Neapolitan Commander Draft, Round 2

Just one year after a first Neapolitan commander draft, we did a second.  This time was different because:

• We incorporated the enormous Baldur's Gate Wilderness dungeon.  
• We had nine people!  A new record for our "little" drafts!

Since we had nine, I tried to get us split up into play pods of 4 and 5, where that second one would play a Kingdom game.   (I really want to draft Kingdom EDH.)  I was unconvincing, so we did three pods of 3 instead.

Important item that I have to address: We didn't do a championship game of 3 with the three winners for two reasons:

• My game finished much later than the other two, so it would have been awfully late to start another game, and
• I didn't think of it.

We did use the bonus rule that extends the one used in Commander Masters: 

• Mono-colored (and colorless) legendary creatures are considered to have the Partner ability, even if it's not printed on the card, and
• Mono-colored (and colorless) legendary creatures are considered to have the Choose a Background ability, even if it's not printed on the card.
  

(If "monosexual" wasn't already a thing, I would nominate using that word for this rule.  Y'know, because they have partner, so they're attractive to other legends.... I think I'm funny.)  This facilitates more combinations of legends (and backgrounds) to make things more creative and unique.

We randomized seating and gathered around two tables.  Each player would be playing with the two people three seats to their left and right.  

"Isn't this picture kind of obvious?"  Yes, to whoever said that last night, but it's still awesome.

The drafting itself was pretty wild.  In a Commander Draft, instead of picking one card each turn, you pick two.  That means that in these packs of 20, the only packs you see a second time are the ones you open, and you just get the two cards remaining.  I had to remind myself multiple times: "Oh, I won't see these again."  

I'm not convinced that picking two cards is actually a good plan, because we had multiple instances of packs going around with the incorrect number of cards.  I don't know how it happened, but it happened a lot.  Even Zone Drafting didn't save us.  I think that one pick per person would help this happen, and I don't think it would slow things down too bad.

In deck construction, you still have to adhere to the color-identity rule, so there are some goal picks as far as legends are concerned.  In descending-excellence order:

• Dream: open a WUBRG legend in Commander Masters, of which there are a few. (This is a good argument for reversing the order of
  
• Awesome: grab a two-color legend that has partner.  That way you can match it with a legend of whatever third color you want.
• Pretty Good: pull a three-color legend. 
  

I tried to draft as colorless as possible in order to keep my legend-choices open.  Despite the fact that two other players voiced having the same strategy partway through, it still paid off.  I wasn't able to get either of the first two scenarios, but I did draft Amareth early in the first pack.  Then, amazingly, I got Sek'Kuar halfway through the third pack.  Since they overlap in green, I focused the end on drafting that so I could figure out what to do in the end.  Here are all my picks:

A lot of good stuff came around.  These packs are deep.

I counted up my cards and realized that if I went with Amareth I actually had fewer playable cards; just enough to make a deck.  I didn't want to think about cuts, so I took the coward's way out and just went with that.  Here's the deck:

If I had taken one moment and recognized that I didn't have enough total devotion to white to make Heliod a creature, I might have changed my mind.

Our game went long, so we only played the one.  I sat down against Akiri, Fearless Voyager to my left and Malcolm + Ardenn to my right.  My opening hand had some ramp as well as You Look Upon the Tarrasque, Jahiera's Respite, and Torrential Gearhulk.  Those three cards would sit in my hand for a long time.  When I hit five mana, I purposefully left myself vulnerable multiple turns, trying to tempt someone into letting me profit off of Jahiera's Respite.  My opponents got The Initiative and started trading it back and forth, venturing through the Wilderness Dungeon.  

I played Amareth, who got slapped with Martial Impetus.  I unwillingly swung it into the Akiri player multiple turns, and the Azorius player started to rise in power, playing a bunch of efficient creatures.  I continued to get attacked, but only by one creature at a time, never enough to warrant the Respite.  Then, finally, after Amareth had racked up 14 commander damage against Akiri, Malcolm, Ardenn, and two tokens attacked me:

Four is worth it!

That was enough to get me branded as a probable-Archenemy.  There was some talk about how I probably had more fog-effects, but then the Akiri player dropped a Kirtar's Wrath to reset the board.  With all their treasures, it didn't take long for the Azorius player to regenerate their board presence.  On my turn, I left six up and didn't keep any blockers back.  Guess what happened on the next Malcolm-Ardenn turn?

Six is definitely worth it! 

Now I was definitely in the archenemy seat.  With all my mana and Amareth's ability, I got a lot of stuff down.  Since my dragon was no longer goaded, I swung into the Malcolm-Ardenn player and claimed both the Initiative and the Monarch.  Finally, I went into the Wilderness, though I didn't exactly need the land.  

 

I swung in for damage and played a bunch of creatures with my gobs of land.  Unfortunately, Fiendlash came down on Akiri, who had been gaining +1/+1 counters from Drillworks Mole.  With a power of 9, my opponents happily colluded to get Akiri into combat.  I was able to prevent a multi-turn combo by killing Akiri with Band Together.  Before combat damage could be dealt.  Of course, that would trigger the Fiendlash, but I was able to also give my creatures lifelink with Heliod, keeping myself above zero.

I kept myself alive with You Look Upon the Tarrasque, then swung in on my turn to kill the Akiri player and deal as much as I could to the Malcolm-Ardenn opponent.  I gained 20 off of Heliod-granted lifelinkers and took a lead of 21 to 8.  (Combo alert: Trailblazer's Torch + Heliod is good!  Your opponents will not want to block whoever holds the torch.)  If I could survive the next attack, I could win on my turn.  I had Shimmer Myr on the board, a few blockers, a hand of cards, and lots of mana.       

I was still surprised by the total power of the attackers, but when they came in, I flashed out some artifact blockers and managed to block what was necessary (and use lifelink) to stay above zero.  I had 2 life.  I was going to win!

Oh wait.  My opponent dealt me combat damage.  And I have The Initiative.  That means they get The Initiative.  Where are they moving to in the Wilderness dungeon?

Uh-oh.

The first card flipped was a land.

I wasn't so lucky with the others.

And thus ended one of the absolute best EDH games I've ever played.  And it was in limited.  The other two games had ended long before, but multiple people in them told me this was one of the most fun drafts they had ever done.  I wish I could have squeezed another game in, but it was definitely time to close up.

I hope you enjoyed reading this, and I hope you get a chance to try a commander draft of any kind if you haven't already.  Happy Magicking!