Conspiracy draft

I love to draft. As a format I don't play it much for a variety of reasons, primarily two: I don't particularly care for Magic Online, and my work schedule for the last 8 months or so have been abominable for ever going to an event or FNM other than a pre-release. Magic Online would seem like the solution to my schedule woes, but I get wa-aay too distracted when I play Magic on the computer. I need to immerse myself in a game with people I can talk to easily, and Magic Online is missing the social aspect of the game that makes it fun for me.

Enter my playgroup. I have a great group of friends that I get together with far too infrequently to play Magic, again mostly due to scheduling issues. We did manage to schedule something a couple weeks ago, though, and it was a lot of fun. I had my Commander and Standard decks packed up, but I received a package that changed the course of the evening: a box of Conspiracy. Hallelujah!

No, not THAT Conspiracy, the other one! Oh, nevermind...

Every playgroup is different, but my group has a particular love for multiplayer games over 2 player duels. When you get together as often as we do, we want everyone to be playing as much as possible. So we really enjoy Commander, Two-Headed Giant and Emperor, as well as Planeschase and Archenemy variants so maximum mayhem will ensue. Also, most of my playgroup still has the aversion to drafting that many people do; namely, not getting to keep every card that you open.

My solution was to provide a box of Conspiracy, we draft the heck out of it, and then I keep the cards to go towards building a multiplayer cube. I'm slowly getting there with the Cube, but this was going to be our second draft of this wonderful set and I was really looking forward to it. For groups that like multiplayer and a little bit of chaos, I can't recommend it enough.


There were four of us that night, and while you'd usually prefer more for a draft it works out perfectly with Conspiracy. You all get to see nearly every card, and you're all going to be playing each other so you have a good idea what everyone is taking.  Here's a quick rundown of our group: Paul, the lover of all things chaotic who just wants to watch the game spiral out of control; Jesse, the "hater-of-all-of-Derek's-elves" (Apparently I'd missed a pretty spirited game before I arrived); Derek, our veteran player and owner of the evil Elves and Slivers decks your hear horror stories about from people who played back then. Throw me and my box of Conspiracy into the mix and we were off to a pretty good start.

I immediately decided I was going flyers and prioritizing Conspiracy cards, and after the dust settled I was the only one of the four of us that took any of the Conspiracies. Now if you've ever played the format, you know this means I was a tad overpowered. Seriously, the set is named after this new card type for a reason. I was blue-white flyers, and I was pretty happy with my deck. You would have been too, trust me. I could name any creature, and it would come into play a) with haste, b) with a
+1/+1 counter, c) with the ability to tap for any color of mana, and d) I could search for all other copies of the same card when it hit the battlefield. Plus I doubled down on Favorable Winds, and didn't run any non-flyers. I was excited.

When you have two Courier Hawks,
this ability is good. I had three.

Derek ended up with a nearly mono-red deck, splashing white for Swords to Plowshares. Paul went very removal heavy in blue-black-green, and his card of choice was the aptly named Tyrant's Choice, which should probably just read "Every opponent loses four life." Jesse went green beatdown with some white flyers, being a fairly experienced drafter and recognizing the power of evasion in any Limited format.

I started, and my 1/1 defender was the only creature as we all all played out lands. I hit a Favorable Winds on turn two, then dropped a flyer on turn three. Then the fun started. Derek played Flowstone Blade on my flyer, giving him a boost to power but also giving Derek the power to kill it whenever he wanted for a few mana. Then Paul enchants my flyer with Unhallowed Pact, making it so that whenever Derek killed it, Paul would get it. Jesse then played his own flyer, which I hit the next turn with a Vow of Duty. Then I swung at Paul, and Derek pumped my bird up to hit him for 5. We repeated this the next turn, but then Derek added the extra mana and killed my bird post combat.

This cards is really awesome.
And mean. But mostly awesome.

By this time Paul had the board built up with some creatures, Jesse had two birds, and I and Derek were pretty much exposed. I had named Courier Hawk with my conspiracies, but I hadn't seen one yet. So I played my only removal card, Council's Judgment. Everyone picked a different card, and cleared out some mess, and the next turn I drew my birds. I wiped up the board in two turns, taking out Paul first, our biggest threat, and then Derek, who would have fared much better if he'd drawn the mana he needed. Then Jesse did some quick math, realized that with 3 super pumped Courier Hawks I had enough power to take him out too,  and scooped his cards.

Morals of the story: if you like having a great story to tell when you're done playing Magic, play Conspiracy. And always, always, take the Conspiracy cards. Trust me.