Drafting RTR: How?

[Genghis Tron]

So never drafted a multi-color set and I'm really not sure where to begin. I know RTR is still pretty fresh so it's hard to say exactly what archetypes to go after and what cards are key but I'd like to know general tips.

Things I'm wondering (and your opinions on):
1)Guildgates are what pick #?
2)Keyrunes are what pick #? Should you run off-color?
3)Should you stay out of 3 colors unless one of those is green?
4)BREAD? Maybe kinda?
5)First picks outside of bombs would be what?

Or just any other general tips you guys can think of. I'm sure it's going to be a lot of learning curve and on the go but if you guys have had experience with drafting the original Rav and Alara I'm sure you guys have some advice for multicolor drafting.

[psymunn]

The one bit of insight I can provide is: keyrunes aren't correct unless you need both colours (they are pretty good for enabling splashes though). 3 mana acceleration that doesn't provide fixing isn't very good, and you won't be able to activate it. however, if you are splashing with one of the colours, then when you find another one of your splash sources, you'll also be able to animate it (which you don't care about doing till late game normally, anyway).

Signets, in rav, were fine if they only had one of your colours, but that's because 2 mana acceleration is pretty good. In alara block, obelisks were only playable if you could use 2 of the 3 colours, and then just barely. Of course, if you were playing 5 colour control, you'd use all 3 colours they produced...

[qaid]

try to identify as early as possible if one of the guilds is open, especially Selesnya or Rakdos since they have the most linear gameplans and thus benefit the most from sticking to 2 colors. If you're getting fed strong cards for a 2 color deck then you don't have to prioritize the guildgates which gives you a slight edge on everything else; otherwise, you should be taking the mana fixing reasonably high since it will increase the range of powerful cards you can take in the later packs.

[Forget You]

I think a good start would be to read through the RTR Draft's that people post in the Draftcap Discussion subforum. There's some great draft recaps in there on what the mindset of what direction the person was going, why they picked what they picked and what wheeled back to them and what didn't. I enjoyed reading through those and gained some RTR drafting tips I'll put in the back of my mind. There's some minor thoughts on Gates and Keyrunes and when they were picked, too.

In general though, BREAD is always a good start. One "can't miss" card is Pack Rat, so if you see one on your first picks, you should probably take it, go Golgari or Rakdos and don't look back.

[TigerBlood]

Obviously bombs will still be first picks...but after that, anything can be possible...i think BREAD will be hard to follow. i see many cases where fixers will be higher picks than some of the crappy removal like avenging arrow and launch party as one example.

2-color drafting will be viable but with all the fixing and multicolored cards, 3-color just seems better and will probably be easier to draft. You also get to draft from a larger pool especially when p3 comes around.

[magicmerl]

Originally Posted by qaid

try to identify as early as possible if one of the guilds is open, especially Selesnya or Rakdos since they have the most linear gameplans and thus benefit the most from sticking to 2 colors. If you're getting fed strong cards for a 2 color deck then you don't have to prioritize the guildgates which gives you a slight edge on everything else; otherwise, you should be taking the mana fixing reasonably high since it will increase the range of powerful cards you can take in the later packs.

Yep.

My personal theory crafting about draft based on the pre-release is that golgari isn't even a guild.

Azorius (tempo) - most likely to steal tricks from neighbours
Easy to draft, since it follows the flyers.dec template that UW has always used. Detain is the best limited mechanic, being very good in small quantities and large quantities. Can very easily add red.

Izzet (control) - can poach controlling cards from neighbours
Hard to draft. Needs a balance between card draw, removal, blockers and win conditions. Will be good, but needs some time/experience to solve what is important. I look forward to watching LSV draft Izzet.

Rakdos (aggro) - can poach controlling cards from neighbours
Easy to draft. There are two ways to draft this deck, as 'all out' aggro (which is a little risky and requires you to luck into a critical mass of 2 drops) where the curve tops out at 4, and midrange, which goes 'over the top' with 5 and 6 drops.

Golgari (crap) - will just be a bad version of neighbouring decks if splashing those colours.
Easy to draft a clunky terrible deck. About the only card that seems best in a scavenge deck is Daggerdrome Imp

Selesnya (tokens) - does not want to splash much, as must be devoted to populate theme
Hard to draft. Selesnya looks like the most skill intensive deck to draft, what with constantly weighing the balance between token generators and populate cards, vs removal vs splashing.

I find it very interesting that it seems like there could be two Grixis drafters happily sitting right next to each other, one drafting aggro and the other drafting control.

Originally Posted by Genghis Tron

So never drafted a multi-color set and I'm really not sure where to begin. I know RTR is still pretty fresh so it's hard to say exactly what archetypes to go after and what cards are key but I'd like to know general tips.

Things I'm wondering (and your opinions on):
1)Guildgates are what pick #?
2)Keyrunes are what pick #? Should you run off-color?
3)Should you stay out of 3 colors unless one of those is green?
4)BREAD? Maybe kinda?
5)First picks outside of bombs would be what?

Or just any other general tips you guys can think of. I'm sure it's going to be a lot of learning curve and on the go but if you guys have had experience with drafting the original Rav and Alara I'm sure you guys have some advice for multicolor drafting.

Here's the biggest one: Hybrid cards are secretly 3 guilds, not 1. Frostburn Weird for example, is going to be useful as a UU wall in Azorius, a UR wall in Izzet and a RR attacker in Rakdos. Because 3 guilds want it, you need to pick it higher.

Hybrid Cards > Mono-coloured cards > Gold cards

To answer your questions:
#1: Gates are ok but not awesome. Always coming in tapped means that some people want them and not others. 5-8th pick
#2: Keyrunes are weak. Izzet and Golgari want them, but that is because they are slow and clunky guilds. 9-13th pick
#3: Not necessarily. Selesnya can splash Bant (GWU) or Junk (GWB) fairly easily because of the extra fixing, but it doesn't really want to. Rakdos and Izzet can easily dabble in Grixis for entirely different reasons. I would try to stick to a single guild (NOT Golgari) for the first pack.
#4: Yes. The rules of good drafting havn't been turned
#5: The best commons are Dramatic Rescue, Hussar Patrol (Azorius), Voidwelder (Izzet/Azorius), Annihilating Fire (Izzet/Rakdos), Auger Spree (Rakdos), Stab Wound (Rakdos/Golgari), Towering Indrik (Golgari/Selesnya), Axebane Guardian (Golgari/Selesnya)

It's hard to name any Selesnya commons because they are all so interdependant. Basically token producers and good populate cards are good.

[marengo]

1) From 3rd pick in a very weak pack to 10th in an excellent one. I'm just making up those numbers. It depends on the number of colours/splashes you want to make and that's for you to decide. If you're straight 2 colours, I don't think you should feel guilty for passing them and in that case playing too many may actually be counterproductive. Transguild promenade is awesome at fixing your mana, but you may want to consider it as a 2 drop for your curve.

2) I don't think I like them, in general. Like 6th/7th pick onwards? But I've been told I'm underrating them by a lot of people. IMO, you can't consider them as mana sources and cut lands, since you still need 3 mana to play them. And the creature side is just "too fair", if they're going to take a spell slot, just play a real creature. The slower the format is, the better they get and it actually looks slow.

3) I think something like Grixis is totally doable (and much better than straight Izzet most of the time), but you can't make a 6/6/6 split of lands and call it a day, everytime you make a pick, consider what your manabase might look like and that may help you a lot in pack 3. If you realize soon 3 colours is where you're going, gates go much higher in value. I don't know if it's obvious, but if you go 3 colours try to be in 2 guilds at the same time, GWR doesn't get you anywhere. For me the big question is if 5 colors is anything real,I think not, but that's not going to stop me from trying

4) It has its issues. Bombs (you can cast) over anything, always. And then think about what the guilds do, your curve, how you plan to win... I don't think there's anything in BREAD that takes into account mana fixing and in this format that's something real. Pointless discussion about what the D in BREAD means incoming!

5) Removal and good stuff. Thoughtflare, Guildmages, Skymark Roc, Gatecreeper Vine... I really don't know what to tell you.

[studderingdave]

bombs + stab wound seems like a good plan. In all seriousness, Stab Wound is pretty sick and will be a chase common for drafting. I would pursue variants that you are comfortable with. I am an aggro player at heart so that affects how I draft, if that means hard cutting or bypassing good stuff that i know I will not use properly.

[TigerBlood]

lobber crews + stab wounds

[naturax]

Yeah I'm wondering what to do about Golgari, other than just ignore it. Possible that if you're the only one drafting GB at a table of 8 you'll end up with a decent deck?

[Woocls]

1)Pack 1? Pick 6+ (or if there's literally nothing better) Pack 2 and 3? If you still need them (don't run more than 2 or 3) pick them up as long as a bomb isn't also in this pack.
2)Only take if they're both on color and they should be valued lower than the gates but the same pick #s and no more than 2-3
3)3 colors is fine if you're picking up bombs in those colors and keyrunes/gates to support the extra color. 4 or 5 is a no go though.
4)Bread is just as good as it is in other drafts here. (Although I'd up your mana fixing as a higher priority if you think you might go 3 color)
5)Outside of bombs? Good Efficient removal and card advantage.

[Woocls]

Originally Posted by magicmerl

Yep.

My personal theory crafting about draft based on the pre-release is that golgari isn't even a guild.

Azorius (tempo) - most likely to steal tricks from neighbours
Easy to draft, since it follows the flyers.dec template that UW has always used. Detain is the best limited mechanic, being very good in small quantities and large quantities. Can very easily add red.

Izzet (control) - can poach controlling cards from neighbours
Hard to draft. Needs a balance between card draw, removal, blockers and win conditions. Will be good, but needs some time/experience to solve what is important. I look forward to watching LSV draft Izzet.

Rakdos (aggro) - can poach controlling cards from neighbours
Easy to draft. There are two ways to draft this deck, as 'all out' aggro (which is a little risky and requires you to luck into a critical mass of 2 drops) where the curve tops out at 4, and midrange, which goes 'over the top' with 5 and 6 drops.

Golgari (crap) - will just be a bad version of neighbouring decks if splashing those colours.
Easy to draft a clunky terrible deck. About the only card that seems best in a scavenge deck is Daggerdrome Imp

Selesnya (tokens) - does not want to splash much, as must be devoted to populate theme
Hard to draft. Selesnya looks like the most skill intensive deck to draft, what with constantly weighing the balance between token generators and populate cards, vs removal vs splashing.

I find it very interesting that it seems like there could be two Grixis drafters happily sitting right next to each other, one drafting aggro and the other drafting control.

Golgari will be VERY strong if you pull the good strong creatures. And table the rest of your deck because most people will pass on the weaker scavenge cards. I think you're seriously underestimating them. While also over estimating the value of detain cards. There are a lot of crappy detain cards that should be avoided.

[naturax]

Originally Posted by Woocls

Golgari will be VERY strong if you pull the good strong creatures.

Which creatures are you referring to? Are you referring to commons?

[Woocls]

Originally Posted by naturax

Which creatures are you referring to? Are you referring to commons?

Who picks their colors/guild based on the commons you pull in the first few pulls? If you get a couple of the rare/uncommon creatures you'll table the common scavenge guys who are great late game that noone wants. Just make sure you're early picks are the evasive creatures and your late picks are scavenge. Seems pretty solid to me.

[magicmerl]

Who picks their colors/guild based on the commons you pull in the first few pulls?

Uh, it's nice and all to start your draft with a powerful rare or uncommon, but I think it's a high variance strategy at best to DEPEND on getting them.

I usually know what colours I am by about 5 picks into a draft. Or my main colour. With RTR I suspect I will know what guild I am in by about pick 5.

Originally Posted by Woocls

Golgari will be VERY strong if you pull the good strong creatures.

Which ones are those? We're talking about limited here. Please list for me the commons that pull you into Golgari (as opposed to Selesnya or Rakdos).

Originally Posted by Woocls

over estimating the value of detain cards. There are a lot of crappy detain cards that should be avoided.

Which ones are those? There are only 3 common detain cards, and I think that all of them will make every Azorius deck I ever draft. The Arrester is the weakest of them, but even then it's still quite respectable to play it on turn 5 to wave out their spider, swing with flyers, and chump on the backswing.

Deck
1 Isperia's Skywatch 1 Inaction Injunction 1 Azorius Arrester