Drafting WUBRG: Strixhaven (First time)

There has been a gap in my drafting of over 14 months; my last in-person draft was near the end of January, 2020.  COVID-19 prevented me from drafting paper Magic.   Last night I was finally able to safely get back in the store and return to the glory of drafting five colors.  Thankfully, Strixhaven is a good set for this.

Note: there were only six people at the draft.  Not many kids have been fully vaccinated, and many people may not yet feel safe drafting at the store.  Hopefully the numbers return soon.

Most of my magicking in the past year has been playing EDH and Oathbreaker online, most recently using Spelltable.  Even though Strixhaven has been out for a while, I was very unfamiliar with the set.  So, I took a look at the commons and uncommons.  Mostly I realized that the best helping cards were going to be the lands: Archway Commons and the dual scry "campus" land cycle (e.g. Silverquill Campus).  I thought I might also be able to use some Letter of Acceptance and Environmental Sciences, but I didn't see any of those.

I did see a lot of rares and mystical archive cards, though I unfortunately realized I didn't have any good knowledge of the individual card prices.  I also saw two of the rare dual lands, which I certainly snapped up.  I really got distracted by the mystical archive cards... the diversity of cards that are available in packs is crazy, but it's also really cool.  I saw multiple packs that had three rares (a normal rare, a rare lesson, and a rare mystical archive card).  I was even passed a pack like this.  After drafting, here's the card pool I was working with:

 

Here's the deck I put together.  I didn't have much of any time between rounds, so I didn't make any changes the entire night.  (I probably should have!)

I went 1-2. (2-0, 1-2, 0-2)  I definitely think I could have done better.  The last game I mulliganed, then kept a 6-land hand.  I knew this was a mistake, but I did it anyways.  I then went on to draw land the first four turns.

I still had a blast and my deck worked very well many times.  Aside from the lands, cards that did a lot of work:

• Zimone: I got to 8 lands easily with her.  In some games I had to stop drawing to not deck myself.
  
• Bookwurm: For the same reason.  This card can really help you come back from a tough board position.
• Quintorius: Along with other cards that dropped things from my graveyard, Quintorius was great.  I even got to exile Faithless Looting and net a creature.
  
• Removal.  I had lots of it and it was great.  This includes Needleborn Drake.
  
• Anything with Learn.  I had four lessons: Elemental Summoning, 2 Fractal Summoning, and Introduction to Annihilation.  Having cards that also essentially put a creature in my hand are real nice.
  

I also got real lucky with the Cultivate, though I only used it once.

For next time:

• Grab more Learn cards and Lessons, if possible.
• I didn't get any early blockers, which was often a problem.  The three games I won were all on a slow comeback.  That's fine, except when I don't have time for the comeback.

I really hope I'll get to draft again next week!