Innistrad Remastered Draft (WUBRG Drafting)

My local store, Intergalactic Plastic, is really good about running drafts for new sets, even if they're not mainline sets.  At the last minute, I got to participate in the Innistrad Remastered draft, and I'm not sure the universe could have given me a stronger signal pack-one pick-one.

Cryptolith Rite: "Go WUBRG."

The rest of the draft went quite well.  I prepared a small amount by looking up common color-fixing cards and I expected to see a lot of Abundant Growth.  Instead I pulled a trio a bunch of Wild-Field Scarecrows that put in work during the night.  Here were all my picks:

The person to my left got passed rare duals three times in a row in pack 2.  They passed two of them on to me.

I realized I had some good stalling cards, so I went high on my mana curve, though I didn't run the Ghoultree.  Here's my deck:

Skipped the six-MV slot and went straight to seven.

In was first matched up against an Orzhov deck with lots ways to sacrifice creatures combined with some token generators.

Here's an entire battlefield of their sac outlets.

In the first game, I mulliganed to four, but I got going quick and managed to hit perfectly with my removal to thwart sacrifice benefits and catch up on value.  Conduit of Storms helped me ramp, especially after flipping.  Bramble Wurm showed me just how good it was and I won.  In the second game I got Cryptolith Rite out right away and ramped off of that to stay ahead.  Again, Bramble Wurm proved to be great and I won again.  1-0.

In the second round I was up against an Azorius weenie horde deck heavy on spirits.  In the first game I kept up really well against the onslaught, but finally got swarmed out.  In the second game, I didn't even have a chance.

I mean, come on.

Double Lunarch Veteran along with Spectral Shepherd are pretty good.  Combine that with Tower Geist and that's a three points of value with every bounce.  I lost this game with my opponent at 38.  1-1.

In the third round I was up against a Rakdos vampires deck armed with blood and madness.  In the first game my removal came to play and Soulcipher Board helped me optimize draws.  I kept it tight until Bramble Wurm came out to play and I took over.  I flipped Cryptolith Fragment into Aurora of Emrakul before playing the wurm, which was nifty.  I won that game, but the second game was not as satisfying.  My opponent got stuck on only swamps, with a hand full of red spells.  I won before they could put up much of a fight.  2-1.  We played a third game for fun, and I got absolutely steamrolled.  Stensia Masquerade is really strong.  This round could have easily gone either way.

Sadly, I never flipped the Huntmaster, though I got it out a few times.  I was always too busy casting spells. 

I definitely have some takeaways here for WUBRG drafting Innistrad Remastered.  Even more than normal.  Basically: do it.

• I think I would have been fine without the Cryptolith Rite, though it certainly helped.
• No one was taking Wild-Field Scarecrow.  Take them.  Stall with them.  Then sac them for lands or use them to help you emerge big things if you need to.
• Bramble Wurm is great.
• If you're not familiar with the emerge mechanic, don't be afraid to take those things.  The emerge payment makes things much cheaper and they usually give you some value on the cast as well.  
• The gap I had in mana value between 3 and 7 wasn't actually that bad.  Conduit of Storms and the Scarecrows helped me gather extra mana.
• Turn 3 Conduit, Turn 4 flip it, Turn 5 Bramble Wurm is a good sequence.  It's not a waste of a turn to spend all your mana to flip the Conduit after combat.  

The pieces are there to run all the colors, even though it seems like there's no support. 

Happy Magicking!

Secret Chaos Commander Zada (WUBRG Drafting)

I have a Zada EDH deck.  I know how to play Zada.  Thus, I was very happy when she came around during a wacky draft on Wednesday.

My name is Zada; I'm a hedron grinder.  Okay, I'm getting ahead of things!

We had six drafters.  This was my first wacky draft of 2025, so I had picked my packs accordingly:

• Foundations, for all the good things I'm bringing from 2024.
• New Capenna, because of New Year's Eve in NYC.
  
• Mystery Booster 2, because who knows what the heck could happen in 2025.  (And definitely not because it was burning a hole in my pocket.)
   

Here's what we all opened:

We turned them inwards this time.  RIP my inner consistency pedant.

My draft went really well.  Zada was my fourth pick.  I was also really excited when the playtest card from my third pack tabled.

I picked Fists of Flame directly before Zada!  Combo-rific!

This would have been a really interesting draft to do progressive-style, where you choose each pack after drafting the previous one.  Then I could have tried to pick packs with good cantrips for Zada.

I had enough lands and enough cards that were irrelevant to the deck that it was pretty easy to put it together.  Here's how that looked:

No forests, but plenty of green sources.

We decided to do single-game rounds and were able to complete the round robin!  I was matched up first against an Izzet spellslinger deck.  They had an early strong combo going with Erudite Wizard and Furtive Analyst.  I flipped my Khenra Spellspear early and thought I was going to win off of the Spellstalker's swings.  I got a bit too bold and swung all out to put them at 11 while I was at 6.  I then played Dreamdew Entrancer to freeze and block.  Sadly, my opponent said no with Rewind.  0-1.

I love Rewind.  Sometimes.

Nevertheless, I felt good going into the second round, this time against a Jund player who was at their first draft.  This game was fast, because Gitaxian Spellstalker is real good.  My opponent was at 11, but I realized I could win off of the double-prowess triggers.  I played Imprisioned in the Moon, attacked, cast There // They're // Their to make the Spellstalker unblockable, then Crumb and Get It (without the gift, I think).  My opponent cast Savor to put it back to 9/9, but I had a final trick up my sleeve.

I did not bargain it.

Stonesplitter Bolt for zero put it back at 11/11 and hit for lethal.  1-1.

In the third round, I was up against a player running a synergistic Dune-Brood deck (the colors, not with the actual nephilim) they named "Lifegain Soup".  (I was the only one who went WUBRG.  I'm regaining my reputation.  They were close, though!) 

They also have very similar sleeves!

Their secret commander was Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer, the only red card in their deck.  I drafted a lot of removal, but had still built up quite the board as our game progressed.

Here's Rocco, searching up Fetid Gargantua.

Thankfully, my commander showed up for the first time.  Zada helped me block a big attack.

Pro: Angelic Intervention pumped my entire team.  Con: I couldn't rechoose the color for the copies.

I swung back the next turn with the combined power of They're (even though I only chose one creature: Zada) and Fists of Flame to win.  2-1.

Fists of Flame is in my Zada EDH deck.  Ignore the delicious smoky salsa.

I got cocky going into round 4 against a Golgari deck.  Once again there was a secret commander: Polukranos, Unchained.  

Um... hi.

I foolishly kept a six-land hand.  I had no answers to Polukranos, who ate me for dinner.  2-2.

In the fifth and final round, I played against an Esper deck with lots good value.  Zada showed up, but I had to throw her in the way during a big combat.  We had a few combats that acted like board sweeps, but they continued to outvalue me.  After the last one, they played High Fae Trickster at the end of my turn, then equipped and attacked on my turn for my death.  2-3.  This opponent ended up winning the draft on this win.

Creature + Aura + Equipment + Pumping Emblem = dead Kyle

This was such a fun draft and reminded me just how much I love chaos drafting!  I love getting to play a bunch of different people and see awesome combos across the board.  Not only combos, I love to see the creative things people pull off in their decks.  This night was no disappointment.

Happy Magicking!

Foundations Draft, Round 1 (WUBRG Drafting)

I made it to a Foundations draft at Intergalactic Plastic on Friday, my first one so far.  The set will be a part of standard for five years, so hopefully it won't be the last.  (I do expect people will get a bit tired of drafting it, but maybe it can cycle back through.)

I did not prepare at all, but when sitting down people told me about the gain land duals, and I grabbed a bunch of them.  There are some other great fixing support in the set.  Looking back, I should have paid better attention to what colors the duals I grabbed were covering.  Nevertheless, here's what I picked:

That's Empyrean Eagle hiding behind Perforating Artist.

There were so many cool cards that I wanted to cast.  I initially ran Genesis Wave and Ghalta, just hoping to make them happen.  The lands didn't really work with so many green pips (mana symbols), so I took them out over the first two rounds.  At the end of the three rounds, my deck looked like this:

There're still a lot of fun cards in there.  Unfortunately lots of foils too.

In the first round I was matched up against a Jeskai deck run by someone who often goes WUBRG.  This time they were running four copies of Think Twice!  I won game one because I got Extravagant Replication and was able to press on the gas with Perforating Artist.

 

Ragavan is a Perforating Artist copy.

The following two games were not as fruitful.  Genesis Wave and Ghalta got stuck in my hand and High Fae Trickster kept me always on the back foot while the Jeskai value engine did its thing.  0-1. 

In the second round, I was paired against a very aggressive Golgari deck.  In the first game I got pounded by a turn 5 Overrun.  I have lost many limited games to Overrun over the years, but they don't usually curve perfectly into turn 5.  

That 16 became a 1.

More often they happen on something like turn 7.  Which is what happened in game 2.  Oof!  I played well in both games, and I thought I could hold on in the second one, but they Exsanguinated me the next turn.  0-2.

In the third and final round, I was again facing a Golgari deck, this time against someone I don't think I've played before.  They got mana flooded in the first game, so I took that.  This was after taking a mulligan and using Evolving Wilds on turn 1.

 

My first time seeing this shortcut: bottom the land for the mulligan, but just keep it aside to fetch with the Evolving Wilds on turn 1 to avoid searching and reshuffling.

In the second game, they dropped a turn 3 Phyrexian Arena.  That really set the tone of the game.  I managed to draw enough removal (thanks, Incinerating Blast!) to stay in the game.  Perforating Artist, my MVP of the night, came in and I was ready to speed up the clock that Phyrexian Arena had put them on.

Late in game two.

Naturally, they sacrificed the Phyrexian Arena to the artist's raid trigger.  Oops!  Luckily, I drew into more removal and was able to win the game.  1-2.

Foundations draft takeaways:

• There are gain lands and plenty of other fixing support.  You can definitely go for WUBRG!  Do it!
  
• I shouldn't have tried to force Genesis Wave.  
• There are a lot of good fliers in this set.  

I feel like there's more I should have learned.  I really hope this format continues to be popular so I can get some more in.  I already heard some people say they were sick of it, so that may be wishful thinking.  

Happy Magicking!

Baldur's Gate Commander Draft #2

I got a four-person CL: Baldur's Gate Commander draft going today.  We decided to use the Wilderness dungeon, which is awesome.  We also decided to change the way we drafted.  Although we still made two picks when we first opened a pack, we only picked one card at a time after that instead of two.  (We did an extra 2HG game after the normal commander game.)

Why not Wilderness?

The drafting part did not go great for me.  I floundered on colors in the first pack.  At the beginning of the second pack I pulled Baba Lysaga and tried to go Golgari.  In pack three I counted my playable spells so far and realized that wasn't going to work.  Here were all my picks:

A late decision was made when I picked Rilsa Rael.

When I counted, I realized I didn't have enough cards.  In a Commander Draft, you want about 37 playable spells (including your command zone) to pair with 23 lands.  There's a real danger with drafting too many of the lands (mostly gates) that you might not be able to get enough spells to fill out that 37.  After my first five picks in pack 3, I had 22 in Golgari.  Despite the fact that I'd been drafting things to sacrifice to Baba Lysaga, I had to switch to Dimir.  I got lucky because I saw a bunch of blue coming around, but even then I was only barely able to get a deck.

 

I only managed 36 spells instead of 37.

 

I picked Rilsa Rael instead of a black/blue commander + blackground combo partly because Rilsa's mana value worked better with Cloudkill. 

 

My opponents were:

• To my left: Skanos Dragonheart with Agent of the Shadow Thieves. "Shadow Skanos".
• Across: Gut, True Soul Zealot with Noble Heritage.  "Noble Gut".
• To my right: Livaan, Cultist of Tiamat with Hardy Outlander.  "Livoutland".
  

Two other players were running green, that's why I couldn't make it happen.

Skanos got the start and things moved quickly.  I got Safana down on turn three, followed the next turn with Passageway Seer.  In between those turns, I had accepted Noble Gut's deal, so Safana had two +1/+1 counters.  I started the combat by attacking the Skanos player.  I got my initiative bonuses from Safana and the Seer and passed the turn.

I dealt first salsa blood.

I took the deal again on Noble Gut's fifth turn.  They wanted the Initiative, and Coronation of Chaos made them unable to block so Gut stole the initiative.  

Team goaded.

On my subsequent turn, I played my commander, Rilsa Rael, gave my Tymora's Invoker deathtouch so it would go unblocked and I could safely attack with my goaded creatures.  On the next turn, Shadow Skanos (their turn five) attacked me for 7 commander damage with all their buffs to take the Initiative.  I thought that was good, because then Noble Gut swung hard at them knocking them down to 14 with their growing army of skeletons and taking the Initiative themselves.  Livoutland continued to get some things out, but didn't have any big threats on the board yet. 

 

On their sixth turn, the Skanos player got out an enormous Ambitious Dragonborn and started challenging the Gut player as the archenemy.  On my sixth turn, I attacked Gut for a bunch and got the initiative yet again by playing Aarakocra Sneak.  I was charging through the Wilderness dungeon, hoping to get that sweet benefit of completion for my creatures.  This time I was at Grymforge, so I got to goad one creature each of my opponents controlled.  (I should have spent more time thinking about this.)  On their seventh turn, the Skanos player cast Giant Ankheg.  

That goaded token means they're going somewhere else.

Shadow Skanos came at me and this is where I made a misplay for the ages.  With all his buffs, Skanos was a 16/16 creature that now had trample.  I was at 7 Skanos commander damage.  I need to block at least three of that damage.

Chump blockers, I choose you!

Four toughness is enough to keep me alive, right?  Right?  

Nope!  Skanos had deathtouch as well from its shadowy background.  That means 14 damage is trampling over.  

First to draw blood and first to die.

21 commander damage exactly!  And the bloodbath continued!  On the very next turn, the Gut player swung out and killed the Skanos player.  Unfortunately, the Livaan player had taken the Noble Gut deal, so they couldn't respond by attacking back on their seventh turn.  They equipped Livoutland with Saddle of the Cavalier and played some other creatures.

The Gut player gathered their resources on their (eighth) turn, but couldn't win.  The Livaan player, however, had drawn to Two-Handed Axe and cast the Sweeping Cleave part to win in combat.

What a great game!

Since that had finished pretty quickly, we randomized teams and played a Two-Headed Giant game.  

I got teamed up with the Skanos who killed me. 

We were able to win without me even playing Rilsa Rael, because I got to play Juvenile Mist Dragon, locking down their creatures that were benefiting from Noble Gut's two +1/+1 counters that they were getting.  

 

Tap those big guys down!

When they tried to kill the dragon shortly thereafter, I had Blur ready to go.  Oops, locked down again!  They got their blockers untapped, but were down to 10.  I drew really well and Sea Hag's Aquatic Ingress got us in for the kill.

Yeah, Skanos was doing a lot of the damage.

We almost had time to do an Archenemy game, but it wasn't in the cards.  Nevertheless, this was a really fun draft.  There is a lot of breadth to the cards in Baldur's Gate and with the Choose a Background combinations, games are always very different.  I like chaotic things, but I am always excited to do a straight-up Baldur's Gate draft.

 

I have been brainstorming ideas for packs themed around the New Year.  I know that it's well past that holiday, but I haven't done a chaos draft in 2025 yet, so I'm reserving the right to celebrate that with a theme.  (I wish I had some Masters 25 packs!)

Happy Magicking!

Kaldheim Round 2 (WUBRG Drafting)

My FLGS (Friendly Local Gaming Store) just got new digs!  On New Year's Day, Intergalactic Plastic (IGP) moved to a new building a mile north of their previous location.

No visible street sign yet, but the window decorations are coming along!

They are great about mixing it up with old draft formats, but this one is real old!  It has been three-and-a-half years since I draft triple-Kaldheim at my makeup draft weekend.  This was very exciting!

There were nine people at the draft, and a lot of weird stuff kept coming around.  I very nearly picked multiple Demon Bolts, but in the end got none.  Nevertheless, I drafted a bunch of removal, though I didn't do a good job of being spread out among my colors.  Here's are all my picks:

At a glance, it looks like I drafted a bunch of White, but...

I also got (yet another) Aegar.  I don't know exactly why, but I really like him.  He was all over a bunch of my March of the Machines drafts.  Because of that, I definitely focused on giants, which paid off.  I wanted to run the Doomskar, but I just didn't have enough white to support a 2-pip spell.  Thankfully, Battle of Frost and Fire worked well as a boardwipe.  With all of the color-fixing snow lands I got, I felt pretty good.  However, another player pulled even better WUBRG stuff than I did and got both Esika and The World Tree.  (I am so jealous!)  Still, I was able to put together a good deck:

I didn't have the Waking the Trolls in there in the first round.

In the first round, I was matched up against someone who I'd lost to the last time I drafted at IGP.  This time they had an aggressive Mardu deck, but without many snow lands.  I lost the first game, but won the second.  

They did the thing!

The third game was really tight.  I had Tergrid's Lantern down and had two life while they were at four.  I had just enough mana to sacrifice Path to the World Tree, play a land I drew, and equip my new Bear token with the wings to be able to block the angel.  If I drew a land.

Here's the board right before I sacrificed the Path.

So, first I tapped the lantern.  (The bird died.)  Then I sacrificed the path and I drew... the only swamp in my deck.  (I already had the Shimmerdrift Vale producing black mana.)  My bear was able to block the angel, and on the next turn I tapped the lantern three times, getting them to discard both cards and sac the angel.  I won the following turn. 1-0.

In the second round, I was up against someone who had been playing since Thanksgiving!  They had a nice Bant deck and in the first game stopped me from awakening a bunch of trolls.

Sad!

I still won off of value, especially since I got to sacrifice Path to the World Tree again (third time of the draft).  In the second game, I had to use Search for Glory to tutor up a snow dual.  

Got that White mana-fixing.

I got some treasures off of Goldvein Pick and that allowed me to cast Tergrid front side, who led me to victory.  2-0.

The third round had me up against a tough Boros player.  I'm not really ready to deal with more aggressive decks!  I lost game one both because they had an awesome start and I kept a bad hand that didn't lead into anything.

Where's my red?  Could there be a downside to running five colors?

I got more aggressive with my hand in game two and mulled to five.  I got lucky and my opponent got mana flooded, so I got to get out of the gate even after being stuck on one land for two turns.  Battle of Frost and Fire completely turned the tide and I pulled out that game.  The mana problems continued in the third game.  My opponent mulled to five and got stuck on two lands.  I played a slow but strong game and won with the help of my fourth sacrificing of Path to the World Tree.  3-0.

This draft went really good, though there was a lot of luck involved.  Here's some thoughts in case Kaldheim ever comes up again:

• Grab those dual snow lands!  Mana fixing + snow is awesome.
• Horizon Seeker is great!  
• Ravenform is pretty good removal for big stuff.  
• There's lots of removal.  Grab it!
• The giants were really good.  With Basalt Ravager, it's really good.  Having all the changelings was really helpful too.
• I love drafting!

Happy Magicking!