me curve out and start swinging for stupid amounts of damage on my fourth turn. I opened on Mountain, pass, holding both of my one drops so that I could go turn two Kruin Striker and swing for four on turn three (in case he played a blocker on turn two). He plays Forest and passes back. I go Plains, Kruin Striker, pass. He goes Wandering Wolf and passes back. Turn there I play both my one drops (Stonewright, soulbonded to the Striker, and Midnight Duelist) and swing with Kruin Striker for four, leaving mana up for Righteous Blow. He declines to block and takes the full brunt of the swing. On his turn he plays Trusted Forcemage (soulbond with the wolf) and swings with his wolf. Now, this is where I punt the match. I was more than happy to trade swings with his wolf, knowing that he would "have to" block my Kruin Striker (at some point) with his Forcemage and lose Soulbond. I was going to be casting Riot Ringleaders into Thatcher Revolt over the next two turns. This game felt in the bag for me. I severely misplayed by not killing his wolf with Righteous Blow when it attacked this turn, which would have made his Forcemage unable to block any of my attacks the next turn. Anyway, it ends up being close, but Timberland Guide buffs his Wolf up to 4/3 (and out of Righteous Blow range). Suddenly, I can't attack with everything because he'll be swinging back for seven, so I have to leave back a chump blocker for the Forcemage. In other words, "Very awkward." I definitely should have killed his Wolf when I had the chance, a mistake that ultimately ended up costing me the match.

Game two I curved out and killed him. It wasn't particularly interesting; I played tight and was swinging for lethal on turn four (again).

Game three was much closer. I had some early pressure and he had early defense. Unfortunately I wasn't able to force through a hit with Falkenrath Exterminator, which would have let me start clearing his board of guys. He wound up casting Riders of Gavony, naming Humans, which pretty much locked me out of the game unless I topdecked Thunderous Wrath. Long story short, I didn't get there.

So I ended up 2-1 (5-3), but would have been 3-0 (6-1) if I hadn't misplayed game one. Red/white aggro is a very strong deck in this format, especially if nobody is cutting you on the aggressive red guys. I had Riot Ringleaders, Kruin Strikers, and Thatcher Revolts in multiples. My curve topped out at four. As an added bonus, I had the spell land in my colors, and though I think I would have been "fine" without it having it on board really messes with your opponent's ability to do combat math. My team did end up winning the draft overall, so that was a plus. Marc's deck was amazing, and I'm going to attribute this to three things: 1. Green/white aggro is very strong (like red/white, only a little bit slower with a little bit bigger guys), 2. Riders of Gavony is a huge bomb in green/white aggro (i.e. humans), and 3. my teammate sitting to Marc's right isn't a very good drafter (he ended up drafting a pretty lackluster red/green splash blue deck after passing Marc a bunch of good green guys in pack one).

Anyway, these were my big takeaways from an initial draft of the set:
- Red and green are the two strongest main deck colors for aggressive decks. White is a good support color for either; black is a good support color for red.
- Slower decks have to have some kind of early plays or removal if they want to even stand a chance against aggressive decks. In Rise draft, you could make your first play on turn four and be fine even if you were against an "aggressive" deck (certainly a relative term in this case). In Avacyn Restored, by turn four on the draw you could just be dead.
- While Jon drafted a deck with blue cards and white cards, nobody at the table successfully drafted what I think of as "the blue/white deck" in triple AVR. Jon's deck had some angels, some guys, and some random spells. It was somewhat bomby (with Infinite Reflections being insane on either Seraph of Dawn or Goldnight Commander), but it didn't have the kind of tricks that I think a blue/white deck needs to rely on in this format. The flicker effects, soulbond, combat tricks, and deck filtering in blue/white are all very strong, and Jon's deck didn't really seem to have any of those elements.

Now that I have some experience to support my assertions, this is what I feel is the breakdown of deck types (in order of strongest to weakest):
1. Red/green aggro/soulbond (humans)
2. Green/white and red/white aggro/soulbond (humans)
3. Red/black
4. Black/blue Demons and white/blue Angels/soulbond
5. Black/x control
6. Blue/x control

By no means is this a comprehensive list of draft archetypes in Avacyn Restored. Off the top of my head, here are a few more that I just don't feel comfortable ranking right now:
- Black/x Demons, White/x Angels (where x is a non-blue support color)
- Red/blue spells
- Blue/white fliers, flicker
- Green/black Triumph

One last thing: the only color fixing in this set is green. The only ramp in this set is green, and it's rare (well, there is a red "fast mana" spell, but it's very borderline playable). Basically, there are two big traps in this draft format. The first trap is relying on being able to cast expensive spells (e.g. Gang of Devils, Archangel). Unless you can really stall the game out and dig, you aren't going to get there. The second trap is trying to play more than two colors. In a green deck with multiple Borderland Rangers/Abundant Growth I could see splashing a third color for some amazing color or bomb, but that's really the only circumstance where it's even remotely viable.

Let's talk about drafting AVR

Wizards posted the full set earlier today, so I (naturally) had to take a look and see what could be gleaned about it for limited. Since I plan on crushing at least one prerelease and drafting the packs afterward, I figure I may as well get a leg up.

When evaluating a set for limited I tend to ignore the rares and focus only on the commons and uncommons. "Bombs" is always a more-or-less viable draft archetype, and in this format the noticeable lack of spot removal suggests that it could be even better than usual. That being said, what the bombs are exactly usually isn't that important. It's better to be able to go into a draft with an actual plan about what draft archetypes are good. This helps you signal better and evaluate picks more accurately.

A cursory perusal suggests that RW and GW are two of the stronger aggro archetypes. RB also looks to be strong, although drafting it seems like it could be tricky. There are a number of sacrifice creature costs in black that make Thatcher's Rebellion that much better. There's obviously a mill archetype in there somewhere, with some obvious "build around me" cards (Stern Mentor) that can set you up to draft it successfully if you get passed one early. UW fliers is a definite deck archetype though there is a prevalence of flier hate in green.

The uncommon miracles are pretty much all good in draft. This format looks like it's going to be slow so having one in your opening hand (which isn't all that likely anyway) isn't an "automatic mulligan" like it would be in standard.

Because there are going to be three packs of AVR, you can count on seeing just about every common in the set (and most of them in multiples). This allows drafters with a game plan to draft even more consistent decks than they did in triple Innistrad or DKA-INN-INN, despite the fact that half the creatures in each color aren't two power two drops.

For now, I'll just let you know my picks for best common and uncommon in each color (and why). Note that there are many commons and uncommons that are better than these in specific deck archetypes, and that these are only the best commons and uncommons in general.

White: Cloudshift (Common), Banishing Stroke (Uncommon)

Cloudshift is a versatile card that pairs well with all the soulbond creatures and the plethora of 187's in the set. I expect that Cloudshift, while a pure utility card, is going to be a high draft pick in white decks, particularly white soulbond (aggro) decks. Banishing Stroke is a premium removal spell in a set without many premium removal spells, which makes it an obvious pick here.

Blue: Ghostly Flicker (Common), Vanishment (Uncommon)

Basically the same reasons as the white cards, though these cards play slightly differently they have similar effects.

Black: Bone Splinters (Common), Barter in Blood (Uncommon)

Both are removal spells. Bone Splinters gives you something to do with your early drops when the board stalls out and they're not getting through anyway. Yes, you are "2-for-1ing yourself" when you cast it, but you are usually killing an enemy creature that is "worth more" than two cards in the first place. Barter in Blood is just awesome in slow decks, buying you significant time to get to your endgame plan (and basically double time walking your opponent in many cases).

Red: Mad Prophet (Common), Thunderous Wrath (Uncommon)

Mad Prophet is the only looter in the set, and while his ability is "reverse looting" he's also a hasty 2-power creature that can get in for some damage if you need him to. Thunderous Wrath speaks for itself. There are no 6 toughness creatures at common and only one (Vorstclaw, 7/7) at uncommon, so it is a removal spell that can also take a huge chunk out of an opponent's life total if it needs to.

Green: Natural End (Common), Blessings of Nature (Uncommon)

Evaluating the green commons is tricky because so many of them have such varying levels of power depending on what deck they are in. Natural End is a versatile card that can answer a few of the "must-answer" cards in a set with a lot of auras and equipment and not much removal. Blessings of Nature is mono-green Travel Preparations, only possibly better (since you can put all four counters on one evasive creature, essentially Fireblasting your opponent the turn you play it and every turn after).

That's it for now. I'll be spending the week examining the potential draft archetypes and their various merits. Until then, may your Delvers always flip on turn two.