I made it to opening draft weekend for a main set! Woohoo!
And it went super well. I think this is the first time I've enjoyed a draft format so much that I bought a box of draft boosters from the store immediately afterwards!
Here's what I drafted (as usual, the first pack is on the left):
I took some basic lands early... sue me.
I got a bit scared after the first pack when I hadn't seen many dual lands and took none. Pack 2 was real generous on lands, and I took as many as I could. There were a full 8 people in my pod, so I opened the Brudiclad that I grabbed for the ninth pick. (There was a third rare in there, another (non-foil) Heliod!) That Brudiclad wound up being part of an amazing combo that I kept getting with Tetsuko.
Yes, I would like to make an unblockable 2/1 every turn.
One opponent commented that I had a Legendary Tribal deck. Here's what the final version of my deck looked like:
In my first round, I was up against a pretty aggro Rakdos deck. I felt real good after turn 3 in game 1; I managed to have lands of all five colors out and got Aegar out there.
Actual game shot. Of my side, anyways.
Aegar got killed before my next turn, and I wound up losing that first game pretty decisively, but I overwhelmed my opponent and won the second. Unfortunately, the final game went much like the first and I lost the round 2-1.
In the second round, I got a bye (someone dropped). After a few minutes, I managed to find table space to play casually against the person in the other pod who had a bye (they had 7). They were also running WUBRG, but they had the huge luck of first-picking Jegantha, who they ran as a companion. We traded games before running out of time (we spent a bit of time clearing space on a side table).
In the third round, I matched up against Gruul big things. Multiple times we were at an impasse because we both had huge creatures and couldn't swing without dying. Twice we both had Ancient Imperiosaurs! (I wish I had taken pictures!) I snuck a win in game 1 by hitting (exactsies) for 19 in one turn after we both built up big boards. Game 2 was a quicker overwhemling defeat. In game 3, we went to time. Turn 5 was mine, I was down 3 to 19 (again) and I swung out. My imperiosaur had deathtouch and 19 power, but my opponent managed to block all of my other creatures and put two blockers on the dinosaur. We drew at 3-2. Close!
So, I technically went 1-1-1, but it felt more like 0-1-2. I had so much fun! Like I said above, I immediately bought a box of drafters. This set actually feels a lot like Strixhaven; the Multiverse Legends cards act like the Mystical Archive. I'm not sure that the common dual lands show up often enough, but it's very similar. Get out there and 5-color draft this set!
