I got a wacky draft going this week with three friends. I didn't do well, but I had an absolute blast. Here's what we all opened:
The blister-packed Edge of Eternities pack is something I picked up at GameStop to spend my monthly membership cash. This might be my favorite part of wacky drafting: using random boosters you collect on your travels that otherwise would just be opened alone. Of course this means that I just never open draftable boosters without being a part of some magic-playing activity.
Back to the action! Right before we started, one of the players mentioned that I was going to have a hard time going WUBRG with only four of us. They weren't wrong, so I drafted mana fixing highly. This cost me in value in other cards, but it worked out. One interesting thing we did during the draft was allow one player to "buy out" their pack after they opened four rare/mythics in their pack. This let them keep those cards and open a new pack for the draft. I'm not sure exactly what the rules should be for this practice, but I'm very interested in avoiding feel-bad situations based on opening extreme value in packs. (I first heard of this practice for the Journey to Nyx "God Packs" which contained one of each of the god cards from the block. Here's a Reddit comment of someone who saw one opened during a draft. My local store at the time, Game On Cafe, said they would let drafters buy out if they opened one.)
With mana-fixing high in my mind, here's what I picked:
There are a few combo pieces going on in here. Fang-Druid Summoner tutors up Caelorna and Quakestrider Ceratops, while Wispdrinker Vampire triggers on the many little creatures I pulled, as well as the disguised Branch of Vitu-Ghazi. There's also some clue-synergy with Rope, Magnifying Glass, and Curious Cadaver. Here's the deck I put together:
We had decided to play best-of-three rounds and try to finish the round robin. I got to work against an often-Witch-Maw player who built a great Jeskai Horse ("Jequestrian"?) deck this time. Before we started slinging spells, I mulliganed three times, getting one land in all four hand attempts. At this point I was reminded of a story I heard of a player mulliganing to zero in game one. (I think I read about it in an old magicthegathering.com article, but I couldn't find that. I did find a mention of it on an old MTG Salvation post.) I kept the hand of four and got lucky enough to draw lands on turns two and three, keeping me in the game. My opponent got an early Captain Howler, which I managed to kill in combat. I made a big strategical error, however, and with Colos Landscraper and Topiary Panther in hand (but no Forests) I cycled the Colos to find a non-Forest basic land, hoping I would draw into some green sources. I paid for my hubris by drawing multiple green cards in a row and lost the game.
In the second game, I wised up and kept a five-land hand. Then I proceeded to draw four lands in a row. My opponent started up a combo draw engine with Vnwxt and Prince Imrahil.
I did manage a turn-five Serra Angel, but I had to trade with Shadowfax as I was low on life. I kept the game going long enough to use the Fang-Druid Summoner to find the Quakestrider Ceratops. I thought I might be able to pull it off, but my enormous dino died to a Guardian Sunmare with Sure Strike. 0-1.
In round two, I faced "Mysterious Grixis Creatures". In the first game my opponent was stuck on four land while I got my Topiary Panther out with Rope attached, which got the job done. In game two, however, my opponent lived up to their name and had three mysterious face-down creatures on the board at once, one with the help of Cryptic Coat. I got the Summon-the-Ceratops combo again, but it was too late.
There were too many mysterious Grixians and the local police made us pause our game so they could investigate the situation. (Actually, the other pair had finished their round and my last opponent had an early morning, so we switched off so my last opponent could get on their way.)
That final opponent was running "Bad Rakdos" ("Badkos"? No.) I got stuck on three land with three 6-mana-value creatures in my hand. My opponent had Vermin Gorger and was tapping it whenever one of their creatures chump-blocked. On my last attack, however, they didn't do it and let their blocker die from beatdown. Why wouldn't they put me from ten to eight?
You guessed it; they untapped and cast Hidetsugu's Second Rite. I can't remember the last time I lost a limited game to that card! Is this the first?
In game two, I nearly won via poison. (I wish I'd had the Urban Daggertooth in my deck!) Virulent Silencer hit four times, but didn't connect a fifth time. I got the Ceratops and Serra Angel, but my opponent played their other big bomb: Vein Ripper. I killed it with the angel equipped with Rope, but that combat completely flipped the life totals and couldn't stay alive. 0-2.
The cops released my round-two enemy and we sat down for our final game. The boards bogged down early, though the life totals went down as we both had the same ETB damage trigger: me with Warleader's Call and my opponent with Weftstalker Ardent. In total we had four mysterious creatures on the field at once. (I had one.) My Serra Angel died to Blood Curdle. We were each under five life and I got the Ceratops on the board, followed by Aragorn, Company Leader, but I couldn't stop the flyers. 0-3.
I know I didn't do well, but this deck was wildly fun to play. Dropping a 12/8 that I'd tutored up was hilarious. I love playing with land-cycling creatures. Even in the face of a winless record, I still enjoy seeing what I can do with the cards I'd drafted, especially after going all five colors. I'm sure that's not for everyone, but I highly recommend you try it.
No matter how you like to play, Happy Magicking!
No comments:
Post a Comment