What's in a Commander Legends Collector Booster?

 Back in March, I started a post about what's in a Collector Booster, with a few Throne of Eldraine and Theros: Beyond Death boosters I opened, but it looks like I never published it.  Well, let's start fresh with the current hot set, Commander Legends (CMR).  CMR was designed to be a draftable Commander set, unlike the usual preconstructed Commander decks that are released each year.  I've played a few drafts on Magic Online, and I really like the set, although the games tend to be very long on MTGO.

Collector Boosters have been around for a few sets now, so they've changed a little, but they're still mostly the same thing: lots of foil cards, more rares than a normal booster, and a few fancy cards with extended art and other treatments.  This time, instead of showcase cards (with unique art and frames), they have brought us something called foil etched cards.  It's hard to tell what that really means without having ever seen the cards in person.

So this shiny, iridescent pack of 15 cards cost about $25 at my LGS.  (Aside: I'm trying to shop at the LGS a bit more than normal to support them, because they haven't been able to run any events since everything closed in March for the pandemic.)

As usual, the pack has some details in tiny print about what kinds of cards may appear.  WotC also published an article that goes into more detail.  The long story short is that most of these cards will be foil, at least 2 will have extended art, and 3 will be foil etched legendary creatures or borderless planeswalkers.  One of those will be a foil etched reprint of a popular legendary creature not appearing in CMR draft boosters.

So lets lay them all out in order:

Top row is the normal foil commons.  Nothing too exciting here -- most of these are cards that support the draft environment, and don't actually get played in Commander/EDH constructed decks.  In this slot I would have hoped to see something like Command Tower, Commander's Sphere, or some of the new cards with the cascade or encore abilities.

Second row is the normal foil uncommons and rares.  The two uncommons have a chance to be upgraded to extended art foil common/uncommons, but we didn't get any.  Burnished Hart is commonly played in EDH, but it already has other foil printings, so this one isn't valuable (50 cents).

The two normal foil legendary creatures can be any uncommon, rare, or mythic legendaries from the set.  We got two uncommons here.  Halana was very strong in CMR draft games, and I can imagine she will see some play in constructed EDH.  Alharu is basically designed for the draft environment and I don't think will show up much in constructed decks.  As an interesting aside, they do represent some of the identity diversity WotC has been trying to promote.  Halana ("Hal") and her hunting and life partner Alena have appeared in Innistrad block story for about 10 years, and CMR is the first time they have appeared on cards, fittingly in a set where they can be partnered together.  Alharu has not appeared in Magic previously, as far as I can see, but the article introducing the characters of CMR uses they/them pronouns, making Alharu the only non-binary character in the set.

And, to finish the second row, our normal foil rare is Magus of the Order, a creature to call back the classic sorcery Natural Order.  This slot can sometimes be extended art.  Foil rares can be valuable, but this one is only about 75 cents.

The last row is where things get interesting.  We are guaranteed one non-foil common/uncommon extended art card (out of 33 that were specially picked for this treatment -- don't worry, you won't get a Skyraker Giant here).  Our common is Fleshbag Marauder, a card I'll actually slot into one of my decks.  I'm not a fan of the gross art, but it does look impressive extended to full card width.

The second non-foil extended art card is the best card in our pack, a $30 Hullbreacher.  It's a straight up nasty card that I don't really want to play in friendly EDH, but it's very popular and the 5th most valuable card we could have gotten in this slot.  I think the art with the merfolk stealing gold from the ship is pretty cool, except it's a little too dark to actually see it well.

Then we get to the foil etched cards - an uncommon, a reprint, and a rare or mythic.  Captain Vargus Wrath is another "bulk uncommon" legend, fine in draft but most likely just a filler card in EDH pirate decks.  Foil etched Vargus is about $1.  Akiri is one of the original two-color partner commanders, which make up the majority of the reprints in the second foil etched slot.  She has never been very high in popularity, but this printing is currently about $3.25.  In general, cards in this slot are all worth a few dollars minimum.  The last slot is Amareth, a good-ish rare legend that gains a few points for being a dragon.  Current price about $2.25.

We also got a double-sided foil token of a 2/2 firebreathing dragon (from Dragon Egg) and a */* horror artifact creature (from Profane Transfusion), worth about 50 cents.

So our total value in this pack is somewhere in the $35 - $40 range, with almost all of it coming from the Hullbreacher.

Now let's look at the foil etched treatment.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  I had seen pictures of these cards online, but I expected that "etched" meant some kind of physical textural element on the face of the card, like some of the fancy chase baseball cards of the mid 1990s.  But these are entirely smooth.  I took a few shots from different angles and lighting to try to show the effect.  They look like they have sort of a sparkly metallic flecked surface.  It looks a little like they're made of metal that has been etched with acid, so maybe that's what the designers were going for.  I am neutral about whether they look better or worse than normal foils, but they're certainly different.  I do like the watermark on the text box.  Normal foils have some parts of the art that aren't treated, but these foil etched cards appear to have the treatment over the entire art.

Anyway, let's wrap this up.

I think we got a little lucky with Hullbreacher.  As far as I can tell, the extended art rare slot and the normal foil rare slot are the best slots for randomly getting an expensive card (in this case a Jeweled Lotus worth about $100 normal extended art and $400 foil extended art).  And I think the foil etched reprint slot is the slot most consistently giving you a card worth a few dollars and playable in an EDH deck.  The common and uncommon slots are mostly just for fun/pretty cards.

CMR Collector Booster is a good product for you if:

• You like the thrill of opening pretty cards with a chance at some valuable ones.
• You don't mind spending more money on fewer cards.

CMR Collector Booster is not a good product for you if:

• You want a specific card for your deck.
• You want to get your money's worth on a consistent basis.
• You don't want to spend a lot of money on Magic.

This is clearly an ultra-premium product intended for people who don't mind spending a lot of money for a fun experience.  Like all sealed randomized products, you are unlikely to make your money back, and the more you open, the closer you will get to the roughly break-even point (just as you will have more consistent results playing a slot machine 10,000 times than 10 times).

This is the first time in 4 Collector Boosters that I have opened more value than the price of the pack.  It's possible that this set will be better on average than the Standard sets (like Eldraine and Theros) because it has a higher ratio of cards people will want over the long term.

Thanks for reading!  Let me know what you think, or your own experiences with Collector Boosters.

Theros Beyond Death FNM Draft 2020-03-06

After a couple weeks off, it's THB draft time again!  This time there were an awkward 9 drafters, which meant someone was going to get a bye right away.  We were at one table, and the tournament was three rounds.

Here's my draft, bottom left to top right:

Calix was a nice thing to open in pack 1.  I don't think I've drafted any mythics yet in this format.  This left me with one primary objective, if green-white was open: Get as many good enchantments as possible.  Lucky for me, the next two packs had very good green enchantment creatures.  The Nyx Lotus was a pure money pick, as it's rarely a good card in this draft format.  The green cards kept coming, and I was feeling pretty close to mono-green after pack 1.  The very late Chainweb Aracnir was a nice surprise, along with a couple other uncommons.

Second pack was amazing.  In addition to the Dream Trawler, there was a foil Gravebreaker Lamia and several very good uncommons.  Dream Trawler is one of the hardest cards to beat in this format, and I've seen advice to splash it if you open it, which is really unusual for a card with two double-color requirements.  Fortunately, I was already in green, which is typically the best color for splashing.  I saw less green in this pack because my neighbor to the left was also in green (even with all my good picks in pack 1, I was passing plenty of good cards also).  I started to prioritize mana fixing heavily.

Third pack rare was Storm's Wrath, a card I've opened several times.  I really struggled between Staggering Insight and Mystic Repeal.  After that, it was just as much fixing and good cards in my colors as I could find.  Nyx Herald and Eutropia were surprising good cards later in the pack.

Here's my basic deck:

The hard part here was that I could build a very reasonable white-green deck without Trawler, Eutropia, and Staggering Insight.  But Eutropia and Dream Trawler both gave much-needed evasion to close out games.  I tinkered with the exact cards some but mostly played this deck as my main.

Here are the sideboard cards:

The top row is my "aggro auras" sideboard, for when I take out the blue cards and all the mana fixing cards.  Second row is my enchantment and artifact removal.  I brought them in every match, and I probably should have had them main deck.  The problem was that I wanted to make sure I didn't get run over by aggressive decks without many enchantment creatures, and I was already wasting a few slots on mana fixing.

So how did it go?

Well, I'd heard that this format can go to decking, and this was the first time I really experienced it.

First match was against white-blue.  Game 1 I got the Dream Trawler out and rolling, and it seemed like I couldn't lose.  But I wasn't careful enough and got it killed by a combat trick.  Between all my lifegain stuff, I got up to 58 life this game, but I couldn't close it out.  I also managed to get Calix up to ultimate and resurrect 3 enchantments.  He was running a main deck Sweet Oblivion, and he milled me out.  With less than 15 minutes on the clock, I sided to my white-green aggro cards and won a very quick one.  Then in the third game we went to time.  Draw, 1-1-1.

Second match was against Abzan (white-black-green).  Game 1 was almost the same as my previous game 1.  This time, my Dream Trawler was answered by Rise to Glory bringing back Dreadful Apathy from the graveyard (since it comes directly onto the battlefield, it doesn't have to target the creature it is attached to, so hexproof doesn't matter).  I topped out at 40 life before he started bringing me back down, but eventually he milled out.  I probably should have stayed in the main deck at 1-0, but I switched to the aggro deck.  Anyway, he had a very aggressive draw and I made a pretty bad mistake.

He put Dreadful Apathy on my Nexus Wardens to attack past them, and on my turn I should have cast Return to Nature on it while his mana was tapped, but I talked myself into casting it in his next attack step instead.  Of course, as soon as it was his turn, I realized with his mana up he could exile my creature in response to my cast.  So I made one of the cardinal errors of making mistakes: following it with another mistake.  I cast my spell anyway when he went to attackers, and of course he exiled my guy.  After the match we were talking about it, and he suggested at that point I should have just held my Return to Nature and waited for a better time to use it.  He was right.  But I lost the game and we went to turns in game 3 and ended in a draw.  He was ready to go so he gave me the win.  Draw, 1-1-1.

Third match was against a good black-green deck.  He had been drafting to my left, and he knew I had Dream Trawler, so he said "Ok, beat me fast with your Dream Trawler."  And of course he won 2-0 very quickly.  The most disheartening part was that in game 1, he completely countered my Binding of the Titans.  Chapter 1 gave him cards to escape from the graveyard.  Chapter 2 he had an Omen of the Dead to flash back the escape creature I was trying to exile.  And Chapter 3 he had Cling to Dust to exile the creature I was trying to bring back.  It was insane!  In the second game, I mulliganed to 6 and gambled on a hand with a Plains, an Island, and a bunch of green cards that were good in the matchup.  It took me 2 extra turns to find my third land, and by that time I was too far behind.  Loss, 0-2.

So that was interesting.  I learned some good lessons.  On post-evaluation, I realize I probably should not have been playing Siona or Binding of the Titans.  With only 3 auras in the deck, Siona failed to find an aura every time I cast her.  She was slightly better after I brought in the 3 aggressive auras from the sideboard (and took out Staggering Insight).  Binding of the Titans is ok, but it wasn't really helping as much as other cards might have.  Staggering Insight itself was a little hit-or-miss in this particular deck.  When the board started to clog up, it didn't do a ton.  I would have liked more fliers to go with it, or at least a Captivating Unicorn to open things up.

Calix was excellent, and so was Destiny Spinner, but they had the odd effect of making me want to keep my Omens on the battlefield instead of sacrificing them to scry.

I never had a chance to put Eutropia into play, even playing through almost my whole deck twice.  I think she would have been pretty valuable as a secondary way to make a big flying attacker.

So what did we get?

I drafted 4 rares, 11 uncommons, and 6 Nyx lands, so that was pretty good.  I was able to draft a bunch of the lands because I ran into quite a few late packs with nothing in my colors.  Nyx Lotus is about $5, with some possible long-term interest for EDH.  Calix is about $3.50, Dream Trawler is about $2.50. and the Temple is about $1.  So overall, I came pretty close to getting my $15 back.

Not the best result, but good learning experience.  Thanks for reading!

Theros Beyond Death FNM Draft 2020-02-14

Yeah, I played Magic on Valentine's Day.  :)

It was actually the biggest draft crowd we've had, but that is partially because there weren't enough Modern players to hold a tournament, and a couple of them joined the draft.  Still, we had 16 people for two full tables of 8.

Here's what I drafted from bottom left to top right:

My first pack was complete garbage.  The other contender for my first pick was Mystic Repeal, but I didn't think a very good enchantment removal spell was good enough to start the draft with.  Since I've done well with white-red aura aggro decks, I took the Eidolon just on the chance that I ended up on that plan again.  It turned out to be the only white card I drafted.  Threnody Singer didn't have any super strong contenders in its pack either, but it's a card I am happy to play in any blue deck.  Then I rounded out most of my colors by taking red and black removal.  The second Threnody Singer, in foil no less, was a pretty good indicator that I could settle into blue.  The rest of the pack had a few playable cards but nothing I was excited about.

Second pack rare was Dalakos.  He's a weird one -- his abilities don't synergize with very much in THB Limited, as he was apparently designed mostly for Commander, but a 2/4 for 3 mana is an ok card on its own if you're playing the right colors.  I wasn't sure I was playing them, and I thought he was a good candidate to come back around.  So I took a blue-red (UR) payoff card that has much better set synergy in the Manticore.  Second pick Oracle again isn't an amazing bomb of a rare, but it's just good and efficient.  The next 3 cards are very good and further indicated I could draft UR.  When the first pack came back, it didn't have Dalakos, but instead I got Stern Dismissal, which is probably a better card for my deck anyway.

Third pack was a fist pump, as Phoenix of Ash is a very good card and also in my colors.  There's not a lot to say about this pack other than that it gave me exactly the kind of cards I wanted for the first half.  The two Fields of Ruin, which are good in constructed but bad in THB Limited, were placed perfectly in the packs for me to take them without hurting my draft, so that was nice.

Here's my main deck:

The main themes I wanted to support were devotion to blue (Callaphe, Thassa's Oracle, Threnody Singer), "cast a spell on opponent's turn" (Manticore, Arena Trickster), and ferocious (power 4 or greater).  The good news was that most of the cards for the first two themes are good enough without much help, so I didn't bend over backward to support them.  For ferocious, Furious Rise is really strong but does nothing if you don't have a ferocious creature, so I had to work a little to make it work, specifically by playing Impending Doom.  The pump abilities of Phoenix of Ash and Incendiary Oracle are also sneaky ways to turn it on, and Callaphe also often has 4 - 5 power in the mid-game.

Here's what didn't make it into the main:

My default sideboard play on the draw was to take out an Island and add Infuriate.  Soul-Guide Lantern is a great sideboard option when playing against strong cards with escape, so it also saw play.  I brought in Stampede Rider a couple times as an aggressive card, but I never wanted to cast it over other spells, so it was probably wrong.

First round was against white-black with auras.  I had two bad games.  In the first game I drew excessive lands, and in the second I kept a hand with 2 Islands, Callaphe, and 4 red cards, thinking I would either draw blue spells or Mountains.  As it turned out, I drew just enough stuff to avoid discarding to hand size, but I wasn't able to cast my red spells or keep up with my opponent's very strong curve out.  Loss, 0-2.

Second round was against one of the store guys playing white-blue Nadir Kraken control.  This deck was basically built around a few strong cards and a bunch of removal and tokens to slog up the ground.  He got good mileage out of Flicker of Fate, a card I haven't wanted to play in my aggressive white decks.  In the first two games he played Nadir Kraken on turn 3.  In both games I was able to neutralize it as a creature but not stop its ability (Entrancing Lyre and One with the Stars both have this effect), and whoever got a good flier to stick won the game.  In game 3, he didn't have the Kraken right away, but it became a slog and he did eventually get it again (and I locked it down again).  I think I was likely to lose that game in the long run, but we went to time and drew 1-1-1.  He gave me the win.

I made one pretty notable misplay in the second game (loss) as a result of not being used to the play pattern of certain cards.  He had just flickered his Nadir Kraken to get it out from under One with the Stars, and I had an active Furious Rise in play.  I played Thassa's Oracle and saw Fateful End, but I put it to the bottom, knowing Oracle puts the card on top of the library instead of drawing it, and thinking I wouldn't be able to cast Fateful End before Kraken grew to 4 toughness.  Then my Furious Rise triggered, and lo and behold, I would have had Fateful End available from exile with mana to cast it before the Kraken's upkeep trigger resolved!

Third round was against another good player on blue-black with a strong escape theme.
First game I was a little aggressive as I tried to feel him out, and he punished me with some combat tricks.  Second and third games I had a much better feel for his deck and played it a little more carefully.  The coup de grace in the final game was an Infuriate after blocks on my all out attack, which forced him to sacrifice all but one of his creatures to Lampad of Death's Vigil just to survive the turn.  Win, 2-1.

Fourth round I split the pot with another X-1 player, earning $7.50 in store credit and making time to play some Commander.

So this deck did pretty well, and I honestly think it could have done fine in my first round match if I had drawn the cards that play well against aggressive creatures, such as Threnody Singer and Riptide Turtle.  I probably should have mulliganed the second hand there.

One of the tricky things with Threnody Singer and Riptide Turtle is knowing whether you want to cast them on turn 2.  I generally played the Turtle because it doesn't have as much surprise value, but Threnody Singer I tried to leverage based on whether I needed to be the aggressor.  Singer isn't aggressive on its own, but when you hit it with Impending Doom on turn 3, it becomes a must-answer threat.

As far as value, I drafted a bunch of cards that are cool but not super valuable.  The Oracle is about $5 based on some combo decks that are using it, and the Phoenix is about $1.  After barely getting any Nyx lands last time, this time I ended up with 6 somehow.  My default (and I think most other people's as well) is to always draft them over commons that aren't likely to make my deck.

Another odd wrinkle is that I drafted 3 rares, which is exactly average, but 18 uncommons, which is twice as many as a normal draft.  Add that to the 6 basics and 2 foil commons, and I drafted probably a record low 16 "normal" commons.

I had a bunch of store credit, so I bought two collector boosters for science (one Eldraine and one THB).  I'll write that up separately.

Thanks for reading!

Theros Beyond Death FNM Draft 2020-02-07

Time for another Theros Beyond Death (THB) draft.  This time there were 13 drafters, so that was a little better.  I was at a table of 6.

If you've never experienced different size pods, the number of people in the pod can make a big difference in how the draft goes.  Last week there were 10 in my pod, and that means that out of 15 cards in the pack, only 5 cards would be left when I got them back, and the other 9 drafters were likely split across all the colors.  So I couldn't count on anything wheeling back to me.  This time, with only 6 in the pod, I would see the pack again with 9 cards left and a third time with 3 cards left.  This is a huge difference, especially in second and third packs if you can make your early picks with the expectation that certain cards that only you want will come back to you.

Anyway, here's what I drafted, from bottom left to top right (apparently brought to you by www.yugioh-card.com).  There should be a Nyxborn Courser somewhere toward the end of the first pack -- it was apparently hidden behind another card in the photo.

Pack 1 rare was Temple of Deceit, which I wouldn't mind owning but was not worthy of a first pick.  It was a good pack overall, but I value Banishing Light very highly for its ability to answer almost any problematic card in this format.  Second pick was a lot less clear.  I decided Commanding Presence is just very strong.  Warbriar Blessing is also a strong aura, and suddenly I had 3 enchantments including two auras to start a draft; this felt very weird.  Hero of the Pride was the kind of creature I was looking for, and then the end of the pack fizzled a little and I drafted some blue cards that seemed better than their pick order.

Pack 2 started with Storm's Wrath, a card I happily picked last week.  This time I wasn't sure of my second color, so I grabbed the Transcendent Envoy because (a) I knew I was short on creatures so far, (b) I wanted a flier that synergized with auras (and especially curves into Commanding Presence), and (c) I wanted to signal my opponents to stay out of white.  Second pick Haktos may not have been the most winning play (and it's likely it would have wheeled, although you never know with rares), but it is a card that can randomly win games on its own.  You can see that I still wasn't sure on my second color after that, but a very late Hero of the Nyxborn (which I had passed in favor of a blue counterspell) told me that I should follow Haktos into white-red.

Pack 3 was a frustration point.  I was pretty sure about white-red aggro now, and the pack gave me Kunoros at rare plus a foil Labyrinth of Skophos.  Both of these are cards I would probably first pick in pack 1, but here I was not set up to switch to white-black after passing a ton of really good black cards, and the Labyrinth didn't fit the likely aggressive style of my deck (using 5 mana to remove an attacker or blocker just wasn't likely to come up, and I needed colored mana from my lands).  So I ended up with a red common that was a maybe to make my deck.  After that, I was taking a bunch of commons, and as many Daybreak Chimeras as I could manage.  I took an Eidolon of Obstruction over one just because I didn't think anyone was drafting white as hard as I was, and it did come back to me.  This pack really made the deck viable by giving me the creatures I needed.

An odd note -- people really like these Nyx lands.  I managed to draft 1 total, and it was from a really bad pack that still had 5 other cards.  Note that I also received a rare as my last pick of the draft, suggesting that everyone else found a card they wanted, and one person valued the basic land over the rare.

Here's the deck I played:

There's not a whole lot to say because it's very close to the same deck I had the previous week.  This time I was much heavier in white, and I did start just 16 lands because my curve was slightly lower (Daybreak Chimera effectively costs 3 - 4 mana most of the time).  After laying everything out, I didn't even play my first-picked Hero of the Games because I felt like I had better creatures.

Here are the cards I didn't play in the main deck:

Omen of the Sun was the card I was least sure about.  I probably should have played it, but I'm not sure where.  Triumph of Anax seems like it might be good, but none of its chapter abilities trigger heroic.

How did it go?

Round 1 I was paired against a black-green player from the other table.  I won pretty easily in the first game, but in the second game he got Erebos out, making it really hard for me to use or enchant my small creatures unless his mana was tapped down.  This resulted in interesting gameplay on his part because he didn't want to turn Erebos into a creature or it would be more vulnerable to my removal (Dreadful Apathy, which he had seen with Agonizing Remorse).  He eventually outdrew me enough to break through and win.  Third game he mulliganed to 5, and I had a draw that I liked, with the potential to make a big Hero of the Pride.  Turn 1 and 2 he played deathtouch creatures, and I was held off from attacking for way too long because I couldn't find more creatures.  Eventually I got Commanding Presence, but I wasn't set up to win the race even with a 7/8 vigilant first striker and two copies of Karametra's Blessing in hand.  Loss, 1-2.  I found out later that his sideboard plan included bringing in Kiora Bests the Sea God for longer matches.  Good stuff!

Round 2 I drew the bye, which counts as a win but left me bored for a bit.

Round 3 was against a deck playing white-blue-black off a third pack Dream Trawler, one of the cards that Banishing Light does not answer.  He also had the Kunoros that I had passed.  I had two very strong draws and his deck was quite slow, so I won without much resistance.  Win, 2-0.

Technical 2-1 was worth $12 store credit.  I think this deck is pretty good, but it was missing some of the good things I had last week like Hero of the Winds and the lifelink effects.  This deck was much more driven by commons.  I never did get to try Haktos -- the only time I drew him was in a mulligan hand, and I put him to bottom since I wasn't sure I could get the right mana.  One card I wished I had was Wrap in Flames.  My first opponent was really vulnerable to it, and it would have won me game 3 easily.  I saw one in the draft, but it didn't come back around.

Here are the "value" cards I drafted:

Nothing too exciting, maybe $2 total.  I drafted 3 rares but only 6 uncommons and 1 Nyx land.

Anyway, another good draft for this set.  Thanks for reading!

Theros Beyond Death FNM Draft 2020-01-31

Let's take a shot at Theros Beyond Death (THB) booster draft!  It's only the second week of FNM draft for this set, and there are only 10 of us signed up, so that's not a great sign.  I think a lot of people have abandoned my LGS since it stopped supporting draft as its primary FNM format (now Modern is the primary tournament, and drafts are more like a side event).

Everyone was at one draft table, which makes signals a little weaker and ensures that you'll rarely get a second shot at any good card you pass.  Here's my draft, from bottom left to top right:

Shadowspear is an amazing equipment, and as a colorless card it was an easy first pick.  This pack had good uncommons as well, but I don't think I would ever pass Shadowspear in this format.  This set doesn't have many good artifacts, but Entrancing Lyre is a good one too.  It can usually remove their best creature, and if you have the mana for it, you can have two things tapped down for your attack (one on their turn and one on yours).  This left me wide open on third pick, and I was able to settle into the colors other people were passing.  Hero of the Winds and Commanding Presence led me toward a white heroic/aura plan, so my biggest task was to figure out my second color.  Return to Nature is a great removal spell in this format, and I was shocked to find it at 7th pick, but then the red cards seemed better toward the end of the pack.

Pack 2 was a tough call.  The rare was Eidolon of Obstruction, which is an unexciting rare (it plays pretty much like Youthful Knight, which was common in Eldraine).  There were some pretty good commons, but I felt like Reverent Hoplite had the biggest upside since token creatures play well with the heroic ability of Hero of the Winds.  The next couple picks were things I didn't want to spend such high picks on, but Banishing Light at 4th pick was great.  It's one of very few cards that can answer almost anything in the format.  The rest of the pack was cards that go well in the red-white aura/heroic deck I was working on.  Karametra's Blessing in particular was a card I was very happy to find.

Storm's Wrath doesn't exactly synergize with the cards I was taking, but I think sweepers like this really go into any deck until proven otherwise.  I took a few more just solid cards for the deck and then was rewarded with Anax, who is both a big beater and a nice buffer against removal.  The bottom of the pack was mostly filler.

An interesting side note for this set is that the full-art Nyx lands are more desirable/valuable than normal basic lands, so people draft them instead commons that they won't play.  This results in slightly better nonland cards being available toward the end of packs.  I really like when sets are built with cards in the land slot that are desirable for drafting.

So despite having 3 really good green cards, I was clearly going red-white:

The hardest parts of building this deck were balancing pump/aura spells vs. creatures, and cutting 5-drops.  I started with 16 or 17 creatures likely to make my deck, and I cut it down to 12, which is lower than normal for an aggressive draft deck, because I needed enough combat tricks and auras to take advantage of the creatures' abilities and to make Karametra's Blessing usually function as a 1-mana counterspell.  Most of my cuts were at the top end of the curve, but the bottom end got hit too.  Oread of Mountain's Blaze was a card I ended up being very impressed with, because adding power/toughness boosts to a 1/3 results in a much better brawler than adding the same boosts to a 3/1 like Leonin of the Lost Pride, which I cut.  Also, being an enchantment creature is an upside with Karametra's Blessing.

I had 2 very good 5-drops and 4 more that were good enough to consider.  I feel like there are decks where Skophos Warleader would be an all-star finisher, and it would have certainly had potential in this one.  On top of that, the 6-mana flier Archon of Falling Stars is the kind of card that you almost always want to play in draft.  In the end, I felt like I'd rather stick with my main plan and hope to pressure with instant speed spells rather than draw enough lands to stick 5- and 6-mana battlecruisers.  Interesting in hindsight, the Eidolon of Obstruction that I passed would have easily made this deck, but the Reverent Hoplite that I picked instead did not.

Arena Trickster and Nyxborn Courser were both filler creatures that I wanted just for my curve (rather than playing a better 5-drop).  Trickster is intended for the blue-red "cast spells on your opponent's turn" deck in Limited, but it had mild synergy with some of my spells.

I considered going down to 16 lands, but I played it safe at 17 and only cut to 16 on the draw.

To emphasize how much flexibility my pool had, here's my sideboard:

Entrancing Lyre is a main deck card almost every time, but I felt like I didn't have the flexibility with mana to rely on it as a relatively expensive removal spell in game 1.  On turns 3-5 I want to be casting creatures and auras, and holding up mana for Karametra's Blessing, Indomitable Will, or the activated abilities of some of my cheap creatures.  Triumphant Surge is another removal spell I felt was just too expensive and conditional.  Mirror Shield looks like a great way to protect a creature buffed with auras, but again it costs 4 mana that I'd rather be using to pump power.

So how did it go?

Round 1 was against a grindy black-green deck with at least 3 Moss Vipers.  First game I won pretty handily, and the second game I brought in the Entrancing Lyre and used it to great effect to keep pressure on during my attack step.  This game showed the weakness of Hero of the Winds and Transcendent Envoy -- several turns I could only attack for 1 or 2 damage because I couldn't find my pump spells.  Win, 2-0.

Round 2 was another white-red player.  He had a lot of the cards I had grudgingly passed during the draft, and our decks were quite different from each other.  He also had a Purphoros with the constellation alternate art.  First game I made a 5/8 vigilant Oread of Mountain's Blaze.  He eventually got a Captivating Unicorn, which is a very frustrating card to play against with so many flash enchantments and enchantment creatures in the format, as well as an ineffective Purphoros, but I had just enough power to cross the finish line.  I also made a mistake in this game, missing the "create a 1/1 human soldier" trigger on Commanding Presence at least twice.  Second game he had the better draw and won.  Third game was back according to plan, and I think I still had an unused Banishing Light in hand when I won, "just in case."  Alseid did some great work as a first turn play with its lifelink.  He played Purphoros twice in the match but was never able to get enough devotion to make it a creature (and lost both games).  Win, 2-1.

Round 3 was against someone brand new to Texas who was playing at this store for the first time.  Very nice guy and I hope he comes back.  He was playing blue-black Kiora Bests the Sea God.  This card has been nicknamed "Kiora Wins the Game," and I didn't realize just how true that is until I saw it in action.  On the turn after they play it, you have your last chance to attack (into an 8/8 hexproof) before all hell breaks loose.  The next turn, all your stuff is tapped for 2 turns and they get to attack you for free, and the last turn they steal your best thing and attack again.  This means that you can't really survive the card by playing creatures onto the board as chump blockers, and the only feasible way to beat it is to remove the saga itself.  So in game 1 I had built a good board presence, had no idea how he got to 2-0 with this deck full of filler, and then he played Kiora and won.  I sided out my less effective cards (Storm's Wrath, Dreadful Apathy, Mountain) and brought in pure gas (Infuriate, Leonin of the Lost Pride, Aspect of Manticore).  Second game on the play I was just fast enough to race his mana, and third game I had a dominating draw with Alseid and Shadowspear both gaining me tons of life.  I finished with 45 life and Banishing Light in hand waiting for Kiora to appear (with Shadowspear out, I would have had my choice between Kiora and the Kraken token, which would have been an interesting decision in itself).  Win, 2-1.

Two notable things happened in this match.  Early in game 2, I had a situation where I made a feel-bad mistake after incorrectly assessing timing.  I attacked with the 3/1 Leonin, with Karametra's Blessing in hand.  He cast Threnody Singer, which was going to debuff my Leonin to 2/1 and block it.  I looked for a moment and then said, "Karametra's Blessing with the trigger on the stack," not processing that the Singer wasn't blocking yet.  He started to say ,"ok, trigger on the stack..." and I suddenly realized I wanted to catch it blocking and didn't care about the triggered ability and said "Oh wait, I want to cast this after you block, is that ok?"  He looked for a second and then agreed to let me do it, but I immediately felt bad and told him he doesn't have to let me.  I shouldn't have asked to change the order.  In hindsight, I realized (a) neither of us caught that Blessing wouldn't give hexproof anyway because Leonin didn't meet the requirements, and (b) it is possible that I would have preferred to deal the 4 (or 5 if we both missed the interaction) damage to him rather than kill the Singer in combat (and it's possible but unlikely he would have chosen to block my 4/3).  So anyway, mistakes were made, and I don't intend to do that again.

Second thing was we found a really tricky rules interaction that no one at the store was sure how to process.  He played Ichthyomorphosis on my Transcendent Envoy that was enchanted with Commanding Presence.  The weird part of this is that Commanding Presence grants a normal ability (first strike), a triggered ability, and +2/+2 all in the same text block.  It was clear that it would lose the first two, but we and the store experts/judges weren't sure about the boost.  In looking at the rulings for Ichthyomorphosis, I think we did it right -- it kept the +2/+2 and lost the other abilities, making it a 2/3 with no other abilities.  In the third game, he used Ichthyomorphosis again, on Anax with Shadowspear attached.  It became a 1/2, but I could have re-equipped the spear to give it the trample and lifelink again.  Weird stuff.

So the end result was that I was the only 3-0 player, with a game record of 6-2.  Not bad!  The payout was $25.

This time I drafted 2 rares (below average) and 11 uncommons (above average).  The only card with any real value was Shadowspear at about $5.  The Nyx lands are pretty popular right now and mostly have market price of about 40 - 50 cents on TCGPlayer.

All in all, I felt like I did a good job assessing the cards in this draft, both for drafting and for deck building/sideboarding.  I never drew Storm's Wrath, and I only drew Shadowspear once, which makes the result even more impressive.  All of the 2-drops in the main deck were great, and the heroic mechanic in this set has to be scary to play against, as you can take surprise losses or trades in combat when the heroic player only has 1 or 2 mana available, and on defense you can just lose the game out of nowhere.  With 3 creatures attacking, for example, Infuriate on a heroic creature can add 6 extra damage for 1 mana.

I also think I did a good job of being judicious with removal.  A deck like this doesn't have to remove everything, because it either ends up making them play from behind and lose creatures in combat, or it wins races by surprise with a flurry of combat buffs.  Banishing Light is a truly precious commodity to be saved for the biggest bombs that are indestructible or otherwise hard to answer.

Thanks for reading!

What's in a Theros Beyond Death Theme Booster?

So I was out at Walmart today, and I took a quick look at the collectible card game section, as I often do.  There isn't much worth buying there usually, but you never know.  The Eldraine Brawl deck rack was completely empty, for example, because those have been very popular.  But the Theros Beyond Death (THB) Theme Boosters caught my eye -- specifically the black one with Tymaret on the cover, because that's a card I want for a Commander deck.

He's kind of terrifying -- definitely age 13+.

THB was just released to stores this weekend, so these products had probably only been there for a day or two.  Theme Boosters aren't new, but they have a new gimmick this time around: there are 10 rares, 2 in each color, that can only be found in these Theme Boosters.  These 10 cards are aimed at pseudo-casual play level, or maybe Commander and Brawl players, so they aren't intended to attract competitive players (if they did attract competitive players, it could result in a supply problem because they're so relatively hard to get).  The 2 black cards from this group are kind of unexciting compared to a few in the other colors, but I like black.

Anyway, this Theme Booster was $7.48 for 35 cards.  I didn't check Walmart's price for a normal Draft Booster (it's probably around $4), but I can get those at the LGS for $3.50 and they contain 15 cards.  So what's going on in this booster?  Let's look at the back.

First off, this pack has 35 cards that are probably all black.  They want it to be ready to turn into a 60-card deck just by adding 25 lands (Swamps).  Where are you supposed to get the lands?  I don't know.

"At least" one card will be rare or mythic, and they go into great detail in the small text: 10% of packs will have 2 rares.  I'm not sure if that means the second rare is one of the special ones that can only be in these packs, or if it will be one of the multicolor mythics that are listed in the card numbers.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  The card numbers, which look random and skip a bunch of numbers?  Yeah, it took me a little searching to find a checklist to compare against this.

The best resource for the entire card list that I found was Scryfall; search for all THB and sort by Set/Number.

So THB has a whopping 357 different numbered cards, many of which are alternate versions of the same cards.  The basic set is only 254 cards, but then you have cards only found in Planeswalker decks, showcase versions of some cards, extended art rares (I think of these as widescreen cards), and of course the 10 Theme Booster exclusives.

The card numbers listed in the small text include all of the monocolor cards from the base set, plus the 5 common artifacts and 1 common land, and the 6 multicolor mythic rares.  Weird for those last ones to be included in monocolor packs, but it's nice since those are some of the most desirable cards in the set.  The next 5 cards are the showcase (Nyx constellation) versions of the 5 demigods.  And the last chunk of 10 are the 10 exclusive rares.

Now you might also notice that there is a 30% chance of opening a showcase card.  Since there are only 5 showcase cards eligible to be opened in these packs, 1 in each color, that means that this pack has exactly 30% chance of the Nyx constellation version of Tymaret, and 0% chance of any other showcase card.  That's cool, but it should also be noted that this particular card is for sale on TCGPlayer for as low as 5 cents plus conditional shipping.

The other interesting thing here is that there are 33 - 34 uncommons and commons, with no regard to how many of each.  If it was scaled to the ratio of a normal Draft Booster, there would be exactly 6.6 - 6.8 uncommons.

Ok, enough talking.  What's in this thing?

It's the Gray Merchant of Asphodel!  Not a bad start.  Yes, it's not worth much, but at least it's a very popular card playable in multiple formats.

About halfway through the pack, here's our first duplicate card, and it's an uncommon.  We've also found a land, and I notice that the uncommons (silver mask symbol) are mixed in with the commons instead of being in a specific part of the pack like in normal Draft Boosters.

A little deeper, and there's our friend Tymaret, the former Murder King and current demigod.  Ok, we got what we came for.  We can stop now.

No, let's keep digging.

And there's our rare!  We weren't the lucky 10%, so we only got one angry harpy.  Aphemia can be bought online for about 25 cents plus conditional shipping, but that still makes her the most valuable card in the pack.  And at the very back, I thought maybe we'd get a token, but it's just a double-sided ad card.

So lets see it all organized:

We got 20 total commons and 16 unique ones.  This was out of 19 possible black cards and 6 more colorless ones, so we got at least one of most of the possible commons.

We got 14 total uncommons and 11 unique ones.  There are only 13 uncommons in black (ignoring the showcase Tymaret as a separate card), so we did pretty well here, only missing 2 of them.  Also, 14 is double the 6 - 7 we might have gotten.

The rare was a disappointment, but that's normal when you're opening booster packs of any kind.  Never ever open boosters to try to make money -- it's worse than scratch-off tickets.  Anyway, there are 10 mono-black rares we could have opened, plus 1 black mythic and maybe up to 6 multicolor mythics.  And frankly, none of the rares would have made our money back on this pack, even the Theme Pack exclusives.

So we spent $7.48 and opened about $1 in total value if we're generous.  Underworld Dreams and Gray Merchant are cards that are popular, and the removal spells Drag to the Underworld and Inevitable End have a chance of being played in Standard, but even really good uncommons are rarely worth much.  (As an aside, my kid thought Inevitable End was a really sad card because the dad was cursed while the mama and kid looked on.  I deliberately kept him from seeing Aspect of Lamprey because I wanted him to be able to fall asleep...)

All that, and I still have no idea whether you can get foil cards in these packs.  I'm guessing no, since they aren't mentioned in the small text.

What can we take away from this?

Theme Booster is a good product for you if you:

• Want to get a good sampling of commons and uncommons in a single color and don't mind paying for convenience (rather than buying them as singles, or picking them up out of the garbage at your LGS after some power gamer buys packs and throws away everything but the rares).
• Want to get a feel for the set or learn to play Magic by mashing these 35 cards with 25 lands (that you already have) to build a deck and playing with a friend who is doing the same.  I think this would be a pretty good way to play.
• Find it fun to open something with a random chance of something unique (the exclusive cards).

Theme Booster is not a good product for you if you:

• Want to add money value to your collection.
• Want to build a competitive deck in any format.

Whether it's better than opening Draft Boosters is completely up to your preferences.  These are completely missing some multicolor and colorless cards from the normal set, but they also ensure you only get cards in the color you want.  You'll get fewer rares on average and way more uncommons.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope this helps you know what to expect from THB Theme Boosters.  Me, I'll be exiling some cards from people's graveyards with Tymaret, Chosen from Death while the other 34 cards from this pack probably just collect dust.

Theros Beyond Death Prerelease 2020-01-18

So Theros Beyond Death just released.  I really like the flavor in this set, with so many of the cards trying to either escape the underworld or keep them from escaping.

For prerelease, I got a pool that was distinguished by amazing mana fixing -- 3 Traveler's Amulet; 2 Ilysian Caryatid; Omen of the Hunt; Dryad of the Ilysian Grove; and some other cards that dig a few cards deep for a land.  So I was pretty sure my best bet was to play as many bomby creatures as I could -- Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath; Nightmare Shepherd; Thryx, the Sudden Storm; Gravebreaker Lamia (to find Uro); etc.

My original deck was slightly different than depicted here, but a couple people helped me refine it after 2 rounds.  Here's the adjusted version of the deck (apologies for the glare):

I originally had all 5 colors.  I stuck with red just for the 4/4 Wardens of the Chained because they're such a good curve out after Ilysian Caryatid, followed by a 4-power 4-drop or 5-drop.  With 2 Traveler's Amulet, I only needed 16 lands -- I originally had 3 Amulets and 15 lands, but the other guys convinced me it was too clunky and a bad top deck.  While that's true, I maintain that it isn't the worst top deck when some of your better late game plays are cards escaping from the graveyard, which need cards like Amulet to exile.

So how did it go?

Round 1 vs. White-Green Auras
This deck had Siona and a bunch of powerful auras and aura payoffs.  In the first game I chose to be on the draw, which was almost certainly incorrect.  He built a pressuring army that I couldn't keep up with.  In the second game, I had a great turnaround, managing to flash Thryx in when he didn't have anything to block fliers, and make a winning attack.  Unfortunately, our games were very long (he's a notorious slow player), and we were at a draw.  There is no benefit to a draw, but he didn't want to random for the win, so I told him I'm happy with a draw, but he didn't want neither of us to benefit.  After a lot of back and forth, to the entertainment of other people watching, he offered me the win as long as I give him the win next time it happens.  I agreed.  Win, 1-1.

That match also featured a judge call to fix a timing issue.  He had Dreadful Apathy on my 4/4 Minotaur, and I started my turn with it and an Ilysian Caryatid.  I stated, out loud, with pauses in between, "Draw for turn," drew a card, then, "First main phase," then "I tap the dryad for 2 white mana."  He says "Wait, I want to exile the minotaur so you can't tap for 2."  I said we were already in main phase and it's my priority, so he can't do that.  He says he wanted to do it before my main phase, so I called judge and explained, and judge said he missed his chance.  It's a good reminder to always be clear about what actions you are doing and what phase you are in.

Round 2 vs. Black-Green
This guy had a bunch of strong green cards, between creatures that fight, creatures that pump, and just generally strong creatures like Voracious Typhon.  He also had a Return to Nature to exile my Uro from the graveyard before I could recast it.  Loss, 0-2.

Round 3 vs. Red-Green Klothys
This match was much the same as the one before.  In the first game he had Klothys to exile my Uro from the graveyard while also slowly killing me, and Tectonic Giant to make sure I couldn't get back into the game.  In the second game, he just had too much pressure again while removing my bomb enchantment creatures with multiple copies of Return to Nature.  Loss, 0-2.

For the last round, I had a bye, so I found a game of Commander to lose instead. :)

Lessons learned:

• Green is amazing in sealed, and everyone was playing it.
• My 4/4 rare enchantment creatures and Uro were super vulnerable to Return to Nature, which is just straight up premium in this format.  Furthermore, they were also bad at blocking commons like Loathsome Chimera.  Maybe it was just bad luck with Uro, but he never made it back from the graveyard in 3 tries.
• On the other hand, Thryx was great with the extra 1 toughness and not having the enchantment type.  I didn't see it enough, but I feel like it was the most reliable creature in my deck.
• Medomai's Prophecy was a card I didn't have in my original build, but it was suggested for the card draw.  It was weird to play because it can be awkward naming your play a turn ahead of time.  The second and fourth chapters don't really have much value, so I'm not sure it's worth it for a weird suspend Divination.
• I was notably very short on removal, especially the ubiquitous enchantment removal.  One copy of Drag to the Underworld doesn't go very far.
• With all the deck searching, I felt like I was playing a really bad Modern deck.  :)

As for value, that was pretty good, mostly because I had a great promo.

Given an extra week for the prices to settle by about 30 - 40%, promo Uro is around $32 and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove is around $6.50.  Nightmare Shepherd is around $3 and foil showcase Callaphe is...well, it's pretty?

Anyway, I hope I have better luck drafting this set than I had at prerelease!  It looks like it has some fun directions that are different from normal (I'll be looking for Return to Nature at the beginning of packs...).

Thanks for reading!