I forgot to take a photo of my draft, but here are the important picks, from bottom left to top right.
Pick 1 was easy -- the Murderous Rider showcase card is about $8 and very strong. Second pack I went with a card that pairs easily with the rider and decided to see if I could make the knights theme work. The next several picks all fit the theme, although Ardenvale Tactician was a hedge in case either of my colors were wrong.
Second pack rare was Hushbringer, which is good but not better than removal. The choice was between Baked into a Pie and Slaying Fire. I don't know which is objectively better, but I wanted to take every strong black card I could to defend my position, because red seemed somewhat more open. I don't remember much of the narrative of the rest of this pack, but I did settle solidly into black-red.
Third pack had a foil Pyromancer and an Acclaimed Contender at rare. I didn't really want either of them for my deck, but there was nothing that really called to me so I took the Pyromancer on the chance that I lucked into some draw-a-card cards. Syr Konrad was about 3rd or 4th pick, and there was another Syr Carah in the same pack. Then one or two packs later, I saw a 3rd Syr Carah and drafted her.
Weirdly, 2 other players opened Murderous Riders as their rare (I think only one of them was in pack 1). So I did have a bit of competition for black cards in this 10-player pod.
I spent a lot of time going over my deck to make sure I was not making a mistake like last time. I made sure I was supporting the knight theme first and foremost, and playing the strongest cards I could. Here is what I settled on:
I played every card in my pool that worked with knights, but I held off on my good non-human payoff of Ferocity of the Wilds and a couple good creatures that weren't knights. Brimstone Trebuchet is one of my favorite cards in this format and Tournament Grounds would also be worse if I played too many non-knights.
This was my first time with a bunch of pump effects, which go well with Gingerbrute, Raging Redcap, and the lifelink Knights. I was excited about this deck.
Here are my sideboard cards:
Bog Naughty was another card that was just barely not good enough. I decided that two copies of Syr Carah were the only 5-mana 3/3's I wanted, since I only had a few food sources. I ended up sideboarding in Memory Theft in both my matches.
How did it go?
This was a rare circumstance where I feel like I mostly got the bad side of variance. I also kept some sketchy hands.
Match 1 I played against black-green. First game I drew too many lands. Second game was one of those where everything just matched up badly. Like I played a 2/3 after he had a 2/3 deathtouch Oakhame Adversary that draws cards when it hits you. Then he added a +1/+1 counter to it with Outmuscle and fought mine, and my next play was a 3/3 when his creature was now a 3/4. Loss, 0-2.
I played a game against another green deck between rounds. I made an impressive Raging Redcap and hit for 12 once, but he had a higher density of creatures on board and won.
Match 2 was against white-blue. She had some good rares but not a lot of overlapping synergy. First game she mulliganed on the play, so I decided to take my chances with a hand of 6 lands and Bake into a Pie on the draw. It turned into a long game, as she was low on lands and I was low on nonlands. I eventually got her down to 1 life over several turns with Syr Carah, but she was able to play enough power and give haste with a Crashing Drawbridge and hit me for lethal. Second game I also had a lot of lands and wasn't quite able to keep up on board. Loss, 0-2.
So the deck went 0-5 in games. Maybe I should have jammed in more creatures, but 15 is pretty adequate, with 11 of them costing 3 or lower. I just kept having hands that were mostly lands, removal, and combat tricks. I also maybe should have mulliganed more aggressively.
Tournament Grounds seemed pretty mediocre, and it probably is, but it certainly didn't help its case that I generally had enough red and black sources without it. I had one game where it helped me cast an equipment on time, and one game where it prevented me from casting Baked into a Pie on time.
As for value, I drafted 2 rares and 8 uncommons, both slightly below par. I did manage to trade for some white-blue dual lands for my Pioneer deck, but that's a different story for a different post...
Thanks for reading! Next up is maybe a Chaos draft and then a new season of Theros: Beyond Death.
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