Friday was AER-AER-KLD. I was hoping for a quieter night with fewer people, and there were just few enough that we only had to play 4 rounds instead of 5 (I think the cutoff is 24 people and we had something like 22 or 23), but still plenty that top 8 got prizes instead of top 4. In terms of mathematical odds of making the cut, this was about as good as it gets.
I was in Pod 1 so we had a full 8 people drafting. There was a little table talk before the draft between people who were joking about taking each other's colors, so if I knew these guys' tendencies a little better I might have been able to use this information to my advantage.
Here is my draft, starting bottom left and moving upward through each pack. The Ajani Unyielding at the edge of the screen was the first pick of the guy sitting across from me (Seat 2 vs. my Seat 7, so 3 slots to my left).
So lets analyze! Pack 1 Pick 1 I saw Baral's Expertise and immediately knew it was my pick. There were some other good cards, but this card is high impact and can blow your tempo open. The other best card was Hungry Flames, so I felt like I was setting someone to the left up in red. Pick 2 was really tough, because I saw a Winding Constrictor but didn't want to immediately put myself in the situation of having to cut one of my first two picks. I may have also overlooked something good in red because I had already passed red and was willing to concede red to a neighbor. Leave in the Dust was probably not correct, but it fit with what Baral's is trying to do. I felt pretty good about being in blue for the rest of the top of the pack, taking a Chandra's Revolution even though I felt like it was destined to be no better than a splash. Aeronaut Admiral at Pick 7 seemed unusually strong for almost everyone to have passed, so I suddenly felt like white was my likely second color. The rest of Pack 1 was a mix of mediocre red and white cards, with Welder Automaton again suggesting that maybe red was underdrafted, and I didn't see anything else remotely playable in blue.
Pack 2 Pick 1 was the stone cold lock of the week. Walking Ballista in this set feels like Smuggler's Copter in triple KLD -- a rare that you pick both because of the dollar value and because it is high-impact in Limited. The other card I really wanted was Wind-Kin Raiders, but there's no way I don't pick Ballista. Then came a shocker. Even though I had continuously passed high quality red cards to my left in Pack 1, 5 of my next 6 picks coming from my left were very powerful red cards. Meanwhile, blue was completely absent from the cards I was passed. In fact, Shielded Aether Thief (which was also from the pack I opened, so definitely made the full wheel with the help of the Wind-Kin Raiders from that same pack) was the only blue card that felt good at all in this pack. I did pass a couple counterspells and maybe some other low-end playables. The bottom half of Pack 2 was again not great, with another Welder being the best pick in my colors. Oddly, someone took a land and let me have a Lathnu Sailback, which fit my colors even if it was borderline to make my deck.
Pack 3 gave me the best and worst Pick 1 possible -- I opened a Masterpiece series Painter's Servant, which is great money value but bad draft value. Luckily, the rare in this pack was horrible (Dubious Challenge). I did feel a little sad passing a Renegade Freighter, but not sad enough to pass a card that pays for several drafts on its own. Pack 2 I don't remember what was the competition, but Fabrication Module felt good enough (it's the one that adds +1/+1 counters when you gain energy, and I thought I could make it snowball between my energy generators, bounce, and Skyship Plunderer). As you can guess from the next few packs, there wasn't a lot to excite me in blue or red. Kaladesh is often the "strong pack" in AER-AER-KLD draft, and this is illustrated well by Wayward Giant, which I feel is way better than the Lathnu Sailback from Pack 2 at the same rarity and casting cost. I can kid myself that I drafted Inspiring Vantage in case I had enough white to splash, but the truth is I want it for constructed and I would have taken any fastland at almost any pick in Pack 3 because I think they have long-term value. Bomat Courier was kind of a stretch, as it's small and not an expensive rare. The bottom half of the pack delivered a Chandra's Pyrohelix and two more energy producers in Spontaneous Artist and Janjeet Sentry.
Overall, I feel pretty good about this draft, but I wonder if I should have taken the good red cards in Pack 1 (I passed Hungry Flames, Aether Chaser, Chandra's Revolution, Sweatworks Brawler, and who knows what else) instead of locking in blue. I don't think I really made a mistake taking blue; I just got punished because other players were also taking blue or because the blue in Packs 2 and 3 was just weak. As it was, I had almost enough red and colorless playables to go mono-red (maybe splashing Aeronaut Admiral and Skyswirl Harrier), and with some of the cards I passed, it might have become a reality. Another notable oddity was my complete absence of vehicles. Aside from the Freighter in my KLD pack with Painter's Servant, the only vehicles I even remember seeing were a Mobile Garrison (almost picked in the middle of an Aether Revolt pack) and Aradara Express (did not consider).
My rares almost look like a sealed pool -- 6 rares (including the Masterpiece) is double what you would expect in 3 packs. The rares I opened were good, and Release the Gremlins was a very strong card to be passed. That said, 3 of the 6 didn't make my deck.
I drafted 8 uncommons (including a foil), which is 1 fewer than the 9 you would normally see in 3 packs. None were super exciting (although Hungry Flames is a premium draft card), and 3 didn't even make my deck.
So here is the deck I played. That's 8 Mountains and 8 Islands. Partway through, I replaced Leave in the Dust with Precise Strike and didn't switch back, but I never drew either card, so I effectively stayed with the same deck all night. I also didn't sideboard any, as 16 lands felt about right on the play or draw, and I never really faced a deck that had obvious answers to bring in.
I considered Walking Ballista to be basically a 4-drop that can also be played at 2 or 6+ mana. Combined with all the Chandra's Revolutions at 4 mana, this made for a pretty consistent curve that plays creatures early and removal late. I did make sure to take plenty of 2-drops in the draft, and I ended up with a mix of aggressive and defensive ones.
Round 1 vs. S.
S. was playing white/blue fliers. I think he was sitting one or two seats over to my right for the draft, so he was at least part of the black hole my blue cards were falling into. And he wasn't the cleanest player (he usually played creatures before combat, and he used Shipwreck Moray's pump ability at sorcery speed before combat once), but he did set up bad situations for me without always realizing it. He had two Ghirapur Ospreys and three Convictions in his deck, and at either 2/2 and 3/5 an Osprey was always a pain and never a great target for Chandra's Revolution. In Game 1, I raced his fliers and played a timely Consulate Skygate to block him out and get the win. Games 2 and 3 he got his Spire Patrol and Dawnfeather Eagle online, and we played fairly competitive games that he won. This also happened to be the only round that I never drew Walking Ballista, and I also had Release the Gremlins in my hand with no targets once or twice. Loss, 1 - 2.
Round 2 vs. M.
M. was another player with some softer play habits. Before Game 1, he finished shuffling and I didn't remember even seeing him shuffle, but I cut and just noted it. Turns out he has the worst shuffling habits I've ever seen -- Game 2 I paid close attention as he held his cards sideways and slightly face up, and idly pulled chunk after chunk of cards from the middle and dropped them in the front to "shuffle." When he set his deck down for a cut, I riffled it twice, cut, and let it be. I don't think he was trying to cheat, he just didn't really get shuffling or something. He also played extremely slowly. As for the matchup, he was playing white-red with a bunch of vehicles. He said he had 3 copies of Irontread Crusher. I was never in great danger of losing either game, but I did have to waste multiple resources to kill the tank once. Another time he just had too many tanks and I was able to kill all the crew. I got my best action out of Baral's Expertise in one of these games, casting it on two of his creatures and one of mine while he was tapped out to send his 2 Convictions (yes, another player with a bunch of Convictions) and 1 Revoke Privileges to the graveyard. Win, 2 - 0.
Round 3 vs. W.
W. is one of the more experienced regulars, and he had a pretty sleek black-red deck. Game 1 he put out Mobile Garrison followed by Weldfast Engineer, which makes a nice combo where he can attack for 5 and then have the Engineer untapped on my turn. I took the hit and burned the Engineer down with Revolution. A couple turns later he did it again with another Engineer! On my side, I had mulliganed and kept a hand with Ballista and saw Sweatworks Brawler with my scry, so I made the calculated risk of playing Ballista as a 2-drop 1/1 so that I could improvise out the Brawler on turn 3. As it worked out, I kept both creatures the entire game and ended up with a board that looked kind of like this at the end of the game (he had a Sweatworks Brawler instead of the Artist, and some other 2/3 instead of the Embraal Gear-Smasher, but the math works out the same. He had 4 life. Do you see the winning attack? I actually missed it for a turn (I forgot about my Gremlin), and W. commented on it after the game.
Round 4 vs. P.
P. was playing blue-red. I kept getting Aether Swooper out against him, and that is a very slow card to try to win with. He had at least 2 Chandra's Revolution of his own, so anything bigger that I played would die. Game 1 was good, but I got a little behind and then lost. Game 2 I kept a hand with 2 Islands on the draw and didn't draw another land until Turn 4 or 5, at which point I was deeply behind. I did have the good fortune to draw all of my blue 2-drops, so I was able to hang in for a bit, but by the time I played my 4th land to start casting Revolutions, I was just so far behind I couldn't catch up. Loss, 0 - 2.
Match Record 2 - 2. I asked the scorekeeper if 2 - 2 was likely to make the top 8, and he said maybe, so I stuck around to find out. It was probably good enough for someone, but it wasn't good enough for me on this particular night.
As for my gameplay, I'm only aware of a few minor mistakes and the one major mistake (missing the lethal attack) that didn't actually cost me. I think I missed a chance to activate a Welder Automaton once, and I might have had poor sequencing or missed a chance to use something else that I didn't even realize.
Individual card MVPs:
Walking Ballista -- This card is just super. When it's on the battlefield, it severely limits what your opponent can do, even with only 1 or 2 counters. The fact that it doubles as a direct damage sorcery makes it even more unfair (almost like a Rolling Thunder that you can play in any color).
Release the Gremlins -- As long as I had a target, this card was always good. It was usually a 4-for-1 (2 targets, 2 Gremlins) when I cast it, even if the targets were sometimes not worth a full card (like Servos).
Wayward Giant and Sweatworks Brawler -- These both combine size with menace in a way that makes them hard to block well at their respective points on the curve. The Giant is truly giant against most Aether Revolt creatures.
Chandra's Revolution -- I was afraid that 3 copies would be too many, but it kills almost anything, and the land-tapping is a real bonus.
Baral's Expertise was kind of an oddball. Sometimes it did something amazing, and other times it just made the game longer. The worst case was when both players had small creatures and it felt like it wasn't worth casting.
Cards that underwhelmed:
Embraal Gear-Smasher and Janjeet Sentry -- 2/3 for 3 is so-so unless the ability is good. My other 2 cards with the same stats (Hinterland Drake, Salivating Gremlins) did better, but these two barely used their abilities. I needed the creature count though, and Watchful Automaton is far worse at 2/2.
Skyship Plunderer and Fabrication Module -- I never got either of these into full combo mode, but I also didn't draw them very often. In my very last game where I got stuck on 2 mana, I had energy and the Plunderer, and Module would have had a chance to shine if I could have cast it on curve. Don't get me wrong, I will always play Plunderer. It just didn't do as much as I hoped.
Universal Solvent -- This one just never got to 7 mana. I did get it to pump Salivating Gremlins once by bouncing it with Baral's Expertise, but I think my less experienced opponents were more scared of this card than they needed to be (M: "Oh! That one kills anything!" Um, yeah, sure it does.).
Maybeboard?
There are some tricky things I never even tried. Ravenous Intruder (aka Atog) might have been a serious beater in this deck. With it and Embraal Gear-Smasher, Wrangle becomes a pseudo-removal spell. Splashing or sideboarding for my two white fliers might have been worth it, especially in Round 1 when I kept running into fliers that they matched up well against. Bomat Courier was a difficult one for me to evaluate because I wasn't trying to be fully aggro, but it would certainly have been a better 1-drop than Universal Solvent. What do you think I should have done differently in building the deck?
Thanks for reading. As always, I had fun, and I hope to draft AER-AER-KLD at least one more time (unless I end up in a Modern Masters draft instead...).
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