Let's start with the Scars of Mirrodin Power Rankings. This is a list of the commons and uncommons in the order I prefer them if it was first pick overall. As you will see, since drafting Infect doesn't work when power drafting, there aren't any Infect cards on the list. This also hurts other Black and Green cards on the list. For example, if so much of Black wasn't committed to Infect, Skinrender would probably be in the top five. Artifacts get a built in boost, because they will make the cut no matter what colors I end up playing.

Scars of Mirrodin Power Rankings

1. Arc Trail
2. Glint Hawk Idol
3. Galvanic Blast
4. Embersmith
5. Myrsmith
6. Razor Hippogriff
7. Rusted Relic
8. Oxidda Scrapmelter
9. Revoke Existence
10. Trigon of Corruption
11. Skinrender
12. Vedalken Certarch
13. Auriok Sunchaser
14. Dispense Justice
15. Snapsail Glider
16. Chrome Steed
17. Shatter
18. Arrest
19. Darksteel Axe
20. Glint Hawk
21. Ghalma's Warden
22. Trinket Mage
23. Contagion Clasp
24. Golem Artisan
25. Lumengrid Drake
26. Rust Tick
27. Sylvok Replica
28. Tumble Magnet
29. Trigon of Rage
30. Origin Spellbomb
31. Bloodshot Trainee
32. Grasp of Darkness
33. Riddlesmith
34. Perilous Myr
35. Slice in Twain
36. Volition Reins
37. Turn to Slag
38. Carapace Forger
39. Darkslick Drake
40. Glimmerpoint Stag

The power rankings are heavily weighted in favor of:

• Removal of Creatures and Artifacts
• Flying
• Card Advantage
• Speed
• Big Cheap Creatures
• Synergy with Artifacts
• Being an Artifact

One of the points of power drafting is the ability to draft an archetype without being overly concerned what the person in front of you is drafting, even if they have the same plan as you. This came up for me recently, when doing a four person draft with friends. My girlfriend Rada and I both power draft and she was seated to my right during the draft.

In the first pack I cracked, I was open to taking a colored card if it was powerful enough, like Arc Trail and Myrsmith. If not, I was leaning towards taking a powerful artifact: that way I could try to read the colors being passed to me. As a result, I happily picked a Snapsail Glider. The second pack gave me an indication that Red might be open for the taking as I picked up an Oxidda Scrapmelter. My next few picks went nicely with the first two as I got a Chrome Steed, Trigon of Rage and a Bloodshot Trainee. I was keeping an eye out for White and/or Blue cards that would be a good fit in a Red artifact deck, but they weren't coming. When a Carapace Forger was available at pick six, I decided it would be fine to have Green as my second color. This is the card pool I ended up with:

[cardlist]

1 Molder Beast

1 Carapace Forger

1 Viridian Revel

2 Lifesmith

1 Galvanic Blast

1 Shatter

1 Bloodshot Trainee

1 Furnace Celebration

1 Oxidda Scrapmelter

2 Turn to Slag

1 Scoria Elemental

2 Kuldotha Rebirth

1 Vulshok Heartstroker

1 Oxidda Daredevil

3 Vulshok Replica

1 Soul Parry

1 Relic Putrescence

1 Psychic Miasma

2 Horizon Spellbomb

1 Panic Spellbomb

1 Iron Myr

1 Snapsail Glider

1 Sylvok Replica

1 Trigon of Rage

1 Darksteel Axe

1 Darksteel Myr

1 Vector Asp

1 Chrome Steed

2 Saberclaw Golem

1 Echo Circlet

1 Nihil Spellbomb

[/cardlist]

When it came time to build my deck I kept the following in mind:

• With three Spellbombs and a Myr, I wanted to play tight mana.
• With four Metalcraft cards, I wanted at least 14 artifacts.
• I wanted some ways to pump Bloodshot Trainee.
• With Furnace Celebration, I wanted lots of things to sacrifice.

This is what I ended up playing:

[cardlist]

1 Viridian Revel

1 Carapace Forger

1 Galvanic Blast

1 Shatter

2 Turn to Slag

1 Bloodshot Trainee

1 Furnace Celebration

1 Oxidda Scrapmelter

3 Vulshok Replica

2 Horizon Spellbomb

1 Panic Spellbomb

1 Iron Myr

1 Snapsail Glider

1 Sylvok Replica

1 Trigon of Rage

1 Darksteel Axe

1 Darksteel Myr

1 Vector Asp

1 Chrome Steed

1 Saberclaw Golem

8 Mountain

8 Forest

[/cardlist]

This was the first time I've played with Viridian Revel, Bloodshot Trainee and Furnace Celebration. Not only did they seem to synergize with the rest of my deck, but I wanted to play with them in part to get a first hand impression of their power level. Bloodshot Trainee was awesome for me even though I only had two cards that pumped it up. The Furnace Celebration was good if slow and I rarely seemed to lack things to sacrifice to activate it. Unfortunately, I never drew the Revel, so I still lack first hand data on it.

Not surprisingly, Rada drafted Blue/White in front of me. She also first picked Snapsail Glider. She second picked a Razor Hippogriff and third picked an Arrest, which pretty much locked her into White. Getting a Riddlesmith and Darkslick Drake late in the pack led her to add Blue as her second color.

This is the deck she ended up playing:

[cardlist]

2 Razor Hippogriff

2 Myrsmith

3 Arrest

1 Glint Hawk

1 Ghalma’s Warden

1 Vedalken Certarch

1 Riddlesmith

1 Darkslick Drake

1 Snapsail Glider

1 Neurok Replica

1 Bladed Pinions

2 Gold Myr

1 Silver Myr

1 Copper Myr

1 Leaden Myr

1 Perilous Myr

1 Vulshok Replica

2 Trigon of Rage

8 Plains

8 Islands

[/cardlist]

Of course with Rada and I both drafting Metalcraft, Infect was wide open. Our friend Suzi (sitting to Rada's right,) got two Hand of the Praetor, so she locked into Black/Green Infect. Steve, sitting to my left (he just finished second at a limited 5K here in Boston!) drafted Blue/Green Infect. He had Green and artifact Infect creatures, with Blue for support cards like Steady Progress and Flight Spellbomb.

In the first round I played Suzi and Rada played Steve. While Suzi had an impressive collection of Infect creatures, both games I got Spikeshot Trainee with either Trigon of Rage or Darksteel Axe. As a result, I was able to take complete control of both games.

In Rada's match with Steve, he was able to put early pressure on her with Blight Mambas and equipment. Fortunately for Rada, her Arrests, Myrsmiths and Hippogriffs gave her a better mid to late game and she emerged a 2-0 winner.

In my match with Rada, she went first in Game one and got off to a fast start. With turn one Certarch, turn two Trigon of Rage, turn three Glider and turn four Warden, she had a start that actually killed me on her turn six! Game two went much longer as we both got mana flooded. Eventually, she used her copious amounts of mana to play Neurok Replica and Razor Hippogriff every turn. This way the Hippogriff was available for both attacking and blocking. In addition, she gained three life per turn from retrieving the Replica with her Hippogriff. Sadly, I had sideboarded out my Viridian Revel after getting steamrolled in game one, because this would have been a perfect time for it. Instead Rada went on to a 2-0 victory and ended up with all of our rares. J

Looking back at the draft, the results made perfect sense. First, Scars of Mirrodin draft can support more non-Infect decks per table than Infect decks per table, so it's not a big surprise that Rada and I had stronger decks than Steve and Suzi. Second, given that Rada was sitting in front of me in the draft, it wasn't a big surprise that her deck was a little better than mine. In addition, it helped her to be the only White player while I was one of three Green players. While Red, White and Blue are the best colors for a Metalcraft deck, Green can be an okay option when you're in my situation of having two of those three colors cut off. Most Green players play Infect, so you can get cards like Carapace Forger pretty late.

In hindsight, I probably would have had a better shot at winning the draft had I stuck to Red in pack one and added White in the second pack, as cards like Arrest and Myrsmith found their way past me and into Rada's capable hands. My deck probably would have ended up stronger and Rada's would certainly have been weaker. This is an important thing to consider when power drafting Scars. You can reasonably wait until pack two to select your second color. You will probably play less than ten cards of color anyway; why not pick the best color for packs one and three as one of them and the best color for pack two as the other?

That being said, I certainly don't regret drafting Metalcraft behind Rada doing the same. If it had been an eight player draft and I had the second best deck at the table, I would be fine with that. Besides, there is no guarantee that the person to your right will draft Metalcraft. Perhaps they will draft a Red/Black aggressive deck heavy on removal, equipment and sacrificing things. Perhaps they will draft Blue/White control focusing on fliers, equipment and ground creatures with high toughness. Maybe they will even draft Infect!

No matter what the players around you are doing, if you draft an artifact heavy deck while using high picks on removal and cards that synergize with artifacts (like Metalcraft,) you should end up with a strong deck. Having your basic plan predetermined will leave your mind free to concentrate on mana curve, drafting cards with synergy and in general determining which specific cards will be the best fit for your deck. Obviously it can be cool to freestyle draft, leaving yourself open to whatever seems to be coming, but if you aren't winning most of your drafts, I hope you will give power drafting a try.