I played my Intet Dragons deck in a 3-player game and then a 2-player game. I was one turn from winning the first game when the other remaining player set up a combo that let him have infinite Hornet Queen tokens. I won the 2-player game against Ninjas, but it was a pretty good close game. I was a few turns into a 4-player game with my Cho-Manno deck when the Modern Horizons draft started.
We only had 7 players sign up for this draft. Here's what I drafted, bottom left to top right:
That's a foil Fiery Islet ($60) -- hard to tell from the picture. The normal rare was Hogaak ($6), so it was a pretty loaded pack overall. After that, I tried to go with best card available. Man-o'-War is an awesome draft card, so I was pushing toward blue and toward bounce synergies after I got one. The super late Settle Beyond Reality made me wonder if I could sneak into white.
Second pack rare was Eladamri's Call. Fact or Fiction is a great card, and I had a really hard choice on my second pick between second FoF or second Man-o'-War. Then some nice red removal, and then only my second white card, the ridiculous Soulherder. I didn't really know what to do, but I had some mana fixing ability so I just kept drafting best cards available in white-red-blue and occasionally other colors.
Third pack had another money land ($14), and as a bonus it helped me consider splashing green. I took Goblin Engineer from a pretty weak pack just because it's a $3 card. Urza's Rage and Blizzard Strix were both insanely good for where I picked them. A 3-mana Lightning Bolt is always fine in draft, and the Strix is ridiculous with some of the other stuff I had. I spent the rest of the pack trying to have enough snow permanents for Strix.
I built perhaps my most ambitious monstrosity ever from this pool:
Sorry about the glare -- that's Quakefoot Cyclops and Blizzard Strix in the 5-drop slot.
10 blue sources. 6 red sources. 3 white sources. 4 green sources. Plus Springbloom Druid to help fix the mana. Not bad for a 17-land draft deck, but still very ambitious. I considered playing a Snow-Covered Swamp and Twisted Reflection, but I decided against it.
The main plan of the deck revolves around removal and combo engines:
Soulherder directly or indirectly combos with all of the cards around it to provide continuous value. Blizzard Strix is ridiculous with Soulherder, letting you exile one of your opponent's creatures until their end step (because of when Soulherder triggers), while putting 2 counters on Soulherder and untapping the Strix. Man-o'-War has a similar but less complex interaction. Springbloom Druid lets you quickly ramp up your basic lands, emptying the deck of basics in a few turns if not answered.
I'm not sure Cunning Evasion is really good enough to play, but the prospect of making Strix and the jellyfish practically unblockable seemed fun.
I only played one "real" round, winning against a white-black deck 2-0. Combos were assembled and the deck made a general nuisance of itself. Then we split top 4, and I got 2 packs of MH1.
I did play a second partial match against the guy who had a bye, also in black-white, and we split 2 games 1-1. He had some complex interactions as well and I made a ton of small but meaningful misplays.
I'm happy to have played MH1 draft a few times. I think it will be over soon with M20 prerelease happening next week.
Ah, now there's a good shot of Fiery Islet's shininess. As for value, this draft was great. I drafted 3 rares, 13 uncommons, and 5 snow lands. The singles are probably about $85 total value, plus two $6 sealed packs. I expect the lands to mostly rise in value, kept in check only by the sheer number of money cards in this set.
Next week is M20 prerelease, and I hope it plays out relatively easy after all these high-complexity sets.
Thanks for reading!
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