Wilds of Eldraine 3 (WUBRG Drafting)

I am extremely lucky.  Not only did my local store, Intergalactic Plastic, hold yet another Wilds of Eldraine draft, but I got lucky over and over throughout the night, as you'll see.

I reviewed my previous WOE draft notes and had a good plan going in to this one: grab Evolving Wilds, Crystal Grotto, and Scarecrow Guide whenever I could and maybe get lucky with a rare dual man-land.  There were eight people in the draft pod, so I felt pretty good.  Unfortunately, I think I've gained a bit of a reputation at the store, so people might have taken the lands early.  In total, I only got three.  I also remembered to push into multi-colored adventure cards, which is a really good plan.  In addition to that, a lot of fairies came my way, so I went pretty heavy into that tribe.  Here were my picks.

That fifth-pick Restless Fortress was real helpful!

Making cuts was tricky, and my deck wound up really being Grixis with a Selesnya-splash.  I did wind up cutting Archive Dragon to keep Leyline of Anticipation.  That was a really good choice.  Here is the deck I ran:

The curve is low, but there are no land-cyclers that often occupy top slots.

In the first round, I was up against Selesnya with lots of enchantment (and role) trickery.  The first game was pretty evenly matched and I won eventually.  My opponent made some good changes, and I started the second game without great mana in my hand, except that I could cast the adventure on Cruel Somnophage.  I used it on turn two and whiffed and said goodbye to a bunch of my lands.

Nooooooooooooooooooo!

My oppponent got me down to 2, but I managed to find some land, and got the Somnophage and gained the advantage on the board, except for a mean little combo my opponent had with Redtooth Vanguard and Spellbook Vendor:

A very solid combo!

Thankfully I got enough attackers down to overcome this graveyard recursion and won the game.  1-0.

The second round was all about Leyline of Anticipation.  I was up against Jund rats, including Song of Totentanz and Ratcatcher Trainee, which I think is a great card.  I got the Leyline in my opening hand all three games and I even had it in my first hand that I had to mulligan.  I am certainly now very biased towards that card, but for good reason:

• Every creature in your hand becomes potential removal because you flash it in then block.
• Creatures on adventures become rattlesnakes that discourage your opponent from attacking.  (I looked for an old wizards article where Anthony Alongi first described the term "rattlesnake" but I couldn't find one.)  This happened to me in this round; I had three adventured-creatures just waiting to come out:
  

 

• Vantress Transmuter is way better, because both it and its adventure can be played at instant speed.

I think I came back from 4 in game 1.  I lost game 2 quickly.  Then I won game 3, coming back after being down to 2.  Both wins were because the leyline let me play all my creatures during my opponent's turn.  They used Gingerbrute's evasion ability in response to my new creatures many times.  This all let me save my targetted removal for the bigger threats. 2-0

In the third round I was paired up against Sultai food and adventures.  It was here that I learned just how good Chancellor of Tales is.  (That would have been great in my deck!)  The first game was a long slog where I went down to 3, but I got my faerie tribe activated with Talion's Messenger and Obyra.  I made some incorrect choices with the placement of the +1/+1 counters from the messenger, but I had enough card advantage that I just overwhelmed in the air in the end.  (Also, Cruel Somnophage was great on the ground.)  I started the second game with the Leyline on the board and used that a ton.  We went to time and I won in the last turn with extra removal in my hand.  3-0.  Here was the board state on turn 0 or 2 of time:

Quick Study is so good!

I did a lot of things right, but I also just got really lucky:

• I got a lot of great things passed to me late in the draft.  These packs are deep, but I also got really lucky.
  
• Leyline of Anticipation started on the battlefield in 4 of my 7 games!
• I came back big in four games, from 2, 2, 3, and 4 life when my opponent was still at or close to 20.  (I think they were all 18+.)  Many of these were thanks to Restless Fortress that gained me a ton of life.

I really like Wilds of Eldraine drafts.  All three I've done have been very different, but I've had amazing results.  I hesitate to say conclusively that this set is perfect for WUBRG drafting, because I just got so dang lucky last night.