At the prerelease I thought it was a fun but very complex set, and I was sort of looking toward playing Standard instead of Limited -- however, I had a good experience with drafting last night and I would definitely draft HOU-HOU-AKH again.
Let's break it down. As usual, the 3 draft packs run from bottom left to upper right.
First pack had an excellent mythic sphinx, so it was an easy pick. The same pack also had an Ominous Sphinx, so I was sad to be passing someone else a card I wanted to pair with Unesh that might instead lead someone else into drafting blue. I looked for other blue cards, but ended up just taking some of the best cards in various colors. When I saw Oasis Ritualists in the middle of the pack, I snatched them up and was pretty sure I was going to push into green and then splash whatever I wanted (since they can make the 2 colored mana you need for, for example, all of my first 4 picks), so I moved that direction going forward. After the Ritualists, blue was good again and I finished the pack knowing I would play blue and try to play green. Getting the Aerial Guide from my first pack to wheel back to me was a good indicator that there wasn't more than 1 or maybe 2 other people in blue at the table.
Going into second pack, I hadn't taken any deserts, and my first two picks were both desert payoffs. I wanted a few deserts, but instead I found good blue-green ramp payoffs. Red was bizarrely open in this draft pod, and Struggle // Survive ("Struggle to Survive") as 6th pick was kind of a shocker. The second half of the pack was mediocre and mostly didn't make my final deck, although again I got what I considered a good blue card to wheel from my first pack, in Riddleform. With 1 pack to go, I needed more good early-mid drops, and I wanted at least a couple deserts if possible.
Third pack started out looking weak, but then Lay Claim, Hooded Brawler, and Vizier of the Tumbling Sands all made me happy. In hindsight, the Gift of Paradise I took 10th was probably a more important pick for me than the Stir the Sands from the same pack, and I was lucky to have it come back to me as a third source of double-colored mana. Shimmerscale Drake next pick was a nice card for my deck also.
With the 3 double-colored sources, my pool post-draft was pretty much all within the realm of playability, so I had some tricky deckbuilding decisions to make. First, I took out all my off-color cards and laid down my blue and green creatures and on-curve cards (things like Gift of Paradise that I want to play the first turn I can) in order, then I added all my best off-color and off-curve cards, and pulled out cards one at a time until I got down to 24. I was worried that 16 lands wouldn't be enough for a deck with so many high drops, but cycling and my various ramp cards made it work just fine. Here is the deck I started with, and didn't change much:
I think the biggest question mark in the deck was Riddleform. I had 9 spells to trigger it turning into a creature (it's an enchantment that can become a 3/3 flier for the turn when you cast a noncreature spell), 5 of them at instant speed. Sometimes it didn't do much, and I never had extra mana sitting around to scry.
Notably, I didn't play Ramunap Hydra or Unquenchable Thirst, my two good desert payoffs, in the main deck. Those are both good cards even without deserts, but I saved them for sideboard (at the end of the night I did put Hydra in the main deck, replacing Supreme Will).
Also notably, I played 3 red cards and zero Mountains. Between the 3 double-colored sources and the odd chance of getting something like Vizier of Tumbling Sands with Manalith, I felt like it was a reasonable risk. As it turned out, I rarely had trouble casting these cards, and I was very happy to have especially Puncturing Blow and Struggle // Survive in a deck that otherwise was weak on real removal. Torment of Venom is also very good, but I felt like there was a limit to how many off-color cards I could reasonably splash when I was mostly relying on a creature that only untaps every other turn to cast them.
Matches:
Round 1 vs. M, with a blue-red Fraying Sanity mill deck. I had a very good first round, and M had someone else help retool his deck after the round. I did find that I randomly hosed the mill strategy with the Survive half of Struggle // Survive (shuffling graveyards back into all decks for 1G). Win, 2-0.
Round 2 vs. C, in a white-red deck with 2 Edifice of Authority and a bunch of other just generally good stuff. I lost Game 1 pretty handily, and after seeing Edifice, I brought in Winds of Rebuke over one of my Unsummon (since it can target artifacts), along with Unquenchable Thirst against some of the exert creatures he was playing. In Game 2, I got off to a good start and he was stuck without white mana for a long time, but he got both Edifices into play and held me back. I Laid Claim to an Edifice and had him down to 4 life, but I tapped out my lands to set up a big attack without counting the amount of damage he could do and he was able to disable all of my remaining creatures and attack for exactly the 14 life I had remaining. If I was more in the match, I might not have been so lazy, but I needed two wins pretty fast if I was going to get the match win. In hindsight, I should have bothered to count because I still had a shot at a tie. If he couldn't kill me in a single attack, he would have had to play much more conservatively, and the game was still in my favor. Loss, 0-2.
Round 3 vs. M, with white-black pseudo-zombies. He had a Worldwake fat pack box, but it turned out he hadn't played Magic in 5 years, and he wasn't familiar with the new cards at all. He didn't have a great deck or great technique, and I beat him in 2 games. Nice guy though, and I hope he comes back. Win, 2-0.
Round 4 vs. N, on an ultra-aggressive white-red deck full of exert synergies. He won the first game on about turn 5. I brought in a bunch of sideboard to slow him down, Hydra, Thirst, Proven Combatant, and Ancient Crab. I was able to weather his early assault and build up my own side with a small life buffer, and I played out Unesh. He split my 4-card reveal into a pile of 1 Sifter Wurm and a pile with 3 cards (one land and two medium creatures including Manticore Eternal). I took the 3-card pile, and a turn or two later he played Hour of Devastation to clear the board, leaving me with Manticore Eternal in hand but no way to cast it because my Oasis Ritualist was gone. We slowly rebuilt, but he had the edge and killed me a few turns later. Looking back on the match, he gave me the Sifter Wurm by itself because it was the only card he couldn't beat with Hour of Devastation. The lesson moving forward is that an opponent will only give you a 1-3 split from Unesh if they really want you to not take the 1 (meaning that if your opponent is a competent player, you should probably take the 1 even if it's not obviously better than the 3). Loss, 0-2.
At this point I was out of contention for top 8, but I played 1 game against my Round 5 opponent for fun. T was playing red-green. He's a good player, but he made an error in trying to cast Puncturing Blow as an instant, which cost him a creature in combat. He got a Rampaging Hippo out (5/6 trample), and when I played Unesh a couple turns later, he split my piles 1-3 again, with the 1 card being Lay Claim. This time it was clear that my best path forward was to Lay Claim his Hippo, and I took the Lay Claim and used it the following turn. He got rid of Unesh but eventually lost to the Hippo. Win, 1-0.
Here are some of the cards I was bringing in from sideboard. Almost all of my cards were sleeved in case I had a situation to use them though. Firebrand Archer and the 3 white cards were the only ones I dismissed as not playable in any situation.
I really think I drafted pretty well, with the exception of never taking a desert. Unesh is the real deal, as he usually draws you two cards with at least one being a good card you want. I was also super impressed with Oasis Ritualist. The flexibility of being able to cast cards of any color and really expensive cards is well worth it, and as one opponent noted, once you see the Ritualist come down, you have no idea what to expect next, so it ruins your ability to play around cards. It also blocks well enough to give you a breather in most games. Vizier of Tumbling Sands doesn't look like much, but I will take her in any blue deck. Oddly, even though she can do really cool things when in play, I generally end up cycling her. And Hooded Hydra is still a great common -- even though this particular deck doesn't go very aggressive early, playing Hooded Hydra on turn 3 usually lets me get some big hits in.
Supreme Will was underwhelming for me and I often sided it out, but that might just be because I drew it in the wrong spots. My 2-drop creatures were all kind of so-so also. Feral Prowler rarely did much, but it also didn't die often for some reason.
And, finally, here are the money cards and rares.
This might have been my worst draft ever for dollar value. My two rares are bulk, and even the mythic Unesh is under 70 cents. So my best money card was the uncommon Supreme Will, which is around $1. Design-wise, I think Refuse // Cooperate ("Refuse to Cooperate") is very cool, with "Refuse" showing the Eternal zombie killing a guy and "Cooperate" showing the newly dead zombie working with the original one -- and both names and illustrations are reflected again in what the card actually does.
The most valuable card I passed was Solemnity, which is mostly unplayable in draft and was also off color for me.
In a normal 3 packs I would have gotten about 3 rares (maybe 1 replaced by a mythic), 9 uncommons, and about 50% chance at a foil. In this draft, I had 2 rares and 1 mythic, and a whopping 13 uncommons.
In the end, it was a good time and I did pretty well, just not quite good enough. The mistake I made in match 2 may have kept me from having a chance at top 8, but I hope I learned from it. The mistake in match 4 was less obvious, and I'll probably never have Unesh again in draft, but I can also learn from it in a more general way. My final result was 5-4 in games and 3-2 in matches, and that's pretty good for me, especially since 4 of the 5 people I played were store regulars who show up almost every week for FNM draft.
By the way, there's a Grand Prix Houston next January (last weekend of the month), so I'm already excited about that. This time the main event is Limited format, and the sets will be from the next block, Ixalan and its follow-up.
Comments always welcome!
