On Monday I got four friends at a draft and we decided to wacky draft into a game of Cutthroat Star. We opened a good variety of packs with a bunch of Aetherdrift:
The weather finally just got a bit cold here, so I went for a fall theme. Bloomburrow because the art depicts a lot of autumn style colors, Final Fantasy because its the end of the warm weather (that's a stretch), and Journey to Nyx because we have journeyed into the dark part of the year. That one's a bit of a stretch too.
Historical note: with the advent of Play Boosters, draft pack prices are higher. The days of $3.50 packs may have come to an end, sadly. The price of a chaos draft with friends is more likely to be $15 instead of $10. I am bummed about that.
I opened a Fecund Greenshell in my first pack and decided to draft for a big butt tribe. I did pretty good with that, actually! In my second pack, I opened Joshua and Balamb Garden, SeeD Academy. I drafted Joshua instead of the land because I wanted to have enough actual win conditions, but I don't know whether that was the wrong pick. Here are all my picks:
Oviya, Automech Artisan actually works great here. Because of the way teams work in Star, all creatures had trample while attacking except for my two opponents. That was a delightful pull.
I did have plenty of land and built a pretty good deck. Here's what was in that:
We kept the seats we drafted in so that we were seated next to our opponents. My left-hand opponent was on Rakdos, on the other side of them was a Simic teammate. My other teammate was playing Yore-Tiller (everything but green) and my right-hand opponent was on Witch-Maw (everything but red).
I won the roll and went first, starting off with a Wind-Scarred Crag. My Rakdos opponent played a Snarling Gorehound, getting the evasive creatures started right off.
Round two included an Ankle Biter for my Simic teammate and Jeskai Devotee for the Yore-Tiller.
In the third round of turns, I got Rufus Shinra out. My Rakdos opponent played Ahriman, but my Simic teammate had the biggest play with Warden of the Grove.
I got in with Rufus Shinra on my next turn. The Ahriman turned down the trade and both of my opponents took two damage from the cutthroat rule. The Rakdos player got down a Boneyard Desecrator, and the Yore-Tiller teammate saw the trouble in Warden of the Grove and sadly shut that down with White Auracite. My Witch-Maw opponent had built up a bunch of little creatures and swung in with their Dragoon's Wyvern, which I threw my Perimeter Enforcer at for the trade.
On my fifth turn, I played down Oviya. The table had a quick discussion of when it worked, and then one of my teammates made the hilarious comment, "Kyle has now incentivized you to kill your teammate." The bigger play of the round was Sab-Sunen by my Simic teammate. My other teammate played Lion Heart and took out a Gran Pulse Ochu, but it was still looking dire for them. Then my Witch-Maw opponent cast Stop Cold on Oviya, nullifying her power.
Sab-Sunen was not just a powerful value creature, but the pseudo commander of the deck. On their sixth turn they activated their Peter Parker's Camera, meaning they got to both draw two cards and attack.
On my turn I made an attack that was turning out bad, so I used Hide on the Ceiling to bounce most of my board. This freed Oviya from the cold. My Simic teammate continued to grow Sab-Sunen and get in for damage with more photography. Then my Witch-Maw opponent killed Oviya with Plow Through and their Wreck Remover.
I had played a Skystreak Engineer, so on my eighth turn I swung in with that, hoping to get rid of the annoying Ahriman. The Rakdos player was hurting for life, so they blocked with it, then I used the Exhaust ability, then they sacrificed it to the Desecrator before damage. My teammates continued to slug it out. Sab-Sunen hit for 12 damage, but then an Eagle of the Watch with Lionheart and Roadside Assistance came from the other direction, helping keep my other teammate alive.
On round nine, I attacked in the air for three with the Engineer, putting my Rakdos opponent down to 3 life. Sab-Sunen did not attack that turn (I don't remember why), but my Yore-Tiller temmate got down a Wind Crystal. I thought I was going to win on my next turn, but my Witch-Maw opponent played a Balamb T-Rexaur.
I swung in on round 10, killing my Rakdos opponent. Then I dropped my Temur Monument, discarded a land, drew a land, and used that to crack the monument for the elephant token. My Simic teammate attacked with a plenty-big Sab-Sunen and killed my other teammate. That meant they won the game in first place and stepped out. It was down to me and my other opponent. They immediately dropped Venomsac Lagac and Peter Porker, preventing me from swinging out right away.
I continued to draw into excellent cards like Venom, Evil Unleashed, however. My Engineer died to Broken Wings, but I was still able to get enough on the board for a big attack where they had to block everything.
I won (in second place) on the next turn.
This was a really fun game! There was a lot of interaction and I was quite invested in what was happening across the board.
Star is still one of my favorite formats! I think Cutthroat wasn't something everyone enjoyed as much as I did. We had really good comments about it (actually before the game started) and I think I like it so much for two reasons:
- I like the dynamic of not choosing who to attack. Mostly because that's when your teammates are attacking, you can't try to sway them to attack only one of your opponents (obviously your common opponent). Instead you have to deal with the reality of both of your teammates losing life along with your opponents in those combats. If you want both of your opponents to die before your teammates, you have to get on the damage-dealing train too.
- I like boards that stagnate a little until some big dramatic things happen. That can be pretty fun. I also like it when evasive creatures are more valuable.
However you like playing Star, I hope you have some Happy Magicking!
