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