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!
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