Cannibal Pariah, Spellbound Scissors, Bloodthirsty Redcap and Zungar Blademaster are often the unsung heroes of constructed warbands. Chaos Puppeteer and Clawclan Scout get large amounts of recognition for their stellar abilities on the cheap, but efficient cheap creatures often are overlooked. One of the biggest reasons Chessmaster was so successful was the Cannibal Pariah and Runetagged Brawler, pieces that might be considered unplayable chaff by set 5 or 6 due to their vanilla nature (The Runetagged Brawler is probably unplayable in constructed now that the Clawclan Scout exists).

Most tournament players aren’t focusing on Constructed right now though. People want to know about limited formats and the answers to important questions in those formats. With all the Baxar’s War constructed 1k tournaments done and Chrysotic Plague just released, an article about limited formats seems especially important. The trick is Sam Black already wrote an article about Sealed play and there is only so much you can say about playing Sealed when the set’s spoiler isn’t released yet. Thankfully I think there is a very important topic that hasn’t been covered yet: draft, specifically the dilemma of big vs small. Is it more important to draft a huge beatstick or a small fodder piece? This question is much harder than it might appear at first glance especially since I would not be surprised if a large number of players have never drafted Dreamblade. This is quite a shame because if you have 3 friends that play Dreamblade you can draft quite easily. When a new set comes out I always purchase a case or two of it before purchasing singles. I do this to get the commons and uncommons I need from the set and because opening boosters is just so much fun! Opening a pack and getting a Scarab Warcharm in the Base set or a Chaos Puppeteer or Unsated Ragedrake from Baxar's War is simply thrilling. It was unfortunate that they went into my Dreamblade aspect divided Ziploc baggies only to see the light of day again when testing for the next Constructed tournament. Recently I tried a new approach to opening my cases which is easily three times as enjoyable. I divide my 12 booster box 4 ways giving each player three boosters and proceed to draft them.

For those of you unfamiliar with how a draft works I’ll give you a quick outline. One of the four players opens a pack. The player takes the 7 miniatures out of the pack and has a set amount of time to examine them and determine which one to take. That player takes a miniature and then the next player looks at the miniatures, chooses one, and takes it. Then player 3 takes a miniature. Finally player 4 takes two miniatures. Player 3 then gets one miniature and the first booster ends with player 2 getting the last miniature. Thus after the first booster all the players will have two miniatures except for player 1 who only has 1. Play continues around the circle until everyone has opened and drafted all their boosters.

It sounds pretty simple, but draft is arguably the most skill intensive format in collectible games. Draft rewards planning as well as making due with limited resources. It rewards observation skills as well as psychological guesswork. For example, if you know one of the people in your draft pod will draft Valor no matter what is opened in the packs you might want to shy away from aspect cost intensive valor pieces in early packs if they are only of moderate to low strength.

The other thing that I love about draft is that, especially when a new set has come out, it rewards players who can evaluate pieces in many different ways and creatively make uses for pieces. Pieces that would never see play in Constructed formats like the Skeever Hatchling can be quite good in draft or sealed formats. In the same way pieces that have a high degree of constructed playability like the Brighthammer Avengerare not automatic includes in the sealed format or the draft format.

As Sam reminded us in his article one of the most important things to do when constructing a limited band is to create a good “spawn curve”. This means to have a variety of spawn costs ideally from 3-9 so no matter what number is rolled you can use all your spawn. Generally pieces in Dreamblade are correctly costed so you want to use all your spawn every turn or you will be at a disadvantage. In some circumstances such as with a Scarab Warcharm or big pieces such as Noble Dragon, Unsated Ragedrake, or Dreadmorph Ogre it is almost always right to bring them out whenever you have the chance even if you don’t use all your spawn. This is because these pieces are “worth more” than what the designers priced them at. This is especially true of big pieces. In limited environments, even drafts where you have a degree of control over what your band looks like, players won’t have ways of dealing with huge pieces. The Eater of Hope was almost immortal at the 20k Release Tournament at GenCon last year because of its gargantuan 15 life. The Unsated Ragedrake even at a whooping 13 spawn and 2 passion basically ends the game when it hits the table. Pieces like these are often referred to as “bombs” in limited environments because they blow up the intricately laid plans of an opponent and some claim that they don’t take as much skill to use correctly as a more precise weapon because of their sheer power.

One thing that is often overlooked with these pieces is that it is substantially harder to get them into play than other pieces. Rolling a 10+ doesn’t occur very often, only 1/6th of the time if the game isn't tied. If it is tied, it only happens a little more than 1/9th of the time. When it does occur it is important for you to take advantage of that opportunity to spawn your game breaking piece. In constructed it is simply a matter of knowing that you need to take advantage of a rare situation and spawn the big piece, but in limited it can be an entirely different story. In limited you will often be playing 3, if not 4, aspects - even in draft formats! You don’t get to cut enough pieces from your warband to opt out of playing good pieces regardless of what aspect they are in most of the time, so you will often be stuck in an unfavorable color scheme. This means that the Ragedrake, which usually is 13 spawn in constructed, just got bumped up to 15 if you have not played a Passion figure yet. Obviously in a format without Heartsblood Temple and Rainforest Shaman to increase your spawn you will be hard-pressed to acquire 15 spawn and the unsated WMD will never see the dreamscape. I used the Unsated Ragedrake as my example because it is very clear why not playing other passion miniatures with him is a bad idea, but the same logic behind the Ragedrake applies to any miniature that costs 5 or more spawn.

While you might be able to bring these miniatures into play even though you have to pay for their aspect costs you do so at a significant opportunity cost. You bring out a 7 cost miniature for 8 and your opponent gets to bring out an 8 cost miniature. If an 11 is rolled and you and your opponent both have a Dreadmorph Ogre in your reserves if he has paid his aspect costs and you have not you might be stuck bringing out your Thunder Sultan which is just not going to stand up no matter how great the miniature is at 8 cost.

The bigger the spawn cost on a miniature is, the more important it is for you to quickly pay for the miniature’s aspect cost in other cheaper figures. Remember how rare large numbers were for spawn? If you haven’t paid your aspect cost when your number to bring out the Noble Dragon rolls around you might miss your only chance. Even accounting for dead creatures, you might only get a chance to spawn Noble Dragon once or twice in a game and if you miss that chance because you didn’t spawn a little valor guy you will almost certainly lose the game if your opponent can spawn something big.

The important things to take from this discussion when drafting are threefold. First, you should draft little creatures! In many warbands at GenCon I could predict who would win the game by how many little creatures the bands had. Sure Noble Dragon and Dreadmorph Ogre were intimidating to sit across the table from, but if the band didn’t have a full compliment of Cannibal Pariah or Runetagged Brawler to bring them out, I often could end the game before the big nasties came in. Use this lesson when you are drafting, if you get an opportunity to take a small creature in the same aspect as a big creature you drafted you should almost always take it even if there is another good piece in the pack.

Second, if you draft pieces with high aspect costs (2-3) make sure you take that number of smaller pieces in the same aspect. Voodoo Manipulator was one of the best pieces from the Base Set, playable even at 10 cost, but it always hurt to pay more than 8 for her. One of the reasons I was able to finish 3rd in a field of hundreds of players at GenCon was because I got multiple cheap fear creatures to go with my Voodoo Manipulator. Bringing her out at 8 enabled me to win many games against pools that had huge creatures. If I hadn't included pieces like Cannibal Pariah and Zombie Enforcer, I wouldn’t have done nearly as well.

Third it’s not always correct to take the bomb. This is probably going to be the most contentious thing I explain here. Late into opening packs, say the 2nd to last pack for example, when you are only going to get a few more picks, what if a huge piece is opened up with double aspect cost and 11+ in regular spawn cost in an aspect in which you currently have no pieces? It might be best just to pass it. This is especially true if none of your fellow drafters can use the piece either. Even if you do choose to take the piece, it might be the correct build to cut the piece from your band. Pieces like the Unstated Ragedrake are best in bands that have ways of consistently generating extra spawn, such as dead small creatures or Heartsblood Temple style pieces. If you don’t have access to these pieces I think the only time you should play a huge piece like that, or a piece that costs 11 and two aspect cost that you can’t meet, is when your band is bad. If your band is bad including a piece that allows you to randomly win the game can save you. Conversely, if your band is already good, it decreases your overall chances by clogging a slot that could have been used on something that actually had a chance of coming into play.

In Chrysotic Plague every faction besides Passion has a common miniature that costs 3 or less and a single aspect cost. Regardless of what the stats on these pieces are they should be high draft priorities. Passion thankfully has no piece that costs more than 4 with more than 1 aspect symbol in its aspect cost so it is less of an issue that Passion doesn’t have a common fodder piece. Valor, Madness, and Fear all have larger pieces that cost double aspect so it is important that you draft their corresponding cheap pieces to power them out. The most cost for you to open in your Chrysotic Plague boosters is the 6 slot followed closely by the 5 slot. These pieces are great for meeting secondary aspect symbols but you are paying through the nose if you have to pay 6 or 7 for these pieces because you didn’t include a fodder piece. The designers created the set as a “fan” with a small number of cheaper fodder creatures and a small number of huge creatures (10+). With the bulk of the creatures being in the middle if you want a good spawn curve you need to draft small fodder pieces and big “bomb” pieces before you draft solid middle range pieces.

The final bit of information I think you will all find the most interesting is the raw numbers from Chrysotic Plague. I don’t know any of the pieces stats beyond the spawn cost numbers and rarity in relation to that, but I think you will find this chart very interesting:

Until next time, draft the little guys and I look forward to discussion on the forums! Please tell me if you think I am wrong and I will be glad to answer any questions and or comments on my article.