Magic Packs Wedding Gift

I was given an excellent wedding gift from my long-time friend Phil: Magic Boosters!  Specifically, five boosters: Coldsnap, Rivals of Ixalan, Dominaria, Battlebond, and Dominaria United.  

 

He told me that the dates of these packs are meaningful to the little family I'd just built, so here's what I've put together:

• Coldsnap, July 2006.  This is from far before I met my spouse, but this is when I was doing lots of drafts with Phil.  This is clearly an homage to our friendship, not my marriage.  To be honest, I can't wait to draft this pack!
  
  
• Rivals of Ixalan, January 2018.  It was during this set's run that my wife and I had our first date and then started officially dating.
  
  
• Dominaria, April 2018.  This is when the two of us introduced our daughters to each other and started doing things as a group of four.
  
  
• Battlebond, June 2018.  This is when I met all of my wife's friends and family at her daughter's birthday party.  (I also did some Battlebond drafts with my daughter and we won one of them!)
  
  
• Dominaria United, September 2022.  This is right after our family made our big move.  We united and made a big change together.  We both started new jobs during this set's run. 
   

Of the five of these, I am planning to open Rivals of Ixalan, Dominaria, and Dominaria United at my next chaos draft.  I might substitute Coldsnap in if there are other packs opened with snow-covered lands, or the Battlebond if there's any chance of a team format.  

Thank you, Phil!

Wilds of Eldraine 2 (WUBRG Drafting)

My local store, Intergalactic Plastic, ran a Wilds of Eldraine draft last night.  These "throwback drafts" are both a blessing and a curse for me.  A blessing because I like mixing things up and a curse because I have so far missed all my chances for a Murders of Karlov Manor draft.  I understand the desire, though: most people who are able to draft often are getting burned out of the current set by now.  I won't complain, especially since WOE is really fun and I had a blast last night.

I looked back at my notes from the previous WOE draft I did.  A lot of that was very specific to the way that draft went, though: Hatching Plans is really good with the Bargain mechanic, and it was very unlikely that I'd get to pull two Hatching Plans.  

My first picks from packs 1 and 2 were Azorius mythics: Hylda and Will!  I didn't run either of them, even though I probably had enough support to get Hylda running.  I also was easily swayed by the prettiness of the Enchanted Tales cards to pick many of them.  (A Curiosity from my first pack even wheeled, and that did amazing work for me.)  Also:

• I was smart about prioritizing helpful lands high, but even then I only got 4.  Two Scarecrow Guides helped round out my mana-fixing needs.
• Multi-colored adventures were a great WOE-specific thing to draft.  (I ran 4 of them.)  
• I drafted a ton of red removal, which turned out to be the best part of my deck.

Here's a photo of all of my pulls:

Hylda and Will sat out this time.

I had a hard time making cuts.  I cut Will because I didn't think the ability would be very helpful.  I cut Hylda because I didn't think I had enough tapping support.  I did go down to only one white card: Charmed Clothier, which was excellent.  Here's the deck I ran:

So much "direct damage".  (I won't stop using that term.)

In round 1, I faced an aggressive Boros deck with lots of little creatures and combat tricks.  I got lucky in that my removal paired up well against those little creatures and that they got a bit mana flooded.  In both games I took quite a bit of damage early on, but came back to overwhelm them.  We finished early and were able to get through most of a third game before the round ended.

I faced my fiercest opponent in round 2.  They had a Sultai Food-and-Adventures deck that was very effective.  Our first game lasted so long that the other matches at our table ended before we finished.  To be fair, we had a bit of a rules quandry that took around five minutes to sort out.  I got stuck at 3 or 4 land and was on the back foot for much of the game.  I went down to 2, but crawled back up with the help of some food and, of course, a large helping of red burn.  They got an Icewrought Sentry that threatened to break through my defenses.  I managed to bounce or keep it tapped for a string of turns while I got in for chunks of damage here and there.  Then I finally had enough big beaters on the board to safely swing big two turns in a row.

In the second game of round 2, we were extremely low on time, so we played quickly.  We made good use of the time (my opponent was desperate for a win and I wasn't going to take away the chance by slow playing) and the board was pretty jammed up when time was called.  Here's the state on turn 3 after time: 

On turn 4 of time, I was able to get enough damage in to win the game.

Round 3 was crazy.  My opponent was running a mono-white mix of aggro and control that seemed very strong.  Especially when, in game 1, they played Blind Obedience, followed a few turns later by Dawn of Hope.  

Brutal.

With every spell they cast, they could pay three more to Extort and also draw a card.  Thankfully, Johann showed up in both games and helped me match the value my opponent was getting.  

Thankfully also a combo!

In the first game Johann comboed with Season of Growth.  If I couldn't cast the top spell from my library, I would drop a creature, scry that card away, and then have a second chance of a playable spell up top.  That value helped me win the first game.  In the second game, my opponent got the combo again.  Luckily I found Johann and Curiosity on a flying otter that got in every turn.  With the extra card draw, most turns I got to play a spell off the top. I managed to win on turn 2 after time was called.  

I never expected to go 3-0, but this deck did work really well.  So many of the cards created a ton of value and I only had one game where I was short on my colors.  The red burn is really strong in this set, and although I took a ton, I also passed a lot.  I'm very excited that this came together so well!

No Repeats Chaos Draft (WUBRG drafting)

I chaos drafted with some friends today.  The best part: we didn't open any two of the same pack.  Here's what we opened:

Am I getting too predictable in my pack choices?

The drafting started really well.  Three dual lands came around easily and I grabbed them, and I expected to get more.  Somehow I didn't keep my eyes open for other modes of mana fixing, and that cost me in the end.  I often had unplayable cards in my hand because of one or two missing colors.  I really dropped the ball there.  

The atmosphere was excellent, however.  The experienced player to my right opened the Mystery Booster second so that they would pass to the right, towards the younger players.  They were smart enough to know that I would have a hard time resisting the playtest card and wanted the younger players to have a chance to see and play with it.  (It worked; they took it.)

After three packs, here's what my picks looked like: 

As always, these are left-to-right, front-to-back.

 

You may notice that I got a single Tales of Middle Earth card, but the remainder of the picks are only from Wilds of Eldraine, Brothers' War, and Strixhaven.  That's because the player to my right pulled the trigger on his Agent of Acquisitions to claim the rest of the Tales pack.  

Nevertheless, this was a really fun draft deck, mostly because I got really lucky during the drafting:

1. General's Enforcer tabled a few times and I grabbed it because I like to run multi-colored things.
2. In pack 2, I saw Halana and Alena, Partners and Errant and Giada.  I was very excited about the cross-set synergy.
3. Finally, in pack 3, I opened War of the Last Alliance then immediately saw Greta and Loran.  Together with the Ognis I had already found, I was ready for my legendary tribal deck to go off.
   

Here's what the deck looked like:

Only three non-basics, and only in three colors.  Who am I?

I don't think I made the best choices for the deck, but I never went back and fixed it because the games just kept going and it was too fun to play.

In the first round, I was up against Gruul aggro, which went very smoothly.  They played some nice mana-fixing rocks and I sat with dead cards in my hand for most of the two games I lost.  I put up a fight in game two, but it wasn't enough.  In the first game, I actually thought I had a chance to come back from 1 life after I played a Bloodfell Caves, went up to 2, and had enough to win on blocks against everyone but a 1-power attacker.  The caves would have given me enough fixing to run stuff out.  Unfortunately, my opponent had removal and that was that.  0-1.

In the second round, I faced an aggressive Orzhov deck that also put me on the ropes early.  Once again I was stuck with dead cards in my hand and I lost in two games.  In both games I had trouble dealing with Black Knight's protection from white. 0-2.

In the third round I played against a slick Simic deck with a neat balance of aggro and control.  (Is that what midrange means?)  I lucked out in both games, however, and managed to get my legendary human gang moving with General's Enforcer.  

Greta also combos well with Meticulous Excavation

After Greta, Errant and Giada and Halana and Alena both came down in excellent fashion.  I ground out two wins, but neither of them were easy.  1-2.

This was an amazing draft!  I loved going through cards from 12 different sets, and it was even more amazing with the inclusion of a Mystery Booster.  I would love to do this again, even it meant another 1-2 showing!