The Art of Drafting, Part III

Synergy in draft

The larger the pool of cards available to the player to build the deck, the more significant the synergistic effect that can be achieved. A draft is a relatively convenient format for achieving synergy. In this context, let us deal with the three types of synergy presented in the previous chapters:

Functional synergy

In draft format, the deck must be built around a strategic idea. New players are not sufficiently aware of this principle and tend to put emphasis on obtaining the highest quality cards (as you recall, this happened to Jim as well). They tend to underestimate the possibility of obtaining effective synergy as they know it from constructed and believe that giving up a quality card on the altar of synergy is a mistake. It is not. Decks made up of incredibly high-quality cards often lose to decks that have lesser card quality but are built around one strategic idea. Functional synergy can only be achieved if the cards are selected in advance in order to achieve synergetic effect. This requires concentration, resourcefulness and advance planning. It also requires serenity and adherence to the task as the player is required to make ‘painful’ concessions. However, the quality of the cards continues to be an important factor that should not be ignored, and this often justifies a certain delay in the search for synergy with the goal of locating the colors capable of providing the highest card quality. Yet functional synergy demands a match between suitable colors, reducing players’ freedom in their choice of color combination.

Mechanical synergy

Achieving mechanical synergy of sufficient efficiency is possible in a draft format. The strength of the synergy will never be up to the standards of constructed, but this is not an obstacle since the challenges facing these decks are also not of a similar magnitude. In fact, it often happens that a deck revolving around a mechanism of a certain set becomes dominant precisely in the draft format, while its more efficient brother is not strong enough to gain a place in the competitive environment of constructed. Spirit Craft, for example, (green/red; green/black) was very common in the draft format of Champions of Kamigawa but failed to take root in constructed.

The demanding nature of mechanical synergy greatly reduces the player’s flexibility in choosing the colors played, even more so than ‘normal’ functional synergy. Usually only some of the colors in the series support a certain mechanism and the player trying to achieve mechanical synergy is forced to narrow his choice to these colors. Also, alongside tracking the mechanical synergy, the player must ensure that functional synergy is also achieved. Frequently, players rejoice after a draft because they were able to select cards that provide ‘crazy’ mechanical synergy, but their enthusiasm dampens when they realize while building the deck that they lack the tools necessary to achieve victory. Paradoxically, mechanical synergy is simpler to achieve when the cards that make up the mechanism are relatively weak in themselves (meaning, they are situational in terms of their flexibility). The reason for this is that they will be underdrafted by other players. Of course, in this case there is a greater gamble in pursuing mechanical synergy: the quality of the cards without the synergistic effect will be relatively poor. If not enough of them can be drafted, the deck will be mediocre at best.

Operational synergy

The dilemma behind the quest to achieve operational synergy is how much I am willing to reduce the quality of the pool of cards in order to achieve it. Basically, the question can be inverted: to what extent am I willing to compromise my operational synergy in order to improve the deck (higher quality cards and better suitability to the other cards in terms of function and synergy)? The guiding principle in draft format is that a two-color choice should normally be preferred. This principle has several exceptions, as described below:

A limited pool is extremely weak: If the pool of cards collected by the player in two colors does not allow the construction of a deck consisting of playable cards and is not able to create an effective functional synergy, then one should seriously consider adding a splash if there are quality cards of a third color that can be splashed. However, the player should not expect this emergency measure to work wonders.
Fulfilling specific needs: sometimes a situation arises in which the player builds an efficient deck but has a sensitive weak point (for example, inability to ‘handle’ flying creatures; lack of removals, etc.). In this situation it is advisable to consider adding a color that fills the weaker points, even if this is done as a sideboard.

III. Inventory of mana-fixers: If the player has a sufficient number of high-quality mana-fixers at her disposal, she is able to add a third color as a splash without significantly damaging the operational synergy of the deck. Some sets based on multi-color cards (Invasion, Ravinica, Alara, Khans of Tarkir, Dominaria United) offer a particularly large number of mana-fixers and this completely changes the way you look at adding a third color (and sometimes even a fourth and fifth!).

Practical tips for draft format

Drafting a sideboard: One of the considerations during the draft is building a sideboard for different scenarios that may develop according to the opponent’s deck. For example, removals that can deal with a certain type of creatures (of a certain color, with flying ability), enchantments/artifacts destroyers, and more. Of course, it doesn’t make much sense to choose such a card as one of the first picks, but they should definitely be preferred over a spell that is unlikely to find a place in the deck.

Hate drafting: Hate drafting means picking a quality spell in a color you know you won’t play anyway in order to prevent it being picked by one of the other players at the table who is playing that color. This is a tactical move that can be called a counterdraft and is effective in some cases, although players often attribute excessive importance to it. In a conventional draft of 8 players that lasts for 3 rounds, your chance of facing the opponent who might have taken the card you hated is below 50% (3/7). Therefore, in most cases, it would be a mistake to prioritize such a card over another that you can probably include in your deck. There is also another consideration. If the hate draft demands not picking a playable card of your own colors, passing it on may be seen as a sign that the color is not being played by the neighbors (meaning you!). This is certainly not a message you want to convey. However, sometimes hate drafting is the right thing to do. When you know that you probably won’t include a card in your deck, and there isn’t a card worth using as a sideboard, go for it!

Pro tour Los-Angeles. The year―1997. The format―Mirrage/Visions Rochester draft. For those who are not familiar with the history of tournaments in limited environments, this is a format in which the boosters are opened while visible to all drafters around the table and so are the players’ picks. Although this drafting method does not make it easy to cheat (one of the main reasons it was popular in tournaments), there were those who still tried their luck. One of them was none other than one of the greatest Magic players at the time, Mark Justice. For some reason, Mark decided that 3 Muscle Sliver was not enough to guarantee victory. So, he rushed to purchase another copy from a card dealer at a local stand. Unfortunately for Mark, she didn’t notice that the purchased card came from a different set than the cards played in the tournament. When the judges noticed this, Mark did not lose his cool and claimed that he indeed bought the card but only because he wanted to replace an identical card which was somehow damaged. When he was asked where the destroyed card was, he answered that she threw it in one of the trash cans in the hall. Only when he was offered help searching through the bins to locate the lost card, did Mark give in and admit to the scam. He was immediately disqualified.