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!