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.
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:
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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