By Hugh Kramer

Dear Rise of the Eldrazi:

You used to be my favorite draft format ever, I’m really happy for you, and I’ma keep drafting you, but Modern Masters is the best draft format of all time. This format just never gets boring. There are so many viable archetypes and so many great interactions, I just can’t get enough. That’s two Kanye references in two sentences, you mad? I sure am. Nahh not even.

With that in mind, Magic Online is doing special 64-player Modern Masters drafts every two hours every Monday for the month of September. They are phantom events but the winner gets D.I. phantom points and a From the Vaults: Twenty. Eight pods do a first draft. The winners of each pod then do a second draft and the winner of that draft wins the whole shebang. You mad yet? Me neither. I did one of these bad boys last week and lost in the third round, missing the cut to Top 8 (read: the second draft). I queued up for another one on Monday night at midnight and this time, it was personal, with a vengeance, part two.

Pack 1, Pick 1:

Riftwing Cloudskate is the best card in this pack. Scion of Oona is certainly good in Faeries, and I like Tinkerbell.dek as much as the next guy, but Cloudskate also happens to be good in UR Storm, my favorite deck in the format. It’s just a more versatile card and keeps us open. Staying open as long as possible is one of my preferred strategies in draft and would be my preferred strategy if I owned a bodega. NEXT QUESTION.

My pick:

Pack 1, Pick 2: Electrolyze was the easy pick for me here. It buys plenty of time in UR storm before the turn you “go off” (and nets you a card to boot). Did someone says Nets? Freaking Jason Kidd up in this.

My pick: Pack 1, Pick 3: I don’t mind taking my storm cards early when I draft this deck and prefer to have two of each (Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens).

My pick: Pack 1, Pick 4: At this point it looks like I could’ve had a pretty sick Faeries deck. Pick one Scion, pick two Spellstutter Sprite, pick three Latchkey Faerie, pick four Dreamspoiler Witches. So I decided faeries might still be open and it wasn’t yet too late. I don’t like Dampen Thought at all so I didn’t miss much if I’m still going to be in UR by taking the Faerie this pack.

My pick: Pack 1, Pick 5: Jhoira gives me the opposite of joy. It’s too slow to be good in a UR storm deck in this format. I’m still very all over the place at this point but the one thing I’m pretty sure about is that I’m playing Blue so I took the best blue card. Yes, Blue, Matt Jones’s new favorite color in magic. Matt Jones should be a politician with the amount of flip-flopping he does. What a Birkenstock.

My pick: Pack 1, Pick 6: That is a late Esperzoa. Again I’m not missing out on really anything by taking it here and it’s so freaking good in the Affinity deck that I was happy to take it and possibly move in that direction.

My pick: Pack 1, Pick 7: Spellstutter Sprite is better in a Faerie deck than Arcbound Stinger is in an Affinity deck so I took the Faerie here.

My pick: Pack 1, Pick 8: Okay. Two very strong affinity cards are still in this pack. Sanctum Gargoyle and Myr Encorcer. When I draft Affinity, I generally prefer to take the “value” cards like the Sanctum Gargoyle or Faerie Mechanist over the true “Affinity” cards because this tends to be a very grindy format. Obviously, if my deck has too many of one type I will start picking the other but this early, starting with G-goyle is a good sign. Honorable mention goes to Echoing Truth which is probably the most underrated freaking card in this format I have ever seen in my effing life.

My pick: Pack 1, Pick 9: I have found Spell Snare to be a reasonable sideboard card in this format.

My pick: Pack 1, Pick 10: A cheap artifact that I may even have the red mana to use, though the cycling is just fine on it’s own. My pick: Pack 1, Pick 11: Possibly may still play faeries but this card will certainly not make or break that decision.

My pick: Pack 1, Pick 12: This tabling is a huge signal sign that affinity is open and now I’m stoked because I love affinity. In fact, I pretty much love all metals. Especially Cadmium.

My pick: Pack 1, Pick 13: This card is at it’s best in Affinity and really good with Esperzoa and will let me cheat on lands. I don’t cheat in Magic and I wouldn’t cheat on my imaginary girlfriend but I will 100% cheat on a diet.

My pick: Pack 1, Pick 14: My pick: Pack 1, Pick 15: My pick: Pack 2, Pick 1: I’ve seen Academy Ruins just ruin peoples lives in an Affinity deck but I’m betting on it tabling. And getting the Sanctum Gargoyle loop all set up is definitely something I can get behind. My pick: Pack 2, Pick 2: No powerful artifacts to speak of but hey guess what, if you’re in Blue, Lauren Lee is still Lauren Lee.

My pick: Pack 2, Pick 3: Hm, well this pack is a total Debbie Downer. I guess I’ll take this flier and hope I don’t play it.

My pick: Pack 2, Pick 4: That’s more like it. The more artifacts I play in my deck, the better this guy will be (spoiler alert: I ended up with 21 and never missed whenever I cast homeboy here). My pick: Pack 2, Pick 5: In a pack of darkness there was a light, and that light was mana-fixing/splashability. Have you ever even seen the movie Splash? If not, you’re in for a treat.

My pick: Pack 2, Pick 6: Aaaaaaand scene. Engineered Explosives with multiple Sanctum Gargoyles, a deck that can already produce multiple colors of mana, and we are about 95% to get that Academy Ruins on the wheel? This time, I’m definitely mad, and it’s not even personal. My pick: Pack 2, Pick 7: What a great follow up to EE. I mean really, could things get any more moderately reasonable? My pick: Pack 2, Pick 8: It’s not an artifact but, as I’ve stated, this card is one of the best cards in blue decks in this format. It just does so many things and can be such a huge tempo swing. I will always main deck the first one and usually the 2nd if I have room. My pick: Pack 2, Pick 9: We are not going to be short on playables and I’m not going to pass the card that just opens the door to me basically never losing certain games. My pick: Pack 2, Pick 10: Fixing, should we need it. Fixing is good, but only on Tuesdays, yeah, definitely…definitely on Tuesdays. My pick: Pack 2, Pick 11: Frogmite is not really worth a card, even in this deck. Runed Stalactite isn’t really either but I do think it’s better since we have fliers. My pick: Pack 2, Pick 12: OH BOY DO WE EVER HAVE FLIERS. My pick: Pack 2, Pick 13: My pick: Pack 2, Pick 14: My pick: Pack 2, Pick 15: My pick: Pack 3, Pick 1: Oh great, JUST great, KATAKI (I exclaimed as I channeled my inner James Bathurst). The card that will single-handedly destroy our souls. I’ve been on the other end of Kataki, War’s Wage before when I’ve drafted affinity and (SPOILER ALERT) I lost. That said I’m actually mostly kidding since it’s pretty poor strategy to hate-draft a card this early when there are perfectly good cards for your deck and your chances of actually playing against it are very low. My pick: Pack 3, Pick 2: I really wanted this Etherium Sculptor and honestly, it might have been the right pick since it’s so busted in this deck, but infinite E-cap recursion was just too much for me to pass up, especially since I should have no problem casting it.

My pick: Pack 3, Pick 3: I dont really like a random Pacifism effect in a deck like this (Bound in Silence) and took a card I like much more. The thing is though, I am probably not going to play either of these cards in my deck.

My pick: Pack 3, Pick 4: I definitely wanted the Vivid land here to shore up any splashes and make my EE all that much more dangerous but I’m still not gonna pass up the Mechanist. Aether Vial could probably also do some nifty things with Esperzoa but it would probably just be too cute. And by probably I mean definitely. My pick: Pack 3, Pick 5: I have no opinion. My pick: Pack 3, Pick 6: Siiiick life. We got one Etherium Sculptor, now if we can just get the other one to table I will literally kiss Jason Chan on the mouth. My pick: Pack 3, Pick 7: Perfect time for a fatty. And what a fatty indeed.

My pick: Pack 3, Pick 8: I just had deja-vu. You guys ever see that movie The Matrix? Me neither.