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!
