Drafted twice! OMG! Won the second time as well.
I started out the last article by saying I never draft. Then I went and described how I won the first draft I played in in months. Let me tell you, winning is really good incentive to play again. So is playing for free. I won 5 pack at the end of the night on Friday night, after spending 4 packs to get into the draft. Yay on making more money than I spent! So I had 5 packs on store credit. Since I had some time to myself (for once) on Sunday afternoon, I went to TOGIT and drafted, spending 4 of my 5 store credit packs for the entry fee. WHEE I could get used to this!
We had eight players this time, versus the 18 we had on Friday night. Drafting starts, and I open skinshifter as my rare. No way in hell do I want to be green in this format, so I look at the other cards in the pack. I see some good black, and white, neither of which I'm really interested in, and an incinerate, which I take. Next pack I get passed a fireball... wait someone passed me a fireball?!? Really? Yup, I'm in red no matter what now. After that I take an alabaster mage in a very unremarkable pack, a peregrine griffin, thinking I'd go WR, and a skywinder drake from a pack with almost no red or white at all. Then I get passed an aether adept, then another skywinder drake, pick 10 or so. At this point I'm thinking blue is wide open, or people are wildly misvaluing their cards, either of which I'm happy about so I move into blue. I round out the pack with a very late shock and some goblin tunnelers to go with my fiery hellhound. Other than the incinerate and the shock I am very low on tricks, especially ones that can deal with high toughness blockers like spiders so I go into pack 2 looking for those.
Pack two starts and again I am looking at a horrible rare, worldslayer.
Gah that's a bad card. I mean really? How is this ever good? You'd have to have something like 5 different cards assembled to make this thing more than 100% even. It is not balance, or smallpox or anything close to that. Yuck.
So I take the foil Greatsword and ship the pack. Second pick, foil Skywinder drake, which for those of you counting along at home makes 3. Third pick azure mage in a really rough choice between chandra's outrage azure mage and chasm drake. However I think azure mage is really important for this kind of deck. Most of the draw spells in the format are sorcery speed (the non-rare ones at least) and I don't really want to be spending my main phase mana on something other than a guy, or leaving mana open during their turn for one of my few tricks. Azure mage helps me draw cards and lets me use my mana in the way that makes the most sense for my deck. I did see an act of treason floating around, but wanted to make sure my creature curve was on track before picking that up. Then I see fling. It was in a pack without much else going for it, so it was an easy choice, and I start looking for crumbling colossus, act of treason, or fiery hellhounds to make that nice little fling game breaking.
Now I know that the guy to my right is almost mono green as he keeps talking about the AWESOME GARRUK he opened, and the guy to my left is at least partially in black for the Sorin Markov that he showed the table in order to stay at parity with the Garruk guy, so I'm feeling pretty good about my colors.
Side Note: Don't talk about your draft like that. It's bad form. End Note.
I pick up a late goblin fireslinger and a gift of a Stormblood Berserker (OMG!!) pick 8 or 9 and I'm feeling pretty good.
Then red and blue dry up for the rest of the pack. I start getting really late white cards like another peregrine griffin. My last three cards in pack 2 were, in order, stave off, divine favor, and stave off... Yes, I got a stave off as my force pick. Someone in white must be really bad or the ONLY white drafter at the table.
Looking through my list before opening pack three, I see I am a bit short on 1 drops and could use a finisher or two.
Pack three I open up flip through the commons, to the uncommons, to the rare, and see Chandra. On color planes walker pack three? Twist my arm why don't you...
YAY! I draft for free AND get 35$ out of it! Not to mention two people had asked me before the draft if I had any Chandra's for trade, so YAY TRADING! I mean I like Chandra, but I think Garruk is the best of the new planeswalkers for constructed, and I don't have plans to build Chandra.dec, so yeah I'll trade her away. Other notable cards in the first pack were a very nice chasm drake which I really want, but can't take above chandra, and another shock.
Pick two I am happy to see a phantasmal dragon staring back at me going "Psst, I'm a finisher! Five power flyers for four are good!" So I listen to the dragon and take it. Another skywinder drake makes its way into my pile (4 and counting). I pick another fling, but fail to find anymore act of treason. I do find two goblin arsonists, which really over performed. Seriously, this card is the nuts in draft, trading up for 2 drops on the block or their really good 1 toughness guy while chumping a big dude. He's a 1/1 unblockable a lot of the time, and is frequently a 2 for 1, or turning on your bloodthirst dudes.
The chasm drake tabled, really? Wow... Ok, thanks!
Third to last pick, pack three? Skywinder drake again, but I pick the goblin arsonist to have a better 1 drop slot (was totally the right call), but I could have had five sky winder drakes. Wow.
I pick a late bone breaker giant, ice cage, and frost breath, to round out my deck. My force pick pack three? Stave off... again. Happy. White. Drafter... Sheesh.
So I build my deck and it has a top end of 5cc for the one chasm drake (bonebreaker didn't make the cut, but got sided in against anyone with spiders). So I run 16 lands with an even split of 8 mountains and 8 islands.
The deck played out like this:
Turn 1 - Fireslinger or arsonist.
Turn 2 - Goblin piker, or azure mage, or goblin tunneler, or, in the best case scenario, stormblood berserker with bloodthirst.
Turn 3 - Skywinder drake, or fiery hellhound, or aether mage
Turn 4 - Skywinder drake, or phantasmal dragon, or draw a card or burn something
Turn 5 - Skywinder drake, chasm drake, act of treason something and fling it, fireball
Turn 6 - Win
Round 1 I play Nick and just stomp him games 1 and 3, but he has an amazing draw in game 2 while I can't block or race. Act of treason and fling made an appearance here when he played his sphinx of uthuun (which I passed), so I took it, swung with it, then flung it at his face. God that felt good.
1-0
Round 2 playing one of the two mono green players at the table, Scott (not Garruk guy), who has like infinite dudes, a few spiders, and generally was a really tough match. Ok, Scott did have a black splash but he was mostly green. Scott had also won against the only white drafter at the table, Mike, in round one, whose deck was insane. I guess having the card that gives your guys intimidate, and being able to cast that and overrun on the same turn wins games. Game one he wins rather easily as he gets an early spider, and I get a bunch of skywinder drakes that can't attack past his spider, and can't block his guys, so I die. Games 2 and three I am able to win very close races thanks to having incinerate for his 4/3 regenerating dude, frost breath for his spiders, and lots of 3/1 flyers. Oh and the act of treason plus fling showed up again.
2-0
Round 3 I'm undefeated, as is my opponent, Sergey, yes same Sergey as from Friday night. So we draw into Top 4, and I go get food.
2-0-1
Top 4 I play Ken, who is also red blue, but doesn't have the tricks to force through damage or the faster curve that I have, so I am able to race him games 1 and 3, while he takes game 2 due to my slow start.
Top 2 Draw with Sergey again.
3-0-2 and 4 packs to replace the 4 packs I used to get into the draft in the first place.
Did I mention that Sergey had 4 shocks in his deck? Four. Shocks. In. His. Deck.
Yikes. Those would have been pretty good versus like... everything in my deck? Glad we split dude. Thanks!
So that was my draft. It was a lot of fun. Hoped you enjoyed reading it.
Mike
We had eight players this time, versus the 18 we had on Friday night. Drafting starts, and I open skinshifter as my rare. No way in hell do I want to be green in this format, so I look at the other cards in the pack. I see some good black, and white, neither of which I'm really interested in, and an incinerate, which I take. Next pack I get passed a fireball... wait someone passed me a fireball?!? Really? Yup, I'm in red no matter what now. After that I take an alabaster mage in a very unremarkable pack, a peregrine griffin, thinking I'd go WR, and a skywinder drake from a pack with almost no red or white at all. Then I get passed an aether adept, then another skywinder drake, pick 10 or so. At this point I'm thinking blue is wide open, or people are wildly misvaluing their cards, either of which I'm happy about so I move into blue. I round out the pack with a very late shock and some goblin tunnelers to go with my fiery hellhound. Other than the incinerate and the shock I am very low on tricks, especially ones that can deal with high toughness blockers like spiders so I go into pack 2 looking for those.
Pack two starts and again I am looking at a horrible rare, worldslayer.
Gah that's a bad card. I mean really? How is this ever good? You'd have to have something like 5 different cards assembled to make this thing more than 100% even. It is not balance, or smallpox or anything close to that. Yuck.
So I take the foil Greatsword and ship the pack. Second pick, foil Skywinder drake, which for those of you counting along at home makes 3. Third pick azure mage in a really rough choice between chandra's outrage azure mage and chasm drake. However I think azure mage is really important for this kind of deck. Most of the draw spells in the format are sorcery speed (the non-rare ones at least) and I don't really want to be spending my main phase mana on something other than a guy, or leaving mana open during their turn for one of my few tricks. Azure mage helps me draw cards and lets me use my mana in the way that makes the most sense for my deck. I did see an act of treason floating around, but wanted to make sure my creature curve was on track before picking that up. Then I see fling. It was in a pack without much else going for it, so it was an easy choice, and I start looking for crumbling colossus, act of treason, or fiery hellhounds to make that nice little fling game breaking.
Now I know that the guy to my right is almost mono green as he keeps talking about the AWESOME GARRUK he opened, and the guy to my left is at least partially in black for the Sorin Markov that he showed the table in order to stay at parity with the Garruk guy, so I'm feeling pretty good about my colors.
Side Note: Don't talk about your draft like that. It's bad form. End Note.
I pick up a late goblin fireslinger and a gift of a Stormblood Berserker (OMG!!) pick 8 or 9 and I'm feeling pretty good.
Then red and blue dry up for the rest of the pack. I start getting really late white cards like another peregrine griffin. My last three cards in pack 2 were, in order, stave off, divine favor, and stave off... Yes, I got a stave off as my force pick. Someone in white must be really bad or the ONLY white drafter at the table.
Looking through my list before opening pack three, I see I am a bit short on 1 drops and could use a finisher or two.
Pack three I open up flip through the commons, to the uncommons, to the rare, and see Chandra. On color planes walker pack three? Twist my arm why don't you...
YAY! I draft for free AND get 35$ out of it! Not to mention two people had asked me before the draft if I had any Chandra's for trade, so YAY TRADING! I mean I like Chandra, but I think Garruk is the best of the new planeswalkers for constructed, and I don't have plans to build Chandra.dec, so yeah I'll trade her away. Other notable cards in the first pack were a very nice chasm drake which I really want, but can't take above chandra, and another shock.
Pick two I am happy to see a phantasmal dragon staring back at me going "Psst, I'm a finisher! Five power flyers for four are good!" So I listen to the dragon and take it. Another skywinder drake makes its way into my pile (4 and counting). I pick another fling, but fail to find anymore act of treason. I do find two goblin arsonists, which really over performed. Seriously, this card is the nuts in draft, trading up for 2 drops on the block or their really good 1 toughness guy while chumping a big dude. He's a 1/1 unblockable a lot of the time, and is frequently a 2 for 1, or turning on your bloodthirst dudes.
The chasm drake tabled, really? Wow... Ok, thanks!
Third to last pick, pack three? Skywinder drake again, but I pick the goblin arsonist to have a better 1 drop slot (was totally the right call), but I could have had five sky winder drakes. Wow.
I pick a late bone breaker giant, ice cage, and frost breath, to round out my deck. My force pick pack three? Stave off... again. Happy. White. Drafter... Sheesh.
So I build my deck and it has a top end of 5cc for the one chasm drake (bonebreaker didn't make the cut, but got sided in against anyone with spiders). So I run 16 lands with an even split of 8 mountains and 8 islands.
The deck played out like this:
Turn 1 - Fireslinger or arsonist.
Turn 2 - Goblin piker, or azure mage, or goblin tunneler, or, in the best case scenario, stormblood berserker with bloodthirst.
Turn 3 - Skywinder drake, or fiery hellhound, or aether mage
Turn 4 - Skywinder drake, or phantasmal dragon, or draw a card or burn something
Turn 5 - Skywinder drake, chasm drake, act of treason something and fling it, fireball
Turn 6 - Win
Round 1 I play Nick and just stomp him games 1 and 3, but he has an amazing draw in game 2 while I can't block or race. Act of treason and fling made an appearance here when he played his sphinx of uthuun (which I passed), so I took it, swung with it, then flung it at his face. God that felt good.
1-0
Round 2 playing one of the two mono green players at the table, Scott (not Garruk guy), who has like infinite dudes, a few spiders, and generally was a really tough match. Ok, Scott did have a black splash but he was mostly green. Scott had also won against the only white drafter at the table, Mike, in round one, whose deck was insane. I guess having the card that gives your guys intimidate, and being able to cast that and overrun on the same turn wins games. Game one he wins rather easily as he gets an early spider, and I get a bunch of skywinder drakes that can't attack past his spider, and can't block his guys, so I die. Games 2 and three I am able to win very close races thanks to having incinerate for his 4/3 regenerating dude, frost breath for his spiders, and lots of 3/1 flyers. Oh and the act of treason plus fling showed up again.
2-0
Round 3 I'm undefeated, as is my opponent, Sergey, yes same Sergey as from Friday night. So we draw into Top 4, and I go get food.
2-0-1
Top 4 I play Ken, who is also red blue, but doesn't have the tricks to force through damage or the faster curve that I have, so I am able to race him games 1 and 3, while he takes game 2 due to my slow start.
Top 2 Draw with Sergey again.
3-0-2 and 4 packs to replace the 4 packs I used to get into the draft in the first place.
Did I mention that Sergey had 4 shocks in his deck? Four. Shocks. In. His. Deck.
Yikes. Those would have been pretty good versus like... everything in my deck? Glad we split dude. Thanks!
So that was my draft. It was a lot of fun. Hoped you enjoyed reading it.
Mike
Comments
Post a Comment