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Rough Drafts: Year of Modern Flashbacks - Mirrodin/Mirrodin/Darksteel

by SaffronOlive // Jan 16, 2016

Hello everyone! It's time for another edition of Rough Drafts! As you know, 2016 is the year of the Modern flashbacks on Magic Online. Each and every week, outside of release periods for Standard legal sets, there will be a new flashback draft format on Magic Online. One of my New Years resolutions is to record at least one draft for each format and get it uploaded quickly so you all can have a peak at the format before jumping into a queue and trying out the format yourself.

Last week we played Triple Mirrodin, and this week's format (Mirrodin/Mirrodin/Darksteel) is fairly similar since the first two packs are the same. That said, adding a pack of Darksteel does throw some interesting twists into the format, including affinity for basic land types (Spire Golem), modular (Arcbound Ravager), one of the most powerful Uncommons ever printed in Skullclamp, and one of the most powerful Commons for limited in the entire block in (Leonin Bola). I'm not sure I ever played the format. I remember playing Triple Mirrodin flashbacks and full-block flashbacks, but I'm not sure M/M/D has been on Magic Online very much. As such we'll try to stick to the basics, like not passing Loxodon Warhammer and picking obviously power cards, removal, and pretty much anything that can destroy an artifact!

Let's get to the videos, then we'll talk briefly about Mirrodin/Mirrodin/Darksteel limited. A quick reminder. If you enjoy the Rough Drafts series and the other video content on MTGGoldfish, make sure to subscribe to the MTGGoldfish Youtube Channel to keep up on all the latest and greatest.

Triple Mirrodin: Drafting

Triple Mirrodin: Round 1

Triple Mirrodin: Round 2

Triple Mirrodin: Finals (Round 3)

Mirrodin/Mirrodin/Darksteel

First off, I don't think our deck was particularly good. The first pack was really unfocused, so we ended up falling into a four / five color build almost out of necessity. While I think you can build a four / five color deck in this format, I don't think you want to accidentally end up on the five-color path.
We sort of got bailed out by Death Cloud, which was amazing in our deck. Seriously, we won three games, and every single one was directly attributable to resolving a Death Cloud. While I don't think you can just jam Death Cloud in any deck, or even many decks, if you consistently make more mana than your opponent you can break the symmetry. You can hit all their lands / creatures and leave some of your lands behind to rebuild faster.
I have no clue how many Mana Myr you want in your deck, but five felt like a lot, especially since we didn't have all that many high-end fatties to ramp into. Plus we also had two copies of Journey of Discovery, meaning almost 1/3 of our non-lands cards were devoted to ramping / fixing. While this ratio ended up pairing well with Death Cloud, generally I think it is too much.
While our deck didn't really do it justice, hopefully you can get a small taste of the power of Leonin Bola. The card is pretty insane, turning any creature into a tapper for only one mana. If you have enough creatures (and mana) you can use it like an Icy Blast to tap down your opponent's entire team and get in a big attack.
Value wise, adding a pack of Darksteel increases the EV of the format. Not as much as Fifth Dawn (which is stuffed full of value), but if you base your play on the amount of value in the packs, M/M/D is the third most valuable flashback format that will be played in the first half of 2016, behind Triple Coldsnap and Mirrdon/Darksteel/Fifth Dawn.

Money Cards

For a complete list of prices, make sure to check out the Darksteel page here on MTGGoldfish.

Resources

Drafting with Darksteel: Pick orders and thoughts from the GOAT Kai Budde.
9 Changes in Card Value in Mirrodin-Darksteel Limited. Gordie Tate discusses some cards that are better or worse in M/M/D than in Triple Mirrodin. You can also find some reviews of specific colors, but the series is incomplete (only including white and red).
Underrated Cards from M/M/D. Paul Sottosanti discusses some cards that may be better than they look in M/M/D limited with the help of some pros including Gabrial Nassif, Mark Herberholz, Paul Reitzl, and Ben Seck.

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for today. Leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments. You can reach me on Twitter (or MTGO) @SaffronOlive.