Saturday, June 21, 2025

Final Fantasy Draft 4 (WUBRG Drafting)

It's getting difficult to find stores that still have Final Fantasy packs for drafts.  For those of you reading in the future, this set is selling like hotcakes.  There is the expectation that there will be another big shipment to distributors sometime in July, which is at least a week away.  I looked into going to multiple places for a draft yesterday, but most stores are sold out and are drafting other things.  

I am on a mission to do Final Fantasy drafts.  For me, this set is so fun.  I hope that's enough justification to tell you that I turned down two chaos drafts yesterday.  I avoided both one at a new store one at my normal FLGS, Intergalactic Plastic.  It feels like cheating, both on the store and my love of chaos drafting.

"I'm on a Final Fantasy Walkabout right now, Liz."

So hopefully, dear reader, you and my friends at IGP can forgive me this transgression as I continue to be entranced by the allure of this set.

I knew that Armada Games would still have packs as they had announced that they had enough for over 30 people at the end of Tuesday's draft.  So, I made the trip over there again last night.

I don't know exactly how many people there were in total, but it was around 16.  I went into a pod of eight and got to drafting.  

This is perhaps my worst Final Fantasy draft performance, but with what might be the best story so far.  Before I get into the details, and without giving away the tale, I need to point out that the premiere WUBRG payoff card of this set is The Wandering Minstrel.  Opening that card is the dream and would make me feel great just like drafting Chromanticore did back in Theros block.  It could even get passed in a late pack after people were clearly not in five colors.  Fourth draft could really be time for a payoff.

The first pack was terrifying.  I only had one land and two land cyclers until I was passed an Ice Flan at the very end.  It may not seem like much, but that did calm me down quite a bit.  Here are all my picks:

Nice job on centering the shot, Kyle.


The second pack was all bombs and fixing, amazing.  One thing I noticed is the lack of multi-fixing packs this time.  Nerve-wracking, but totally fine as I got to a much better balance.  The Diamond Weapon put me back on the self-mill plan, though I didn't draft much to complement that aside from the Cloud of Darkness I'd already taken.  I got greedy on the third pack, taking The Water Crystal and Edgar, not expecting to actually run either of them.  Nevertheless, had more removal going than last time.  Also of note, this was my first limited Final Fantasy event without Ignis Scientia!

Here's the deck I built: 

Look at that pile of six-drops.

 

You may have some right to criticize me here for straying from my WUBRGiness, as the only white card that remained was Cloudbound Moogle.  I did cast it, however, so I think I'm still adhering to both the spirit and mission of playing five colors.

As we were building decks, the person furthest from me in the pod was showing off their nasty Boros equipment build.  Then we played.  In the first game, they killed me in seven turns.  I didn't have any good plays until turn six, and by then Giott had swung a bunch and earned a ton of card advantage.  In the second game, let me just say that Lightning is a good card.  They killed me on turn six.

Zack Fair saved Lightning from Firaga.

My opponent was wicked nice and agreed to two more bonus games.  I died in both of them.  In the last one I lasted long enough to get Omega down, which they Ultima'ed.  Even worse: I went first in all four of those games.  What a deck!  They hadn't been able to get any mana fixing, but it didn't matter as they went undefeated in our pod.  0-1. 

For the second round, I was paired up against the drafter who had been sitting to my right.  On turn two of the first game, they played The Wandering Minstrel.  My jaw hit the floor.  In the first or second pick of pack one, they'd got the Minstrel.  Then they ran WUBRG.  Sitting on the worst side for me.  No wonder I only got one land that whole pack!  They were living the dream!  And then...

They got a second Minstrel in pack three.

I immediately expressed my jealousy (hopefully in a pleasant way).  I actually could not believe how lucky I was; I had somehow drafted a good amount of mana fixing in a deck while the player to my right was on the WUBRG strategy and smartly took a lot of fixing as well.  (Even though it was their first time drafting five colors!)  

Back to the match... they were heavily green focused, with Goobbue Gardener, Balamb T-Rexaur, Prishe's Wanderings, Reach the Horizon, and seven towns.  Ramping for days.  As the first game continued, my opponent got stuck one mana off from activating the Minstrel and I was able to outlast and win with a lot of help from Clive.  In the second game, they ramped into a turn four T-Rexaur.

The ramp is real.

Thankfully I had a Sephiroth's Intervention ready to go on my turn.  They responded by playing the Minstrel next turn, followed by a Jumbo Cactuar the next turn.  Still on their turn, I had Lunatic Pandora in play, five lands, a Malboro, Diamond Weapon (with no permanents in the yard), and a comes-into-play-tapped town in my hand.  I needed a basic to pop the Pandora on their turn, but I didn't want to pitch the Malboro.  I surveiled away a T-Rexaur (noooo) so then swampcycled the Malboro.  And then I drew into Overkill.  

Pictured: a 10,000/-9992 creature.

The next turn I had enough for the Diamond Weapon.  "I have one of those." my opponent said.  What was going on with this draft?

Theirs never showed up and my Diamond weapon was enough to win the game.  I was very effusive to my opponent about how crazy this was.  I know I was in a good mood because I won, but I really want to think that if I hadn't pulled off a victory, I would have been acting the same way.  1-1.

In the third round I was up against... Boros Equipment.  Thankfully this deck wasn't as brutal as my first round, though they had some great late game cards.  They played their own Clive, which met with Sephiroth's Intervention.  Not only did they have one, there was apparently a third Clive opened in our little pod of eight.  What a crazy draft!  I can't believe this all happened-... No, no more sidetracks.  Stick to the match.  They got down Item Shopkeep with Warrior's Sword and I couldn't come up with enough blockers to stay alive.  I played a last-chance Random Encounter and didn't get to win.  (I might have scooped too early and should have played it out.  Oof.)  In game two, I had a well-timed Firaga that wiped their board.  After that, they got mana flooded while I got in with Hill Gigas to win.  In the third game, they turned on the jets and raced in.  I got Black Waltz No. 3 down, but that wasn't enough to keep me in the game.  1-2.

We're not entirely done, though!  My round two opponent had drawn the bye that final round, but wanted to play more.  I gladly took them up on it!  (Seriously, if you see me at a draft and want to try to squeeze in some exhibition games, please ask me!)  We played two more bonus games.  I won both, but the second game game close, as they got the Minstrel on turn two, then Bard's Bow turn three.  I got stuck without any quick cards, but they were not fast enough before I was able to stabilize.  Omega got down and that saved the day.  I love this attitude from them, though, because they were as undeterred as I am when losing a bunch.  I'm really glad that I got to play eleven games with my deck!

I do have some new thoughts:

  • Qiqirn Merchant would have gone a long way.  It blocks and then powers some great draw.
  • I never cast Travel the Overworld.  I either didn't have the two blue or I needed to spend my mana on creatures that turn.  I don't know whether I would draft this highly again, especially if I'm so low on blue like I was.
  • Even though I went 1-2, I actually think this set is better for WUBRG than I previously thought.  Pro-side evidence: two people were able to draft five colors with competent mana bases.  Con-side: Neither of us won a match against someone not running WUBRG.  I definitely see opinions on both sides of this.  It's not the same as in Ravnica Allegiance where I was competing with someone else going WUBRG in a pod of six and still won the draft, but it's way better than trying to do this before dual lands were common in packs. 

That's enough to say that if you're WUBRG drafting and think someone else at the table might be doing the same thing, you don't have to give up right away!  Whatever you're running, Happy Magicking!

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