2001)

Logan,

I saw your article and cry for help on Cardsharks and jumped into action. I am always tempted by offers to re-evaluate draft/sealed card choice and deckbuilding. I am a regular contributor to Cardsharks and I play draft a few times every week at my local card shop and win often enough, so I hope my insights can be of help. Here's my analysis given the limited information you gave.

First, the general advice that the card shark staff gave you is good. Creatures and creature removal are really the key to draft. From the looks of it, you drafted many creatures, but you drafted too few removal spells.

Although you drafted a lot of black and black cards, when you sat down to build the deck, you included a lot of other colors for no good reason. For example, you played two Lay of the Land as your only green cards, presumably to help smooth out mana. However, it would have been better to simply leave the green out and put in more of the basic lands you actually need.

All in all, the cards you ended up drafting actually had the potential to make a reasonably good deck if you could recognize one thing: Soldiers. You drafted two enlistment officers and you drafted a total of 11 Soldier creatures:

Putrid Warrior
Helionauts X 5
Angelic Crusaders X 3
Enlistment Officers X 2

11 Soldiers is really amazing when you have 2 Enlistment officers because you will always be able to gain card advantage off of the Enlistment officers. These creatures should be the backbone of your deck. Card advantage is hard to come by in draft and your draft picks provide you with a strong engine.

This is the deck I would have played:

Creatures

Necra Disciple
Putrid Warrior
Standard Bearer
Phyrexian Rager
Quagmire Druid
Helionauts X 5
Necravolver
Coalition Honor Guard
Angelic Crusaders X 3
Enlistment Officers X 2

Noncreatures

Manacles of Decay
Gerrard's Verdict X 2
Fervent Charge
Captain's Maneuver
Bloodfire Infusion

Land

7 Plains
7 Swamps
3 Mountains

As you can see, this deck focuses on the Soldiers and expands out from there. The splash of red for the three non-creature cards is very managable with 3 mountains and 5 Helionauts. Each of the splash cards can provide a game swing situation.

Fervent Charge makes all your creatures huge on the attack. With all the soldiers you're likely to have, especially flying Helionauts, this should be a game-ender.

Captain's Maneuver should be played carefully to deal with your opponent's most troublesome creature since you have so little removal (or if it will kill your opponent).

Bloodfire Infusion combos with the Soldiers in your deck. First, by putting it on an Anglic Crudsader and pumping up the crusader (don't forget to use the Helionauts to get red mana), you are almost guarenteed to sweep the board of all creatures. Moreover, Enlistment officers refill your hand before your sweep the board of creatures.

In the end, it was toughest to cut Squee's Embrace (as a way to pump up a flying Helionaut or buff up an Enlistment officer in hopes it will get killed and let you play it from your hand again) and Soul Link (which can act as pseudo-removal).

Good luck on your next draft.

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