My local store, Intergalactic Plastic, held a Battle for Baldur's Gate draft as part of the celebration for D&D's 50th anniversary. (WPN instructions for the event.) One highlight of this event is the user of the Baldur's Gate Wilderness dungeon instead of the normal Undercity dungeon. The other highlight is that drafting started with opening a collector's booster that acted as an initial sealed pool before we drafted the normal three boosters. (Not to mention the regular rules for commander drafts.) This was wicked fun! I'm definitely curious to adapt this kind of format to future events. (Suggestions are VERY welcome!)
We had 12 players, so we drafted in two pods of 6 and then played in one of three groups of 4 players.
I have to admit that I had the opportunity to be awesome in perhaps the best way possible for this event and I failed. Not in any of the obvious ways, though.
- I didn't run a WUBRG deck because the most you can have is a commander with a three-color color identity.
- I didn't fail to draft a 3-color legend. I actually drafted three different ones, all in pack 2.
- I didn't fail to prep for multiple colors. I got a bunch of gates.
... but I didn't get enough gates: only 7 that I could use with Nine-Fingers Keene, who I was definitely running as soon as I picked it. Here are my picks (as well as the contents of the initial collector's booster pack.
I need to spend more time talking about how the drafting portion went. After opening the collector's booster, I felt really good about going Izzet with Neera as my general. Nevertheless, I kept my options open for future colors by taking good cards and some color fixing as well as cards that would go well with Neera. Unfortunately, I definitely passed up some gates in exchange for good cards in that first pack.
In the second pack, I continued the trend with the first two packs, then saw Keene in the third (note: when commander drafting, you make two picks at a time, because the packs have 20 cards each) and immediately switched my plans to try and hit 9 gates. Sadly, I only made it to 9. I did grab some other 3-color legends (and one other Keene) but I stuck with Keene in the end.
Although Keene took me out of red, I got to use a bunch of other cards I'd opened and taken, including the Morphic Pool I took at the beginning of pack 2. Here's the deck I built:
I don't know whether it was a good idea to include the other copy of Keene. I never drew it, but it would have been useful as I once had to pay 10 when I cast general Keene for the fourth time.
My game pod opponents included Gluntch, Erenis (with a black background spell that never was cast), and Myrkul. The first thing to understand about this game is that the mana was bonkers. I got Jaheira out on turn 3, and Gluntch gave me 2 treasure tokens right away; I also got some gates off of Keene's combat damage. The Erenis player tutored for lands with Explore the Underdark and two Druid of the Emerald Grove. The Myrkul player also did some land searching, and as soon as it was clear that I could reuse my treasures, I never got more from Gluntch. So everyone ramped up very quickly.
I got Keene in on the attack multiple times. Unfortunately, I whiffed on gates twice, even though I still had 4 or 5 in the deck! Keene was also great for getting the Initiative. I have to say: using the huge event dungeon was really fun! We all got to use it. Here's where we were partway through the game: (I wish I'd brought a figure to represent me.)
The Initiative did a good job of keeping the game going. Many times it was handed over after every turn. Life totals dropped and unfortunately mine dropped faster than others. I held a bunch of strong cards in my hand, hoping to stay alive and play them when it became a duel. I shouldn't have waited, though. As soon as the Myrkul player went below 20, they popped off: they dropped a bunch of ETB-effect creatures and used Sivriss to get more value by sacrificing them and getting their effect again when they returned to the battlefield as an enchantment.
I cast Call to the Void, but it was too late. Here's what we all picked:
That... did not work out well for me. Although we hit 8 different targets, all of the Myrkul players' targets came back as enchantments. We were never able to get rid of enchantment-Sivriss, so the value from that just kept on going. I hoped to drop some of my My life went to single-digits, then the Myrkul player laid down an Agent of the Iron Throne. They had enough sacrifice effects (treasures and creatures to sac) that they could kill me at instant speed. Oof.
My only hope was for some political maneuvering, or getting Pack Weapon down and equipped without noticing the implication. It was especially disheartening because I drew Eldritch Pact and on the next turn they went to a 14-card library with more than 14 cards in the graveyard.
I never got a chance to recover. I died first as they continued to sacrifice permanents for value. They proceeded to win soon thereafter.
This was a really fun draft. It was exciting to have the pre-draft sealed pool, and the event dungeon. I would have liked to play more games, but the single game lasted nearly two hours. I hope we get more events like this in the future!
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