I ran a repack draft last night. These are packs of cards I've created from cards that have been donated to me. (Thank you to everyone who donated cards to me for this!) I mostly use these in free drafts for students. This year I got a huge donation of cards, many of which were from Battle for Zendikar. That became pretty relevant.
Last night we had ten players! I think that many were first time drafters. A few maybe hadn't played magic before. A bunch of people only played one round and then bounced. The drafting part got a big bogged down but on the whole I think people had fun. (I hope they did!) Even though we had an even number of players, we decided to play single game rounds (with a free first mulligan) with the goal of getting people matched up against as many different opponents as possible.
At one point in pack two, Zone Drafting wasn't happening and I suddenly learned that there was one zone with a lot of packs (at least four). They were definitely not getting passed in order. I intervened and tried to reorder the packs as they were coming around and I managed to reorganize things as they came to me just a few people later, but there should be an asterisk the size of Arkansas as far as drawing any conclusions from this draft. (The actual lesson is that I should have enforced the randomization of seating.)
I drafted between two of my students who have attended many of these events. They claimed that they were hate drafting against me, specifically the seasoned player to my right, but I still made it happen. Here's everything I picked:
The number of WUBRG payoffs here is crazy. Four Sunburst cards (three Infused Arrows and one Opaline Bracers) and three Converge cards (two Skyrider Elves and one Brilliant Spectrum). I even passed a Suntouched Myr that came around late. I also had plenty of dual lands. (I put a non-basic land in each pack as part of my recipe because I have a lot of donated lands.) Here's the deck I built:
Since many people left after their first game, I was only able to get four games in. In the first round I was up against a player running a nifty Mardu deck. There was actually another student who wanted to learn to play, so I let them play the deck while I gave some direction. We mulliganed twice, then kept a hand that was flooded. (Out opponent was stuck on Rakdos for most of the game.) It still led to a turn five full-strength Infused Arrows that kept the board clear. Our turn seven Boros Battleshaper got nixed by a Daring Demolition, but that meant the turn eight Vengeant Vampire got to stick around. On turn nine we slapped Vulshok Battlegear onto it and the beatdown began. It took a long time to deal the final damage, but we pulled it off. 1-0.
In the second round I was matched up against the student who had been sitting to my left in the draft. They were running a swift Naya deck. I got stuck on Jeskai lands. (Apparently there's a downside to running five colors!) I did get two Infused Arrows and the Opaline Bracers down, but then I got stuck without being able to play any of my green and black creatures while a single Wild Celebrants knocked out my life total in four turns. 1-1.
In my third round I faced off against an aggressive Orzhov deck. I drew mad gas with a turn four full Inspired Arrows, a turn six Soul of Innistrad, and a turn eight Boros Battleshaper. It was pretty brutal. 2-1.
In my final round, my opponent was the player who drafted on my right. They were running a Grixis Eldrazi deck. (If they're running a ton of huge creatures, does that counts as "control"?) They actually started their pack-one-pick-one with Shire Scarecrow in an effort to hate draft against me.
In the game I got an early full Infused Arrows, but they destroyed my only green source with a Violent Impact. (I'm weak against Land Destruction-type Pokemon.) I got a full Opaline Bracers and the Vulshok Battlegear down and was punching in with my Wasteland Scorpion and then with a Coalition Honor Guard. My opponent was stuck on seven land, then got eight and dropped Eldrazi Devastator. Thankfully it had to block my 9/9 equipped Scorpion in order for them to stay alive. Soon after they played out a bunch of little Eldrazis.
We continued to play out creatures while I swung with one big beatstick at a time, trying to keep the scales tilted in my favor. I got a flyer, Shoreline Ranger, and stacked it up with the equipment. I didn't have to spend a turn fighting through the flying blocker, however, because I drew Boros Battleshaper the next turn and told the Gravity Negator to stand down. 3-1.
I had a great time. People really hated seeing the Infused Arrows come down, and I don't know that anyone realized I got three of them during the draft. I hope I can do another of these before too long! Happy Magicking!
