Last night over dinner, Gary Wise and I teamed up to draft Man of Steel against Jason Grabher-Meyer and Toby Wachter. Jason, who was sitting between me and Gary, was the beneficiary of two second-pick copies of I Hate Magic!—one from each direction. I had taken Heat Vision over the first one, and, well, Gary took General Zod. He claimed it was on the advice of Ben Seck. Ben defended himself by pointing out that he did not know they were discussing Gary’s first pick from the pack. He had merely agreed with Gary that the 7-drop was quite playable, but he asserted that it was certainly not something you would pick over I Hate Magic! or the Heat Vision that I received third from that pack.

Jason was gloating over his two copies of I Hate Magic!, while I wasn’t feeling too badly about the twists in my deck either. As it became apparent how the picks unfolded and how Jason and I applied different priorities to the two best common plot twists, it spurred a debate between Ben Seck, Andrew Yip, and Dave Humpherys as to which card was the clear first pick. Ben took my side, while the other two felt very strongly that there was no better pick among the commons than I Hate Magic!

As the Day 2 action switched from Marvel Knights to Man of Steel, I took that opportunity to poll some of the tournament’s successful players regarding their pick orders. It seemed that there wasn’t a consensus opinion to be found, and there were even a few players who inserted a common character card into the equation. Players were asked about their pick orders and what characters they would take over plot twists. They were even asked a little about the differences between drafting Man of Steel and Marvel Knights.

John Rich on Man of Steel pick orders:

Armagetto is an automatic first pick almost always. Devilance is pretty good, but Big Barda is probably the number-one character pick out there, because she can match and beat 7-drops. If there were Heat Vision, I Hate Magic!, and Big Barda, I would be very hard pressed to make a choice. I would probably choose Heat Vision, then Big Barda, followed by I Hate Magic!

Adam Horvath on characters vs. plot twists:

There was a debate in a practice draft at TOGIT a while ago when I took Superman, Kal-El over Hordes of Apokolips. That was a pretty debated pick, but my deck turned out insane—6-drop Superman is just a bomb. The character bombs—the ones that just shut your opponent down like that one does—cards like that I take over plot twists. Usually though, I just open a pack and ignore all the characters and take the best plot twist, unless [the characters] are ridiculous. The 6-drop Superman is definitely ridiculous. Some people like taking Prankster over really good plot twists, because on turn 1, that card is pretty ridiculous. Then there is not really much else.

On Marvel Knights draft:

In Marvel Knights, there is more emphasis on getting a good curve and just filling it in with the plot twists that you can just manage to get. If you take a plot twist that is powerful but has narrow applications outside of a certain affiliation, and you don’t get characters from that affiliation, you can ruin your draft. You don’t want to be wasting early picks on something like that.

Adam Prosak on characters vs. plot twists:

Metropolis is kind of like a plot twist, so I don’t know if that counts. Big Barda is ridiculous, Devilance is ridiculous, and that’s about it. I will take those cards over the premium plot twists like Heat Vision and I Hate Magic!. I think it is better to have a sweet character to force [your opponent] to have a plot twist every turn. My pick order is something like Big Barda, Heat Vision, I Hate Magic!, Metropolis, and Devilance. Something like that. It fluctuates based on how the draft is going.

Ryan Jones (not playing today, but how do you do a Limited piece and not get this guy’s opinion?) on characters vs. plot twists:

What characters would I take over plot twists? I assume we are including locations as plot twists? Plot twists are clearly the highest cards. If there were no top plot twists, I guess I would take Big Barda. I still take Heat Vision and I Hate Magic! over Big Barda. The support cards in this set are the best cards. Big Barda is definitely the best character, and she clearly eclipses some of the medium power-level plot twists. The only cards I would take over her would be I Hate Magic!, Heat Vision, Hordes of Apokolips, Blood Feud, Armagetto, and some of the rares.

Alex Shvartsman on Man of Steel pick orders:

I Hate Magic!, Big Barda, and then everything else. Sometimes I will take Heat Vision over Big Barda, but all three of those are pretty high. Besides Big Barda, I will take twists over pretty much everything, because in this format, plot twists are pretty scarce. Anything like Path of Destruction or Super Strength I will take over the good characters. But I will take good characters over the Up, Up, and Aways and Stopped Colds. I’ll take like Devilance, Big Bear, or Kalibak—which is very under-drafted—over any other plot twists.

On drafting Marvel Knights:

It is completely different in Marvel Knights. You take the plot twists that are extremely high, but there are very few of them. After that, you just take the characters. Crime and Punishment is number one. Marvel Team-Up is very, very high—higher than in any other format perhaps. The characters are a lot more even. There is no character you really need to have—Moon Knight is pretty broken, but in general, you just want to choose a team and go with it.

Jeroen Remie on Man of Steel pick orders:

Heat Vision, Metropolis, I Hate Magic!, and then stuff like Super Strength and random pump twists. The 6-drop Superman and 6-drop Darkseid are really good, but I still think I would take the plot twists over them. I generally take the plot twists the highest.

On drafting Marvel Knights:

In Marvel Knights, it is a little different, because all the plot twists are team stamped. So obviously, the team-ups are first pick again. They are better than any other plot twists—even Crime and Punishment. In Marvel Knights draft, I try to let the team-stamped plot twist tell me what team I am going to be. I like Marvel Knights a little bit better as a draft format than Man of Steel.

Jacob Rabinowitz on his 3-0 Marvel Knights draft from the first pod:

Marvel Knights is weird, because you take guys a lot earlier. I was X-Statix in my first draft, and I ended up getting all the plot twists late. You don’t need to scoop up plot twists early, because everything is team stamped, so after everyone is settled into their teams, you are going to get plot twists a lot later than you normally would.

I first-picked Dracula’s Castle out of a mediocre pack with some really good plot twists like Uprising, but the Castle is not team stamped, and you can play it with any team. I second-picked The Russian because there are only four or five really good 5-drops. There is a big drop off between the 5-drops in Marvel Knights. I third-picked Bullseye, Master of Murder, because he is a really good guy and I thought maybe I could get Crime Lords, but that dried up. I took Vivisector, Lunatic Lycanthrope fourth, mostly because he is another one of the good 5-drops.

I noticed that so many X-Statix cards were going by, so I took that gamble and was rewarded when Bloke tabled and I opened Spin Doctoring in the second pack. I already had one Mind Over Matter, so I kept snapping those up, and at some point, I got Phat and a fourteenth-pick Bloke, so I knew I was golden. Once you get past the first pack, you know what your drops are like, and it becomes a judgment call. You ask yourself, “How likely is it that I will see another one of these again?” Sometimes I took a character, and sometimes I took a plot twist. Generally though, you are only going to play eight or nine plot twists anyway, so take the guy. I took U-Go-Girl, Tragic Teleporter over X-Statix HQ and Missed Drop, and she is not as good as either of those cards, but I needed another 4-drop.