FNM Draft 2018-05-18

Third week in a row drafting Dominaria!

This time there were 30 players, and we had tables of 8-8-7-7.  I was at a table of 7.  Here's my draft result, from bottom left to top right:

First pack had The Antiquities War at rare and Shanna as the uncommon legendary.  With nothing else too exciting, I went textbook and took the uncommon removal spell.  Second pack had Whisper, who seems like an interesting build-around but might not have been the strongest pick.  Fight with Fire is a legitimate pick, but I can see now that I was probably overvaluing black here, or maybe the packs were just weak.  I thought the Rat Colony strategy might work if I could find enough of them, plus some evasion like Tetsuko in a later pack.  Blue was definitely available, and I should have identified it sooner.

Pack 2 was a chance to solidify my colors, but with Kamahl's Druidic Vow at rare and Danitha Capashen as the legendary, I went safe with Wizard's Lightning, an easy card to splash along with Fight with Fire.  Second pack foil Merfolk Trickster was appealing as I thought it might have some actual dollar value, and I knew blue might be open from the previous pack.  I continued to take black cards, but Rona was a nice pickup to go with my other legends and artifacts.  And then at the end of the pack, no black, but more good blue cards.

Pack 3 rare was Shalai, and I considered going another direction but decided she was powerful enough that I could probably splash her in.  I stuck with black and blue through the rest of the pack.

Afterward I found out that four of the seven players at my table were drafting black, which explains why I got some black cards but not consistent quality, and not in the second half of packs.  The player to my left was white-green with a black splash, and the player to my right was white-red.  Since I was getting two packs from that side, it explains why my red and white never blossomed.  I think we were all confusing each other to some extent, because two other good players (both of whom I played against later) got stuck in 3-color decks like me.  One more point of note is that my deck would have been radically different if I had opened the Shalai pack first (or if I had drafted Shanna out of the pack I did open).  I probably would have ended up in white-green, which was certainly somewhat open to me.

So this was a challenging deck to build.  I had some tricks, auras, and Lances to go with my Rats and try to build an aggressive blue-black deck, but with only 3 rats and no Tetsuko, it seemed like a fragile plan.  So my remaining choice was whether to splash red or white in a more conservative blue-black deck.  I went with white because the two white legends supported my historic subtheme, and they both made my other creatures more powerful.  Here's the final version (I tweaked it to this after losing round 1):

I wasn't super happy with this deck, but I did check off the important boxes of unconditional removal and late game evasive creatures.  My creatures mostly had low stats for their cost, so I felt like the Shield was better than the Lance, but that might have been wrong.

I have been drawing first in this format, but I wasn't sure if that was right for this deck.  I chose to draw in my first game but chose to play first after that.

Here's the sideboard / stuff I didn't play:

I had Chainer's Torment in for round 1 but never drew it.  Aside from switching to the aggro plan, there isn't much here in terms of situational sideboard cards.

Round 1 vs. Mardu (white-black-red)
As I mentioned before, this was another player from my table.  He was also the person I lost to at the end of last Friday.  In the first game, I had an advantage and I actually think I made a game-losing mistake:

He had D'Avenant Trapper and Pardic Wanderer.  I had two tapped fliers that had just attacked to take him down to 4 life, and my life was at 8.  I also had the Shield of the Realm.  He had two or three cards in hand and I had Shalai and Whisper in hand with 8 mana (each of them cost 4, and Shield costs 1 to equip).  What would you do after combat?

Here's what I did: I cast Shalai and equipped the Shield.  This left me protected against most damage-based removal and some amount of pump spells, and it protected my two other flying creatures.  On his turn, he cast a Jousting Lance, tapped Shalai with the Trapper's ability, and attacked for lethal.  If I had cast Whisper instead of equipping Shalai, I would have had at least Whisper untapped to block the Trapper, and the Wanderer with the Lance would have only hit for 7.  I think casting both creatures would have been the better play, because it would have taken two removal spells or some other source of damage to get his attack through.  The problem with my play was that I lose to any historic spell.

In game 2, I made another mistake early -- I attacked with a Relic Runner and he blocked with a 2/2, then I flashed in the Merfolk Trickster targeting his creature, and it didn't change the combat outcome at all and we traded (I didn't want to lose the Relic Runner because it's good late when I start playing historic spells).  I was thinking the Merfolk reduced the creature to 0/1 like Warkite Marauder does, but that's not the case.  What's worse, I could have played the Merfolk before combat to tap his creature and gotten the damage in safely.  I held up for a while, but he kept killing my legendary creatures, and he eventually cast a Jaya's Immolating Inferno killing 3 of my creatures at once and won easily.  Loss, 0-2.

Round 2 vs. Abzan (white-black-green)
This guy was sitting to my left to draft, so I knew a lot of his likely cards based on what I had passed him.  He had Shanna in every game.  First game I was able to get over the top with fliers, but the second game he overpowered me with Shanna.  I mulliganed down to 5 on the play for game 3 (seeing two zero-land hands) and kept a hand with Stronghold Confessor, Relic Runner, and 3 lands.  Since I was desperately short on cards, I cast Confessor for B even though it's much stronger when cast for 3B, hoping to catch some early damage.  It worked out pretty well, and I drew and cast both my Sphinxes, but his card advantage took over eventually and I lost to Shanna riding on a Pegasus.  Loss, 1-2.

We had extra time so we also played one game of Standard and my black deck lost horribly to his spell-based control deck.

Round 3 vs. ???
I was willing to go another round just to see if I could get something out of the draft deck, since it had been playing pretty well even in the losses, but my opponent, who was also 0-2, suggested Standard instead and I said "Why not!"  So we played 3 games and I won all three pretty easily.  He has an aura deck (similar to this deck but a Jeskai version featuring Sram) that plays right into the hands of my deck.

Overall, I finished 1-4 in games and 0-2 in matches played.  I don't think my deck was that bad, but on reflection I made mistakes both in the draft and in the first round of play.  I think I played pretty close to optimally in the second round match.  Rona is definitely a good card, but I never had a historic card in the graveyard when I cast her, and the one time I was able to activate her second ability, it was a land.  Likewise, I never used Whisper's ability.  So they both just played as overpriced 2/2's.  The best part about losing (for me at least) is that it makes me take a closer look to see why I lost, so I certainly learned more than I do when I'm winning.

Here is the draft value:

I only drafted 1 rare this time vs. 3 expected on average, and I drafted 12 uncommons vs. 9 expected.  I was happy to find out that the Merfolk Trickster is about a $9 card.  Shalai is still around $3.50 and Rat Colony is now around 35 cents for the cheapest available copies.  So on current prices the draft was worth maybe $13 or so.

Thanks for reading!  I'm going to take at least next week off from drafting -- three in a row is a lot for me!

FNM Draft 2018-05-11

Dominaria continues to be a very popular set at the local store.  This Friday we had 28 people, but instead of 7-7-7-7, we were split into three tables, 9-9-10.  I was at a table of nine.

I forgot to take the usual photo of my full draft before deck construction, and you will be shocked to hear that I don't have a perfect memory for this stuff, so here's my general reconstruction of the draft.  Bottom left is the beginning of the first pack, and the mish mash of cards in the middle are sort of in the area I drafted them but not exactly.

Forebear's Blade was my first pack rare, and it is not only very strong, but also left me open to any color, so it was a pretty easy pick over some average-to-good uncommons.  I'm fairly certain that my second pick was Ancient Animus from a generally weak pack.  Then I was passed another bomb equipment, Blackblade Reforged.  These two equipment made me think I would do well with smaller aggressive creatures and a legendary/historic theme.  Through the first pack, I had a hard time finding legendary creatures, and I ended up with several cards in white, blue, and red, but generally very open heading into the second pack.

Pack 2 rare was Cabal Stronghold.  Black was my least likely color, and it isn't a great card in draft anyway, but I did find a Time of Ice, which I found out last week was a very good card.  I don't remember whether Traxos was my exact next pick -- it may have been 3rd or 4th -- but it surprised me because it isn't hard to build a deck that supports it.  My deck naturally wanted it since I already had some good artifacts.  I hoped to get a Voltaic Servant or two to form the combo with it, but I never saw one.  Now that I was strongly in the historic theme, Daring Archaeologist a couple picks later in this pack went from being an average card to a potentially great card.  With all my artifacts, I was still pretty open between the same three colors going into pack 3.

Pack 3 gave me a rare I wanted in Shalai.  Even without playing green, the rest of her abilities and stats are great, plus she is legendary/historic.  Just like last week, I found a Sulfur Falls second pick to help make sure I could use my good red or blue cards as a splash.  Somewhere along here, a Juggernaut made it to me later than expected, as well as Fight with Fire and a Skittering Surveyor.  As the draft went on and I found more cheap removal spells, I realized I might end up more of a control deck than I expected.  I also drafted as many "good" 2-drops as I could in all three of my colors, finishing with eight of those plus a 1-drop in each color to make sure that I could have creatures to equip regardless of the combination I ended up in.

Here is the deck I built.

As you can see, I cut blue down to just Time of Ice and an answer-anything spell in Deep Freeze.  Most of my historic triggers were in white or colorless anyway, so having all the red removal seemed better than my blue.  White-blue splashing red might have been fine too.  I had some tough cuts, especially at the 4-drop slot where most of my strongest spells lay, and I ended up not playing a couple 2/2 fliers at that cost.

I went with 18 lands, but I accidentally played 19 lands (and a 41-card deck) for the first three rounds before I took this picture and corrected it.  The high land count helps with Blackblade and Fight with Fire, both of which are game-ending if you can pay their high costs.

Short Sword and Bloodstone Goblin are probably the worst cards here, but I wanted to make sure I had enough historic triggers and enough cheap creatures to keep me alive and equip to.  Without any repeatable combos for Traxos, is was really important to have ways to untap it.  Short Sword in particular is a card you'd normally play first turn, but I found myself holding when I had it in my opening hand because it is such a cheap way to trigger historic effects.  Serra Disciple isn't good on its own, and it's a horrible blocker, but the consistent historic triggers make it ok and Forebear's Blade or Blackblade Reforged make it game-winning.

Here are my main sideboard cards, with the ones I actually used on top.

Just like last week, Fiery Intervention came in for almost every match.  The other cards were more situational.  I'm not sure if it's correct, but I tend to bring in or switch combat tricks against better players.  One of my favorite tactics is to take out combat tricks that were seen in game 1 and replace them with different ones in game 2, but that didn't really apply here.  Syncopate is another answer for mega bombs, especially against players who don't seem to be playing around counterspells.  I had pieces to turn this into a more aggressive deck, but I never used that tactic.

I once again (almost) always chose to draw first in my games.  I have read some advice from PVDDR on draw vs. play in Dominaria, and he suggests that the "correct to draw" situations are when you have fewer sources of card advantage and enough early game removal/blockers to survive.  This deck checks both of those boxes.  Most of the card advantage here is from the graveyard (Ghitu Chronicler and Daring Archaeologist).  On top of that, I really want to get to 6 - 9 lands in this deck for my kickers and Blackblade, and I felt that drawing first helped with that.  Everyone I've played against still chooses to play first in this format, but I feel like I'm going to lean toward draw more often than not.

Round 1 vs. R
R was in red-green.  Our first game was pretty well-matched until I got enough lands to equip Blackblade, and then I just ran over him.  Second game I mulliganed and got stuck on 2 lands for a few turns, so I ended up wasting my kicker cards to chump block.  He had a Territorial Allosaurus that I couldn't handle and I lost badly.  In game 3 we were again fairly well matched.  I had seen Voltaic Servants in the first two games, and now he played Traxos but without any way to untap it.  I played my own Traxos and he hit it with Fiery Intervention (second mode).  I tried to wait his Traxos out until Time of Ice could return it, but he managed to get an attack with it, and then I had to destroy it with my own Fiery Intervention.  We got into trading blows with smaller creatures, and I drew Forebear's Blade for my Serra Disciple and won a close one at 3 life (and vulnerable to burn spells I had seen in previous games).  Win, 2-1.

Round 2 vs. N
N had a red-green deck that didn't seem like it should work, but was surprisingly effective with little creatures and pump spells.  In game 1, I had Juggernaut, Traxos, and Short Sword but very little early removal.  He beat me down a little with his stuff, and I played turn 4 Traxos, turn 5 Juggernaut (attack for 7 to 13), and he did the math, saw I could attack for 12 if I could untap Traxos, and stayed aggressive.  I didn't block (down to 4), then played and equipped Short Sword and attacked for 13.  Second game we both had smaller creatures and the game went long.  I got him to 1 on a desperation attack and lost on the backswing.  N is a notoriously slow player (and shuffler!), and Game 3 started with only a few minutes on the clock, so I chose to play first in case I could win quickly.  If I had had more time, this would have been the time to put in the more aggressive cards.  I mulliganed and then kept a hand full of removal, and I just played defense for the draw.  Draw 1-1-1.

Round 3 vs. B.
B. was white-green.  Game 1 he got stuck on 2 lands for a while but still put up a fight.  I ended up getting to attack with my Goblin equipped with Short Sword down to 4, then Goblin Barrage with kicker (choosing to sacrifice either one) was enough for the exact win.  Game 2 I got a Serra Disciple going with Blackblade and won easily.  Win, 2-0.

Round 4 vs. T.
T. is a good player and had just come back from playing at Grand Prix Dallas last week.  He had a blue-green deck full of value but with few finishers.  In game 1, I got all of my equipment but was thwarted by an Icy Manipulator and other bounce/removal.  We found out that both players having Time of Ice in play is an interesting way to make the game longer.  I was able to kill two creatures plus do 6 damage to opponent with Fight with Fire, getting rid of a nasty Tatyova, but he still pulled it out.  I boarded in both my artifact-killers.  I drew Traxos and multiple cards to untap him in game 2, but again ran into a lot of bounce and Tatyova.  After I went through his Time of Ice, he was at 1 life and had 3 blockers that I was having trouble with, but I had D'Avenant Trapper and the perfect setup: Skittering Surveyor (historic) to tap a creature and get a land, then play the land and cast Time of Ice (historic) to tap the last two creatures, and attack with Trapper.  Third game he had all his gross removal and Icy Manipulator, and I just wasn't able to find enough answers.  Loss, 1-2.

I might have found a way to sneak into top 8, but it was 11 PM and I decided to make it easier for everyone by dropping at 2-1-1.  My game record was 6-4-1, and I think that's about accurate for this deck.  I did make some mistakes over the course of the night, playing an extra land for 3 rounds and forgetting to attack with Serra Disciple occasionally, but I don't think any of the mistakes I caught were game-changing.

Here are my rares:

I drafted 6 rares, which is twice expected, and 8 uncommons, which is slightly below the 9 expected.  Shalai ($3.50) and Sulfur Falls ($4.50) are the only cards worth more than about 75 cents.  Rat Colony is oddly a 70 cent common.  In total, maybe $10 value, same as I paid.

I really enjoy this format and I'm excited to play more.

FNM Draft 2018-05-04

Let's play some Dominaria draft!

There were plenty of like-minded people, and we had a 28-person draft, 4 tables of 7.  It was 5 rounds then cut to top 8, and a lot of good players showed up, so I expected fierce competition.

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

My first pack was not exciting at all.  The rare was Isolated Chapel (white-black land), and I think the uncommon legend was Grunn, the Lonely King.  There is an interesting tension with the legends appearing in each pack -- the uncommon legends are all either two-colored and good or mono-colored and sort of build-around or not very good.  This means they are mostly not great to first-pick, although they can be fine first picks in later packs once you are in the right colors.  So I was torn between a few removal spells, and I chose the white one because it is unconditional, instant speed, and easy to splash.  Aside from a 4th pick Serra Angel, my early picks felt like garbage.  I was doing as well as I could by snatching up whatever removal spells came by.  I was expecting red to be taken after I passed several good red spells in pack 1, but that didn't seem to be the case -- Goblin Barrage was my second choice in pack 1, and it came all the way back to me.  By the end of the pack, I felt like I was some combination of white-red-green but still very open to switch.

Second pack I opened one of the best uncommon legends in Tatyova (I'm not sure why this merfolk sounds Russian, but whatever).  The rare was the wildly unplayable legendary sorcery Primevals' Glorious Rebirth.  After that, I had a run of good green and red cards, so I started to shift my focus away from white.  It also seemed clear that I was going to be heavy on removal and light on aggressive creatures, so I started thinking about control and splashing for power.

Third pack rare was The Antiquities War, another pretty unplayable card in draft (but one that some people seem excited to build constructed decks around).  I also saw a second and much better blue saga, Time of Ice, but decided on red removal instead because I still wasn't sure I could play blue.  When the next pack gave me Sulfur Falls, I decided splashing blue was a good possibility and lamented losing Time of Ice.  Imagine my surprise when I got a second chance at it when the pack came back around!  Fight with Fire and Shivan Fire were both in the same pack, and the fact that I got both shows just how open red was in this draft.

It took me almost all of my deck-building time to narrow down my deck to this:

My final version had 11 creatures (and no token-making cards), which is probably the fewest I've ever played in a draft deck.  I was sad to cut my white cards, but I felt like Tatyova was much easier to cast than Serra Angel, and I couldn't play both without messing up my mana base too much.  The creatures that made it in had to either be able to block well on curve or bring something else special.  Ghitu Journeymage was the least worthy creature that made the cut, as I couldn't even get value from its ETB effect (which requires me to have another wizard), but it gave me a creature who could hit for 2 with Sorcerer's Wand.  Voltaic Servants can also hit for 2 each turn cycle with the wand since they can untap themselves at the end of your turn.

My deck's game plan was to stall out the early game with blockers and removal, then bury the opponent with card advantage until I could start attacking profitably (or ping them to death with the Wand).  Grow from the Ashes is of huge importance in this deck, switching me from early game mode to the part of the game where I can cast Krosan Druid and Fight with Fire kicked, use Urza's Tome every turn, and generally make up ground in big chunks.  But this is far and away the most fun thing to do with Grow from the Ashes:

With Tatyova in play, a kicked Grow results in 2 untapped lands, 2 life gained, and 2 card draws.  Then, since you've now drawn 3 cards this turn, you probably have a land to play, so you get another life and another card, and the 3 fresh untapped lands are probably enough to let you cast something else.  This nonsense happened more often than you'd think, and it made me very happy.

Here's my sideboard stuff.  I had other cards sleeved, but these are the ones that I looked at:

My default sideboard plan was to take out a land and one other card for double Fiery Intervention (assuming I had seen any biggish creatures or nasty artifacts).  I never found a spot where I felt like Firefist Adept needed to come in -- it would have been an all star if I had more wizards, but I didn't think that a 5-drop 3/3 that kills a Saproling was quite what I wanted.

Here are some cards I would have played if my deck was different:

The Bloodstone Goblin is fine, but I really preferred my 1/3's for 2-drops to make the opponent spend cards just to get through early blockers.  This Goblin was the last card I cut.  Jousting Lance is very good, but I liked the Wand better for my only equipment as a finisher.  Aesthir Glider is not very good, but a flier does have merit in a deck that is likely to gum up the ground.  Not being able to block is a killer though.  And the Skirk Prospector could help ramp into my expensive cards, but I'm not a ramp deck (trying to play a big thing early), I'm a control deck (trying to survive my way to big plays without giving up card advantage along the way).

My last note before I get to the rounds: I always chose to draw first with this deck.  It is not normally what you want to do in draft, but Dominaria seems to be a set where you can afford to draw, and it put opponents in bad mulligan spots and made me feel better about keeping hands that didn't do much early.

Round 1 vs. A.
A. was playing white-blue with cards like Raff Capashen and Teshar.  The first game was going ok, but I ran out of removal and he got going with a Jousting Lance on a 3/2 and I couldn't block it with anything.  I sided in my Fiery Interventions and boldly chose to draw first.  He put Dub on a Unicorn and started taking chunks out of my life total while increasing his own.  But I passed the test and got rid of it.  Then it was time for Tatyova fun.  His life went as high as 32 and mine dipped as low as 3, but I came back and won the game.  Now I felt better -- but there was less than 10 minutes left in the round.  He again worked me down to 3 life, but my removal and card advantage came through, and when time was called I was improving my board presence and getting ready to do some attacking.  At the end of the bonus 5 turns, I was still at 3 and he was at 14.  Draw, 1-1-1.

Round 2 vs. C. R.
C. was playing white-blue with some main deck counterspells, In Bolas's Clutches, and a lot of fliers.  He had lost the first round, so I was paired down.  We played two long slow games.  I won the first one without much interference, rounding it out by casting a kicked Fight with Fire to soften him up and kill his last 2 creatures.  In game 2 he was able to chunk me down to 5 before I stabilized, but I gummed up the board and won with Sorcerer's Wand about 2 minutes before time was called.  I also only had about 5 cards left in my deck (I actually cast a Grow from the Ashes opting not to find any lands just to get the damage trigger from Hallar).  Win, 2-0.

Round 3 vs. C. N.
C. was playing white-green (and maybe another color?).  I was just starting to feel good about my deck, but I usually do poorly against him, so I was a little concerned.  I won the dice roll and chose to draw, and he mulliganed and was stuck with the instant disadvantage.  He put out two creatures then cast Song of Freyalise (the "other" really powerful uncommon saga along with Time of Ice), and I removed one of the creatures with the spell on the stack so he wouldn't be able use the mana ability to cast more creatures.  I kept his creatures at a manageable level to get through the song, and after I played Tatyova and started drawing extra cards, he folded.  Second game he chose to go first and mulliganed twice.  I had an unusually agressive start with some of my 4/4's, and he was done.  Win, 2-0.

Round 4 vs. N.
Now I was getting paired up against a 3-0 player.  Exciting!  He was playing white-green.  He was very amicable but also meticulous about writing notes about the cards I played.  In the first game he started with Llanowar Elves and I Shivan Fired it on my turn 1.  Then he had some trouble finding mana, so it was clearly the right call.  I had the fun Two-Headed Giant to attack with uncertain results, and I got Tatyova rolling to build a lot of card advantage.  He got Shalai in his hand (Adventurous Impulse showed it to me) but never found a clean window to cast it.  For the second game, I brought in Radiating Lightning (which looks like a Tarkir block red card from the art) for the Saprolings and Elves I had seen in game 1.  He tried to get aggressive with Song of Freyalise and Saprolings, but I mitigated it with removal and dropped Time of Ice to stall him out.  By the time he was able to rebuild, I had played Tatyova and Grow from the Ashes, followed by a kicked Krosan Druid to gain back 10 life, and it was all downhill from there.  Win, 2-0.

Round 5 vs. Z.
There were exactly 8 players with 9 or 10 match points (3-1 or 3-0-1 match record), and everyone else had 6 or fewer, so we were able to all draw to make top 8.  Then we agreed to split the prizes and go home early.

I ended up in 2nd place in the standings, with only Z higher than me.  I was 3-0-2 in matches and 7-1-1 in games played, with the one draw looking like it was likely to turn into a win if time hadn't been called.  Not bad at all!  Here's what I came away with:

The prize split for top 8 was 6 packs, $12.50 in store credit, and the FNM promo Opt.  My draft was bad in terms of value, with Sulfur Falls ($4) as my only money card.  In total, I drafted 2 rares (below average), 13 uncommons (above average), and 2 foil commons.  But the Opt promo is about $7 right now, and the retail value of the packs is $18, so this was a clear win at about $40 in total value.

I was very happy with how this night turned out.  Some of my best drafts have been ones where I was able to lock into a color pair early and just get gifted with a super streamlined deck, so I was really proud to take a draft that looked kind of like a trainwreck early, stay open through pack 2, navigate toward the cards I needed, and build a complicated but functional deck.  I had some good luck, like opponent mulligans, but I also feel like I made good in-game choices and I was able to force the opponents to play into my traps.

Thanks for reading!