On my last free Friday of the summer I trekked up to Krum's World to do one more of their multiplayer drafts! I didn't see the event listed on Wizards Locator, but it was on their calendar. I called them and they said they were running both the 1pm and 4pm events, so I showed up. (I could only stay for the first one.) I expected another chaos draft, but this time it was all Edge of Eternities.
We had eight people (we waited a bit after 1pm and got more people, which was good) and got to drafting. I didn't expect to get as good of a pool as I did in my first Edge of Eternities draft, but I got really nervous in pack one when I had a hard time getting lander-generating cards. In pack two, I made a big drafting error. I made my first pick (a foil Seedship Agrarian) and put it on top of the first pack passed to me instead of in my pool.
- I did put my first-pack token on top of my first-pack picks to delineate between the packs. This makes it easier on me later to take the picture of all of my pics, divided by pack. When I glanced at that pile with the token, I must have thought it was just one or more tokens, not my cards.
- I don't know why I didn't put my first-pack picks directly in front of me like I normally do. They were off to my left a little bit, towards the (relative) northwest corner of my space.
- This was entirely my own fault. In the end there was some redistribution of cards because of some other draft errors (we were not zone drafting). Someone asked how many cards I had and I said 41. (This is when I figured out the mistake.) I explained that it was my own fault!
When I picked up that pack passed to me, I even thought to myself, "Wow, another foil Seedship Agrarian!" I then picked a different card from that pack (Glacier Godmaw) and kept on drafting, oblivious to my own mistake. I grabbed another (but not another) Agrarian on the third pick, and I can tell you that it is an amazing card. I need to be more careful!
- I've got to keep my picks directly in front of me, not off to a side.
- I should consider putting that token at a 90-degree angle or something initially.
In the third pack I remembered that we weren't playing duels and late-grabbed two Brightspear Zealots. (Necessary mantra: "Vigilance is great in multiplayer. Vigilance is great in multiplayer. ...") Here's everything I drafted that actually made it into my pool:
My pool was very green-heavy, but I managed a good mana base. Landers really make it work! Here's the deck I built:
After deck building, we randomized two 4-player pods and got into our games with a promo pack as the spoils for each winner. Here we start with 30 life each, which is quite a lot. Among a more experienced group, I would recommend 20 life instead, but there were a bunch of new players, so maybe having extra life made the game more meaningful. I'm not certain!
When we sat down I realized other decks were much bigger than mine. I checked to make certain it wasn't supposed to be 60 and 40 cards was fine. I think two players were running over 60 and the third had about 45 cards.
In my group the turn order was player A (also WUBRG, 60-ish cards), player B (Rakdos, 45-ish cards), me, and player D (Grixis, 60-ish cards).
The game started slow. On my third turn I played my first of the Brightspear Zealots. I attacked with it every turn I could safely get in, which may have been a bit more aggressive than people were used to.
In turn four, A had to temporarily steal B's All-Fates Scroll in order to get access to white mana. B followed up by playing a Virus Beetle. I discarded a forest, the last land in my hand.
I hate that Virus Beetle.
Thankfully I drew into my Larval Scoutlander and started ramping. On my fifth turn, my Seedship Agrarian came down and I tapped it to station the Scoutlander, generating a lander token. The ramp was going strong and my Agrarian was seen as the biggest baddie on the board, especially after I popped two landers on the next turn and it became a 6/6. I had was quickly gaining archenemy status.
On D's sixth turn, they cast Cryoshatter on my Agrarian. That was fine:
- My archenemy status was immediately dispelled,
- No one wanted to attack into my big creature that I supposedly didn't care about, and
- I was holding on to my Glacier Godmaw. If I gave everything vigilance and trample, my Agrarian could still be relevant in an attack.
On my seventh turn, I played my second Zealot. This helped in my politicking in future turns, as I was able to attack two people with one each, which looked less like I was targeting one player. I did try to actively try to attack the opponent with the highest life total, but that didn't always work. Instead the big bad had become A's Gravblade Heavy, which had the bonus to make it a 4/4 Deathtoucher. This became the center of a tough rules moment when B sacrificed their Thaumaton Torpedo to kill the Gravblade Heavy. Player A responded by casting Drill Too Deep towards the torpedo.
This doesn't work and in the end the correct ruling was made. (If you want to skip past how the discussion went down, jump to "Back to the game!" below.) There was some back and forth and then the player tried to argue that they would cast Drill Too Deep on the All-Fates Scroll instead. That also doesn't work. For thoroughness, let me explain, putting things in the correct sequence of how they happen.
- Player B can either tap things for mana beforehand or first declare they're using the Torpedo's ability. (When they announce the ability, they also declare the target, the Gravblade Heavy.) If they declare the ability first, then the next thing for them to do is pay all costs.
- If they tap the Scroll for mana first, since it generates mana, it is a mana ability, which cannot be responded to. If they do it after, then they're tapping it while paying costs, so it can't be responded to then either.
- Sacrificing the Torpedo is part of the cost, not the resolution of the ability. Before A has the chance to do anything, it's in the graveyard.
- The ability goes on the stack (targeting the Heavy) and now B can respond.
That means:
- You can't prevent a spell from being cast by disrupting the spell's mana once it's been cast. (Even way back you couldn't effectively counter a spell with Mana Short or prevent a land from being tapped for mana with Twiddle. This was part of the difference between Instants and Interrupts before the Sixth Edition rules update.)
- Costs are paid before the ability is fully on the stack. The act of paying them itself doesn't go on the stack.
- You can't prevent something from being sacrificed by destroying it once the sacrifice has already happened.
- You can't counter effects by destroying their source. Even if sacrificing the Torpedo wasn't part of the cost, the ability is still on the stack and will resolve, killing the Heavy.
Technically, Player A couldn't even target the Torpedo because it was off the board before they had a chance to respond. The correct thing to do was to have them return the spell to their hand, uncast. The conversation grew heated and I'm not sure I handled it well. There was no official judge at the event. A player from the other pod got called over to handle it (which is good) but things still nearly went the wrong way.
I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but I really didn't want the incorrect ruling to happen here. When the topic shifted to destroying the Scroll instead of the Torpedo, I mentioned the instant/interrupt thing. The card/ability type Mana Source got brought up and I said that that hasn't been a type since about Urza's Saga block. I still feel iffy about the whole thing. I kept my cool and didn't back down. There was no moment of "this is the ruling" from the de facto judge but the correct procedure happened as a matter of general agreement. Nevertheless, I am very concerned about the aftereffects of these kinds of moments. I'm not just worried about getting the wrong ruling; I've accepted incorrect rulings on many occasions. I'm worried about negative effects from explaining my understanding of the rules. I really hope I didn't come across as annoying to the group!
Back to the game!
On the eighth turn I powered up my Scoutlander, which was seen as a big threat because it drew the second Gravkill of the game. Around this point I was the first to fall under nine. Soon after, A's Susurian Dirgecraft attacked me and I had to spend my own Gravkill to dispatch it. I don't draft as much one-time removal in these multiplayer games, so I really wanted to save it longer. On the ninth turn, however, I played Exalted Sunborn. I mentioned that I didn't have any token generation, and it went a bit under the radar until I swung with it the next turn and went back to 13 life, at which point my opponents knew it would be trouble. A spent the next bunch of turns tapping it down with Starport Security.
At this point, players A and D were both hellbent. On my next turn I drew Exosuit Savior and cast it, bouncing the afflicted Seedship Agrarian. The Savior got removed almost immediately, but at least I got the Agrarian back on the board.
On turn 12, A got a nice combo. They had generated some Munitions with Weapons Manufacturing since the early game, but didn't have any way to sacrifice them.
This helped power up the Starport Security as well, and tapping down my Exalted Sunborn got cheaper for them. I kept attacking in little bits where I could. Again, the two Zealots were awesome with their vigilance. On turn 13 I cast Starfield Shepherd and got my Edge Rover. (I was out of plains.) Everyone was excited for the rover to die, but I held it as a chump blocker and I think it lasted to the end of the game.
On their fourteenth turn, player B cast Temporal Intervention on A, who responded with Gravkill (the fourth!) on B's Kav Landseeker. This was a bigger deal than it seems because that opened B up to attack and if the Temporal Intervention had hit me, I would have had to discard my Glacier Godmaw. On my turn, I swung at B with the Agrarian and the Starfield Shepherd, the latter of which died immediately to Invasive Maneuvers. They survived still having the
On my fifteenth turn I decided it was time to finally play the Godmaw. I got the landfall trigger and swung in. They went from 15 to 4, but double blocked the Godmaw and killed it.
That must have knocked me off the archenemy dias, because on their next turn B cast Nebula Dragon and took out A's Insatiable Skittermaw before it could grow. On my turn I played Pull Through the Weft on my Godmaw and Intrepid Tenderfoot, casting the second of those. D, who had been at five life for a while and without a board, cast Perigee Beckoner, suddenly one of the biggest creatures.
On turn 17, the life totals were A: 15, B: 5, Me: 9, and D: 5. A forced me to discard (I don't recall how) and I had to pitch the Godmaw. They, however, left my Exalted Sunborn untapped, so I swung it at B to put them to 1, then powered up my Tenderfoot. D followed that up by attacking B to kill them and playing out Mouth of the Storm.
On my eighteenth turn, I drew Shattered Wings, and took down the Mouth of the Storm. This was enough for my oppoonents to scoop.
What a game! I was really excited that all four players lasted until the last two turns and that the balance of power went back and forth a bunch. Of course, it's just a blast in general to draft for multiplayer and this was great. I'm bummed that this store is so far from me because the games have been great. If this is the kind of thing you enjoy too, I hope you can make the trip there sometime.
As always, Happy Magicking!
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