It was actually the biggest draft crowd we've had, but that is partially because there weren't enough Modern players to hold a tournament, and a couple of them joined the draft. Still, we had 16 people for two full tables of 8.
Here's what I drafted from bottom left to top right:
My first pack was complete garbage. The other contender for my first pick was Mystic Repeal, but I didn't think a very good enchantment removal spell was good enough to start the draft with. Since I've done well with white-red aura aggro decks, I took the Eidolon just on the chance that I ended up on that plan again. It turned out to be the only white card I drafted. Threnody Singer didn't have any super strong contenders in its pack either, but it's a card I am happy to play in any blue deck. Then I rounded out most of my colors by taking red and black removal. The second Threnody Singer, in foil no less, was a pretty good indicator that I could settle into blue. The rest of the pack had a few playable cards but nothing I was excited about.
Second pack rare was Dalakos. He's a weird one -- his abilities don't synergize with very much in THB Limited, as he was apparently designed mostly for Commander, but a 2/4 for 3 mana is an ok card on its own if you're playing the right colors. I wasn't sure I was playing them, and I thought he was a good candidate to come back around. So I took a blue-red (UR) payoff card that has much better set synergy in the Manticore. Second pick Oracle again isn't an amazing bomb of a rare, but it's just good and efficient. The next 3 cards are very good and further indicated I could draft UR. When the first pack came back, it didn't have Dalakos, but instead I got Stern Dismissal, which is probably a better card for my deck anyway.
Third pack was a fist pump, as Phoenix of Ash is a very good card and also in my colors. There's not a lot to say about this pack other than that it gave me exactly the kind of cards I wanted for the first half. The two Fields of Ruin, which are good in constructed but bad in THB Limited, were placed perfectly in the packs for me to take them without hurting my draft, so that was nice.
Here's my main deck:
The main themes I wanted to support were devotion to blue (Callaphe, Thassa's Oracle, Threnody Singer), "cast a spell on opponent's turn" (Manticore, Arena Trickster), and ferocious (power 4 or greater). The good news was that most of the cards for the first two themes are good enough without much help, so I didn't bend over backward to support them. For ferocious, Furious Rise is really strong but does nothing if you don't have a ferocious creature, so I had to work a little to make it work, specifically by playing Impending Doom. The pump abilities of Phoenix of Ash and Incendiary Oracle are also sneaky ways to turn it on, and Callaphe also often has 4 - 5 power in the mid-game.
Here's what didn't make it into the main:
My default sideboard play on the draw was to take out an Island and add Infuriate. Soul-Guide Lantern is a great sideboard option when playing against strong cards with escape, so it also saw play. I brought in Stampede Rider a couple times as an aggressive card, but I never wanted to cast it over other spells, so it was probably wrong.
First round was against white-black with auras. I had two bad games. In the first game I drew excessive lands, and in the second I kept a hand with 2 Islands, Callaphe, and 4 red cards, thinking I would either draw blue spells or Mountains. As it turned out, I drew just enough stuff to avoid discarding to hand size, but I wasn't able to cast my red spells or keep up with my opponent's very strong curve out. Loss, 0-2.
Second round was against one of the store guys playing white-blue Nadir Kraken control. This deck was basically built around a few strong cards and a bunch of removal and tokens to slog up the ground. He got good mileage out of Flicker of Fate, a card I haven't wanted to play in my aggressive white decks. In the first two games he played Nadir Kraken on turn 3. In both games I was able to neutralize it as a creature but not stop its ability (Entrancing Lyre and One with the Stars both have this effect), and whoever got a good flier to stick won the game. In game 3, he didn't have the Kraken right away, but it became a slog and he did eventually get it again (and I locked it down again). I think I was likely to lose that game in the long run, but we went to time and drew 1-1-1. He gave me the win.
I made one pretty notable misplay in the second game (loss) as a result of not being used to the play pattern of certain cards. He had just flickered his Nadir Kraken to get it out from under One with the Stars, and I had an active Furious Rise in play. I played Thassa's Oracle and saw Fateful End, but I put it to the bottom, knowing Oracle puts the card on top of the library instead of drawing it, and thinking I wouldn't be able to cast Fateful End before Kraken grew to 4 toughness. Then my Furious Rise triggered, and lo and behold, I would have had Fateful End available from exile with mana to cast it before the Kraken's upkeep trigger resolved!
Third round was against another good player on blue-black with a strong escape theme.
First game I was a little aggressive as I tried to feel him out, and he punished me with some combat tricks. Second and third games I had a much better feel for his deck and played it a little more carefully. The coup de grace in the final game was an Infuriate after blocks on my all out attack, which forced him to sacrifice all but one of his creatures to Lampad of Death's Vigil just to survive the turn. Win, 2-1.
Fourth round I split the pot with another X-1 player, earning $7.50 in store credit and making time to play some Commander.
So this deck did pretty well, and I honestly think it could have done fine in my first round match if I had drawn the cards that play well against aggressive creatures, such as Threnody Singer and Riptide Turtle. I probably should have mulliganed the second hand there.
One of the tricky things with Threnody Singer and Riptide Turtle is knowing whether you want to cast them on turn 2. I generally played the Turtle because it doesn't have as much surprise value, but Threnody Singer I tried to leverage based on whether I needed to be the aggressor. Singer isn't aggressive on its own, but when you hit it with Impending Doom on turn 3, it becomes a must-answer threat.
As far as value, I drafted a bunch of cards that are cool but not super valuable. The Oracle is about $5 based on some combo decks that are using it, and the Phoenix is about $1. After barely getting any Nyx lands last time, this time I ended up with 6 somehow. My default (and I think most other people's as well) is to always draft them over commons that aren't likely to make my deck.
Another odd wrinkle is that I drafted 3 rares, which is exactly average, but 18 uncommons, which is twice as many as a normal draft. Add that to the 6 basics and 2 foil commons, and I drafted probably a record low 16 "normal" commons.
I had a bunch of store credit, so I bought two collector boosters for science (one Eldraine and one THB). I'll write that up separately.
Thanks for reading!
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