First Theros Draft and a Helpful Spreadsheet

Yes, Theros is here. Well, in paper at least. Soon enough it will be online and all the ManaBluff glory will continue. For now, I’ve got a fun paper Magic post. Those were my draft packs on my awesome playmat. Unfortunately I did not open any of those cards whose images are pictured. But what I did open …

 Ended up drafting Black/Red with a Blue splash. The deck was fun and all of my matches felt slow enough where I wasn’t too worried about the relatively high curve and my lacking in the two drop slot. I initially attempted the draft the black devotion deck as I got the Grey Merchant, the Disciple, and the Insatiable Harpy all in the first pack. I ended up getting some late red in the form of Lightning Strike as well so I picked it up. Pack two I opened the Ember Swallower and that card is awesome. Picked up some of the “ramp” and fixers in the forms of the Amulet and the Elk, so I knew my blue splash wouldn’t be all that difficult.

The way the deck played was interesting in the sense that I may not have had the most cohesive strategy. I was on the draw every game because I knew my deck wanted to draw and go late. Two plans of attack. 1) Stall and chip away at life totals until I had a substantial enough devotion count for my Gray Merchant to be awesome, or 2) “Ramp” into Ember Swallower’s monstrous and deny my opponent lands. In the draft my goal was the pull off the devotion deck but what ended up happening was that I wasn’t ever really in a position to finish off opponents with devotion (I also was never able to loop a Gray Merchant with a Rescue from the Underworld). The more successful games were where I used the second plan of attack listed above, or a combination thereof.

Like I said, the format felt slow enough where I was able to pull this all off. Combat feels really interesting because of all the conditional removal and the fact that games are going later. I found myself thinking about combat tricks a fair bit more than I have in M14. These are all just really quick observations based on a couple rounds of one draft, so take them with a grain of salt. That being said, I am super excited for Theros online.

Take a look at the deck. Ask me any questions about the deck itself, certain cards, or even other decks/cards I played against. I didn’t write a full tournament report because well, I intended this post to be slightly more global in perspective, in terms of Theros as a whole.

But wait, there’s more …

Below you will find a spreadsheet of all the instants and flash creatures in Theros. Keep in mind this does not contain any of the sorceries, so being successful when it comes to Theros limited is going to require a little bit more homework on your part. This will, I hope, be helpful when it comes to keeping in mind what your opponent may or may not have in hand. It is a public google doc so you should all be able to pull it up on a phone or your computer for use whenever.

When it comes to the actual wording of the cards, in some (most) instances I shortened it so that typing (yes, I did not copy and paste) would be quicker. This means that I often left things out like “until end of turn,” but I’m hoping you will realize this, or else Theros combat tricks would just be absurd.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArVWFt2RwpRrdFdnREZta2JWOU45S1RqOEJlNjV2UXc&usp=sharing