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!
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