Video

I had 26 playables at the PreRelease. I added 4 off aspect bombs to fill the empty slots and went 4-0 to win 1st place.

Thanks for the effort you put in. I'm watching as a new player and I appreciate the way you explains different methods of how to use each card. These explanations allow me to approach the game differently and it's helpful in understanding how this game can be played in a wide range of methods. It's nice how you explain an attack but also how it can be countered. Keep it up champ :)

Hi there. I am quite new to TCG and the draft format and i found this video super useful. I probably won’t remember all the cards you highlighted in the video but all the thoughts and reasoning behind you chooses and comments are super helpful. I hope I get to apply some of what you shared later the coming week in my 3rd draft ever and ofc first shadow of the galaxy draft. Appreciate you effort spent in making this video and will subscribe ❤

Any cards you're hoping to collect from this set?

So one thing I forgot to check when revising the Jabba Red deck is revisiting the Desperate Attacks. I only had one unit with AMBUSH (Mercenary Company), so I decided to take out both Desperate Attacks and put back Warzone Lieutenant & Hunting Nexu. Upon playtesting against Force Table AI, I found that my units had more damage than I was expecting (I underestimated how often the persistent damage would stay on my units), so if I had to re-adjust, I would have put one Desperate Attack in and take out the Hunting Nexu (the 1-drop unit allows for both Opening play & a target for the experience from Outland TIE Vanguard. Other thoughts on the video?

Great video!! Thanks for sharing such good knowledge, keep up the good work!

The constant "bumping" that can be heard throughout the whole video is very annoying. Please fix your mic. Otherwise great content.

great video! very helpful^^ but every movement from your handy on your table (i guess) is picked up by your microphone^^ thats a bit annoying (at leased for me as a headphone user)

how did it turn out?

well, your first mistake was asking for my feedback. for context i am attending my first ever pre-release event on saturday and i have been watching every tutorial on the subject i can find. my goal is to not look like a complete ass in front of strangers. i will fail, of course, butt now i will have scapegoats to blame it on. win-win. or, lose-win, to be slightly more precise. wow. for me that was fairly concise... maybe i should add a little background to flesh out my context. ...call me ishmael. what? ok. fine. i'll get to the point. i've got stuff to do today too, ya know. i have one main suggestion. more face, less power point lists. dont get rid of the text completely, just cut it down to what you're actively talking about at the moment. my reasoning is two-fold. firstly, too much "blank space" is going to suffer in the algorithm vs a more dynamic screen. and B. i'm easily distracted. when confronted by a wall of text i am prone to reading it. often i will find myself reading instead of listening, and any public school teacher worth they weight in self purchased chalkboard chalk will dejectedly tell you that hearing and listening are two drastically different... uh, thingamabobs.

Thank you for the informative and easy to digest content!

Do bombs exist, and if so, what are some examples and why would you consider it one?

Really nice gameplay here. I wondered if Dire Flail was ever worth it for descending. Interesting stuff!

after seeing videos where draftsmith went 7-0 which i felt was the magic of editing it's refreshing to see real results using this even though this is a bit older video. Has the ai improved much since this was made?

I feel like u played this badly u got lucky

Game 8, was a nail biter! Can't believe you managed to pull through that one!

Thanks this prevents me from dying, I can not beat super shreddar unharmed can not dodge the flames

I hate hard hard hard hard games

Too good for only 3 likes... Maybe the video's long. One day I'll make it.

Power nine was cool back in the day. I remember opening packs and getting mox emerald, ruby plus my black lotus. They were powerful cards then but now its big money.

POST-EDIT THOUGHTS: Normally I'd put up my Pack 1, Pick 1 analysis here, but since Draftsmith wasn't up, it would kind of defeat the purpose. :). I don't really have much to say other than I think Draftsmith did a solid job of building the deck after Pack 1, Pick 3. I do think Draftsmith values 3-color decks more highly than I do: 17lands data also supports 2-colors over 3-colors in Premiere Draft DMU (as of today's date, 2-color decks have a 3.4% higher win-rate than 3-color decks). Isn't it also interesting that the lowest power deck Draftsmith has built thus far in our experiment got the best record? Food for thought. Any other thoughts? Comment below!

So I had no issues with Draftsmiths Pack 1: while I felt we had signals White could have been open by Pick 6 (4:27), taking the land is completely justifiable. By Pack 2, I probably would have preferred to pivot into Blue. With a Pick 1 Vodalian Mindsinger (7:10), I would have preferred we pivot to making Blue a main color. I don't necessarily mind the Sunbathing Rootwalla at Pick 2 (7:59), but I think it underestimated the value of the Tolarian Terror, and I certainly would have not ranked Terror below Yavimaya Iconoclast or Tribute to Urborg. By Pick 3 (8:51), it should have been VERY clear that Blue was open, and while Draftsmith generally recognized its openness, the Najal over the Phyrexian Espionage at Pick 10 (11:41) still baffles me. We've barely seen any good Red cards, so why choose a red splash over a solid Blue card draw spell? By the time we saw the Defiler of Instinct in Pick 1 of Pack 3 (12:44), it's clear Draftsmith was prioritizing raw power over synergy with already drafted cards. In both Defiler picks, it seems to recognize each card's potential, but doesn't quite recognize how to build for them (i.e. drafting the proper permanents in their respective colors). While Draftsmith is perfectly fine to draft for raw power in Packs 1 & 2, by Pack 3 I feel it should pivot more towards valuing main color pairs. I also think Draftsmith doesn't value card advantage or card filtering powers as much as it should when building decks. I still believe omitting Impulse from the final build was a mistake, as the deck filtering power of Impulse would have done so much to ensure staying on curve, providing a discount for Tolarian Terror, and getting to our bombs faster. That said, two games were lost due to mana screw, and not necessarily bad mana bases, so this deck didn't quite get a fair shake. I don't think this draft would have pulled out a trophy, but I do think the deck could have been constructed with more consistency in mind. Any other thoughts on Draftsmith, or my gameplay? Comment below!

Red based domain deck was where it was going but didn't get any lands, cool process tho

POST-EDITING THOUGHTS: Overall I thought Draftsmith took a solid deck, although I do have some disagreements, especially in Pack 2. First, let's compare pack 1, pick 1 in-hand win rates from 17lands with Draftsmith's ratings. Here are the results: 1. Lightning Strike (47) - 58.3% 2. Lagomos, Hand of Hatred (45) - 55.7% 3. Resolute Reinforcements (41) - 57.8% 3T. Talas Lookout (41) - 58.0% 5. Balduvian Berserker (38) - 53.7% 6. Threats Undetected (25) - 52.8% 7. Soaring Drake (23) - 55.2% 8. Bone Splinters (20) - 54.2% 9. Gibbering Barricade (18) - 56.1% 10. Heroic Charge (14) - 56.1% 11. Bog Badger (7) - 55.3% 12. Thrill of Possibility (5) - 55.0% 13. Voda Sea Scavenger (4) - 53.8% 14. Meteorite (2) - 54.1% The only rank I'd question with Draftsmith is Lagomos at #2. It's not in a very good color pair (RB), and it's only good in a very specific sacrifice/aggro deck. The only reason I can think of Draftsmith rating Lagomos this highly is it has good synergies with both Gibbering Barricade and Bone Splinters, and Draftsmith places a high likelihood that either will wheel (neither would end up wheeling). Second, I disagree with a few of Draftsmith's Pack 2 picks, starting with Pick 3 (6:12): the Frostfist Strider. Red is generally an aggressive color, especially Baird, Balduvian Berserker, and Flowstone Kavu, so I don't know why it would rate a slow, grindy card like Frostfist Strider over more aggressive cards like Take Up The Shield, Griffin Protector, or Twinferno. Later, I don't like Pick 5 (7:03), choosing the Meria's Outrider over the Keldon Strike Team. Keldon Strike Team is a staple in Red/White, while Meria's Outrider belongs more in grindy, Domain-focused decks. While Outrider performed fine, Keldon Strike Team is more effective at pushing across damage, which is critical in the Red/White deck that can easily get outvalued if it doesn't finish games quickly. Lastly, there were some quirky picks in Pack 3: Territorial Maro over the Ghitu Amplifier at Pick 8 (11:11) and the Battlewing Mystic over the Coalition Warbrute at Pick 9 (11:32). It's still holding onto the dream of Domain despite us drafting zero Forest dual lands. I wonder how much Draftsmith considers likelihood of the deck's final archetype in Pack 3, and if it should put greater weight on a card's value in that archetype over its overall win rate. At the end of the day, I do think the deck deserved more than 3 wins, and I could have eked out a win in Game 6 had I played my Take Up The Shield before allowing the opponent to Impulse twice (1:02:28). Any other thoughts on the experiment so far? Comment below!

POST-EDIT THOUGHTS: So I wanted to better assess Draftsmith's rankings by looking at 17lands's card-in-hand win rate data for pack 1, pick 1. So I have listed every card in pack 1, pick 1, in descending Draftsmith order, with the Draftsmith rating in parentheses, followed by 17lands's win rate percentage. 1. Ardenvale Tactician (45) - 57.0% 2. Merfolk Secretkeeper (44) - 62.6% 3. Rosethorn Acolyte (41) - 55.5% 4. Overwhelmed Apprentice (39) - 62.5% 5. Silverflame Squire (37) - 53.1% 6. Wishing Well (34) - 58.6% 7. Cauldron Familiar (25) - 61.2% 8. Gingerbread Cabin (21) - 55.8% 9. Embereth Paladin (18) - 56.1% 10: Mirrormade (9) - 56.0% 11. Elite Headhunter (7) - 50.7% 12. Eye Collector (4) - 53.2% 13. Locthwain Gargoyle (2) - 52.3% 14. Roving Keep (2) - N/A So according to 17lands, there were four cards that had higher win rates than Draftsmith's #1 pick (in descending win rate order: Merfolk Secretkeeper, Overwhelmed Apprentice, Cauldron Familiar, Wishing Well). I had passed up 3 Merfolk Secretkeepers in Pack 1, and the Overwhelmed Apprentice had wheeled, so I had missed out on a heavy mill deck. Furthermore, based on color archetype pairings, 17lands considers white inferior to blue. Blue has three 2-color pairings that have win rates higher than the average 2-color deck (55.7%): blue/black (56.8%), blue/green (56.9%), and blue/red (56.4%). Whereas white only has one: red/white (56.6%). And yet Draftsmith had me select a white card over three blue cards. So what could be causing the discrepancies? It's likely that 17lands is sampling from a significantly different population than untapped.gg. I cannot find the average Limited win rate of an untapped.gg user, but the average 17lands win rate for Premium Throne of Eldraine is 56.8%, significantly higher than the average MTGA player. Assuming that the average untapped.gg user has a lower Limited win rate than the average 17lands user, it could be that Ardenvale Tactician has a higher win rate among lower-ranked players. For future drafts, I'll continue to compare Draftsmith ratings with 17lands win rate data and see what could be going on. Any other observations from this draft? Would love to hear read your comments below!

congratz on mythic limited!

5:36 must be nice

So a little spoiler, I just hit Mythic in Limited!!! Now this draft was played September 23rd, so despite occurring almost a month ago, it's still fascinating to watch a draft earlier in a format, and ask myself what I would do differently. I don't see any major mistakes in my draft: I speculated on high upside cards early, I drafted bombs when they came, power-level cards were off the charts. But there are some picks I wish I could've re-done: 1) 1:40 P1P2 Today I would pick Elas over Cut Down. By no means did I make a bad pick here: the cheap, efficient removal of Cut Down is always welcome. And if this had been P1P1, I think Cut Down as the single-color card would be a better pick. But Elas has insane synergies with the Chaplain: Elas provides value in both the creation and death of birdies. While I was lucky enough to grab an Elas later in the draft, Elas here I think would be the right pick. 2) 4:14 P1P8 - I should have grabbed the Shadow Prophecy over Vineshaper Prodigy. I think at the time I was over-valuing grabbing 2-drops in Pack 1, and I was more willing to venture in a 3rd color to get one. I think I was also over-valuing Prodigy as well: while it's a solid, flexible 2-drop which replaces itself when kicked, it's still just a 2/2 bear which doesn't trade well, especially when kicked. Despite not having duel lands, I should have anticipated drafting them later, and grabbing a card-advantage black spell when black looked like a main color was probably better than speculating on a good-but-not-great 2-drop in a 3rd color. 3) 5:02 P1P11 - I should have picked Molten Tributary over Librarian. Was there little chance that blue or red would become a main color? Yes. But late in pack 1, I should be looking for higher upside cards, and the opportunity to go into red and/or expand my Domain synergies has much more upside than a random good, but ultimately filler 3-drop. This would bite me later, as the extra red splash would have been extremely useful as another kicker for Archangel of Wrath. 4) 9:16 P2P8 - I should have grabbed the Salvaged Manaworker. What's funny is I was still obsessed with 2-drops, yet for some reason I only looked at the blue 2-drop and not the mana-fixing 2-drop. It should have been very obvious that I was going at least 2-colors with splash, and with no duels in my splash colors, I should have grabbed one of the few mana-fixers coming my way instead of grabbing yet another mediocre 2-drop. Any other ways I could have done better? Comment below!

So a little spoiler, I just hit Mythic in Limited!!! Now this draft was played September 23rd, so despite occurring almost a month ago, it's still fascinating to watch a draft earlier in a format, and ask myself what I would do differently. I don't see any major mistakes in my draft: I speculated on high upside cards early, I drafted bombs when they came, power-level cards were off the charts. But there are some picks I wish I could've re-done: 1) 1:40 P1P2 Today I would pick Elas over Cut Down. By no means did I make a bad pick here: the cheap, efficient removal of Cut Down is always welcome. And if this had been P1P1, I think Cut Down as the single-color card would be a better pick. But Elas has insane synergies with the Chaplain: Elas provides value in both the creation and death of birdies. While I was lucky enough to grab an Elas later in the draft, Elas here I think would be the right pick. 2) 4:14 P1P8 - I should have grabbed the Shadow Prophecy over Vineshaper Prodigy. I think at the time I was over-valuing grabbing 2-drops in Pack 1, and I was more willing to venture in a 3rd color to get one. I think I was also over-valuing Prodigy as well: while it's a solid, flexible 2-drop which replaces itself when kicked, it's still just a 2/2 bear which doesn't trade well, especially when kicked. Despite not having duel lands, I should have anticipated drafting them later, and grabbing a card-advantage black spell when black looked like a main color was probably better than speculating on a good-but-not-great 2-drop in a 3rd color. 3) 5:02 P1P11 - I should have picked Molten Tributary over Librarian. Was there little chance that blue or red would become a main color? Yes. But late in pack 1, I should be looking for higher upside cards, and the opportunity to go into red and/or expand my Domain synergies has much more upside than a random good, but ultimately filler 3-drop. This would bite me later, as the extra red splash would have been extremely useful as another kicker for Archangel of Wrath. 4) 9:16 P2P8 - I should have grabbed the Salvaged Manaworker. What's funny is I was still obsessed with 2-drops, yet for some reason I only looked at the blue 2-drop and not the mana-fixing 2-drop. It should have been very obvious that I was going at least 2-colors with splash, and with no duels in my splash colors, I should have grabbed one of the few mana-fixers coming my way instead of grabbing yet another mediocre 2-drop. Any other ways I could have done better? Comment below!

So a little spoiler, I just hit Limited Mythic!!! Now this draft was played September 23rd, so despite occurring almost a month ago, it's still fascinating to watch a draft earlier in a format, and ask myself what I would do differently I don't see any major mistakes in my draft: I speculated on high upside cards early, I drafted bombs when they came, power-level cards were off the charts. But there are some picks I wish I could've re-done: 1) 1:40 P1P2 Today I would pick Elas over Cut Down. By no means did I make a bad pick here: the cheap, efficient removal of Cut Down is always welcome. And if this had been P1P1, I think Cut Down as the single-color card would be a better pick. But Elas has insane synergies with the Chaplain: Elas provides value in both the creation and death of birdies. While I was lucky enough to grab an Elas later in the draft, Elas here I think would be the right pick. 2) 4:14 P1P8 - I should have grabbed the Shadow Prophecy over Vineshaper Prodigy. I think at the time I was over-valuing grabbing 2-drops in Pack 1, and I was more willing to venture in a 3rd color to get one. I think I was also over-valuing Prodigy as well: while it's a solid, flexible 2-drop which replaces itself when kicked, it's still just a 2/2 bear which doesn't trade well, especially when kicked. Despite not having duel lands, I should have anticipated drafting them later, and grabbing a card-advantage black spell when black looked like a main color was probably better than speculating on a good-but-not-great 2-drop in a 3rd color. 3) 5:02 P1P11 - I should have picked Molten Tributary over Librarian. Was there little chance that blue or red would become a main color? Yes. But late in pack 1, I should be looking for higher upside cards, and the opportunity to go into red and/or expand my Domain synergies has much more upside than a random good, but ultimately filler 3-drop. This would bite me later, as the extra red splash would have been extremely useful as another kicker for Archangel of Wrath. 4) 9:16 P2P8 - I should have grabbed the Salvaged Manaworker. What's funny is I was still obsessed with 2-drops, yet for some reason I only looked at the blue 2-drop and not the mana-fixing 2-drop. It should have been very obvious that I was going at least 2-colors with splash, and with no duels in my splash colors, I should have grabbed one of the few mana-fixers coming my way instead of grabbing yet another mediocre 2-drop. Any other ways I could have done better? Comment below!

Cruelty was up against nael, you are primarily blue green splashing blk, wasn't nael a better fit?

So this draft was still early in the format, and I've learned some things since then: 1) At the time, Wingmantle Chaplain was all the rage, the Uncommon bomb that had the 3rd highest win rate percentage on 17lands. I had not played with the card all that often, so my instinct was to grab it whenever I saw it. But now that I have experience playing Blue/Red spells, I clearly should not have picked ANY, especially the first one at P2P5 (9:34). If I had to re-pick, I would have grabbed the Battlewing Mystic for gas, although Impulse would have been a solid pick up, or Essence Scatter if I wanted to elect for a more grindy deck. What makes Wingmantle Chaplain great is it has an incredibly high best-case scenario with just a mediocre worst-case scenario. The problem is in red-blue, you will almost always run into the worst-case scenario because red has no defenders, and in red/blue you are more to gear it toward aggro than mid-range. 2) In P1P12 (7:09), I should have picked up the Academy Wall over the Voda Sea Scavenger. At the time, Voda seemed like a decent deck filterer, allowing you to pick the best card out of the top 2-5 cards. But Voda only puts the card on top of your deck, not in your hand, which makes a HUGE difference, as getting the card into your hand would grant card advantage. As it is, Voda doesn't grant card advantage, and as it's a 3/2, as a blocker it merely trades off. Whereas the Academy Wall, although it can't attack, can block almost any ground creature at 0/5, and turns all instants and sorceries into deck filters. So while Voda & Academy Wall both act as filters, Wall has much greater staying power, and allows continuous deck filtration, making it much more valuable (and would theoretically have made the Wingmantle picks much better). 3) 7:18 For P1P13, I should have picked up one Thrill Of Possibility. At the time I was obsessed with having 3 or 4 2-drops by the end of pack 1, but I underestimated the importance of card draw and just having another instant to put into the graveyard. I should have been anticipating grabbing Tolerian Terrors, and the value of the virtually perpetual 1-mana discount Thrill would have provided is not insignificant. 4) I tried too hard to make this deck EVERYTHING: some red/blue spells, some domain, some defenders. Hence, the deck was MASTER OF NONE. And a very appropriate 3-3 record. By P3P1 (11:52), I should have committed to red/blue spells, as the Meria's Outriders can still act as good finishers even without so much domain. 5) I underestimated the power of Twinferno, which should have been my P3P8 (14:13). It can rack up a ton of damage out of nowhere, and can act as a primary finisher in a blue/red spells deck. 6) And while I did win the game, I did miss lethal at 47:11. Opponent was tapped out, so had I attacked face and cast both my Lightning Strikes (or copied one with Najal), that would have won the game then and there. Any other ways I could have done better? Comment below!

So I noticed that my brain must have been fried by 1:14:46, as I had missed a chance to take out the Quirion Beastcaller's counters had I switched the order of my spells: Hurloon Battle Hymn the Beastcaller, and then Bite Down the creature the opponent sent the tokens to. Not sure if it would have saved me the game, but it's these lines that separate the great draft players from the mediocre ones. Anything else you notice? Comment below!

The entire draft can be found here: czcams.com/video/J5BdYyfBxLo/video.html

The comeback was too beautiful!

43:07 oh that is pretty sexy. Destroy evil becomes a counter spell! No wonder why it’s the best white common 😂

40:00 could kill the priest before they get a chance to enlist? If you’re gonna kill it anyway?

P.S love your thumbnails!

0:40 when I first read the Red 2/1 for 2, I thought you conjured up a card into your hand that enlisted it. Alas it was not that broken

Thanks for replying to my previous comment about putting eg “4-3” in the title. I understand you want people to know so they can view the draft in a different light, and to be different. My humble suggestion is you can put the score in maybe the 3rd line of the description so people can check it who want to be “spoiled”. Also I think there is a reason other Magic CZcamsrs don’t do it - it lowers intrigue and click through rate. Another way of saying it, is if putting the game score in the title wasn’t bad, there’d be more Channels that do it instead of just you. Anyway, that’s my 2cents. Coming from someone who Enjoys your content and wants to see you grow.

Alright. That game was everything. I had such a smile on my face at the end watching you! I’m glad opponent let you pop off too! You had probably $50,000+ worth of cards on your battlefield 😂

20:35 wow that top deck 😮

Lol that dream at 15:58 - can choose between the ancestral recalls 😂

6:57 yeah that’s why I’m not sold the card is that good. Effectively stuffs an extra 5 lands into your deck. That being said, the scry is nice. But I’m still not sold if the “conjure power 9 into your deck” is a good or bad thing

20:44 other unsolicited suggestion - have 2 separate scenes 1) with your facecam in the corner during drafting 2) with face cam over your avatar during game play. Seemed like you were in scene 2) even during drafting which was a bit weird

09:50 lol Reading what the spider does 😮😳😀😲🤔😢😔

9:20 yeah not a fan of spellchain scatter at all

Nice channel. Though minor suggestion is not to have the spoiler score in the title

This was one of the first drafts I started to recognize the power of Blue/Red spells and how easy it is to cast Tolerian Terror for cheap. I started to value Terror much more highly in the draft, and now I think it's one of the best commons in the set, around the same level as Tolerian Geyser, and Urborg Repossession. I did start to play more poorly in those last 3 losses, especially a really poor decision to attack with Balduvian Berserker at 57:54 (I still haven't played much with the card since, though I have had it played against me and saw where it can shine when it Enlists). I was a little too worried about the Haunting Figment constantly doing damage, but I could've been more patient. Had I cast Tolerian Terror, I could have used it either as a blocker of the Ghitu Amplifiers or to Enlist the Balduvian Berkserker. Any other ways I could have done better? Comment below!

It's fascinating to look at drafts I played two weeks ago and see how differently I value cards. Since this was my first time playing with Wingmantle Chaplain I went overboard on Walls. While not bad picks at all, I certainly undervalued cards like Tolerian Terrors. Walls might be great at making birds, but they don't beat a 5/5 with Ward 2 for 1 Blue mana. What did you notice about my draft and gameplay? Any thoughts? Comment below!