Three-Team Chaos Emperor Draft (WUBRG Drafting)

Today I got to do something I'm fairly confident I've never done before: I Emperor Drafted for a three-team (nine-player) game of Emperor magic!  Wooo!

I love drafting and I have a history of getting into Emperor drafts.  But, I haven't Emperor Drafted in at least six years!  I managed to trick convince eight other people to give it a go and we figured out how to do an Emperor Draft for three teams.  

Using Battlebond/Conspiracy/Conspiracy 2 packs is a great way to do Emperor, but we skipped all that and just wacky drafted it.  Here's a quick rundown of what we decided to do:

• We would play a single Emperor game with three teams in a circle.  Each Lieutenant would start adjacent to an enemy lieutenant.  
• We set the target range to two players for everyone.  (I like this range best.)  This means each player can pick targets up to two players away.  
• We decided not to use "Deploying" which is apparently a real rule now.  (We played with it called "Marching" in the 90s.  It's better formalized now.)
• We had each team take their turn simultaneously, a la Two-Headed Giant.
  
• We figured out a symmetric pack-passing/seating scheme with two main benefits:
• Players could sit with their team to collude about their picks.
• Packs should always pass from one teammate to an opponent, never from one teammate directly to another.  
• It's not trivial how to make this happen!  I made a diagram!

 

Simple!

• Basically each player is just passing a pack by skipping three people with each pass if you remained seated in the positions for playing.  Unfortunately, four can be a real stretch to pass across big tables.
• Instead, you can get some complicated, but at least closer, passing if you swap the lieutenant seats and then use the pattern in the right-hand part of the diagram above.   
• To facilitate this (and enforce Zone Drafting) I made some arrow diagrams with spaces for packs.  

Here's a shot of the arrows during the draft.  For the second pack, we reversed them.

As usual, I got a bit ahead of myself.  Here's what we opened:

 

I didn't actually follow the order I put them in here.  I opened Battlebond first.

I have rationale for choosing these packs that I want to highlight:

• The Battlebond pack was a Wedding Gift that I've been holding on to for a year.  I have been looking forward to an acceptable event to open it.  This was it, no doubt!
• I won the Foundations pack in a draft last night.
• We had been talking about how good the Black Wizard tokens from Final Fantasy would be in this, so I thought that would be a good call.

I was the left-lieutenant for my team.  I really tried not to draft five colors.  Really.  But then the fixing kept coming around and before I knew I was WUBRG again.  Here's what I drafted:

I really wanted to get to nine mana.  No reason.

If you do this, know that the drafting part takes a long time.  For us it lasted two hours.  Of the nine, I was the only one who had done an Emperor draft before, and even then I think I was one of the slowest people.  It is faster to do this where you can't collaborate with your team while drafting, but this is so much more fun!  It's great to have your team come together and have good ideas about what to pick.  

Deckbuilding went much faster, probably around a half hour or so.  Here's the deck I built:

Seems like a good mix of value and removal.  Let's go!

We sat down to play.  My Emperor was running Naya and our other (Right) Lieutenant was on Witch-Maw.  I was up against a Gruul Lieutenant.  That player had beaten me recently in another draft, so I was ready for a tough battle.  We rolled for turns and the team to our right went first.

The first two turns went pretty normal, but our Emperor got stuck on only two lands for a bit.  Right before their third turn, the Emperor to our right Burst Lightning something on the other team, then Hero's Downfalled one of our right-Lieutenant's blockers.  Their two Lieutenants swung in and the game was on.  They also played Queen Brahne.  I got the Wild-Field Scarecrow down on turn three, ready to fix my mana.  My direct opponent played Stickytongue Sentinel, nothing terrifying!  On their turn, the Emperor to our right ramped for two (I think with Reach the Horizon) and one of their Lieutenants cast Boltwave, which was so good in this!

We took our turn and I left my mana up to sac the Scarecrow after blocking.  Unfortunately, my opponent cast Etali's Favor on her frog, which also found Treefolk Umbra.  The 3/3 was now a 6 (essentially)/6 trampler.  Chump blocking did no good, so I just took 6, putting me at 10.  Oof!  On the other side, Rakdos, the Muscle came down against my teammate and we were suddenly in a really bad place.  

I sacrificed my scarecrow before our turn and had WUBRG ready to go.  I drew into Cooped Up and stopped the Voltron Frog in its tracks.  I threw down my own frog: Poison Dart Frog, ready to win the amphibian war.  Sadly, I did not have two open mana, because their team played White Auracite to remove the Cooped Up.  My opponent added Trollhide and hit me for 8.

Voltron Frog, right before it put me to 2 life.

On our turn 6, I played Ice Flan to freeze the frog.  I just needed to hold out until I could get some life back.  Sadly, that wasn't going to be an option.  The Emperor to our left cast Intimidation Campaign, then their far Lieutenant attacked with Sanguine Syphoner.  I was out first, dead on turn six!

That's not actually a bad way to die, though.  Fast games are good games.  I didn't realize just how short the rest of it would be, though!

On their seventh turn, the Emperor to our right cast Lasting Fayth with nine lands.  Their Lieutenant facing us had built up a bunch of wizard tokens from Queen Brahne.  On the far side of the board, their other Lieutenant took our their direct opponent.  They were looking like the team to beat for sure. 

We swung out for as much as we could on our turn, but we couldn't kill either of our direct opponents.  The Lieutenant I had been facing cast Price of Loyalty to steal our Emperor's only would-be blocker and hit for 12.  Our life totals were 0 (me), 5 (Emperor), and 4 (Right Lieutenant).  Then the team to our right took their team.  That player then cast Red Mage's Rapier with four Wizard tokens.  That killed our other Lieutenant and put our Emperor at 1.  Then they cast Airship Crash off of Rakdos, killing our Emperor and the opponent I'd been facing with another bash of wizard triggers.  We were officially out.

Now it was three versus one.  But their turn wasn't done and they attacked the remaining Emperor for 20, using Outmaneuver to get around any potential blocking.  

Wow, what a fast game!  Time wise, it only took an hour, compared to the two hours of drafting.  With 45 minutes to set up, 30 minutes to build decks, and another 15 miscellaneous minutes, it took about four and a half hours total, start to finish.  

And this continues to be one of my favorite formats!  I would love to do this again.  I do think I'm a bit better at being an Emperor, but that means I need to get more Lieutenant practice.  

The Wizard Tokens are so good.  I think Final Fantasy is the secret tech to this format.  I do feel pretty good about that because our group talked about it beforehand!  I highly recommend trying it out in a Wacky Emperor Draft.

I hope you get a chance to Emperor Draft too.  Happy Magicking!

Ravnica Clue Cube Draft (WUBRG Drafting)

I did my first cube draft in a long time last night.  This was the first time I've done a Clube (Clue Cube) draft, though!

Some explanation may be necessary.  Last year Wizards released Ravnica: Clue Edition when Murders at Karlov Manor came out.  (There's some info at the bottom of this dying page.)  Recently, one of my friends created a really cool Cube with twelve packs of sixteen cards each to draft to use with this, instead of the jumpstart-style packs that come along with it.  Last night I got a chance to give it a try!  Here's a quick primer on the rules:

• All players play a multi-player game of magic, starting at 30 live.  The Clube is designed for four players, which I think is how the normal game works.
• You can still win via normal magic rules.
• There are all the suspects, weapons, and rooms of Clue, but there's no board that people walk around on.  One suspect, one weapon, and one room is randomly picked without anyone seeing and put aside as the solution to the murder.
• Two of the remaining rooms are dealt to the middle for everyone to see. 
• The remaining sixteen cards are shuffled and dealt to everyone for only that player to see.  Players can use the process of elimination to determine which three cards remain as the elements of the murder.
• At the end of their turn, and only once per game, a player can make an Accusation.  They pick one each of the suspects, weapons, and rooms.  Then they secretly look at the solution.  If they're right, then the win the game (the Clue way).  If they're wrong, they can no longer win the game via Clue rules and must win via normal Magic winning conditions.
• Whenever a player deals combat damage to an opponent for the first time in the game, the player makes a Suggestion: they pick a suspect, a weapon, and a room.  For the opponents that were dealt damage, in turn order: 
• If they have one of the cards listed, they must reveal that card to only the person who made the suggestion.  If they have multiple of the cards, they only reveal one.  At that point, the suggestion process ends completely and the opponent who revealed gets a free Treasure token.  
• If they don't have one of the cards listed, then they just pass and it moves to the next player who took combat damage.  
• If none of the players who took combat damage have anything to reveal, then... nothing happens.
• I am not (yet) good at Clue (I usually play Kill Doctor Lucky instead) but during this process everyone is writing things down on the handy sheet everyone gets.  I'm not sure what I was supposed to be writing, but I took notes that were not consistent throughout the process.
• Only one Suggestion can be made in a turn.  However, you can Suggest and then later Accuse.
• If you don't deal combat damage to any players on your turn, then you can Collect Evidence 6 at the end of your turn in order to make a Suggestion.  Again, you can't do this if you already got one from combat damage. 
• When a player dies via Magic rules, then they reveal all their hidden cards to the group.

I was told there were eleven draft archtypes in the packs (one for each guild and one five-color one).  I opened a pack with lots of gates and got right to work doing the thing everyone knew I was going to be doing.  (No Maze's End in the Clube.)  Here were my picks:

Gate, gate, gate, gate, gate, gate, gate, gate, gate, gate, gate, gate, goblin, goblin!

Drafting 13 non-basic lands normally makes choosing cuts pretty easy, but I had to cut a lot of stuff that seemed good.  Here's what I built:

You don't know the power of the Gate-Side!

The public rooms revealed were the Kitchen and Billiard Room.  My secret hand had Commander Mustard, Emissary Green, the Lead Pipe, and the Dining Room.  I'm sorry, but I didn't record everyone's suggestions.  I should have so you could solve the murder yourself before the end of this rundown!  

The game started off real good for me.  I got gates down in my first three turns, then played Gatebreaker Ram.  On turn four I hit the player across from me with the 6/6 Ram and suggested: Mastermind Plum, Lead Pipe, and Conservatory.  (I think it's good strategy to suggest some things you have to throw people off.)  They swung back on their turn and I revealed Commander Mustard.  On turn five I swung again with my vigilant, trample, growing Ram and Malcator's Watcher.  I Suggested Headliner Scarlett, the Wrench, and Dining Room.  Nothing was revealed to me that time.  

On turn 6, with a new Thunderclap Wyvern out, I had enough creatures to attack everyone.  I dealt combat damage to all and suggested Commander Mustard, the Rope, and the Secret Passage.  (I don't remember what I was told after all of these, sorry!  I guess me saying this is a bit useless.)  

On turn 7, I was at the most life and kept up the pressure, especially after getting the underrated Glaive of the Guildpact on one of my fliers.  

Sitting pretty, Magic-wise.

I suggested Emissary Green, the Knife, and the Study.  On their turn, the person across from me suggested Headliner Scarlett, the Lead Pipe, and the Ballroom.  Something about the way they asked convinced me that the Ballroom was where the murder took place, and I zeroed in on that.  Then the player to my right (running Golgari Food) swung a bunch of big stuff at me.  The reason wasn't to kill me, but to kill the player to my left, the Cube creator, who was undefeated at this so far.  They had a large 10/9 Rapacious Guest they needed me to kill with my big vigilant blockers.  That would have killed one of them, though, so I responded by killing it with Beast Within instead.  The attacker used the trigger to take the player to my left out.  The undefeated streak was over.  At that point they revealed their cards:

On my eighth turn I attacked both remaining players, bringing them to single digit life.  I suggested Apothecary White, the Knife, and the Ballroom, but Apothecary White got revealed to me.  Then I dropped Archway Angel to go up to 24.  If I couldn't win via Clue, I was going to win via Magic!  Still, I could make my Accusation and win right then, so I did: Mastermind Plum, the Knife, and the Ballroom.  I checked out the hidden solution cards.

Nope.  It was not the Ballroom at all.  Mastermind Plum did it with the Wrench in the Hall.

My opponent to my right attacked us both and killed the other player, who revealed their hand: Apothecary White, the Rope, the Library, and the Secret Passage.  The attacker suggested Mastermind Plum, the Wrench, and the Dining Room.  I had to reveal the Dining Room.  Then they accused: Mastermind Plum, the Wrench, and the Hall.  Game over!  My life advantage (17 to 3) did me nothing.  I probably should have tried to swing out for the win the turn before.

This was wicked fun!  I need to learn to play Clue, though, so I can logic out all the mess of everyone asking things during the game!  I was way off.

The cube linked above is great!  I hope you get a chance to try this out.  Happy Sleuthing and Magicking!

Wilds of Eldraine 6 (WUBRG Drafting)

The Final Fantasy product drought continues.  We eagerly await the next printing, though it seems that might arrive after Edge of Eternities is released.  My Friendliest LGS, Intergalactic Plastic, used this as an opportunity to run a Wilds of Eldraine draft this week, which I gladly joined in.  I have a surprisingly good record with Wilds drafts: 12-2-1.

There were twelve players, so we got into two pods of six and got to drafting.  I did not do very good at drafting fixing lands; I got one rare dual, one Crystal Grotto, and one Edgewall Inn.  Thankfully I got enough other fixing to make up for it.  (Thank you, Scarecrow Guide!)  Here are all my picks:

So many rares came around late, like Prismatic Omen!

 

I had a hard time putting this deck together.  I'm still not sure I picked the right cards.  For the final game of the night, I actually subbed out the Hamlet Glutton here for the Horned Loch-Whale.  I don't even know if that was the right change.  Here's my deck before I made that change:

I put so many things in the 2-drop slot just because there was some way to cast (at least a part of) them with two mana.

I sat down in my first match against a new (to me) person who said they had gotten back into magic after a long hiatus due to the Final Fantasy set.  That was pretty cool!  They were there playing, earning points for Chocobo Racing.  Pretty cool!  They had a tricksy Dimir Faeries deck.  I started game one by getting Scarecrow Guide out on turn two.  That opened my hand up to other plays even though I only had a forest and plains out.  Unfortunately, they Ratted it Out, putting me in trouble as I did not draw more lands for a bit.  My opponent was also mana screwed on three swamps for a while.  Thankfully I drew into the Prismatic Omen on turn four and then got into some lands to play Johann on turn eight.  They got a fourth swamp, but it wasn't enough.  So much of my deck is instants, sorceries, and adventures, so Johann valued me into the win.  

In game two, I started stuck on two lands again.  My opponent finally drew into both of their colors and had a turn two Obyra, then a Mocking Sprite the next turn.  I had lots of nothing, so I had to Coop the sprite Up while hoping for a way to remove Obyra.  I got a third land and played Hylda's Crown of Winter, which reminded me just how good Icy Manipulator used to be.  A Stingblade Assassin came down without killing anything and I just continued to hold on.

Tapping the assassin turn after turn.

Finally I drew Edgewall Inn for my fourth land.  I was at just five life and tried to Flick a Coin at the assassin, but they responded with Water Wings.  On my next turn I got a fifth land and played Johann.  (I needed the extra land free to keep tapping an attacker.)  I went to three life against their twenty, but got Prismatic Omen and removal and blocking to stall out their board.  I finally played the Hamlet Glutton, putting me to six, and won off of the extra value provided by Johann.  1-0.

In the second round I was up against a value Sultai mill deck that got extra value off of Bramble Familiar.  It came down but they didn't want to trade with my Scarecrow Guide, so I had some time with good mana fixing.  I had Flick a Coin for their Likeness Looter and Rip the Seams for their Hollow Scavenger and Hylda's Crown showed up again to keep me in the game against their other creatures.  On turn seven I was finally able to get the Threadbind Clique to come back from their adventure.  The Bramble Familiar did it's Fetch Quest trick but didn't get a big critter, so I was able to handle it.  I used Cooped Up on the raccoon and exiled it so it couldn't cause future trouble.  They cast Storm Reading, but didn't get an answer.  I kept the board clear and won with two scarecrows and the clique.  

In game two we seemed to be playing the same game over.  Bramble Familiar, Scarecrow Guide, Likeness Looter, and Flick a Coin all had the same effects.  On their turn four they made a new play by sending Cruel Somnophage on its adventure and summoning it on the same turn.  They used Fetch Quest again, this time having even worse luck with five lands milled!  I got Virtue of Loyalty on the board for the first time and within a few turns my creatures were extremely imposing.  They played Storm Reading again, but it didn't matter and I won again.  2-0.

My third round opponent was playing an Orzhov deck named "Rats that Like to Die".  They had an amazing amount of death triggers.  In the first game I had to play around those rats including Voracious Vermin and Lord Skitter's Butcher.  Thankfully I had Cooped Up and got my favorite crown of ice down, and even played Vantress Visions for the first time to tap two things down in one turn.  That drew a Stroke of Midnight on the crown, sadly, but I was able to get Virtue of Loyalty down and start buffing my crew.  I played Hamlet Glutton, but it got captured by a Werefox Bodyguard. 

Bye bye, Glutton.

I played the Virtue of Knowledge from its adventure, threatening to gain double life if the Werefox died.  From there it was a slow win, but I pulled it off.  In the second game they got a Tangled Colony on turn two.  I fed that to a Frantic Firebolt before my graveyard got any bigger, but it Returned Triumphantly.  The next turn there were some Protective "Rat" Parents, which I let through shortly thereafter because I didn't want the Tangled Colony to get any bigger.  I thought I had it in the bag when I played Johann and then Virtue of Loyalty, but that actually played into my opponent's hands!  After two turns, the Virtue bit it to a Stroke of Midnight and then Johann died in a Moment of Valor since his power had grown to 4.  They had a mess of 1/1s and I started to stabilize at eight life to their seventeen.  Then they got the card that worked with all those rats: Grave Pact.  Talk about death triggers!  Another moment of valor took down my big vigilant knight, but I sacrificed it to the Grave Pact trigger and lost a Human token when another of their creatures died.  After that I lucked out that those rats couldn't block.  I used Lagoon Breach to get rid of a rat and had enough power of creatures on the board that I won after a few turns.  3-0.

I honestly don't know why Wilds of Eldraine has been so good to me.  I am 15-2-1 overall, which is nuts.  Perhaps five-color-adventures is just a good deck!  I hope you get the chance to try this format out, even two years on.  

Happy Magicking! 

Independence Day Chaos (WUBRG Drafting)

I got to host a wacky draft on the 4th of July this year and a bunch of people came!  We had eight total people and very nearly decided to do a Battlebond draft.  In the end, we stayed wacky; our packs were as varied as fireworks.  I picked Ikoria-Dominaria-Murders of Karlov Manor; Red, White, and Blue.  Some others found good patriotismesque sets of their own.  Here's what we all opened:

Mine may be the only Red-White-Blue in that order.

To my right sat a player who often drafts four colors, Witch-Maw in particular.  I knew I was going to have to fight for color fixing.  (I made it clear to them not to go easy on me!)  Another player wound up drafting four colors and I only ran into one opponent who was in less than three colors while playing.  

My first pick was Mythos of Vadrok.  A Jeskai card right off the bat on America's Birthday.  In the end I decided not to run it, which was certainly a mistake.  I felt like I had enough other removal, but I think I should have run it instead.  I paid the price for this symbolic offense, don't worry!  Before we get ahead of ourselves, though, a hilarious thing happened two seats to my left.  

That player started the draft planning to go Jeskai, having picked Tarkir Dragonstorm, Khans of Tarkir, and Ikoria to open.  When they made their first pick, though, they exclaimed that that plan was already out the window.  Just before opening pack three, they mentioned how bad it would be if they opened Winota.  Then they proceeded to do exactly that and had to pivot to a fourth color.  The Jeskai Plan wouldn't give up!  

Here are the rest of my picks:

After picking The Necrobloom, I did shift into a token-creature strategy, which paid off when Baron Bertrem Graywater came around!

I didn't realize it when I picked it, but Illicit Masquerade was one of the best cards for my deck I could have asked for.  In the current world of land cyclers, I need to be on the lookout for more Raise Dead/Resurrection-style effects, which that does excellently.  The good news is that I did a pretty good job of getting my colors.  Here's the deck I put together:

 

I even only ran sixteen lands!

 

Since we had eight, we decided on playing single-game rounds in order to play more people.  Of the 28 possible matches, we got 26 of them in!  Sadly I was one of the people who only got six rounds in.

In my first round I was up against a slick Mardu deck.  They played a Lightning Mauler on turn two and even though it didn't meaningfully soulbound with anyone, it got in enough to hit me for 11, powered sometimes by War Squeak.  The turn after I spent Introduction to Annihilation on it, they played Hoarding Broodlord into Dragon's Rage Channeler.  I took out the channeler before it dealt me any damage, but I had nothing left to deal with the big dragon.  0-1.

In the second round I was up against an Esper deck that just kept on chugging.  They cast Pilgrim of the Ages four times over the course of the game and only stopped because they ran out of Plains to fetch from the deck.  Everytime I had a play, they answered it.  Spring-Loaded Sawblades to kill the Pilgrim the first time?  They had Bladed Battle-Fan.   

Then they got the treasure!

 

Oasis Gardener to craft with the Sawblades?  They used a treasure to entwine Kaya's Guile, killing the Gardener and exiling my graveyard so crafting wasn't an option.  Nevertheless I held on.  Illicit Masquerade turned some of my early land searchers into creatures, like Orchard Strider, who lent me the food for crafting.  I built up a bit of a board.  In the end, they got down Gurmag Swiftwing and I couldn't get a flier to save my life.  0-2.  That player pulled off an undefeated 7-0 to win the draft!

In the third round I faced a slick Golgari deck.  I was feeling pretty good until Ahriman came down and then took out Skoa.  

And Ruthless Predation even kept the flying eye from dying.

I did kill the Ahriman, but was stuck again without a flier.  Then Tizerius Charger came down.  It died and then came back with flying.  And killed me.  0-3.

Round four put me up against someone who often runs me over with some sort of aggressive white deck.  This time they went full patriotic and drafted Jeskai.  If I could only survive the first onslaught, I could pull this off and break my losing streak!

No.

Sorry, I got ahead of myself again.  We started off both stuck without Blue (partly because I Abraded their Jeskai Devotee right after it showed up) which was a bigger impediment for them.  I got The Necrobloom out and that slowed the game down.  I flashed in the Sawblades when blocking to win big in combat.  On turn eight I played the Baron Graywater, ready to combo it with The Necrobloom and pull ahead.  Devastating Mastery put that all to an end.  Then they dropped Furnace Hellkite and Jace, the Perfected Mind.  I started taking a lot of damage in the air.  I drew Throttle, but it wasn't enough to take out the 5/5 flier.  However, it didn't matter because he dropped five counters from Jace to mill me for fifteen, which was exactly the size of my deck.  0-4.

In round five I was up against a really cohesive Bant +1/+1 counters deck, powered by The Earth Crystal.  The crystal came down early and I got real lucky to pull Abrade right away and destroy it.  I would have used it on their 1/3 flier earlier, except that that flier was Stormwild Capridor.  My Bladewheel Chariot got stuck on the wrong side of a combat trick and I decided to Tend the Pests it.  

Gift of the Viper seems real good.

I built a little token army with those five Pests, a 2/2 Rebel from Goldwarden's Helm, two 4/4 Elementals from Elemental Masterpiece, and a 1/1 Hero from Monk's Fist.  I was mana-flooded for a bit, but then mutated Parcelbeast onto the hero so that I could use it's ability right away.  That drew me into Baron Graywater.  I was sad to see him after all those tokens had already come out, but then I drew The Necrobloom and got to see them be combolicious together.  My opponent then got completely mana-flooded while I drew Hill Gigas and Furnace Host Charger on the same turn (thanks Parcelbeast!).  That was enough for me to breakthrough and win.  1-4.

In my last round I was up against the Ink-Treader player who had shifted gears when they opened Winota.  They had a sweet sequence of plays, starting with a turn four Roar of the Endless Song (this was the first card they drafted that pulled them awaky from Jeskai) using a treasure to make it happen so fast.  Turn five Winota hit the board, meaning the 5/5 elephant got to attack and look for a human in the top six cards, finding Case File Auditor.  They were stuck at five land for a while, but that was enough to get their deck rolling.  When the saga's term ended, they cast something to get it back from their graveyard and dropped it again.  

One way to grant those elephants trample and I would have been done for.

Baron Graywater and The Necrobloom helped keep me in the game with Plant and lifelinking Vampire tokens.  I got rid of the Roar of the Endless Song before it could double the creatures' power again with Intro to Annihilation.  I hit seven different-named lands (thanks, Snow-Covered Plains!) and started dropping Zombies instead of Plants.  At this point my opponent was drawing lots of lands, having already pulled the three humans out of their deck with Winota.  Khoa showed up to help take out a blocker and after putting the pressure on, Throttle helped me clear the way for a win.  2-4.

I actually got pretty lucky last night.  My deck was fun, but not terribly strong.  My opponents' decks were quite good; the +1/+1 counter deck had a ton of synergy and Winota + Elephants should have been a death sentence.  The fixing I drafted bailed me out often and my removal kept me in multiple games longer than I should have been.  

But I still had a great time.  My token strategy came together some times and there were good plays on many of my games.  I don't think I made many play mistakes.  It was a great way to celebrate the 4th of July!

Happy Magicking!  And fireworks!

Two Multiplayer Drafts: Chaos and Bloomburrow at a Store (WUBRG Drafting)

I was just in the most chaotic draft I've ever participated in.  In a good way, for sure.  And it was in a store!  And then I did another one!

I went to Krum's World for their 1pm Friday draft today.  I found out about it last week.  I didn't go, but while exchanging emails with the owners last week, I learned that they often run chaos drafts and then play multiplayer games starting at 30 life.  That sounded right in line with the kind of thing I'd like, so I planned to go today.  

There were seven people ready to do the draft.  That meant that after drafting we were going to be splitting into a three-person game and a four-person game.  We were then asked whether we wanted to do three draft/play boosters or a single jumpstart pack followed by two draft/play boosters, which was something they had done at least once before.  

I decided immediately that I was just "Along for the ride" and would do whatever the consensus was.  If you go to participate there, I highly recommend adopting that mindset.  It was chill and fun and light-hearted.  That attitude will go far.  I think that most of the people I played with had limited magic experience; multiple people told me they had been playing about a week.  

The consensus was for the Jumpstart option: we opened one Jumpstart pack followed by drafting two packs in the group.  I picked a Foundations Jumpstart pack and a March of the Machines and Bloomburrow boosters.  Other packs people picked, starting to my left and going around, were:

• Brothers' War Jumpstart, March of the Machines, Aetherdrift
• OG Jumpstart, Bloomburrow, Bloomburrow
• OG Jumpstart, Bloomburrow, Duskmourn
• OG Jumpstart, Duskmourn, Bloomburrow
• Foundations Jumpstart, Duskmourn, Aetherdrift
• Foundations Jumpstart, Bloomburrow, Bloomburrow

We opened the Jumpstart packs first, I got the Ninjas pack, a Blue-colored set, which was pretty cool.  (I wish I had gotten the Multicolor pack, but that would have been a bit too amazing.)  After opening Jumpstart, some people swapped out the packs they were going to open to draft, which is a cool idea I've toyed with in the past, and made a lot of sense so people could adapt to what their Jumpstart was.  (Thus, my list above is certainly a little bit wrong.)

Then we got to drafting.  I figured I would need a lot of mana fixing to "balance out" the amount of Blue I would need to run, so I picked lands quickly.  I also knew that evasion would be more important in multiplayer than in duel-magic.  

I asked whether we were zone drafting.  Zone drafting is when only one pack is allowed to be in transit between any two players while drafting.  This means that if one player finishes a pack and there's already a pack waiting for the next player, they have to hold on to theirs in their hand until that space opens up.  They didn't know what Zone Drafting is here, and seemed to be okay with packs piling up.  Thankfully it didn't get too bad.

On the good side, there was lots of friendly table talk during the drafting.  It was clear this group liked to do weird stuff, which is just excellent.  

With all that in mind, here are all the cards I got:

Listen, I did not run Skittles.  I know you think I should have, but I felt like that card carried a big "I'm the Archenemy" sign on it.

And then we got another surprise.  We each picked a color and then got a random promo card from that color for our decks.  I picked blue and got Aether Channeler, which seemed really strong in combination with Ninjutsu and especially with the Gossip's Talent I got. 

Here's the deck I built from this:

So much mana-fixing!

This was a real five-color ninjas deck.  I was psyched.

I got slotted into the three-player pod game.  My opponents were wicked nice: a Golgari deck with some graveyard recursion to my left, and a Boros deck with some surprisingly fast hitters on my right.  I got Nightveil Sprite out on turn two, which I planned to do some ninja shenanigans with.  Unfortunately, it got Chainsawed, a card itself which gathered seven counters over the course of the game.  I got stuck without green for a bit then, while the Boros player got Cleon out and hit me for eight with the help of Mirran Banesplitter.  I got Aether Channeler down and drew Hidden Grotto!  The next turn I killed Cleon with Invasion of Ulgrotha and made the Golgari player defend it. 

I did that because all this time the Golgari player had been stuck on one land.  He drew his second swamp on turn six and started to draw more lands thereafter.  He cast Deep-Cavern Bat that turn, a good creature in a multiplayer game like this.  On my next turn, I dropped Rocketeer Boostbuggy, which turned out to be vital.  I needed those treasures and cast-ninjas were at least good at crewing!  On my next turn I killed the battle, freeing Grandmother Ravi Sengir, who slowly built up counters.  I also got Prosperous Thief out and gathered even more treasures.  Unfortunately, the Boros player was stuck on four land just as the Golgari player was starting to take off.  

Taken sometime around this part of the game.  I think.

 

On my next turn I got to four treasure tokens.  You know who likes four tokens?  Baylen does.  I played him and then passed the turn.  At the end of the Boros player's turn, I tapped the four treasures to throw the counters on Baylen.  There was no doubt at that point, I was definitely the archenemy.  (Maybe I should have put Skithiryx in after all.)

I started swinging in then, trying to keep my opponents at relatively even life totals.  I was still attacking very conservatively for two turns, but then the Boros player dropped Mirrorwing Dragon on their eleventh turn.  I have played with Zada many times.  I know how that card works.  I also knew that they had Unleash Fury in their hand, because it had been exiled by the Deep-Cavern Bat and come back. 

I didn't have the time to keep being conservative.  I swung in big at the Golgari player, killing them with Baylen's trampling power.  I still had a bunch of blockers and a lot of life.  Either the Boros player didn't know what they could do with that Unleash Fury or they didn't think they had enough to take me out, but they didn't attack all in, instead tapping out to get .  On my next turn (I think turn thirteen) I bounced the dragon with Moonsnare Specialist.  Ravi Sengir was big enough to kill him by itself, so I sent her in and won.

That game was wicked fun.  My two opponents were super nice and the game wound up being pretty close.  The other pod finished and then I was asked whether I'd stay for another one.

Heck yes.

We were supposed to start at 4pm, but didn't actually get to setting it up until closer to 4:45.  We had five total drafters, which meant we were going to do a single game of five instead of combinations of three and four.  

Looking back, perhaps I should have suggested a Star draft.  It didn't cross my mind... Kingdom did, but that seemed like it would be too complicated.  A star draft would have been great in this instance, though.  

This time the group was not interested in the Jumpstart option and we instead decided to all draft Bloomburrow.  That made things hard for me, for sure!  To speed things up, we did two picks at a time.  That's not my favorite, but I was just along for the ride.

The mana-fixing was few and far between.  There isn't a nice cycle of common dual lands.  I did manage to get a Hidden Grotto and two Three-Tree Mascots, which promised to help a lot.  Here's everything I picked:

Where are my lands?!?

Lately I've been drafting so many non-basic lands that I haven't had to make a ton of cuts, but that wasn't the case here.  I spent too long, trying to decide whether to keep any cards with double-pips of the same color.  In the end, I put this deck together:

Sixteen basics?  I don't know how to play like that!

 

If this had been a duel, I might have chosen to draw instead of play.  As it turned out, I didn't need to worry.  I had three different basics in my opening hand, drew a fourth on the second turn, and used Heaped Harvest to grab the last one, my solo mountain.  This led to natural WUBRG on turn four, and a Barkform Harvester to boot.  

At this point we found ourselves in a time crunch.  A big storm had picked up, the lights flickered a bit, and one person had a dog at home.  We needed to try and finish as close to 7pm as possible.  I think two people ran three colors, one ran four, and one (aside from me) ran five.  Given the hurry, I don't think anyone noticed that I was successfully in five colors.  My Hidden Grotto showed up and I barely had to worry about colors at all.  

Play became sloppy here as we rushed to finish, mostly around suboptimal attacks.  The player to my left had Sinister Monolith down for many turns.  I tried to focus my attacks on them and whoever had the most life.  Flyers were in the spotlight; everyone wanted to know who had flying blockers each combat.  I had had Tangle Tumbler down and tried to get a +1/+1 counter on one of my creatures each turn, especially since I had trouble drawing into creatures.  Unfortunately that put a target on my creatures.  The Barkform Harvester died shortly after it hit 5/6.  It was around this point that our first player died.

I wish we could have played the game to the end, but we ran out of time.  We agreed that after a final round we would give it to the player with the most life.  I was going second-to-last and it was clear that the last player was going to swing out at me.  On my turn I attacked with my Wax-Wane Witness and an unblockable Three-Tree Mascot, but the bat flew back to my library due to a Dire Downdraft.  I put myself into the top life spot, but I was vulnerable without my flying blocker. 

The last player swung out at me, but I still had some tricks up my sleeve.  I cast Sonar Strike and Take Out the Trash.  That three life and the loss of an attacker kept me at the top of the life game.  

I really don't like ending the game that way.  Especially in multiplayer, having a slight life advantage when everyone is around ten life is not that big of an actual advantage.  I wish we could have taken our time and really talked through the potential outcomes of everything, especially with the newer players.  Everyone was really cool about going over what could happen in different situations, so it could have really been good.  However, I understand there were outside forces causing us to stop.

 

I don't think there are a lot of WUBRG lessons here.  I drafted lots of land in the first game and that worked out well.  For the second game, Heaped Harvest was perfect for me and I took it from there.  I think I got pretty lucky.

Krum's is a bit of a hike for me, but this was exactly the chill way I like to play magic.  I hope I can make the trip again and experience whatever chaos they decide to run.  

Happy Magicking!

Chaos Shakes a Hand Full of Counters (WUBRG Drafting)

We ran a wacky draft last night.  I feel like all of my lessons came together... kinda.  We had seven people, so we did single-game rounds to try and maximize the number of matches we could get in.  One of our newcomers drove over an hour to attend!  It was great!  Here's what we all opened:

Five people in single-blocks, but it was still wacky!

I got lots of mana-fixing.  Here were all my picks:

I don't know what else was in the third pack I opened because... I mean... Teferi's Protection.

I want to talk about the last pack, where I picked Dimir Guildgate over Garrison Sergeant in pick three.  I knew I had taken the other two gates from the Guilds of Ravnica packs, so I figured that by taking that third guildgate, no one else would pull a 3/3 for five in Boros colors.  I may not be the best drafter, but this time I was right and I felt really excellent for doing that!

I got so much mana-fixing that I had some iffy cards in my deck, like Blazing Bomb.  I'm sure I should have run something different.  Feel free to criticize my deckbuilding!  

I actually replaced Flower // Flourish with the Blazing Bomb because the second mode seemed really bad.

I managed to play against five of the six possible opponents I had before we ran out of time.  I sat down in the first round against a slow Abzan deck.  We used removal on the few creatures each other had in the first few turns, as we were both mana flooded.  I had Jidoor in hand, so I cast Overture on turn 6 to put some pressure on.  Then I got Skyserpent Seeker down, one of the best Aetherdrift cards for me.  Even after exhausting it to have nine land on the board, I still had land in play.  My opponent killed it and on their eighth turn played Ardyn.   

Good thing I didn't give them a big graveyard to work with...

I had removal for it (Fate of the Sun-Cryst, I think) so they couldn't actually profit off of the milling I'd done for them.  Unfortunately, I didn't draw any answers for the 5/5 flying deathtouch version of my own serpent.  I lost with 12 lands on the board and another two in hand.  0-1.  (That player went undefeated on the night!)

In the second round I was up against one of our first-timers who also decided to run Abzan.  I got my favorite flying serpent again and exhausted it on turn 4.  They unfortunatley got stuck without white mana while I had plenty of land.  The serpent blocked a big attacker for a good trade, but my 6/6 Fractal Summoning token died to Murderous Compulsion.  WUBRG doesn't usually play aggressively, but thankfully it can be very flexible.  They got Kraul Foragers and started swinging, but I got Hill Gigas and kept the pressure on.  On their next turn, at 7 life, they attacked with the Foragers again, then played Dusyut Earthcarver, granting itself three +1/+1 counters.  I attacked again with my giant and they agonized over whether to block.  Either option was bad, though, as I had Pedal to the Metal in my hand and plenty of land.  1-1.  This game would have been way different if they'd drawn into some white mana, though.  Here's their hand at the end:

They were tapped out, so the Bestow Greatness couldn't save them that combat.

My Crystalline Giant had shown up in the first game, but it really started to make a fun impact in the third round.  I was paired up against a player run-... Golgari!  Really?!?  I got the Crystalline Giant down turn 3 and it started to accrue counters while my opponent was stuck on four land.  I got some lazer-cut counters from some friends, so I used them to physically choose things instead of rolling dice.  (Hopefully my opponents didn't get sick of reaching into my cupped hands to pull out the next counter!)  Later on I drew into Waxen Shapethief and had to count out a second set of the ten tokens to use.  

The left-hand tokens came in that order, top-to-bottom.

I traded the giant in combat shortly thereafter, which might have been the wrong play.  They played Exdeath, a card which has been good to me lately.  It flipped on the first turn, so I hit it with Abrade.  Then I felt safe to use Jidoor's Overture, which dumped 10 cards into their graveyard.  Unfortunately, they had a good play for their next turn: Rise from the Wreck.  

Getting two off of it in a chaos draft is pretty good.

Exdeath came down again and flipped into an 18/3 creature.  I was at 17 life.  I drew into Fenrir and played it, searching up an unnecessary land.  They sacrificed their Golgari Locket to make Exdeath a 19/3 and swung in.  I played Teferi's Protection to buy me another turn.  Then I drew into nothing and died on the following attack.  1-2.  That was a sweet way to die, though.  Overture did lose me the game, but at least I got to put a +1/+1 counter on my Blazing Bomb for it.

In the fourth round, I was up against a Mardu deck with a bunch of synergistic cog pieces that all threatened to combo off together.  I got the Crystalline Giant down on turn three again.  "Kill it before it gets Hexproof," had been floated around the table, so it met a quick end to Hellish Sideswipe.  I acted like an aggro deck again, however, getting down Eshki on turn five and triggering her ability on turn six.  A 6/6 vigilance, trample, ward {1} creature is a crusher.  I swung in with Eshki and some friends (Streaking Oilgorger and Frost Trickster) a few times and put them on the ropes.

Vigilance is good.

By the end, my opponent managed to get hellbent with Bloodhall Priest to get the trigger and take out the Frost Trickster, but it wasn't enough and I pulled it out before anything comborific could kill me.  2-2.

In my fifth and final round I was up against a Witch-Maw (everything but red) self-mill deck from another of our first-time attendees.  Their deck had a cool combo with two Carrion Cruisers and some neat recursion tricks to keep things going, as well as Dredger's Insight to profit off of these tricks.  I was initially unaware of this, so I used Jidoor to cast Overture again.  I think I stymied some of that combo payoff because they did not like the cards that went down.  Nevertheless, I played without green mana for the whole game and they pulled off another brutal combo.  They played Warden of the Grove followed by Divine Visitation and started spawning Serra Angels every turn.  Then they dropped a Bramble Wurm for good measure.  I had Death Begets Life in hand and just needed to draw into that green mana to clear the board.  

They used something to bring Swallowed by Leviathan from their yard to their hand, then swung with a massive board.  I cast Righteous Blow on a small attacker, hoping to draw out the counterspell, but they didn't bite.  

One of those angels isn't attacking because it was just created.  The other two are not tapped, despite the die.

I took a bunch of damage but stayed alive at 1 life.  However, I both failed to draw into a green and they still had untapped mana for the Leviathan to swallow whatever I cast.  2-3.  I died with four green-mana-requiring cards in my hand.  At least I can't blame this loss on casting Overture when I shouldn't have!

The lesson I should probably take away from this is that I might have drafted too many lands.  I had ten and probably passed up some bomb-worthy cards in the meantime.  I'm not sure I'm willing to learn that lesson, though, as I only got mana-screwed one time all night (last game) and I did have six green sources in the deck to support about 7 green mana pips.  Similarly, I didn't get some of my good bombs during the night because I got mana flooded on more than one occasion.  And aside from Eshki and Hill Gigas that showed up here, Garrison Sergeant really is a bomb in this deck, and Jeskai Shrinekeeper had the chance to go big too.

The mistake I do think I made is that I should have run Fire-Rim Form instead of Blazing Bomb.  I just didn't have enough 4+ mana non-creature spells for the bomb to be an actual bomb.

Let me know if you think I'm being too stubborn.  

Happy Magicking!

Final Fantasy Draft 4 (WUBRG Drafting)

It's getting difficult to find stores that still have Final Fantasy packs for drafts.  For those of you reading in the future, this set is selling like hotcakes.  There is the expectation that there will be another big shipment to distributors sometime in July, which is at least a week away.  I looked into going to multiple places for a draft yesterday, but most stores are sold out and are drafting other things.  

I am on a mission to do Final Fantasy drafts.  For me, this set is so fun.  I hope that's enough justification to tell you that I turned down two chaos drafts yesterday.  I avoided both one at a new store one at my normal FLGS, Intergalactic Plastic.  It feels like cheating, both on the store and my love of chaos drafting.

"I'm on a Final Fantasy Walkabout right now, Liz."

So hopefully, dear reader, you and my friends at IGP can forgive me this transgression as I continue to be entranced by the allure of this set.

I knew that Armada Games would still have packs as they had announced that they had enough for over 30 people at the end of Tuesday's draft.  So, I made the trip over there again last night.

I don't know exactly how many people there were in total, but it was around 16.  I went into a pod of eight and got to drafting.  

This is perhaps my worst Final Fantasy draft performance, but with what might be the best story so far.  Before I get into the details, and without giving away the tale, I need to point out that the premiere WUBRG payoff card of this set is The Wandering Minstrel.  Opening that card is the dream and would make me feel great just like drafting Chromanticore did back in Theros block.  It could even get passed in a late pack after people were clearly not in five colors.  Fourth draft could really be time for a payoff.

The first pack was terrifying.  I only had one land and two land cyclers until I was passed an Ice Flan at the very end.  It may not seem like much, but that did calm me down quite a bit.  Here are all my picks:

Nice job on centering the shot, Kyle.

The second pack was all bombs and fixing, amazing.  One thing I noticed is the lack of multi-fixing packs this time.  Nerve-wracking, but totally fine as I got to a much better balance.  The Diamond Weapon put me back on the self-mill plan, though I didn't draft much to complement that aside from the Cloud of Darkness I'd already taken.  I got greedy on the third pack, taking The Water Crystal and Edgar, not expecting to actually run either of them.  Nevertheless, had more removal going than last time.  Also of note, this was my first limited Final Fantasy event without Ignis Scientia!

Here's the deck I built: 

Look at that pile of six-drops.

 

You may have some right to criticize me here for straying from my WUBRGiness, as the only white card that remained was Cloudbound Moogle.  I did cast it, however, so I think I'm still adhering to both the spirit and mission of playing five colors.

As we were building decks, the person furthest from me in the pod was showing off their nasty Boros equipment build.  Then we played.  In the first game, they killed me in seven turns.  I didn't have any good plays until turn six, and by then Giott had swung a bunch and earned a ton of card advantage.  In the second game, let me just say that Lightning is a good card.  They killed me on turn six.

Zack Fair saved Lightning from Firaga.

My opponent was wicked nice and agreed to two more bonus games.  I died in both of them.  In the last one I lasted long enough to get Omega down, which they Ultima'ed.  Even worse: I went first in all four of those games.  What a deck!  They hadn't been able to get any mana fixing, but it didn't matter as they went undefeated in our pod.  0-1. 

For the second round, I was paired up against the drafter who had been sitting to my right.  On turn two of the first game, they played The Wandering Minstrel.  My jaw hit the floor.  In the first or second pick of pack one, they'd got the Minstrel.  Then they ran WUBRG.  Sitting on the worst side for me.  No wonder I only got one land that whole pack!  They were living the dream!  And then...

They got a second Minstrel in pack three.

I immediately expressed my jealousy (hopefully in a pleasant way).  I actually could not believe how lucky I was; I had somehow drafted a good amount of mana fixing in a deck while the player to my right was on the WUBRG strategy and smartly took a lot of fixing as well.  (Even though it was their first time drafting five colors!)  

Back to the match... they were heavily green focused, with Goobbue Gardener, Balamb T-Rexaur, Prishe's Wanderings, Reach the Horizon, and seven towns.  Ramping for days.  As the first game continued, my opponent got stuck one mana off from activating the Minstrel and I was able to outlast and win with a lot of help from Clive.  In the second game, they ramped into a turn four T-Rexaur.

The ramp is real.

Thankfully I had a Sephiroth's Intervention ready to go on my turn.  They responded by playing the Minstrel next turn, followed by a Jumbo Cactuar the next turn.  Still on their turn, I had Lunatic Pandora in play, five lands, a Malboro, Diamond Weapon (with no permanents in the yard), and a comes-into-play-tapped town in my hand.  I needed a basic to pop the Pandora on their turn, but I didn't want to pitch the Malboro.  I surveiled away a T-Rexaur (noooo) so then swampcycled the Malboro.  And then I drew into Overkill.  

Pictured: a 10,000/-9992 creature.

The next turn I had enough for the Diamond Weapon.  "I have one of those." my opponent said.  What was going on with this draft?

Theirs never showed up and my Diamond weapon was enough to win the game.  I was very effusive to my opponent about how crazy this was.  I know I was in a good mood because I won, but I really want to think that if I hadn't pulled off a victory, I would have been acting the same way.  1-1.

In the third round I was up against... Boros Equipment.  Thankfully this deck wasn't as brutal as my first round, though they had some great late game cards.  They played their own Clive, which met with Sephiroth's Intervention.  Not only did they have one, there was apparently a third Clive opened in our little pod of eight.  What a crazy draft!  I can't believe this all happened-... No, no more sidetracks.  Stick to the match.  They got down Item Shopkeep with Warrior's Sword and I couldn't come up with enough blockers to stay alive.  I played a last-chance Random Encounter and didn't get to win.  (I might have scooped too early and should have played it out.  Oof.)  In game two, I had a well-timed Firaga that wiped their board.  After that, they got mana flooded while I got in with Hill Gigas to win.  In the third game, they turned on the jets and raced in.  I got Black Waltz No. 3 down, but that wasn't enough to keep me in the game.  1-2.

We're not entirely done, though!  My round two opponent had drawn the bye that final round, but wanted to play more.  I gladly took them up on it!  (Seriously, if you see me at a draft and want to try to squeeze in some exhibition games, please ask me!)  We played two more bonus games.  I won both, but the second game game close, as they got the Minstrel on turn two, then Bard's Bow turn three.  I got stuck without any quick cards, but they were not fast enough before I was able to stabilize.  Omega got down and that saved the day.  I love this attitude from them, though, because they were as undeterred as I am when losing a bunch.  I'm really glad that I got to play eleven games with my deck!

I do have some new thoughts:

• Qiqirn Merchant would have gone a long way.  It blocks and then powers some great draw.
• I never cast Travel the Overworld.  I either didn't have the two blue or I needed to spend my mana on creatures that turn.  I don't know whether I would draft this highly again, especially if I'm so low on blue like I was.
• Even though I went 1-2, I actually think this set is better for WUBRG than I previously thought.  Pro-side evidence: two people were able to draft five colors with competent mana bases.  Con-side: Neither of us won a match against someone not running WUBRG.  I definitely see opinions on both sides of this.  It's not the same as in Ravnica Allegiance where I was competing with someone else going WUBRG in a pod of six and still won the draft, but it's way better than trying to do this before dual lands were common in packs. 
  

That's enough to say that if you're WUBRG drafting and think someone else at the table might be doing the same thing, you don't have to give up right away!  Whatever you're running, Happy Magicking!