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!

FNM Draft 2017-09-08

Second try at the Fatal Push promo!

A week further from the hurricane, there were at least 27 people drafting this time, so we had 3 overstuffed pods and 5 rounds of play before the cut to top 8.  My own pod was 9 people.

Here's the draft, from bottom left to upper right.

My first five draft picks were five different colors (including the green desert Hashep Oasis), and I came out of Pack 1 very open.  I did really want to play the Sand Strangler, as I was drafting deserts well.  My Pick 1 rare was Hour of Glory, which is very good but I thought not quite as good as Sand Strangler.  There was also a Desert's Hold, which was my P1P1 last week.

Pack 2 gave me Reason // Believe at rare, and I didn't feel like anything else quite beat out the Ifnir Deadlands.  Then I got a big reward in red with two straight Burning Fist Minotaurs.  After taking Ramunap Ruins in a close pick over a Vile Manifestation, I got two more shots at Manifestations and suddenly I was a black-red discard/cycling/deserts deck.  The two full-art lands came from packs with no black or red cards.

Pack 3 was mostly easy picks, and I was happy to see a few more cycling payoffs and some removal.  Two Horror of the Broken Lands was also great.

Here's my main deck:

My curve ended up a little awkward with no three-drop creatures, but I had 3 other cards that could usually be cast on 3 (Faith of the Devoted, Trial of Zeal, Cartouche of Ambition -- they're hard to see in the glare I know) and some of my low drops had abilities worth using on 3, or I could cast a 2-drop and cycle.

The other problem with this deck is that I drafted so many off-color cards and lands that I barely had enough playables.  I had to put in a Nimble-Blade Khenra that I didn't really like just to get to 14 creatures.  With all the cycling, I only played 15 lands.  In hindsight, I realize I had more mana sinks than I had accounted for (plus two lands that sacrifice lands), so I might have gone down the Khenra for another mountain.

In all though, I think this was a very good build.  With 13 cyclers in the deck, Vile Manifestation and Faith of the Devoted were real threats, and redundancy on some of the best cards was valuable.  The biggest question mark was whether I could play it correctly, because cycling and cycling payoffs create a lot of extra decision points.

Here is the sideboard -- basically all of the red and black cards that were left over.

Chandra's Defeat was a potent side-in for red decks, but I never faced a really red deck, so it didn't get a chance to shine.  Tormenting Voice is arguably a main deck card, I don't know.  And my sideboard plan on the draw was to take out Throne of the God-Pharaoh for Moaning Wall.

Round 1 vs. C.
I play C, who was playing a very green version of red-green, all the time and I always lose, often after he draws us into a complex board state and I make a mistake.  He won Game 1 and I was afraid we were heading in the same direction, but Game 2 he had too many lands and I was in it.  I had an explosive hand with Minotaur and another attacker, and I got an opening on attack to discard plus use Faith of the Devoted and cast Brute Strength for the win.  Third game he had a rough start again and I curved out into a concession.  Win, 2-1.

Round 2 vs. P.
Another guy I play all the time!  He had white-green with a lot of embalm/eternalize.  First game Sunscourge Champion and other big creatures got me, but second game I was in a better spot.  I think this was the game that I made a land sequencing mistake -- I played a Swamp to cycle on turn 1 and then had to play a tapped red desert on turn 2 instead of playing a Minotaur.  I think I was expecting to get another red source or something, but I obviously should have saved the cycler and played the tap land first.  Anyway, this game I got ahead and had Torment of Scarabs on the board, and I got him down to 1 with several ways to do 1 damage in play.  He snuffed out my attack with Flameblade Adept (menace) and Khenra Eternal (Afflict 1) and the Throne in play, and I had a couple more turns to draw into a win while he built his board up -- a red source would have done it, as I had Ramunap Ruins in play.  But he drew his second white source first and eternalized Sunscourge to go back up to 5, and I was unable to get the damage in.  Loss, 0-2.

Round 3 vs. S.
S was playing white-green also, I think.  Definitely white, because Oketra's Monument got me in Game 1 (counteracting Torment of Scarabs).  Games 2 and 3 I had better draws and ran over him.  Win, 2-1.

Round 4 vs. A.
I don't remember playing him before, but he seemed like a pretty savvy player (and he was card-flicking).  He had a blue-green deck with some nice 4/4 fliers that give me trouble.  In both games, I kept a 2-land hand and never drew a third, and he mulliganed to 6 but got pretty easy wins.  I did string out both games -- first game I got 4 two-drop creatures on board, and second game I had 2 mountains, Burning-Fist Minotaur, and a bunch of discards/cycles, but missing land drops is pretty hard to win.  Loss, 0-2.

Round 4 went so fast that I decided to drop instead of waiting another 40 minutes for the round to end and hoping that I could make top 8 at 3-2 (unlikely if even possible with that many people).

So it was a little bit of a disappointment, but I do think I drafted and played well.  Since I wasn't going to get the promo, I bought a couple packs of Aether Revolt and was lucky enough to get my fourth Fatal Push that way instead (and a Baral!).

Here is the stuff of potential post-draft interest:

Foil Throne is about $2.50, and the rest of these are less exciting.  In total I only drafted 1 rare (my least ever), but I drafted a ridiculous 20 uncommons, which is more than twice the 9 normally in 3 packs.  I passed a lot of rares, mostly bad, and the most valuable card I passed was As Foretold.

This might be my last draft during Fatal Push promo season, but I'm looking forward to Ixalan prerelease in just 2 weeks!

FNM Draft 2017-09-01

September is Fatal Push promo month, so of course I want to go get some drafts in!

Lets get right to it.  Draft is from bottom left to top right.

First pick was pretty easy, I thought.  My rare was Endless Sands.  Ominous Sphinx was a pretty easy second pick also.  The third pack seemed pretty bad, so I went into deserts early.  I have had trouble drafting deserts, so I made an effort to get them this time, and it worked out pretty well.  After the red desert, I was totally open to changing colors, but I kept getting white and blue cards that were as good or better than everything else, so I drafted almost nothing else.

Second pack I forget what the rare was -- I know I saw Leave // Chance, Ramunap Excavator, and maybe Hazoret's Undying Fury in these packs, so it must have been one of those.  Anyhow, Spellweaver Eternal is pretty sweet and I was doing my best to support it with good spells.  Ipnu Rivulet is not an effect I needed, but I was high on deserts and I was rewarded with Unquenchable Thirst in the next pack.  Scavenger Grounds was undoubtedly not the correct pick at #4 here, but I want it for Standard and it is a desert, so I reached.

Third pack I was torn between something aggressive and the Oracle's Vault, and I decided the Vault was powerful enough that I'd rather have the potential value.  I was lucky enough to have two good white-blue cards come to me in Aven Wind Guide and Temmet, but I never had enough tokens to support their theme (Temmet of course can support his own theme).

I was generally happy with my draft.  I think I was in the right colors, because I saw good cards throughout.  There was nothing truly amazing, but many of the cards are high enough quality and I got a good curve.

Here is my base deck:

The deck was nothing terribly synergistic, more like a normal midrange deck where many of the creatures were undersized but almost all of them had an evasion ability.  Cartouche and Khopesh gave me the ability to grow them, and the removal was all cheap and effective.  I ended up with 5 deserts, which meant the bonuses on Desert's Hold and more importantly Unquenchable Thirst were almost always active.  I didn't have enough tokens, zombies, or cycling to guarantee any of those payoffs, and I didn't have much exert to directly synergize with my three Dauntless Avens, although untapping a creature is generally useful anyway.

My sideboard had some good answers, although I only ever brought in Dutiful Servants, Honed Khopesh, and God-Pharaoh's Faithful.  It's possible I should have had a Djeru's Renunciation or 2 in the main.

The tournament was 5 slightly shortened rounds, with no games after cut to top 8.  This was so we could all get out before midnight, as a curfew was in effect after the hurricane.  It normally would have been 4 rounds since we had 22 people (I think 24 is the cutoff for 5 rounds).

Round 1 vs. P.
I play against P fairly often at Standard Showdown.  Here he was playing red-green with good tricks.  The first game wasn't close, and the second game on the play I made a better effort but still lost.  I noticed one minor mistake in this match -- I attacked a 2/2 into another 2/2 with Vizier of Deferment in my hand, but I forgot to play my third land before combat, so I couldn't use it to save my creature.  Trading was fine, but it wasn't how I intended the turn to go (instead, I saved it until the opponent's turn 4 to prevent damage from an attacker).  Loss, 0-2.

Round 2 vs. N.
This guy was not a usual drafter, and he was on the lower end of people I've played in terms of strategy and rules knowledge.  He had a Jeskai (white-blue-red) deck with lots of big blockers -- God-Pharaoh's Faithful, Wall of Forgotten Pharaohs, etc.  I played a very straightforward and clean pair of games against him and let him lose to his own deckbuilding and strategy mistakes.  Win, 2-0.

Round 3 vs. M.
This guy was fun to talk to.  He had played at a higher level for a while before losing his cards, after which he decided to just play Limited.  He was 4-colors (sans-white) based primarily in blue-green.  I played 3 very intense games with him, winning the first by a hair, losing the second, and then drawing the third when the match went to turns.  He had several Ambuscades, and those kept him in the game.  Game 1 was the one game of the night where Oracle's Vault just took over the game with a free play every turn.  In my game 2 loss, I had sided in the 2/5 Dutiful Servants to counter his several 4-power creatures that I saw in game 1, and it ended up hurting me because he used Ambuscade to 2-for-1 me when I blocked a 4/4 with the 2/5.  Draw, 1-1-1.

Round 4 vs. A.
I have played A several times, and he was also next to me drafting.  He was on Naya (white-red-green) with some sweet bombs.  First game we both had a bunch of commons and removal, and while I did get him down to 5, he eventually finished me off.  Second game I got to see his bomb rares.  I had the edge most of the way and even had him doing math on how to survive.  He played Pride Sovereign and I locked it down with Unquenchable Thirst.  Then he played Angel of Condemnation and a Dauntless Aven, and the ability to untap either Pride Sovereign or Angel to reuse their abilities made it an unwinnable game for me (he was at 3 and I didn't have any non-creature ways to do damage).  I made an obvious mental mistake in one of these games, failing to play an Aven Reedstalker at end of his turn after holding the mana up for it.  Loss, 0-2.

My 1-2-1 record wasn't enough to get top 8, so I quit after Round 4.  My overall game record was 3-5-1, although 2 of the wins were almost free.

So what did we walk away with?

For the second straight draft, I had really poor dollar value, with Scavenger Grounds the only card over 50 cents.  I drafted 3 rares and 9 uncommons, which is exactly as expected for 3 packs.  A guy 3 seats away from me opened 2 Masterpiece Invocations (not sure which ones)!  Lucky!

Anyway, I'm planning to go draft again tonight.  Even if I'm not winning, I'm having plenty of fun and learning lessons.

Peace!