In the last few episodes we’ve talked about picking the right cards and colors while drafting Magic. Today’s episode is an advanced topic, but one that even beginning drafters can utilize. It’s the idea of sending and receiving signals during drafting.
Browsing: The Magic Minute
Following the BREAD model introduced in the last episode will take you a long way as a beginning drafter, but there are a few more important considerations, and knowing when to commit to your deck’s colors is one of them.
As I’ve said in the past two episodes, it’s not always easy to know what cards to pick while drafting. Obviously you want to pick the best cards, but how do you know which are the best? There is no substitute for experience. Short of that, though, there is a simple acronym to remember. Bread! B. R. E. A. D.
The strategy for drafting is similar to picking teams for kickball. The general rule is that you pick the best player you can one at a time, the other captain then gets to pick the next best and so on and so forth.
Think of each card as a player on a team. If you are picking a team to play against another team, and you really want to win a game, you will pick the very best players you can, right?
Over the next few episodes, I’m going to break down the basics to deck building, both limited and constructed. And the place I want to start is with individual card evaluation.
The release of the new core set, M15, marks a change that has only occurred one other time in Magic’s 20 plus year history. The card frame is changing.
In many ways the new year for Magic: The Gathering begins in July. This is when Wizards of the Coast (also known as WOTC) releases the new Core Set, which, like new models of cars, is named after the year to come.
One of the best ways to learn the basic rules and game play of Magic: The Gathering is through the video game, Duels of the Planeswalkers. Each year since 2011, Wizards of the Coast has published this game for multiple platforms.
Green is the fifth and final color in Magic’s color pie. When considering green, most people probably just think of big creatures, and while green is the color that gets the biggest creatures, green is far more than this.
Black is the third color in Magic’s color pie and is perhaps the most misunderstood color. Most consider black immoral, but black does not believe there is such a thing as immorality.
Blue is the second color in Magic’s color pie. Blue’s values logic, knowledge, reason, technology and imagination.
White is the first color in Magic’s color pie. White’s attributes include peace, order, harmony, unity, morality, uniformity and structure.
The five colors of Magic, combined in a circle clockwise are White, Blue, Black, Red and Green. Each color represents a different magical philosophy which I briefly touched on in episode 7. Collectively the combinations of the five colors is known as the color pie.