LoadingReadyRun Draft #5: Zombpocalypse

I believe this has been said before, but I don’t find your drafts funny. You’re in this weird middle ground where you’re not so terrible at magic that your decks fail hilariously, and you’re not good enough to make silly gimmick decks that actually function in hilarious ways. And your actual commentary is rather boring, with you guys just repeating the absurd limitations you impose on each draft which never result in any real humor.

In the end, you’re scrambling to create a boring, workable deck within these restrictions when you should instead stop limiting yourself and just draft a ridiculous deck (see various drafts of Dream Halls or Storm in cube). In this video, for example, you could have drafted a sweet zombie deck that would have been fun to watch. Instead your pointless restriction to all creatures prevents you from taking one of the most fun cards in the set: Zombie Apocalypse.

So my advice to you is to go into drafts with the intention to force something funny to watch. Maybe instead of deciding the exact archetype beforehand, have a few in mind and see which ones might be open (for example, if you open Zombie Apocalypse, you know what do to). Then go all in on it. Take the synergistic, fun card over the “good” card every time.

I’m sorry to say it, but I’ll tolerate one more draft posted by you guys. If it’s still in this style of setting a random restriction and just playing with bad cards, I won’t be tuning in again. However, if you try my idea I will gladly watch your future videos.

For game 2: Screaming at the screen “noble is a triggered ability, it goes off after combat dmg”. XD

Dudes, that was awesome!!
The draft was very entertaining, and even though a few minor missplay may have happened, i don’t care the slightest.

But.. i feel i like i have to say this, because i was screaming at the top of my lungs:
Just play the frickin’ Zombie Apocalypse!
Yes, i know that wasn’t part of your plan of casting no spells, but come on. You drafted the deck everybody dreamed about. but never dared. Just for 1 match at least
Good lord i bet you would have felt good, had you guys managed to resolve that with Grimgrin and Undead Alchemist in the bin. I know i would

R1G2 when he swings in with the 2/1 right before he scoops, you could have had him totally dead if you blocked the 2/1 with any creature. Damage happens, his guy dies – noble goes off for his guy putting him at four. Use Grimgrin to sac your 4 dudes that aren’t grimgrin to get four more triggers and win the game.

Minor nitpick, sure, but it was the win right then and there if you block — not that it really matters.

I think these drafts shouldn’t be described as “silly drafts.” Some really silly ideas are hilarious, and others are just painful to watch. Hats and Alphabet, for respective examples. When I commented that this should be a little less silly in the live stream a while back, I was mostly thinking of the alphabet draft. Silly, but at the same time, not fun.

Instead, you should describe the drafts as Rule of Cool drafts. If something seems like it’d be cool or fun to do, then just do it. This very draft is a prime example: you took Undead Alchemist over some other, admittedly staple, picks; twice. Setting up the rest of the event for some fun plays.

I think going into a draft with some silly rule is a good idea. But to prevent a more restrictive rule like alphabet from damaging the fun aspect of the draft, you should be willing to bend that rule. On the rules themselves, they should have an impact in both drafting and playing. Alphabet only impacted drafting, but playing was just standard.

P.S.: A better alphabet rule would be for the final card pool to have at least one card that starts with each letter in the alphabet. That way your picks are restricted later on instead of immediately. For example, the first pack you can get anything, but the second pack you shouldn’t take another card that starts with the same letter as the first. This might play out as a loose singleton draft.

On that thought, singleton draft.

P.P.S.: Mono creature was fun. Keep an eye out for a format that can play mono-non-creature (DII and AVR probably can’t pull that one off).

Love the vids, the restrictions are sometimes a bit extreme (e.g. in the alphabet draft, taking the first purely alphabetical card was too much – put it just to the first character and decide after that. So you can take the Aceticism before Abattoir Ghoul for example) but we’re not here to see you draft the best deck with a gimmick, this is straight up gimmick drafting and that’s cool.
But yes, maybe imposing slightly less harsh restrictions would be good, I’m sure you’ll find a balance, just do more vids

Oh, and in re the M2G1 slip-up where you could have blocked, it shouldn’t have ever even come to blocking. If you attack with Garl, he has 4 life and you have 4 creatures that aren’t Grimgrin.
So you sac them all to grimgrin, with the noble going last. 4-point drain on your 4-point opponent

Sooooo Good! I giggled all the way through. The deck was crazy and despite the limitation, turned out to be really good.

Hard to watch gimmicky decks with overly loose play. Practice real drafts for a while.

Saying only one thing, based soley on pick 3. Actually paused the video to type this.
Zombify me Captain!

I love these drafts I don’t care if others see it as painful and as an observer you can more easily pick out flaws and mistakes but its not about the mistakes its about the comedy. But I understand not everyone likes this but if they think the perfect game is the only “fun” type of magic then I would rather not play or watch it lol (btw the no periods in the are to see how many people notice it and freak)

Thanks for the entertaining content, although I also think running the Zombie Apocalypse would have made it even more fun.

A suggestion for the future to sort of get the best of both worlds concerning premade strategies and opening hilarious cards to play with.

*Allow for 1-3 Wild Cards during your drafts. If you see cards that are either really synergetic, hilarious or otherwise would be just really fun to include in your deck, you are allowed to pick up to 3 of them, whether 1 pr. pack, or just 3 in total regardless of pack. I think maybe 1 pr. pack is the best, it can lead to a lot of cool discussions on “do we use our wildcard here, or do we wait and hope to hit an even better one”.

Not sure if you would be interested in this, but I think it would be a win-win situation. If you feel running three wild cards in your decks, maybe restrict it to being allowed to pick 3, but you can only run 1 or 2 of them, and they may or may not be allowed to be swapped during sideboard, say after your first wildcard has seen play, you may swap it to see the 2nd one in play etc..

I’m sure you guys get the idea, so I’ll leave you to decide how it would be best implemented

Keep up the fun drafts!

Late to the show, but really wanted to express how much I enjoyed this draft, and the fact that the archetype actually managed to do decently. I think you’re really onto something.

If you are still taking suggestions for future themes, I’ve been thinking a bit as to what would make a fun, and possibly competitive draft, and came up with a couple of ideas.

1. Prettiness: The more pretty the card (not better art, but actually prettiness of the scene/creature) the higher it gets picked

2. Focus on Flavour Text: Pretty self explanatory

3. Perfect mana base: Take all mana fixers when they come up so that you know you’ll be able to cast all the cards that you end up passing.

M2G1 You go to 0 at the same time that Falkenrath Noble triggers would go onto the stack. Then, state based actions are checked before you get to put the triggers on the stack and you are dead.

I don’t even really play magic or know much about it, but I really enjoy these drafts. I think the people saying that they aren’t funny are a bit too involved in the game itself. From an outsiders viewpoint these drafts are fun to watch because of the pain you guys go through passing over cards that would be perfect and just having to pick and set up ridiculous situations.

I also find I’m picking up the thought patterns of the game interestingly from these drafts in ways I would not if I intended to just watch drafts to learn. Because you guys screw up and have to work with poor decks and mess around, it lets me see how to work with the imperfect knowledge I no doubt would show if I were playing.

I second the idea of doing draft based on the prettiness of the cards or even the enjoyment of the flavor text (if its well written or funny). I’d also like to see some sort of dynamic restriction that works with the cards you are seeing but makes choosing harder towards the end. Perhaps something like drafting mono-color in each pack? Something that allows you to have more range in your choices, but is still restrictive.

Keep doing what you are doing, guys. Love all of your content.

My apologies – you wouldn’t actually get to ping him for 1 with the Captain if he blocked. It’s still the right decision regardless.

Also, I would run Stitcher’s Apprentice over Village Cannibals in your deck anyday. Yes, The cannibals works with Chosen of Markov, but you have such a small amount of humans that it’s basically useless. Apprentice has a few nice synergies between Stitched Drake and Ghoulraiser.