Repack Draft #(n+5), Wishing on a Star (WUBRG Drafting)

I don't think I've ever laughed as much during a Magic game as I did last night.  At one point I was literally out of my chair, laughing on the ground.  My students are absolutely hilarious.  

I ran a free repack draft yesterday.  It happened with late notice (sorry) and it's deep into the semester, so there were only five of us instead of the big crowds we've had lately.

Five.  There was some talk of alternative formats as we were getting set up, so I threw out the idea of a Star Draft.  The link I had on the sidebar is dead, the mtg.fandom.com wiki page does not have the full correct information (in my own opinion), and the links from that page to their sources on wizards.com also seem broken.  Here's a quick explanation of the format, minus some details:

• It's a multi-player format where all five players sit in a circle.  The people directly to your right and left are your opponents.  The people across from you are your teammates.  (Yes, your teammates are each others' opponents, it gets messy.)
• If both of your opponents die (and you are still alive) then you step out of the game as a winner.  Up to two players can win.
• We played with the "cutthroat" add-on, to save time:
• Whenever a player attacks, all creatures are automatically attacking both opponents.  They can both use their creatures to "team block".  
• Any unblocked or trampled damage is dealt to both attacked players.
• Nitpick: the attacker actually needs to pick which opponent each creature is attacking, because any effects that trigger when "combat damage is dealt to a player" only triggers once.
• This speeds the game up because there is far less political discussion around deciding when (and who) to attack.
• As with multiplayer games, the first mulligan is free.  Since there aren't just two teams, the first player also gets to draw.
   

We drafted knowing that Star was the plan.  Here's what I pulled from the repacked "packs":

Pack 1: 3 guildgates in a row, followed up by 3 Coalition Honor Guards in 4 picks.

White was severely underdrafted.  I realized late in pack 1 just how great Flagbearer would be, so I grabbed those Coalition Honor Guards.  A lot of the other great cards I picked up I didn't see in the game, unfortunately.  There was a lot of table talk about people taking the dual lands, but then they didn't and I snagged a bunch at pretty late slots.

I didn't take a photo of my deck, so here's a list:

• Mana Value 2:
• Shire Scarecrow
• Razorfin Hunter
• Crossbow Infantry
• Three Tree Rootweaver
• Shipwreck Singer
• Absorb Vis (because it's more likely to cast for the land cycling)
  
• Mana Value 3:
• Kingpin's Pet
• Squall
• Ironfist Crusher (because it has morph)
• Orzhov Euthanist
• Mana Value 4:
• 3x Coalition Honor Guard
• Anaba Shaman
• Fodder Cannon
• Benalish Heralds
• 2x Orim's Thunder (Because of the kicker)
• Mana Value 5:
• Air Servant
• The Mouth of Sauron
• Charmed Clothier
• Mana Value 6:
• Shoreline Ranger
• Troll of Khazad-Dum
• Scab-Clan Giant
• Lands:
• 3x Izzet Guildgate
• Dimir Guildgate
• Boros Guildgate
• Azorius Guildgate
• Golgari Guildgate
• Cabaretti Courtyard
• 2x Plains
• 1x Island
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Mountain
• 2x Forest

One of the nice things about drafting Star is that because you're sitting next to your opponents, you don't need to move between the drafting and playing phases.  Speaking about seating, I need to set the stage.  Going clockwise from me, we had:

• Player A, Opponent, playing Izzet, who got the early pressure on the board.
  
• Player B, Teammate, on Rakdos.  He was actively antagonistic towards me and nearly targeted me with Mudbutton Torchrunner's death trigger.  That might have destroyed the dynamic of the game, so I'm glad it didn't happen! 
• Player C, Teammate, running Mono-Green.  He got absolutely mana flooded.  At one point he had 7 Forests in play and 5 more exiled by Bag of Holding.  Oof.  
• Player D, Opponent, who managed WUBRG as well.  This student is definitely my rival.  We chose to sit this way because they have not yet defeated me and wanted this chance to finally make it happen.  (I think I was 4-0 against them going in to this event.)  
  

I also need to explain that all four of the other players were my students, and they really enjoy messing with me. 

The game started slowly, with only small creatures and the aforementioned Bag of Holding in the first two turns.  

Everything's still pretty okay at this point.

On turn 4, player D dropped a Spectral Searchlight, a card I normally appreciate that did extra work in this format.  (I am sad that it doesn't burn people anymore.)  I got stuck on three lands with a bunch of 4-drops in my hand, which was bad because on A's fourth turn, they played Quaketusk Boar after asking D for one of the searchlight's mana.  (I always hear "Catalyst, grant me Life," whenever anyone shares with this.)

Player B and I didn't have enough blockers to deal with that for multiple turns, so our life totals dropped.  I quickly found myself with the lowest.  D got a Splatter Thug and unleashed it, but I got my fourth land and one of the Coalition Honor Guards came down to help slow the bleeding.

Everyone quickly learned how Flagbearer worked (and there was much gnashing of teeth) but I still refused to block the Boar on A's second turn.  This drew the ire of B, who started plotting with D against me.  The cross discussions started getting hilarious, as B was going off about how terrible I am.  On my following turn, I got my fifth land and dropped Charmed Clothier, who gave the Honor Guard the Royal Role.  Flagbearer + Ward was pretty good, and with these blockers we stopped the Boar's beatings. 

D had still not taken damage and was alone at 20 life.  They gained 2 and went to 22 and were clearly running the game.  B got in some hits, so the other life totals got lower and lower.  I think the boar died in combat after it was blocked by the Clothier and one of B's creatures.  I played a Troll of Khazad-Dum and then it was time to start attacking.  

Apparently a terrifying board.

Splatter Thug couldn't block, so on the troll's first attack, it ate D's Wall of Tanglecord.  (I killed that instead of two smaller creatures so that my other little creatures could become more threatening.)  I also dropped the Benalish Heralds for some more gas.  On the following turn, A, now at 5 or 6 life, had no blockers and D had only two.  I attacked with the troll.  Then all this happened:

Not pictured: the flagbearer that was forced to be the target.

Player A cast Deceive the Messenger to get a third blocker, only for C to drop Nature's Claim to kill D's Steel Wall.  At that moment, I was at 7 life and Player D had 26.  A died.  On their turn, B cast Lava Axe at my head (thanks!) then attacked and killed C, so Player B exited the game as the winner.  At some point I laughed so hard, I went on the ground laughing; I think that was from the Lava Axe.

It was down to me and my rival, with me at two life and them at twenty.  The troll had completely demoralized them, though, reminding them of other come-from-behind victories I'd managed in the past.  I played a second flagbearer and started swinging with the troll.  I couldn't wait because I passed them Immortal Phoenix and knew it could hit the board at any time.  

In the intervening turns, they played Leyline Invocation for 6 and I dropped the morphed Ironfist Crusher and continued to swing with the troll.  It was looking dicey, but they bounced it the following turn for a Silver Drake, planning to kill me in the air the next turn.  I killed that plan by destroying Spectral Searchlight with Orim's Thunder, taking out the drake with the damage.  With the fractal gone, I could swing in more safely and attacked for 8 with one of my 2/4s.  The following turn the troll won the game.

So, B and I won.  (By ranking, it was B in first, me in second, D in third, C in fourth, and A in fifth place.)  Other than my teammate Lava Axing me (grumble, grumble) this was very much how Star games play out.  I highly recommend this if you want a fun five-player format!

... and we'll see whether my rival is able to defeat me next time we meet!

Three Strikes, but Chaos Isn't Out (WUBRG Drafting)

I ran a little chaos draft last week.  It initially looked like we might have 10 or 11 people, but then a little Florida flu went around town and we were down to five.  Nevertheless, we had a good selection of packs.

So much chaos, we couldn't even line up the pentagon well.

I did pretty well in the draft.  I thought I took more removal than I actually wound up with.  The real problem was that we were extremely short on mana-fixing.  (I think I managed to be the only WUBRG player, but not for good reasons.)  Here were my picks:

Pick 1, pack 3: a rare lesson.  Bonus!

Looking back, I thought that all my instant-speed card draw would make a bigger difference than it actually did.  I also thought that would all combo real well with Manaplasm.  I felt like my deck would be able to make things happen.  Here's what I put together:

My office apologizes for the glare.

We had five players and got a bit of a late start, so we went for single-game rounds.  I managed to play three of my four opponents.  In the first round, I was matched up against a Mardu player, who got out an absolutely nutty combo on turn 2.

Kumano Faces Kakkazan + Mauhur = beats

I dragged the game out a bit, but I was on the back foot the whole time and lost. 0-1.

In the second round, I faced an Abzan deck.  I felt like things were going pretty well until turn five, when Glissa, Herald of Predation hit the board.  I had already exhausted a removal piece and I was never able to keep up with all the incubators that kept dropping.

The three rules cards are all incubators with +2/+2.

I was slowly devoured by Phyrexians.  0-2.  (That Phyrexian domination won the draft 4-0.)

In the third round, I was up against an often-WUBRG drafter who still managed a Witch-Maw deck in our fixing-desert packs.  Guess what?  I got steamrolled.  My opponent got value-creature after value-creature.  They named Mutagen Connoisseur with Natural Unity, which was a great choice.  I held it together, but then The Goose Mother came out.  I did kill off a Bounding Felidar that hit the ground, but it was after it gave out a turn of +1/+1 counters.  It was not enough to hold off the onslaught.  0-3.

I don't even remember how I held on in each of those games.  The Workshop Warchief never saw the battlefield.  I think the Undercity Scrounger was one of my winners, because it helped me with some fixing.  I never learned, so I didn't get to cast the Teachings of the Archaics.  I never even got to scry off of Rivendell.  I still had a lot of fun, especially just trying to keep up with all the things headed at me.  With some more chances, I think something would have come together, even if it wasn't a winning something.

I can't wait to do it again!

Raffine, Chaos Seer (WUBRG Drafting)

I got another chaos draft in this week.  We had a smaller group, four drafters, and had a blast.  Someone said this was their favorite way to play magic, and I agreed completely.  We picked twelve different packs!  Here's what we opened:

 

The Ikoria-opener got Kaheera, but was unable to build around it, sadly!

I picked removal pretty highly, even over some rares and fixing.  The most important picks, however, were the first two I made: Raffine and Boon-Bringer Valkyrie.  Thankfully some good mana-fixing made it back around the table.  This was made a lot easier because (for the first time in forever) I wasn't fighting anyone for WUBRG supremacy.  

After taking Gwaihir, I tried to build a bit of bird-kindred.  After that I had two chances to add Balmor to my pile, but I turned it down for Artillery Blast and then Pixie Illusionist.  As much as I like Balmor, I think those were the right choices. Here are my picks:

Getting passed a rare dual helped!

I nearly cut the Valkyrie while deck building.  Luckily I was heaviest in white, so I figured it would be okay to keep the two-pip spell in.  (I did cut the Unexpected Windfall, though I was torn about it.)  Here's the deck I put together:  (I really think I could have built this better, please feel free to critique my choices!) 

All of my opponents played green, but I still got the Gaea's Might!

In the first round I was up against a Simic player.  In the first game, I got Raffine out, but it got put into Witness Protection.  (That is such a good card, and I think they played it in most of their games!)  That was a bit sad, but they got hit with the mana screw, so I had plenty of time.  I got Thran Power Suit on my Legitimate Businessperson, so the Witness Protection helped pump it up a little bit.  After a bit, I also got Hulking Metamorph down, which was happy to become a Raffine.

This ended game 1.

In the second game, instead of having a dearth of land, my opponent got flooded.  I got the Boon-Bringer Valkyrie down, which was almost enough to win on its own.  1-0.

Note: we knew we were going to try and get all three rounds in, so we purposefully avoided matching up the two winners for the second round.  (I like doing this because then the draft winner might not be decided after the second round.)

In our second round I was up against a Jund deck, which was extremely surprising because this player always drafts a savage white weenie horde that often runs me over early in our games.  Well, this was an efficient Jund weenie horde, and some of them got pretty brutal.  

1/1?  No, this is a 7/3 Blazing Rootwalla.

Nevertheless, I had enough removal to stay alive.  The Valkyrie won me the first game and Raffine came in early to win me the second.  The Valkyrie is a bomb the turn it comes in and Raffine is a bomb if it sticks around to attack.  I won both games.  2-0.

In the third and final round, I was up against Jund deck #2!  Like... what???  This time I made good use of Mimic, which I ran primarily for the mana fixing, but then never sacrificed it all night.  In the first game, I won with the air supremacy of the Valkyrie and Gwaihir.  In the second game, my opponent used two cards (Morgul-Knife Wound and Cut Down) to kill the Valkyrie.  That was probably the right choice!  Thankfully, my Hoarding Ogre did a lot of work and helped me power out the rest of my team.  Raffine got to play with four +1/+1 counters on it.  I was pitching removal to keep other removal with the connive triggers and won again.  3-0.

This deck was wicked fun to play.  I'm definitely branching out from needing to be green-centered, which makes sense now that there's more support in other colors as well.  

I'm still addicted, though.  I hope I get to draft again soon!

Neapolitan Commander Draft, Round 2

Just one year after a first Neapolitan commander draft, we did a second.  This time was different because:

• We incorporated the enormous Baldur's Gate Wilderness dungeon.  
• We had nine people!  A new record for our "little" drafts!

Since we had nine, I tried to get us split up into play pods of 4 and 5, where that second one would play a Kingdom game.   (I really want to draft Kingdom EDH.)  I was unconvincing, so we did three pods of 3 instead.

Important item that I have to address: We didn't do a championship game of 3 with the three winners for two reasons:

• My game finished much later than the other two, so it would have been awfully late to start another game, and
• I didn't think of it.

We did use the bonus rule that extends the one used in Commander Masters: 

• Mono-colored (and colorless) legendary creatures are considered to have the Partner ability, even if it's not printed on the card, and
• Mono-colored (and colorless) legendary creatures are considered to have the Choose a Background ability, even if it's not printed on the card.
  

(If "monosexual" wasn't already a thing, I would nominate using that word for this rule.  Y'know, because they have partner, so they're attractive to other legends.... I think I'm funny.)  This facilitates more combinations of legends (and backgrounds) to make things more creative and unique.

We randomized seating and gathered around two tables.  Each player would be playing with the two people three seats to their left and right.  

"Isn't this picture kind of obvious?"  Yes, to whoever said that last night, but it's still awesome.

The drafting itself was pretty wild.  In a Commander Draft, instead of picking one card each turn, you pick two.  That means that in these packs of 20, the only packs you see a second time are the ones you open, and you just get the two cards remaining.  I had to remind myself multiple times: "Oh, I won't see these again."  

I'm not convinced that picking two cards is actually a good plan, because we had multiple instances of packs going around with the incorrect number of cards.  I don't know how it happened, but it happened a lot.  Even Zone Drafting didn't save us.  I think that one pick per person would help this happen, and I don't think it would slow things down too bad.

In deck construction, you still have to adhere to the color-identity rule, so there are some goal picks as far as legends are concerned.  In descending-excellence order:

• Dream: open a WUBRG legend in Commander Masters, of which there are a few. (This is a good argument for reversing the order of
  
• Awesome: grab a two-color legend that has partner.  That way you can match it with a legend of whatever third color you want.
• Pretty Good: pull a three-color legend. 
  

I tried to draft as colorless as possible in order to keep my legend-choices open.  Despite the fact that two other players voiced having the same strategy partway through, it still paid off.  I wasn't able to get either of the first two scenarios, but I did draft Amareth early in the first pack.  Then, amazingly, I got Sek'Kuar halfway through the third pack.  Since they overlap in green, I focused the end on drafting that so I could figure out what to do in the end.  Here are all my picks:

A lot of good stuff came around.  These packs are deep.

I counted up my cards and realized that if I went with Amareth I actually had fewer playable cards; just enough to make a deck.  I didn't want to think about cuts, so I took the coward's way out and just went with that.  Here's the deck:

If I had taken one moment and recognized that I didn't have enough total devotion to white to make Heliod a creature, I might have changed my mind.

Our game went long, so we only played the one.  I sat down against Akiri, Fearless Voyager to my left and Malcolm + Ardenn to my right.  My opening hand had some ramp as well as You Look Upon the Tarrasque, Jahiera's Respite, and Torrential Gearhulk.  Those three cards would sit in my hand for a long time.  When I hit five mana, I purposefully left myself vulnerable multiple turns, trying to tempt someone into letting me profit off of Jahiera's Respite.  My opponents got The Initiative and started trading it back and forth, venturing through the Wilderness Dungeon.  

I played Amareth, who got slapped with Martial Impetus.  I unwillingly swung it into the Akiri player multiple turns, and the Azorius player started to rise in power, playing a bunch of efficient creatures.  I continued to get attacked, but only by one creature at a time, never enough to warrant the Respite.  Then, finally, after Amareth had racked up 14 commander damage against Akiri, Malcolm, Ardenn, and two tokens attacked me:

Four is worth it!

That was enough to get me branded as a probable-Archenemy.  There was some talk about how I probably had more fog-effects, but then the Akiri player dropped a Kirtar's Wrath to reset the board.  With all their treasures, it didn't take long for the Azorius player to regenerate their board presence.  On my turn, I left six up and didn't keep any blockers back.  Guess what happened on the next Malcolm-Ardenn turn?

Six is definitely worth it! 

Now I was definitely in the archenemy seat.  With all my mana and Amareth's ability, I got a lot of stuff down.  Since my dragon was no longer goaded, I swung into the Malcolm-Ardenn player and claimed both the Initiative and the Monarch.  Finally, I went into the Wilderness, though I didn't exactly need the land.  

 

I swung in for damage and played a bunch of creatures with my gobs of land.  Unfortunately, Fiendlash came down on Akiri, who had been gaining +1/+1 counters from Drillworks Mole.  With a power of 9, my opponents happily colluded to get Akiri into combat.  I was able to prevent a multi-turn combo by killing Akiri with Band Together.  Before combat damage could be dealt.  Of course, that would trigger the Fiendlash, but I was able to also give my creatures lifelink with Heliod, keeping myself above zero.

I kept myself alive with You Look Upon the Tarrasque, then swung in on my turn to kill the Akiri player and deal as much as I could to the Malcolm-Ardenn opponent.  I gained 20 off of Heliod-granted lifelinkers and took a lead of 21 to 8.  (Combo alert: Trailblazer's Torch + Heliod is good!  Your opponents will not want to block whoever holds the torch.)  If I could survive the next attack, I could win on my turn.  I had Shimmer Myr on the board, a few blockers, a hand of cards, and lots of mana.       

I was still surprised by the total power of the attackers, but when they came in, I flashed out some artifact blockers and managed to block what was necessary (and use lifelink) to stay above zero.  I had 2 life.  I was going to win!

Oh wait.  My opponent dealt me combat damage.  And I have The Initiative.  That means they get The Initiative.  Where are they moving to in the Wilderness dungeon?

Uh-oh.

The first card flipped was a land.

I wasn't so lucky with the others.

And thus ended one of the absolute best EDH games I've ever played.  And it was in limited.  The other two games had ended long before, but multiple people in them told me this was one of the most fun drafts they had ever done.  I wish I could have squeezed another game in, but it was definitely time to close up.

I hope you enjoyed reading this, and I hope you get a chance to try a commander draft of any kind if you haven't already.  Happy Magicking!

Duskmourn, Round 1 (WUBRG Drafting)

I made it out to a Duskmourn: House of Horror draft at Intergalactic Plastic on week 1!  I did not do my homework ahead of time, but I was pleased to find that this set WUBRGs pretty well.  Even in a pod of only six (why oh why does 12 have to split to 6?) I was able to pull five of the common dual lands and three basic landcyclers.  I also managed to pull off a bit of "whenever an enchantment enters (or a door is fully unlocked)" synergy.  Unfortunately I didn't pick out enough rooms.

Here's what I drafted:

Two of my first picks were rare picks that didn't make it into the deck.

I had limited time for deck construction, but got this put together just in time:

Ghost Vacuum is really good at preventing opponents from getting delirium.

In the first round, I was up against a slick Boros control deck with more doors than Jim Morrison.  Both copies of Unable to Scream overperformed, locking down manifested tokens with ease.  I made a couple of mistakes.  In the first game, I let a Veteran Survivor level up.  That combined with a Tunnel of Hate put me on the back foot quickly and I never recovered.  In the second game, my opponent had all the answers for each of my plays.  Removal kept my creatures off the field.  In both games, Shattered Yard dealt the final point of damage.  0-1.

In the second round, I was up against a real clever Abzan reanimator deck with a bunch of finishers, including Fear of Abduction, Doomsday Excruciator, Miasma Demon, and Vile Mutilator and some ways to get them back from the graveyard.  Game one went back and forth.  I was very sad when my Cackling Slasher died because I had achieved the extra value. 

Brutal.

In the end, I the big beatsticks came out and I got overwhelmed.  In game two, I played a turn 7 Shroudstomper, which bit it immediately to removal.  I got to see the reanimation action, with Valgavoth's Faithful.  (They also had Rite of the Moth in their deck.)  I got Ghost Vacuum out, but my back was already against the wall.  I managed to suck up my Shroudstomper and one of my opponent's Broodspinners and spit them both out as 1/1 creatures, but it was too little too late against the Fear of Abduction and Miasma demon.  0-2.

We had a player drop, so in the third round I got a Bye.  Bummer!  1-2.

I think I may have gone too hard into mana fixing this time and missed out on some game clinchers.  Also, it's a bit hard to tell how good the landcyclers are in Duskmourn.  With two colored pips, they're actually pretty hard to cast in 5 coors.  Luckily for me, since I was pretty heavy in red and white, I never had to cycle them.  I don't know if I would be so lucky normally.

Both of my matches were really fun, despite the beatdown.  I hope I'll get to give Duskmourn another shot soon!

Low Green Chaos (WUBRG Drafting)

I got another chaos draft in.  I didn't have a good theme, but I did run a WUBRG deck with little green.  That's a bit rare for the maybe obvious reason that green is good at mana fixing. 

We had seven people, which, for an odd number of people, has a nice drafting property: if you open a 15-card pack (as opposed to 14) you get that extra "pick" at the end of the round.  We also agreed to do single-game rounds again.  (Though I expect my group may be getting a bit tired of that.)  Here's what we opened:

I am officially stuck in the Ikoria-first rut.

My pack-1-pick-1 was a mana (fixer) dork, Humble Naturalist, that I didn't end up using, mostly because it was in green.  Here are all of my picks:

Lorien Revealed was the best card in that LotR pack, sadly.

I tried to find a good theme as I was drafting and failed over and over. First strikers with Kwende didn't pan out.  Neither did Evolving Door.  (I didn't even take any colorless creatures!)  I actually first-picked the Humble Naturalist over Frondland Felidar, which I regretted as vigilant creature after vigilant creature came through the packs. 

However, I still got a ton of removal that served me very well.  Additionally, Lorien Revealed, Mental Journey, and Unfathomable Truths kept my hand refilled.  Here's the deck I built:

People told me Clash of Titans isn't good.  It seems good!

(My apologies; I failed to take a lot of photos this time!  That means my memory of the details for some of them is a bit hazy.)

 

In the first round, I was paired up against a Golgari deck, and I drew into all the removal I needed, including Holy Cow as a flash-in blocker.  Not to mention I learned just how good Sentinel of the Nameless City is.  1-0.

 

In the second round, I was matched up with a Mardu opponent who often goes WUBRG, but just couldn't force it this time.  (I'm sure that's partly why I actually got lands!)  This was a long fight, but I managed to pull it off, thanks again to my plentiful removal.  2-0.

In the third round I was up against a fast Boros deck.  This time Nimble Brigand showed off, as each piece of removal made it unblockable, meaning it was sneaking in for Ophidian-level card advantage.  I feel like I kept playing removal, then drawing a replacement removal spell off the Brigand to get me ready to kill next turn's creature.  3-0.

 

The fourth round was extra fun because my opponent had managed to build two functional decks: Orzhov and Gruul.  (That seems really hard to pull off!)  I didn't know about the second deck and definitely struggled against the Orzhov, as it got down some efficient small creatures that kept me on my back foot, but I managed to pull it off.  4-0.  Bonus: we played again, but with the Gruul deck.  That was wicked fun.  I took a lot of early damage, but was stabilizing at 9.  Then they played Kogla and Yidaro, and haste-smashed my face down to 2.  I played Mirrorhall Mimic on my next turn and had them fight as though it was the second-incarnation of the legend rule.  After that, Obscura Initiate was able to get in for damage while bringing my life total back up, slowly but surely until I won.

The fifth round happened in a make-up round today.  This needs a little bit of explanation: after I had great success with Keruga earlier in the week, one of the other drafters followed the Ikoria-first plan.  They were lucky enough to open a companion: Lurrus, and drafted around it, resulting in what they described as a "really bad Lurrus deck" in Esper.  In our match they out-removaled me, showing off a wealth of 2-mana prison-effect-enchantments.  Although I killed Lurrus as soon as it appeared (they never attacked with it all night) they were able to keep me on my back foot deep into the game.  

 

Lurrus + don't-pass-priority = Utter Insignificance lands a second time.

 

I dragged it out with all of my own removal, but couldn't keep up with their quantity of creatures.  4-1.

What fun!  My deck was really fun to play and I had a good balance of mana-fixing lands and two powerful blue landcyclers to boot.  Once again removal was the key to victory, but perhaps I should switch up the packs I choose and get out of the rut I'm in.  Until next time, happy magicking!

Keruga Patiently Waits in Chaos (WUBRG Drafting)

On one hand, I should stop writing these because now people are also drafting WUBRG with me.  On the other hand, I really like writing these.

We had a big chaos draft on Thursday.  I had recently won a LotR:ToME pack, so I opened that, an Ikoria pack, and a Murders of Karlov Manor pack.  We had seven people, and opened a wide array of packs.  Very wacky!

Bloomburrow made it's first appearance at one of our drafts, in force!

I opened Keruga and immediately committed to mana value 3+ spells.  It's actually really fun to start off this way and have something to build around.  I only made a couple money-motivated "illegal" picks: 

Someday someone will set up a trade with my bot, so I can't ignore a $5 card.

Unfortunately, I had a hard time finding fixing.  This is probably because there were two other WUBRG drafters at the table!  I only got one non-basic mana fixer, two basic land cyclers, and one Crossroads Candleguide.  Oof.

I realized there was a bit of a strategy here, but I didn't foresee how strong it would be: cast pacifism-style cards like Prison Sentence to neutralize my opponent's creatures, then get Keruga out and draw for each of them.  (There were actually more white cards like that going around; I should have taken them all!)

Here's the deck I built, with Keruga as my companion:

My mana curve looks less flat when there's nothing in the 1 and 2 slots.

Since we had an odd number again, we did single-game matches.  I got five rounds in before my opponents were all gone.  In the first round I was matched up against one of my WUBRG opponents.  I was able to get the lock-down strategy out, with the Prison Sentence, Sigarda's Imprisonment, and Amphibian Downpour keeping creatures at bay.  With my own Kami of Jealous Thirst sitting pretty, Keruga drew four when it landed and I rode that value to victory.

Thank you, pseudo-general, for the four cards!

I noticed, after passing, that I missed the combo with the Kami's activation discount.  Whoops!  I kept that in mind going forward, though.  1-0.

In the second match, I faced someone who hadn't yet beaten me in a draft.  Of course they were also running WUBRG!  (And they managed to get Turn 5 "natural WUBRG", meaning one of each basic land, two games in a row!  Nice job!)  This was a hard-fought battle.  I played Keruga early and drew into my lockdown spells.  I got dropped to 2 while they were at 25.  I had stayed alive only because I got good timing on Amphibian Downpour (what a card!) to turn three creatures into frogs.

Those ad/art cards are Amphibian Downpour copies.

My opponent cast Liesa, then tapped their imprisoned Dorothea to crew their Aetherwing.  As they entered combat--which meant that Liesa could swing because of Tuktuk Rubblefort--I cast Vanquish the Weak, then responded to it with the Downpour to both get the extra storm copy and avoid the Liesa trigger.  That value play saved me a bunch of life, but I still went down to 2 a few turns later.  Luckily, I drew into another great combo in my deck: Go-Shintai of Hidden Cruelty, which happily kills the Downpour's 1/1 frogs.  The Kami of Jealous Thirst also came down and I was able to turn the tide, gain life back and eventually win. 2-0.

In round 3, I was up against a player I had never beaten in draft, playing a nifty simic deck.  I got the luckiest possible hand and draws.  I had the following sequence of turns, starting (of course) on turn 3: Prison Sentence, Axebane Ferox, Amphibian Downpour (on their turn, for an extra card storm bonus), Finch Formation with the offspring, and finally Keruga on turn 7 to refill my hand.

Yes, I would like to draw six cards!

I won shortly thereafter and broke my losing streak against that player.  (Sorry!)  3-0.

In the fourth round, my Keruga streak was snapped, but only because I didn't need it.  I was up against a strong Naya player and managed to delay a lot of the game with the help of Kami of Jealous Thirst and a surprise Reach for the Sky that put in a lot of work.  I got off the always-powerful Lorien Revealed, which brought Izoni to my hand for the first time.  Izoni immediately gave me board presence with the two spiders, and I got two more on the next turn.  

People probably hate it when I take these pics.

I brought Keruga to my hand but won before I needed to cast it.  4-0.

The hubris set in before round 5, and I was matched up against someone who beats me frequently in short order with an efficient horde of small creatures.  They always run white and this time were on Orzhov.  I kept a slow hand and regretted it five turns later when I played Keruga without drawing a single card.  

I have a bad feeling about this.

I lost two turns later.  4-1.

 

This was stupendous!  A lot of my WUBRG strategies paid off:

• I opened Ikoria first and built around Keruga.
• I took mana fixing high, which helped me get over the land deficit.
• I ran very few spells with two of the same colored mana symbol.  ("Pips?")

Even better, we saw a ton of cool combos.  In addition to the ones I showed, the player who beat me had Jalum Tome, which made extra value with their Containment Construct.  Wacky drafting continues to be my favorite draft format!