Today we have our first You Make the Pick! I show you a pack, tell you a bit about it, what I would take, and then you guys sound off in the comments and let me know what you think about the pick and what you would take. We are going to kick things off with a doozy. This was from a Holiday Cube draft recorded by Caleb Durward for ChannelFireball.com. You can see the videos here: B00M! He is a prolific grinder, brewer, and writer. He does text articles and both constructed and limited gameplay videos. Definitely check him out. Below is the pack, click the caption to see a larger version.
The Pack:
In the video Caleb saw this as his pack two and (Minor Spoilers): took Black Lotus to compliment his Black/Blue Living Death/Reanimation strategy. Totally reasonable, but I thought that this pack would make an incredible example of how awesome Holiday Cube is. This is a real brain teaser, or Mind Twister if you prefer puns. Powered Cube is a crazy format full of fast kills, unfair decks, and exotic board states. Every single card here is a runaway hit in Cube and are staples of the format; except perhaps Looter and Welder which are not as ubiquitous.
Since we are looking at it from a Pick 1, Pack 1 perspective this is even harder. There is power in spades. There is fast mana. Slow mana (only by comparison). A Tinker target. A Tinker deck enabler. Fatties to ramp into or reanimate. The best counterspell ever. The best dual land. The best mono Red curve topper. Two awesome White value cards. And a Freaking Mind Twist. It's like "Twelve Days of Christmas" up in this pack. Holiday Cube is all about giving people a chance to play with fun broken power cards, but even if you manage to ignore the elephant in the room there are real arguments for taking about ten of the non-power nine cards.
In the end, I think that I would take Library of Alexandria. It is the only card in the pack that I have not had a chance to play with. It doesn't commit me to any particular strategy or color, although it seems like it would be best in a somewhat durdly draw-first kind of deck. The power is undeniable, and heck, it even taps for mana. This is a real tough pack to crack and it demonstrates the high density of difficult decisions that you need to make in a format like Cube. As an experienced player and true lover of puzzles, I can't get enough of this.
So, now the only question left to ask is...what would you pick?!
I'm inclined to agree, but I might actually go Prime Time, depending on the people I'm playing with. Getting Library to wheel feels like better odds, and other big name lands are bound to be in the subsequent packs. It's not a "sexy" pick necessarily, when you see Twist and Mana Drain, but I think first pick Titan still keeps things flexible, and has adequate hate draft value.
ReplyDeleteThere is a zero percent chance Library wheels. That's pure fiction. It's at worst the 6th best card in the MTGO cube and there are 8 players in a draft, not to mention people are super high on taking the 'powered up' cards because they are new and shiny and people don't often get to play them. Also, I don't understand what it could possibly mean to 'hate draft' a first pick. Those two things don't make sense together.
DeletePicking cards so that other people don't play them against you is still a strategy, right? I feel like that's "hate draft value," as opposed to the proactive "hate drafted" card.
DeleteAs for Library, that's fine. I guess-timated 5-6 people, so I felt more confident about my figure than the number you were hiding behind your back. Mana Drain/Lotus/Kozilek/Twist was what I thought people would go for, and hoping someone might take a 4th or 5th pick Dismember/Finks. The Dismember might be ambitious, but removal has relative value, and that's a card that can go into basically any color deck.
Heh. Baby's first modo draft!
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