I got a wacky draft running this week. I had five people total, but that jumped up to eight right before the event. Excellent! There are good things to say about lots of different numbers of people, but eight is a perfectly round number for pods.
It's early December, but the holidays are chaotic. I might not get another chance this month, so, just in case, I went festive with my pack colors: Red, White, and Green. Here's what everyone opened:
Before we were getting things figured out, though, one player brought a bunch of packs and was putting them in piles of three. I'm not exactly sure what they were doing, but it was exciting to see the different packs!
We decided to do best-of-one rounds. (I was a bit dumb and forgot to tell people that the first mulligan was free... oops! My fault! Thankfully the veterans brought it up pretty early in the playing.
You can tell from my draft picks that I'm greedy. I turned down a few good mana-fixing cards, but I did have some good finishers. The real boon came in the third pack, when I was passed an Ultima! That bailed me out on my first pick of that pack, the Archpriest of Iona. I did have at least one each of the creatures for a full party, but I don't think there was enough to be good enough. Here were all my picks:
After ditching the Party theme, I quickly built this deck:
We paired up and got to playing. I managed to get in my rounds with five opponents, starting off against a Jund Mana-Dorks deck. My opponent played two early mana dorks and played Saber-Tooth Moose-Lion on turn four! That was followed by a Spinewoods Armadillo, then turn six yielded an Honest Rutstein, which got the Moose-Lion back, which also hit the board (again). If that wasn't enough, turn seven brought Beifong's Bounty Hunters. Thankfully I drew into a plains that following turn and I was able to cast Ultima. Thanks to the "End the turn" part of that spell, the Bounty Hunters' ability didn't resolve. Even with that, the game was not decided. They Sold Out my Mongoose Lizard, then played Feral Deathgorger. I was able to handle that with Master Piando and either the best or only mana-fixing combat trick, Prishe's Wanderings. From then on I just kept attacking and won. 1-0.
The second round pit me up against a deck of Orzhov weenies. They started with Abandoned Air Temple and then played little creatures including a Rally the Monastery.
I got Hakoda down on turn four, and Jeskai Brushmaster, but it wasn't enough to hold off the onslaught and I died on the next turn. 1-1.
In the third round, I faced my first Glint-Eye (non-white) deck of the night. (Why is everyone drafting so many colors?)
I was doing pretty well, but my opponent had a great play against me. I tried to Lightning Bolt their Locke Cole, but they played Fleeting Reflection. Targeting my Fblthp. My one-for-one turned into myself getting two-for-oned. Then they played Flopsie. I thought I was sunk there, but I did get Ultima. Somehow my opponent still drew more bombs and played Iron Giant the turn later, killing me the following turn. 1-2.
Next up I challenged an aggressive Boros deck. I had more time than I should have against a deck like this, to the point where I was able to cast Malboro on my sixth turn. I thought I might have a chance to come back, but my opponent got two 3/2 fliers that I couldn't deal with: Aang, The Last Airbender, and Wanted Griffin. I thought I had another turn to find an answer, but my opponent played How to Start a Riot and I was done early. 1-3.
In the fifth round I was up against my second Glint-Eye opponent! For a while it was my Blind Hunter against their Goblin Assailant, just trading hits back and forth. They played Teval, but I put it to some Honest Work. I got the Brushmaster down and Glider Kids and got there. 2-3.
What a great draft! I feel like my deck could do a bit better than it performed, but I found nonetheless. I'm not sure what I can do to beat faster decks aside from draft more early blockers like the Temur Devotee that I pulled this time. I am genuinely interested whether I could have built a better deck from my draft pool too.
I hope you have some Happy Magicking and Happy Holidays!
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