that was fun, now my turn!

Successful first draft last week. Let's do it again!

Getting it together

The booster boxes are in place. I'm figuring out the prize payouts now. Now I'm reaching out to anyone and everyone in the community to let them know this will be going on. It will be a joke if there's some underground group of drafters that don't hear about this because I spent my time farting around the apartment rather than promoting this the right way.

I'm going to hear out all suggestions regarding formats, prize pay-outs, systems and set-ups. Ideally, we can get enough of a voting consensus to keep it varied, and change up the kinds of drafts we do. If the participants are controlling what's being drafted themselves, continuous support will be easy.

I must call WOTC and see if they'll send me the promo cards.

MTG NYC LAUNCHING NEXT MONDAY 6/6/2011!!!!!!

getting ready

those no place for draft to get done well in the city. i'm going to start running my own on 51st and lex. that public space is open five days a week, you could hold them there every night.

The prize pay-out is something that I'm thinking about. I guess the way to conceive of it is that each admission fee is als ocontributing to the prize pool. So you take the amount of the unit that you're buying the packs boxes in. Let's say you buy one box for $100. Then divide that by the packs that are in the box. That's the cost of each pack. Then each player should be paying how much extra per the cost of pack to make it a sweet purse. Keep in mind you're going to be wanting to get a least two drafts out of one box. So let's say that all your winners want new phyrexia packs. You would be able to give any new phyrexia packs out of the next box.

Judging is also something that could come up. I'm pretty competent with the rules, but I'm no expert, and there are definitely times in tournament play, just draft mind you, that I have a question to ask as well.

The best way to do it, is definitely not in some wacky format like I used to play in China, where everyone has to play from the end, and you draft the winnings. That doesn't leave people free to rare draft/leave. People will want to keep the Karns they open.

Keeping rounds time and to a strict schedule is an issue as well. Without leaving work early I can comfortable get there at 7, fire off a pod, or maybe both, and get home by midnight.

To build on this, I'm definitely going to want to unify with a vendor figure, someone who knows the ebb and flow of the singles in the game and can steadily make a profit on it, I already have someone in mind.

Someone who is a certified judge should add credence to this operation, preferably he has a large enough  network to contribute to bringing the crowd as well. This would allow us to start running sanctioned tournaments in that space.

standard reiteration

4x despise
1x inquisiton of kozilek
2x mind sludge

7 hand destruction

4x go for the throat
3x geth's verict

7 targeted removal

4x sphere of black sun, it's like mutilate, but not
2x corrupt
1x haunting echoes

7 sweepers/game break/bad

1x liliana vess
1x sorin markov
1x karn
3x sign in blood
1x sphere of suns

7 finisher,s, no creatures!

7-8 slots open? your thoughts?

new face of monoblack standard

can't get over the reprinting of phyrexian obliterator! get all the things that care about swamps and throw em in a deck!

3x despise, no more cawblade
2x dismember, kill lotus cobra, don't draw 2 of 'em
3x sign in blood, no phyrexian arena in this format..
3x nantuko shade, swamps!
3x go for the throat, instant speed removal for anything but wurmcoil
3x gatekeeper of malakir, too black not to
3x vampire nighthawk, trade w/ big stuff, gain me life, fly!
4x phyrexian obliterator, can't kill me without damage? you lose!
2x molten-tail masticore, reallyyy good w/ mimic vat, use it to get around upkeep cost
2x nightmare lash, swamps! fun with night hawks and obliterators!
2x mimic vat, do it again obliterator/nighthawk/not you gatekeeper/you nantuko shade!
2x precursor golem, hey mimic vat!
2x mindsludge, swamps!
2x corrupt, swamps!
2x grave titan, also mimic vat

survive the early turns by knocking threats out of their hand with despise, killing their early plays, or trading with their creatures with nighthawk or gatekeepers. rarely you'll be able to start pushing through damage with nantuko shade if you have an opponent that's scared to lose their creatrues.

save your instant speed kill for creatures that have sword of feast and faminine (cawblade), swap or sideboard in more as necessary. play your midrange evil threats like masticore or oblitreator, nightmare lash or precursor, they'll probably have an answer for it, expect these games to not wrap too quickly. key blowouts will be landing your mind sludges, or corrupts on big creatures/their face. reload with your sign in bloods, they shouldn't hurt too much b/c of nighthawk and corrupt. finish off the attrition war with a grave titan, a nantuko shade, or drop a mimic vat early and start to see things go really bad.

this deck can roll over to dedicated sligh type decks. jace decks and cawblades and valaukut is the main problem. add in hexmage (goes good with mimic vat) or hex parasite to deal with a jace crowd. side in extra instand speedkill/inquisition of koziek for cawblade. i would guess the valakut wood need life gain/tectonic edges to deal with valakut. ideally you land an early mimcvat then instantly kill their titan and valaukuts with throat and tectonic edgess.

go even crazier with abyssal persecutors + phyrexian arenas. add in sphere of suns to get belligerent turn three beasties. plays here involve hitting them with early hand disruption and leading them into a big sweep using tumble magnent, and cleaning up with marsh casualties, blacksun's zenith, life's end, and massacre wurm. massacre wurm of course awesome with mimic vat as well but this version would rely on creatures to defend yourself.  geth's verdict, dismember, and plain old go for the throat/doom blade. keep the corrupts and mind sludges, come in strong with non creature finishers like liliana vess, sorin markov, haunting echoes.

there's something to be said for planeswalkers decks sporting the proliferate removal.

NPH!

New Phyrexia sealed is great, can't way to play in the next pod. Unfortunately was only able to do one four rounder at gray matters conventions. The rare gods were good to me across the packs, granting me bomb rares with powerful on-curve creatures and tons of removal. Here's the list that brought me to a 3-0, then an intentional draw in the final rounds.

1x Kiln Walker
1x fume spitter
1x pith driller
1x tormentor exarch
1x immolating souleater
1x leaden myr
1x necrogen scudder
1x slash panther
1x moriok replica
1x mortis dogs
1x steelkite dragon
1x necrotic ooze
1x phyrexian obliterator
1x hex parasite

1x Parasitic Implant
2x galvanic blast
1x sylvok lifestaff
1x volt charge
1x mycosynth wellspring

yes, lots of talent in this pool.

Standard run

the best standard decks right now seems to be ramp or caw-blade decks. from the top 8 in dallas deck lists, four had 4 copies of squadron hawk where the other 4 had 4 copies of lotus cobra. all 8 decks are running jace the mind sculptor. all desk are running early removal suites in lightning bolt, manaleak, digging for answers with preordain, oust, tumble magnet or accelerating into threats with explore. here's my attempt at a monoblack controllish deck.

4x inquisition of kozilek
3x vampire hexmage
3x sign in blood
4x sphere of suns
4x gatekeeper of malakir
3x phyrexian canceler (new phyrexia)
2x mindsludge
2x corrupt
2x massacre wurm
3x vampire nighthawk
3x mimic vat
3x black sun's zenith

this deck seeks to answer the earliest threats of cawblade while being able to accelerate and still stay dangerous against a ramp deck. let me know your thoughts.