Conspiracy Video Draft Recap

I had a lucky chance to draft Conspiracy before it was officially released. I drafted it with a bunch of awesome Magic personalities, you can see the video here:

Here is the deck I drafted:

Conspiracy Deck

I had never seen the cards before, so I was forced to evaluate on the fly. After they explained to us how the actual conspiracy cards worked, I was astonished. Besides the draft pick itself, they were completely free to run. I decided to prioritize them under the theory that if I snatched up a bunch of them while other people figured it out, I could get way ahead of the rest of the drafters.

I ended up with six total conspiracies. Muzzio’s Preparations, Immediate Action, and Brago’s Favor all seemed best with multiples of one card. Once I got my second Screaming Seahawk, I tried to take as many of them as I could to maximize these conspiracies.

I also picked up two Sentinel Dispatches, along with a single Vent Sentinel. Vent Sentinel is one of my favorite cards ever, and I was super excited to see it in my booster. I was less excited when I didn’t open or see a single other one in the whole draft. Still, I figured the Dispatches would help hold the ground while my Seahawks (GO HAWKS) flew over for damage. I also wanted them to protect my planeswalker…

Yup, I got shipped Dack Fayden, and while this was kind of hilarious given my history with “The greatest thief in the multiverse”, I also just thought it was a fantastic planeswalker. Looting has long been a favorite mechanic of mine, and double-looting is twice as nice.

My last conspiracy card was Advantageous Proclamation, which lets you run a 35 card deck. Originally I thought this was one of the better conspiracy cards, but have since realized that in multiplayer (a format I have relatively little experience in) decking yourself is a real possibility. This can make having a smaller library a liability. Especially when you have two Reckless Scholar, Dack Fayden, and a Compulsive Research 🙁

With a little help from Kathleen from Loading Ready Run, and two instances of Dack Fayden (one being my own), I was getting decked. Kenji finished me off before that happened, but either way I was losing.

I did learn some lessons from my Conspiracy experience. First, it was fun. I was skeptical a bit that it would be my kind of fun, but it was. Second, I was not prepared to build for multiplayer. I think in a heads-up duel my deck was friggin’ awesome. But in a four-player match, it wasn’t optimal. Looting effects lose a lot of their luster when the game is almost guaranteed to go long anyway.

The next time I draft this set, I will be focusing on a longer game. I’ll also keep prioritizing the conspiracy cards, as I think I had that strategy correct from the get go. I really enjoyed my deck, and it was definitely my kind of strategy.

Overall I had a great time and look forward to drafting Conspiracy again. How have your experiences with this unique set been?

Marshall

5 thoughts on “Conspiracy Video Draft Recap

  1. Pick up a box of these for my Wednesday night kitchen table games. Had a ton of fun. I picked up the conspiracy card worldknit in pack 3. Even though it was a late pick I still ran it and won. I also got to do that “open someone elses pack” draft ability.
    I will be definitely putting these in sleeves and cubing the box for future play after we crack all the packs drafting this box.

  2. its funny i watched the video watched Marshal get almost decked than did it myself

    I played fact or fiction with a conspiracy that let me make a free copy of it.

    I have no regrets though; double fact or fiction should qualify as living the dream

    also I managed to win with 3 cards left in my deck so maybe it was smart

    ( probably not I was public enemy #1 for the last few turns since I had the biggest board from fact or fictions drawing about 6 extra cards more than everybody else)

  3. I believe this format is more fun to draft than to actually play. I prioritized flying (U/W) with enchantment bonuses and seemed to crush my opponents. I drafted this format twice and probably won’t ever do it again. As Brian Wong said, I don’t like to be put in the position where fate of the winner is decided by a 3rd party.

  4. The LRR guys did a live draft of this last weekend, was interesting to see the whole process unedited! Graham pointed out that dethrone hadn’t been much of a thing in the Wizards game, but it came out full force in the second stream game they did. An interesting dynamic to consider who you attack and who you help (and what damage you take) all to keep dethrone triggers in play!

    Although I can imagine Marshall perhaps felt a chill at two points when it was revealed one of the winning decks wasa 43 card deck (due to the possibility of decking yourself) and a level 1 judge who should know better main decked Fog (because of the surprise factor and the nature of multi-player, playing it to negate other’s combat not his own to keep them going)

    Multiplayer certainly is a different beast, and Conspiracy seems to offer a few tweaks to it aswell!

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