An interesting wrinkle was that this was the first time that the London Mulligan was in effect. Instead of going down a card and scrying 1 after a mulligan, now you take a full 7 cards then and put some to the bottom of your deck equal to the number of mulligans. So you still end up with 6 cards after first mulligan, but you have slightly better selection of what to keep.
Here's my draft, from bottom left to top right:
First pack I opened was pretty average pickings, with Living Twister at rare. That's a good card in the right context, but I've drafted one before and it felt awkward enough that I mostly left it in sideboard. It would be much better if it cost RGG and you could splash it in green decks. Anyway, the uncommons were all "pretty good" and I went with the planeswalker. Next pack had no rare, so I took a Paradise Druid that enables a lot of flexibility. Then a couple really good black removal spells and a surprising 5th pick Evolution Sage. I have loved proliferate in this format, and Evolution Sage is a great card because it makes otherwise-useless late land draws have a spell effect. With Evolution Sage and Davriel, could I get into a proliferate/planeswalker deck like I had Week 1 of the format? 3 of my next four picks also had proliferate, so now I just had to make sure I had enough planeswalkers and +1/+1 counters to make it work. It was clear in this pack that no one else was drafting much green (although someone took a second Pollenbright Druid that I had my eye on), because the power level of the late green cards was quite high.
Pack 2 cemented me in black with the very talented Massacre Girl. I was sad to pass a Kaya in the first pack (along with a bunch of other good black/green cards), but I was gifted with a Kaya in the second pack. Deathsprout is a good removal + ramp and color fixing spell. I took a Gateway Plaza fairly high on the chance that I could splash in a powerful pack 3 rare. I wasn't sure after pack 1 whether black was really open enough, but two Toll of the Invasion came to me later than I expected and I snagged them with little thought.
Pack 3 was where my planeswalkers really came together, with the snowbally Ugin leading a parade of 4. Ob Nixilis at 7th pick was particularly unexpected -- 6 players didn't want a planeswalker that kills 2 creatures, pressures the opponent's life total, and can also be used to turn your own creatures into card draw? Ugin's Conjurant also went way later than I feel it is should. Maybe the pack had 4 on-color cards that fit people's decks better, but I doubt this was the 5th-best card in the pack.
As it turned out, the player on my right was blue-red and not disrupting me at all, and the player on my left was blue-black-red. That didn't surprise me because I passed several packs left early on that had a good black card (Spark Harvest, Ob Nixilis's Cruelty) even after I took one. Davriel may or may not have been the best card in pack 1, but he led me down the right path either way.
Here's the deck I played:
I had enough color fixing to splash in Jaya pretty painlessly, but I decided it wasn't worth it because her static ability does literally nothing without other red cards, and I had enough removal spells without her. Kiora looks a little sketchy in this deck too, as I cut all but 2 and a half creatures with 4 power (Ugin's Conjurant being the half). She does give extra mana or pseudo-vigilance to a creature with her untap ability though.
Between Kaya's 3BBB and Bleeding Edge's 1BB costs, I wanted plenty of black sources. Emergence Zone is an interesting ability though, so I ended up playing Gateway Plaza even though I might not have needed the expensive flexible mana source in a 2-color deck.
This deck looks like it only has a meager 9 creatures to go with several green cards that require creature targets, but it also makes creatures with Toll of the Invasion, Bleeding Edge, and Ugin. Plus, Lazotep Reaver makes 2 creatures.
Here's the leftovers and sideboard:
I never sided in anything other than Shriekdiver (either replacing Iron Bully on the play or a Swamp on the draw). There were some cards in the sideboard, most notably Kronch Wrangler, that would normally make my main deck, but didn't fit well enough here. With Banehound and several big vanilla beaters, I definitely could have shifted gears into a creature beatdown deck, but it didn't seem better than what I was doing. Return to Nature would normally be a great sideboard card, but in War of the Spark, most of the enchantment and artifact slots have been replaced by planeswalkers, so it is very niche.
Round 1 vs. Bant (white-blue-green)
He had some bad cards in the main deck, so I'm not really sure what was going on. Must have had difficulty finding his colors during the draft. I did a good job being patient after seeing No Escape with my Toll of the Invasion and won with careful play. Win, 2-0.
Round 2 vs. Gruul (red-green)
The highlights here were Neheb and Nissa. I won the first and third games, and lost the game where he got Nissa into play. I had a 4/4 and a removal spell for the first land he turned into a creature, but when Nissa comes out and immediately goes to 6 loyalty, she's almost impossible to kill before her mana and creature advantage takes the game out of reach. In the following round, my opponent noted that Bleeding Edge is a sorcery, and I played it as an instant several times this round, which I feel bad about in hindsight. I think I'll have the store transfer some of my credit to this guy, because it's possible I wouldn't have won the match if either of us had known. Win, 2-1.
Round 3 vs. Izzet (blue-red)
This was the drafter to my right, so he had passed me quite a few of my cards. The first game was close, but I eventually got in front with Kaya and Ugin. Second game I snowballed a couple creatures and a planeswalker to victory with Courage in Crisis. Win, 2-0.
So I won the draft! 3-0 in matches and 6-1 in games. I'm getting a good feel for what is good and what is not in War of the Spark, and proliferate with planeswalkers seems to be pretty good. Courage in Crisis, which looks like a pretty average card, is an all-star. I will draft Pollenbright Druids and Evolution Sages all day if I can, and play them with whatever color planeswalkers are available.
As for spoils, I got $15 store credit and a FNM promo Dovin's Veto ($6.50). Ugin is about $5 right now, and the other cards I drafted are mostly bulk. I only drafted 2 rares, but 15 uncommons (vs. 9 expected) might be the most I've ever had. That goes to show how open my colors were. My 6 planeswalkers were also double the expected 3.
I'm still enjoying War of the Spark, and I'll try to get more drafts in before we return to the lower-complexity world of Core Set 2020.
Thanks for reading!
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