DGM Draft Debate Wrapup
Daily Draft Debate
KrazyCaley
9 June 2013
1079 views
9 June 2013
1079 views
It's a sad day for the hive mind, as we finish with our first sub-.500 record in a draft debate, and just barely avoid finishing in the lower half thanks to tiebreakers. Still, you can do a lot worse than 3-4 and 4th place in a draft, and it certainly wasn't the unmitigated disaster that some predicted it might become. Two matches were even more or less lost because of mana screw/flood, but hey, it happens to everyone.
Here are the results and interviews; stay tuned in the next couple of days for information about the next daily draft debate, which will be comprised of nothing but drafters from Tappedout! How will that work? Again, stay tuned.
Final Results
1st Place (6-1)
Ethereal's DGM DDD Deck
Unknown*
4 COMMENTS | 470 VIEWS
Q - What was your draft strategy, and how did it evolve over the course of the draft?"
A - "I started by just taking the best cards I could, then noticed that blue seemed to be very open. I also got some good white and black cards to build around early, so I thought that Esper seemed like a good idea."
Q - What colors did you evaluate as being open or closed?
A - I didn't catch too much what was closed, but blue certainly seemed open, as did red.
Q - What pick or picks made you feel lucky?
A - A lot of them, honestly. I got an Angelic Skirmisher and Debt to the Deathless both as not the first pick.
Q - Who had the best deck?
A - Results don't lie.
Q - What play from an opponent most surprised you?
A - It seemed like Chryssalid had nothing but wrath in her deck and managed to pull off a four color strategy very well; I was impressed.
2nd Place (5-2)
Niko's DGM DDD Deck
Standard*
7 COMMENTS | 407 VIEWS
Q - What was your draft strategy, and how did it evolve over the course of the draft?"
A - "I really liked the red and blue cards I was getting, and also got some decent black stuff early. I was trying to keep my options open when I picked up Ral Zarek and that just nailed the coffin shut."
Q - What colors did you evaluate as being open or closed?
A - "I couldn't really tell, but I certainly got a lot of good stuff in my colors, though it seemed like black was harder to come by."
Q - What pick or picks made you feel lucky?
A - I packed Ral Zarek when I was already playing Grixis colors. Honestly I'm kind of ashamed of not winning the whole draft with that.
Q - Who had the best deck?
A - Ethereal's deck was just solid and hard to beat.
Q - What play from an opponent most surprised you?
A - Fisher made really good use of Toil / Trouble in his aggro deck, which is a really pretty good finisher. If you have like five cards in hand, even, you're taking nine damage off that spell.
3rd Place (4-3)
Fisher's DGM DDD Deck
Standard*
SCORE: 1 | 366 VIEWS
Q - What was your draft strategy, and how did it evolve over the course of the draft?"
A - "Rakdos aggro seemed like a really good idea. I think that having to waste a ton of picks on the tons of color fixing that makes the three color decks that are so popular work puts you at a disadvantage to someone running a solid two-color deck."
Q - What colors did you evaluate as being open or closed?
A - "Red was open."
Q - What pick or picks made you feel lucky?
A - "Pontiff of Blight really helped round out my late game. I also drafted more than my fair share of Grisly Spectacles, couldn't have won without those."
Q - Who had the best deck?
A - Chryssalid's was pretty innovative, but Ethereal's was clearly the best. Niko, I felt like, just wanted to ride Ral Zarek to some extent.
Q - What play from an opponent most surprised you?
A - I always get a little tense playing against red/blue because of Ral Zarek, and sure enough, he pulled it out.
4th Place (3-4, 10 wins, 9 losses)
Tappedout
DGM Draft Debate Deck
Unknown
SCORE: 1 | 136 COMMENTS | 2906 VIEWS
Q - What was your draft strategy, and how did it evolve over the course of the draft?"
A - "Our draft strategy was a bit confused this time around, it seemed like. Green and black SEEMED to be the dominant colors during most of it, but whether white or red would be our third color wasn't decided until very late."
Q - What colors did you evaluate as being open or closed?
A - "We passed up a lot of red cards."
Q - What pick or picks made you feel lucky?
A - "Angelic Skirmisher is always a good card to pick up, and having two copies of Stab Wound and one of One Thousand Lashes made a fantastic little sub-theme for our deck."
Q - Who had the best deck?
A - "Ethereal, to few people's surprise."
Q - What play from an opponent most surprised you?
A - "Maybe I remember it because it JUST happened, but getting burned for 11 with Toil / Trouble sucks pretty badly."
5th Place (3-4, 9 wins, 10 losses)
Raynor's DGM DDD Deck
Unknown*
339 VIEWS
Q - What was your draft strategy, and how did it evolve over the course of the draft?"
A - "Picking up the best stuff early kind of naturally led to red/white/black, which I was happy with because I like to play those colors in this format. Boros and Orzhov make a good combo."
Q - What colors did you evaluate as being open or closed?
A - "I thought that blue was open early, but then someone saw it and started snapping it up."
Q - What pick or picks made you feel lucky?
A - "Two copies of Blaze Commando!"
Q - Who had the best deck?
A - "I really liked my deck and thought it would do better. Ethereal just had way too many ways to beat you, though."
Q - What play from an opponent most surprised you?
A - "Getting pinged to death by your deck was a pretty interesting strategy. Wish I had One Thousand Lashes!"
6th Place (3-4, 7 wins, 10 losses)
Chryssalid's DGM DDD Deck
Standard*
381 VIEWS
Q - What was your draft strategy, and how did it evolve over the course of the draft?"
A - "Well I was picking up a lot of great stuff in Simic colors, but I couldn't decide if I wanted to run black or white as a third color. I was getting good stuff for both, and good white/black cards like Merciless Eviction, so in the end I decided to try and fix a lot and run both colors."
Q - What colors did you evaluate as being open or closed?
A - "Blue seemed really open."
Q - What pick or picks made you feel lucky?
A - "I got passed Gaze of Granite pretty late."
Q - Who had the best deck?
A - "Niko's seemed really tough, and so did Raynor's! I guess I just caught Ethereal on a bad foot, though."
Q - What play from an opponent most surprised you?
A - "Debt to the Deathless in two separate decks was pretty surprising."
7th Place (2-5, 6 wins, 10 losses)
CJ's DGM DDD Deck
Standard
345 VIEWS
Q - What was your draft strategy, and how did it evolve over the course of the draft?"
A - "I wanted to try out selesnya tokens after someone ran it against me and did really well last time. There was some good red that I got late, and the token thing wasn't really working, so I ended up just making kind of a weird Naya deck."
Q - What colors did you evaluate as being open or closed?
A - "I picked up a lot of red later on, but I'm not sure I'd call it open."
Q - What pick or picks made you feel lucky?
A - I knew Gruul War Chant was a really good card, that was part of what made me want to run red."
Q - Who had the best deck?
A - "I can't really say. Chryssalid's deck beat me the worst."
Q - What play from an opponent most surprised you?
A - "Chryssalid's whole deck was crazy and surprising. It seemed like she just put every good card in there from a bunch of different colors."
8th Place (2-5, 6 wins, 11 losses)
Lee's DGM DDD Deck
Unknown*
1 COMMENT | 367 VIEWS
Q - What was your draft strategy, and how did it evolve over the course of the draft?"
A - "Drafting the best stuff I could early, I got into junk colors, but then those colors really seemed to close off, but I was committed by then."
Q - What colors did you evaluate as being open or closed?
A - "Black, white, and green definitely all seemed full to me. I was really struggling to get any quality out of those colors."
Q - What pick or picks made you feel lucky?
A - "Varolz, the Scar-Striped definitely felt like a breath of air, and he helped me out of some tight spots."
Q - Who had the best deck?
A - "Ethereal's deck was just unstoppable."
Q - What play from an opponent most surprised you?
A - "EVERYTHING from Ethereal. He had fliers, he had unblockable stuff, he had Debt to the Deathless, he could get you to zero really easy."
That's all, folks! Stay tuned for an announcement about the next daily draft debate, where ALL the drafters will be you, the users of Tappedout.net!
KrazyCaley says... #2
The scary thing is that a LOT of people had to pass on Gaze to get it to her.
June 10, 2013 2:20 a.m.
Really fun and I learned a lot about drafting from reading this. Made me go on to win my own draft with my friends :p
June 10, 2013 2:50 a.m.
thebeardedshuffler says... #4
Gaze clearly went quite far around. I'm not too surprised. Also your comment about our draft strategy is mixed up KrazyCaley, wer were in W/B, and the debate was between R/G.
I wish we'd capitalised on the obviously open red in the DGM pack, but there's no use crying over spilt mana. Toil / Trouble is a sorely under-appreciated card, it was nice to see it do some good work here.
I also think Caley wasn't playing his best games in some of our matchups but the miss-plays weren't all that game-breaking. Mostly, either our deck screwed us, or their decks were just stronger.
Can't wait to argue with you all again next time! And sorry if all the fighting in the debate threads drives you nuts Caley!
June 10, 2013 7:31 a.m.
KrazyCaley says... #5
Nah, it's all good. And you're right about my color mixup. Prepared all this stuff and played the matches very late; probably a bad idea.
June 10, 2013 9:12 a.m.
This was a lot of fun to follow. I also felt that I learned a good amount about drafting just by the debates over each pack. Looking forward to the announcement about how the members of TappedOut will be a part of the next daily draft debate. Keep up the good work. :)
June 10, 2013 10:08 a.m.
Once again, it was great following the articles, and fun to participate in some of the draft process. I don't get many opportunities to attend live drafts, so this is a good substitute!
I look forward to experiencing and participating in the next series. Good job KrazyCaley!
June 10, 2013 1:17 p.m.
This article series is ALWAYS my favorite to participate in. Thanks to the whole DDD team.
June 10, 2013 3:14 p.m.
cartwheelnurd says... #9
Waaaaay too much selesnya in this draft. Half of you played both Green and White.
June 10, 2013 3:33 p.m.
Great fun KrazyCaley!
Thanks to everyone on the forums, Elaine and the other drafters - I've played mainly constructed and some sealed, as I consider drafting to be the toughest of the formats and only now moving into it. Learned a lot.
June 10, 2013 4:49 p.m.
SupremeAlliesCommander says... #11
Thanks to everyone who participated. I love the discussion and, as others have mentioned, it makes us all better drafters. A losing record doesn't bother me, so long as the games are fun.
I think we got a bit hosed with the packs. Following pack #1, we had a strategy. It fell apart with the lack of extort and minimal removal passed to us. We had two solid colors, but then we got alternating packs that were good in either red or green. Just bad luck.
Thanks for organizing KrazyCaley!
June 10, 2013 5:12 p.m.
DeckBuilder345 says... #12
As always KC these are fun articles. Been following this one all along and chiming in occasionally. I was worried this deck wasn't going to be particularly strong and turned out I was right. Was not a clear path in this one which led to inconsistent picks. At least that is my take as to how we sunk to a new low in the results colum, but with so many people giving opinions it is to be expected on occasion. Still was entertaining as always and i think our community will be that much hungrier next time. Very interested in this tapped out drafting plan. Would like to be a part of it or see how that plays out.
June 10, 2013 5:25 p.m.
I think we got screwed over more often than not, but perhaps that was the deck's inconsistency weighing in. At least Elaine was wrong in saying that someone with red was going to win!
Have the participating TO members on the next DDD already been chosen, or will details on how to participate be revealed later?
June 10, 2013 6:38 p.m.
KrazyCaley says... #14
@Goody - Details on participation will be revealed shortly.
June 10, 2013 9:21 p.m.
Yeah I definitely feel that we got sidetracked a little. But a very good Draft and I'm always happy to participate in these!
June 11, 2013 1:48 a.m.
I will definitely participate in DDD for as long as I can, they are one of the things that keeps me coming back! Wouldn't mind being a drafter, if only to serve as a fantastic example of how to be a bad drafter. :)
agGravity says... #1
Thanks for the run Caley, always fun to read Draft Debate, I'm looking forward to the next run. I'm not a drafter so I don't take part in the discussion, but this whole thing make me want to do more. Also:
Chryssalid:
Q - What pick or picks made you feel lucky?
A - "I got passed Gaze of Granite pretty late."
I lol'd
June 10, 2013 2:13 a.m.