FNM Draft 2018-12-21

This week they were still firing Ultimate Masters drafts, so of course I wanted to do that again!  But they had just filled one when I arrived, so I signed up for the next one in case enough people showed up.  I also signed up for the normal Guilds of Ravnica draft just in case they didn't.

Between the UMA excitement and the fact that it was just before Christmas, GRN only had 7 people signed up.  The store runner filled the 8th slot, and I drafted with the expectation that UMA would still get enough people and I'd have to drop early.  So I drafted fast and loose and looked for money cards more than usual, but I still ended up with a deck I was excited to try.

Here is my Guilds draft, bottom left to top right:

The rare in my first pack was Midnight Reaper, which is very good but not a bomb, and the pack had several other good black cards.  I've played black a lot in GRN, so I wanted to try something different and get some other drafters to fight over black.  The Unicorn gave a good lead into an aggressive white-based deck.  The first half of the pack I tried to force Boros, but it looked like red was not very open, and I wasn't sure of my second color by the end of the pack.

Pack 2 had Etrata at rare.  She's very good but I wasn't playing Dimir, so I took the premium removal instead.  I started to see good green and Selesnya cards in this pack, so I jumped on it, and I tried to draft the more aggressive ones when given the choice.  Bounty of Might is the kind of card that can win games out of nowhere if I can get a few damage in early.

Pack 3 I did some rare drafting but then solidified the plan of Selesnya aggro.

My deck looked like this:

I made a mistake with the basic lands for the photo -- there are 7 of each and not 8, because of the 2 Selesnya Guildgates, putting the total at 16.  The main plan of this deck is to play Healer's Hawk and then make it bigger, laying down creatures every turn and winning through pump effects and evasion.  Bizarrely, it's a pure Selesnya deck without any cards that use the Selesnya guild mechanic, convoke.

I was excited to go into round 1 and try it out, but I got paired up with the store runner, who wasn't playing, so it was a free win.  Then the UMA draft filled up, so I dropped at a virtual 1-0 and got ready to draft again, for higher stakes!

Here's my UMA draft:

Pack 1 had All is Dust at rare, a $5 card that isn't super easy to use in draft.  The uncommons were build-arounds that I wasn't sure about, so I went to Wild Mongrel, a card that is very good with all of the madness and graveyard themes.  For the rest of the pack, I was not seeing madness cards that I was hoping for, so instead I drafted generically good removal spells and other cards that went with a graveyard theme, and I was pretty certain I'd play black by the end of it.

Pack 2 was exactly what every UMA drafter wants to see: Liliana of the Veil is both a $70+ card and an oppressive planeswalker.  I was super excited but played it calm while everyone else around the table was joking about the cool cards they hoped to open.  The table actually got in a little trouble for looking up card values on their phones -- technically they are supposed to let a judge answer any questions and not use their phones during the draft.  After another Last Gasp, I saw some madness cards, Basking Rootwalla and Grave Scrabbler, and I took them aggressively because I had failed to wheel a Twins of Maurer Estate that I wanted in pack 1.  Apprentice Necromancer set up the possibility of some graveyard shenanigans, but I didn't have a good payoff for it yet.  I was very happy to wheel Gurmag Angler from the Basking Rootwalla pack.

Fulminator Mage in Pack 3 was not the best card for my deck, but it is an $8 card that is likely to rebound in value, so I felt fine taking it as a sideboard option in case I ran into anyone with something nasty like Celestial Colonnade.  After that, I got a rush of big nasty green stuff.  Woodfall Primus and Walker of the Grove gave me two cards that can nearly be straight up win-the-game combos with Apprentice Necromancer, and I had several quick ways to get them in the graveyard.

Just like the last time I drafted UMA, deckbuilding was hard!  Here is what I ended up playing:

I had some really powerful cards, but I was kind of in between strategies.  Delve competes with reanimation, but I really didn't have much reanimation.  I didn't have a ton of discard outlets, and I didn't want to play bad ones like Patchwork Gnomes just to make Grave Scrabbler better, so I just kept the more powerful ones.  Shirei is a bonkers combo with Fume Spitter, but without one it's just a bad 2/2.  Technically it also combos with Apprentice Necromancer, but that's sketchy as well.  I went with 1 copy of Kodama's Reach because I couldn't decide between 2 or 0.  Likewise with Hooting Mandrills, Grave Scrabbler, and Death Denied.  Slum Reapers are not great, but they seemed synergistic enough with my other removal to be worth playing both copies.  I was happy with this deck but very uncertain that it was the optimal configuration.

Sideboard was big, but the only cards I sided in were the bottom 4:

Fulminator and Thespian's Stage came in against certain lands, Crushing Canopy against the right targets, and Mandrills whenever I took out a land on the draw.

How did it go?

Round 1 vs White-Blue-(black)
I'm not exactly sure what this deck was trying to do, but it had elements of card advantage and fliers.  He had a Dark Depths but no way to activate it other than the slow way.  In both games I got Liliana down early and just kept him off cards.  In the first game I managed to use her ultimate ability to kill a couple lands while still keeping her alive.  On sideboard, I brought in Thespian's Stage to combo off his Dark Depths, but unfortunately did not draw it.  He mulliganed and was just pinched through the second game, and I achieved my Necromancer-Woodfall combo (if it's not obvious, you bring back Woodfall Primus from the graveyard, kill a land or something, then attack as a 6/6, then when it dies in combat or at the end of the turn, it comes back via persist as a 5/5 permanently and kills another land or something because it entered the battlefield a second time).  Win, 2-0.

Round 2 vs. Jund Madness
This was the drafter to my right.  He drafted a lot of madness cards, which explains why I didn't see much.  I had seen his deck operating in Round 1, and it had some explosive turns.  In the first game he mulliganed and kept a 1-land hand.  I got Liliana and a good start, and he was stuck on 1 land for a couple turns, so it ended up being a pretty unfair win.  I sided in Mandrills for a land assuming he would be playing first, but he surprised me by choosing to draw since his hands had been bad all night.  I had another fine start, and he mulliganed and was pinched on mana and colors again.  I played into an obvious trap with Liliana, making him discard Fiery Temper that he could cast on her with Madness to drop her to 1.  A few turns later he killed her with a Sparkspitter token, and he fought back into it as I drew land after land.  Just in time, I started drawing my big green creatures: Walker of the Groves, then a 7/7 Golgari Grave-Troll, then Woodfall Primus, and he never drew enough direct damage or evasion to finish me off.  Win, 2-0.

Round 3 vs. White-Green-(black) Heroic-Totem Armor
What a nasty deck.  He was drafting to my left, so I saw a lot of the good stuff that I had passed.  In the first game, he made a bad attack into my Wild Mongrel and I followed up with a turn 3 Gurmag Angler.  He was ready with Faith's Fetters, and he eventually assembled Staunch-Hearted Warrior with some totem armor on a turn when I was tapped out and couldn't remove in response with Last Gasp.  I made a bad block in forgetting that I couldn't circumvent the totem armor with a combination of damage and Last Gasp.  A couple turns later he was mashing through with Rogue's Passage for the win.  I sided in my land hate and Crushing Canopy for the next game and prepared to play the control role.  I mulliganed a hand that had exactly what I wanted -- Liliana and Last Gasp -- but only one land, and I kept an average 6-card hand.  There were a few people watching us play, and he showed off his hand to the person next to him, so I knew it was going to be rough going.  Without going into too much detail, I chose a line that gave me a chance to kill off all his creatures using Fume Spitter and Necromancer on Fume Spitter, followed by two consecutive turns of Slum Reapers, but he played another creature and was able to protect his Staunch-Hearted Warrior while bumping it up to gigantic proportions with auras, and I lost easily.  We discussed it a little afterward, and I'm pretty sure I played it the best I could have given the circumstances.  Loss, 0-2.

As this was the finals, he got the box topper, which turned out to be Through the Breach (~$80).

Overall record was 4-2 in games and 2-1 in matches.  I was happy to be able to make it to the finals, and I was happy to get to do some really fun things with Liliana and some other cards I have never played before.

Here are the cards I drafted that are more interesting long term:

In each draft I ended up with 1 mythic and 4 rares, which is well above average.  Dream Eater and Ionize are both around $2, and foil Bounty Agent is a little under $1 (I can imagine it becoming a card Commander players want, but probably never at a high premium).  From UMA, Liliana + Fulminator is about $80 combined, plus between $1 - $2 each for most of the other cards shown.  Foil Mistveil Plains is about $2 while foil Satyr Wayfinder is bulk.  So in total I spent $52 ($12 + $40) on drafts and got a value of about $90.  The GRN cards will generally trend down in value while the UMA cards will trend upward, so this was excellent even without any prizes.

I have been very happy to get to draft UMA twice, and I would draft it again anytime.  The format is very complicated and has some tough decisions and exciting payoffs.

Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas!

FNM Draft 2018-12-07

Friday was Ultimate Masters release day!  It was super rainy, so they were only doing UMA drafts and didn't have a normal Guilds of Ravnica draft.  UMA drafts were $40 single-elimination pods.  One started just before I got there, and in about 20 minutes we had enough people to start another.

As often happens with Masters sets, some people didn't really read up on the set or practice at all, so the draft was a bit pokey as people read their cards.  Masters drafts for some people are just about drafting the most valuable cards, and playing a deck is secondary.  The prize for the draft was the sealed box topper (since a draft is 24 packs, or a full box).  Box toppers range from about $16 to over $200 at current listed prices, with most worth more than the $40 entry, so I felt like it was worth it to try to win first and draft value second.  Plus, it's fun to play and it's fun to win.

Here is my draft, from bottom left to top right:

My Pack 1 rare was Seize the Day, which is a good card but not valuable, so I took what I thought was the best card, Fiend Hunter.  Second pick was a little tougher, since I was passed a foil Daybreak Coronet, which is a hard card to play in draft but very powerful.  I passed it for the Hero.  At this point I was thinking white-something heroic, and the Phalanx Leader seemed like a great indication that it would be open for me.  However, the white was a bit sparser as the pack went on and I drafted some red madness cards.

Second pack I opened Lord of Extinction, one of the cheaper mythic rares in the set.  I didn't want it, but my pick of Conflagrate was pretty questionable.  That card is really ok in a deck where you can ramp a lot and/or keep your hand full of cards and discard it, using it as a finisher, but in a normal deck I think you usually have a hard time casting it for more than X = 2 on either mode.  Entomb on second pick was a money card in a pack with nothing else I wanted.  Wingsteed Rider was another white heroic creature, but then I stopped seeing great white cards and went back into red.

Third pack Life from the Loam is a $9 rare, and since my deck was coming together ok at least in terms of having enough cards in my colors, I grabbed it.  Rally the Peasants was a great find for my white-red aggressive build.  Then later in the pack I got some very interesting and powerful red cards in Reckless Wurms and Young Pyromancer.

I had more than enough white and red cards, so cutting was tough.  Here is what I built:

I was going for aggression, with some madness, heroic, and spells themes.  I think it was a pretty good deck, but after I finished my games, I realized I actually had enough playable red cards that I could have played only red and had a much better manabase.  During my games I frequently wanted more red mana.  For example, casting Fiery Temper or Reckless Wurm for its madness cost almost always requires 2 red mana so that I could activate the discard outlet (like Faithless Looting), and casting Reckless Charge and then flashing it back costs 2RR.

If I was to rebuild the deck as mono-red, I would take out the six mono-white cards (although Rally the Peasants is almost playable only from graveyard), and add Nightbird's Clutches, Malevolent Whispers, Molten Birth, Undying Rage, Myr Servitor, and Hissing Iguanar, and probably replace a Mountain with the third Faithless Looting.  The white creatures are powerful, but they died too often and their costs are too white.

Here is my broad sideboard.  I only used Malevolent Whispers and Repel the Darkness.

Since we were playing in pod, I was paired against people I was drafting with, which was a little different from usual.  I generally don't "hate draft" cards that could be used against me, but I found myself seeing some cards in the matches that I wished I hadn't passed.  In particular, my neighbor on the left was white-black, so he had snatched up some good white cards that I had hoped might come back around.

Round 1 vs. blue-black stuff.
My first opponent had drafted across from me, and he was actually drafting for the first time ever, which is not something you expect to see at a $40 Masters draft.  He said he usually plays Commander.  His deck was not very focused, but he had plenty of fine cards.  In the first game, I kept a hand with 2 Plains and no Mountains, and it took a long time to draw a Mountain.  Fortunately for me, he wasn't doing much besides attacking with Dimir Guildmage.  I eventually got out my Hissing Iguanar, which I had completely misread and thought could do damage to any target with its ability.  We played the whole round thinking it could hit creatures, and it unfairly controlled the board.  I ended up winning the first game.  Second game I mulliganed down to 5 cards and kept 1 Plains.  He also kept 1 land, and we spent a while not doing much of anything.  He slowly built up and won the game.  Third game I finally got a good hand, and I was able to combo out my madness cards and overwhelm him.  Win, 2-1.

Round 2 vs. white-black stuff.
This was a much more experienced player, and he was the one drafting to my left and grabbing my scraps.  In the first game, I mulliganed to 5.  When I played Hissing Iguanar, he waited to correct me on the targeting until I messed it up (he had been listening while I played the first round but didn't say anything because he didn't know what the card said until he read it for himself).  I blocked his 3/4 lifelink with a 3/1, and tried to use Iguanar's ability to kill it.  Instead I ended up just wasting more cards.  I couldn't catch up and lost.  In the second game, I had a great hand on the play, and I ran away with the game even through his Wall of Reverence that I had passed to him in the draft.  Third game he was on the play and had Turn 1 Fume Spitter and Turn 2 Conviction.  This combination of cards effectively stopped me from Fire-ing his Fume Spitter and made all my good creatures in hand vulnerable -- Young Pyro, Phalanx Leader, Hissing Iguanar.  I considered waiting and trying to protect something on Turn 4, but I decided instead to play Pyro and pressure his mana by making him pick up Conviction.  He did it, but then he unfortunately was holding more removal spells for my other guys.  He played 2 copies of Moan of the Unhallowed and I couldn't draw a creature to get back in it fast enough.  Loss, 1-2.

I felt pretty bad about losing the second round like that, but he played really well and had good tricks like Gods Willing (another card I passed).  I also felt bad about winning the first round by misunderstanding how a card works.  I would have loved to play a second draft, but it was 10 PM and I was ready to head out.  I don't think there were enough people who would have been interested anyway.

Here's my value.  I had a hard time getting the foils to show up, so you get this awkward angle that still doesn't really show them -- all the commons are foil except the 2 additional copies of Faithless Looting.

I ended up with 2 rares and 8 uncommons, both slightly below average, and 4 foils vs an expected 3 (every pack of Masters sets has a foil).  Faithless Looting and Fire // Ice are slightly premium foils and the other two are bulk.  So total value in this draft was a little under $20.  The caveat here is always that since it's a reprint set, these cards have already lost any "Standard" value so they're not likely to drop in value much if at all.

For me, I'm just happy to have copies of some of these, particularly Faithless Looting, which was getting stupidly expensive for a common with several printings because it's in huge demand for Modern.

I'd love to get another chance to draft this set, but it's not likely to happen.  One can hope!

Thanks for reading!

FNM Draft 2018-11-30

Another try at Guilds of Ravnica draft!  This format has been remarkably enduring, as I believe there were 27 signed up for 3 tables of 9.  The draft was 5 rounds.

Here's my draft, bottom left to top right:

Pack 1 Pick 1 was a very tough pick.  There was a mythic Trostani Dischordant, which is probably the best pick and also a $2.50 card.  Then there were three very good uncommons, Beacon Bolt, Dimir Spybug, and Glaive of the Guildpact.  Since the three gold cards lead toward very different decks, I felt like I could make a statement with the pick.  I was worried that I would have trouble building a good Selesnya deck, and I opted for the removal spell.  Second pick Experimental Frenzy seemed good.  I've only run into it once in draft before, and it was impressive.  Rampaging Monument is a card I think people undervalue.  I took Mausoleum Secrets just because it's a card I'd like to have, with no intention of playing it in the draft.  The rest of Pack 1 was cards I could play in either Dimir or Izzet.

Pack 2 led off with a literal bomb, Expansion // Explosion.  I got a string of good Izzet cards followed by some surprisingly late Dimir cards like Artful Takedown.  Drowned Secrets in the middle of the pack suggested that I was the only person taking much blue, and I grabbed it with the hope of lucking into a second one in Pack 3 to become a dedicated mill deck.

Pack 3 I opened another mythic, Divine Visitation.  This $4 card is hard to play in draft, but it's oddly good with Trostani, so I passed it to my lucky neighbor on the left and proceeded to pass him other Selesnya rares and uncommons for the remainder of the pack, including Emmara and Assure // Assemble, both of which also combo with Divine Visitation, and he thanked me heartily afterward.  My first pick Dimir Guildmage in this pack was with the idea still that I was going to be a Grixis (blue-black-red) control deck and maybe even a Drowned Secrets mill deck.  As the pack continued, I got a bunch of good Izzet cards that I was missing, including two Electromancers.  In the end, I could have drafted differently and had a good Selesnya deck or a good Dimir surveil deck (with the first pick Spybug), but my end result was somewhere between Izzet and Grixis.

So what to build?  I've played multicolor mashups in my first two drafts, and I decided to follow the guild focus this time and go pure Izzet.

Once I decided to take out the Dimir and black cards, it was easy to narrow down the rest.  The only nonblack cards I cut were Drowned Secrets, Gravitic Punch, and Thoughtbound Phantasm (which really needs a lot of surveil to work).  I didn't want to limit myself on sideboarding, so I grabbed a bunch of Swamps and put together a plan in case I needed to change up the deck.

In this format, you hear of "aggressive Izzet" and "controlling Izzet."  My deck was sort of in the middle, but leaning toward controlling.  That's not ideal, but I felt pretty good about it.  I played only 3 of my 5 Izzet Guildgates because I didn't want my starts to be too slow.

Here are my two main sideboard plans:

The first group of 10 cards is the Dimir package.  I would take out 2 Mountains, 2 Swamps, Izzet Locket, and some less effective blue and red cards.  The Bats are good against decks that can't block fliers and the Vapors is amazing against some aggressive decks.  Of course, the two aren't very compatible.

The second sideboard, Drowned Secrets, is for slow matchups where I'm not going to lose to aggressive creatures.  Milling opponents out is very possible in this format.

Gravitic Punch can be a beating with Erratic Cyclops, but I didn't ever feel like I just needed to do more direct damage and had the spare mana to do it.

Round 1 vs. White-Blue Fliers
White-blue isn't a supported deck in this format, but he made it work pretty well with a bunch of aggressive white creatures.  I won the first game after he was kind of stuck on lands.  Then I boarded in the full Dimir package and drew the black cards but not the black mana in Game 2.  Game 3 was a long slog, and we went to turns.  He had a bit of an advantage but I was able to stave him off until we finished in a draw.  Then he gave me the win because he was just playing one round and heading out, so that was nice.  Draw, 1-1-1 (official match win).

Round 2 vs. Golgari (black-green).
This was one of my store nemeses, and his deck had nice aggressive starts.  Golgari Guildmage did a lot of work, and his green stuff was bigger than I could deal with.  The second game was close but I couldn't find the last points of damage.  Siding into black didn't help.  Loss, 0-2.

Round 3 vs. Boros (white-red).
His mana wouldn't cooperate, and he seemed to be just playing a whole bunch of tiny white creatures.  I ran over him pretty easily and finally drew Expansion // Explosion for the first time of the night.  Win, 2-0.

Round 4 vs. Dimir Campaign.
This deck was built with a lot of good surveilling and a Disinformation Campaign, one of the most maligned cards in the format.  He also had Etrata, who is a good removal spell and roadblock, but otherwise less scary than she sounds.  In the first game he built up a big advantage by casting Campaign over and over.  I realized this was the matchup for Drowned Secrets.  In Game 2 I took out Experimental Frenzy for Drowned Secrets, and I played it on turn 2.  Turns out that when every card you cast is blue, you can mill out a slow opponent pretty quickly.  He also was surveilling and drawing extra cards a lot, which sped up the process.  Game 3 on the draw I took out a Mountain and brought Frenzy back in.  I had Drowned Secrets on turn 4 and then got my Frenzy going later after I had played out my hand.  Frenzy is awesome fun to play, and I highly recommend it.  In this game I essentially had the mill win and lethal attack coming up on the same turn.  Win, 2-1.

Round 5 vs. Boros.
At 3-1 I was able to take an intentional draw this round and make top 8, but I played 2 exhibition games with my opponent to pass the time.  He had a pretty nasty aggro deck, and we each won one game with no sideboarding.  Draw, 1-1 (official intentional draw 0-0-3).

Top 8 Round 1 vs. Golgari with white splash.
He was 4-0 with a draw into the top 8.  I had a rough time keeping up with his bigger creatures and lost in two.  I guess my deck's biggest weakness is decks with a lot of big creatures, as my removal and creatures are very limited above 4 power and 4 toughness.  Loss, 0-2.

I was gifted the top 8 spot anyway by getting the win on the first round draw, so it was fair enough that I couldn't do better.  It was also about midnight when we started the round and my brain was turning to mush, but I don't think that mattered much -- these games were not winnable with my draws.  They gave us 2 FNM promos for the round, Sinister Sabotage and Thought Erasure, with winner getting to pick, and my opponent took Sinister Sabotage.

The guy who I passed all the good Selesnya cards made the top 8, so I guess I really helped him out.  I'll have to find out how far he got.

My "real" final record was 6-7-1 in games and 2-2-2 in matches (one of which was just 2 games for fun).  So even though I was in top 8, the overall result was middling.  I do like playing this draft format more than I thought I would, but I haven't had a really great deck yet.

Here's what I came away with:

Experimental Frenzy is about $2 and everything else is available on TCGplayer for less, for a sum total of about $6 - $8.  I drafted 5 rares, which is above average, and 7 uncommons, which is slightly below average.

I'm excited about drafting Ultimate Masters next Friday.  It's expensive but it should be fun.  I've already done one mock draft on draftsim.com and I'll do some more before the end of the week.  Based on other Masters drafts I've done, I might be able to get an advantage by drafting to win while others draft for money.  They're going to open a box for each draft pod, and the prizes will be the box toppers, which range in value from about $30 to over $300 in presale prices.

Standard Showdown 2018-11-18

Just a quick Standard post today.  We didn't have enough to play a tournament, but I got my freebie pack and a few games with my updated deck.

Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the old list, but it was based around Traxos and Phylactery Lich, with lots of artifacts to power them both.  The problem with the Lich is that while it is strong, it also requires playing artifacts that aren't easy to kill.  That meant that I had to have a fair number of non-creature artifacts, including cards like Fountain of Renewal that don't ever do much and in some matchups are practically blank cards.

I've been very lucky opening Doom Whisperers in Guilds of Ravnica limited, and after getting a third copy, I decided to just ditch the Liches completely and try to build stronger synergies around Traxos with other finishers.  I traded for a copy of Josu Vess as a difficult-to-beat mana sink for the late game that is also historic for Traxos.

After making these changes, I felt pretty good about the deck, but then I noticed something: without Phylactery Lich, I could replace the bad artifacts with artifact creatures because I don't need the artifacts to stick around on the battlefield forever.  They would still synergize with Traxos and survive Act II of Phyrexian Scriptures.  But what artifact creatures to use?  There aren't very many good cheap artifact creatures in the format right now, mostly just commons from Dominaria.

After a bit of searching, I found Chamber Sentry, the "fixed" Walking Ballista.  I'm not playing 5 colors to make it huge or bring it back from the graveyard, although Treasure Map does theoretically make those things possible.  But mostly Chamber Sentry is just a 2/2 that can cause trouble for aggro decks and occasionally gains a +1/+1 counter from Scriptures.  And another little sweet thing about Chamber Sentry is that I can cast it for 0 if I really need to untap Traxos.  Anyway, here's my deck now:

https://www.mtgvault.com/nathangw/decks/standard-wb-traxoscombo-cs/

Another thing you'll notice is 1 Dragonskull Summit as a practically free way to occasionally add an extra counter to Chamber Sentry.  It's also cute to mislead opponents about my deck.  I would add a random black-blue and black-green check or shock land as well if I luck into them.

So today I played 1 match against a Selesnya Tokens deck using Emmara, March of the Multitudes, and a bunch of token makers.  He made a critical error in the first game after not reading Phyrexian Scriptures.  He made a ton of tokens on the turn before Act II killed them all, and he used Conclave Tribunal on my Traxos instead of on Scriptures.  All his stuff died, and I won easily after the momentum swing.

I sided out Cast Down, 1 Duress, 2 Spyglass, and 1 Swamp to put in 4 Knight of Malice and 1 Plague Mare.  Second game I Freebooted his Conclave Tribunal and we were both slow on board, but Treasure Map got a quick flip with the help of Voltaic Servant to let me use it twice in the same turn cycle, and I cast Josu Vess with kicker on turn 6 using all the treasure tokens.  Easy win, but I think things went pretty well for me.

As a bonus, the store guy offered a game with his Standard deck.  He was running several other tournaments, so we had some breaks in the play, but it was a fun and interesting game.  His deck was a ton of ramp leading into Star of Extinction, Zacama, Pelakka Wurm, etc.  I was able to get a few threats on board early, but none of the big ones, and he eventually got a bunch of card advantage engines and mana.  I handled the Pelakka Wurm but couldn't find a way through Zacama.  He kind of did what I am trying to do -- go bigger than the other guy -- but his bigger was bigger than my bigger.

Oh, and here's my Showdown pack.  Not bad, especially for free.  Check out the cute cat in Goblin Cratermaker.

FNM Draft 2018-11-09

Guilds of Ravnica draft has maintained popularity longer than I expected.  I think even though it looks like there are only 5 decks, people have found success in playing grindy decks with all kinds of splashes.  Another player also commented that there is a lot of value (as in money) in GRN, and that might be a big part of its continued popularity.

This week there were 29 players, and I was at the lone table of 8.  Here's what I drafted:

First pack had Firemind's Research at rare, and I felt like the safer route was to just take the strong removal spell Lava Coil.  After that, I went with whatever removal I could find and creatures that play well with it.  Looking back on this pack is enlightening, because I only took one Boros card but two guildgates.  The only thing certain after Pack 1 was that I wanted to play red.

Pack 2 had the Doom Whisperer, which is apparently just a given for me to open in GRN Limited (I'm 3 for 3 including the prerelease).  Then a hint toward white with Luminous Bonds and Justice Strike, and mono black for the rest of the pack.  Rakdos (black-red) is not a supported guild in GRN, but that was what I was looking like.  There were a ton of good green and Golgari cards going through me this pack, including a couple great rares, but I never thought about switching or adding green.

Pack 3 rare was Thief of Sanity, another ridiculous bomb in draft.  I wasn't sure if I could splash it in, and was hopeful to get some Izzet or Dimir guildgates.  Instead, the rest of my Pack 3 was strong Boros cards, and I took the most controlling cards I could get my hands on because I had no shortage of finishers.  The guy to my left was drafting a normal Boros aggro deck, which explains why I had no Boros in pack 2 but tons in Pack 1 and 3.  He ended up without much removal because I was taking it all, but his creatures were good, so I don't think we cannibalized each other too badly.

Here's the deck I built.  I realized later on that I needed more white sources, so I put in a Plains in place of a Swamp.

12 removal spells and 11 creatures is not a normal configuration, but I liked it.  Boros aggro doesn't want the guildgates, and I was super happy to get 4 of them.  It was the card I most wanted to see in my opening hand.  The Selesnya Guildgate supported the possibility of casting Statue, but I could always cast the Status half with just black.  I would have played Thief of Sanity if I had just 3 blue sources, but one Izzet Guildgate was not enough and I wasn't going to add Islands and make the rest of my mana worse.

I generally chose to draw first with this deck because my cards were mostly 1-for-1 and I had a lot of early game removal to keep from getting overrun, and also because I really needed my mana to work out and I couldn't afford to mulligan and play first.

My sideboard was pretty wide open, but I didn't use it much, really only dipping in for an occasional Sure Strike.

How did the games go?

Round 1 vs. Abzan (white-black-green).  This guy is good, but the games were ridiculously one-sided.  I achieved the dream play of Doom Whisperer plus Piston-Fist Cyclops followed by Resurgence to attack for 20.  Win, 2-0.

Round 2 vs. Jeskai Tempo (white-blue-red).  He was splashing blue into a mostly Boros deck, and my draws were much clunkier than in Round 1, as should be expected with an unsupported 3-color deck.  In the first game I thought I had stabilized and he hit me with a Sonic Assault cast from the graveyard to get his attackers through for exact lethal.  Loss, 0-2.

Round 3 vs. Grixis Frenzy (blue-black-red).  This was a blue-black deck that had Experimental Frenzy and a couple other red cards.  His other really annoying card was Murmuring Mystic, and in general he had a ton of low power high toughness creatures with abilities, which was difficult for my removal.  Dead Weight, Direct Current, and Justice Strike didn't kill much, and Luminous Bonds is not worth much on Passwall Adept or Murmuring Mystic.  In the first game, I got a long drawn out win, with 3 Luminous Bonds on his 3 Darkblade Agents at the end of it.  He had Frenzy but gave up on it early in order to play an Island that he would have had stuck in his hand.  Second game was more of the same, but I missed 2 Runaway Steam-Kin triggers that might have been pivotal in getting it big enough to attack.  He got Frenzy out, and things were ok for me until he had a turn where he was able to play 4 creatures off the top of his deck.  The third game was more of the same.  He got an early Murmuring Mystic and I didn't have 2 red/white mana to kill it with Response.  Late in the game, I was ready to get back in it with Doom Whisperer, but his Passwall was sending in 1-power creatures and I was behind on life.  Pivotal decision point:

I am at 3 life and his creatures are tapped down from attacking.  He has Passwall Adept and 2 other 1-power creatures with 3+ toughness, with enough mana to make them all unblockable, so I am going to lose on his next turn if nothing changes.  I have Doom Whisperer and a couple 1/1 Rats and he is at 11.  I also have a Direct Current in graveyard but no cards in hand to discard, so best case with the cards I have I can do 10 damage (discarding the card I draw this turn).  I really need to kill his Passwall Adept but most of the removal in my deck won't do it.  Should I pay 2 life to surveil 2 with Doom Whisperer before drawing for my turn?  The downside is that if I go to 1 life, a card like Luminous Bonds no longer lets me live for 1 more turn.

I decided not to surveil, and I drew Mountain, attacked for 8, Direct Current for 2, and lost.  Looking at the top of my library afterward, my second card was Dead Weight and my third card was Intervention, which would have given me the damage to win or at least the life to live another turn, so if I had surveilled, I would have dumped the Mountain and Dead Weight in the graveyard (since neither wins) and drawn it blindly.  Looking at my deck, I think that was the only card that saves me at 1 life (in the moment, I couldn't remember how many good draws I had at 1 life vs. 3).  I think I made the right decision, but man that was close!  What do you think?  Loss, 1-2.

Round 4 vs. 5-color Chamber Sentry (mostly Selesnya).  He also had the Venerated Loxodon, which he curved into faster than I could get my lands assembled on the draw in Game 1.  Game 2 ended up an easy win, and Game 3 was a nailbiter where he made one or two little mistakes that might have cost him the win, but I feel like I also played about as well as possible and led him into the mistakes.  The pivotal moment was when he tried to burn me out with Chamber Sentry when I was holding Intervention.  I was at 2 life, but Chamber Sentry had 4 counters.  He activated it for 2 instead of the full 4, and I Interventioned it in response to end up at 3 life instead of 1.  That might not have been a mistake in a vacuum, but in the game context, ending up at 3 life was huge because it let me attack more safely.  Win, 2-1.  I wasn't going to make Top 8, so I gave him the win and dropped.

In total, my score was an even 2-2 in matches and 5-5 in games.  I really like this deck, and I think I could have done better with the mana.  There were a lot of games where I had enough black (which is really just 2 Swamps) but needed more white and red to do things like cast Direct Current twice in a turn or with a second spell.

I got 4 rares (vs. 3 average) and 7 uncommons (vs. 9 average), but the rares were high quality.  Doom Whisperer is still around $20, Steam-Kin (not pictured because I traded it) is about $4, and Thief of Sanity is around $2.50.  Lava Coil has become a premium uncommon at $1 for Standard, but it has zero use outside of Standard so it will be bulk when it rotates.  A good return on a $12 draft fee.

After I dropped, I made a few trades and ended up with the following new cards:

My Standard deck was full of Phylactery Liches before, but now that I have 3 Doom Whisperers, I have morphed it over to more of a Traxos/Doom Whisperer combo deck.  The dream is that I have Doom Whisperer and high life total, and I can upkeep surveil to find On Serra's Wings against unsuspecting opponents.  We'll see how well that works.  Here's the list:

https://www.mtgvault.com/nathangw/decks/standard-wb-traxoscombo/

Thanks for reading!

Standard Showdown 2018-11-04

I went to Standard Showdown a couple weeks ago and we didn't get enough people to run an event.  So I got a free prize pack and a League Promo, and then I played some EDH.

Not bad!

This week I decided to try again.  It wasn't certain that we would be able to play, so the store gave out the prize packs in advance again.  Again, not bad!

But we did eventually get 7 people. so we played 3 rounds.  I added my two Doom Whisperers to my deck and didn't really make any other changes since I originally built the deck before rotation.  Here's the Traxos-Lich deck.

Black-White Traxos-Lich

Briefly, the concept is to pack a bunch of utility "historic" spells and discard around Traxos, Scourge of Kroog and Phylactery Lich, with the plan of getting rid of any relevant removal from the opponent's hand and then going over the top with a big threat and On Serra's Wings.

The deck looked better before Assassin's Trophy was printed and Golgari became popular, because with Kaladesh (with lots of targets for artifact removal) and Amonkhet (with Abrade) blocks rotating out it looked like it might be safe to play artifacts again.

Regardless, the "pre-boarded" nature of the deck (playing odd cards that look like they belong in a sideboard rather than more general cards) gives it a unique angle and can surprise opponents.

So how did it do?

Round 1 vs. Mono Blue Djinn
This was a fairly typical Curious Obsession deck - similar to one that placed second at a recent Grand Prix.  Game 1 I Duressed the Curious Obsession and was able to hang in until he tapped out before playing Doom Whisperer with On Serra's Wings to take over the game.  My sideboard plan was to take out the 2 Sorcerous Spyglasses, Sentinel Totem, and a Voltaic Servant and bring in 2 Ixalan's Binding, Vraska's Contempt, and Cast Down.  Game 2 I got stuck on 1 land after mulligan, and my Fountain of Renewal and Duress weren't enough to save me.  Game 3 was pretty even -- he got some hits in with Curious Obsession, and I got 2 Freebooters on board.  I was holding back a Doom Whisperer, and he eventually tapped out.  I think he forgot about his Siren Stormtamer, and he made some questionable timing decisions with his Dream Eater and a Dive Down, but I felt like I was in good shape regardless.  I knew about the Dream Eater (which is not a usual card in this deck) from very early in the game, and that gave me a good advantage as he got closer to 6 lands.  Win, 2-1.

Round 2 vs. Golgari
This seemed like a pretty normal Golgari build, although it was a little more in the self-mill plan than usual and I saw an odd Reassembling Skeleton in the graveyard.  Game 1 he had the right removal at the right time and a ton of creatures, and he built an overwhelming board.  Game 2 I sideboarded in Cast Down, 1 Ixalan's Binding, Vraska's Contempt, The Eldest Reborn, and Shalai in place of 4 Duress and 1 Lich and we played a very fun and long game.  He was in control at points, but we traded off removal and for a few turns my Voltaic Servant beat on him with On Serra's Wings.  I flipped two Treasure Maps and drew cards with all the treasures, but in the end it wasn't enough, and his ability to remove enchantments with Trophy and his planeswalkers really got me.  Loss, 0-2.

Round 3 vs. Mono Red Runaway Steam-Kin
The deck was a pure aggro burn Steam-Kin build, and it was fast.  I saw a ton of Viashino Pyromancers between the two games.  In Game 1 I kept a hand with Phyrexian Scriptures, but he was too fast and I conceded without showing him anything other than Duress.  I sided out 4 Duress and 2 Spyglass and brought in the cheapest removal I could.  In Game 2, I was just 1 turn too slow to get a Doom Whisperer attacking with On Serra's Wings to turn the tide.  In hindsight I possibly should have brought in the Knights of Malice just to make it harder for him to attack without spending burn spells on creatures.  This is one matchup where Voltaic Servant actually has good stats, but he killed the one I played.  Loss, 0-2.

So I finished 1-2 in matches and 2-5 in games, which is not great, but I liked the Mono Blue matchup and I felt like I was close to having the right mix for Mono Red.  With the right opening cards (Fountain of Renewal, Phylactery Lich, and Fungal Infection after sideboarding) I think I could have played a better game against Red -- maybe I needed to mulligan more aggressively.  Golgari seems hard.  Sentinel Totem was great in those games, and Scriptures would have been great if he didn't keep killing it before Act II and III.

Anyhow, it was fun to play some Standard again.  It's always great seeing people try to figure out how to beat a deck with cards they never see in Constructed.  I think Voltaic Servant is generally bad, but I can't get away from it.  I keep hoping they print more good artifacts with tap abilities to use it on, because it seems like a necessary evil alongside Traxos.  On the other hand, Treasure Map feels great every single time.

Thanks for reading!

FNM Draft 2018-10-12

First time drafting the new set.  The LGS had to raise its draft price from $10 to $12 because Hasbro is forcing them to buy through a distributor.  I'm happy to pay that because $12 is still a fine deal for a fun night out, but it's unfortunate that Hasbro has changed its model to be more favorable to big retailers than to the local stores that promote the game and give people a place to play.

There were 29 people, and I was at the lone table of 8.

Here's what I drafted:

One note if you aren't familiar with Guilds of Ravnica -- unlike normal sets where you have the option of 10 relatively balanced color pairs, GRN only supports 5 specific color pairs, so it is usually best to get into one of them and stick with it.  There are a lot of multicolor cards and common dual lands but only from those pairs, and that makes it hard to do something outside of a 2- or 3-color deck that uses the supported guilds.

First pick was obvious -- Doom Whisperer is a ridiculous bomb and also in the $20 range, so I didn't have to think about it at all.  Second pick was harder because there wasn't any card that stuck out as individually powerful.  I took Thoughtbound Phantasm as much because it combos with Doom Whisperer as anything else.  Third pick I went with a card I felt was generically strong even though it was completely counter to my first two picks.  Then I finally found some removal, and some guildgates and cards that fit the Dimir (blue-black) Surveil strategy.  The only thing I was completely sure of after Pack 1 was that I would be playing Doom Whisperer.  The green cards at the bottom of the pack were good enough to consider drafting Golgari (black-green).

Pack 2 rare was Citywide Bust, which is a nice card but not what I was looking for.  There were a couple good Dimir cards in the pack, and Artful Takedown was the best.  Repeat on second pick, then I was fed a string of pretty good Dimir cards.  One thing I was lacking was many creatures for the early game, and Child of Night (2/1 Lifelink) was a deliberate hedge to make sure I could survive long enough to cast my expensive spells against aggressive decks.

Pack 3 rare was Expansion // Explosion, another very good card that was hard to imagine fitting into my deck.  I would have gone in on it if there hadn't been other good cards, and Deadly Visit was perfectly good as a strong removal spell that also helped with my surveil payoffs.  Dead Weight gave me more help for the early game.  Sacred Foundry was purely a greed pick for one of my constructed decks.  Gatekeeper Gargoyle seemed like another reasonable big creature since I had drafted a lot of gates.  The rest of the picks were just best card available, and I was very happy to get a pair of Douser of Lights just as more creatures of good size.

After giving it a second look, this draft was a bit of a mess and I was sorely lacking early game interaction.  There were kind of two ways to go in building, either base Dimir with all of the surveil synergies, or some kind of 5-color monster with all of my removal spells and guildgates, which would play up the Gargoyle but have terrible mana.

I went with the safer option:

Apologies for the bad glare.  The two hardest to identify are Dazzling Lights and Sinister Sabotage.  As you can see along the top, I only played 11 creatures, and 5 of them cost 5 mana or more.

I went with green as my third color over red, mostly because I had one more Golgari Guildgate and because the fight removal spells Prey Upon and Undercity Uprising were cheaper to cast than my red removal spells, which both competed with my many other 5-drops.  In hindsight, my red cards may have been just generally better, and Circuitous Route was a particularly sketchy thing to do since it really only helped if I could cast it on Turn 4 or if I was holding the Gargoyle.

I don't think I was wrong to play every card with surveil even though Thoughtbound Phantasm was the only real payoff, because surveiling  is good on its own.  Enhanced Surveillance was neat but I really only felt like I could include it because it's an early turn play in a deck without very many early turn plays.

Here's my functional sideboard:

I never tried the red cards.  Crushing Canopy was far and away my best sideboard card, and I'd consider that for main deck in the future because every deck seems to have fliers or enchantment-based removal spells.  The counterspells were good too, and I always had something I could board out depending on the matchup (bad cheap creatures in slower matches and bad expensive creatures against fast opponents).

Round 1 vs. Izzet (blue-red) Spells.
This guy is good, and he managed to get a good chunk of high-quality Izzet spells, although he didn't have the ridiculous bomb Niv-Mizzet or the Ral planeswalker.  In the first game we were matched fairly well until he put together an attack with Erratic Cyclops and a big Explosion.  Second game was a little worse, although I did have a nice moment where I was able to use Dispersal to kill a creature while he had instant speed card draw on the board by waiting until he activated in my end step and Dispersing while the draw was on the stack.  Loss, 0-2.

Round 2 vs. 4-Color Surveil (sans-white).
Another tough opponent.  He had way better surveil payoffs than I did, and Nightveil Sprite to power them.  I lost a hard-fought game 1, won a fairly easy game 2 where he drew too many lands, and then lost game 3 when he put all the surveil stuff together before I could start casting my spells.  I made a couple of mistakes that last game.  First, I had a surveil 2 where I put both Circuitous Route and the Gargoyle on top of my library, then the next turn I cast Route for 2 gates...and shuffled the Gargoyle back into my deck.  The second one was a bit more uncertain.  I had Crushing Canopy and Deadly Visit in hand, and he had put a his-choice discard spell on the stack, so I had to use Crushing Canopy immediately or probably lose it.  The potential targets were Disinformation Campaign, Capture Sphere on Douser of Light (my only creature), and Dimir Spybug with 1 counter on it.  I chose the Campaign since it was probably worse for me in the long run, but he ended up playing out more creatures and growing the bug to win a couple turns later.  The biggest problem with destroying Campaign was that it wasn't likely to make me discard anymore because I had an empty hand and a lot of mana.  I'm not sure what was the correct target, but it wasn't Campaign.  Loss, 1-2.

I considered dropping but decided to play a third round just to see if I could do something better (and probably against an 0-2 opponent).

Round 3 vs. Naya (white-red-green) ???
He got "Naya Tron" (a land of each color) on turn 3 in both games, but he never seemed to have much interesting to play, just some common creatures.  I'm sure I didn't see whatever got him into those colors.  Doom Whisperer and endless removal ended these games fast.  I was dropping afterward anyway so I gave him the official win.  Win, 2-0.

All in all, I drafted some good cards but not a deck that was likely to win a lot of games.  The final record was 1-2 in matches and 3-4 in games.

I drafted 2 rares and 8 uncommons.  The 6 guildgates I drafted from the basic land slot (since there are no basic lands in GRN packs) were partially responsible for this.  But I did get 2 rares that paid for the draft -- Doom Whisperer is going at around $22 and Sacred Foundry is currently around $8 but also has as much guaranteed long term ability to hold value as any card currently in existence.

So not a very successful draft, but a good introduction to the new draft format.  I don't think GRN has as much staying power as some of the other recent sets because only having 5 main deck archetypes is so limiting and likely to feel repetitive, but I'll definitely try it again.

Thanks for reading!

Guilds of Ravnica Prerelease 2018-09-29

The store changed its normal first prerelease time from 10 to 9 AM because there was a conflicting Yugioh event, and I was thinking maybe it wouldn't be well attended, but it was pretty good.  Maybe 30-40 people or so.

They were limiting each guild to 10 sign-ups, first come first served, and when I showed up, Golgari (black-green) was already all taken (people were hoping for promo Assassin's Trophy).  I was torn between Golgari and Selesnya (white-green) as my top choices, so that made my decision easy.  Selesnya was also the least full at the time, and I'm never above picking an underdog.

Just like Tarkir block in 2014 - 2015 (and Origins did something similar also), you get a "seeded" booster that has a promo and other cards for your guild.  Here's what mine had:

Bounty of Might is a great card for Limited (especially Sealed) because it will just suddenly win games out of nowhere, but it has no money value.  The rest of the pack was standard Selesnya fare.

When I opened my other 5 boosters, I was met by a four black and Golgari rares, plus support cards at uncommon and common (my last rare was Tajic, who is great, but there was no way I could play Boros).  So I was without question going Golgari, but while building I played around with white in a three-color deck and had a hard time deciding what to cut.  In the end, I was happy with my straight Golgari curve and cut out the white altogether.  Here's what I ended up playing:

Doom Whisperer is just bonkers -- there's no way they should have printed a card that good.  But I can't complain since I was the one benefiting from it.  Even if it didn't have the ability to surveil at will it would be ridiculously strong.  The plan of this deck (and Golgari in general) is to trade off low drops to stay alive while working toward my bomb rares.  There's a little bit of conflict between the trading and the two big convoke creatures, but I also had enough good blockers like Hitchclaw Recluse that I could get up to 7 and 9 convoking mana.  Midnight Reaper sometimes drew me a bunch of cards, but it is sometimes uncastable at low health.  I didn't have the best removal, but Bounty of Might sometimes represents a 3-for-1 and other times represents a "Oh you decided not to block because you have 15 life?  Now you're dead."  Very fun and sweet deck with a lot of synergy and a little pure gasoline.

I had some Plains and various white and white-green cards ready to side in, and I also had a pair of Crushing Canopy in case I needed enchantment or flier removal.  But I never made any changes to my deck all tournament.

Round 1 vs. Sultai (blue-black-green) Lazav Surveil.
I'm not sure what this guy was really doing, but he had mashed together his Dimir and Golgari cards.  It wasn't bad but I won in two games, partially because he had trouble with his mana base.  Win, 2-0.

Round 2 vs. Selesnya Convoke.
She had a bunch of the bigger convoke creatures and got ahead early both games.  In the first game I made a bad aggressive attack that almost cost me, but pulled it out with Doom Whisperer and a surprise Bounty of Might.  Second game she had me down to 3 life and attacked 4 creatures into my 3.  I 3-for-1-ed her with Bounty of Might while dropping to 1 life, and started to make a comeback.  But she got just enough creatures to force me to trade Doom Whisperer, and I drew a Midnight Reaper that I couldn't cast because I was so close to dying, and eventually she broke through (I cast the Reaper as a blocker just to see if she wouldn't attack into it, but she saw it).  We finished just as time before turns was expiring and called it a draw.  1-1.

Round 3 vs. Selesnya 2x Emmara with black splash.
This guy is good, and he had an excellent convoke deck without really researching the set in advance.  He tempoed me out of game 1 with creatures that I couldn't effectively block (4/4's and Roc Charger).  Second game I was doing pretty well but he calmly blew out my lethal Doom Whisperer with a removal spell after I pumped it, then blew out the Severed Strands that might have saved me for a couple turns by giving his creature hexproof.  Loss, 0-2.

Round 4 vs. Boros (white-red) with blue splash.
I don't think I ever found out what he was splashing because this looked like Boros aggro, except it wasn't very aggressive in either game we played.  He had Aurelia, but I was able to take her down cleanly with Hitchclaw Recluse and Undercity Uprising since her base power is so low.  Both games he ground me down and appeared to be ahead, and both games he lost to Bounty of Might attacks, once from 12 life and once from 17 (and he had no excuses on the second one because he did have blockers).  Win, 2-0.

2-1-1 match record isn't good enough for prizes (you have to get 3 wins), but it was enough to make me happy.  My game record of 5-3 was fine.

For value, Doom Whisperer is currently at about $18.  That seems high for the long term, but it is a powerful Commander card even if it doesn't take off in Standard (starting at 40 life, the Surveil ability is sort of a combination of a tutor and a fast graveyard filler for black combo decks).  Tajic is about $3 and the rest of my rares are near-bulk and likely to end up bulk in the long term.  I was sad I didn't get any shock lands because those are the best guaranteed value in the set.  So I almost made back the $25 cost of prerelease, but I don't think that's going to hold.

I look forward to drafting GRN.  Seems a bit different from anything I've drafted before.

Thanks for reading!

M19 Store Championship Draft 2018-09-15

I haven't been to any of my LGS's Store Championships before, but this time I saw it was booster draft and decided to jump at the 3 PM Saturday start instead of the usual 7 PM FNM draft.  It was a mix of regulars and people I didn't recognize (including one person drafting for the first time ever), and we had 21 total, which to me is perfect -- a good enough group to have a diverse draft, but small enough to only go 4 rounds before cutting to top 8.  It was 3 pods of 7.

Since it was a special event, they had a special promo Emmara from the upcoming set for everyone who participated (photo at bottom of post).

Here was my draft, bottom left to top right:

Pack 1 I ended up taking the rare, but it was close against Murder, Psychic Corrosion and maybe another good uncommon.  I like trying out rares I haven't gotten to play before.  There was also a foil Stitcher's Supplier, which is a $9 card, and I was surprised that it came back around and snapped it up for value.  Second pick I took the Skeleton Archer over a Runic Armasaur, maybe not correct but I've had good success with Skeleton Archers.  Boggart Brute and Shock made me think maybe I could get into the coveted "White-Red Go-Wide" deck, and I drafted toward it for the rest of the pack.

Pack 2 I opened Death Baron as my rare, and in hindsight maybe I should have tried moving into red-black (the 3 black cards I drafted in Pack 1 all work fine with Death Baron and my red cards).  I kept rolling with white-red though, and I managed to get a lot of cards I wanted.  Blue was wide open and no one seemed to be moving into it.

Third pack I was happy to get the Valiant Knight to go with my Gallant Cavalry and Cavalry Drillmasters, and then I also got several more Gallant Cavalry.  The Lightning Strike was also nice because I was having no luck finding Luminous Bonds, the removal spell I was really hoping for.  I did miss several chances in the first couple packs to grab a Take Vengeance, but I have not been impressed with that card in this style of deck and assumed I would find better removal.  The other common card I was sorely missing was Angel of the Dawn, and I wasn't the only one at the table who mentioned it -- apparently we had zero in the entire draft (21 packs).

Here's my deck:

I ended up with a lot of the cards I wanted but I was missing some role players.  I also had a glut of 4-drops competing for deck slots between the Valiant Knight, 4 Gallant Cavalry, and 3 Inspired Charge.  I've had decks in the past that had too many 4-drops, and it isn't fun sitting on 3 lands with a hand full of good 4-drops that you'll never be able to cast before the game ends even if you do get that 4th land.  So I cut a Cavalry and an Inspired Charge and instead played cards I wouldn't normally want in this deck like Daybreak Chaplain.  She isn't aggressive, but she goes well with Knight's Pledge, Marauder's Axe, and the pump spells.

All in all, this was somewhat worse than the white-red deck I had a month or so ago, and definitely a suboptimal example of the archetype.  It was missing fliers and powerful removal, but it still had a good curve, aggressive creatures, and a couple good rares.

Sideboard had some flexibility.  Smelt is obvious, and I used Gargoyle Sentinel against 2/1's like Child of Night and Knight of the Tusk against the 6/6 Colossal Dreadmaw.  If nothing else, Lava Axe or Trumpet Blast came in on the draw in place of a land depending on the matchup.  I technically had enough white and blue cards to switch to White-Blue, but I don't think that would have been better.

Round 1 vs. White-Green Dryads
First game I was on the play and managed to get him with pump spells.  There was an agonizing moment where I attacked all out and waited to show him I was going to win with Lightning Strike no matter how he blocked.  I maybe should have just showed him the Lightning Strike, but I couldn't remember if there was a spell he could have used his 1 green mana on to live, so instead he spent 2 minutes rearranging his creatures for optimal blocks before I cast the Strike.  Second game he had two Dryad Greenseekers but could not hit a land for the life of him.  Win, 2-0.

Round 2 vs. White-Black Lifegain
This guy was the other one at my table wanting Angels.  He and I were competing for white cards, but things went his way more than mine, as he ended up with the Murder that I passed to go along with Resplendent Angel, Transmogrifying Wand, Cleansing Nova, and Sigiled Sword of Valeron and some great synergy cards.  I made a mistake in game 1, forgetting that I had a Shock in hand when he cast a combat trick that I could have blown out.  Then I just straight up couldn't keep up in Game 2.  Loss, 0-2.

Round 3 vs. White-Green Auras.
He was going heavy on the +2/+2 and +3/+3 auras with things like the Rustwing Falcon.  First game I had the tools to outrace him, although I did make a mistake tapping the wrong colors of mana once that left me in a race against a Colossal Dreadmaw that I otherwise could have killed with Shock.  Second game he played turn 2 Remorseful Cleric (which I had passed in the draft!), and I had a choice between casting Oreskos Swiftclaw (3/1) or Dismissive Pyromancer on Turn 2.  I played the Swiftclaw, then he followed up with Oakenform to make the cleric a 5/4.  Next turn I played the Pyromancer and he pumped the Cleric again up to 7/6, which I simply couldn't beat.  If I had played the Pyromancer first, I would have been able to handle it or at least caused a standoff.  I took that wisdom into game 3, where I held back from casting a creature on turn 3 so that I could Lightning Strike his Falcon if he buffed it -- and it worked!  It always feels good to make a successful play based on past experience.  I won the game and the match, 2-1.

Round 4 vs. White-Red Lathliss.
There were 2 people at 3-0 who could draw into the top 8 and then 8 of us at 2-1 who had to play to get in.  My opponent had a similar deck, but with more Luminous Bonds and a Lathliss.  We played a very competitive 3-game match, and he came away with the win.  Loss, 1-2.

But luckily, I was able to get into the top 8 at 2-2 based on strength of schedule!  I got a special Top 8 deck box and a foil FNM promo token from Ixalan, with the possibility to win more.

Round 5 vs. White-Black Lifegain.
My opponent was the same guy I lost to in Round 2.  In game 1 I lost to the Sword (side note: I learned from asking a judge that if you Act of Treason a creature with the Sword equipped and attack, the other guy gets the Knight token because he still controls the Sword).  Second game had some epic life total changes.  I was sort of ahead for a while, but his long game was stronger, and he eventually put together a combo of Ravenous Harpy and Reassembling Skeleton that I couldn't break up with my weak removal.  Loss, 0-2.

The total record isn't great, 2-3 in matches and 5-7 in games, but I am glad I played it out.  This is probably my last M19 draft, and I have had fun with this set.  Guilds of Ravnica will be a big step up in complexity.

I didn't get a photo of the deck box, but it's not super exciting.  I drafted 4 rares and 7 uncommons, vs. 3 and 9 on average.  Two of my rares and several of my uncommons were just late picks that I took just because there was nothing good left in the pack.  The foil Stitcher's Supplier is around $9 with potential to go up.  The Emmara promo is probably a couple dollars at best once the dust has settled, although she does have some combo potential to make unlimited Soldier tokens.  Everything else is basically bulk.  The token card is City's Blessing on one side and the Elemental token for Rekindling Phoenix on the other.

Thanks for reading!