[M:tG] Conspiracy Chatter

[bury the year]

Well, now that the set's out, has anyone else gotten a chance to draft it? Tell us how you did!

Myself, I drafted it twice. Results:

1) Pulled a P1P1 Dack's Duplicate, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and make UR aggro. Game notes: that archetype is really good in any game with under four players. Otherwise, it utterly sucks. However, I had to leave halfway though the first game due to a semi-emergency so I didn't get to do much, but I pulled a Stifle, so got back in the black!

2) We drafted 5 packs instead of 3, so 60 card decks going around. That probably shifted the normal strategy a bit. I was playing a Necra lifeloss deck that focused around having 8(!) Infectious Horrors with the +1/+1 and cost reducing conspiracy, 5 Syphon Souls with the doubling conspiracy, and other good stuff like Mirari's Wake and Rout. My deck should've done better, but I got insanely colour/land screwed 2 of 3 games (all three players). The last game was much more fun. Ended up getting my Rout and wiping the board after knocking someone out with a Horror, then ground out a victory with a pair of Custodi Squires.

[Alice Moonflowyr]

Drafted it quite a bit. Orzhov and Golgari seem to be the better colors to go for, everything else is rather underwhelming. It's fun, and packed with EDH fuel, so I like it.

[bury the year]

Drafted it quite a bit. Orzhov and Golgari seem to be the better colors to go for, everything else is rather underwhelming. It's fun, and packed with EDH fuel, so I like it.

Yeah, I can agree with Orzhov/Golgari being strong.

I also read a bit more, and it's pretty obvious what archetypes are present in each guild combo. I thought I'd write them out below and put together some "cards to aim for" in each: the critical ones are underlined. Commons and uncommons only, ofc~

Azorius - Fliers: Apex Hawks, Doomed Traveler, Favorable Winds, Rousing of Souls, Soulcatcher.
Dimir - Reanimator: Compulsive Research, Extract from Darkness, Victimize, any landcyclers you can get.
Rakdos - Creature Control/Burn: Brimstone Volley, Pitchburn Devils, Typhoid Rats, Volcanic Fallout
Gruul - Stomp: Boldwyr Intimidator, Fires of Yavimaya, Gamekeeper, Pelakka Wurm, any multikickers you can get.
Selesnya - Parley/Tokens: Explorer's Scope, Intangible Virtue, Selvala's Charge, Squirrel Nest, Woodvine Elemental.
Orzhov - Group Slug: Custodi Squire, Infectious Horror, Syphon Soul.
Golgari - Morbid: Deathreap Ritual, Predator's Howl, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Vampire Hexmage.
Simic - Hidden Agenda: Howling Wolf/Screaming Seahawk, Reito Lantern, Wood Sage, any hidden agendas you can get.
Izzet - Dethrone: Grenzo's Cutthroat, Marchesa's Emissary, Marchesa's Smuggler, Orcish Cannonade.
Boros - Defenders: Flamewright, Pride Guardian, Sentinel Dispatch, Vent Sentinel, Wakestone Gargoyle.

I'd probably rank them like:
1. Gruul
2. Orzhov
3. Azorius
4. Golgari
5. Izzet
6. Selesnya
7. Orzhov
8. Boros
9. Simic
10. Dimir

[Trebuchet MS]

Every time I play I tend to drift towards Esper. Brainstorms, Slips, and Plowshares almost too good to pass up, and Wills of the Council are just incredibly fun for politics.

[Rodrigo]

I drafted Conspiracy once. And it was the most fun I ever had:

 

Mono Red Group Slug.

 

P1P1 was Scourge of the Throne. I ended up with Sulfuric Vortex, Grenzo's Rebuttal and Heartless Hidetsugu, alongside 3 Brimstone Volleys. It was so much fun to kill everyone (yes, including me) with Vortex :D

[Flame Dragon]

I did a draft with a bunch of friends. I'm going to be honest, I didn't have fun. I enjoyed drafting it, but Secrete Summoning + Brago's Favor + Secretes of Paradise + Courier Hawk was MISERABLE to play against and I had to do so in both games we played. He also had 2 Favorable Winds, Scourge of the Throne, and Basandra. 

 

For full discloser though, we had opened 2 Lore Seekers and that same friend wanted to get rid of the extra packs so he added them into the draft so things were a fair bit screwed up. I honestly don't think it made that much of a difference though since getting Summoning + Random cheap creature + Paradise doesn't seem hard and that was the core of what broke it. I have only done the 1 draft, so I'd like to get at least 1 more in before I make any final calls, but it just seems really easy to have 1 person get this stupid as hell deck and everyone else end up with "fair" decks. 

 

And, as more info, I ended up in Dimir, which you say is a weak archetype. I honestly thought my deck was fine since I had 4 Liliana's Specters + Muzzio's Preparations, 2 Air Servants, Extract from Darkness, and a bunch of removal and card draw. It just couldn't stand vs. that busted deck.

[bury the year]

I did a draft with a bunch of friends. I'm going to be honest, I didn't have fun. I enjoyed drafting it, but Secrete Summoning + Brago's Favor + Secretes of Paradise + Courier Hawk was MISERABLE to play against and I had to do so in both games we played. He also had 2 Favorable Winds, Scourge of the Throne, and Basandra. 
 
For full discloser though, we had opened 2 Lore Seekers and that same friend wanted to get rid of the extra packs so he added them into the draft so things were a fair bit screwed up. I honestly don't think it made that much of a difference though since getting Summoning + Random cheap creature + Paradise doesn't seem hard and that was the core of what broke it. I have only done the 1 draft, so I'd like to get at least 1 more in before I make any final calls, but it just seems really easy to have 1 person get this stupid as hell deck and everyone else end up with "fair" decks. 
 
And, as more info, I ended up in Dimir, which you say is a weak archetype. I honestly thought my deck was fine since I had 4 Liliana's Specters + Muzzio's Preparations, 2 Air Servants, Extract from Darkness, and a bunch of removal and card draw. It just couldn't stand vs. that busted deck.

To be fair, Secret Summoning is utterly busted. Nobody I've drafted with during these two drafts grabbed one, but I know it would've made many decks that much better. (And why did he decide to do that with Lore Seeker?)

And yeah, Dimir is probably the worst archetype to draft. You pretty much need a few copies of Victimize or Extract from Darkness (both uncommons) to make the reanimator strategy that it pushes work. Otherwise, you're better off doing Azorius for the flyers.

[Flame Dragon]

To be fair, Secret Summoning is utterly busted. Nobody I've drafted with during these two drafts grabbed one, but I know it would've made many decks that much better. (And why did he decide to do that with Lore Seeker?)

And yeah, Dimir is probably the worst archetype to draft. You pretty much need a few copies of Victimize or Extract from Darkness (both uncommons) to make the reanimator strategy that it pushes work. Otherwise, you're better off doing Azorius for the flyers.

 

That was the conclusion I reached too. Summoning really seems to break the format. 

 

He didn't add the extra packs with Lore Seeker. We had 2 and those just added 2 more packs of Conspiracy. What happened was that he had 10 packs left and didn't want them so he just added 8 into the draft. I can get that, but 34 packs of Conspiracy in a single draft makes Summoning breaking things almost certain.

 

I'll have to see what happens. I'm gun shy about doing another draft after the hell that was Bird of Paradise getting +1/+1, Vigilance, and the ability to search up more, but I want to give it another chance.