Hello fellow Magic players! If you are like me you watch tons of videos of drafts or just love to draft to better yourself. Or even just dream of making it into the big leagues! You need knowledge to do so. But I have noticed that a lot of players just mimic what they see in drafts and aren’t as successful at the drafts as they would like! So why is it that the pros and local GOD players seem so much better? They know how to evaluate the cards given to them in the draft. Such as why they may take Sky-Eel School early! So this begs the question how do they KNOW how to pick the cards they pick.
First of all we need meat or filling to make a sandwich but need B.R.E.A.D to really call it a sandwich. How does a sandwich pertain to draft, you say? Well first you need to know the card pool and the popular kinds of builds in the set you are drafting (example: infect, W/R metalcraft, blue control, etc…), which is your meat or filling. But other than watching what other people draft how do you evaluate the cards? Well I learned a long time ago that you need B.R.E.A.D to make a sandwich or it isn’t a sandwich. It is the same thing with drafting! So especially if there is a new set like Mirrodin Besieged in the draft how do you know what to pick? Well just remember B.R.E.A.D!
So what is B.R.E.A.D? Bombs, Removal, Acceleration, Evasion, Drops! That is how you evaluate what you get in your pool, look for clear bombs first! We will use Scars of Mirrodin as an example. So you get your B.R.E.A.D and filling (knowledge of the card pool before you draft) and build your draft sandwich! First you need to read the spoiler as soon as you can and try to focus on the uncommons and more so the commons since those are the cards you will be using as the bulk of your deck. Look and see which colors are stronger than others (example red in Scars of Mirrodin).
Obviously as you draft you look for Bombs such as Sunblast Angel or Hoard-Smelter Dragon. This will most likely be your win condition for your deck. Then look for Removal such as Revoke Existence or Galvanic Blast remembering to keep in mind your colors you are going into and their depth in a set. Then go to Evasion flying is one of the best examples of evasion or protection from artifacts in Scars of Mirrodin since they both have such a big impact on the games you will be playing. Evasion can be anything from one of the smiths to one of the replicas it just needs to help give you something that your opponent needs to focus on or it might cost him the game! Going down the list we have Acceleration. Acceleration is anything that either fetches you land or taps for land to accelerate your bombs or big threats shortening your opponent’s clock of survival! Pretty much any of the Myrs in Scars of Mirrodin are accelerators. Accelerators just help you get to your bombs faster and can help you get better board position or control over the game.
You also need to make sure you have the right amount of each of these groups to keep your decks mana curve stable and your deck balanced. Lastly you need Drops so you got no 2 drops see what have to get keep your mana curve steady and reliable. Maybe you need some 3 drops to round off the curve just move those higher mana cost cards higher up your pick list. It is very important to look at what you have between opening your packs or on MOTO looking at your card pool to keep track of what you have. Because if you have one 1 drop, two 3 drop, eight 5 drops, and one 6 drop you are going to need to get some accelerators with a low mana cost to smooth things out or those fatties won’t mean a thing when you get them out and you only got 6 life because of your slow start. So always keep in mind where you are at with your deck as you build it! So now you know have to build a draft sandwich and can improve your play and success! Just give it a try and the next thing you know you will be doing better and people will be asking you what you are doing that they aren’t and you can tell them, “I just build draft sandwiches!” Thank you all for you time and I hope you gain as much success with this technique as I have! Until next time this MTGrathigod!
MTGrathigod
AKA Jordan Anderson
