FNM Draft 2017-12-22

Merry Christmas everyone!

Two weeks ago I went to FNM and they were drafting Unstable, which I wasn't really interested in.  I played a little Standard and then a game of Commander where I had some land trouble and got demolished by Ezuri and comrades and was the first player eliminated in a 4-player game.  It was fun but nothing worth writing about.

This Friday I went back, and it seems they have switched to chaos drafting because everyone is bored of triple Ixalan.  That's fine by me; I love chaos draft.  I did it at a Grand Prix Houston 2 years ago, and it was limited to 1 pack per set and included sets all the way back to Stronghold.  This one was a little different, with 1 pack of Iconic Masters and a mix of $3 packs including Conspiracy, Conspiracy: Take the Crown, Eldritch Moon, all the current Standard-legal sets.  They were mixed up in a black trash bag, and each player blindly pulled three packs.  We had 9 people at the table.

My packs were 2 Conspiracy (original) and 1 Eldritch Moon.  I had very little familiarity with Conspiracy going in, so I had to do a bit of card reading.  It was particularly odd because the Conspiracy sets were designed for multiplayer games, so some cards were better or worse than normal in duels.  Here is what I drafted:

Pack 1 gave me a very easy first pick, and a card I was already very familiar with, the old standby since Alpha, Swords to Plowshares.  The rare was Sulfuric Vortex, a fun card but not anywhere near StP in power level.  Pick 2 was a Conspiracy 2 card that I wasn't sure about, but it turned out to be a great card.  See its text in photos below.  After that it was a mix of removal and creatures in white-blue, and I was pretty sure about my colors by the end of Pack 1.  A couple of my Conspiracy picks were not as good as I thought after I read the cards a little better (Stasis Cell, Messenger Jays).  Exotic Orchard wasn't a great pick but the pack didn't have much to offer.

Pack 2 gave my Custodi Soulbinders at rare -- in hindsight that might have been the best card but I don't have much context.  The card I took was definitely not the best pick.  I misread that it never untaps unless a creature dies, thinking instead that it untaps every other turn plus when a creature dies.  In any case, I think it is probably very bad outside of multiplayer or very specific decks, and I wouldn't have picked it.  After that I got 2 great auras from recent sets, and then a bunch of playable or borderline W/U cards.  Crookclaw Transmuter (another Conspiracy card) turned out to be a great creature and I was amazed that it is common.  It would certainly be uncommon in a Standard set.  Custodi Peacekeeper taps down creatures with power less than or equal to its draft position, which should have been 7, but I misread the card and wrote 6 on it in permanent marker.  It didn't end up mattering.

Pack 3 had Stromkirk Occultist at rare and nothing notable at uncommon, so I took the underpowered version of Lingering Souls.  Harnessed Lightning was an odd pick (and an odd card to be available), but I thought there was a chance I splash it.  Pariah at 8th pick was a big surprise -- this card has a unique effect that is usually removal + fog but can be very devastating in some situations.

Here is my deck, so you can read some of the weird cards:

The nice thing about white-blue in chaos draft is that those colors almost always make a reasonably good fliers deck, so I didn't have to search very hard for synergies.  I played a bunch of reasonably good 2-drops, and evasion at higher costs.

I actually had a first round bye (because of 9 players), so I was able to do some extra evaluation before playing.  I realized Pariah makes a nearly unbeatable combo with Seraph of the Suns, so I took a couple bounce spells out and replaced them with Seraph and a Plains.  Burrenton Forge-Tender also combos with Pariah against red opponents and just randomly hoses red players on its own.

My sideboard was mostly blue bounce and a few defensive creatures, and I still considered the possibility of bringing in Exotic Orchard / Unknown Shores / Harnessed Lightning against red opponents.  In practice, the only sideboard cards I used were Cancel and Leave in the Dust (against non-creature cards that could give me trouble).

Round 2 vs. M.
After the bye, I was matched against M, who was playing mono-red.  He was next to me on the left during the draft and had first picked a Walking Ballista followed by the Molten Vortex that I passed.  The first game he had the Vortex down but I got the edge with good creatures and timely bounce.  Second game I learned the true power of Keeper of Keys.  Monarch says "At the beginning of your end step, draw a card.  Whenever a creature deals combat damage to you, its controller becomes the monarch."  In multiplayer Limited (which is what Conspiracy is), this is pretty fair, but in a duel it is much easier to sit back behind a wall of creatures and bounce spells, and then attack with whatever unblockable things I want on my own turn.  Of course, I forgot to draw a card the first turn it was in play, but it still set up a situation where even a Walking Ballista a couple turns later couldn't save him.  Win, 2-0.

Round 3 vs. A.
A had been sitting to my right during the draft, and he passed me Keeper of Keys in favor of a conspiracy card that allowed him to cast all his casting cost 3 spells with any color of mana.  The conspiracy is active for the entire game, like an enchantment that can't be removed.  So his draft revolved around grabbing the best available 3-drops in any color.  The deck was Mardu (white-black-red) with no other cohesive theme.  In the first game I was hanging on and close to turning the corner with Pariah and Swords in my hand, but he cast an unexpected Distended Mindbender (everything is unexpected in chaos draft) to discard Pariah, and I couldn't stabilize.  Game 2 I got off to a better start and kept putting out fliers until he was overcome.  I also got rid of Daredevil Dragster with Swords to avoid him drawing 2 cards from it and had a timely Cancel to blow him out in combat.  In the third game, he kept a risky 1-land hand after mulligan to 6 on the play, and he drew perfectly to make his plays.  But I got Keeper of Keys to put on a lot of pressure.  Of course, I somehow forgot to draw for Monarch or attack with my other creatures on the turn I played it, and that almost cost me.  I was holding Seraph and Pariah, and when I played Seraph he again drew exactly the land he needed to kill Keeper of Keys and then make me sacrifice Seraph.  We went into turns.  With him at 4 life I flashed in Crookclaw Transmuter (3/1) on his end step before my last turn, and then I drew Carouche of Knowledge (+1/+1) to get the lethal hit.  Win, 2-1.

Round 4 vs. C.
This was a 4-round tournament with prized based on standings, so at 3-0 we drew the match and split the prize.  It was 5 packs to 1st place and 2 to 2nd place, and he had the better strength of schedule (since I had a bye), so we split the packs 4-3 with the stipulation that I show him what I got in the pack that would have been his.  Not bad!

My final record for actual games played was 2-0 in matches and 4-1 in games, despite a few obvious draft and gameplay mistakes (mainly because I wasn't familiar with Conspiracy)

Here is what I left with:

The pack I opened had nothing notable.  So my best money cards were Swords to Plowshares, which is somewhere over $1, and Harnessed Lightning is still a little under $1.

I drafted 3 rares, which is about normal (although it's strange that they're all from Conspiracy: Take the Crown), and I only drafted 7 uncommons, slightly below average.

I love chaos draft, and I'd be happy to get more of these in before the Ixalan follow-up is released in late January.

FNM Draft 2017-12-01

I tried to get people interested in an Iconic Masters draft, and we had just about the 8 we needed at the same time the Ixalan draft seating was coming off the printer, but we decided to be kind to the tournament runner and just stick with Ixalan.  There were about 23 people in the draft, which ended up being 5 rounds.

It was my first Ixalan draft in a month, but but it's an easy enough format that I jumped right in without any extra prep.  Here is what I drafted:

My first pack rare was Spell Swindle, and there weren't any great removal spells or other exciting mono-colored cards to keep me open, so I decided Shapers of Nature was good enough to just try to force Merfolk.  I didn't see anything to tell me I was wrong, and 3 Shaper Apprentices in the next 4 picks said I was right.  I cut blue hard in the first pack, with only a sideboard card in green.

Second pack Dreamcaller Siren is a very strong rare in Pirates and just a good rare in Merfolk.  So I was happy to find a couple copies of Storm Fleet Spy (another pirate) that I was happy to play with Merfolk.  Meanwhile, Tishana's Wayfinder (x2) was the first really good green card for my deck that I was willing to draft over blue cards.  The late Chart a Course was a pretty good signal that everyone else except maybe one other drafter in my pod had given up on blue -- it was the second best blue card from my pack that had Dreamcaller Siren and probably one of the top 5 cards in that pack overall.

Pack 3 gave me Sorcerous Spyglass at rare and nothing applicable at uncommon, so I took a strong 2-drop common in Deeproot Warrior.  Siren Lookout gave me a 4th pirate to go with Dreamcaller Siren.  Then I started seeing strong Merfolk build-around cards toward the end of the first pass, which was a clear indication that no one else at the table wanted blue merfolk at all.  Deeproot Waters in particular was a big find, because other than Shapers of Nature I didn't have many cards that build value over a longer game.  Favorable Winds was also a good find because I had a ton of fliers and needed more ways to make them threatening.  Dive Down (target creature gets +0/+3 and hexproof until end of turn) was a card I had passed several times but was happy to sneak a late copy of since I didn't find any River Heralds' Boon to interact with combat or removal.

Here is the deck I played all night:

One thing you'll notice right away is no Kumena's Speaker or Deeproot Champion.  Since I was so heavy in blue, I decided to treat green almost like a splash color, with 10 islands and only 6 forests.  This meant that cards that want a turn 1 or turn 2 forest were fairly risky, even though both the Speaker and the Champion are good aggressive cards.

This deck's plan is to go 2-drop, 3-drop, double 2-drop, then play something like Watertrap Weaver (taps down and freezes an opposing creature) once the board is set.  For example, here are two of the common paths through turns 2 - 4.  If my 3-drop is Tishana's Wayfinder, I can attack with flying on turn 3.  If my 3-drop is Storm Fleet Spy, I get to draw a card and then turn on flying the next turn.  No one was playing to block early, so I was able to get raid triggers at will.  Since I had so much redundancy, these starts happened often (subbing in River Sneak as the 2-drop if I was lucky).

Opt was my only 1-drop, and when I got it in my opening hand it made for very smooth starts.  Depths of Desire was the closest I had to a removal spell (I was so all-in on merfolk that I took Shaper's Apprentice for my second overall pick over a Savage Stomp, a pretty good green removal spell).  Emergent Growth looks like a card I could use to beat down with fliers/River Sneak or win a race against a tapped out opponent, but in practice it was an expensive Diabolic Edict -- they block with their worst thing.  That isn't horrible, but it wasn't as good as I had hoped.

Here is the sideboard:

I was expecting Slice in Twain to be a good sideboard card, but I never actually used it because I didn't run into much I needed to destroy with it.  In practice all I brought in was the Deeproot Champion in matches where I needed to be aggressive and Cancel/Spell Pierce in matches where I saw a card I couldn't beat other ways or thought I could surprise an opponent.

Since I had such a low curve, my sideboard plan on the draw was to take out an island and add more action (usually either Deeproot Champion or Cancel).

So how did this deck do?

Round 1 vs. C.

C almost always wins against me.  He was playing white-red Huatli Junk.  First game we whittled each other down, and he won a tight finish.  Then I rattled off two straight wins.  Game 2 he didn't get his plains, and game 3 I mulliganed correctly (2 forests and no islands -- a hand I have sometimes kept with bad results) and had a super smooth curve while his was not so good.  Win, 2-1.

Round 2 vs. R.

R was extremely polite and talked through every move thoroughly, which was great for communication but also made for slower play.  His deck was white-green Dinosaurs, and I could tell from some of the things he said and did that he wasn't a top level player.  In the first game, he beat me down with a 3/3 flier while I slowly set up my defenses and took my hits.  The life totals were 30-4 before I began my comeback.  With Shapers of Nature, Deeproot Waters, and eventually 8+ lands for multiple activations per turn of the Shapers, I grew a Shaper Apprentice to 8/7 and a Wind Strider to 5/5 and took the game.  Second game played like a less dramatic version of the first -- he gained some life and we built our boards, then I got him with a few tricks and more evasive creatures.  Good thing too, because we were close to time.  Win, 2-0.

Round 3 vs. E.

E is a pretty good player who was in black-red Pirates.  He had a Kitesail Freebooter that annoyed me several times, and a Skullduggery or two that frustrated my 2/1s to no end, but I had the better cards or made the right moves, and I finished with a pretty easy 2 wins.  In the second game he mulliganed down to 5 on the play, and he just ran out of cards too fast.  Win, 2-0.

Round 4 vs. A.

I play A all the time in these drafts, and he is very good.  This time he had a black-green aggressive deck that was trying to play Blight Keepers (1/1 flier) and put Mark of the Vampire (+2/+2 lifelink) on them.  In game 1 on the play, I had River Sneak on turn 2 and just rushed him into oblivion.  In game 2 on the draw, we played a more even race, but I was holding a timely Depths of Desire to bounce his biggest attacker, taking me to 1 life for a win on the backswing.  He did play an unexpected Boneyard Parley but only got a Watertrap Weaver out of his 7-mana investment.  Win, 2-0.

Round 5 vs. S.

We were the only 4-0 players, so we took an intentional draw.

I was the first seed heading into Top 8, so I got paired against the 8th seed T.  I would have been happy just splitting the Top 8, but someone wanted to play so play we did.  Cool thing about being a high seed in the Top 8 is the higher seeded player chooses who goes first, so I was on the play in game 1.

Round 6 vs. T.

His deck was either mono-red or very close to it.  In the first game I had a great draw and his draw did not match up well, so I took the game easily.  Then I started running into trouble.  Game 2 on the draw I had a good hand but his stuff all had haste (Nest Robber on 2, Captain Lannery Storm on 3, and Charging Monstrosaur on 5) and he had good tricks like Sure Strike to win combats when I blocked.  Game 3 I stayed at 15 lands on the play and just prayed I would get a better draw than him.  My draw was a little slow but I kept rather than going to a non-functional hand because I knew Deeproot Waters had a chance to help stabilize me if I fell behind.  He had the strong curve again, and I had to change gears out of race mode after he played Monstrosaur to do 11 damage rather than the 5-7 I expected.  I had a plan to stay alive the next two turns at 4 life, and I cast Dreamcaller Siren to tap his big stuff before combat on his next attack.  Then he just cast an Unfriendly Fire on me to end it.  Loss, 2-1.

So even though I ended up with the 5th-8th place prize (3 packs), I felt really good about this deck and my gameplay.  My record for the night was 4-1-1 in matches and 9-3 in games, surely my best result ever in a draft.  In the last round, I played an opponent whose best draws matched up well against my deck, and I honestly don't know how I could have played differently and won.  If I was on the draw game 3, I might have sideboarded into all-defense as much as possible and tried to drag the game out with a flier to do damage, but on the play I just wanted to race it out since I had been successful in the first game.

So what was the draft worth?

I drafted 3 rares, which is as expected, and 12 uncommons, which is slightly above the 9 expected from 3 packs.  Blue has some money cards below rare in Ixalan, including Opt and Chart a Course both in the 50 cent to $1 range.  Spell Swindle is also $1, mostly for its use in goofy UB artifact decks trying to win with Marionette Master or Revel in Riches.  It might also be popular in Commander.  It also has amazing art, as the character is turning the countered spell into literal gold coins that are raining down on her and her monkey/goblin friend.  So my draft was worth maybe $4 or so.

But wait, there's more!  Between rounds, some high rollers were opening packs of Iconic Masters and Modern Masters 2017, and one of them was actually putting his bulk cards in the trash can.  I wasn't too proud to look through them, and I took home some of the more interesting ones.  See below.  Inquisition of Kozilek was the big prize; it's a card I actively want for Modern, and it runs close to $3.  Azorius Signet is about $0.80 due to few printings.  Other than that, I took some other cards that are possibly useful for Modern or Commander or Cube or giving to friends.  And I left the rest of the trash on the table for new players to grab.

Oh, and of course I also had the 3 prize packs.  Good times!  Ixalan may be unpopular, but it's a format where I can win, and I won't argue with that.

Iconic Masters FNM Draft 2017-11-17 and Mirrodin-Time Spiral Retro Draft 2017-11-19

Iconic Masters released a week ago, and I tried my hand at a sanctioned Masters draft for the first time.  Iconic Masters is a great set for me -- big fun effects, lots of strong creatures, and just generally a powerful game environment with a nostalgic bent.  As often happens with these Masters sets, cards were downshifted in rarity, increasing the overall power level.  IMA has a ton of 5/5 and 4/4 fliers at uncommon and rare, so for example the 3/3 Phantom Monster sitting at common is not as strong as it looks.

Oddly, since the set was spoiled so long ago, content creators seemed to have forgotten about it, so there were not many pick order or strategy guides for this set.  There were a lot of people at the LGS interested in drafting it, but very few who knew much about the set aside from what valuable cards were in it, so I actually had a little bit of a preparation advantage over the more experienced players, who did more money-drafting than usual.

The format was single-elimination pod drafts with $35 entry.  First place prize was 2 packs and second place was 1 pack.  Here's what I drafted:

My first pack rare was Graven Cairns, a red-black dual land worth a few dollars.  I went with Ulcerate, one of the best uncommons in the set.  Pick 2 gave me one of the most iconic of iconic creatures, Serra Angel.  Third pick I passed on some probably better cards to take Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, the card I most wanted from this set for my Commander deck.  By the end of the pack, I looked like white-blue but was still very open.

I had been taking mana ramp cards (which draft guides seemed to think should go highly), so the Rune-Scarred Demon in Pack 2 seemed like a good top end if I ended up back in black.  Pristine Talisman came from an unexciting pack (I think it had a lot of good red cards).  Seeker of the Way (formerly a strong uncommon in KTK, now a common) is an easy pick for a white deck, and then I made a greedy choice to take Thran Dynamo out of a pack with a Doom Blade.  The Dynamo has a little money value, but Doom Blade was by far the better card for the deck I was building.  After a second Seeker of the Way, I realized my path was toward white aggression, although as you can see from the two Sandstone Oracles, I was still not quite sure.

The first picks of my third pack were synergistic with the white aggro plan (with a minor lifegain theme), so that's where we ended up.

Here is the deck I built:

I was sad to cut the top end cards and ramp, but I felt that the 2-drops packed so much power in this deck that I shouldn't dilute that power, and instead I could use my 3/4/5-drop fliers as finishers.  Survival Cache is amazing in this build because it curves out with Seeker (which is 2/2 Prowess and gains lifelink when you cast a noncreature spell) or Ajani's Pridemate to give life, power, and card advantage.  All the Rebound spells are good with Seeker, and Seeker is good with Pridemate, so as long as I could get those guys out early I would be hard to race.

My primary sideboard had a little more defense and specialty removal depending on what kinds of opposition I faced.  Sustainer of the Realm is really good for blocking 4/4's, and this set is full of them.

Here is the ramp package that I decided wasn't good enough for main deck and was only a marginal sideboard plan:

Turn 4 Rune-Scarred Demon would have been great, but I thought it wasn't worth the risk of clunkiness.  I think the set is designed for the mana ramp cards to fit best in a red-green deck full of X spells and massive creatures.  Another thing I realized was that Teferi is probably an insane Limited card in the right kind of deck, but I just didn't have enough blue to make it worth playing the number of islands I would have needed for him.

Round 1 vs F.
F was on Jund (black-red-green) midrange with bad mana fixing.  He had a bunch of aggressive red creatures.  First game I kept a hand with 2 Swamps on a mulligan to 6, and by the time I drew my Plains on turn 3, I felt like I had to add a creature rather than cast Survival Cache -- in hindsight I think I should have used the Cache first because it was my last chance that game to draw cards from it.  I lost pretty quickly and was one loss from elimination.  Next game went much better, and I was able to win pretty easily.  Third game he got his Kiki-Jiki out, but my lifegain and powerful curve kept me in it, and I won with 4 life remaining.  Win 2-1.

Round 2 vs. A.
A seemed to be on a more focused draft plan than some of the other folks, with a pretty focused blue-black deck with a minor mill theme.  He had an Oblivion Stone, which made life horrible for me.  In the first game he got a Jace's Phantasm down, and I played around Oblivion Stone as well as I could by holding back Serra Angel, but after he killed everything but Phantasm it was 5/5 and I was racing against time.  He had Ojutai's Breath to tap down my Serra and Sustainer of the Realm on consecutive turns for the win.  Game 2 I battled with everything I could, getting my best 2-drops followed by Survival Cache.  He got the Oblivion Stone again and rebuilt with small fliers that milled my deck.  I took him down to 1 life but lost to a lethal attack while also sitting with an empty library.  Loss, 2-0.

So not quite good enough for prizes, but I felt pretty good about the deck I drafted, and if a few things had gone differently, I might have finished better.  I don't think I made any obvious mistakes other than noted above, which is good considering a lot of these cards were not very familiar to me.

Here are the best value cards I drafted:

The foil cards aren't actually worth anything.  At about $3, Thran Dynamo is one of the "chase uncommons" in this set along with Urza's Bauble.  Rune-Scarred Demon is about $2 as this is its first reprint ever.  Teferi is a little over $3.  All three of these cards are valued mainly for their use in Commander and casual play, so I expect them to retain or gain value tempered by any future reprints.  Still, a return of about $8 from a $35 draft is bad and I probably had the worst value at the table, as I saw other people with multiple $10 and $20 singles.  None of the high-value cards passed by my seat, so even if I had gone full-greed, I don't think I would have broken $15.

I drafted about 8 uncommons and 2 rares, both below expected for 3 packs.  But I think I drafted about as well as I could have for a first pass, and this was a fun break from Ixalan.  And I'm super excited to have Teferi now.

Since the draft went quickly, I stuck around and tested Standard with my Black Torment of Scarabs Control deck against P's white-blue God-Pharaoh's Gift deck.  I went 3-2 in games, getting lucky with my graveyard-exiling cards a few times (I even searched up Scavenger Grounds with Razaketh's Rite once).  It was good practice for both of us.


And now for something completely different!

For my birthday a couple months ago, I bought myself a sealed tournament pack each of Mirrodin and Time Spiral.  Each was $30, containing roughly the equivalent of 3 booster packs plus 30 lands.  I missed both of these sets while I wasn't playing, so it was fun to get a chance to try them out.  Mirrodin (2003) is the set that introduced equipment and a bunch of overpowered artifact-themed cards that continue to dominate in Modern.  Time Spiral (2006) was an homage to classic Magic sets, with a time theme and lots of nostalgia cards.  It also includes a seemingly random assortment of "timeshifted" reprints.  For some perspective, both these sets were before the mythic rare rarity or the planeswalker card type existed.  Over the Thanksgiving holiday, Mike and I did a Winchester draft from these cards for some retro-Magic fun.

Here are the decks we came up with.  I'm white-black, and he's black-red.  (The one blue card in my deck has Morph).

My deck was heavy on defense and had some good suspend cards.  Mike's deck was more aggressive and had a nasty assortment of slivers.  In games, Mike went 2-1.  I also played a two games against Eric's pared down Kalemne Commander deck, and he won them both easily.

How about value?

Time Spiral had a few non-bulk cards at each rarity, with the best dollar value in Paradox Haze ($3), Trickbind ($3.50), and the very bizarre Norin the Wary ($5).  Rift Bolt is still a surprising $1.50 after a reprint in IMA.

I got a little lucky with the artifact land cycle in Mirrodin, opening the two best in Ancient Den ($2.20) and Seat of the Synod ($1).  Beyond those and a few other cards slightly above bulk, Duplicant ($3), a sneaky removal spell with combo potential, was the only single with any real value.  It would be well over $10, but it has seen multiple reprints.

Another thing to note (aside from the bizarre pro-player collector card included in TSP) is that the basic lands in these sets have some minor value.  I love the metallic look of the Mirrodin lands.  They are iconic and unique.  The Time Spiral lands are a little less pretty in general, but a few are interesting.  The TSP illustrations are darker overall than normal basic lands, especially the Plains, which are more black/gray than white.

All told, the total value of the TSP cards is probably in the $15 - $20 range, and the total value of the Mirrodin cards is closer to $9 - $12.  Not amazing, but it was fun to try these out, and a few of these cards are Modern or Commander staples.

Thanks for reading!  I hope to play more Iconic Masters or retro drafts in the future, but if Ixalan is what's running, I'll probably end up doing that instead.

FNM Draft 2017-11-03

Hey!  I got to go do another Ixalan draft.  From what I hear and read, most people are getting tired of XLN draft already, which is unfortunate because there are 2 more months of the format.  But this is only my second draft, so I'm fine with it.

Lets get right down to it.  There were 26 players, which meant I was at a table of 9.  Here is my draft, from bottom left to top right:

The second best card in my first pack was Charging Monstrosaur.  Last time I passed the rare and took Monstrosaur, and this time I have to admit I let the value push me to Huatli even though Monstrosaur might have been the better pick.  Next two packs had some strong white dinosaurs (Bellowing Aegisaur in each), but I went for the black cards instead.  I have been trained to go aggressive in this set, and I was looking to get some auras and low drops with evasion.  Again, the dinosaurs next to Huatli might have been an awesome start, but it just wasn't the start I was looking for.  I did take dinosaur-themed white cards with my 4th and 5th picks, but then I got a run of packs that played toward my black aggressive plan.

Second pack I was really enamored with my black fliers and Mark of the Vampire, so I worked toward that goal.  I think the rare from my pack was Ashes of the Abhorrent, which is not good in Limited.  I took two Pirate's Cutlass highly to go with Desperate Castaways, and Lightning-Rig Crew incentivized me to go after pirates.  The first Cutlass I actually picked over Walk the Plank, just because I felt my deck was more likely to be bad if I didn't have the Cutlass than if I had one less removal spell.

Pack 3 I took the Pirate-themed sweeper to start.  The rare was green -- either Old-Growth Dryads or Shapers' Sanctuary (I saw both during the draft).  Then I added a good flier, two more auras, Sword-Point Diplomacy, and an aggressive 1-drop.  Diplomacy is a card that got panned in set reviews, but I want it to be good.  I played it at prerelease in red-black aggro, and this deck was shaping up to be far more aggressive, so it seemed like it might fit.  Skullduggery is a nice combat trick, and since I had missed on tabling a Sure Strike earlier in the draft, I was happy to get it.

In the end, I think I did pretty well, although I might have done better with white-red dinosaurs after picking Huatli (Aegisaur would have been particularly nice with Trove of Temptation).  As it turned out, my neighbor to the left was white-red dinosaurs with the Monstrosaur and two Aegisaurs that I had passed.  My neighbor to the right was blue-green merfolk, so that worked out well for me.  The deck that I ended up in was pretty close to some decks that I saw did well in Limited Grands Prix (I looked up the plural for that), so I was happy with it.  Auras are good in this format because the removal is mostly bad, although timely removal makes the auras look silly.

Here is the deck I settled on:

As you can see, the curve is ridiculously low, with turn 4 intended for auras and turn 5 onward intended for pump spells or other finishers.  The 4 one-drop "Keepers" and the Cutlasses ensure that I have mana sinks for the late game.  Lightning-Rig Crew is my only creature with defensive stats, although any creature can become big with auras or swords.  My main goal was to give myself lots of early damage (one-drop, Swashbuckling or one-drop, two-drop, Cutlass) with Mark of the Vampire to turn the race in my favor on turn 4.

Notably, I didn't splash for Huatli.  I missed a couple chances to get more pirates that make treasure (Dire Fleet Hoarder), which would have made it easier to splash without any lands.  Huatli is very strong in Limited, but she didn't fit my aggro plan well enough to bend the manabase.

Here are my sleeved sideboard cards:

I didn't think much about sleeving more white cards and having some plains ready, but it might have made sense if I ended up wanting Huatli.  As for the almost-rans, Deacon and Bishop were both slightly off since I had very few vampires.  Those two are great with a higher vampire count, and honestly Deacon might still have been great here as a 5/3 that occasionally has Mark of the Vampire or pumps Skymarch Bloodletter.  And I felt that Deathless Ancient was just a little too expensive for my 16-land manabase, and I had enough fliers.  I did bring in Contract Killing a couple times, particularly on the draw, and I tried Munitions as additional reach but never actually drew it.  Sword-Point Diplomacy came in a couple times and actually did some good work for me.  And I did have one match where I brought in Contract Killing, Trove, and Huatli just to see what would happen (what happened was I drew Huatli and couldn't cast her).

So how about the matches?

Match 1 vs. D.
D. was playing white-black but without enough vampires to be a true vampire deck.  He's kind of new to Magic, and his deck was so-so, but we ground to a standstill in game 1.  We reached a holding pattern where I was doing 2 damage and he was gaining 2 life every turn.  But he had cast Sword-Point Diplomacy early on, and he ran out of cards first, so that worked out but used up most of our time.  Game 2 I got off to a hot start and took him down easily, and we avoided running out of time.  Win, 2-0.

Match 2 vs. S.
S. is a regular who I've played occasionally before, and he had a good red-green dinosaur deck.  In game 1, I kept a 2-mountain hand and took way too long to draw my black mana.  In game 2, I had a much better start, but we maneuvered into a fast race where I would win if he didn't have something to stop some of my damage, and he did.  Loss, 0-2.

That match was fast enough that we played a little Standard while waiting for the round to end.  I had my Torment of Scarabs Control deck (I would call it Scarab Control, but now everyone would think that means a Scarab God deck), and he had a deck that he said would beat all the popular decks if anyone would actually try it -- it was a green-white energy-fog control deck with Consulate Surveillance and Cataclysmic Gearhulk or Hostile Desert as win conditions.  Game 1 I got a long slow win with Torment of Scarabs, just enough removal, and a Torment of Hailfire X=5 to finish the job.  Second game we had to abandon because the round ended, but he cancelled both Torment of Scarabs and Gifted Aetherborn with Ixalan's Binding.  My sideboard plan of going heavy on creatures and bringing in Duress was pretty effective, but he was probably going to win the game.  I do like my deck -- I have a couple replacements in the mail to update it, but the general plan is the same.

Match 3 vs. N.
N. is an interesting opponent.  It's an understatement to say he has an odd personality, and a lot of people have a hard time playing with him because he doesn't always get the rules right.  His deck was white-black with Vraska, and it was unusually potent.  He still made bad errors like blocking my 3/3 with only one of his 2/2s while I was tapped out, but Vraska does a lot to fix those problems.  In game 1, I got him down to 4 and managed Vraska for a little bit, but he never gave me an opening for Dinosaur Stampede and he forced me to discard them with Heartless Pillage.  Game 2 I had to fade Wanted Scoundrels and eventually managed to trade a Cutlass-wielding pirate for it.  I put the free mana to good use and got the win.  Game 3 I was off to a strong start until I again ran into Heartless Pillage and Vraska.  There were several points where I could have gotten the win if he had not had the right move to stop what I was waiting to do, but he killed my stuff and swamped me with board advantage.  We were deep in turns, and I tried to just survive for a tie, but he got enough power on the board that I didn't have a chance.  Loss, 1-2.

Match 4 vs. K.
I almost left at this point, but K. convinced me to stick around, so I did.  He is another newish player, and his deck was white-red with 3 Legion Conquistadors (the 2/2 that lets you pull the rest out of your deck into your hand).  In the first game, I got a little stuck on colored mana and while it ended up close, I eventually lost.  This was the match where I put in Huatli and the two treasure-making cards for my sideboard plan.  Game 2 was a flawless victory from a mulligan to 5 cards on the play -- my hand included Rigging Runner and Swashbuckling, and that's hard to effectively block.  Game 3 ended up being a good back-and-forth, and I eventually won. Win, 2-1.

I was going to play Match 5 since 3-2 is technically alive to make top 8, but the guy said he didn't mean to stay in, and he conceded up front.  I asked the tournament runner if it was worth sticking around to see if I got in, and while he never says never, he said I could probably leave if I wanted (based on the pairings, it looked to me like I was probably the worst of many 3-2 players).

So what did we learn?  My final game record was an even 5-5.  I think my deck was good, but not as good as it could have been.  Maybe pushing Huatli in and playing more midrange would have been better.  She isn't as good as Vraska, but she does warp the game when she's in play (as I learned from playing against her at prerelease).  I have been conditioned to think that auras are always good in this format, but I ran into enough removal that I did get 2-for-1ed a few times.  The haste on Swashbuckling almost never matters, but it's still a good spell on turn 2 with almost any of the 1-drops in the format.

I also would have been curious to see how my deck would have turned out if I stuck to W-R dinos from the beginning of the draft.  There were several draft picks I would have liked to have back even for my final deck, but I don't think they were necessarily wrong at the time.

I was also super disappointed by Dinosaur Stampede.  I thought I'd be able to get a win or two just by throwing that on 2 or 3 attackers, but it always got stuck in my hand without a good window to cast it.

I never drew Fiery Cannonade, which was a bit disappointing because my deck might have synergized well with it on many boards.

Achievements unlocked:

• Win a game by casting Skymarch Bloodletter while opponent is at 1 life (drain for 1 when enters the battlefield)
• Win a game by using the activated ability of Blight Keeper (7B, tap, and sacrifice to drain opponent for 4)
• Turn Skullduggery into a 3-for-1.  Opponent attacked with a Encampment Keeper (1/1 first strike) and I double blocked.  He cast 2 instant pump spells and I responded with Skullduggery.  Nice.
• Never have a Desperate Castaways that can't attack when it wants to.  The 3/2 split with Castaways and Cutlass seemed just about right, and having Castaways turn into a 4/4 attacker on turn 3 is always nice when it happens.

Spoils?

Nothing too exciting after Huatli, which is hovering around $6-7.  Kumena's Speaker and Kitesail Freebooter both have seen some play in Modern, which makes them slightly interesting while not actually valuable right now.  In total, I drafted 1 rare and 1 mythic, which is slightly below the 3 rares expected in 3 packs.  I passed a couple rares worth minor money, like Thaumatic Compass, but I didn't see anything of high value after Huatli.  I drafted 12 uncommons, which is a bit above the 9 expected.

All in all, I enjoyed this draft, and I'm excited to try again.

FNM Draft 2017-10-13

So it's Ixalan time!  I hadn't drafted it yet, but I have read a lot of good articles and watched a couple draft videos, so I felt pretty well prepared.  The best draft advice I saw was Brian DeMars' just-published column on ChannelFireball, and it played a large role in my strategy.

We had 25 players in the draft, which made it a 5-round tournament.  They did a cut to top 4 because there was a big all-day PPTQ tournament at the store the next day and they didn't want to be up later than necessary (it normally would be top 8).

Here's the draft, from lower left to top right, with Merfolk tokens added for flavor.

At a glance it's just a Temur (blue-red-green) draft, but I actually made a major shift between Pack 1 and midway through Pack 2 out of red and into green.

My first pick tells most of the story on its own.  I opened Burning Sun's Avatar and Charging Monstrosaur.  BSA is the better card in a vacuum, but it also costs 3 red mana, so by taking it I would have been locking hard into red and passing the Monstrosaur, which my neighbor would certainly have drafted.  Instead, I took the slightly lesser bomb to remain flexible.  In hindsight, it may have been a lose-lose situation where I should have taken a non-red card.  I don't remember the best non-red card in the pack.  Anyway, the first half of this pack I was red-blue, and then I stopped seeing good red cards and took some merfolk synergy cards instead.

Second pack my rare was Growing Rites of Itlimoc (the "Gaea's Cradle" double-faced card), which was selling for over $15 when XLN released and has dropped to about $8.  I wasn't in green at the time, but I would have taken it for sure if I had been.  I took the strong Lightning Strike instead.  But it quickly became obvious that my passed BSA had put my neighbor in red, and I was kind of uncertain.  The high quality blue merfolk I had been seeing late in Pack 1 and early in Pack 2 signaled that blue merfolk were fully open to me, and when I saw Shapers of Nature halfway through the pack, I changed course and started grabbing every merfolk card I saw in both green and blue.  I even snagged Headwater Sentries (2/5 vanilla merfolk) because good flier decks usually need a ground blocker.

My Pack 3 rare was Captain Lannery Storm, a good aggressive red card.  I decided to let my neighbor have the good red stuff and take the must-answer aura One With the Wind instead.  Auras have had a reputation for being horrible, but WotC has figured out a sweet spot where some of the new auras are actually quite strong.  OWtW is probably the strongest of these, and considering how good it was in my deck, I wish I had seen more of them and I would first pick it in the future.  My next 4 picks were very good green merfolk cards, and I was locked in.

Here's my deck:

I briefly considered adding some red, but despite the high power level of my best 3 or 4 red cards, I went with zero-removal pure blue-green merfolk instead.  Ixalli's Diviner and the two Siren Lookouts were the only non-merfolk creatures in the deck, so almost every card I played was a hit for River Heralds' Boon and Deeproot Waters.  Siren's Ruse is technically a pirate payoff, but I had some really good enters-the-battlefield abilities to trigger, so it made the cut ahead of some other close calls.

I think the curve is pretty good.  Jungle Delver is pretty weak on its own, but it's good enough when you consider interactions with a turn 2 One With the Wind, the merfolk payoffs, and the Storm Sculptor.

Speaking of which, here is the sideboard:

I only used 3 cards out of this bunch.  Shipwreck Looter replaced Ixalli's Diviner in games where I needed to improve my aggression.  Grazing Whiptail came in once or twice on the draw against opponents with fliers.  And I brought in both Blinding Fogs once on the draw against a very aggressive opponent.  Dive Down is basically a counterspell for removal, but I already had several cards that do similar things, and I just didn't see enough removal to warrant it.

In my final match, I kind of wanted to sub in the red cards, but I didn't have mountains out and didn't want to take the time to reconfigure my mana base.  I'll be ready with a swap plan next time that I have actual strong cards in a third color.

So how did the games go?  Pretty well!

Round 1 vs. G.
He had a white-black vampires deck that was as on-theme as my deck.  But I had the stronger individual creatures, the nice tricks, and the tappers.  I just had to be able to do more damage than his lifelinkers, and he had a lot of those.  Win, 2-0.

Round 2 vs. J.
J was on black-red, with a mix of pirates, dinosaurs, and vampires.  I took Game 1 pretty easily on the play.  In Game 2 he played Rampaging Ferocidon, which makes both of us take damage for creatures entering play, and I had to play Deeproot Waters, which doubled my own damage.  I did eventually kill the Ferocidon, but I was too far behind.  Game 3 I got one of my good draws and won through a 4/4 lifelinker and some lifelink tokens on his side.  Win, 2-1.

Round 3 vs. A.
I play against A a lot at these things, and he usually shows me a trick or two I don't expect.  He was playing Jund (black-red-green) with a variety of stuff, but most notably a Thaumatic Compass, which gets extra lands out of the deck and eventually turns into a Maze of Ith (a land that can remove an attacker from combat).  His curve included some big dinosaurs.  In Game 1, we traded some hits, and he eventually got big creatures out that I was able to block just long enough with merfolk tokens.  My Storm Sculptors sealed the win.  In Game 2, I just had a very good draw -- the 2/1 flying Merfolk and Shapers of Nature with One With the Wind is 7 flying damage a turn starting on Turn 4, and that's hard to beat.  Win, 2-0.

Round 4 vs. B.
B had black-green merfolk-pirates.  It was pretty similar to my deck, but with removal instead of tap-down.  In Game 1, we got to a stall on the ground, and I was playing my turns a little slowly, and he told me (paraphrasing), "This is going to take a while, so play faster please."  I tried to pick it up a little bit, but I wasn't worried about time because this deck just wins or loses pretty fast in general once I get certain cards.  A couple turns later, I drew One With the Wind and was able to break the stall and win pretty quickly.  After drawing my hand for Game 2, I failed to notice that I had 2 forests and no islands (I thought I had one of each).  I'm not sure whether I would have mulliganed, but in any case I never drew any third land and I conceded after a few turns discarding to hand size.  Game 3 I think I set him off again because I wasn't doing my Deeproot Waters triggers right -- I would cast a creature, say "pass," then put a token on the table.  He made a noise like he was going to protest but didn't say anything.  It turned out to be a pretty good game, but he got me with removal and I was dead on board.  I deliberately attacked with my flier, cast my pump to drop him to 4, then passed and conceded.  We had something like 15 minutes left in the round.  Loss, 2-1.

Round 5 vs. C.
C was playing one of the coolest (and trickiest) draft decks I've ever seen -- Grixis (blue-black-red) spells.  He had a lot of the weird rares no one wants -- Sunbird's Invocation, Primal Amulet, and Search for Azcanta (this third one is generally good, but the other two are hard to build around in draft).  In Game 1, I had a slow hand that included two Jungle Delvers.  He kept putting out swamps and islands, and I had no idea what he was doing.  I had finally started developing a board when he put down Sunbird's Invocation and the action began.  Invocation lets him play extra spells for free, Amulet reduces their cost and copies spells on its flip side, and Azcanta (flipped) finds more spells.  He may have only had 4 or 5 creatures in his whole deck, but his turns were ridiculous and he was not missing any triggers or making any mistakes.  He was also communicating very clearly and had the good humor that my previous high-skill opponent seemed to lack.  I gave up after it was clear he could destroy anything I played with his insane card advantage.  Second game I mulliganed twice and kept 5 cards on the play.  I got off to a pretty good start, but again I was eventually stuck with just a Jungle Delver and enough mana to double activate it.  I got a Watertrap Weaver with a +1/+1 counter and dropped him to 2 life, but he killed my Delver and started playing blockers, and I needed something like a flier or a Tempest Caller.  I drew a River Heralds' Boon and made a poor attack -- my 3/3 into his 1/4, 2/5, and 2/3.  I knew he would block and I would kill something, but I failed to think through his position to realize that his safest move was to block with everything and not just the 1 or 2 creatures I was hoping for.  I also ignored the fact that he knew I had a combat trick.  I cast the pump (a mistake on top of a mistake), but my 5/5 wasn't big enough to survive and traded with his 2/5.  A couple turns later, as I was dying, I drew Storm Sculptor.  It would have worked well with the Weaver (assuming no removal), but I couldn't cast it because I didn't have a creature to bounce.  I don't know how likely it was that it would have worked, but I really shouldn't have made my bad attack.  So I can partially blame these losses on land flood (both games), and partially on misplays, but this guy also had a cool deck and was a fun opponent, and I'm fine that he won.  Loss, 2-0.

So the final tally was 3-2, but it was a "good" 3-2 based on strength of schedule, and I was 5th/6th place and got 3 packs as a prize.  As a general rule, going 3-0 and then losing 2 is way better than going 0-2 and then winning 3.  In games I was 7-5, which is pretty good for me.

Some thoughts about this draft and the format:

• I won every die roll to play first.  I also won the first game every match except the last round.  Sometimes a little luck helps.
• The last two opponents seemed like the sort of "semi-pro" players I always hope to avoid.  I always play a little anxious and make more mistakes when I'm against someone who obviously plays many hours of Magic and lots of tournaments.  It's good practice though.  I was sort of surprised to see those people this Friday, but I guess since the prize is a bunch of packs and store credit, it will bring those people out even if there isn't a good promo.
• After about 10 PM, I get a lot sloppier because it's late for me -- I will be more impressed than anyone if I ever keep winning against the top level players in the final rounds of one of these events.  Essentially, I'm already at my worst when I start playing the most important games.  There's no easy fix for this other than practice -- I'm not going to change my sleep schedule to do better at FNM.
• This was a super easy deck to win with -- having multiples of my best cards made it feel almost like a constructed format deck, with more consistency than usual from game to game.
• I already said it, but One With the Wind was excellent.  Shapers of Nature was also great, but I never had a situation where its second ability came up.  Attacking with open mana to threaten a +1/+1 counter allows for attacks I couldn't normally make.  And also just having a 3/3 for 3 is good when you can play OWtW and another 2-drop creature on Turn 4.
• Explore is really good, but it feels bad most of the times that you get a land.  I know it's drawing a card, which ultimately helps, but getting an undersized creature feels bad in this deck.  Ixalli's Diviner is the swingiest, as an 0/3 is usually almost useless, but a 1/4 can block well and attack a little.
• I did make at least one mistake with explore, leaving a Shaper Apprentice on top mid-game when I really needed something more impactful.
• I feel like this was a very good draft for me -- I had a very good deck without even playing two of my first picks.
• In most formats I want several removal spells.  In this deck I had none and I never really missed it.  The tapping effects were good enough to race against bigger creatures most of the time.

Here's the loot:

I drafted zero rares, which is 3 fewer than expected, and 7 uncommons, which is 2 fewer than expected.  Since both my foils were commons with no real value, that means I drafted essentially no money.  The best money cards I passed were Growing Rites of Itlimoc and a foil Field of Ruin.  Winning 3 packs essentially gives me a do-over for my $10 entry.

So this was about as well as I've ever done in a draft, and I feel pretty good about this format.  I'm not sure if it's as interesting as HOU-HOU-AKH was, but I'll try it out some more.

Thanks for reading -- I had a lot more to say than usual.

Nate

Ixalan Prerelease 2017-09-24

I was really enjoying Hour of Devastation draft the last few weeks, so it was a little bit of a downer to have to switch to a new set, but Ixalan delivered and I had a great time at the prerelease.

I went Sunday morning, which is the worst attended slot.  There were only 9 people I think.  But that's enough to play some Magic!

My kid told me I should play pirates when I asked which of the four groups I should be.  My first two rares were black pirate cards (Dire Fleet Ravager and Fathom Fleet Captain), so I was already looking at pirates as I started to evaluate my pool.  I saw potential for a black-red aggressive pirate deck, so that's what I built as Deck A.  It looked like this:

My pool was really weak on removal, but I had a lot of good creatures, so I tried to push the raid theme in this deck.  Even though I probably had too many 5-drops, playing 3 Pyromancers seemed ok with all the attackers.  The 1-drop creatures also help with raid, even though they're not great.

Then I looked at the rest of my pool, and Gishath, Sun's Avatar was looking at me like "why the hell aren't you playing me?"  So deck B was dinosaurs:

The cool thing about this dinosaur deck is that it can get off to some super fast starts with Kinjalli's Caller, casting multiple 2-drops on turn 2 or even more things on turn 3, and Commune with Dinosaurs means I usually can find a big top-end dinosaur when I want it.

Here are the cards I sleeved up as sideboard.  I didn't change my decks much though, mostly just swapping decks based on play/draw or matchup considerations.

And here is the rest of my pool.  Notice that I didn't play blue at all.  Search for Azcanta seemed really good, and I definitely had some cards to make a blue deck work, but it just didn't call out to me.  I didn't have enough merfolk or vampires to make an on-theme deck for either group, and I ended up not playing some pretty good ones in favor of middling dinosaurs and pirates.  I also have no idea if not including Sunbird's Invocation in a deck was a mistake -- it is really slow to get out but then it can make big things happen (a lot like Gishath, without being self-enabling).

A quick look at the matches:

Round 1 vs. M (white-black vampires)
His deck was just all lifegain and all removal -- two of the things I didn't have.  I won game 1 with Deck A, then lost game 2 with Deck B and lost game 3 back on Deck A.  My saddest moment was in game 2 when I used Commune with Dinosaurs to get Gishath, but I had to wait until next turn to cast it.  He knew I had it and waited with Bright Reprisal (kills an attacking creature), and that was basically game over.  1-2

Round 2 vs. C (blue-green-red [Temur] value)
C had a deck filled with cards that gave continuous value if he could live long enough to play them, like Search for Azcanta, Waker of the Wilds, and Thundering Spineback.  I tried Deck B and then Deck A, and he just slowly ground me out of both games with  repeatable effects.  In the second game I kept forgetting that the dinosaur tokens from his Spineback were actually 4/4 instead of 3/3 because the Spineback pumps them.  He also countered Raiders' Wake, which would have been really good in that game.  0-2

Round 3 vs. P (white-black-red [Mardu])
I'm not sure that P had an actual theme, but he did have the planeswalker Huatli.  First game (Deck A) he got stuck on 2 lands and never got going, and second game (Deck B) my dinosaur curve just beat his.  2-0

Round 4 vs. M (sans-black 4-color)
I started on Deck A, but he had his own Waker of the Wilds, and he animated a land with a bunch of counters.  Next time he attacked, I didn't block it because I forgot he could just add more counters to the same land to make it bigger at instant speed, and it killed me.  He also had Huatli in his deck, and it gained him a bunch of virtual life every time he got it out because I had to attack it to avoid being swamped by it's repeat value.  Games 2 and 3 I played Deck B.  In game 2 I got Gishath and we had a complicated board.  I attacked all out with Rallying Roar in hand thinking I could use it on attack if he let me have lethal damage, and I could use it on defense the next turn if not.  He set up just enough blocks that I was able to cast it to do exactly the 16 damage that he had left.  Game 3 I got set up with Bellowing Aegisaur, and it either attacked unblocked or added counters, and I ambushed him with Rallying Roar and then swamped him with giant dinosaurs. 2-1

I was 1-2 and M was 2-1 going into the last round, so I made a deal with him like I've done once before when I was paired upward -- 3 wins gets a 7-pack prize, so there was nothing to gain from me winning, so if I won he would get the "official" win and split with me.  So I walked out with 3 packs, which is not bad.

There were some cards I definitely didn't feel like were as good as I hoped, but the weirdest one was Belligerent Brontodon, which I never actually cast because it would have usually made some of my creatures weaker (it makes my creatures do damage equal to their toughness instead of power).  Dire Fleet Ravager was kind of strange too -- I didn't usually want to lose 1/3 of my life because I was casting it to try to stabilize.

The cards that really impressed me were Rallying Roar, Bellowing Aegisaur (which I thought would have been too expensive to be worth it), Shining Aerosaur (just a 3/4 flier, but it usually matched up well), and the 1-drops in my Dinosaur deck.  In the Pirate deck, Pirate's Cutlass was good, and Fathom Fleet Captain was good in the one game that it didn't get instantly killed.

Overall, the Pirate deck (A) was 2-3 and the Dino deck (B) was 3-2, as I went 5-5 overall.  The Dino deck felt like the better deck.

Here are my rares and foils (including the back side of Search for Azcanta):

It was a good time, and I look forward to some Ixalan drafts over the next few months.

FNM Draft 2017-09-15

Ok, so I said I wouldn't be going to FNM again for the Fatal Push promo, but hey, I got another shot!

I do like this draft format, and every week I do better.  Here's the latest draft (bottom left to top right):

My two Hour of Devastation packs had Bolas and Scarab God on the front, and I said "I'll open the Bolas pack first."  Well what do you know, it was an actual Bolas pack!  Usually I try not to get locked by my first pick, but of course I want to play this card.  So the main question at this point is which of the two colors I would focus in (or whether I would try a green version with color fixing).  The next 3 picks led me toward blue-black (Consign // Oblivion has a black half), but then I got a big surprise with a 5th pick Sand Strangler, one of the best uncommons in the set and almost unfathomable to be available so late.  The pack also had Open Fire, and so did the one after it (my 6th pick) which was a strong signal that red was going to be pretty open.  With Thirst and Sand Strangler, my need for deserts was also increased, and I had difficult picks the rest of the pack as I hunted for color fixing (Traveler's Amulet), deserts, and Grixis color cards.  I took an Oasis Ritualist late as a hedge in case green became strong in the next pack.  I had been passing a lot of green including at least two other Oasis Ritualists, so no one on my right was taking green but probably one of the players on my left was getting fed a great green deck.  After Pack 1, I was closest to being blue-red, but still open to change.

Pack 2 opened with a Wildfire Eternal at rare.  None of the uncommons were super, so I started with Open Fire and hoped maybe the Wildfire Eternal might come back around and I could have enough spells to enable it.  The rest of the pack was just good cards in all 3 colors, and I was most happy to see a Manalith toward the end because my colors had evened out between blue-red-black and it wasn't clear whether I would be able to focus into two.

Pack 3 rare was Sandwurm Convergence, a card I hated passing (which would further strengthen the green player to my left), but I took another playable red removal instead.  Deem Worthy was nice and it looked like I was heading toward red again, but the rest of the pack went blue-black for me because I knew I needed creatures, especially ones that could defend well as I hunted for Nicol Bolas and my removal.

Considering the constraints, I think I did quite well.  It made for challenging deckbuilding though, as I had quite a few cards that did similar things.  My red was almost all in removal and my low-cost creatures were in blue and black, so I decided to go blue-black as main colors and red as a "big splash."  Here is the deck I played for the most part:

There are a lot of different synergies, so I cut my eternalize cards except for the cheapest one, and I cut my 4-drop removal because I had plenty of cheaper removal.  The black creatures from AKH have some good synergies.  In particular, Dune Beetle on 2 lets me cast Baleful Ammit or Soulstinger -- or both -- at full power.  The two black fliers aren't very strong and are both very weak to -1/-1 counters, but they gave me a way to attack when I had the ground locked up.  But I was also playing toward a goal of stabilize the board, win with Nicol Bolas, and most of my creatures were intended to do that as efficiently as possible.

With 3 colors and 2 seven-drops, I went to 17 lands.  Three cards let me make any color mana, although Survivors' Encampment is pretty bad at it and mostly just provides a fourth desert.

Here is the basic sideboard (minus Horror of the Broken Lands, which I lost amongst my unplayables for part of the night).

This is probably a deck that wants Strategic Planning in the main, but I always have a hard time deciding what to cut for card filtering like this.  The package of Vizier of the Anointed and eternalize cards is very good, but I was worried I would be behind enough on Turn 4 that casting a 2/2 that eats even more mana to give value wasn't quite what I needed.  I might be very wrong about that.  Sinuous Striker is a fairly aggressive card that seems more at home in a deck with a higher blue mana count and some ways to give it evasion or higher power/toughness.

There were only 17 people (I drafted from a table of 8, and the other had 9), so we had 4 rounds and then a cut to top 4 (instead of the usual top 8).

Round 1 vs. A.
It seems like I play A every week -- he's very good and usually ends up in top 8.  He had a white-black zombie deck with a lot of the zombie tribal cards.  Game 1 was long and slow, and he beat me largely on the merits of a pinging Wall of Forgotten Pharaohs, and sometimes a Blighted Bat attack.  Game 2 was going largely the same way, but I put Bolas down and stabilized, and he conceded when it was clear I would be able to use the -4 ability (7 damage to target creature or player) twice in a row.  Game 3 he got off to a slightly better start, and he had me in a tough position when time was called.  I played enough defense to get a draw.  1-1-1.

Interesting misplay in game 3 that neither of us caught but a neighboring player mentioned later: A cast Torment of Venom on my Soulstinger, which had 2 counters on it, and I put the 2 counters on one of A's creatures.  But Torment puts 3 counters, so I should have put 5 counters from Soulstinger on one of his creatures instead of 2.  I don't think it would have had a major effect on the game outcome, but it would have made me choose a different target, and it was a good learning moment in any case.

Round 2 vs. R.
R was in a white-red aggressive deck, so I had the task of trading cards for his creatures and out-valuing him over the long game.  First game he got me down to 4, but I came back and got him with fliers and removal.  Game 2 he missed his third land drop for a turn, and his hand was all 3-drops, so I got an insurmountable lead with Dune Beetle into Baleful Ammit, and the game ended with me at 32 life.  2-0.

Round 3 vs. J.
This was one of the most exciting rounds I've ever won.  J was playing Jund (black-red-green).  In the first game, I got the Beetle-Ammit curve again, and he had a Moaning wall to block but couldn't stop me from gaining a bunch of life.  Then he used a lifegain spell and a Gift of Paradise, and I was ahead 33 - 27.  He played out his bomb, God-Pharaoh's Gift, and I played tough defense with a 4/5 Soulstinger and 5/5 Hexproof Striped Riverwinder.  I even survived an attack with several eternals where he cast Overcome to give everything +2/+2 and trample thanks to my high life total.  We battled so long that he ran out of dead creatures to eternalize.  He cast a card draw spell that did 2 damage to get him to 10 life, and I knew I had my shot -- I drew Nicol Bolas, and with exactly 10 mana in play, I cast an Open Fire and then cast Bolas for his -4 to do exact lethal.  The second game we got rolling with low drops, and traded a lot of small hits.  I was down to 9 but got the Baleful Ammit at full strength and put in several attacks to get back up to 21.  He put the defense back up, and I played Carrion Screecher, the 3/1 zombie bird with him at 4 life.  On his turn it was God-Pharaoh's Gift coming down, but he didn't have a flier.  He did have one creature that would have killed the Screecher, Merciless Javelineer, but he didn't have enough mana for its ability.  On my turn I attacked for 3 and then coolly finished him off with Open Fire.  2-0.

Now I had the prize in sight at 2-0-1.  Just needed one more match win.

Round 4 vs. P.
P was the guy 2 spots to my left who was the beneficiary of all the great green cards I was passing.  His deck was blue-green big monsters, seemingly quite heavy in green.  My first draw was Nicol Bolas, Manalith, Traveler's Amulet, and 4 lands.  I kept in the hopes of getting some kind of roadblock.  He got his early green creatures, but I slowly worked back into the game, then when I dropped Bolas, his spirit instantly sank.  I stole a couple creatures off the top of his deck and then burned him down with the -4.  Game 2 he played Rhonas's Last Stand on turn 2, and I followed up by Consigning it away.  After that, he had better plays and eventually shut me out, although he spent the whole game worrying about Bolas.  Game 3 we both got off to pretty even starts and beat each other down a bit, but he had a nasty Rhonas's Monument in play.  I was holding Bolas, and on his turn after I played my 6th land, I Unsummoned Carrion Screecher out from under a Thirst.  I played my 7th land, scanned the board to see whether I could play Bolas profitably, or whether I needed to put down the Carrion Screecher or Sand Strangler I was holding to improve my defense first.  I decided it was best to play Bolas, and he cast Supreme Will to counter it.  I didn't even look at his three untapped lands, because he hadn't shown any counterspells the previous two games, and no one had used counterspells against me all night!  It turned out Supreme Will was P's sideboard answer to Bolas, and he didn't think he would be lucky enough to draw it at the right time.  But he did, and after that I was on my back foot until time was called.  On his last turn after time was called, he played a creature to pump and trample with Rhonas's Monument and finished me off.  Loss, 1-2.

P ended up making 5th place at 3-1, but one of the top 4 had left early so he got the promo (and good for him, he earned it).  This makes me think I wouldn't have gotten it with a tie at 2-0-2 (8 points), but I'm not 100% sure.  3-0-1 would have definitely been in the prizes.

My total record was 2-1-1, which is respectable, with a game record of 6-3-1.  I won every game where I resolved Bolas, and I think I also won every game where I hit Dune Beetle into Baleful Ammit.  I think Bolas is the most unfair bomb card I've ever played in a Limited event, maybe tied with the Torrent Elemental that I was lucky enough to open at both FRF and DTK prereleases.  I was also quite happy with most of the cards I played, and I'd note that Consign // Oblivion is sneaky good in this kind of deck.  I was able to side in Liliana's Defeat a couple times, and it was nice the one time I found it.  4 deserts was just enough that I almost always had one for my desert payoffs, and despite the split manabase I never had to take damage from Ipnu Rivulet or Ifnir Deadlands (the previous week, I pinged myself a number of times -- but this time my deck had 17 lands rather than 15 and I was never short on lands).

I do feel like I played better each of the last 3 weeks, and I am just getting really into this format as it rotates away.  Aside from not playing around a counterspell in the final game, I didn't notice any obvious mistakes in my play.

As for the takeaways, there isn't much to say.  Bolas is about a $12 card right now, and should retain some value for people playing him in casual and EDH formats (and just because he's a popular character) even after he rotates.  I only drafted 1 rare for the second straight week, 1/3 of the mean, and I drafted 9 uncommons, which is exactly on par for 3 packs.

Ok, now it's time for Ixalan!  See you at the prerelease next week!