Chaos Collapses a Star (WUBRG Drafting)

I am lucky enough that I got a draft going on Wednesday night with some friends.  We had five and the group wanted to play Star, so we did a Star draft.  Awesome!  I love multiplayer drafts!  We didn't employ the Cutthroat Rule, which I generally like, but I understand the reluctance and it can make things less fun by limiting decisions.

The most important thing, of course, is that we were Wacky drafting.  Here opened a very eclectic set of packs:

Only a few repeats among fifteen packs!

I got a lot of mana-fixing this time around.  Here are all my picks:

My first pick nearly sent me on a wild goose chase.

I did not go heavy into green, despite how good Archdruid's Charm would be in wubrG.  The following cards just did not go that way, even though I got Studious First-Year shortly after.  As you might be able to see from my picks, I went deep into white instead.  Here was my deck:

A Little Lime-colored Learn-board of Lies!

We sat down to play.  We used (my preferred) configuration in Star where our enemies sat next to us and our teammates were across the table.  (I like this because otherwise it's so easy to not skip over a player when advancing turns around the table.)

• I won the die roll so I was P1.
• P2 (my opponent) was running Jund Wizards.
• P3 (my teammate) was in Witch-Maw Green.  (wubG)
• P4 (teammate) had built a Jeskai artifacts deck.
• P5 (opponent) was running Izzet.  P4 and P5 are close friends who come to a lot of my drafts and often (randomly) get teamed up together, so it was a change to see them on opposing sides.

I opened the game with a Studious First-Year on the first turn.  P2 played Unwilling Ingredient and P4 played Ominous Parcel.  

On turn two, I cast the prepared Rampant Growth and attacked P5.  P2 cast Witherbloom Apprentice, which wound up triggering a lot.  P4 cast HYDRA Assault Robot, which was one of their planned paths to win the game.  P5 cast Surveillance Phantasm and passed the turn.  

I started off turn three by casting Guy in the Chair.  P2 cast Command the Stage, which the table immediately realized was part of a great Team Combo ("Teambo"?) with the Assault Robot.  Unfortunately, my opponent would get the payoff for that combo, not my teammate.  P2 continued their turn by attacking P3.  P3 got in the game by casting Field Trip to get their mana in an even better place.  P4 cast Echo, Perceptive Prodigy and P5 passed.  

On turn four I made a play mistake with Roll-Roll-Roll-Roll for the second time.  I thought it would return the Studious First-Year to my hand, but it just exiles it until the end of turn phase.  That slows down the use with comes-into-play prepared sorceries, but I used it with my studious bear anyways.  P2 made another big play with Red Mage's Rapier, which combos with Command The Stage!  They attacked P3 again.  P3 finally played something substantial with Pizza Face, Gastromancer.  P4 cast Forecasting Fortune Teller, but P5 Rejected it and P4 didn't pay the three mana.  P4 attacked both of their opponents.  P5 cast Treetop Freedom Fighters, but didn't attack.  At the end of the turn the life totals were Me: 18, P2: 21, P3: 15, P4: 20, P5: 19.

Turn five started off with me casting the prepared Rampant Growth and then summoning Long Lake Nuisance.  P2 cast Ancestral Anger then attacked me and P3.  P2 cast Bladebrand during combat, so they hit me with a 6/1 Red Mage.  P3 cast Old Fat Spider, a big upgrade to Pizza Face for blocking.  P4 cast Backstreet Bruiser and P5 cast EPF Point Squad.  We ended the turn with life totals at Me: 9, P2: 23, P3: 13, P4: 20, P5: 19.

I Roll-Roll'ed my Studious First-Year again on turn six.  I attacked in on P2 and then played Ice Flan.  P2 sent Gandalf, Goblins' Bane on the adventure to Flameshape and then played Michelangelo, Weirdness to 11.  P3 cast Spider Bot and Ant Man's Army and P4 cast Stitched Assistant, using Echo to copy the Exploit ability.  P5 ended the turn by playing Gandalf, Wandering Wizard.  I was up against Team Gandalf!  The turn ended with life at Me: 8, P2: 21, P3: 12, P4: 20, P5: 19.

On turn seven I cast the Rampant Growth yet again and Roll-Roll'ed my Ice Flan to freeze the Witherbloom Apprentice down.  P2 cast Gandalf, Goblin's Bane, then Reverent Howl.  I hit Gandalf with Pinecone Strike before the trigger resolved.  P3 cast a big Enlisted Wurm, cascading into Infirmary Healer, then attacked P2.  P4 cast Mechanized Ninja Cavalry and Goblin Plate Mail.  I cast Grounded for Life on the Witherbloom Apprentice at the end of turn, but I still took a bit of damage.  The life totals were now at Me: 6, P2: 11, P3: 13, P4: 20, P5: 15.

Turn eight began with me attacking P2, but I didn't get through because they blocked with their Unwilling Ingredient.  I cast Ahirman and passed the turn.  P2 cast Command the Stage again.  I cast Study Break to tap their creatures down so P3 could get in.  P5 didn't like that and pressed X with Reasonable Doubt.  I paid the two, tapped the creatures, and dug into my extensive learn-board to put Azula Always Lies in my hand.  P3 attacked P2, but didn't take them out, then cast Duskwatch Hunter.  P4 cast the card I picked The Sentry, Golden Guardian over: The Sentry, Golden Guardian.  That was good, except that The Void went to P5, who untapped and turned to me.  I blocked, but they cast Enthusiastic Study.   I cast Azula Always Lies to live, but they cast their own Pinecone Strike.  I took seven damage and died.  P5 cast Lunar Rejection to bounce the Sentry, then ended their turn.  The remaining life totals were: P2: 2, P3: 16, P4: 15, P5: 15.

When one player dies in Star, the rest of the game generally goes pretty quick.  The two teammates who just killed an opponent are now each on the good side of a 2-on-1, so they can focus up real quick.  If either of them takes out their opponent, then they step out of the game as a winner, leaving the remaining two players to finish their duel.  There was a chance P2 and P5 could win this game together, but P2 would have to survive on their very low life total!

P2 started turn nine by exiling their Unwilling Ingredient from their graveyard.  P3 attacked them, then cast Scuttling Butler.  P4 recast The Sentry and gave The Void again to P5.  P5 immediately attacked them, but they just blocked.  The life totals were the same except that P2 was down to 1.  

On turn ten, P2 cast Tomik, Izzet Sparkmage, but it wasn't enough.  P3 swung over them to take them out.  It was now a clear 2-on-1.  P3 cast Grizzly Ghoul with four +1/+1 counters on it.  P4 cast Aettir and Priwen and held back to try and stay alive.  P5 cast K'un-Lun Warrior and Molten Man, Inferno Incarnate, then swung out against P4.  The life totals were P3: 15, P4: 15, P5: 10.

P3 took the last turn on round eleven.  They cast Restore with Empathy on a Roiling Canopy in their graveyard.  They swung everything at P4.

P4 put their blockers lined up with P3's attackers so I could take this photo.

It was enough to kill P4; P3 and P5 shared the victory!

This was a great way to spend a draft.  I just enjoy playing with everyone and watching to see what happens.  I might have been able to stick around longer if I'd've played better, but I don't think it would have changed the fact that I was getting beaten up!

Happy Magicking! 

The Game of Global Dominaria (WUBRG Drafting)

With all the fun my local group has had with Ravnica: Clue over the past year, I was curious how things would work with other "classic" board games.  I thought Risk might have the best chance of being a fun mashup with Magic.  So, I drafted up some rules, bought a used Risk set on Vinted, and tried to organize a free draft playtest with students last week.  That fell through, but I gave it another shot this week and we got enough people to play.

This set was in pretty good shape!

I made a number of miscalculations.  I posted the rules to our school's club's discord.  Here's a copy of those rules in case you want to look through them:

I will wait to address all the terrible ideas until they become relevant in the game.

 

The bulleted TL;DR of that is:

• Everyone has territory cards, some face up and some face down.  Each creature can attack a territory.  To do so, you have to flip one of your territory cards face up that is 
• either in the same continent as the target territory, or 
• on the border of that continent (e.g. Egypt can attack anywhere in Asia, but South Africa cannot), 
• or, if the target territory borders another continent, you can attack that territory from anywhere in that continent (e.g. any territory in South America can attack Central America).
• The player who has that territory card must reveal it and then they are the defending player for that attacker. 
• If a creature attacking a territory deals combat damage to the defending player (the player who has that territory card) then the attacking player takes that card from the defending player.
• At the end of your draw step, you get (tapped) tokens depending on the number of territories you control, with bonuses for controlling entire continents.
• You win the game normally: by being the last player standing. 

I figured this would work best with 3-5 players.  We initially had five, then one had to back out, then two people joined in, then a seventh person joined in.  I thought it might be better to "stress test" it with more people, so I went along with it.  We drafted with my free repacked cards with seven people.

I realized this was going to be messy.  Many of the players were very new to Magic.  I taught one of them with a half game between two duel decks right before we drafted.  Drafting is a terrible way to learn to play Magic, but everyone was enthusiastic, so we just went ahead.  My expectations were lowered even further when it was clear many people didn't realize we were going to be playing a Risk + Magic mashup.  Thankfully, they were game to give it a go.  Even more importantly, I decided not to take careful notes because I would be needed to explain rules to people.  So, for those of you interested in the details of the game, my apologies!  If you're interested in what I drafted, here were all my picks:

Triton Shorestalker is awesome in this format.  One of the other players realized that and drafted two also.

I built a majority-blue deck from this.  I decided to keep the curve pretty low, which was a good idea:

Very blue-focused.

I dealt out the Risk territory cards.  There were 42 total, so each of the seven players each got six cards.  The seventh player decided not to play during deckbuilding, so we redistributed their six Risk cards, one to each of us.  For fans of the Huddle-Up-In-Australia plan, I was quite lucky.  I had Southeast Asia, New Guinea, and Indonesia among my cards.  I already knew what my strategy would be.

While looking at my cards, I thought I had made a grand mistake.  With seven different territory cards, I could attack a lot of places using the adjacency rules described in the TL;DR above!  As the game played out, though, I was glad we had those rules.  I might have gotten one thing right!

The first round of turns went pretty standard: mostly lands and one player cast Triton Shorestalker (not me, though I cast mine on turn two).  On their second turn, I realized Mistake #1: I should have spelled out the steps to combat better.  It should go like this:

• The attacking player enters combat.
• The attacking player declares their attackers.
• For each attacking creature, the player decides whether that creature is attacking a territory or not.  (If not, they can attack an opponent as normal, but then they don't win any territory by dealing combat damage.)  
• For each creature attacking a territory, if that territory is face up on the board, then it must be legal for that creature to be attacking the player controlling that territory.  (E.g. in case the defending player has Teferi's Moat or something like that.)  If necessary, the attacking player may need to pay costs.  If at this point a creature cannot legally attack that territory, they must be redeclared to a new territory or player without choosing a territory.
• For each creature attacking an unrevealed territory, if a player controls that territory, they must flip it face up.  If no player controls it, then there must be a face down deck of uncontrolled territories.  A creature in this case "gets lost" and will draw the player the top card of that deck (face down) if they have a positive power during the combat damage step.
• If a player does control the territory, then they reveal it, placing it face up in front of them, then they are the defending player for that creature.  If for some reason the creature is not a legal attacker, then that creature "gets lost" instead and follows the process for that.
• Continue with all other steps of combat including blockers and damage.  
• After combat damage has been resolved, any territories attacked by creatures where one or more of those creatures dealt combat damage to the defending player are claimed (face up) by the attacking player.
• Any creatures with power greater than zero that "got lost" each earn a territory card from the uncontrolled deck for the attacking player.  (That player cannot earn more of those cards than there are in the deck.)

Nevertheless, we sorted out any confusion from attacking and the first Shorestalker claimed a land.

As the third round of turns started, the bonuses from holding territory cards kicked in.  Very few territories had changed hands, so nearly everyone got a tapped Construct creature token.  Mistake #2 was very glaring: I should have used Soldiers, not Constructs!  This is Risk!  At least that'll be an easy one to fix.  I was also lucky that Mistake #3 didn't come into play, but: the Constructs Soldiers probably should not be artifacts.  It just makes artifact strategies that much more unbalanced.  I had a few artifact-synergy cards in my deck and it was probably good that I didn't get them.  

Everyone kept choosing the Construct option.  We had a ton of them on the board and I spent a lot of my time scribbling up Infinitokens and handing them out.  Mistake #4 is that I need to have a bunch of the necessary tokens on hand ready to go.  I already do this for my Ravnica: Clue kit where I keep a bunch of Treasure tokens.  If I do this again, I need to have them ready to go.

During each player's turn, most players had between three and eight territories, which made them eligible for either a Food or Construct.  When people went above, we had to consult the table from the document above, which I had on my phone.  Mistake #5: I should have printed out the table so everyone could see it.  

Players kept choosing Constructs (myself included).  When people started attacking three territories at a time, it got pretty complicated.  That leads me to Mistake #6: I need a second set of territory cards so people can put them in front of their creatures to show where they're attacking.  Multiple times we had people get confused about what they or other people had said.  

The player with the other Shorestalker had to leave but another person showed up nearly simultaneously, so they took over for them.  (Lucky!)  I did a good job of conquering Australia, then started into Asia.  

I got all my colors too!

The other Shorestalker player took Africa.  Another took South America.  Two other players were fighting over North America.  The game quickly became a fight with everyone swinging in with most of their Constructs.  On one hand that was good because it's kind of Risk-like.  On the other hand, perhaps the Constructs were more powerful than the Treasure tokens and Clue tokens, despite those two options listed higher on the table.  I genuinely don't know whether this is a mistake or not!  Should I reorder the tokens in the table?

Another shot of the game.

The other players attacked each other a bunch instead of me, so I continued to go after Asia.  I took out the player to my right, claiming some of their territory in the process.  When they died, all their other territory went into the unclaimed deck in the middle.  Mistake #7: I didn't make that process clear.  What should happen is that all players have a chance to see which cards are face up before putting them into the uncontrolled deck.  That's really important because the next player can attack those places and know that their creatures will Get Lost and earn them territories without having to fight through blockers.  

I conquered nearly all of Asia, but my opponents continued to fight over Africa and North America.  No one else attacked the territories the dead player had had, so I took that advantage and named a bunch of their prior territories to gain a bunch.  (I didn't make it clear exactly how good that was, but I was also surprised how easy it worked.)  Sometimes it took us a bit of time to figure out who controlled which territories and we had to consult back and forth between the map and the cards everyone had.  This is because of Mistake #8: we didn't use the army figures.  If we each had a color, it would have been so easy to just put one army on each of our territories to show who owns what.  I already had Retreat to Emeria out, so when I played a land I gave all my creatures +1/+1 and swung at players directly, leaving only one standing.  I killed them on the next turn.  

Here's what I learned:

• The mechanics of the game seem okay.  It definitely promotes attacking, which is what you really want in any multiplayer format to help move the game along.
• I won because I knew best what was going on (either because of the rules of Magic or the rules of this Risky Magic).  I think it would be more fun if people knew what was coming.  
• I need to amend all eight mistakes above for things to run more smoothly!
• I don't know whether I need to update the token.  Would it be better with fewer 1/1 tokens all over the place?

The hardest is of course going to be making another set of territory cards.

Hopefully I'll have better news when I try it again!

Happy Megalomaniacal Magicking! 

Reality Fracture Draft (WUBRG Drafting)

I made it to a Reality Fracture draft at Intergalactic Plastic on Friday.  I hadn't made it to any prereleases, but I was really eager to make it to the first FNM draft of the set.  There were only six of us in the pod, but it was a good group of strong drafters.

Not as chaotic as my usual drafts, despite reality fracturing.

I think I drafted really well, except that I didn't read cards fully and missed the fact that Hexhaven Battalion was the white Basiclandcycling card, so I didn't take any of them.  Oops.  Here are all of my picks:

Fblthp knows my way.

I have lots of notes:

• I got really lucky with a lot of these picks.  Four Undulating Witnesses seems really good.  
• I had lots of removal.  
• Red wasn't really heavily drafted and I took advantage of that.  Kiora of Fire and Ashes and Theorist's Sanctum were both great cards to get.  Of course, packs are just very deep these days.  
• I got a few Konstrari Charms, but never cast them for their ramping mode.  I just always forgot that was an option.  

I was very happy to have a pool with tons of mana-fixing.  Here's what I put together:

Who needs 3-drops?

I'm not used to red being the main color, but I think I chose my basic lands correctly.  There were definitely some times where Fblthp only fetched me a few lands.

The first round was epic.  I was matched up against someone playing Yore-Tiller (WUBR).  We were both okay with late game strategies; nothing happened in the first three turns besides land drops and my Twinned Vision.  On turn four, I cast Desperate Futurescribe, but they hit it with a Wrath of the Bloodmane at the end of turn.  On their fifth turn they played Tomik, Izzet Sparkmage.  (They were stuck on three lands.)  I hit it with Violent Echoes on my fifth turn, getting my first taste of a Planeswalker token.  They played Arni, Humble Scribe on turn six and used its looting ability a ton.  I went ahead and played my first Undulating Witness, figuring I would take care of Arni on a future turn.  They finally got their fourth land and played Saheeli, Jewel of Avishkar on turn seven.  I figured that was a bigger threat, so I hit it with Awaken the Inferno and swung in the air for four.  On turn eight they played Tetsuko Umezawa, Pursuer.  I again thought that was a bigger threat, so I took it out with Surgical Precision.  I also cast Fblthp and accidentally overpaid by two because I'd already played two non-mountain basics.  Oops.  I hit them for 4 again and passed the turn, thinking I was sitting pretty.  ("Pretty pretty"?  "Fairly pretty"?)  On turn nine, they cast Frostbite Pyromental and hit me.  I attacked them and they turned my combat trick around.

I don't often draft combat tricks, so it was sad to see one get nullified.

Fblthp died and Arni did not, but the Witness got through.  They were at 7 life and I was still at 16.  Still sitting pretty pretty.  

On turn ten they cast Ajani's Anguish to take out the Witness.  I cast Living Library.  At this point I was using Theorist's Sanctum to amass Jace and surveil every turn.  On turn eleven they cast Traxos, Academy Guardian and Mabel, Valley Hero.  I played a second Undulating Witness, which they Unsummoned on turn twelve.  I replayed my Undulating Witness and dropped my Hall of Echoes, which I used a ton.  They played Proft, Consulting Detective on turn thirteen.  I attacked in, but I am bad at counting and needed to use Stingerquill Charm to kill the blocking Traxos.  I ended the turn with my opponent at 7 life and me at 9.  On turn fourteen they cast Chandra's Emberling and used Fulminous Forte to kill the second Witness.  

I'm in danger.

On turn fifteen they cast Infinite Coursework and attacked.  I blocked a bit and then flashbacked Twinned Vision, which I'd forgotten about.  I played Mabel, Bitter Recluse and passed the turn at 3 life.  (They were still at 7.)  On turn sixteen they cast Hallway Heckler and immediately used the Vicious Verse.  They swung in, but I used both of the cards I'd drawn from the Twinned Vision, Prophesied End and Konstrari Charm, to turn that combat around.  On my turn I kill the last threat with a second Awaken the Inferno and then swung in to tie it up at 3 life apiece.  On turn seventeen (you read that right) my opponent played Diviner of Victory and used the prepared spell to put Mabel back in my hand.  I replayed her and cast Undulating Witness number three on my turn.  On turn eighteen they had nothing and I swung in for the win.  As we cleaned up our cards, time was called.  1-0.

That single game was one of the closest back-and-forth games of limited I've ever played.  It took the entire first round and was very tight over and over again.  My notes are only as detailed as they are because there were so many tough decisions to make that I had time to write up what was happening.  I'm bummed we didn't get to play any more games!   

In round two I was up against a Golgari deck.  In game one, they started off with a turn one Blessed Ghoul, which got in over and over.  On turn four they played Loot, the Nexus, which I hit with a Stingerquill Charm.  On turn five they played Budding Insurgent and I played Undulating Witness.  On turn six they attacked and played Compel Brutality to trade the Insurgent with the Witness, then played Marwyn the Preserver.  I followed that up with the Desperate Futurescribe, but they hit that with Silence the Echo on their turn seven.  At this point I lost track of the notes because things sped up on the board.  After a little bit they played Verdant Kraken.  I played another Undulating Witness, but it wasn't enough to keep me alive and I died two turns later.  My opponent was still at 29 from the Blessed Ghoul!

Game two went a bit quicker.  I had a turn two Way of the Pyromancer, which really helped me ramp for the remaining turns.  At the end of the game, I was starting to gain ground back on my opponent, so they made a risky attack in.

Thankfully, I had good enough blocks.

My opponent scooped at that point, which was good because I didn't have to show them the Face Yourself I was about to draw.  (Thanks, Token Jace, for all the surveilling!)

Game three went really fast!  (I'm surprised time didn't get called.)  I got Kiora of Fire and Ashes and the Hall of Echoes, and then hit the next turn for ten with double dragons.  I didn't get to hit for ten again, but I won two turns later thanks to the dragon attack.  2-0, squeaking past both times.

In the third round I was up against a very fast Orzhov deck, playing for the winning spot.  In the first game they played Unflinching Hortimancer on turn two.  I cast Way of the Pyromancer, but I did not keep up at all.  It was so fast I hardly took any notes. 

Here's a glare-filled photo of me getting beat up.

 

I died on turn seven with my opponent going up to 24.  

In game two I put up a slightly better fight, but still lost on turn nine or ten.  2-1.

I think I lost round three in under ten minutes total.  I guess the nice thing about losing that fast in the last round means you don't have to stick around.  

This was so fun!  I think this set is a WUBRG-winner.  There are so many dual lands and so many basic landcyclers that it's totally reasonable to make it happen.  If you give it a try, let me know how it goes!

Happy Fractured Magicking!

The Prodigal King Returns to Chaos

I ran a draft on Wednesday and at the last moment people were interested in a Kingdom draft!  I have been looking forward to this, so I joined right in!  We had a player who had moved away but was visiting, and they pulled the King role.  Everyone picked the packs we were opening first, but we probably should have handed out the roles first.  I don't know whether anyone would have changed their picks based on the role, but then they could've!  Here's what we opened:

The Battle For Zendikar-War of the Spark-Zendikar Rising triple was the King.

We didn't reveal our roles yet, but we certainly knew them while drafting.  I got the Knight card, which was pretty crazy, because the last time I drafted in a Kingdom, I was the Knight for the same player!  That time I did a terrible job convincing them I was the Knight, so I vowed to do better.  I tried to keep my role in mind while drafting.  Here's what I picked:

The sixth card I picked in pack three is hard to read, but it's Queen Brahne.

I've got some notes about these picks!

• I almost didn't draft any white cards!  Whew!  I'm not a WUBRG-fraud!  (This time, at least.)
• I picked the Balamb T-Rexaur over The Lunar Whale.  That was probably the wrong pick, but the T-Rex did a lot for me.  
• I took more combat tricks than I normally do.  The plan behind that was that using them to help the King out would make it more clear that I was on their team.  Spending cards like that means committing a lot of resources! 
• I think we need to be more strict about table talk during Kingdom drafts.  When Queen Brahne came back around, I mused aloud that the King probably should have taken it.  That could have outed me as the Knight if people had thought more about it and figured out what card I was talking about.  I decided to take her because I figured it would be okay for me to get the Wizard triggers so long as the King was in agreement.

Here's the deck I built from those cards:

Deepway Navigator needs to be in there!

In addition to keeping table talk down so we don't reveal our roles accidentally or otherwise, I think it might have been beneficial for us to build our decks separately.  If anyone had looked closely at what I'd built, they might've noticed that I was running more combat tricks than normal and figured out that I was the Knight.  On the other hand, we're not exactly a competitive bunch so it was probably fine.

We sat down to play:

• P1 was the King, running a WUBRG deck (on purpose).  They started with 26 life while everyone else had 20.
• P2 was running Selesnya with an unknown role.
• P3 was me, the Knight (but only I knew that) also WUBRG.  (Team WUBRG, let's go!) 
• P4 was playing Boros with an unknown role.
• P5 was running Sultai "Elves and Rares" with an unknown role.

If you're unfamiliar with this format, it's important to point out that everyone pretends to be the Knight from the beginning.  Saying "my liege" becomes a bit of a meme.  My claims were drowned out among the group.  

P4 and P5 are quite good friends and they always seem to wind up on the same team.  There was a 1/3 chance they were teammates again, this time barbarians! 

In the first round of turns, only P4 cast a spell: S.H.I.E.L.D. Spy Kit.

On turn two, only P2 had a play: Old Thrush.

Things heated up on turn three.  P2 attacked P4 with the Thrush.  It's good for the other players to be attacking each other instead of the King, but it made P2 look like the Knight, which was bad for me.  I cast Down in the Valley to search up a swamp.  P4 cast Dori, Bearer or Friends.  

On turn four, the King finally made a play with H.E.R.B.I.E. Scout Unit and played the extra land.  P2 cast Dwarven Shortsword and then hit me with the Old Thrush.  I played a land and got an Elf token from Down in the Valley.  P4 cast Fin Fang Foom and then P5 cast The Lunar Whale.  Big things were starting to land.

The King made two plays to start off turn five: Vine Gecko and The Chief Warg.  P2 cast East Wind Avatar and then attacked P5.  They were being aggressive against everyone who wasn't the King, which is a good Knight play.  I was the only one who knew they weren't the Knight, so I was thinking of the other options:

• If they were a Barbarian (most likely) this was all a ruse. 
• The same is true if they were the Doppelgänger; they wanted someone to die, but probably weren't in a rush to kill anyone.
• If they were the Black Knight, then they were happy for everyone else's life totals to drop.  
• If they were the Villager, they were trying to get someone to react and kill them.
• If they were the Gravedigger, they were trying to kill other players.

For now, though, they were doing a good job of looking like the Knight.

I continued turn five by casting Mirkwood Nurturer.  I put Down in the Valley back in my hand but had a nice little board of elves.  P4 retaliated against P2 and hit them.  P5 cast Thranduil, Sindaran Liege.  (Update: he is not a rare, thank you, P5.)  The life totals were all still quite high: King: 26, P2: 19, Me: 19, P4: 19, P5: 17.  At this point I had an inkling that P4 was a Barbarian.

On turn six, the King cast Samut, Tyrant Smasher.  That's one of my Oathbreakers, so I knew how it worked.  P2 cast a Mirkwood Pathmaker and attacked me.  I think I blocked their equipped dwarf with one of my elves.  I recast Down in the Valley got my sixth land and cast Queen Brahne.  P4 attacked P2 with Fin Fang Foom, then Suplexed their Shortsword.  They copied the Suplex onto the Shortsword because they didn't see any other targets.  Post combat, P5 pointed out that the Lunar Whale was an artifact.  Suspicious!  They then played Oin the Brave and were storied.  P5 played a third Mirkwood Nurturer and bounced a land.  They they played Kraven the Hunter and attacked me.  I'm sure the King was happy with all the subjects attacking each other, so I was too!  The life totals were still high: King: 26, P2: 15, Me: 16, P4: 19, P5: 17.

On turn seven, the King cast Nori, Teller of Tales.  They were suspicious of P2 and there was a bunch of wrangling where P5 promised not to block Nori so it could grant first strike and the King could safely swing into P2.  P2 cast Attercop and Moment of Glory, and then attacked me.  I foolishly blocked with my Murkwood Nurturer.  They then started a Quarrel with Queen Brahne to kill her.  At this point, other players were wondering aloud whether P2 was the Black Knight and I were actually the Knight.  P4 and P5 couldn't go wholesale into that, though, because then they would be outing themselves as the two Barbarians.  I cast Plunder the Trollshaws, drew a land, played it, and got another elf token.  P4 cast Dwarven Mattock.  P5 launched a big attack on the King, but I cast Roilmage's Trick to save my King a lot of damage.  Now my Knighthood seemed quite evident.  P5 finished their turn by playing Dawnhand Dissident and Astonishing Ant-Man.  The life totals were King: 25, P2: 11, Me: 13, P4: 19, P5: 15.

The King passed to start turn eight.  P2 flashbacked Moment of Glory and then attacked me.  I cast Balamb T-Rexaur to regain some of the life lost.  P4 cast Crimson Operative.  P5 swung at the King's Samut with The Lunar Whale and then cast Secret Invasion to get their own Mirkwood Pathmaker.  They also summoned Master's Councillors and Serpent Specialist.  The life totals were now at King: 26, P2: 11, M3: 11, P4: 19, P5: 15.  

On turn nine, the King cast Retreat to Valakut.  P2 swung in to me with their flyers, but I stayed alive.  I responded by casting Widow's Bite to take out their Attercop and then swung with my T-Rexaur.  Post combat, I cast Roll-Roll-Roll-Roll to blink it and again gain some of my life back.  At the end of my turn, P4 cast Outnumber.  With Fin Fang Foom, it copied and killed both the King's H.E.R.B.I.E. and P2's East Wind Avatar.  The dragon villain now had 4 +1/+1 counters on it.  They untapped and then attacked me and P2 with lethal damage towards us both.  Fin Fang Foom was coming my way with the Dwarven Mattock, which granted Ward 1.  I had exactly four mana untapped and P4 didn't think there was any removal that had gone around the table for three mana or less with the ward.  Thankfully, I had Eject, which got around the ward with its uncounterability.  P2 had no such response and died, revealing that they were, in fact, the Black Knight.  That meant that P4 and P5 were definitely the Barbarians.  P5 cast Large Bear.  With Kraven now a 7/6, they launched a big attack on the King.

Chips and all.

The King dropped to 7 life and P5 finished their turn by casting Erratic Visionary.  The life totals were now King: 7, P2: dead, Me: 9, P4: 19, P5: 15.  

The jib was up.  We were toast.  The King decided to try to end the game on their own terms by attacking me, but they only put me to 2.  I cast Hawkeye's Bow and attacked P4, but it wasn't enough.  P4 cast Friendly Neighborhood and attacked the King to kill them.  I was unable to protect the King!

This was a great game!  I can't believe the teams turned out to be so predictable, but it was wicked fun for everyone.  The game had taken nearly two hours, so two players had to leave.  The two Barbarians stayed around to play a three-player bonus game with me.  (They actually said they wanted more action for this blog, which is exciting for me!  So, I took notes.)

I won the roll to go first, so it was me and then P4 and P5 from the Kingdom game.  I'll keep those names for clarity.

Only P5 had a play on turn one with Party Dude, a card I don't think I'd ever seen. 

On turn two, I cast Frog Butler.  P4 cast Mouser Foundry.  P5 cast Creakwood Safewright.  

On turn three, P4 cast Colleen Wing and P5 cast Silvan Rally, which comboed with the Safewright by putting an elf into the graveyard.  

On turn four, I played Hawkeye's Bow and put it on my Frog Butler.  I used this to deal them both one damage each turn for many turns.  P4 cast Dwarven Shortsword.  P5 upgraded Party Dude to level two.

On turn five, I cast my Balamb T-Rexaur.  P5 took Thranduil off of the adventure.  

On turn six, I attacked P5, who blocked with their 6/6 Safewright.  P4 sacrificed their Mouser Foundry to kill Thranduil, which put the Safewright down to 5/5.  My dinosaur lived!  P4 cast their Friendly Neighborhood.  P5 cast The Lunar Whale.

On turn seven, I attacked P4.  They responded by attacking me back for 10 damage and then played Sidequest: To Catch a Fish.  P5 hit P4 for 3 with the Whale, then cast Erratic Visionary and Rescuer Sphinx.  At the end of turn, I cast my Deepway Navigator.  The life totals were me: 16, P4: 7, P5: 19.

On turn eight, I cast Chameleon, Master of Disguise to get a second dinosaur.  P4 pumped up one of their creatures with Friendly Neighborhood and attacked me, but I chumped with the Deepway Navigator.  P5 cast Lakeshore Apothecary and then put Secret Invasion on one of their creatures, exiling my Chameleon.  They swung in on me, but I turned it mostly away with Roilmage's Trick.  At the end of turn, the life totals were Me: 19, P4: 9, P5: 12.

On turn nine I cast Mirkwood Nurturer.  (I don't think I bounced anything.  I bounced my Frog Butler and replayed it.)  P4 finally stopped my Butler + Bow slow combo by Suplexing the Bow.  They attacked me and I blocked with the Nurturer.  P5 cast Scarblade Scout and then upgraded Party Dude again.  they attacked me, but I once again used Eject on a creature with Ward when I only had four mana.  The creature with Secret Invasion disappeared and I got my T-Rexaur back.  (I gained so much life off of these.  Dino life.  The opposite of Dino Damage.)  That was a good block for me; the life totals were Me: 16, P4: 8, P5: 11.

I was the archenemy, but I kept the pedal to the metal anyways.  I attacked P5.  They had a good block, but I cast Pain 101 to win it and get the T-Rexaur back (again).   I ended my turn by playing Venomized Cat.  P4 swung out.  With the Cooking Campsite and Party Dude, and a Vow to Erebor, they put me to one life.

All that sweet dino life, gone.

P5 attacked us both on their turn, killing me, but P4 blocked and survived.  They had 8 life and P5 had 4.

On turn 11, P4 attacked P5 for exactly four damage, made possible by the Sidequest.  Very close!

These games were great!  I'm really happy with how the Kingdom game turned out and it was really fun to come close to winning with my deck in a bonus game too.  I think I will get better at the Kingdom format by laying it more.  Hopefully I can draft that again sometime.

Happy Magicking, your Majesty! 

 

Update: thanks to P5 for correcting a bunch of mistakes I made in my recaps!  (Four, in fact!)

In Defense of (Wacky) Drafting

I'm not sure whether I'm writing this to explain to others why I enjoy drafting so much, or because question it myself.  I love constructed Magic.  I have a bunch of EDH decks!  Designing standard versions of Shuffleupagus helped me stay away awake back in classes in grad school.  

Drafting doesn't ignore deck-brewing/building, though.  It's a microcosm of the whole Magic hobby: opening packs, choosing cards, deck building, playing, and then incorporating those cards into your collection.  

I learned about drafting in 2002 in my last year of college.  I was very skeptical before I tried it, but after my first draft at Zimmie's Comics in Lewiston, Maine, I was hooked.  (I found an old Facebook page, but it looks like they've been closed since at least 2019.)  I think I made it to a few Odyssey-block drafts that fall before Onslaught was released in early October of that year.  I started going regularly with a group of new players as well as some amazing players.  There was always a crowd of around ten at the store and I was really bad for that whole first year.  I don't think I ever did better than 1-2.  It didn't matter, I loved it.

I won a few Nemesis packs at a vintage tournament at J&R Cards in Brunswick, Maine (another Facebook link, sorry, but this one appears to still be active).  Had I won those packs a year earlier, I would have opened them, but I had changed.  Instead I left them sealed, figuring I could use them in a friendly draft sometime.  I wasn't consciously doing any value-maxing, I just wanted to draft more.  I didn't have enough for a full draft, of course, but I bought some more packs of different sets and that snowballed a little bit.  I've been drafting and running drafts ever since.  (In the aughts, my group called these "Wacky Drafts": drafts where you bring whatever three packs you want.  I think most people refer to these as Chaos Drafts, but I also think that refers to other unexpected-pack-drafts as well, so I like the differentiation.)

I like bulleted lists.  Here are a bunch of reasons why drafting is my favorite as well as further bonuses for Wacky/Chaos drafts:

• It works with all sorts of numbers of players.  In the past year I've learned that even three players is an acceptable amount if you're willing to do a Ravnica: Clue draft!
• I love opening packs!  It's fun!  It's even more fun to be opening packs and to immediately use those cards.  When you open a pack outside of limited play, it can be boring if there isn't a valuable card in it.  In a draft, however, you get to take a closer look at those cards and hunt for the one that is going to help you win the most games.  Wacky Draft Bonus: you're probably opening different packs, which is even further from the "booster box game" where you open packs from the same set over and over (which can get a bit tedious).
• Sealed formats can overwhelm me a bit when I'm deckbuilding.  I always wish I had more time to better analyze my cardpool optimize my deck.  In a draft, I get a bit acquainted with my cards while I'm picking them.  I already have a bit of an idea of how my deck is going to look and can build faster.  
• The playing field is more level.  It's certainly possible to be more skilled than someone else in a limited setting, but at least there isn't the disparity of having access to different sized/valued collections.  Wacky Draft Bonus: it's possible to learn the ins and outs of specific draft formats, but I think it's harder to predict how a draft with many different packs will go, leveling skills even further.
• It's always different.  I can draft with the same group of four people and each draft is going to be very different.  Even a few key cards can make a huge difference.  It's really exciting to see how other people put together a deck, given what came around.  Wacky Draft Bonus: The variance is even higher when drafting from a bunch of sets simultaneously.
• I like playing with low-power cards.  There are so many cards out there and it's fun to make use of the ones that aren't playable in constructed formats.  It is really fun when some common card comes in clutch to save you.  Wacky Draft Bonus: I love it when there's an amazing interaction between cards from distant sets.  I think I had some Ravnica-block spirit (Azorius Herald, perhaps?) trigger my Innocence Kami and I got really excited about it.  
• I like the cards I walk away with.  No matter how poorly I do, I have a bunch of neat cards in a deck I built that I get to add to my collection.  Some may go in my trade binder, some may even go into decks.  Some may be copies of cards I don't have yet!  I get to sort them all out and organize them into the rest of my collection.  I know that may not be fun for everyone, but it is extremely fun for me.  As I write this, I can't wait to doing it with the cards I drafted last night!  (This is such a big part of it for me that I think it explains why I don't cube draft much.)

I still love constructed Magic.  I have a list of wanted cards a mile long for a variety of decks.  Some day I may even get them all.  But I still love drafting even more.  

Happy Magicking to you, no matter which formats you like best!