Well that got interesting.

Here is the spreadsheet as it stood winding down the first 15 or so picks of the Modern Rotisserie draft:

From our perspective, things went pretty well. After the first pick Batterskull, we saw that black was the most open color after everyone else had had two picks. In fact, there were no actual black cards taken (Glimpse the Unthinkable doesn’t count) so we moved right in taking Liliana of the Veil and Thoughtseize. From there things proceeded nicely as we picked up two more threats in Bitterblossom and Tarmygoyf.

Green felt the most open at the time and even though other players have since moved in on it, there is enough room for all of us here I think.

My main competition for picks has come from Chris Pikula who is on a green white midrange deck not that different from our own green black midrange deck. Chris is overlapping with Randy and Adam for white, though, so he has to tend to those matters here in the early stages of the draft.

Randy’s deck is heavy red but may end up being fully red white by the end of it. It’s looking solid and is a deck everyone is keeping their eye on for sideboard cards down the line.

Adam’s deck is mono white and looks solid as well. He has the fixing to take some black cards, or just flash back his Lingering Souls. My guess is that we’ll see him splash black just for Souls and maybe a few cards like Sorin, Solemn Visitor.

Aaron’s deck started out mono blue, but has now morphed into heavy blue with some white. Aaron’s position at the table looked fantastic, as he has the majority of the powerhouse blue cards and even has free reign on the blue/white cards.

But this is where things got interesting: BDM was looking to be blue red Splinter Twin but has now moved in on Aaron’s territory picking Wrath of God and Supreme Verdict back-to-back! Aaron’s next pick was Sphinx’s Revelation—a card he was previously getting very late—showing us that the signal has been received and that the Azorius fight is on between those two.

Rashad broke the internet when he first-picked Glimpse the Unthinkable with the simple message: “Flag planted.”

Unthinkable indeed.

I have no clue how this is going to turn out for Rashad, but I suspect poorly. He used his early picks to take cards that he could literally take last in the draft if he wanted. Also, when you use individual cards to mill your opponent you gain speed but lose inevitability. People can sideboard 60+ cards pretty easily which weakens their deck somewhat but effectively blanks many of the cards in Rashad’s opening hand.

Also noteworthy: All three legendary Eldrazi are gone. That said, Rashad is tricky and knows these older cards very well, and I know he’ll have a plan to combat these issues. I’m super curious to see where he takes the draft from here.

Sam’s deck might be more off the wall at this point than Rashad’s. Sam has taken four colors thus far, and might have enough fixing to go for five if he wants. His deck seems to be pretty dependent on Primeval Titan at this point, though it’s not clear where it goes from here. Sam has a plan, and that plan will be revealed as we proceed through the draft.

As mentioned earlier, BDM started off planting a flag for Splinter Twin, but now may be moving in a more controlling Jeskai direction, but with Splinter Twin Combo still there as a win condition. Since white has some options to combo off with Twin, he may be able to make a sort of hybrid deck. We’ll see what Aaron has to say about it.

As for us, well we’ll keep picking up powerful midrange cards and hope to end on a solid balance of threats and answers that will power us through to the victory.

I also want to note that since starting this, at least five other playgroups have started doing one of these. I know there is an East Coast group doing one, there’s one on the LR subreddit, there is one for Wizards R&D, and also an East Bay Area playgroup doing one and they plan on playing it out in paper form!

Pretty awesome and I love to see the community doing cool stuff like this..

You can follow along with the live spreadsheet here: Modern Rotisserie Spreadsheet