Notorious WUBRG: March of the Machine Draft #3

I drafted again!  There's a clear issue: as with Conflux and Ravnica Allegiance and others, there is a problem with this set: drafting 5 colors is too popular.  In a pod of 6, after one or two cards had been pulled from the first pack, two people (not me) announced they were probably going "5 color good stuff".  The result is that I only got 3 dual lands.  Here's what I drafted:

Only three dual lands!  Urf.

I made up for the lack of lands a bit with the Beamtown Beatstick and the four land cyclers.  With those I took a risk and only went with 16 lands.  Here's the deck:

Enjoy my bad lighting.

I was heavy in black again, but black is really fun to play in this set.  Aetherblade Agent is great.  Deadly Derision seemed like a definite include.  The two Gloomfang Maulers were excellent.  And I felt like I had to run Horobi, Death's Wail.

In the first round, Horobi actually turned out to be great.  My opponent was on Boros equipment and backup.  (With Sram and two Reyav!)  Horobi temporarily shut down any equipping.  My opponent correctly noticed that they could use backup on my creatures.  In fact, if I pull Horobi again, I'm hoping I've got a bunch more backup creatures myself, because that seems like a good strategy.  I lost game 1 badly, squeaked out a win in game 2, swinging for lethal at 15 while I had only 1 life.  That wasn't enough and I lost game 3 pretty quickly.

In the second round, I lost to one of the five-color decks.  They ran a ton of discard effects and I just couldn't keep up.  They dropped Yarok both games and I managed to get it back on the board after I removed it.  I got beaten brutally in two games.  This was still a really fun match, as it was cool to see my opponent's deck go off.

I ran Tetsuko Umezawa again, and it worked great again, comboing with Valduk... again.  It managed to keep me alive a little bit longer in round 2, and then it helped me blow out my round 3 opponent in two games.  Tetsuko Umezawa is such a great card.  Valduk isn't quite as good as the Brudiclad I got in my first March of the Machines draft, but it's still great.

1-2 isn't great, but I had a blast again!  I don't know whether I'll get to sneak a fourth draft in before the next set.  We'll see!

Notorious WUBRG: March of the Machine Draft 2

I did a bit better in my second March of the Machine draft!  Here's what I picked:

(In order, left to right and bottom to top.)

Naturally, I was most excited that I got passed the foil Invasion of Alara!  Here's the deck I built:

 

I should have taken Zirda out, as they didn't really contribute much.  As always, the deck was super fun to play, though I think I could have used a few more dual lands.

In my first round, I played against a relatively new drafter and beat them.  In the second round, I played against a strong green + something (white?  red?  It's been a few weeks...) deck.  I lost one game bad, and squeaked out the other two wins.

In the third round, I got obliterated by a fast red (and black?) deck.  2-1 is not too bad!

It turned out that the Archpriest of Shadows and new Glissa were very strong.  The archpriest helped me bring things back and Glissa was great, even though I didn't have a lot of synergy in other phyrexians.  It just didn't matter.  The Beamtown Beatstick was also great; creating treasures can obviously be very helpful.  In the end, I often couldn't keep up with the removal everyone else had and that usually cost me a game.   

I hope that I can get another draft in!

Notorious WUBRG: March of the Machine Draft

I made it to opening draft weekend for a main set!  Woohoo!

And it went super well.  I think this is the first time I've enjoyed a draft format so much that I bought a box of draft boosters from the store immediately afterwards!

Here's what I drafted (as usual, the first pack is on the left):

I took some basic lands early... sue me.

I got a bit scared after the first pack when I hadn't seen many dual lands and took none.  Pack 2 was real generous on lands, and I took as many as I could.  There were a full 8 people in my pod, so I opened the Brudiclad that I grabbed for the ninth pick.  (There was a third rare in there, another (non-foil) Heliod!)  That Brudiclad wound up being part of an amazing combo that I kept getting with Tetsuko.

Yes, I would like to make an unblockable 2/1 every turn.

One opponent commented that I had a Legendary Tribal deck.  Here's what the final version of my deck looked like:

I probably shouldn't have run the Heliod.

In my first round, I was up against a pretty aggro Rakdos deck.  I felt real good after turn 3 in game 1; I managed to have lands of all five colors out and got Aegar out there.

Actual game shot.  Of my side, anyways.

Aegar got killed before my next turn, and I wound up losing that first game pretty decisively, but I overwhelmed my opponent and won the second.  Unfortunately, the final game went much like the first and I lost the round 2-1. 

In the second round, I got a bye (someone dropped).  After a few minutes, I managed to find table space to play casually against the person in the other pod who had a bye (they had 7).  They were also running WUBRG, but they had the huge luck of first-picking Jegantha, who they ran as a companion.  We traded games before running out of time (we spent a bit of time clearing space on a side table).

In the third round, I matched up against Gruul big things.  Multiple times we were at an impasse because we both had huge creatures and couldn't swing without dying.  Twice we both had Ancient Imperiosaurs!  (I wish I had taken pictures!)  I snuck a win in game 1 by hitting (exactsies) for 19 in one turn after we both built up big boards.  Game 2 was a quicker overwhemling defeat.  In game 3, we went to time.  Turn 5 was mine, I was down 3 to 19 (again) and I swung out.  My imperiosaur had deathtouch and 19 power, but my opponent managed to block all of my other creatures and put two blockers on the dinosaur.  We drew at 3-2.  Close!

So, I technically went 1-1-1, but it felt more like 0-1-2.  I had so much fun!  Like I said above, I immediately bought a box of drafters.  This set actually feels a lot like Strixhaven; the Multiverse Legends cards act like the Mystical Archive. I'm not sure that the common dual lands show up often enough, but it's very similar.  Get out there and 5-color draft this set!

Notorious WUBRG: Repack Draft

I held a repack draft three days ago with five other people.  These are mostly from cards that were donated to me about 8 years ago.  I decided to build packs from those cards to run (nearly) free drafts with students.  I first separated them by color, then used a little recipe to build 15-card packs: 2 of each color, 2 multicolored, 1 non-land colorless (usually artifacts), 1 land, and 1 random non-land card.

The power level of these packs is understandably low, but I got some great cards to build a WUBRG deck with!

I wasn't shy about taking Opaline Bracers, though they might have tabled.  I do think Shoreline Ranger was probably undervalued; I managed to get some of them pretty late.  After I got Airborne Aid at the end of pack 1, I tried to build a tribe out of them.  Unfortunately, though I ran it, I never saw Aid itself, so I didn't get to cash in on that value.  Here's how I built my deck:

I went 2-0, but just barely won the first round.  My opponent had skillfully drafted 3 Orzhov Euthanist, and kept landing killing blows with them.  I had my back against the ropes in game 3, down in life around 6-16.  However, I had a flier with the Opaline Bracers, a Baton of Courage with some counters, and drew into Uncaged Fury.  I swung unblocked for the win.

I was hoping to play a third round, but it had gotten a bit late, so we ended early.  It was really fun, especially since I got to play with some new people!

Notorious WUBRG: Phyrexia: All Will Be One Draft (Round 2)

I got a second ONE draft in!  I figured I was going to be in the same sort of shape as the first time (Red/Blue Oil + Equipment with a splash of everything else).  Instead I ran a mostly-Red Oil deck with a lot of other good stuff in all colors.

Here's what I drafted.  Pack 1 is on the left and Pack 3 is on the right.  (I was really sad to get the Obliterator so late!)

I took Kemba because it was neat, but it turned out to be real good!  From those picks, I built the following deck.

Although there's only two Terramorphic Expanses, I was pretty lucky with my colors.  I think I probably should have found room for the other Sawblade Scamp, however.  That card did a lot of work, especially with Churning Reservoir and Urabrask's Anointer.  The big surprise was that Volt Charge just kept coming around, so I kept taking them.  

Overall I went 2-1, losing my first match, then winning the remaining two.  However, only one of my games was a blowout: one of the first round losses.  I barely squeaked by with a win in Round 2 and Round 3 was also very tight.  In the last two rounds, The Filigree Sylex won me a pair of games.  Although it's not as amazing as Pernicious Deed, that second ability was enough of a threat for me to charge up the third ability.  In Round 3, I won a game with my opponent starting the turn at 16 (I think) life. 3 combat damage, a Volt Charge (3 more damage and 3 more oil counters, putting me at 11), and then the Sylex made that happen.

I was hoping (planning?) to see more equipment, but things worked out fine.  I really wish this draft season was longer so I could do more of these, but I think next Friday might be the last one.

Notorious WUBRG: Phyrexia: All Will Be One Draft

I made it to a ONE draft.  However, I failed mightily at WUBRG drafting.  I was a bit greedy and took something over a second Terramorphic Expanse.  I also passed over a ton of Prophetic Prisms.  Bad choices.

My deck at the end of the three rounds.

This deck is real bad.  Fun, but bad.  0-3 bad.  I had some good late-game power, but it wasn't enough.  I won only one game, in the third round.  It seemed like everyone else had a ton of toxic creatures.  I quickly realized that I needed to stay at 2 poison counters or less to avoid Corruption.  

Nevertheless, it seems like the overall strategy isn't terrible.  I got passed a lot of Blue-Red cards, and they worked well together.  There is a lot of equipment synergy and I wish I had got more.  I didn't start off with the full playset of Vulshok Splitters in, but they worked great.  The For Mirrodin! mechanic worked quite well.  It works well with Trawler Drake and Cephalopod Sentry, both of which came around.

To be perfectly honest, I didn't build a WUBRG deck for the first round.  I just ran Izzet, realized it would be more fun with some extra colors, and then threw in a few things for the remaining rounds.  The WUBRG deck was definitely more fun.

I hope I get to draft ONE again!  I really enjoyed the format and I think I could do better with another try.

Notorious WUBRG: Brothers' War Draft

I finally got to do a Brothers' War draft!  It was excellent!  I was at a store I'd never been to before and everyone was quite nice.

Surprisingly, I pulled to draft five mana-fixing lands, and had quite an effective deck.  I really wish I had more chances to draft this set.  Here's what I picked, pack by pack (left-to-right), from bottom to top in order of the picks:

My first three picks were all lands, which seemed pretty good.  I picked up a lot of bombs as I went, as well as a bunch of rares that I didn't wind up running.  Here's what my deck looked like at the end:

I had some exciting grabs and combos that I wasn't expecting:

• Drafna + Ivory Tower: Drafna was great with lots of artifacts, but especially great with Ivory Tower.  Multiple times I put the tower ability on the stack, then bounced it to my hand to get an extra life.  (It didn't hurt that I could then replay Ivory Tower and copy it later.)
  
• Sarinth Greatwurm + Evolving Wilds: Yeah, this was real nice.  I think I missed a bunch of triggers from opponents' land drops, though.
• Astral Cornucopia + Battery Bearer: When X=2, this is a 6-mana spell.  If you also have Drafna, then you can recur it if you need cards.  Both of these spells were just great, though!
• Door to Nothingness: There's a bit of a story here.  I was in a draft pod of 8, all 7 people I hadn't played with before, quite a few of who were newish players.  (There were at least two first-time drafters.)  The group was very fun, and there was some friendly table talk while packs were getting passed around.  At one point, people start commenting on the Door to Nothingness and how funny it was and that it kept getting passed.  Well, I pulled it when it came to me and I told people I would try to activate it. 
       I finally did in round 3!  My opponent had a howling mine out, so I was at a ton of life on Ivory Tower, and then I got to the door and cast it.  I activated it the following turn and won the game.  I feel like this has to be some kind WUBRG-drafting achievement.
• The prototype artifact creatures are really good to draft.  They're flexible, so you can either use them early or late game, and if you don't have the needed color for them, you can bring them out later.  I would say I should have drafted more of these, but other cards were really good too, so I'm not sure.
  

I also got hit with perhaps the best card to play against a WUBRG deck, especially one that is getting domain all the time.  I lost the first round decisively to mono-red.  It looked like I might pull game one out, as he was severely mana flooded.  However, he had an 8-drop that walloped me: Sundering Titan.  

I couldn't believe it!  I lost five lands, half my mana base, and bit it a few turns later.  (I still can't believe it.)

Overall I went 1-1-1 and had a great time!  I really hope I get to do this format again, but unfortunately I think the new set comes in before I'll have my next chance.