Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty: WUBRG Drafting

I love it when stores draft old sets.  I certainly not at all tired with Lost Caverns of Ixalan; I haven't been out to draft it much.  Still, I'm happy to visit old stuff.

Especially since I don't think I'd drafted Neon Dynasty before!  Wow!  Here's what I picked.  First pack on the left, picks from first in front to last in the pack at the back.

Sometimes I didn't feel like reading and just grabbed the pretty land instead. 

Some useful WUBRG drafting notes:  (I am probably the only one who looks at these, but that's good enough.)

• I really don't know this set well.  There were many cards I was reading for the first time.
• I figured out in my second pick that I should be doing 5-color Shrines.  I think that one or two other people were taking shrines, so I only got these four (2x Shared Purpose, 1x Lost Wisdom, and 1x Ancient Wars) plus two Shrine Stewards.  I think I got two or more shrines every game except for one.
• I was so happy to see all the refuges.  I was very underwhelmed by Uncharted Haven, though I did run one and it came in use multiple times.  Don't be afraid to grab it.  It gets the job done.  
• There isn't a cycle of basic land cyclers like in more recent sets, but there is essentially one in white: Sunblade Samurai, with a life gain upside.  
• Greater Tanuki is excellent.  I wish I had got more than just one.  
• Ecologist's Terrarium is great.  

I think I should have come back and modified my deck, but here's what I started with, and I didn't bother to change it throughout the night:  (Please point out where you think I made mistakes!)

I never saw the flying turtle nor the flying fish!

In the first round I was playing against an Abzan deck who unfortunately got quite mana screwed.  I had a slow start, so they had the chance to get in to the game, but I out valued them with shrines both time and won the first two games.  We finished pretty quick, so we played two more games, trading wins, I think. 

In the second round I was matched up against a fast Gruul deck.  In one of the games they got stuck on two lands for a long time, but still managed to hold me off with Bamboo Grove Archer, Jukai Trainee, and some combat tricks.  I managed to get the upper hand, then they cast Invoke the Ancients.  I had an amazing response to that in hand, thankfully: Hidetsugu Consumes All.  This match didn't seem to last longer, but we were the last ones playing.  I won 2-0.  

In the third round I got flooded.  I don't say this as an excuse for losing both games, but as a note to future me not to keep lots-of-land hands, even if they have all my colors.  It is way too common for me to draw land the first three turns when I already have plenty.  My opponent was a strong and fun opponent who had drafted a Rakdos deck with lost of low-cost creatures and flip-sagas, which got a lot of value.  I got overrun, though I put up a pretty good fight in game 1.  Game 2 was short, and deservedly so.  My Inkrise Infiltrator held out as long as it could, but I just kept drawing land.   

Some other cards that were just great for me:

• Roaring Earth, which I'd drafted before in a chaos draft.  Either great early value or another creature later.
• Gravelighter is so cool.  I don't think I've even seen this card before.  
• I felt like my opponents misplayed against Kappa Tech-Wrecker.  I got way more value out of this card the two times it showed up than I should have. 
   

Most importantly, perhaps, is that I particpated in the Wheel of Fate, a cool thing that Intergalactic Plastic does.  When they are running Wheel of Fate events, you can pay an additional $5 to participate.  Then, whenever you finish a game during the event, win or lose, you get to spin the wheel, for up to five spins.  At a draft like this, so long as you don't get a bye, you're going to play at least six games, so you're good.  (The store is pretty good at avoiding the bye by including staff if there's an odd number.)  It seems like you don't need to spin during the actual event either; I think that if you played an EDH game before or after the event you could also count that for a spin.  They want you to get to the five spins.

It is too small to be a Wheel of Fish, thankfully.

I spun the following prizes:

• Promo: some random promo cards.  (I got the one at the top that looks like "Prom".)
• Snack: I chose a Slim Jim.
• $3 card
• $3 card.  I got to combine these into $6 towards singles.
• Drink, which I didn't redeem.

This was very fun!  I will probably do this next time it's happening during the draft!

Lost Caverns of Ixalan: WUBRG Drafting

I made it to an LCI draft!  This is a great set to draft a bunch of colors, and it's not because of the land, but because of the most recent trend in new magic sets: a cycle of basic land cyclers.  

To be fair, I had forgotten about the five new land cycling dinosaurs.  When I noticed them in the packs, I knew I had a chance.  Here were my picks:

Yeah, I started with dinosaurs right off the bat.

With these cards, I built the following deck:

The blank sleeve is for a Forgotten Monument that I traded right after the draft.

Getting the mana was a bit tough because I somehow managed to only draft the white discover lands.  I would have really liked to get some in other colors!

In my first round, I was matched up against someone who was playing for the second time.  Nevertheless, she had managed to draft a competent Golgari deck.  I won the first game.  Time got called during the second, but I still won a few turns in.  There were dicey moments in both games, so it was quite exciting.

In my second round, I was up against Boros with lots of crafting, including a splash of blue for two Master's Guide Murals.  I put up a good fight, but I got out-valued, and lost both games.

There was no third round.  The draft had gotten started late and the store needed to close.  I was left desiring more, but knowing full-well that I probably won't get another chance for a LCI draft before the format rotates.  Such is the holiday season! 

I really think that focusing on three things can make LCI WUBRG drafting work:

• Grab the land cyclers.
• Grab other useful low-cost spells.
• Grab the discover lands.

I also really appreciate how basic land cyclers are more common in packs.  I hope this trend continues and that future chaos drafts will be full of them.

The One Ring Remains Hidden in Chaos: WUBRG Drafting

I managed a nice little chaos draft on a Sunday afternoon.  I followed my own advice from last time (and Logan did too) and opened Ixalan first.  (Ace actually mentioned that if you open March of the Machines, you have a higher probability of getting a Companion... I will definitely be keeping that in mind!)  

Here's what we opened.  (I picked the same three packs as last time.  I have fallen into a chaos rut.)

Lost Caverns of Ixalan has its pre-release at the end of this week, so people wanted to open some old Ixalan.

I did not get a companion to build around this time, sadly.  Nevertheless, I got passed a bunch of cards that seemed great for five colors; I didn't have to make many very hard picks.  Then, however, in the third pack, I opened one of the most valuable cards I've opened in a draft: The One Ring.  Here are all my picks:

Immediately in a sleeve.

I had plenty of non-basic lands this time around.  I quickly built this deck. (I needed all the islands in order to have any chance to cast Invoke the Winds.) 

 

With an odd number of people, I prefer to do single-game rounds and see how many people we can each match up with.  We managed to get all 10 matches in!

In the first round, I was up against a first-time drafter running a well-built Golgari deck.  The game was running pretty even, with creatures dying on both sides evenly.  I spent a turn getting Sharknado down, then got played Vivisurgeon's Insight the following turn to get my 5/5 Flying Shark.

The Infinitokens got a work out today!

See that Rise of the Witch-King in the picture?  It killed my Shark immediately and gave my opponent a big beatstick back from the yard.  Thankfully, the three cards I drew made the difference, and I popped out a bunch more creatures and overwhelmed them.  

These were all from that one game!

In game 2, I was matched up against a Temur value deck.  I started off by trading over and over again with Master of Death.  Nevertheless, I fell behind in the life totals quickly, but I felt like I was about to stabilize when I lost to a spell I can't remember that made my opponent's creatures unblockable that killed me at 5.

In game 3, I was matched against another first-time drafter piloting a Grixis deck.  Sadly, they got extremely mana flooded, even with a number of card draws.  I managed to overwhelm them before they could get into normal card mode.  I did draw The One Ring midway through the game, but I had enough cards in hand that it didn't seem necessary to play.

In game 4, I fought the only undefeated player at the table, playing a Boros Aggro Humans deck.  Perimeter Sergeant kept got on the board and kept getting past my blockers, especially after Eowyn, Lady of Rohan came down and granted it first strike every turn.  I got some chump blockers in, trying to get something that would survive a flow from the Sergeant, but it kept getting bigger power with the help of equipment and counters.  I had a Chrome Courier made bigger by Lagrella. I got Wingspan Mentor down, but had to spend my man doing things other than activating it.  Finally I got Sharknado again, which meant fliers and blockers to keep things in check.  I think I was able to win two turns later.

I went 3-1 and with that win had a three-way draw with the Boros and Temur players.  I guess that is a downside of single-game rounds: the lack of tiebreakers.  

This was a super fun draft!  All the decks seemed really good, and I escaped just barely.  (I won one of the games at 1 life... but I don't remember which one it was.  I'm sure someone will remind me.  In the future, there'll probably be an update after this.)

Chaos to 60 Cards: WUBRG Drafting

Open the Ikoria pack first.  Open the Ikoria pack first.  Open the Ikoria pack first...

I held a four-person chaos draft last night.  It went really well, but I need to learn an important lesson: Open the Ikoria pack first.

Here are the packs we opened.  Thanks to Matt for venturing all the way back to Dragon's Maze!

I got pretty lucky, because I lost a lot of dual lands to the other drafters early on, especially in pack 1.  That is usually the worst thing for me, but in this case, it turned out to be great.  I got fewer dual lands, instead got some higher spell picks, and that helped me in all of my games.  I needed nearly every spell I could get.  And it's all because of Ikoria.

Here are my picks.  If you look at the first card I picked in the second pack, you'll see that I needed to pump the brakes on dual lands and focus on as many spells as possible.  (First pack is on the left, picks go from front to back.) 

Right... companions.

Yorion called out a challenge to me and I took them up on it.  Thankfully that was the first card of pack 2 so I had barely enough time to draft the spells to play a 60-card deck.  If I had opened Ikoria third or if my table had passed me more dual lands in pack 1, I might have been stuck with some real bad cards.  I even pushed it a little bit and took the fancy Kamigawa island instead of a spell midway through pack 2.  As it is, I ran 35 of the 39 spells I drafted, not including Yorion.  My sideboard only had 3 spells!  (I really wanted to run Goblin Test Pilot, but I just didn't think it was good enough.)

I also got lucky because I got passed a bunch of removal.  Red was underdrafted at the table, and I was able to grab Voltage Surge, Fires of Victory, and Foray of Orcs all pretty late.  I think I undervalued Foundry Helix; I probably should have run that too.

Here's the deck I ran:

So many cards!

We got a bit of a late start, so we only got to play about half of the games.  We finished round 1 and then played one game in round 2.

My first match was against a strong Golgari deck with a bit of graveyard recursion.  Both games were wars of attrition.  In the first game, removal on both sides kept big creatures off of the board for the most part.  I tried to remove Glissa, Sunslayer with a kicked Fires of Victory during combat, only for Bombadil's Song to not only keep Glissa alive, but fizzle the Fires, negating my draw.  They drew off the combat damage for an effective 3-for-1 play.  I luckily had Fog on the Barrow-Downs in my hand, which stuck for the rest of the game.  I forced a good trade with Efreet Flamepainter and managed to pull ahead with Yorion's help.  

In game 2, I mulliganed down to 5, but got really lucky on my draws.  Jelenn Sphinx came out, but got Possessed Sinisterly, so I kept off the attacks for a while.  Once I had a chance to get Yorion out, the Sinister Possession came off the sphinx and I was able to attack and force some trades, all while Smeagol, Helpful Guide was out.  I gave the sphinx the ring and once I was twice-tempted, I got to start looting, which put me on top enough to win the game.

We only had time for one game of round 2, where I was matched up against a brutal Esper deck with lots of menace.  Thankfully my removal all showed up.  Foray of Orcs, Deal Gone Bad, and Immolation all picked off targets, with a Fire Prophecy waiting in the wings when I swung out for lethal.  

I got real lucky last night, but I'm really glad I took up Yorion's challenge!

Looking Back: Homelands Draft on Nov 20, 2017

Just about six years ago, a student of mine decided to hold a Homelands draft.  They bought a box online (it was much cheaper than the $500+ they are now), got 8 people together, split the cost, and we drafted the box.   

My student wanted to draft this set specifically because the cards are considered to be quite bad.  In 2017, Didgeridoo was the most valuable card in the set, coming in around $5.  (Our draft happened just after the little spike that appears at the end of 2017.)  Today the individual cards are worth about twice as much.  Many of the "chase" cards experienced a big bump in the beginning of 2021, but have settled down.  (At the time of Homeland's release, I remember a lot of excitement around Autumn Willow, the first creature with base Shroud.  Deep Swawn can get shroud and Svyelunite Priest can grant it to something else.)

Homelands was released in 1995; the "36 packs of 15 cards in a box" hadn't become a standard for boosters yet.  Instead, for Homelands, they tried 60 packs of 8 cards each.  (Also, when 3-set blocks became normal, Homelands was considered the second set of the Ice Age block, followed by Alliances.  When Coldsnap was released in 2006, the "block" was reconfigured to be Ice Age/Alliances/Coldsnap.)  We each got 6 packs and drafted them individually.  

I took a few photos of packs I opened.  Serrated Arrows was the right pick in the second pack. 

I didn't draft WUBRG.  I can't remember whether it was because I kept seeing good red cards, or because I didn't see many of the (bad) Homelands tri-color lands.   Looking back, I wish I had tried harder!  That could have been more fun if I saw enough of the lands.

I can't complain about how the draft went, though!  I knew the value of Serrated Arrows, having played with it in 1995, and again in Time Spiral block limited.  They kept coming around, so I kept grabbing them.  I also saw lots of Anaba Shaman, so I got them as well.  I don't have a photo of all the cards I drafted, but I do have a shot of the 23 cards that I think made up my deck:

I went 3-0 quite easily.  I kept nearly every other threat out of the game with direct damage and arrows. 

My opponents' creatures were like the Teen Girl Squad.

I think I won every game, but I'm not certain.  I do remember that I was helped by terrible draws for my opponents.  My MVP was absolutely the three copies of Serrated Arrows.  

It was really fun to play in this draft.  If I had the chance, I would probably do it again, but maybe not at the current cost of the box.  (It would probably cost at least $70 per person now.)  I would really like a chance to draft WUBRG in Homelands, though.  (I would still first-pick Serrated Arrows.)

Neapolitan Commander Draft

I went to a Neapolitan Commander Draft last night.  Each of the six of us opened, in order, Commander Legends, Commander Legends: Baldur's Gate, and Commander Masters.  This was a great idea that one of our students came up with.

Six Neapolitan Commander Draft sets

 

We included an important Commander Masters draft rule that I didn't know about: Mono-colored and Colorless legendary creatures are considered to have Partner, even if they don't have it on the card.  Thankfully, one of our alums knew this rule!  Since we were including Baldur's Gate, we added the rule that those legends also have Choose a Background to help facilitate more card and color combinations. 

By my count, there are 7 total legends in the sets who have WUBRG color identity, and... I didn't see any of them.  However, I was lucky enough to get passed an Archelos, Lagoon Mystic right away in the first pack.  Although I focused on the Sultai from that point, I took plenty of cards of other colors just in case I saw a WUBRG legend come up.  I also spent a little bit of effort on collecting gates, but only got three.  (Don't worry, it made a difference later!)  Here are my picks:  (Reminder: in a Commander Draft, you pick two cards instead of one each time you see a pack.)

First picks in front.  Left: pack 1; Right: pack 3.

In the end I didn't take enough Sultai cards.  Minimum deck size in a Commander Draft is 60 cards; the usual balance is somewhere around 24 lands and 36 spells.  Including Archelos, I only had 34 spells.  Deckbuilding was very fast; I took all the cards I could play and added five each of the relevant lands.  Here's the resulting deck:

I like these spells, but I needed more.

The eleven non-basic lands were a great boon, and they're even better with Archelos: all the tap lands enter untapped!  Opal Palace is amazing; two copies are even better.  The multi-color lands made up for the few colorless lands I had.  Some of my picks helped make up for the lack of spells, but all too often I found myself with my hand full of lands.  

We formed two random groups of 3 for our games and got to playing.  In Game 1, I was pitted against Belbe and Miara + Saervok.  Saervok hit the board and the life totals started to drop quickly.  I got Archelos down and managed to swing with it every turn, which kept my opponents slowed down.  (It also had Armory of Iroas, so it kept getting bigger.)  Scion of Halaster helped me filter out the many lands.  The life totals continued to drop; we each tried to get one of our creatures killed on each of our turns to avoid losing three life to Saervok.  (Having Miara with ways to kill her was a pretty good combo with Saervok!)  The Belbe player started to drop a lot of threats, so the Miara/Saervok player focused on them and took them out with 11 life left.  

Archelos got killed and I replayed it, but with four +1/+1 counters using both of my Opal Palaces.  On the next turn, I drew and played a second Basilisk Gate, then proceeded to use all of the cards I had except for one land to win the game.  

• For four mana, I played the last card in my hand, Manifold Key, and activated it to make Archelos unblockable.
• For four more mana, I activated both Basilisk Gates to give Archelos +4/+4.  (Now it had 10 power.) 
  
• I created an elf with Freyalise, then immediately sacrificed it to Ashnod's Altar to reequip Archelos with the Armory of Iroas.  
• With only one untapped land remaining, Archelos swung for the necessary 11 to end the game.

Our game ended fast, so we started another one while the other game was finishing.  This time my opponents were more wary of Archelos and I couldn't get it to stick for long.  When I did, I greedily used it to attack instead of as a blocker.  (I wanted their stuff to be tapped, but also to cash in on the extra Belbe-mana.)  The Belbe player got some good card draw going with Mask of Memory.  They soon got Giant Ankheg on the board, which got the two of us to attack each other even more.  When the Ankheg started swinging, I had no good means to soak the damage, so I died first.  Belbe died a few times on attacks.  The Miara + Saervok player was able to remove the Ankheg from the board and it looked like they would win, but the Belbe player drew into Exsanguinate and had enough to win with that alone.  

The other group had already finished and three people had to call it a night.  (I think the winning player over there won by dealing 23 damage to one player on the last turn!)  The remaining three of us were me, Belbe, and a player from the other group running Captain Vargus Wrath.  We got in one final game before even I needed to call it a night.  

I used Belbe-mana to power out Goliath Sphinx on turn 5.  I swang with it back and forth to keep my opponents' life low.  (I had confused Exsanguinate with Bond of Agony, so I was determined to keep the Belbe player at a life total below both of ours.)  The Vargus player built Izzet pirates well, however, and they got a group of dangerous flying creatures that kept me low as well.  I spent a bunch of turns drawing only lands. 

As the end of the game drew near, Vargus sent most of their army into the red zone.  One attacker threatened my exact life total against my tapped board, while the rest came at Belbe.  I used Sword Coast Serpent's Capsizing Wave to last another turn while the Belbe player perished.  On my next turn, I swung back, hoping my Treasure Keeper would meet a glorious end and find some more flying blockers (or anything) but my opponent chose correctly and it just went unblocked, along with the sphinx.  I then sacrificed to Ashnod's Altar and got Clockwork Fox.  I immediately threw that on the altar and got... more lands.  I died to flying pirates directly thereafter.  I don't think I had a path to survive that turn.  

I'm pretty happy with the one win I got.  More importantly, Neapolitan Commander Draft is an awesomely fun format!  I combines the fun elements of EDH with the unpredictability of Chaos Drafts.   If you choose to partake, I recommend using the rule we adopted: All colorless and mono-colored legendary creatures automatically have Partner and Choose a Background.  If your group does something different that works well, please leave a comment and let me know!  I am sure you will come upon some cool new unexpected interactions.  

Note: Thanks to Tristan for thinking of the name: Neapolitan Commander Draft.

Wilds of Eldraine: WUBRG Drafting

Drafts have not been firing at my prior FNM haunt of choice due to a sudden exodus of players.  (There's more behind this that I won't get into, suffice to say that the ad-hoc boycott seems justified.)  

Thankfully, a local group formed in response and I was invited to join in for a Wilds of Eldraine draft on Friday, which was during release weekend.  This was super fun and I got to know a bunch of people really well.  

Here's what I drafted in the 8-person group.  The left pile is the first pack, right is the third.  The picks go from first in front to last in the back.  (Sorry for the glare.)

That first pick Hatching Plans turned out to be just fine.

I prioritized Hatching Plans because I had taken a look at the spoiler and knew I could probably pick up some bargain-based cards.  As it turned out, I did manage to get a few, most notably the Diminisher Witch, which turned out to be extremely useful.  Other than that, I grabbed stuff that seemed good or might be good. 

Here was my deck after the matches ended:

That empty sleeve is in place of the third Diminisher Witch that I must have lost after the last match.

I probably should have run the second Brave the Wilds, but I forgot about it.  Also, initially my deck contained Wicked Visitor, Johann's Stopgap, and Rowan's Grim Search, but I sided them out partway through round 2 for the Flick a Coin, Compulsion, and Break the Spell.  I never cast the Wicked Visitor or Rowan's Grim Search, but the three spells I put in definitely should have been there from the start.  Especially Compulsion.  I ran four of them in a standard deck back in 2003, so I know how to use the card, especially for cycling lands away late in the game.  For the other two, Break the Spell is great against roles and Flick the Coin is tremendously good.  Especially when drafting WUBRG, and even more especially when having a bunch of bargain cards that would like to sacrifice a token.  The most important thing for this deck is that every time I cast Hatching Plans, I wound up drawing three cards off of it.  It was absolutely amazing.

In the first round I matched up against a fast Boros deck.  I think I lost 1-2, but it could be 0-2.  Either way I put up a good fight.  I definitely made some play mistakes, most notably using a Diminisher Witch to put a Cursed Role token on Kellan, the Fae-Blooded.  That was a problem because it counted toward's Kellan's bonus as well as didn't cause an opponent's role to fall off.  (Important: roles only replace others if they are controlled by the same player!)  Future note: Shrouded Shepherd is really good, and caught me off guard multiple times!  I should draft those.

In the second round, I faced off against a brutal Azorius deck that kept tapping my creatures down.  This is apparently a really good strategy against me, as evidenced by my loss earlier this summer to a similar style deck.  Solitary Sanctuary came out just about every game and was really hard to play around.  I won a close game 1, got steamrolled in game 2, and then got really lucky in game 3 to sneak out a second win. 

In the third round, I matched up against an Esper deck with lots of rats, including Lord Skitter.  In this match, I had more time to set things up, so Hatching Plans and Diminsher Witch both turned out to be extremely useful.  The games went the same as round 2: I won games 1 and 3 to round out another match win.  Unlike my other rounds, all three games were extremely tight.  I played a lot better and started to use Diminisher Witch as post-combat removal against creatures that blocked with a high toughness.

This was a really great and chill event.  Everyone was super nice and the stakes were happily low.  I felt pretty good about going 2-1 in my first WOE draft, even though all of my wins were squeaked out.  I hope I get to draft with this group again!