Board wipes aren't very chaotic, but they are very good. (One of my first decks I was proud of as a kid packed a lot of red/white board wipes.) We had a very interesting nine-person draft two days ago. I chose my picks ahead of time to celebrate my football team's recent impressive victory.
Since there were a lot of us and an odd number, we went for single-game rounds again. (I'm sure some of the players are getting sick of this. I'm sorry!) The packs were all over the place, with a block of 6 Theros Beyond Death. (Those actually work great with other sets.) Here's what we opened:
A question came up about Wastes. Should players be allowed to add Wastes to their decks? It makes sense that if only one player opens a set with Wastes, it would be a bummer for multiple people to have unplayable cards just because other packs won't have them. On the fly we decided to allow players to add up to two wastes. I would like to see what other people think, so here's a poll, using STAR voting: https://star.vote/zcke3ayk/.
My picks were unexpectedly thin on mana fixing. One other person went WUBRG and yet another tried, but wound up in Gruul instead. I only got two fixing lands, but I also had Glamorous Outlaw, which is just about as good. I very nearly passed a Springmantle Cleric until I realized it had pseudo-converge. (It helps to read cards!) Most notably, I picked up two board wipes: Starfall Invocation and Unstable Glyphbridge. Here are all of my picks, in order:
I went heavy on removal, even after cutting Drown in the Loch and Thraben Charm. Here's the deck I built:
I managed to get in seven rounds of the eight possible! The only person I missed was the person who went 4-0, which I think means they won the draft. As with last time, my WUBRG rival who was dead set on winning his first match against me wanted to drag out the drama; we played last.
I first battled the Gruul player. I got one of my lieutenants out, Harnesser of Storms, an otter who granted tons of value. The otter saw lots of play that night.
My value kept me in the lead and I won. 1-0
In the second round, I went against a Selesnya deck. I got all my colors and I think I curved into Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate plus Iroas's Blessing. Combined with my other removal, I kept the board clear and just kept swinging in with Alesha.
Alesha is great, even if I didn't have anything to get out of the graveyard. 2-0.
In round three, I was up against a Golgari deck. I started slow, but got out a 2/2 spirit, thanks to Phantom Interference with Sorcerer's Wand as my opponent built up their board. Then I dropped a big Springmantle Cleric. I was at 20 and thought I was safe and swung in with the cleric. Then Garruk's signature spell appeared.
The picture shows my death. It's almost like there's a downside for running five colors. 2-1.
In the fourth round, my very courageous opponent ran a Boros deck with lots of quick critters. I had a fist full of removal, but I was missing the mountains and swamps to cast most of them. Luckily I got to four-for-one with Starfall Invocation.
I still didn't have a board, though, and then they played Rite of the Dragoncaller. I was pretty freaked out until I read Pharika's Libation more closely.
I got the 2/2 flying spirit from Phantom Interference again and kept a death grip on the rest of the board. It managed 16 damage over eight attacks. The remaining four damage came from a Rolling Thunder that I think took out two creatures as well. 3-1
For the fifth round, I graduated from 2-color guilds to 3-color shards and wedges. (This was not planned.) I faced off against a really aggressive Mardu deck that promised a short game by playing an early Ripples of Undeath. I got some good blockers early, one of which was the Harnesser of Storms. That got upgraded with a Sorcerer's Wand (combo!) and I just started picking off the little creatures and played Alesha. My opponent had a good Take for a Ride.
I had the perfect response with a timely Hussar Patrol, but they still got the Alesha graveyard trigger. Thankfully I had the necessary removal to keep everything under control, even with the card (from graveyard) economy, and win. 4-1.
In the sixth round I faced a neat Esper deck. This was the player who opened Ikoria, then drafted and built around Gyruda. Amazing! He got to cast Gyruda twice, since he saved it after I killed it the first time.
Swiftblade Vindicator held it's own in this game. After Gyruda hit the second time, I nearly had a perfect Unstable Glyphbridge cast, except that it got Gitaxian Anatomist, which survived. They rebuilt their board with Rite of Belzenlok, which got off.
Thankfully I had Dreadful Apathy for the demon. I didn't even need to let the self-damage play out, though. I transformed the Glyphbridge using the artifacts I'd milled, and won in the air. 5-1.
Final round! I was up against my rival, who has also taken up a WUBRG mantle. Unfortunately, they hadn't managed to draft a single fixing land. I got stuck without much land and only had Stuffed Bear to fend for itself for many turns. Later on he played real converge, and I played my fake converge card.
We got locked down a bit, then he surprised my Vexing Gull with
Swiftblade Vindicator hit again. I strategically put Iroas's Blessing on it. Then I won shortly after this:
The Swiftblade Vindicator and the bear won the game in, I think, two turns. 6-1. 7-0 against my rival. Oof! (You know who my football team is; I don't take these long streaks for granted!)
All in all, my removal won for me over and over. I can barely believe I only lost one game to a lack of colors. I got really lucky!
My games were wicked fun! The back and forth of combat superiority is exactly the sort of thing I like. Maximizing value on the board wipes was especially satisfying. It'll be a long time before I get two of those again.
If you didn't already, please vote in the poll above! I would like to use that to help us decide what to do in the future.
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