Today I'll be talking about how to exploit the KHM quick draft bots! Slightly different topic than usual - still underrated cards, but this time underrated by bots. 1/x
So last night I wanted to play some draft, but I was bored of AFR and didn't want to try learning AKR. But then I realized that KHM was available in quick draft! Definitely wasn't going to turn down drafting one of my favorite formats, even if it was with bots. 2/x
So the first thing I did was to go to 17lands and look at KHM quick draft ALSA. This is an even more useful stat in bot draft than it is in human drafts, as bots are more predictable - if you see a card with very high ALSA, you can basically always count on it wheeling. 3/x
Worth noting - I'm filtering for this week only, since the bots may have been changed since last time KHM draft was around. The sample size isn't huge, but you don't need much sample size for ALSA anyways, especially for bots. 4/x
Top commons: unsurprisingly, bots take removal way too highly. But what's surprising are some of the random junky commons near the top here - Valkyrie, Skull Raid, Draugr, even Raven. Not bad cards, but between them and medium removal, most of my top commons are missing. 5/x
White commons: Battlefield Raptor is low enough here that you can pick it up on the wheel pretty often, and is a draw into white. Wings of the Cosmos is also worth noting, as is Shieldmate, as both solid cards. I'll get to Giant Ox. 6/x
Blue commons: I'm not a huge fan of blue in KHM in general, and there's not much to exploit here. Berg Strider is a bit low, but still highly picked. Funnily enough, Run Ashore looks like it's less underrated than in player drafts. 7/x
Black commons: Here's one of the biggest places to exploit bots I think. All the bad black removal is way overdrafted, leaving the good elf synergy pieces (Deathknell, Faithful, Gifts, Rites, Raise) free for the taking. 8/x
Red commons: Like blue, there's not much to exploit here. I think Tormentor's Helm is a bit harder to get than in player drafts; anecdotally my RW decks have felt short equipment a bunch. 9/x
Green commons: I'm both proud and sad that Sentinel doesn't wheel. But it and Lindwurm still go pretty late. Revenge, predictably, goes super late, which is great for elves. And the same applies for Arachnoform/Veil for the GW bogles deck, especially with Raptor where it is. 10/x
Colorless commons: Pick is picked about the same rate as in player draft, Karve a bit higher than in player draft. U/G snow lands (basic and dual) are all around 4.2-4.5 ALSA, a good 0.5 above player draft. From seeing this and the green common order, I'd avoid snow. 11/x
Snow uncommons: Again there's a lot of snow cards at the top: Caller, Narfi, Spirit, Pillar, even Brawl and Valkyrie. Everything in these ALSA numbers suggests that snow is very hard to get into. 12/x
Misc: There's a bunch of uncommons that I think are slightly underrated, but not consistently wheeling or anything: Shadowsage and Return for elves; Koll, runes, and equipment; Path to the World Tree. 13/x
But, other than snow being overdrafted, one of my biggest takeaways here is that the saclands are heinously underdrafted. I had a Naya deck (sadly only 6 wins) that played 7 saclands, and 19 lands total. They're *very* powerful; see this essay: docs.google.com/document/d/e/2…. 14/x
And finally, Colossal Plow always wheels. And since Ox always does too, you can pretty consistently get a good Ox/Plow deck. 15/x
Just to touch on rares and mythics: All of them are highly picked, even the bad ones. Don't try to wheel situational rares like Harald Unites the Elves or Pyre of Heroes. 16/x
Conclusion: My overall recommendation for exploiting bots are to try to be either RW leveraging Hawk and runes, BG leveraging elves, or non-snow multicolor midrange (probably GW) leveraging saclands. I'd stay away from giants and snow, but they can still come together. 17/17
Here's my trophies so far:
(sadly no 17lands because I've been playing on mobile)

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More from @JasonILTG

13 Aug
I’ve been jamming KHM quick draft on mobile since last night, and it’s been *so* much better than AFR, despite the bots. Four trophies so far (forgot to screenshot one) in six drafts, going from Gold 4 to Diamond 4. Will probably write up a thread on how to exploit bots tonight.
Some thoughts on why I like it so much: I’ve found that, despite bots definitely being exploitable, you can still build a lot of different decks. GW is the best, and good white cards are undervalued, but I still don’t think you should hard force, unlike RB in AFR bot draft.
Plus the gameplay feels so much better than AFR. Foretell, dual lands, fixing, and saclands means you can usually avoid nongames, and the play patterns are just much more complex and interesting.
Read 4 tweets
28 Jul
Today, let's talk about blue's most underrated common: Clever Conjurer. ALSA of 7.56 in Bo3, just above Secret Door at 7.82, making it the 6th least-picked blue common. For reference, You Find the Villains' Lair and You Come to a River are taken above it. 1/x
However, from the Metagame graph, it does look like that's changing, but more as a factor of the other cards going down than Conjurer going up much. 2/x
The baseline use of Conjurer is as a mana dork. And you might think that that's not very impressive at 3 mana when the 2/3 body isn't super exciting either, but it turns out that there are a *lot* of good 5+ MV cards in this set: strategy.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/c… 3/x
Read 12 tweets
25 Jul
Two combat tricks today! You're Ambushed on the Road, and must channel a Bull's Strength to escape! I haven't been liking the set that much, so haven't been drafting much recently, but I'll still continue these threads occasionally. 1/x
Bo3 ALSAs of 7.96 for Ambushed and 7.63 for Strength - Ambushed is the lowest white common and dropping a bit, while Strength gets picked a bit higher and is rising. 2/x
I think cheap, efficient combat tricks often tend to be underrated - some recent examples include Wings of the Cosmos in KHM and Big Play in STX. They're not flashy, but winning a combat for 2, or especially 1, mana is often a huge tempo swing. 3/x
Read 12 tweets
18 Jul
Thread today on Secret Door! You could say that I'm going to... break down the Door, and reveal its Secrets ;) 1/x
ALSA of 7.71 in Bo3, the 18th least drafted card. There's 3 blue commons that are drafted less than it, but I don't have much to say about those, and blue is drafted pretty low in general anyways. Metagame graph shows it dropping a bit since the start of the set. 2/x
I went into the set thinking that I wouldn't like Secret Door. 0/4s haven't typically been great, it looked like Pack Tactics would punish blocking with no power, and the venture ability looked way too expensive. But now, I'm pretty happy to play one in my slow U decks. 3/x
Read 10 tweets
13 Jul
Now that we're over half a week into AFR, and 17lands has ALSA data available, I'll be making underrated cards threads again! Probably won't be daily, but we'll see. First off: Kick In the Door. 1/x
ALSA of 8.03 in Bo3, coming in as the 7th least picked card. Also looks like it's gone down since the beginning of the set, which is pretty interesting. 2/x
First off, a disclaimer: I know that various people were pretty high on Kick In the Door during spoilers; I had it as third best red common. I do think that is it significantly worse than I thought it would be, and would not advocate for putting it in most red decks. 3/x
Read 15 tweets
31 May
Very short thread today on Infuriate. ALSA 6.96 in Bo3. I'm surprised it's actually been trending slightly downwards in its Card Evaluation Metagame graph. 1/x
Infuriate is just a really solid combat trick. +3/+2 for 1 mana is just a good rate, especially in this set where the creatures are fairly small. +3/+2 basically guarantees you win any combat, and being a Lava Spike on an unblocked creature is great too. 2/x
Infuriate goes best in Lorehold decks, where combat tricks are exactly what you want to leverage ground creatures like Eager First-Year and Stonebound Mentor. But it can also do work in tempo Prismari; sometimes you just deal the last 5 points with an Infuriated Apprentice. 3/x
Read 6 tweets

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