I ran another free draft last night with the repacks I've made. One of my Christmas gifts was little bags for the packs, so for the first time things looked really good.
These packs were built mostly from a huge mess of cards that were donated to me nearly a decade ago by some students. I decided to pay that forward to future students by repacking the cards into packs and running drafts with them.
I sorted those cards by color to keep packs balanced. My recipe for packs is: 2 cards of each color, 2 multi-colored cards, 1 artifact, 1 non-basic land, and 1 card from a mix of spells (not land). Last year a nice IT person here donated an EDH-sized deck box full of bulk rares to the effort, so I've been including those in the place of that last any-spell-card. (These definitely make things more fun!)
We had seven people last night. Since we had an odd number, we did single-game matches. (When we do this, we add that the first mulligan is free.) Benefits:
- Matches go fast, so we keep the rounds unorganized. When you finish your game/match, one of you gets matched up with the person who is waiting and you immediately start. (It's best to prioritize whoever has played fewer matches so far.) If all three of you have already played each other, then just wait for other matches to end. (I did have a method for timing games, but I haven't done that in a long while.) The benefit here is that a person who is waiting to play doesn't usually have to wait very long.
- It's more casual, because there isn't the intensity that can come in a best-of-three match. (This is probably pretty subjective.) It seems to be really good for newer players.
- You get to play against more people during the draft. I am a big fan of this.
I do completely understand players who appreciate best-of-three matches more. I have nothing against that opinion! For in-store events, I feel the same way.
I drafted WUBRG pretty aggressively, taking dual lands and land-cyclers as early picks. I felt really good reviewing all my picks:
I decided not to run the Sphere of Safety, and I think that was a fine choice. After I got Krosan Drover, I went heavier into the land cyclers (getting five from Scourge!) and also grabbed that super-late Boros Battleshaper in pack 2, which won me multiple games. (Seriously, that card was a house! In the best situation, it's a 3-for-1: it's a big creature, keeps another out of combat, and forces yet another into the meat grinder.) Here's the deck I ran:
We managed to get all of our matches in! I was first paired up against an Izzet opponent. I had to fight through some control, but once Boros Battleshaper hit, I was in control. 1-0
In the second round, I faced off against a Selesnya deck. They got a bit stuck on having multiple copies of Steel Leaf Paladin in hand, but couldn't keep any of their smaller creatures on the board in order to have one to bounce. I was able to finish them off before they could get a single one to stick. 2-0
In the third round, I was up against a Rakdos deck. I didn't hit my land drops and couldn't get enough out to hold off a horde of smaller critters. 2-1
In the fourth round, I faced off against the player who drafted Triskaidekaphobia, a card which had already won them one game and lost them another! They got it down near the end, but I was not near 13 and I had enough creatures to win. They decided we would both lose one life when they were at one, so technically the card got a third kill. 3-1
In the fifth round, I was up against a neat Orzhov deck with lots of removal and little utility creatures: Samite Pilgrim and Kabuto Moth among them. I went down to 1, but I got those taken care of with good combat and Razorfin Hunter. I brought out Boros Battleshaper, and overwhelmed the board. 4-1
I need to point out that during this fifth round, my match was not the exciting one. The Triskaidekaphobia player was facing who would be my final opponent. That opponent played Doom Foretold and it came down to whether the phobia would be sacrificed before it could earn another win. It did not. Triskaidekaphobia killed four players!
I went into my game feeling quite confident. My opponent was also on Orzhov, and was 0-5. Everyone else was rooting for them, to force a 4-way 4-2 tie (all other games had finished). I started off real bad. Doom Foretold came out early and I was low on land. I think I took six hits from Harvest Gwyllion before I managed to turn the tide and my opponent had to sac the Doom to itself to have an appreciable board state. I went down to 5 and started hitting back with some fliers. Boros Battleshaper came down again and I got greedy. I attacked with too many creatures with what I thought was enough to block. My opponent happily played Lead Astray on their turn, followed by what I think was Coordinated Charge to kill me with their two attackers. 4-2
What a great event! I had a blast and I hope I get to do more of these!
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