Chaos to 60 Cards: WUBRG Drafting

Open the Ikoria pack first.  Open the Ikoria pack first.  Open the Ikoria pack first...

I held a four-person chaos draft last night.  It went really well, but I need to learn an important lesson: Open the Ikoria pack first.

Here are the packs we opened.  Thanks to Matt for venturing all the way back to Dragon's Maze!

I got pretty lucky, because I lost a lot of dual lands to the other drafters early on, especially in pack 1.  That is usually the worst thing for me, but in this case, it turned out to be great.  I got fewer dual lands, instead got some higher spell picks, and that helped me in all of my games.  I needed nearly every spell I could get.  And it's all because of Ikoria.

Here are my picks.  If you look at the first card I picked in the second pack, you'll see that I needed to pump the brakes on dual lands and focus on as many spells as possible.  (First pack is on the left, picks go from front to back.) 

Right... companions.

Yorion called out a challenge to me and I took them up on it.  Thankfully that was the first card of pack 2 so I had barely enough time to draft the spells to play a 60-card deck.  If I had opened Ikoria third or if my table had passed me more dual lands in pack 1, I might have been stuck with some real bad cards.  I even pushed it a little bit and took the fancy Kamigawa island instead of a spell midway through pack 2.  As it is, I ran 35 of the 39 spells I drafted, not including Yorion.  My sideboard only had 3 spells!  (I really wanted to run Goblin Test Pilot, but I just didn't think it was good enough.)

I also got lucky because I got passed a bunch of removal.  Red was underdrafted at the table, and I was able to grab Voltage Surge, Fires of Victory, and Foray of Orcs all pretty late.  I think I undervalued Foundry Helix; I probably should have run that too.

Here's the deck I ran:

So many cards!

We got a bit of a late start, so we only got to play about half of the games.  We finished round 1 and then played one game in round 2.

My first match was against a strong Golgari deck with a bit of graveyard recursion.  Both games were wars of attrition.  In the first game, removal on both sides kept big creatures off of the board for the most part.  I tried to remove Glissa, Sunslayer with a kicked Fires of Victory during combat, only for Bombadil's Song to not only keep Glissa alive, but fizzle the Fires, negating my draw.  They drew off the combat damage for an effective 3-for-1 play.  I luckily had Fog on the Barrow-Downs in my hand, which stuck for the rest of the game.  I forced a good trade with Efreet Flamepainter and managed to pull ahead with Yorion's help.  

In game 2, I mulliganed down to 5, but got really lucky on my draws.  Jelenn Sphinx came out, but got Possessed Sinisterly, so I kept off the attacks for a while.  Once I had a chance to get Yorion out, the Sinister Possession came off the sphinx and I was able to attack and force some trades, all while Smeagol, Helpful Guide was out.  I gave the sphinx the ring and once I was twice-tempted, I got to start looting, which put me on top enough to win the game.

We only had time for one game of round 2, where I was matched up against a brutal Esper deck with lots of menace.  Thankfully my removal all showed up.  Foray of Orcs, Deal Gone Bad, and Immolation all picked off targets, with a Fire Prophecy waiting in the wings when I swung out for lethal.  

I got real lucky last night, but I'm really glad I took up Yorion's challenge!

Looking Back: Homelands Draft on Nov 20, 2017

Just about six years ago, a student of mine decided to hold a Homelands draft.  They bought a box online (it was much cheaper than the $500+ they are now), got 8 people together, split the cost, and we drafted the box.   

My student wanted to draft this set specifically because the cards are considered to be quite bad.  In 2017, Didgeridoo was the most valuable card in the set, coming in around $5.  (Our draft happened just after the little spike that appears at the end of 2017.)  Today the individual cards are worth about twice as much.  Many of the "chase" cards experienced a big bump in the beginning of 2021, but have settled down.  (At the time of Homeland's release, I remember a lot of excitement around Autumn Willow, the first creature with base Shroud.  Deep Swawn can get shroud and Svyelunite Priest can grant it to something else.)

Homelands was released in 1995; the "36 packs of 15 cards in a box" hadn't become a standard for boosters yet.  Instead, for Homelands, they tried 60 packs of 8 cards each.  (Also, when 3-set blocks became normal, Homelands was considered the second set of the Ice Age block, followed by Alliances.  When Coldsnap was released in 2006, the "block" was reconfigured to be Ice Age/Alliances/Coldsnap.)  We each got 6 packs and drafted them individually.  

I took a few photos of packs I opened.  Serrated Arrows was the right pick in the second pack. 

I didn't draft WUBRG.  I can't remember whether it was because I kept seeing good red cards, or because I didn't see many of the (bad) Homelands tri-color lands.   Looking back, I wish I had tried harder!  That could have been more fun if I saw enough of the lands.

I can't complain about how the draft went, though!  I knew the value of Serrated Arrows, having played with it in 1995, and again in Time Spiral block limited.  They kept coming around, so I kept grabbing them.  I also saw lots of Anaba Shaman, so I got them as well.  I don't have a photo of all the cards I drafted, but I do have a shot of the 23 cards that I think made up my deck:

I went 3-0 quite easily.  I kept nearly every other threat out of the game with direct damage and arrows. 

My opponents' creatures were like the Teen Girl Squad.

I think I won every game, but I'm not certain.  I do remember that I was helped by terrible draws for my opponents.  My MVP was absolutely the three copies of Serrated Arrows.  

It was really fun to play in this draft.  If I had the chance, I would probably do it again, but maybe not at the current cost of the box.  (It would probably cost at least $70 per person now.)  I would really like a chance to draft WUBRG in Homelands, though.  (I would still first-pick Serrated Arrows.)