Back in Black

By far my most literal title yet, as today's topic is how I started to draft Black again in Throne of Eldraine.

To recap, I started to ignore good black cards, as I had so many experiences getting cut off Black after trying to get into it in the first 2-5 picks.  While I'd still take Epic Downfall and Order of Midnight, I started to ignore Bake into a Pie and Syr Konrad, and the metagame I faced, devoid of Black decks, seemed to support my decision.  It doesn't matter how good a color in a format is if it's overdrafted, generally it's best to seek other strategies.  While avoiding Black, I was happy to draft any of the Temur colors, and to a slightly lesser extent White, so I felt like I could afford to avoid drafting Black unless it was comically open.

There were a lot of benefits to this overall strategy, but quite a few drawbacks as well. As you might expect, you can lose out on a lot of strong decks intentionally avoiding the best color, but I found the lack of fighting during drafts, especially in the League system, made my decks better on average.  I've lost out on valuable experience playing with Syr Konrad and Revenge of Ravens, but I believe the end result to be worth it.  All the while I've been paying attention to trends on Magic Online, as I always knew this avoidance had a shelf life; it expired this week.  While I felt as if I made corrections at the right time, looking back there was more I could do even earlier that I'd missed.

Strategy Revamp

Identifying your own "hot takes" is just as important as fixing them.  For myself, I knew my unwillingness to draft Black fell under this category, but as I had a strong justification for it, and was posting a very positive record, I knew it was something to keep in check, but not fix.  As I've really kept an eye on this behavior, once I noticed more Black cards coming around than usual early this week, I knew it was time to change my perspective.  There's nothing wrong with having opinions or contrarian thoughts, just know when they've become outdated.

Repeatedly drafting the same "good archetypes" repeatedly is good practice, but exploration will give you the biggest edge on a given Limited environment.  Throne of Eldraine has really rewarded my exploration; I have various mono-color and two color decks available to me every time I sit down for a draft that I have lots of experience with.  Avoiding Black was certainly exploring, as I was looking at all of the things I was less confident were worth doing instead. 

Black has its own nuances despite being the best.  Knowing the best self-contained strategy to lean in to is not obvious, be it Knights or drain, and finding out where we ideally exist on the aggressive to controlling spectrum matters, too.  As I'd been avoiding the color altogether, I only could speculate on all of these factors, so getting real experience was the only way I'd ever learn.

Steps to Change

1. Identify the problem.  Is there a repeated mistake you're making?
2. Why is that problem the way it is? Are you getting distracted? Are your views fundamentally flawed?
3. Figure out how to address the problem (much easier said than done) and enact a plan to fix that problem.

My decision not to draft Black might have been conscious with good logic backing it up, but I was doing it to a degree that I was missing out on strong decks.  I was never dipping my toe into the pool in fear of cold water, regardless of if I knew if the water was actually cold or not.  In retrospect, I think my learning experience should have been to speculate on strong Black cards but avoid committing too early, instead I was just avoiding Black, assuming every future experience would be like my last.  I have a real good idea why I felt this way though...

Drafting Ninjas and failing was almost a sport for me.  I would aggressively take Changeling Outcasts and Faerie Seers hoping to see future pay-offs, or I would engage in the opposite and draft pay-offs aggressively like Ingenious Infiltrator above in hopes of being the only person in the market for the enablers.  For weeks at at time, I would end up with a few good Ninja decks and a gigantic pile of awful ones.  Back then I was making the same mistake as I was recently, as I wasn't willing to just speculate on strong cards, it was either avoidance or total commitment.  These situations make it really tough to course correct in Magic, as you can identify a problem but find the wrong solution and get tricked by statistics and inherent biases we all share.

Quick Tips Drafting Black

• Dip your toe in, but don't commit too hard.  It's totally OK to first pick Bake into a Pie, but recognize that your odds of playing it won't be high.
• Look to use a diverse array of Black cards.  Food decks will want Giant's Skewer, Cauldron Familiar and Witch's Oven go great together, Mill wants Forever Young and Revenge of Ravens.  While there's a lot of individual power in Black, know where each card ideally ends up to maximize your chance of cooperating with the table.
• Value easy to cast cards highly.  This is a place I haven't changed my opinion on; cards like Epic Downfall and to a lesser extent Reave Soul gain a lot of ground off their ability to be splashed.

Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg