Anyway, there were 19 of us, so we had a table of 7 and two tables of 6. I was at the 7 person table. There was one other guy I recognized, some of the others were definitely new players, and some I wasn't sure about. Here's what I ended up drafting, lower left to upper right.
I won't say too much about the draft, as I got lucky and opened three red rares and my table was relatively inexperienced, so I was able to take quality cards throughout. I opened Theros first because I'm less familiar with the set and thought others would be too. Hammer of Purphoros might not be a true bomb rare, but it provides fantastic insurance against flooding out and makes the opponent worry about overextending. Earthshaker Khenra is a goodish 2-drop but gets most of its power by also being a fantastic 6-drop. And Glorybringer is of course a tremendous bomb. Early in Pack 1 I thought green might be my second color, but Pack 3 had me firmly in black.
One oddball to note is Hold the Perimeter. It's a Conspiracy card, and thus is designed for multiplayer. In a multiplayer game, you get a guy who can block the goblins, and since everyone else has a goblin that can't block, they are incentivized to attack each other. In 2-player Magic, it isn't quite as amazing, but getting a free blocker every game is pretty good value. The biggest danger is that your opponent has an aura or equipment that can let the goblin attack well on turn 2 (for example One With the Wind). But if that's a problem, you can just not use Hold the Perimeter in subsequent games.
My deck was a little different for the first two rounds, but my round 2 opponent C had some good advice about improving the configuration. It was tricky because I had parts of numerous different synergies, lots of little 2- to 5-card sets that worked well together -- heroic, madness, zombies, constellation, +1/+1 counters, and so on. Here's my final deck:
Note that Garbage Fire does 11 damage. I had a ton of removal, some good blockers, and a few strong fliers, so that naturally made me a control deck. Thermo-Alchemist was my MVP, since I almost always drew him. I'm not great at playing control in Limited, and this was a good level-up FNM for me.
My sideboard was really deep with quite a few cards that could have been in the main deck, but these are the only cards I ever added situationally:
I won't go too deep into the two rounds I played against new/inexperienced players, because I want to focus mostly on one combat step against one of the regulars I played.
Round 1 vs. T.
He was playing Bant (white-blue-green). Win, 1-0-1 (Our second game ended in turns).
Round 2 vs. C.
C is a regular and a judge, and I like him a lot but I always make mistakes playing against him. I think part of it is that his play style is relatively quick and since he knows I know how to play, he doesn't over-explain what he's doing and responds immediately when I do something (like throwing his creature in the graveyard as soon as I announce a removal spell, which for example can make me forget that I'm also going to tap Thermo-Alchemist in response so that I can get the untap trigger and do an extra point of damage). He was playing white-black with some weird splashes (he had an Assembled Alphas that he could only cast using Cavern of Souls or a dual land, and he had a Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger that he could cast with any color of mana by using a hidden agenda conspiracy). I missed some easy stuff in the first game, but I'm not certain that any of it would have saved me. In the second game I played a lot cleaner and got down to a draw step where if I had drawn an instant or sorcery I would have won with 2 points from Thermo-Alchemist, but I didn't and lost. Loss, 0-2.
Round 3 vs. F.
F was the other regular at my draft table, sitting at the opposite end from me, and he had a Bant deck with many of the good white-blue-green cards that I was passing as I drafted my red-black. In the first game we were fairly even until I was avoidably blown out in a combat step -- more on that below. In the second game we both mulliganed to 6, and I kept a hand with 2 lands with Glorybringer as my scry card. I put it to the bottom. Things like that have happened to me before, and I really don't know what's the correct choice when the scry card is the best card in your deck but you aren't sure you'll get the lands to cast it. As it turned out, I drew a bunch of lands and it would have been fine if I had kept Glorybringer on top. He won the game without too much trouble. Loss, 0-2.
Round 4 vs. J.
J. had a blue-black deck. Win, 2-0. I did finally draw my Glorybringer in this match for the first time all night.
So, what was my learning experience mistake? In the first game against F, I had a pretty good defense set up with a couple ground blockers. He had a 3/3 (not the one pictured below, but functionally the same), and then he cast a Phantom Monster (3/3 flier), and I played Keepsake Gorgon, thinking I would shoot down the Phantom Monster if I couldn't find another way to stop it. His next turn he attacked with Phantom Monster and cast Kor Sky Climber, and now I was looking at 6 damage per turn from fliers if I didn't do something. With 7 mana up, I decided I needed to pressure his life total and make him either block or get into a race he would have trouble winning. So I attacked with Keepsake Gorgon and Sinuous Vermin, as below:
I'm not sure if this was a truly bad attack. My plan on this attack was to use the Gorgon's ability if the blocks lined up right, and use the Rat's ability instead if it was unblocked. F. thought about it for a minute, then set up both his untapped creatures blocking the Rat. I used the Gorgon's monstrous ability targeting the 3/3, and he cast Ajani's Presence in response, making both creatures indestructible. I lost my Rat, he kept all his creatures, and I blew the Gorgon's ability without killing anything. With the two fliers still alive, he easily won.
What I should have done was pass priority in the blockers step. I was already giving up the Rat in trade regardless of whether he had anything, so my best option was to make him show me what he had. If he didn't cast anything, I could trade the rat with the Kor. If he did cast Ajani's Presence (or any trick), I could then use either of the monstrous abilities in response, most likely the Gorgon's to kill something before it became indestructible. I would still lose the Rat, but he would have to lose something also.
In any case, this was an excellent learning experience. F. is a quiet guy and didn't say anything about anything, but I'm sure he realized that I messed that one up. He was probably comfortable just trading the Kor for the Rat and making sure I didn't get to make it into a 5/5. My guess is that if I had passed priority, he would have done the same and held Ajani's Presence for a better moment.
One potential silver lining from my mistake was that he would have probably kept the Ajani's Presence mana up in order to counter my Gargoyle's ability (or another spell) no matter when I tried it, so I might have been in trouble anyway. In chaos draft, you really have no idea what your opponent might have, and Ajani's Presence is a pretty excellent card to be holding when the other guy has an on-board single-use "destroy" effect.
Anyhow, the final result was that I went 2-2, which was just shy of the record needed to make top 8, and my game record was 3-4-1. That was a disappointment considering how strong the deck looked, but we have to learn and move on.
Here are my rares and money cards:
I drafted 9 uncommons, which is average, and I drafted 5 rares vs. the expected 3. Glorybringer is about $3.50, Earthshaker Khenra is about $1, and Lord of the Accursed is about 50 cents, so my total value was maybe $5 for the draft, all from cards that will probably go down when they rotate from Standard. The zombie might hold some value for casual play.
So it's another draft in the books. Thanks for reading, and I welcome any comments!
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