Throne of Eldraine Prerelease 2019-09-29

Prerelease time!

After a bunch of Gatewatch stories and 3 sets on Ravnica, we're going to a completely new place, where the only previously known characters are Will and Rowan from Battlebond, and Garruk, who has been missing from Standard sets since I believe M15, which was released in 2014.  This is a world of unsettling fairy tales and Camelot-inspired knighthood.

Mechanically, it is a set that heavily leans toward monocolored decks, and that is fairly unusual in itself.  There is very little color fixing outside of a few green cards, a couple artifacts, and one uncommon tri-land that can only make colored mana for knights and equipment.

I caught the Sunday morning prerelease, which is probably the least attended.  There were probably 15 or so people signed up.

Here's my deck:

My promo was Clackbridge Troll, which is very strong, and I also had a good amount of black removal.  My best color in general was white, with three rares.  So I built a white deck splashing black.  There were more than 10 minutes remaining to build, and I took a good hard look at Outlaws' Merriment.  Is it a stronger bomb than Clackbridge Troll?  Did I have enough red cards to replace the black cards?  I decided that I did, and I was able to help my manabase by replacing double-splash cards (Clackbridge Troll, Bake into a Pie) with single splash cards.  My red also had more knights than my black to wear Shining Armor.  So the black went into my sideboard below, and I started the red cards.

Dwarven Mine (and Witch's Cottage, by the same token) was an interesting math problem.  If I was only playing 5 Mountains, should one of them be Dwarven Mine?  I decided the chance of it entering untapped for its bonus was small enough that I'd rather just have mountains.  I'm pretty sure the math backs it up.

I'm also not sure if I had the overall mana ratio quite right.  12 white sources and 5 red was probably close, since I had 2 cards that required quad white mana and a few other cards that benefitted from extra plains, and I rarely wanted to cast a red spell before turn 3.

As it turned out, my only sideboard plan was to replace a Plains with Scalding Cauldron when I was on the draw, and occasionally replace something else with it on the play if it was good for the matchup.

How did it go?

Round 1 vs. White-Red
I think he was mainly in white also, but his deck was quite a bit different.  Game 1 he won easily when I couldn't find my Mountain and had several good red cards in hand.  Game 2 went very long but I pulled out the win.  And we went to turns starting around turn 3 of game 3, so the match ended in a draw.  Draw, 1-1-1.

Round 2 vs. Two Decks
He started with a blue-green deck, and I my Castle Ardenvale and a few fliers, and I managed to chump block his really big Beanstalk Giant enough times to win.  Second game he switched to his Mardu knights deck.  He had some good cards, but the manabase was really bad.  He was trying to play Arcanist's Owl and Elite Headhunter in the same deck, and that's just not tenable.  Win, 2-0.

Round 3 vs. Red-Green Aggro
This deck was full of top-heavy adventure creatures with combat trick spells.  I was on my back foot in the first game, and I tried to race in the second game but couldn't do it.  Loss, 0-2.

Round 4 vs. Mardu Knights
Here was another deck trying to play 3 colors.  It wasn't bad, and the games were very close.  In particular, he had an Archon of Absolution that was horrible for my mostly-white deck.  In one game I spent Joust and a red creature to 2-for-1 myself to get rid of it, and in the other game I drew my Mountain for my 5th land to cast Searing Barrage the last possible turn before it would have killed me.  Somehow I pulled out both games.  Win, 2-0.

And he had a good enough record to get the prize if he reported a win (I didn't), so we had agreed beforehand to split the prize if I won the match.  He took 4 packs and I took 3.

So my true match record was 2-1-1 and my record in games completed was 5-3.  Not bad!

Also, I never got to cast Outlaws' Merriment!  I had it in my hand twice with no red mana, and the rest of the time I just never drew it.  I think that card would have been super powerful on curve.

Some thoughts on cards and the format in general:

• These games can become a slog if the board gets full of little creatures.  Fliers and other evasion were very important in my wins.
• I didn't think twice about main-decking True Love's Kiss in this format.  There are a ton of artifacts and enchantments running around, including a fair number of artifact creatures.  I would probably main-deck it in draft also.
• The draft format looks like it will have some very fast decks (anything based around knights or red) and some very slow decks (anything based around food).  Creatures tend to be top-heavy and I had a hard time finding good blockers for anything over 2 power (although getting two copies of Giant Killer mostly made up for that).
• Because the creatures are so top-heavy and many have 1 toughness, I was able to turn Rally for the Throne into a 2-for-1 combat trick a couple times.
• I ran into a couple Ardenvale Paladins, and they were good roadblocks at 3/6.  I wish I had one in my pool.
• Shepherd of the Flock's adventure was a good trick to use with Giant Killer.  Also, no one expects two Giant Killers in the same deck.  Sometimes there wasn't a good target for it, but it always at least did good work as a tapper.

Here are my spoils (plus 3 unopened packs):

The foil Outlaws' Merriment was a nice bonus because it meant I got an extra rare in my pool.  The Shepherd of the Flock is one of the new "booster fun" showcase cards with alternate frame and alternate art.  They show up rarely in regular packs, and regularly in the new Collector Boosters that are currently selling at around $30 each (for 15 cards).  Overall, my cards opened are worth somewhere in the $10-15 range, although that changes (and mostly drops) quickly after a set releases.

I look forward to drafting for monocolor (or almost monocolor) decks for the first time ever.  I think this last happened in Theros block maybe, which was before I was playing again.

Thanks for reading!

FNM Chaos Drafts 2019-09-06 and 2019-09-20

Hey, I figured out how to make my photos auto-resize, I think.  Let me know if it looks better/worse.

The LGS has gone to chaos drafting the last few weeks of M20 season, and that makes me happy.  Unfortunately, I have had poor luck getting there on time to join a draft, and several times the 8-person draft pod has filled just before I arrived.

The first time I tried to Chaos draft (Aug. 30), I ended up playing Modern instead.  I used the Soulflayer deck.  This was the week after Hogaak and Faithless Looting were banned and Stoneforge Mystic was freed, so I expected maybe less graveyard hate.

Round 1 vs. Karn Ramp.
This was a wild deck that was all in on ramping to big stuff while also playing a full suite of Karn and artifacts for him to bring from the sideboard.  Game 1 he locked me out of the game with Ensnaring Bridge.  Game 2 I got him with a just-fast-enough Soulflayer.  And game 3 he played Tooth and Nail entwined on maybe turn 4 or 5 and won on the spot.  Loss, 1-2.

Round 2 I had the bye, so I was still theoretically in it at 1-1.

Round 3 vs. Humans.
This seems to be a pretty good matchup, as most of their cards don't kill or stop a Soulflayer with hexproof.  The one card I don't want to see is Meddling Mage, if they know to name Soulflayer.  I lost the first game without him really seeing what I was doing, and then I won the next two games.  Win, 2-1.

Round 4 vs. Humans.
This time I won the first game in a long, grindy fashion culminating with me hard-casting Netherborn Phalanx to burn him out with his big board of creatures.  The next two games I wasn't able to assemble a good Soulflayer fast enough.  Loss, 1-2.

So 1-2 actual matches played in Modern, and 4-5 in games.  Not terrible considering I never play Modern.  People did seem tickled by the deck.

Oh, but I was going to talk about drafting.  Flash forward to Sept. 6.  So now the chaos draft format is 2 options:

1. Pay $12 and get a random assortment of Standard and other cheap packs.
2. Pay $5 plus price of packs to play any 3 different packs you want.

It's pretty balanced still because if some people buy expensive Masters packs, it helps everyone have stronger cards, not just the person who paid more.  The Masters pack might have more chance at a bomb rare, but the packs often have great commons and uncommons as well, compared with a Standard pack that might have a bomb rare and nothing else exciting.

So of course I did the buy-your-own for more excitement.  I had some store credit to burn anyway, so the total cost was $10.  I took War of the Spark because getting a planeswalker in draft is usually good, and then Masters 25 and Ultimate Masters for maximum power.  The person next to me said I should open the strongest pack first, but I went with WAR first to ramp up the excitement.

Here is my draft, bottom left to top right:

Unfortunately, my WAR pack was very weak.  The rare was Deliver Unto Evil and the planeswalker was Teyo.  In 20-20 hindsight, Teyo would have been good in my deck. but I went with a pure good card in Spark Harvest.  I can rarely resist common black removal when nothing else catches my eye.  The next pack was Mirrodin, and it had a couple equipment more powerful than they normally make now.  I felt like Viridian Longbow was both good and had combo potential (like if I got a Horseshoe Crab in M25).  I just took random good stuff for the rest of the pack.

Pack 2 had a very good rare, although I wasn't really in white.  After that, the blue and black were rolling again and I tried my best to get mana fixing.

Pack 3 I was taking Celestial Colonnade regardless because it's a $14 card, but it was also perfect for helping me splash Vindicate.  A quick word on bounce-lands (Izzet Boilerworks and Rakdos Carnarium): Bounce lands are very strong in draft because they let you play fewer lands overall in your deck and still hit your mana.  I was very happy to get 2 of them.  The real coup here was Agent of Treachery and Murmuring Mystic.  Those cards are super strong, the first one stealing anything and the second one making a constant stream of birds.  Scholar of the Ages was also nice to get on the wheel, even though it was yet another 7-drop.

Here is the deck:

I was really excited about this deck, but a little worried because it was 4 colors and slow to get going.  I had really strong removal and a great top end, full of cards that provided more than 1 card of value.

I played against another ambitious deck, white-red with several planeswalkers from WAR and Core Set 2020.  In the first game, I was handling his stuff until he got to Parhelion mana.  Second game was long and we ended up going to time.  I was forced to make slightly suboptimal attacks with the Colonnade to try and win before turns ran out, and ended up just barely losing the game.  Loss, 1-2.

I played a second match just for fun with someone else who had lost, with red-green monsters.  He had a troublesome hexproof Vine Mare, and I lost the first game to it.  Second game I got Murmuring Mystic out to block it with tokens forever, and once I assembled the loop of Soul Salvage and Scholar of the Ages (which lets me get removal spells back from the graveyard continuously for the low price of 10 mana), he conceded.  Third game I somehow out-muscled a fast God-Pharaoh's Statue.  Win, 2-1.

I liked this draft a lot and was sad to lose in one round.  Good stuff.

Here's my Sept. 20 draft, from a slightly less expensive WAR, Modern Horizons, M25 pool:

The rare in my WAR pack was Tomik, who is good as a general value creature but not first-pick exciting.  Davriel was also not super exciting but it saved me from starting another draft with Spark Harvest.  The next couple packs were not that great also, so I just went with creatures and removal.  Presence of Gond gave me a direction for my draft as the kind of true value card that I just love (once again, Horseshoe Crab would have been great).  After that, Flickerwisp pulled me into white (at which point I wished I had Tomik), and Bloom Hulk pulled me toward +1/+1 counters.  Mishra's Factory as second to last pick was very surprising, as it's a good card in almost any deck.

Pack 2 rare was Astral Drift, which doesn't give a lot of value in Chaos, but the foil Valiant Changeling caught my eye.  After a few unexciting picks and a Pacifism, I grabbed Imposter of the 6th Pride as a way to possibly cast Valiant Changeling on turn 3.  At this point I was firmly in white-green, but with the possibility of splashing blue off my 2 Azorius lands.

Pack 3 was a killer.  It had a $16 Blood Moon plus a bunch of cards I would have loved in my deck, topped by Swords to Plowshares.  I took the Blood Moon with heavy heart.  After 3 straight fight spells, I got my next great payoff, Abzan Falconer.  This worked well with all the +1/+1 counter cards I had been collecting.  After that it was more of the same stuff, creatures and removal, but I was happy to get repeatable lifegain with Student of Ojutai right at the end of the pack.

Here's the deck I built:

I didn't have anything really bomby in this draft, but I felt like I at least had some synergy cards.  There were a lot of picks I second-guessed after the draft, but the decisions were hard.  Simic Ascendency was one card I passed that would have been pretty good, maybe in place of Angelic Exaltation, which only works when I have several creatures and can attack (parity/winning) but is bad when behind.  I also missed a chance at the white-green bounce land early in a later pack, hoping it might wheel back to me.

I'm not sure if I was greedy or not in only playing 16 lands.  Search for Tomorrow, Skittering Surveyor, and Hope Tender all provide some kind of ramp or land assistance.

Round 1 vs. Simic Counters
This guy had a lot of the cards I wished I had drafted.  Simic Ascendancy, Salt Road Quartermasters, and Phantom Tiger (which I misread during the draft).  First game he got stuck on 2 lands and I had a great draw, and it wasn't really a game.  Second game he had some big creatures I couldn't find the right answers for.  And third game he got his counters cards all going along with some timely combat tricks, and I got stuck on only white mana with green answers in hand.  Loss, 1-2.

So that was that!  I think my deck was better than it showed in one match, but not super.

So 3 weeks of fun but not winning play.  I also got some sweet Commander games in, so that was good.  Here is the notable stuff from the drafts:

Blood Moon and Colonnade (which I immediately traded, as indicated by the misspelled surrogate card in the photos) were the only real money, with Vindicate also worth a few dollars, but I got a few other Modern-playable cards and had fun.

Next weekend Throne of Eldraine releases, bringing some new things to limited.  See you at the prerelease!  Thanks for reading!

FNM Modern Horizons Drafts 2019-07-26 and 2019-08-16

Since the store switched its primary format to Modern, the drafts are just pod drafts, which means sometimes you only get to play one round with a deck and it's over.  This is ok, but I really prefer playing 3 or 4 rounds to get acquainted with a deck.  Anyway, I have been less interested in doing a full write-up for these drafts since I can't really make a great assessment of a deck that only goes 1-2 rounds.

That said, I still have some photos and brief thoughts on a couple drafts.  Here is my Modern Horizons draft from July 26, bottom left to top right:

I haven't had great luck drafting Defile with first picks.  It's a great card but utterly useless as a splash removal, which is why I am now thinking Mob is a better card to pick early.  As you can see, I tried to do blue-green snow with this deck.  I was shocked to get a Fact or Fiction third from last pick.  This was a strong signal that blue was open.

Next pack I got my favorite jellyfish.  I don't remember the rares in these packs at this point.  I tried to pivot to black again but was quickly pushed back to blue-green.  Glacial Revelation is bonkers good in a snow deck.

Third pack Morophon was a pretty good top-end card that can go in any deck.  Then I was super happy to get two Blizzard Strix, because those are great in any deck with enough snow support.  I didn't have much creature support in the first two packs, so pack 3 was my spot to make up for that.  The late Winter's Rests were also key to a good snow deck.

Here is what I built:

There are some powerful things going on in this deck, but it has a suspect mana base and not a lot of early game defense.  I probably shouldn't be playing Archmage's Charm with just 7 blue lands and 2 Astrolabes.  I considered trying to go mill with the two Streams of Thought, but I didn't feel like my defense was good enough to win that way.

Round 1 vs. Mono Black
This guy had a great black deck with multiple copies of Defile and all the good common black creatures.  He beat me in two games, and neither was particularly close.  He had enough removal for all my creatures and I was stuck with a bunch of leftover cards in hand that I couldn't deploy fast enough.

I drafted 6 rares, but the value of the draft is only about $10.

On August 16 I got two drafts in.

First draft:

I'm not sure if Unsettled Mariner is really first-pick material, but it's interesting so I took it.  After that, I got into actually good red and green cards and stuck with that for most of the draft.  Springbloom Druid is a legitimate first pick card, fitting in any color pair or multicolor deck.  The red-green archetype involves lands in the graveyard (like Igneous Elemental), so it is great there.

Second pack I went back to my favorite common jellyfish even though it was off color, and then I got two blue-green Talismans to help cast it.

Nurturing Peatland is a $10 rare still, and as a bonus it also helps the lands-in-graveyard theme.  Two Cleaving Slivers and a Volatile Claws gave me a way to end games explosively -- both together results in all my creatures getting +4/+0 at instant speed.

After this draft, some of the other drafters were so disappointed with their pools, or the rares that were opened, that they wanted to just start over.  But I was excited to try this red-green lands-in-graveyard / slivers deck.  I don't have a screenshot of the deck, but it was red-green splashing for the Man-o'-War and sometimes Winter's Rest.

Round 1 I played against a blue black ninjas deck.  I dropped the middle game when he had the lifelink ninja and a couple others out, but I won the round 2-1.

Round 2 was against a hyper aggressive white-black changling deck with nasty slivers and Amorphous Axes.  I lost the first game and sideboarded out my slower cards to counter his aggression.  Second game was a tight win, and third game we both made some errors (most notably he didn't attack all out for lethal because he wasn't tracking our life totals), but I pulled it out.  Win, 2-1.

I got a 6-pack split for my trouble, and it was on to draft 2:

I think Giver of Runes is an absolute bomb, as she makes it very hard for the opponent to interact with you once her summoning sickness wears off.  I got into white-black pretty quickly, and I was looking for anything that worked well with the white blink spells or changelings.

Second pack I was getting almost nothing in white, so I experimented with other colors and got a couple black ninjas.

Third pack I finally first picked a Changeling Outcast.  I never get this card because other people pick it so high, and it's good!  It enables ninjas, and it wears equipment and auras well.  After a couple more changelings, I was lucky enough to get Valiant Changeling, an amazing 2-drop in the right draw.  The way its ability works, if you have another changeling in play, it gets the full discount because the other changeling counts for 5+ creature types on its own.

Building this deck was tough because I had a lot of candidates for useful last spells.  I really wanted to play Fallen Shinobi because it just wins the game once it starts hitting, and I had multiple early evasive creatures to enable it, so I splashed it on three Islands.  As it turned out, I always drew either the Shinobi or an Island, which was terrible.

Generous Gift was a card that impressed me.  It always at least made a tempo play against the opponent, and sometimes it could win a combat against a double block.  But it had some interesting fringe uses as well, such as turning my Putrid Goblin into a 1/1 and a 3/3 at instant speed.

Round 1 I played against maybe black-red?  Now I can't remember.  I lost the first game by failing to make a lethal attack, but then I bounced back and won twice.  Win, 2-1.

Second round was against a red-green deck without any lands-in-graveyard cards.  He had lots of early creatures and a lot of good mid-game synergies, like Mother Bear plus Bogardan Dragonheart.  I really couldn't get a foothold and lost in two games.  Loss, 0-2.

I think this deck was pretty good, but it was missing a couple more strong interactions.

Here's what I came away with on the two nights.  I'm consistently drafting more rares and more snow lands than the rest of the table, aside from the last draft where I had zero snow lands.

Thanks for reading!

This post is going up extra late because I was having trouble with Blogger saving -- maybe because my Google account space was almost full.