Bull Cerodon is a Trap!

[Thomas David Baker]

After yesterday's Top 8 draft I'm adding this to my really-try-to-avoid-first-picking list.

I already had Stoic Angel firmly on the list (Bant is a trap!)

Basically I'm going to follow Olivier Ruel and only ever draft two color aggro. Three-color first picks are out out out.

[Charlie Grover]

2 color aggro is fine, but on MODO drafts its easy to get good cards late, so 2 color aggro is easy, im almost always looking at 2 colour 1 splash aggro. Remember, this doesnt necessarily mean it has to be a shard deck, but an AAe deck seems fine - where A is allied and e is enemy. LIke im happiest playing bull in UWr probably, as he hits hard and fast with exalted and then blocks up, which the UW aggressive/evasive deck really wants.

Also, hes fine in straight up naya, 5 colour, and 4 colour esper..

[Amidu]

He is a 5/5 for 6 with some awesome lava axeing abilities, why would you not first pick him?

This format pisses me off, because people are bad enough to not have independent thought. Why do you go into a shard just because they had to put flavour into the set?

[Thomas David Baker]

I was just sounding off because the draft went terribly. Bull and a 3rd or 4th pick KotSE convinced me to go Naya but I would have been so much better off in something else (4th pick Sphinx of the Steel Wind anyone?)

I think until you have some bombs or tons of removal you aim to be an allied color pair, acknowledging that you may need a splash depending on what cards come your way. That splash almost always ends up being the third color of a shard because that's the way the cards in this set are made. I'm GW and I get a Woolly Thoctar. I'm UW and I get a Sludge Strider. Et cetera.

I'm interested to try AAe as Charlie describes. It seems that it's more than just flavor but actually the structure of the set makes it less likely that you'll want to do that based on the cards flowing past, though. I first-picked Executioner's Capsule and ended up going GW yesterday. If I hadn't got a 4th pick Woolly Thoctar and two Colossal Might I might have included a couple of swamps for GWb with the capsule.

[Amar Dattani]

damn you baker!

[Thomas David Baker]

Interesting stuff from Manuel Bucher on Star City on this topic today:

"I did some team drafts the next day, and I learned a very valuable lesson on how to draft Shards with Alara Reborn. Before Alara Reborn was released, I wanted to be two colors with a splash for the third color in the shard. I tried the same in the first few Shards-Conflux-Reborn drafts I played, but it usually didn’t work out that well. Alara Reborn features nothing but multicolored cards, and I didn’t realize for a long time how they worked. Thanks to the hybrid mana symbol, there are a lot of cards in a shard you can cast with your main color and any of the two others. That is why I am trying to get a lot of cards for the core color of the shard in the first two pack, and picking those cards over more powerful cards in the side color (like Kathari Screecher over Puppet Conjurer in Esper). I don’t much care how many cards I pick in both my “side colors,” but I try to keep the count as low as possible. With the third pack you can pick up a lot of the Shard-dedicated hybrid cards, meaning you end up having an easy manabase to build, and you end up with a constant deck."

aAa anyone?

[Thomas David Baker]

Woah! GerryT agrees!

http://strategy.channelfireball.com/featured-articles/chasing-victo...

Bull Cerodon is a trap. Haste, vigilance, and a huge butt are all pretty good in this format, and in the 5c deck I want to draft. However, what’s more important, a win condition or a versatile removal spell? Usually, I see people taking the Bull over something like Branching Bolt, and I just can’t agree with that. Every pack has dudes, usually good dudes, whereas not many packs have cards like Branching Bolt.

OK, it's not quite the point I was making. But I was still glad to see my words on Channel Fireball :)

[Battlefield Schmattlefield]

Check out this!

My current MODO draft -

P1P1 - O Ring
P1P2 - O Ring
P1P3 - Deft Duellist
P1P4 - Deft Duellist
P1P5 - Deft Duellist

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday I got P2P2 Aven Squire, P2P3 Aven Squire, P2P4 Aven Squire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What is a 'trap'? Like Admiral Akbar - "ITH A TWAP! ITH A TWAP!!!" ???

[Dan Barrett]

Wow. You better not lose that draft Ben.

[Battlefield Schmattlefield]

Yeah 3-0.

I have only just discovered F6 and F4 on MTGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Deft Duellist was always good but she's even better now. And she is hot! I would defo! I prefer a bit of Elspeth but as we all know, she doesn't get round that much ;-)