"The Gamer's Emporium" - December 26, 2015

Welcome friends,

this week we have a very special guest, and boy does he deliver. Our local store owner joined us this week, and while we had to teach him how to draft Khans, he taught us a thing or two about how to play Magic. Together, the three of us craft a fantastic deck, which does about as well as you might expect. Take a look.



I'd say the main flaw with Mardu is the lack of a late game, but the removal can more than make up for it. It's not that you can't have a late game in Mardu, it's just that everything you add to make sure you can go long takes away from your early agression.

We never played a true control deck, and I don't know what we would have done against a deck full of counters and bounce, but as it stands, we had a pretty good thing going on. Trumpet blast can truely be a blowout with a field full of weenies, and the combo with Act of Treason is absolutely insane.

It was really fun having Shawn there with us, because we all had very different play styles, and often we would have different opinions about what was the best play. At any given time there may or may not have been a right answer, and depending on your top deck, that can change in an instant.

While aggressive decks are known for their lack of options as compared to control decks, the mechanics of Khans of Tarkir (the morph in particular) allows you to keep your options open much longer than it otherwise might.

I thoroughly enjoyed having Shawn on our channel, and if we get a positive response, he may end up coming back.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time,


-Step.

"Way Too Jeskai" - December 19, 2014

I have to appologize for the unscheduled hiatus last week. Our internet would barely let us connect long enough to upload the videos, nevermind review them.

As a result, we're bringing you last week's now! Welcome to our latest Jeskai deck! Drafting it was well worth the lessons learned.

The first thing you'll probably notice is that it's very hard to win games when you're not drawing one of your colours. Even though the draft looked good to me, it turns out that a good deck without a solid mana base isn't a good deck. People have been drafting the common lands a little higher with every draft, and it has become hard to get a hold of them if you're not looking for it.

Another thing to mention is that it pays to reassess the board if it's been stalled for a while. Sometimes things change without you even realizing it. Maybe there's an ability you're afraid of which requires mana to use, maybe someone's about to hit six land and can untap something which has been singing bell struck. This format is both fast and slow in that the board gets developed very quickly on both sides, and stalls into the long game. That being the case, it's important to know where the stall is happening, so you know where your ins might be.

That way you don't accidentally run a creature who suddenly has flying into a creature which has had reach all along.

I think the deck would have been fine if we'd gotten one or two more tap lands, but we'll never really know.

Just a head's up, next week we'll be having a special guest. Sean, the owner of The Gamer's Emporium, will be here to show us how he does it and tell us about his store. We're looking forward to it, and hope you are too.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next week,


-Step.

"A Comedy of Garretts" - December 05, 2014

This week we have Garrett on for his very first Khans of Tarkir draft. Never having drafted the set before, he didn't have much to say about our picks, but as usual, he really shone during play. This is especially evident in round three, where he clearly should have been in command of the controls. Enjoy!

Even though our first pick, which pushed us into our colours to begin with, never really came out to play, we made what I think was a pretty superb Temur deck. It had an aggressive curve with some removal, and a couple of big finishers.

I was a little trepidatious about splashing the Mantis rider, but with all the tap lands and the Mardu Warshrieker for white mana fixing, running it was basically free, and it paid off.

Though we had learned not to be greedy after last week, the lesson of  "keep calm" was pressed home to me again this week, as you'll see in round 3.

All in all it was fun, and we'll probably be having Garrett back soon, after he's had some experience with the set.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.


-Step.

"Getting Greedy with John" - November 28, 2014

This week's draft comes with an extra special guest. Let us introduce you to John from The Mana Leek. John is a friend of ours, and our local judge. This week he joins us for a wild Mardu draft during which we won some games, learned some lessons, and had an all around good time.

The draft was very entertaining for me. I love to hear other people's opinions of cards, especially the ones I don't like all that much. Round one was just plain fun as we warmed up to a deck full of swift hitters.

The trouble began in round two. Both of our losses came after we made very obvious mistakes. We knew it was a mistake to keep the hand with a single swamp, and even though it looked like it was going to pay off, we just couldn't keep momentum once our opponent gained traction, and we were swiftly defeated.

During game two, we should have known to hold back. We could have waited our opponent out and, once he swung in, stolen one of his creatures to block with, thus two for oneing him, instead of allowing him to almost kill us on the crack back.

In both of these situations, had we just kept our heads and played like professionals, we may have come out on top. Just goes to show you that hot heads start fires, and we certainly got burned.

During round three we almost ended up on the same path. Luckily, we were blessed with a couple of good games and ended up coming out on top.

We'd love to have John back. If you have any comments for him, you can find him via his channel, and as always, you can feel free to leave us comments.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.


-Step.

"Return to Theros" - November 21, 2014

This week, Tams and I decided to take a (short) trip back down memory lane, and try our hands at Theros once again. To our delight, we found it just as we'd remembered, full of fun! We hope you enjoy watching as much as we enjoyed drafting it.

After passing a couple of very good red cards early in the pack, it may have been ill advised for us to move into red as our second colour, but whether or not it was wise, it ended up working pretty well. I was sad that we never got King Macar out. I've only ever seen him come down on the other side of the field, and I'd have liked to try playing him.

That said, we ended up almost in minotaurs. If we had taken the early flurry of horns', we could have had a much stronger deck than we ended up with, but we couldn't have known that. As it stands, I liked the deck. It had a strong midrange curve with a fairly low top end and plenty to do. I hope to draft many more decks like it in the future.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time,


-Step.

"Can't Stop the Clock" - KTK, November 14, 2014

So it finally happened. After all this time, even after conceding last week to avoid it, we finally lost a round to the clock. If that doesn't dissuade you from watching, you should be in for a fairly entertaining main event.

As I said, we lost not one, but two rounds to the clock, though one wasn't exactly our fault. A connection issue in round three ate about four minutes of our time.

Despite all that, this draft had a lot going for it. Our deck was strong, and we piloted it fairly well. The one thing that I want to point out about the construction process was the Kheru Lich Lord. I didn't think our deck wanted it, but I wasn't sure. As it turns out, we sided it out in almost every game. Maybe it would have been better to leave him out of the deck to begin with, but I didn't know. If we hadn't run him, we never would have known. I now have a better personal understanding of when that card is good, and when it isn't. To me, that's worth a card.

In round one we made a single bad attack which turned the tide against us. Even then, if we'd played out a creature that turn, rather than waiting until the turn after, we probably would have won the round. Giving our opponent enough of an edge to stall us out was annoying to say the least.

Round two, paradoxically, was both the only round we won, and the round in which I feel we played the worst. If it weren't for our slow playing, I really feel we could have gone 3-0 with this deck, so stay tuned in future while we strive to find a middle ground between "just swinging in" and dragging our feet.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time,


-Step.

"Marzan Warriors" - KTK, November 7, 2014

After last week's haiatus, I wasn't surprised that we didn't win much. What did surprise me was the quality of our deck, and the quality of our play. If you're looking for an engaging experience, this draft should satisfy.

We started off open, and then sort of took a left turn into warriors, but not "The Warrior Deck", which is something I'd like to try at some point. What we end up with is a solid deck with a good curve, and very enjoyable to play.

A few things I noticed upon review were that we still talk a lot. As we've finally lost a round to the clock, I've decided to make a concerted effort to make faster play decisions. The flip side of that is that sometimes I run the client on autopilot, and that has left me unable to play a land or make an attack, simply because I "F2" through the option. I really need to clean up these areas of play. Something to work on.

All in all I think the deck was solid, and I'm looking forward to building the next one.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time,


-Step.

"MarDerp" - KTK, October 06, 2014

It's finally up! Our original Khans Sealed event. We've been holding on to this one ever since the prerelease.

I'd actually meant to have this one up that very weekend, and then every Monday thereafter, but unfortunately in life, as in Magic, you have to play with the cards you're dealt.

A lot of time and energy lately has gone into another project that Tams and I have on the go (send us an email or find us on twitter if you want details) and we haven't had much time for more than getting the weekly draft up. That isn't likely to change any time in the next month either, because NaNoWriMo is coming up! In any event, we're here to entertain and educate, so let's get things rolling.

While I was reviewing this for posting, I was gratified to see just how much I've learned about the set since this initial event. I'm honestly not sure why we were so scattered that day, but we even forgot that there was a fourth round until two minutes into it.

Even with all that, 2-2 isn't a bad record and I think it was fun to watch. I hope you agree.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time,


-Step.

"Sulky Sultai" - KTK, 24 October, 2014

Sometimes, you just have a bad day, and despite not looking like professionals, we've decided to post this draft. After all, we're here to teach.

We'd hoped to go Sultai, and we should have known that this draft was ill fated when it started off by passing a rare in our colours.

In any case, if you want to learn, this draft is full of mistakes and foibles which should prove educational.

Between sending the drafter to our left directly into our colours, not seeing any fixing in our colours, and not wanting to draft this clan in the first place, we ended up with something of a mediocre Sultai deck, and yet there was hope.

There was a time (at the beginning of pack three) which we could have chosen to jump colours in order to play our planeswalker. We could have made the switch into Temur at that point, but it would have been a huge gamble.

 One thing we definitely should have done is paid more attention to the board state.

In round one, I don't think there was anything to do but be on the defensive, but in round two there was a point at which we should have stopped worrying about the Rakshasa Deathdealer, and started racing our opponent. Even if it wasn't likely, the game could have swung in our favour eventually, whereas just taking the hits every turn left us with nowhere to go once we finally had plays to make.

 Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.


-Step.

"Work your Abzan" - October 17, 2014

Good day! This week's draft landed us in the Abzan Houses. Check out whether we managed to Outlast our opponents.

Sometimes playing magic is like farming. You live off the land, and she is a harsh mistress.

Still, even playing through mana issues, it's possible to learn some things. This week we learned that it is a good idea to take a good hard look at the Instant spells in the set so that you know what to look for when your opponent has mana open.

Pretty basic, right? Well it turns out that the simple things are what really improve your game in the long run. Sequencing and knowing every colour, knowing what combat tricks and counter spells are in the set can greatly improve your performance during combat.

As far as set specific information, I had expected from the beginning that expensive creatures were going to be less useful in this set if they didn't have morph, and I can confirm that. The Venerable Lammasu should be a solid curve topper, but with all the Morph creatures which can be dumped onto the field by turn three, having a big thing stuck in your hand just isn't where you want to be.

We've got two clans left to draft (not counting the sealed pool which we've yet to post), and I'm looking forward to trying the all morph deck at some point. This set still has plenty of life in it, and we hope you'll be along with us for this ride.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time!


-Step.

"Trouble with Temur" - October 10, 2014

Here we are once more on a beautiful Friday. So far we're three for three on the clans of Tarkir (sealed series forthcoming), and we haven't quite been able to master the speed of the format.

Land troubles aside, I think I've discovered a tendency in myself to devalue my life total. I'm used to playing a deck in Constructed which tends to stabilize around 4. Unfortunately, you can't be assured of stabilizing in a Limited game, and a few more early game trades might have helped us last long enough to get something big out.

I'd also have liked to try taking the red out of the deck in order to add the black. I feel that against an aggressive deck, like the one we faced in round one, it would have proven effective. We could have held down the ground early on much better, but maybe that's best case scenario mentality.

Either way, the deck was at least fun to play with, and I'll look forward to another stint amongst the Temur clan in the future.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time,


-Step.

"Which Way to Jeskai?" - October 03, 2014

So here we are! Khans has finally arrived on MTGO, and what better way to celebrate than with a clan themed draft? We may not have quite settled into the new set, but at least it's entertaining!

We very quickly landed ourselves in Jeskai, and it seemed to work well enough, though next time I'd focus a little more on mana fixing earlier in the draft, and probably more non-creature spells. Jeskai may not be as strong as the three more straightforward clans (Abzan, Mardu, and Temur), but the Prowess mechanic is definitely powerful. This was made clear to me in round 1 when we lasted a whole three turns longer than we should have, simply thanks to our prowess creatures.

It would have been much nicer to have been on the offensive with them, but maybe next time.

We fared better in rounds 2 and 3, and at the very least I can say that it was fun. There was some back and forth, and we got to see almost all of the set's mechanics in play. I'm very much looking forward to next week.

Thanks for reading, and we'll see you next time.


-Step.

"Preparation: RavniKhans" - September 29, 2014

We just can't wait until Khans of Tarkir comes out on MTGO, but I've only been able to draft it in paper once, plus the pre-release sealed, and Tams hasn't done it at all. How to build a viable deck with a solid mana base is going to be the question for the next three months, so to prepare ourselves for a new multicoloured set, we decided to do one last sealed pool of the last one before it cycled.

I believe we did succeed in building the correct deck, right up to our 18th land. There were a couple of serious misplays which I'm only going to touch on, as the mechanics of RTR aren't going to be relevant going forward.

The bloodrush mechanic is one which both Tams and I have used numerous times, but never in a limited environment. We never really drafted RTR, and only used the cards for constructed deckbuilding. Bloodrush cards slotted right into our aggro decks, and so we never even considered using it defensively. 

If you're familiar with this mechanic (or if you watched our match), you will know that Bloodrush targets only "attacking" creatures, which after reading the cards  hundreds of times, we completely missed because it never came up.

The other thing I want to mention is the land. Coming into another multicolour set, I want to stress the fact that you should really consider running 18 land in your deck. Even though we lost at least one game to flooding, I still feel it was the right choice. We would have lost even more games if we'd been missing one of our colours.

I think that's all for now. Come back on Friday evening when we post our very first Khans of Tarkir draft.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time,


-Step.

Khans Release FNM Report

Hey Fellow Drafters!

It's release day, and I'm just back from my first ever Khans of Tarkir Draft. I can report that this set is as fun to draft as it is to play, and even though I decided to go a different way, the clans are easy to work with.

I had expected that with everybody in at least three colours, signalling was going to be a nightmare, but based on my sample, it didn't look that different. As a matter of fact, there was so much fixing floating around, that switching colours halfway through the draft was easy.

Let's talk a little about strategy. My plan when drafting this set is to choose a clan early, and then draft two colours from that set heavily. That way you'll hopefully end up with a good two colour deck with a splash, and the fixing is there to support it.



I decided early in pack one to go Mardu (that's white, black, red), and drafted black and white heavily. Unfortunately, someone to my left was drafting Abzan (white, black, green), so black and white dried up in pack two, but near the end of pack one it became evident to me that blue was way open. The result, after three packs, was an Esper (remember the Shards of Alara?) deck with a red splash.

In several games this deck did a good imitation of blue fliers, while in others it looked like the black white aggro rush. Weave Fate and Dig Through Time are nice late game pulls to refill your hand, and as I was running eighteen land, I generally got to cast another spell at the same time.

 I also had some good sideboard options. I had three counters, in case I came up against a slow deck full of big things. I had a board wipe, though with the number of creatures in my deck, it wasn't really an option, and I had an erase, which actually came in handy against my opponent who had two Singing Bell Strikes.

Where the deck fell apart, was in the long game against bigger things. I had very little (read: no) removal, and if I couldn't get in in the air, I was quickly looking at a stalled board.

My final record for the evening was 1-2, and each round went to three games which tells me that I was probably on par with the other drafters.

We'll have our first Khans draft for our channel up next Friday, but if you can't wait, I suggest you head to your local card shop and see if there's a pod that needs an eight!


Thanks for reading, and we'll see you this Friday,


-Step.

"Departure from Ravnica" - September 23, 2014

The hype is high for Khans of Tarkir, and in preparation for another multicolour set, we say farewell to the last multicolour set. What better way to say goodbye to a block than to rare draft it!

We ended up with nine rares and a mythic, and even though we only ended up playing half of them, I thought the deck looked pretty good.

From a play perspective, this was another example of why we shouldn't draft late at night. It was only nine thirty when we entered the queue, but as RTR block is on the way out, sometimes the drafts don't fire. It was 11:30 before we actually started drafting, and midnight before we began playing.

Something Marshall Sutcliffe has brought to Magic is his attitude toward Poker. He's said that if you're going to play like a professional, that means always giving your best. If you're tired, or under the weather, or just not feeling your best, then don't play.

Round one went fine, but we made some pretty clear mistakes in round 2. I'm still not sure we could have won the round, but not swinging in until we had enough to deal lethal damage would have been a much better choice than sacrificing our board to Teysa.

All in all, I had fun and I feel that was a satisfactory farewell to Ravnica, although there might just be a Monday surprise coming up.

Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time,


-Step.

Khans of Tarkir Pre-release Report - September 21, 2014

Just home from my Khans of Tarkir pre-release and my initial impression is that this set is complex, vibrant, and incredibly fun.

Tams unfortunately couldn't go, but I played all 6 rounds, and I learned a lot about the set.

I chose Temur for my clan and ended up going with my clan colours. Unlike in Theros block, the seeded booster was entirely composed of your on-colour cards, which made it even more likely that you`d be playing your chosen colours.

Despite opening nine pieces of fixing I couldn`t use, it didn`t feel like it diluted my pool at all, and that`s probably because of the seeded pack. I`m reasonably sure that everything in it went into my first deck.

The initial deck seemed to be potent, and with 9, 8, 6 for my mana base, I didn`t think I`d have much trouble, but alas, it was not so. I was generally able to bounce and trade the first couple of things, but I got stuck on 4 mana, or without one of my colours three games in a row. After two match losses, I decided to change my deck. I think now that this was probably the wrong choice, and results oriented thinking, but it felt better to me to do something active to affect a better outcome.

The second deck was not quite as powerful, but far more consistent. I still ended up losing a game because I didn`t draw my first blue source until turn 11, but when I was able to draw land, I was able to play the game quite effectively. 
Embodiment of Spring helped to ramp me a little, and helped me find a mountain, but I wouldn`t call it fixing. Without both a blue and green source to begin with, it wasn`t very useful. Still, it`s a perfect turn 1 play. It can block until up to turn 4 pretty well, and if you want to burn it off on turn 2 to cast a 4 drop on turn 3, it`s a card well spent. 

With a fairly aggressive curve, and with the Alpine Grizzlys trading with four and five drops, I went toe to toe with some pretty heavy decks.

Alpine Grizzlys are also great to trigger the Temur mechanic, `Ferocious`, which checks if you`ve got a creature with power 4 or greater on the battlefield.





The other star of my deck was Clever Impersonator. I never got to copy a planeswalker with him, but on turn four he came down and effectively stopped anything on the other side of the field that I was worried about.

If I didn`t get him in hand until late, or had something better to do on turn 4, he could come down on any turn and copy the best thing running.

 

I won a game with Incremental Growth,
and casting Dig Through Time for two blue mana felt fantastic when I followed it up by playing two spells.

Morph is definitely more of a curve smoother in this set, although I did get my opponent pretty severely when he blocked my Snowhorn Rider with his bear (it may have been a morph creature), and I was able to unmorph it for an additional 3 to his face. There are a few really good morph tricks in this set, but more often then not I just saw it used as a way to make sure that you could cast something, regardless of the mana you have available.


After six rounds, my record was 2-4, and it feels like a cop out to blame my mana, but that`s the plight of the magic player. Overall I had fun and I`m definitely looking forward to drafting this set. A lot of the cards in this set seem really interesting to interact with. I imagine that we`re going to see a lot of four colour draft decks, at least on a splash, but I think the fixing is there to support it. Even the banners might be playable if you have valuable 1 or 2 drops, though I`d still rather not if I could help it.

Thanks for reading,


-Step.

"Sealing M15" - September 19, 2014

This week we say goodbye to M15 in style. We've wanted to do one of those premium sealed events for a while now, and we would have been hard pressed to open a better pool than the one we opened this week. In my humble opinion, it's well worth a watch.

As the second last of the core sets, they really did their work with M15. It may not have been the most exciting set, mechanically speaking, but I feel like it was well balanced, with plenty of good archetypes, and that it had something for everybody. My favourite deck of the lot was probably the Izzet Artifact deck. I love the mix of synergy and cheap removal. I imagine that we'll be seeing that, as well as the convoke strategy played in Standard for a little while.

Part of the point of the core set is to give you staples for Constructed play for the following year. With the announcement that M16 will be the last of the core sets, I imagine they'll simply fold those cards into the block releases. I'm actually a little sad to see the end of the core sets, as I think this set showed us that the core doesn't just have to be a bland, beginner's release, but a dabbling into the whole tapestry of the Multiverse. In the past, with cards like Odric, Master Tactician, and in M15 with the Soul of Shandalar, we've gotten a glimpse of more of the world(s) than we otherwise would have seen. It's nice to see the resolution of the Dragon's Maze in Jace, Living Guildpact, or see a call back to an older set in Nissa, Worldwaker. The fabric of the Multiverse is intricate, and it's nice to see its complexity represented in a core set.

Still, I understand why they're making the shift, and I look forward to seeing what the future of Magic holds. For now, we're looking forward to Khans of Tarkir. It's paper pre-release this weekend, but still two more weeks until we'll be able to play online. Until then, we'll try to keep things interesting.

Thanks for watching, and see you next time.


-Step.

"Grindclock Aggro" - M15 05 September, 2014

Sorry about this one being a little late, but we had some technical difficulties with the recording. In particular, round three. Despite the video trouble, I hope this draft is as fun for you to watch as it was for us to play.

Garrett joins us again this week for another comedy of errors. After first picking Grindclock, we somehow managed to draft into an aggressive black green deck and beyond all reason, managed to come out on top.

I'm sure it helped that our opponent conceded in the first game at 19 life just because he'd kept a one land hand and hadn't been able to draw into his second. I don't know how to stress this enough, but  Never Concede. Seriously. Unless the clock is an issue and you truly think you're dead, concession is not an option.

The value of sticking with it is well demonstrated by our play in round 2, where we somehow manage to stabilize at 1, and manage to take our opponent from 20 to 3, and forced him to concede instead. It would have been tempting to say "I can't get back from this, all he needs to do is top deck a lightning strike, and we're dead" but instead, we played as well as we could, kept with it, and ended up stealing a win.

We'd like to thank Garrett for coming out and joining us again. Maybe next time we'll draft green the way it was meant to be drafted.

For now, thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.

-Step.

"Rabblemaster of Predicaments" - 30 August, 2014

This week was a lesson in humility, not that it hurt our win percentage at all. We just learned that maybe we ought to read what's actually on the cards, rather than assuming we know what we do. Despite that, we ended up doing... pretty well. Go ahead and check it out.



There were a bunch of times during play that we misread what cards on both sides of the field did. It's easy to forget part of a card with which you're comfortable, such as Juggernaut. 5/3? Great. Artifact? Sure. Must attack each turn? Fantastic. I didn't want to block with that anyway. Can't be blocked by walls? Doesn't really seem to matter, unless you're making a decision about whether to play out a wall when one's going to be swinging at you.

The point is, we completely forgot about that clause on a card which we've played about a hundred times.

Worse still, I misread a card which I've never played with (i.e. Goblin Rabblemaster). Reading what you want it to say rather than what it actually says can make a huge difference in play style, and it's a mistake which is all to easy to make.

Thank goodness our deck was agreeing with us.

One more thing I want to mention. Even with all the errors, we ended up going 3-0. Making mistakes does not mean you're a bad player. Winning games does not mean you're a good player. Sometimes it's all in the cards, and sometimes you have to scrape every ounce of win out of your brain that you can. Just do your best, and keep doing your best. This game is about improving yourself.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.


-Step.

Monday Bonus - "Trouble Queue" - September 01, 2014

Something happened a while ago, Tams and I wanted to relax and try drafting without the pressure of being "on" for the camera. We had plenty of those new player points that you get with a magic online account, so we decided to try one of the phantom M14 drafts, well, sealed, well, draft... You're about to view the result. Keeping in mind that when we started, this was never supposed to be shown to anyone, I think it turned out fairly well, and you can let us know if we were entertaining.

I don't know if it was coincidence or just the fact that we were thinking in the same colours, but I was happy not to have to switch between deck types on the fly. The down side was that we had to try to remember what was in each deck. We had a lot of fun, and I think I learned that my reflexes are sometimes as good as my forethought. I wouldn't want to do it often, but I might be convinced to try it again.

Let us know what you think!


-Step.

"Tripping Over Spirits" - August 08, 2014

Don't be confused by the date. This one is a little out of order. It also happens to be one of our best drafts ever.



Tams and I, along with our friend Garrett, paid close attention to the drafting process, and that shows in the quality of our deck. We also had very good luck with both the draft and our opening hands. I'm not about to take total credit for the cards which came to us. Magic is a high variance game, and It's just nice to get a smooth round once in a while.

We hope you enjoy watching this draft as much as we enjoyed doing it.


Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.


-Step.

"Creatures? Who Needs Creatures?!" - August 20, 2014

There's something to be said for having creatures in your deck. I think the biggest thing I learned this week is that good spells don't necessarily take the place of creatures, even the weaker ones. Aside from the usual variance troubles, having a mitt full of spells doesn't do much if you don't have targets. You may notice that our sound issues have returned. Hopefully we'll get that patched up for next week. In the mean time, enjoy!




During the draft, we could have gone a few different ways. The way we ended up going had potential, but it didn't quite come together.


I've noticed during my M15 league experiences that the popular archetypes rule this format with marginal room to move outside of them, and if we'd settled on an archetype earlier, it probably would have gone much better for us.

Another thing I've noticed is that we should be more aware of what's in the colours we're facing, and not just what we've seen of a particular deck. For example, sideboarding in Hot Soup would have been a good idea in round three, as blue black has no direct damage, and it would have given us another target for our Ensoul Artifact.

As it stands, the deck worked pretty well considering, and the games were definitely fun.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.


-Step.

P.S. Sorry for the crackling in round 3. I was hungry.

"Two Halves Leave a Big Hole" - August 13, 2014

I wish I could say that the inaugural draft for our new blog went better, but at least we learned some things! First, if you're going to go all in on your pack 1 pick 1, make sure you're thinking strategy, not just colour. By the end of the draft, we wound up with what I feel was two halves of a deck, with red aggro on the lower end, and red black control at the top, and they never quite met in the middle.



During the draft we probably should have paid more attention to artifacts and other synergy cards, and prioritized cards to make the game go long, especially after we decided on the Caustic Tar as another win condition.

Despite our one track drafting mentality, and Tams feeling off kilter for completely separate reasons, we still managed to play fairly well and enjoy ourselves.

Hope to see you next time,


-Step.

Hi there!

I'm Step, and this is Tams.











We're Card Advantage. We're here to learn how to draft on MTGO, and you can learn along with us.

I should start off by mentioning that we're not Limited Resources, and we're not Channel Fireball. We're not even Loading Ready Run, (though we highly suggest you check them out, because they've all got a lot to offer). What we are is a little bit different.

We're just beginners on MTGO. We've been playing paper magic for a while, but we don't know everything. What we do know, is how to be entertaining and informative. We hope to teach as much by the mistakes we make as by our successes, and hopefully make you laugh along the way.

This blog will be updated at least weekly on Friday when we put up a draft, and sporadically when we've got something to say.

We're Card Advantage, and we hope you enjoy.

-Step.