Chaos Mutates an Army (WUBRG Drafting)

Last night we did a quick little chaos draft with six people.  We got started late so I only got two rounds in.  Tarkir: Dragonstorm just came out, so that was the desired pack this time around, though there was still lots of Aetherdrift.

I would claim to be the most chaotic, but Ikoria, LotR, New Capenna is actually back in my rut.

The drafting part was quite fun, but I thought I'd drafted more lands than I had.  My manabase was not good.  Here were my picks:

My WUBRG rival, seated to my left, got more lands than me.  I passed them to them!  What was I thinking?

I almost turned down the Cubwarden, but then decided to draft it and hope that the Migratory Greathorn would table, which it did.  I never got them out together, but Cubwarden turned out to work great on its own nonetheless!

From those picks, I built this deck:

Scary Alien Card is scary to me.

We only got two rounds in because we'd started a bit late.  (We probably should have done best-of-1 rounds instead of best-of-three.  Or we should have Emperor Drafted.  Maybe that second one.)  In the first round, I was up against a brutal Abzan deck with lots of fighting and not-fighting (e.g. Cosmic Hunger).  I squeaked out the first game by decimating all the creatures with removal.  In the second game, my opponent had a turn three Regal Imperiosaur, which I was lucky enough to Cut Short.  Later on, I mutated Cubwarden on top of my 2/2 Orc Army from Swarming of Moria.  That essentially just replaced the token with the Cubwarden, +1/+1 counters and all, while still getting the tokens off the trigger.  That was just about all I had going my way and succumbed later to the onslaught of beaters.  In game 3, their Synchronized Charge had me taking 10 damage in two consecutive turns.  0-1

And Aggressive Negotiations took away my Bedhead Beastie! 

In the second (and my final) round, I was once again up against my WUBRG rival, still on a quest to finally win against me.  My Barrensteppe Siege showed up here and I played it well.  In the first game it worked well with Ledger Shredder, but Cubwarden stole the show (again) after I mutated (again) it onto the Orc Army token (again) from Swarming of Moria.  I won that first game as the Siege kept buffing the cats.  This game took a long time as we were both above 30 life at different points.  In the second game we both pulled off natural turn five WUBRG lands!  I got good value out of Gitaxian Spellstalker, but then I felt like I was playing against one of my own draft decks as Zada and Radha hit the board.  I got rid of Radha, but then lost to Pedal to the Metal on Zada and copied on Hyrax Tower Scout.  In game 3, Zada and Radha came down together again.  At the end of the game, I was at 11 and they both swung.  I had just played my first red land and had Bedhead Beastie in hand, with Mardu Devotee to get that second red mana.  Unfortunately, that red land was tapped, so I had to wait and hope the devotee would survive a turn.  The pair of legends attacked, Radha gave Zada +4/+4, and I chose not to block to go to 1.  Except instead my opponent played Raking Claws.

How about 20 damage instead?

That was all she wrote.  0-2.  More import than my record this night, after ten or so attempts, my WUBRG rival had finally defeated me in a match.  My streak was done.  In the last month before they graduate and move away, at maybe the last draft they'll ever have with me, they finally defeated me.  They've been trying and trying and trying, making sure to play me in each event, often delaying it to the last match of the night for extra emphasis.  Now it is complete.

Now they can go forth and draft WUBRG with a whole new group of players! 

This draft was great.  I didn't do well, but that means only one thing: I want to draft again!  No matter what, Happy Magicking!  

Repack Draft #(n+9): Tim Team (WUBRG Drafting)

I held a repack draft on the last Saturday in March.  It happened with short notice, but we had four and that's enough to draft.

Although there wasn't amazing Sunburst cards like last time, I saw a bunch of pinging Tim-type creatures come by, so I grabbed them: Spikeshot Goblin, Crossbow Infantry, Vithian Stinger, Flamewright and Viridian Longbow all found their way into my pile.  Here were all of my picks:

I don't remember what was in that second pack that got me to first-pick a land.

Here's the deck I put together from all that:

I wanted to run the 2/2s with protection (e.g. Yavimaya Barbarian) but had to cut them both.

We played best-of-three rounds.  In the first round I was matched up against a first-time drafter running a slick Orzhov deck.  Spikeshot Goblin was the MVP here, especially since I got it equipped with Goldvein Pick in both games.  In the second game I had it out on turn 5 while my opponent was mana screwed.  Two points of repeatable direct damage was too much for them to overcome and I won both games.  1-0.

In the second round I was paired up against my WUBRG rival, against whom I was undefeated.  The first game was very tough.  I took out their Gold Myr with my Spikeshot friend, but they returned the favor by using Dire-Strain Rampage on my Unknown Shores.  That was followed up with Drain the Well on my Orzhov Guildgate.  I won the game with only four land out.  In the second game, they cursed my Moonstone Harbinger with Morgul-Knife Wound, but I kept it around because I'd made it an archer.

Pew pew deathtouch arrows!

I got Relic Sloth out, which was enough to race the wound damage.  My rival was forced to Decommission my longbow, but I still beat them.  This was my first game without the Spikeshot Goblin, but the win was more due to the fact that my opponent had a hand of blue cards without blue sources.  2-0  My undefeated streak continues!

My third round opponent was on Bant, with a bit of mill power with Drowned Secrets.  In the first game their Sludge Monster threatened to give me a bad day, but I drew into Command the Storm.  Relic Sloth became the big creature to beat and won the game.  In the second game, Spikeshot came up big again, controlling the board until Relic Sloth could win it again for me.  3-0.

Others may make fun of me for how much I draft Razorfin Hunter, but Tims are great in draft!  I got lucky and my opponents played into things a bit, but this deck still felt really strong.  I'm not sure whether I'm just good at drafting from these weak "packs" or whether the set of cards I pull them from is biased in my favor.  In any case, it was really fun!  Happy Magicking!