FNM War of the Spark Draft 2019-05-24

The numbers are finally dropping a little for WAR draft.  This time there were 23, and I was at a table of 8.

Here's what I picked, bottom left to top right:

Pack 1 had Narset and at least one other good uncommon I don't remember, plus Storrev at rare.  I like Narset a lot, and she is proving to be very popular in multiple formats and runs around $3 a copy right now.  Second pack was missing a rare planeswalker.  Spellgorger Weird was a good card that goes well with Narset.  Finale of Revelation is basically Braingeyser, which is pretty good but not the same level of bomb as some of the other mythic rares in this set.  The next few packs didn't really support blue-red, so I just took best card available for the rest of the pack.

Going into pack 2, I didn't really know what I was playing.  I hoped that maybe I could slide into green to get color fixing like New Horizons and just play best cards available.  As it turned out, the player to my left took Storrev from my first pack and stuck with black-green, so in pack 2 I wasn't getting passed many cards in either color.  The rare in my pack was Solar Blaze, which looks good but really doesn't kill much in a lot of decks.  In Hindsight, Huatli is not a great first pick and requires some build-around to be really good.  I probably should have drafted something else, but I don't remember what it might have been.  Second pack foil Dovin was a pretty easy pick though, since I had a fair number of blue and white playable cards, and he fits a spells or proliferate strategy.  Then I got a series of very good white commons and a Callous Dismissal, and I veered strongly into white-blue.

Pack 3 was another iffy pick.  The rare was Silent Submersible, which is not very good, and the planeswalker was Ob Nixilis, which is very good but requires double black mana.  After a bit of thought, I ended up with Lazotep Plating, which is a counterspell for targeted removal that also makes an instant speed blocker if needed.  Second pick I was much happier with the snowbally Grateful Apparition (or maybe Grateful Dead?).  The rest of the pack was weird and inconsistent, and I took a few more off-color cards and as much mana fixing as I could find.

Since one person got to our draft table late, we lost some time on deckbuilding and I was really pushed to try to finish in time.  Here is what I ended up with -- the original version had Lazotep Plating instead of Courage in Crisis, but I realized I had a lot of proliferate and not enough ways to get counters on my creatures.

The Law-Rune Enforcers make a neat combo with Nahiri, but I managed to go all night without drawing her.  Huatli combos with my 1/3 and 2/5 creatures, and Evolution Sage is the only creature she demotes.  With Gateway Plaza and 3 artifacts that make any color of mana, I could splash pretty easily, especially for red and black sideboard cards.  My hope with this deck was to control the board until I could get a repeatable proliferate effect like Evolution Sage, Grateful Apparition, or Merfolk Skydiver going, or just find room to attack with fliers.

In hindsight, this deck has a lot of "air," or cards that don't do much except draw more cards.  That's fine if everything else is extremely strong, but it can make it difficult to catch up from behind.  CABS Theory (Cards that Affect the Board State) would say my deck with just 11 creatures (including Callous Dismissal) is just not enough.  Most of my impactful sideboard cards were off color-though, so I couldn't really add them without disrupting my already iffy mana.

Here's the sideboard:

I sided in Spark Harvest against particularly bad planeswalkers, and Krovod against aggressive decks.  Electromancer and Jaya's Greeting were hard to know what to do with, since I wasn't likely to cast them early in the game.  Aside from Lazotep Plating (which sometimes started in main deck) and lands, everything else stayed out.

How about the matches?

Round 1 vs. Blue-Red Kefnet Spells
This round went really well.  He didn't have good removal for my things, and I had the perfect answers to Kefnet (Law-Rune Enforcers and Dovin Baan).  I took over in the air.  Win, 2-0.

Round 2 vs. Grixis Bolas (blue-black-red)
First game I was off to a fine start, but I ran Dovin into a No Escape that I suspected he had.  Eventually he got the mana to cast Bolas and then Kaya, and I was too far behind.  Second game I developed a nice board of 3 creatures, and then he got to 6 mana and was able to exactly destroy all 3 of them with Finale of Eternity.  I almost got up to 12 mana in this game to cast my own blue Finale, but it didn't happen.  Loss, 0-2.

Round 3 vs. Black-Green Samut
This round was just a beating.  He had at least 2 copies of Samut and a bunch of creatures, and he did well over 20 damage both rounds (killing planeswalkers and my own life total), usually with creatures that took advantage of Samut's haste, pump, or both.  In both games I thought I was about to stabilize at a low life total, and he just played something big to attack for the win.  Loss, 0-2.

I considered playing a 4th round for fun, but decided to drop.  At 2-4 in games, I don't think this was a totally bad deck, but it was certainly lacking something.  It also had bad timing drawing the right cards when I needed them, but that just happens.  I never managed to find a window to cast Finale of Revelation, I never drew Nahiri, and I only had Narset when opponents didn't have card draw.  Grateful Apparition and Evolution Sage are kill-on-sight removal-magnets.

How about take-away value?

I drafted 1 mythic rare and no rares.  I did have 12 uncommons and 4 planeswalkers, which are both above average.  Overall, I ended up with about $8 of card value.  Foil Dovin is just $2 but has potential to be popular enough in Commander to go up.

Maybe next time things will go better.  Over 3 drafts I haven't had any stupid bombs, so I've mostly had to scratch together synergistic uncommons and commons to make my decks work.  And it can work, as my great finish in week 1 can attest.

Thanks for reading!

FNM War of the Spark Draft 2019-05-17

Back again for more WAR draft!

This time there were 31 people, and I was at a table of 8.  I've been doing some draft simulations, but the AI on Draftsim is really not close to what real people are drafting.  I've also been keeping up with various assessments of draft strategy for this set.  Let's see what I ended up with.

First pick at bottom left, going up each column.

The planeswalker in pack 1 was not super exciting, and I can't remember who it was now.  Dreadhorde Arcanist is a perfectly fine 2-drop with the possibility of recurring some spells for free, especially if you can boost its power.  I decided to try it out.  Next 4 picks were 3 good removal spells and another excellent 2-drop.  Ugin's Conjurant was a big surprise at 6th pick -- this card is very underrated.  People see it losing counters as a downside, but it is a very flexible card and always fits in your deck.  It should be one of the first picks from any pack after any top end rares and the best uncommon removal and planeswalkers.  The rest of the pack fed into my interest in building a black-red spell-heavy deck.

Second pack Domri was a great card to open, and I decided it was good enough to either splash or to try to switch into a green-based multicolor deck.  My neighbor to the left opened Liliana and foil Domri in the same pack, so I was lucky enough to add a second copy (although I weighed it against taking Ob Nixilis's Cruelty number 3).  I added a couple Gateway Plazas so that I'd have a chance at playing my Domri's alongside the strong black cards from pack 1.  Spellgorger Weird 7th pick was pretty unexpected, signaling that red was likely to be open.  The Narset's Reversal pick was mostly because I like the card for constructed play.  Not a lot available in the rest of the pack, but I snagged a New Horizons in case I needed to go harder into green for any reason.

Third pack rare was Role Reversal, a good card that I couldn't play, and the planeswalker was Arlinn, who is good but didn't really fit what I was doing.  The Taskmaster is an over-statted 2-drop and gives some recursion to the deck.  Mobilized District was a weird one.  I think it's a really good card, and it's worth having a land that can turn into a creature even though I didn't have many ways to reduce its cost (just Domri).  It also clashed with my bad manabase.  Picks 4 - 8 confirmed that red was open to me, and I ate them up happily.  Role Reversal actually went back past me.  Living Twister was one that I almost drafted the first time I saw it, but it's so hard to cast.  It was a free pick near the end though.

There were some chances for me to go different directions in this draft.  I think I did a good job getting strong cards in black and red, and I also think splashing in Domri was a good plan (especially since he pumps Dreadhorde Arcanist enough to cast some spells from the graveyard).  Even though I didn't have a lot of planeswalkers or any bomb rares other than Domri, I had a few sources of repeat value in my first picks of each pack, as well as some spells that burn the opponent out in the late game.  On the negative side, I hedged toward value over aggression, which is probably correct in this format, but maybe not for this particular deck.  I really wanted some of the black and red uncommon planeswalkers, but I never saw them.

Here's the deck:

It ended up being a deck almost entirely of 2- and 3-mana spells, with almost all of my action at 3.  I had a few mana sinks like Mobilized District and Spark Reaper, but I decided to try to go with 16 lands and a tight curve, with a plan of attacking early, using removal to push through in the middle, and Heartfire-ing late.

With so many 3-drops, Gateway Plaza wasn't so bad, since I could usually skip turn 2 if I had to.  I did miss the black source that was replaced by Mobilized District, and I occasionally needed a green source I didn't have, so the Plazas were good to have early.  The reason I skimped on black (instead of red) was that my splash cards all had red-green mana costs, so I didn't want to have my green source and be unable to cast them for lack of a Mountain.  I made that kind of mistake in a 3-color manabase during guilds.

Here is what stayed in the sideboard:

Tithebreaker Giant is a really good card, but I kept it out of the main deck because my lands were tight.  That might be a mistake.

My main plan with the sideboard was to bring in Davriel's Shadowfugue on the play and add something in place of Mobilized District (going down to 15 lands) on the draw.  I also juggled the number of Sarkhan's Catharsis between 0 and 2 copies depending how much I felt it was necessary for burning the opponent or their planeswalkers.

Round 1 vs. White-Green Arkbow.
In game 1 he got Vivien's Arkbow down on the first turn and just buried me in card advantage as the game went on.  Second game I was able to boost a Spellgorger Weird to an unstoppable 7/7 while casting my removal.  Third game he blew out my Domri (-2) fight ability by casting Pledge of Unity in response, and that was basically the game.  Loss, 1-2.

Round 2 "bye."
My opponent left before the round, so it was a free win.  I found some guys to play a game of Commander.  I had made a few changes to my Intet the Dreamer deck, and I got to test out Rhonas the Indomitable, Stormbreath Dragon, Growth Spiral, and the new Kiora during the game.  All were excellent, especially Kiora for drawing cards and for untapping Lotus Vale.  Growth Spiral got me Lotus Vale on turn 4 to untap with 5 mana on turn 5.  I didn't win, but I got some mega attacks in with Atarka and the Stormbreath (which I was able to Monstrous the same turn I cast it).

Round 3 vs. Jeskai.
He played a little aggressively in the first game, and I was actually able to grind him out after falling to 3 life.  The next 2 games went to the player who played first.  Win, 2-1.

Round 4 vs. 4-Color Bombs.
He was playing every color except green in a deck full of good rares with an Amass subtheme.  First game he had the more powerful cards and won on the draw, and then we each won on the play.  Loss, 1-2.

I dropped at 2-2, with a game record of 4-5.  It wasn't horrible, but the person who played first won almost every game.  With all the planeswalkers, I consider this a play-first format even though many games go late.  The deck was pretty fun to play, especially with Domri or Spellgorger Weird out.  Heartfire was great, and I fizzled my opponent's removal with it twice (once stopping Wanderer's Strike from proliferating).  Most of the decks in this format get off to slow starts, so I think this deck could have worked well if I had a couple more cards to support its aggression plan, like Angrath, Samut's Sprint, and Grim Initiate.  My rounds did go fairly long, but never to turns.

As for money value, I drafted a very high 7 rares, but none worth more than about $5 (Foil Domri).  I balanced that by only drafting 6 uncommons.  The total draft was worth roughly the cost of entry.

I did have fun and learn, and I also got better at the patterns of play in this format.

Thanks for reading!

FNM War of the Spark Draft 2019-05-03

First a note about the prerelease: I discovered afterward that the lands Nissa animates have vigilance!  There were several times I held them back on defense because I didn't realize they could attack for free.  Boo!

Opening night draft of War of the Spark!  I don't normally go to opening night, and now I know why -- there were 37 people signed up to get a promo Bolas's Citadel and try their hand at the draft format.  That meant 6 rounds!!!

I was at a table of 7, and I was looking forward to grabbing some big rare bombs in this set full of ultra-strong planeswalkers and god-eternals.  How did it go?  Well, it certainly didn't go how I expected.  Here's the draft, bottom left to top right:

First pack rare was Parhelion II, which is a legitimate unbeatable bomb rare, assuming you have 4 power worth of creatures and get to 8 mana.  So I ignored it and took the very good planeswalker instead.  I liked Kasmina in my prerelease deck, so I thought she was worth starting on.  Leyline Prowler seemed like the highest upside card in the second pack.  My next three picks were honestly not that exciting; I think I was trying to feel out whether the base black-green deck was available for Leyline Prowler to branch into multicolor.  And the rest of the pack was just a bunch of solid playable green and blue cards.  Courage in Crisis is better than people realize right now -- it gives a lot of value in a proliferate deck (for example, adding 4 counters to Mowu).

Second pack rare was Karn, a $6 card that is nearly unplayable in Limited due to the dearth of artifacts in the set.  Callous Dismissal is getting a reputation as one of the best commons in the set, and I didn't feel bad choosing it here.  Next pick Kiora gave me some direction -- 4-power creatures were now much better.  And Paradise Druid and New Horizons gave me the color fixing that I needed to start looking into cards outside of blue-green, which meant that after passing a Spellgorger Weird from the pack with New Horizons, I quickly nabbed one from the next pack, followed by two 4-power Turret Ogres.

Third pack rare was Ral, who honestly might have been great in my deck, but instead I took Flux Channeler to support my proliferate theme.  Rescuer Sphinx was key as I had not been seeing fliers at the right time, and it gave me an easy-to-proliferate finisher if the ground was clogged, and Evolution Sage is another easy-to-trigger source of mass proliferate.  I wasn't really sure about Narset in Limited, but I thought two copies was probably as good as anything else in those two packs.  Turns out she's pretty good, even if I didn't have enough noncreatures to always find cards with her ability.  The rest of the pack had a few good things, but I was really surprised to snag a Jaya's Greeting so deep.  Red must have been really underdrafted in our pod.

In hindsight, I wonder whether Ral was the better pick at the top of pack 3, since almost all of my instants and sorceries are great to copy.  I also wished I had gotten a Merfolk Skydiver.  I saw two, but always when there was something I liked better near the beginning of a pack, and I wasn't able to get them to wheel back to me.  I ended up with plenty of proliferate, but I was a little short on both fliers and ways to add counters.

Here is the main deck I played:

With two green mana fixers and most of my low drop cards being green, I played 9 Forests and only 8 non-forests, and that seemed about right.  The hardest card to cast in this configuration was turn 3 Narset, so one of my last cuts was to go down to 1 copy.  This is essentially a big-creature deck, and my best draws involved Kiora, who could ramp me into a Thundering Ceratok on turn 4 and draw me a card.  I played the Snarespinner as a concession to small fliers that could pick off my planeswalkers, but I frequently sideboarded it out for a third Ceratok because Ceratok was my best creature to put +1/+1 counters on.  Mowu was actually a little disappointing -- he grows faster than the Ceratok, but he doesn't trigger Kiora or Kronch Wrangler.  Kiora was also great with New Horizons, providing 4 mana from a single land.

My sideboard had a lot of eligible cards.

I found over time that my best sideboard plan was usually to bring in Ceratok #3 for Snarespinner against decks without many fliers and to bring in Narset #2 against anyone with draw spells or when I was on the play.  On the draw, I always sided out a Forest and never had much trouble with lands (aside from a couple mulligans, which worked out ok).  Sarkhan's Catharsis and Kasmina's Transmutation (plus a Forced Landing I never really needed) gave answers to planeswalkers and specific creatures.

I'll spare the details on the matches.  Long story short, I beat the better players and lost to a player who I normally expect to beat.

Round 1 vs. Esper (white-blue-black) Control.  Lost game 3 in overtime turns.  Loss, 1-2.

Round 2 vs. Jund (black-red-green).  Win, 2-1.

Round 3 vs. Esper Teferi Jace Control.  His deck was really strong but he had no mana fixing and couldn't find his third color twice.  Win, 2-1.

Round 4 vs. Red-Green? splashing Finale of Glory.  Win, 2-0.

Round 5 vs. Blue-Red Spells with Invade the City as a finisher.  Draw, 1-1-1.

Round 6.  Intentional draw into top 8.

Top 8 Round 1 vs. Red-Green undefeated.  This match was untimed, and we played carefully and took about an hour to finish.  Win, 2-1.

Top 4 split.  Nice!

Some general thoughts on the cards and the format:

• I really struggle with playing fast enough with this kind of deck.  It's not that I actually play slowly, but there are a ton of actions.  Consider for example casting Crisis in Courage with Flux Channeler and 2 cards that have counters.  First you trigger Flux Channeler, roll two dice upward, then you resolve Crisis in Courage, putting a die on 2 on its target and then rolling the other two dice upward again.  The net result is 2 counters on 3 targets, but you can't do it carelessly in case the opponent interacts with the spell in some way or you forget to do all your actions.  Now, consider that this often happens in the same turn that I also use Narset's and/or Kasmina's downtick abilities.  For Narset, I have to roll the die down 2, look at 4 cards from the top of my deck, choose and show one to the opponent, and make some feeble attempt to randomize the other three to the bottom of my deck.  For Kasmina, I have to roll the die down 2, find my Wizard token, draw a card, choose and discard a card.  There are a ton of interactions in the deck that require this kind of careful play, and the net result was that two of my matches went to turns, a third was the last match to finish in the round, and my top 8 match went super long.  These games were fun and rewarding, but man.
• Evolution Sage, Flux Channeler, and Rescuer Sphinx are very good, which also makes them lightning rods.  If they didn't die immediately, I was likely to win.  But usually they died immediately.  I particularly like having Rescuer Sphinx pick up a 4-power creature so that I could trigger Kiora extra times.  Picking up New Horizons is also pretty good.
• Kasmina gains you a ton of virtual life.  Most of the time I just used her Wizard tokens to chump block for her or for me, and at least a couple times I got a third Wizard by proliferating.  Kiora can also gain you a ton of life if the opponent chooses to attack her.
• Remembering the static abilities on the planeswalkers is rough.  My opponents and I forgot about Kasmina's taxing ability a couple times, and I missed Kiora's card draw at least once.  But the grand prize goes to Narset.  I "gotcha'd" two very good players with her.  First one played a creature with "draw a card" when it enters the battlefield, and the second one activated Erratic Visionary on his own main phase.  Both times I had to quickly blurt "Don't draw a card!" as they reached for the library, and the second guy had the additional feel-bad of having to discard anyway (I kind of gave him a chance to go back and not activate, but he stuck with it).
• My opponents had fewer broken bomb rares than I expected, and fewer planeswalkers.  Maybe this format isn't as bomb-heavy as we thought.  There is a good amount of power at all rarities.
• To complement the previous point, if you didn't notice, I managed to draft zero rares or mythics.  I would not have expected to top 4 a War of the Spark draft without some kind of amazing rare, but once again I managed to do great with a bunch of strong synergy cards instead.  I had 11 uncommons, which is roughly what you would expect in a draft with no rares.

So in summary, I went 10-6-1 in games played, and 4-1-1 in matches played.  This felt really good.  Kiora was often the MVP of the long games, using 4-power creatures to dig for more 4-power creatures.  The shorter games often involved a Ceratok with 4 or more +1/+1 counters.

The prize was a pile of random old foil promos, plus the new Augur of Bolas promo, plus $38 store credit.  I lost the photo somehow, but none of them were super exciting.  There was also a Bolas' Citadel promo for attending.

So that was fun, and it was also exhausting.  I recommend this format if you like complex, value-laden games.

Thanks for reading!