Oddly, there were not very many people for draft. Maybe it was the rain, or maybe they all had hot Valentine's dates, but we had 11 people, 3 of whom had never drafted before. So it was a bizarre single pod of 11, which meant that people might see more duplicate cards and higher quality cards in general, but you were less likely than normal to see cards you want come back around to you.
Anyway, somehow I completely killed it with this draft. Here is the draft in order, from bottom left to top right:
First pick rare was a strong merfolk card, and it looked better than the couple of removal spells in the pack. Second pick I took an aura that's very good in aggressive strategies and in the merfolk colors. Third pick a strong rare was still in the pack, so I hedged toward possibly shifting colors by taking it over less powerful cards, although the Jungleborn Pioneer that eventually came back to me was probably my other best choice there, since it goes really well with Deeproot Elite. Since Jungleborn Pioneer is a common, I wasn't worried about eventually getting one or two, and I went with the rare. Merfolk Mistbinder at 5th pick was a good sign that other people were going to let me have my merfolk, and Hunt the Weak is just a great removal spell that I would take for any green deck. Toward the end of the pack I was happy to see Jade Bearer and the Jungleborn Pioneer.
Second pack first pick didn't have anything that really excited me. The rare was Induced Amnesia, which is not very good in Limited. I took Crested Herdcaller because it's a very good uncommon in my colors, although it ended up not making my final deck. The next few picks were just generally useful on-color cards, and then I was off to the races with Silvergill Adept, another Curious Obsession, and 2 Mist-Cloaked Heralds to put the Curious Obsessions on (which I had been waiting for).
Pack 3 rare was Deadeye Tracker. I didn't see anything I had to have in the merfolk theme, so I took the foil Siren Stormtamer as another evasive blue 1-drop for Curious Obsession that also doubles as protection for my best creatures. Pick 2 was a nice surprise in Ripjaw Raptor, a devastating curve-topper that my merfolk deck in no way deserved to have access to. For a good chunk of this pack, the hits kept coming, as though everyone else was thinking "Ok, let's give the one guy drafting merfolk exactly the cards he wants."
Here is the deck I ended up building:
I had to make some hard cuts to come up with the optimal deck. Since I had such a strong low end, I pared down to 15 lands knowing that I would have some keepable hands with only 1-2 islands and some mix of the cards below.
I ended up cutting a lot of good cards -- Crested Herdcaller and Siren Lookout are both cards I would almost always play in a green or blue deck, and Jade Guardian is going into almost all merfolk decks, but they just didn't fit here.
After the low-drop blue cards, these 1-drops and 2-drops make for explosive turn 2 and 3 plays:
Then finally these double-merfolk cards clog up the board and make a lot of counters with Deeproot Elite, and Kopala and the Stormtamer make it hard for the opponent to interact with the now-giant creatures:
With the various duplicate cards and the abundance of merfolk, this deck was deadly and consistent. My best start didn't even involve a 1-drop; I played Woodland Stream tapped, then turn 2 Deeproot Elite, turn 3 Silvergill Adept and Jade Bearer (adding a total of three +1/+1 counters), then turn 4 Jade Bearer and another merfolk (three more counters) to attack with a 5/4 Silvergill and 4/4 Deeproot Elite on a turn when many decks are just casting their first 3/3.
Here are my most likely sideboard cards, although I had a lot of options if needed.
I had a round 1 bye, so that started me off 1-0 and helping in a game with one of the new players.
Round 2 vs. P.
P was playing Naya (white-red-green), and I never really got to see much of his deck to know whether it was heavy dinos or something else. In game 1, we both mulliganed to 6 and kept hands with 2 lands. He had a mountain and a forest, and I had two islands, but I also had Mist-Cloaked Herald and Curious Obsession, and I was able to draw extra cards into lands while he was not. In the second game, he mulliganed to 5 and I had a vicious start that he couldn't keep up with. Win, 2-0.
Round 3 vs. N.
N was in red-green dinosaurs. In the first game, I mulliganed to 5 and kept a hand with a Mist-Cloaked Herald and Silvergill. He got off to a strong start while I missed a few curve spots (I also made a mistake of not casting Silvergill on turn 3 after drawing a merfolk to reveal, but I don't think that was the difference in the game). In the end, I got the Herald pumped up to 5/5 but I couldn't keep up otherwise and I lost. I sideboarded in the River Darters and took out two of my higher cost non-merfolk. Second and third game blur together for me -- in both games I had good curve-outs and just built up huge boards of attackers before he was able to stabilize. Win, 2-1.
Round 4 vs. E.
With only 11 players in the event, E and I were the only 3-0 players, and we were able to take an intentional draw into first and second place.
Bonus coverage, Commander game with B and E.
Since we had to wait for the other games to end, we joined B in a Commander game. I was playing my Intet the Dreamer deck (Temur - blue-red-green). B had two of the partner Commanders: Thrasios, Triton Hero and Vial Smasher the Fierce, meaning he was in every color except white. E had a mono-white equipment-based deck with Balan, Wandering Knight. I was going to sit back a bit on my big dragons and blow up the board, but my Nevinyrral's Disk got destroyed before I could untap it. Atarka, World Render was a bit of a threat, but in the end, direct damage from Vial Smasher took me out and took E out soon after.
Standings. I ended up in first place for the draft! Since E and I had drawn, we split the first and second place prizes evenly. 2-0 in matches and 4-1 in games. Plus 0-1 in Commander. ^_^
I feel like I was very lucky to get such a pure merfolk deck, and as many strong uncommons and rares as I did. I have had very good luck with merfolk in Ixalan block, as my best three decks (draft or sealed) have all been blue-green merfolk. In total, I drafted 6 rares, which is twice the expected number, and 12 uncommons, which is 4/3 of the expected number. Here are the money cards and rares:
Unclaimed Territory, Ripjaw Raptor, and Deeproot Elite are all in the $4 range, and Kopala and foil Siren Stormtamer are in the $2 range, so I also ended up above expected value and the $10 draft fee.
Here is the additional prize:
The token has a Saproling on the back.
All in all, it was a great draft. The only downside is that I wish I could have played more rounds with my draft deck, because it was very fun and I think extremely strong.
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