I am obsessed with getting to as many Final Fantasy drafts as I can. This set is really fun for WUBRG drafting! (It's also easier for me to get out to things since it's the summer.)
Last night I traveled to Armada Games. They regularly hold Tuesday night drafts and Tuesday is different from Friday, so I made the trip. (There was a store near me in New Hampshire that had Sunday night drafts. I miss that. I wish FNM wasn't the default for drafts.)
This was also the first time I was at an event that used the Wizards Companion app in a few years, notably since I got a new phone last year. In the past it seemed to use a lot of RAM or something because switching between apps forced me to log in again. It works much better with a more modern phone. One thing I wasn't prepared for, though, was that end-of-round time wasn't called out; we were supposed to be watching the app.
We had 17 people, so we were put into two pods: 8 and 9. I was put into the 9-person pod. I figured that would be a slight advantage for me, given what I'm trying to do. As it turns out, I overdrafted lands! Somehow I got ten dual lands! I picked some of them over the land searchers, which I wish I could have reversed.
I pushed hard in the first pack to get as much fixing as possible. I reasoned that in later packs there would be better spells coming around as people were more slotted into their colors, so I could grab those then. I think I went a bit too hard, though. Here are all of my picks:
There is so much fixing in all of this:
- Ten lands, including Balamb, which was a fifth pick in that last pack!
- Sazh Katzroy helps with fixing (and is awesome).
- Fenrir, a good summon that I hadn't drafted before.
- Torgal, who I now get confused with Fenrir. (I get "Torgal, he's a very very very fine hound" in my head every time.)
- Four land cyclers
- Ignis Scientia, who I've had in all four of my limited decks now.
- Gladolus Amicitia, who is just a WUBRG bomb. He fixes your mana base and powers up multiple big attacks. The only downside is that he can't pump himself up. In this draft he wheeled after I first-picked Cecil. If I had been cognizant of just how good he was, I might have first-picked him instead. I got real lucky there.
- Vaan and Zell kinda help with fixing, but not a ton.
Unfortunately, notice the lack of removal I got. That would play a big part in how I did. Here's the deck I built:
This was the first time in a while where I made my initial want-to-play/probably-not-playing split only to find that I only had 22 cards and I had to add instead of cut. Also, after my tournament games, I made a quick change, swapping out the Cloudbound Moogle for Rydia's Return. I think that was the right choice because of how little white was in the deck. (If I wasn't strict about being WUBRG, I would have taken white out completely.)
In the first round I was paired against a real card-economical Orzhov deck. In the first game I got Torgal on turn two, Rydia on turn three, then Noctis on turn four, who immediately died to Overkill. I was still feeling real good until my opponent played Hecteyes and then bounced it with Ambrosia Whiteheart. This got me stuck at five mana including Torgal as I foolishly kept Sin in hand and discarded other cards, hoping to get those back later. I was able to get Vaan out, but they never connected. Then my opponent cast Fight On!
Two more cards are about to disappear from my hand.
In the second game I chose to draw to try to improve my land-chances. Unfortunately the other half of their economy plays came: Anima hit the board early and they drew into good stuff. I did get Sin out, but couldn't keep up with the removal. More Qiqirn Merchants would actually have helped a lot here, just because I had so many towns and needed cards bad. I had them down to 9 while I was at 27, but Squall came down and with the double-strike granting combined with Dark Knight's Greatsword, I couldn't get back into the game. 0-1.
In the second round I was up against Dune-Brood Legends, probably the closest to what I've been running of any deck I've seen. It was really cool because they were visiting for work from out of state and got lucky that there was a Tuesday-night draft available! They lacked the dual lands, however, and ran 19 lands in the deck to compensate. In the first game they got completely flooded, playing land each of the first nine turns. Sin came down and got there, even with a piddly little graveyard.
In the second game, I had a quick start: turn three Fenrir into turn four Vaan (plus a counter). My opponent got stuck on four lands, which sucks extra since they were running so much! I kept up the pressure with Torgal followed by Gladiolus, who let Vaan trample in for damage. (I kept flipping lands off of their library, though.) I was able to win again off of the value. 1-1.
At this point, I figured I should double-check my sideboard for cards I might want to run and decided to swap in Rydia's Return for the Cloudbound Moogle. Then the round ended and I checked my phone. I got the bye for round three. This is a bummer for me because I love playing. I would rather play a round and lose than get the bye. The other pod also had a bye, but that person was leaving so we didn't play.
However, another pair finished early, so I asked whether either of them would want to play. One of them immediately agreed (they had gone 2-1) so I got an exhibition game in! Sweet! The deck they were running was an absolutely brutal Golgari landfall deck. They had so many bombs, including Ride the Shoopuf, Summon: Titan, and Tifa. I got some Balamb T-Rexaurs down early thanks to Torgal, and pushed my opponent down to four (while being over twenty myself) before they stabilized and started getting their own beefy creatures down.
I tried to break the stalemate after getting Omega, but they played two combat tricks and turned that into a one-sided beating. I got real lucky after I pulled Rydia's Return and brought Omega back to tap down the giant-sized Sazh's Chocobo with seven stun counters. I was able to swing in and win a few turns later. I was certain I was going to lose this game once the balance of board power swung out of my hands.
1-1 puts my overall Final Fantasy record at 8-2. I really hope I get to make it to more of these before the format rotates, because this set is so fun.
Happy Magicking!
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