AKH is a great and challenging draft format, and the LGS still gets a lot of people each week. We had 25 drafters, which is just enough to force 5 rounds. I was in the only pod with 9 players.
As always, the draft runs from bottom left to upper right.
My pack 1 rare was Gideon's Intervention, which I would have gladly taken with a later pick. But I knew if I didn't get in on Trials early, I would miss out on them, so I hedged toward repeatable 4/2 beasts. Second pick was from a very strong pack -- I think the guy next to me opened Hazoret, so I was gifted with an Edifice of Authority, which is almost certainly the best AKH uncommon at the beginning of a draft (before you know your colors and synergies). 4th pick Commit // Memory looked sweet at the time, but I don't think it was the best pick in retrospect. I know that blue is not a very popular color in AKH draft, so I was hoping I could lean into a windfall if other people weren't drafting it. Sure enough, I had some very good blue cards in the next few picks, along with a smattering of playable white cards.
After Pack 1, I was very open to white, blue, or green, although I had passed some pretty good white cards. I also had two Trials but no Cartouches. I took the WU dual land to start Pack 2; probably it wasn't the optimal pick, but rare lands tend to hold some value and it would either fix my main colors or let me splash. Sure enough, nothing white came my way in Pack 2. But a 4th pick Crocodile of the Crossing was a pretty good indicator that I could keep drafting green. I'm not sure what 4 cards were better than Oracle's Vault, but I was happy to find it at 5th pick after losing a game in my previous draft against the long term advantage that it provides. The rest of the pack was a bunch of green stuff and my first blue Cartouche.
Pack 3 I opened Mouth // Feed, which fit well with my theme of big green stuff and slow card advantage. I wasn't getting as much good green and blue this pack. I did pass Bounty of the Luxa at one point for a cheaper card (maybe the Winds of Rebuke) because I was worried that I was drafting too much slow stuff and I was hoping no one else was in UG and it would wheel back to me. In hindsight, I would have loved to have that card available, and I'm not sure it was mathematically possible for it to come back even if no one wanted to play it. Pack 3 is often where you get passed really great cards that other people can't use, but a lot of my picks were fringe or sideboard cards. I would point out that I had good enough mana fixing that I would have loved to splash a great off-color card, but there was just nothing that seemed worth adding to my strategy.
I feel like my draft was ok, with a few mistakes but nothing cripplingly bad. I only saw a couple good red cards the entire draft, so I was glad not to have gotten suckered into trying to draft red.
Here's my main deck.
And here's my sleeved sideboard (sort of organized by what type of effect).
Learning from last time, I simply sleeved up every green or blue card I had so that I wouldn't forget about them while boarding. I was also completely uncertain whether my deck was built right, so it gave me room to adjust. I had a really tough time cutting to 23, and the third Colossapede and third Cartouche of Knowledge were my last cuts. I also had Trial of Knowledge in my main deck over Winds of Rebuke originally, but switched after Round 1. I think in high level events you have to start every match with your original submitted decklist, but I've never heard anyone say you can't change your deck between rounds here.
Open into Wonder was one card that I thought was really good when I saw it previewed, and if any deck is right for it, this is a pretty good one. But I was cautious and left it in sideboard to bring in if I found a matchup that was truly grindy and stalled out, and based on how the games played out, that was the right choice.
My white was not the right quality level + curve for splashing, so I stuck with UG.
So my strategy, I hoped, was survive early and gum up the board with big stuff, then win with Cartouche of Knowledge on a fatty. Let's see how well that worked:
Round 1 vs. A, playing white-red aggressive. In game 1, I came close to stabilizing, but then he played Throne of the God-Pharaoh and killed me by having creatures like Bloodlust Inciter tapped. So naturally I sideboarded in Dissenter's Deliverance. I also brought in Ancient Crab and Stinging Shot in hope of slowing him down. He had taken out Throne and he beat me down again. I did a total of 5 damage to him during the match. 0-2. (As for mistakes, in Game 1 I forgot to return my Trial of Strength when I cast a Cartouche -- I felt less bad about that when I saw another player had done the same thing with 2 Trials in play. Easy mistake to make, even though it seems so obvious.)
Round 2 vs. J, who was on black-green with some zombie and -1/-1 counter synergies. This round was more of the same -- he would start fast, and I would try to catch up but get swamped by small creatures. In the second game, mulliganed to 6 and kept one land on the draw, and I missed my second land drop for a turn but managed to slowly edge back into the game. I was holding Commit and hoping for a good opening, but I ended up casting it at end of J's turn to put away Compulsory Rest from my Shefet Monitor. I desperately needed a way to block a flier, so two turns later (before he drew Compulsory Rest again) I used Memory to shuffle and reload. I got a Cartouche of Knowledge and slammed it on my lizard, and he zapped the lizard with a Final Reward he had drawn off Memory. Timetwister effects giveth, and they also giveth to your opponent. 0-2.
Round 3 vs. S. S is a good player, but he was having a rough night at 0-2 also. He had a red-green deck that had a lot of similarities to mine in the green portion. In game 1, after an initial mulligan, I drew essentially the best aggressive hand possible, with Bitterblade Warrior, Hooded Brawler, and Crocodile, followed by a Cartouche of Knowledge. At 3 life S set up to block me with my creatures all exerted. I cycled Vizier of Tumbling Sands to untap Hooded Brawler and won. Second game was my first post-board game on the draw, and I decided to simply side out Forest for the third Cartouche of Knowledge. I got off to a strong start with Naga Vitalist into a turn 3 Crocodile (putting the -1/-1 on the Vitalist), but he had his own big hitters. We both beat each other down heavily, and I got him to 3 with a lethal threat attacking, but he stuffed it with Haze of Pollen and won by dropping a Khenra Charioteer to give all his smaller things trample. Game 3 I was back on the play, but my hand was full of mana (Vitalist, Vizier, and a bunch of lands). I stayed a little flooded, but I did draw my good stuff eventually. Cartouche of Strength on the 1/3 Vizier was a perfect answer to his first Hooded Brawler, but he had another one the next turn. I got my Edifice going (although I forgot to use it one turn when he didn't attack just to put the brick counter). We both had sizeable boards, but he couldn't stop a Beast token with Cartouche of Knowledge, and I won the match. I was planning on leaving after the round either way, so I asked if he was going to keep playing if I gave him the win (3-2 has a chance of making top 8, but the odds are pretty bad if you're working your way up from the bottom of the standings). He said he would, so I let him have it. Win 2-1, but it goes down as a loss on my DCI record.
So I finished 1-2 in matches and 2-5 in games.
Oddly, I never drew Mouth // Feed all night. I'm sure it's good in this deck, so that was some random badness. I did get to play the Oracle's Vault for some incidental value in my Round 2 against J, but not enough to result in a comeback.
In my very last game of the night, I had a revelation regarding Vizier of Tumbling Sands. I don't know why I wasn't thinking about her combo potential, but it's actually quite strong in this deck.
Level 1: Untap a land or mana producer to use her as mana ramp.
Level 2: Untap a creature that attacked for pseudo-vigilance.
Level 3: Untap an exerted creature (I did this once).
Level 4: Untap a card with a good tap ability, like Seeker of Insight, to double down.
Level 5: Untap a monument that uses brick counters to double down on the effect and speed up the building process. This was the one I only realized when I had her and the Edifice both in play. But it would have been even better with Oracle's Vault, eventually netting me up to 2 free draw + plays per turn.
Hidden Level: Untap an opponent's creature to prevent damage from Throne of the God-Pharaoh. I actually did this in Round 1 against A, but it only saved me for one turn.
Now that I see all the cool potential, I want to go back and play with this card some more! Or maybe put Oracle's Vault in an EDH deck full of untap effects...
So how did we do in terms of goodies?
This was a really weak value draft for me. I drafted 4 rares and 10 uncommons, which is slightly above normal for 3 packs. But I had no mythics, no foils, and no full-art lands. The guy to my left opened Gideon of the Trials, the guy to my right opened Hazoret, and the guy across from me ended up with three gods in his draft (Hazoret, Oketra, Kefnet). My best card was a dual land that's worth about $3 now and might end up around $1 when AKH rotates. My other 3 rares are near-bulk, with Commit // Memory being the only one fighting to hold any value. I didn't pass much of value either; I saw Anointed Procession as probably the most expensive card, and a couple $1.50 uncommons in Lord of the Accursed and a foil Bloodrage Brawler.
Anyway, good times as always, and another great learning opportunity. AKH seems like it plays at a higher skill level than other recent formats, so I have had to really adjust. The synergies aren't as obvious to me, and cards that look bad are actually good if you have them in the right deck. Even the pro reviewers like LSV were wildly off about some of the cards, at least compared to their performances in high level events (particularly the ultra aggressive cards like Bloodlust Inciter and Slither Blade). So I will keep plugging away until the Hour of Devastation comes, and maybe the attendance will drop off and I'll get a little lucky.
Let me know in the comments how you would have built this deck differently!
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