Influence of PT Honolulu on Draft

[Florian Esser]

Do you think it will have any?
I mean, people who are really going into a draft, forcing w/u aggro or esper whatever. Sebastian Thaler firstpicking a Kathari Screecher over a Vein Drinker etc. Or Kibler not taking the Mycoloth (whereas that have been arranged beforehand more or less).
Will you change and go strictly for a certain two colour aggro strategy, esp. w/u, do you think people will do this?

I guess I will still be firstpicking o-rings, bombs, and thunders...

[Thomas David Baker]

I think it is ARB that exerts this influence over the SHA/CON/ARB draft format. 3 power men on turn 2 are really good. Especially if they fly or have first strike. And that's only the start of it. Colossal Might at Common is the stuff aggro dreams are made of. Spending turn 2 and 3 fixing your mana is now a recipe for disaster. Before you opponent needed his nut draw to punish that sufficiently. Now he just needs some of his many, many great early guys and you'll have lost half your life total by Turn 3 or 4 making and cracking an Armillary Sphere. I've been reading too many Olivier Ruel drafts on Star City Games and I don't even like Rupture Spire any more.

Everyone seems to be in love with the UW aggro deck but does passing Mycoloth even guarantee you will get the hook up with that? What if they first picked O Ring and go into GW aggro with Mycoloth topping the curve - they'll cut off Aven Squires, Aven Trailblazers and exalted guys. You still get Cormorants, Mechanist. Seems like you take the bomb to me. The guy with Mycoloth did better than they guy that passed it, not that that proves much. What did he take over it?

[Ben Titmarsh]

Yeah UW Aggro really does seem to be the draft deck of the moment, Ruel drafted it in his last 4 drafts or something. The problem (as I found out last night) is that trying to force it and failing after pack one, you get screwed on pack two because thats where the hookup is. Although I did manage to backtrack into GW aggro. I expect UW to be very popular now.

[Dan Barrett]

As always, it's nice if you can get it, but if 7 people are trying to force UW, the 1 guy drafting jund is gonna rape them up.

[ross miles]

does infest look better now?

[Mark Walker]

PLayed a MODO draft last night where all 3 matches were against esper. I tabled a sprouting thrinax after first picking bonesplinters from a heavy UW pack. Uw aggro worked while no-one else tries it. R/G aggro is good if you can pick up reasonable burn and small dudes in ALA/CON, then going for plenty of colossal mights in REB.