MM15 Draft Experience
Limited forum
Posted on May 23, 2015, 1:05 a.m. by Named_Tawyny
So folks, MM15 is out - who's drafted yet?
I just got back from one, ended up doing Green/Black Artifacts. 2-1 overall, and lost one game to a really dumb play on my part (was playing too defensively when I had him dead on the board). Lots of fun - nobody really knew what they were drafting, and it seemed that most people didn't decide until halfway through the second pack.
Moneywise, I pulled a Clique and an Iona, so I covered my draft - nobody at the table got crazy pulls, but there were some nice stuff going around.
What about yourselves?
Pulled Foil Dark Confidant first pack. Second and third packs were Bitterblossom Went B/G with a bunch of token generation and went undefeated! Not even 1 game loss 2-0 everyone.
May 23, 2015 2:04 a.m.
No great pulls for me, But the guy to my left ended up getting a Goyf and a norn. More upset that he got the norn personally.
May 23, 2015 2:16 a.m.
I drafted at my LGS and got literally 0 value but had a ton of fun. Drafted B/G aggro tokens and went 3-0. My prize packs, unfortunatey, also had like 0 value, but I still think it was worth it for the fun of it! xD
Scion of the Wild is soo good with Nest Invader and Scatter the Seeds. Especially with 3 of each!
May 23, 2015 2:45 a.m.
KillDatBUG says... #7
I tried to draft the 5-color Domain deck from the get-go; surprisingly wasn't the worst, with two Horde of Notions being the highlight among some excellent fixing and removal. Went 2-1, losing to a BUG proliferate deck, then winning against the B/W arcane/spirit themed deck and the B/R bloodthirst deck.
As for value, I got a decent amount; Splinter Twin and Karn Liberated were the highlights of what I got.
May 23, 2015 3:03 a.m.
BlueEyesRedMage says... #8
It's a much more hit or miss format than the first MM. Whilst both are very archetype centric, this one unfortunately has the problem that half the archetypes are too linear and simply don't really work without enough parts (metalcraft, ramp eldrazi, black white spirits) and the others feel so poorly defined that they become a loose bag of assembled parts (red black aggro is supposedly bloodthirst but there are 4 cards with bloodthirst in the whole set and only a handful of enablers like Goblin Fireslinger). When presented with a sweet bomb rare that only really works in one archetype in the format (I'm looking at you Ghost Council of Orzhova), you're presented with the option of basically needing to force the deck, grabbing anything you can, or dive into something else that has a ton of interchangeable pieces, like the green white tokens deck.
The format has a few other odd inherent issues too, like the odd way in which the 5 colour deck appears to be centered in red (ie. Dragonsoul Knight, Tribal Flames, Viashino Slaughtermaster) or the way in which the two colour uncommons are hugely unbalanced (I'm sorry RB gets the sweet Wrecking Ball and G/B gets Necrogenesis? How is that even remotely close?).
It's a very oddball format and after doing upwards of 45 simulated drafts with friends so far, not a very fun one. MM1 felt deep, interesting and rewarded knowing the archetypes key cards, strengths and weaknesses. MM2015 on the other hand feels disparate and horribly swingy, depending on what rares were in the pool. It dosen't reward knowledge of the archetypes, it demands it and says "you want to make eldrazi happen at all? I hope no body else snaps up your Nest Invaders and Rampant Growths!".
May 23, 2015 5:01 a.m.
The main problem most people have is they only think about the rares. They get a bomb rare or a money rare and just try to build around it, pretty much relying on drawing that bomb. At my draft, tons of people did this. Sure it got them out of tough situations sometimes, but most of the time they were just sitting there waiting for an out. I made an Abzan token deck that didn't have a single rare in it, simply because I could tell lots of people at the table were picking the rares(judging from the packs I was passed) so I knew unless they pulled absolutely amazing cards, they wouldn't be nearly as consistent. You don't need rares at all to do well, so judging an archetype by the rares you could get seems a little short sighted. I ended coming in first in my pod. Two of my opponents got sorely mana screwed when it came to their bomb which usually had double or triple color cost so by the time they finally did get out their big threat, Bone Splinters or Dismember took care of it easily.
I got passed soooo many great cards, mostly because I essentially got 2-3 first picks because everyone always seemed to pick the rare, leaving the strong commons and uncommons untouched. Ended up with 3 Bone Splinters, 2 Spectral Procession and 2 Scatter the Seeds among other things. That provided a level of consistency that people who built around rares expecting it to define their archetype couldn't match.
So I have to disagree with you saying you don't need to know your archetypes to win. You need to know what an acceptable pass is. Bombs are great, but if your other 20 some odd spells can't keep you alive till you reach that bomb it really doesn't matter. Sure there's luck involved, but there is substantially less luck involved if your deck relies primarily on commons and uncommons. Sure you could make a deck running Eldrazis, but unless you get extremely lucky with pulls, it's unlikely you'll be able to get anything but Crusher out with any sort of consistency. 10-15 mana bombs are just not something you build around. Sure if it resolves you probably win, but even slow midrange decks can probably outrace that, and god forbid you have that card in your opening hand, making it a dead card for 10 or so turns.
May 23, 2015 9:03 a.m.
I went 3-0 with UW artifact equipments. I intended GB tokens but the first couple packs passed to me were so good for artifacts I couldn't resist and then my rare from the second pack was tezzeret which was perfect. The deck was a blast though I'm sure I won't be drafting that well again in my life.
May 23, 2015 9:06 a.m.
OtakulordAndrew says... #11
I found the format to be quite fun to draft. My LGS had 14 people out for draft last night so we drafted in 2 pods of 7. I opened an Etched Champion and decided to attempt to draft a 
artifact deck which came out fairly well with a Cranial Plating, 2 Myrsmith, 2 Dispatch, 3 Rusted Relic 1 Thoughtcast 1Stoic Rebuttal 3 Mana Leak and a Glassdust Hulk along with some small 2 cmc artifact creatures, although after some of the more experienced players caught on to the fact that someone was probably drafting artifacts they started hate drafting Cranial Platings and Darksteel Citadels overall though things went well as I went 3-1 and pulled a Fulminator Mage 3rd pack which covers the cost of my draft. In the games I played I saw a strong 
aggro deck, a decent bant +1+1 counters deck which was primarily 
and I assume splashing for something, I also saw an eldrazi ramp deck, and an insanely powerful tokens deck with cards such as Scion of the Wild, Spectral Procession, Kavu Primarch, Nest Invader, Kozilek's Predator and Wolfbriar Elemental, combined with Apostle's Blessing, and Vines of Vastwood.
May 23, 2015 9:21 a.m.
Pack 1 pick 1: Ant Queen. I went undefeated with GB sac. Got passed three- THREE -Nameless Inversion, tons of spawn generators, Mortarpod, all kinds of good stuff. Also made my money back with a Noble Hierarch.
GB sac is very good. Ant queen won every game it was played.
May 23, 2015 11:16 a.m.
notamardybum says... #13
the rares in my packs weren't super high dollar except for 1 noble hierarch. Best card for me all day was commet storm and the flying sunburst guy. My deck was 5 color, nothing but removal, tons of mana fixing, and a few big creatures like ulamog, thunderblust?, and 2 sunburst flyer dude. Went 3-0 overall and got 1st. Bonus pack for winning and got nothing
May 23, 2015 7:41 p.m.
ComradeJim270 says... #14
I didn't even plan on drafting MM, but my LGS was awesome and switched packs on us as a surprise. No spectacular pulls, but walking away with a Spellskite and a Remand as well as some other decent stuff made me pretty pleased.
Also, I actually did ok in the draft and won some stuff. That's new for me! I seem to do better in draft when I have only the most vague idea of what I'm doing.
The deck was weird, though. I started in Grixis with a lot of elementals since I was getting passed a ton of them, but dropped the blue when I put together the deck and made it into Rakdos bloodthirst with a bit of elemental tribal. It worked pretty well. I ran a good amount of burn and removal and a Stormblood Berserker to make sure I could get in there and activate bloodthirst. Getting two 6/6 Skarrgan Firebirds out at the same time was awesome.
Went against 
tokens in match 3, and that made it very hard to get in since I wasn't drawing my burn spells. In the second game without much time left I got down to 4 life with only a Vampire Outcasts to keep me alive a little longer, then drew into my removal and a Plagued Rusalka to take out all my opponent's flyers and turn it around. Pulling out of a situation like that made me feel like a badass.
Matches 2 and 4 didn't go so well, but given what I walked away and the time I had? Very glad I didn't stay home that night.
May 23, 2015 9:50 p.m.
RedGreenOP says... #15
Played Affinity with Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and Eye of Ugin, it was a lot of fun Affinity Good Stuff
May 25, 2015 3:16 p.m.
RedGreenOP says... #16
I played Kozilek during 3 games of the 8 man draft I did
May 25, 2015 3:19 p.m.
ComradeJim270 says... #17
I didn't see any Kozileks, but some lucky kid pulled a Goyf. It certainly made his day.
May 25, 2015 3:36 p.m.
FreddyFlash311 says... #18
My friend and I did four sealed pools out of one of the boxes we bought. Only really good pull there was a foil clique (he got). The deck we did that worked the best was a Boros deck I made. Wildfire plus two Wayfarer's Baubles is no joke. Also had two Soulbright Flamekin and a Comet Storm. I would have loved to do an infinite fireball with the latter two cards but never got the chance.
May 25, 2015 6:56 p.m.
Barry_McKawkinner says... #19
I drafted blue black aggro control.bad draws round one.got mana screwed round 2.and swept round 3.pulled a mox opal from the pack i won
May 26, 2015 11:53 a.m.
I'm drafting tomorrow... doing a sealed on Saturday, and possibly another Draft Saturday evening.
If I open a Daybreak Coronet in Pack 1, I'm going to try to force 
, and pick up every Goblin War Paint I see.
May 28, 2015 8:05 a.m.
Rasta_Viking29 says... #21
I drafted once this past weekend, found the experience to be mediocre and the EV appeared to be downright horrible. I drafted R/U Elementals 3-0, a tempo based beatdown deck that seemed to end up way more focused and proactive than the decks my opponents constructed. Forcing synergy seems the be the theme of the format. I prefer the experience of drafting DTK-DTK-FRF which has been my least favorite Limited format since JOU was released. That said it'll probably be my only MM15 draft unless I find myself really hankering to play MtG, have no other options, and am content flushing $35 down the drain.
May 29, 2015 2:56 p.m.
AngryBearTony says... #22
@ComradeJim270: Wait, are you saying you went in to a like $12-15 draft and they instead of 2 DTK, 1 FRF, just GAVE you 3 MM15 for the draft???
May 29, 2015 5:11 p.m.
KillDatBUG says... #23
Drafting's a good bit of fun, but boy is it really goddamn expensive. $40 per draft? Forget it.
The second one I did, I went 3-0 with U/W Artifacts; aside from the Dark Confidant that I hate-drafted pack 2 pick 1, I didn't get all that much.
As for the deck itself, it was really good. Apart from my excellent rare in Indomitable Archangel, I had an excellent mix of counterspells, equipments, psuedo-removal (Narcolepsy, Arrest), and efficient fliers. My only regret is that I had to pass Cranial Plating for Dark Confidant, especially since I got a Taj-Nar Swordsmith that could have fetched the Plating.
HolyFalcon says... #2
I did an online draft and drafted a Tezz and Etched Champ. Another guy drafted an Opal
May 23, 2015 1:09 a.m. Edited.