Wilds of Eldraine 5 (WUBRG Drafting)

My Friendly Local Game Store, Intergalactic Plastic, ran a draft for FNM yesterday.  In their delightful fashion, they went back in time a bit and we drafted Wilds of Eldraine.  On one hand, I haven't yet drafted Tarkir Dragonstorm.  On the other hand, I have a pretty good record at my four previous Wilds drafts, a total of 10-2.  Maybe I could continue my performance here.

There was a torrential downpour that ended right around the start of the draft, so that may have kept people away.  We only had six people, but that's enough to draft!

I started off opening Questing Druid and knew it was going to be a good draft.  I only managed to draft three fixing lands, one Scarecrow Guide, and a single Rootrider Faun.  And a lot of treasure generating spells.  Here are all my picks:

Johann, a familiar Wilds-draft friend!

I drafted a lot of crazy fun cards that I wanted to try to cast.  Unfortunately, I just didn't have the right deck for them.  Thunderous Debut?  I didn't have any big creatures to search for.  Forced Fruition?  I drafted that in my last draft and it wasn't all that fun.  Hatching Plans?  I didn't have a lot of Bargain stuff.  Leyline of Abundance?  Let's make it happen!

Here was my deck:

Yeah, I actually remembered to take this photo before I left the store.

In the first round I was up against a relatively new player with an aggressive Boros deck.  He had some good value in the first game with Dragon Mantle and Stockpiling Celebrant.   

The mantle of the dragon weighs heavily on a young hero's shoulders.

I got Talion out on turn 4, and chose 4 for the mana cost.  (I should have chosen 3.  I should have chosen 3.  I should...)  That meant I only got to profit on the Cut In that killed her.  Nevertheless, I was able to get a big board going.  Dream Spoilers was amazing, taking out three creatures with its ability and I won with a board that was way too big.  In the second game the Boros aggro paid off and I lost in turns while my opponent was at 25. 0-0-1.

In the second match, I was up against a regular drafter at the store, wielding a brutal Glint-Eye deck.  (The colors, not the actual card.)  I got the Questing Druid out early in a pattern of turn 2 Seek the Beast (it's adventure) on their turn. (Actually their turn 3, because I lost all my die rolls.)  Then I could decide whether to play the Druid on turn 3 or use the cards I'd exiled.  Usually I cast those spells and dropped the Druid on turn 4.  He played a turn 6 Hamlet Glutton, but it never came in because the Druid outgrew it within a few turns.  I won with a very wide board and eight +1/+1 counters on the druid.  In game 2, he put Decadent Dragon on an adventure and stole two of my cards.

Hey, that's my Plains!

He got to WUBRG before I did off the back of my plains.  I played Talion again, this time guessing seven due to the threat of Hamlet Glutton.  Instead of that being important, he killed her with the other stolen card: Frantic Firebolt.    I took a lot of damage from those Minstrosities, dropping to three life.  I got some of the engine going with Johann and was able to play my swarm of creatures.  I won using the Leyline to pump my team in the end.  So far all of my wins are from outlasting my opponent until my battle line is longer than theirs.  That is totally in line with my play style.  1-0-1.

In the third round I was up against the tournament organizer, running a deck titled "Abzan Groceries" with lots of food-based tricks.  The first game was a war of attrition, with removal keeping the board pretty clear.  This slow form worked in my favor, though, and I outpaced them with lots of good card draw that gave me the gas to win.  (Thank you, Quick Study!)  The second game was back to the long battle lines.  I got turn five natural WUBRG (woo!) but their Howling Galefang got in for a bunch of damage.  I got Greta on the board twice (thanks, Woodland Acolyte) and sacrificed both foods to put her to 5/5.  I took some more damage here and there, but then they flooded out and I was able to extend the battle line far enough again and win.  2-0-1.

The real winning point here was in all of the instants.

• Instants as adventures are great!  I started with Sleep-Cursed Faerie, but I replaced it with Grabby Giant because it worked so much better with other things.
• Card draw and mana fixing instants were amazing.  Flick a Coin was good, but Quick Study was the MVP.  I cannot overstate just how helpful this card was at giving me gas.  I would have run two more copies if I'd drafted them!
• All these instants were especially good with Johann, Questing Druid, and Dream Spoilers.  Even a simple Flick a Coin could change the damage balance in a potential fight by 3.  (1 damage itself, +1/+1 counter for the druid, -1/-1 with the Dream Spoilers.)  

If you count the adventure-creatures, I had 12 instants in the deck.  It was a real 5-color spellslinger!

Total record in Wilds of Eldraine drafts: 12-2-1

There are many other sets I want to draft, but I don't think I'll ever turn down one of these!  Happy Magicking!

Chaos, Heavy on the Duskmourn (WUBRG Drafting)

We snuck in one more April draft on Monday.  This is finals week for me.  I tried to pick meaningful packs:

• Strixhaven, because the school year is ending.  
• Amonkhet, because it's the beginning of the summer and it's about to get HOT here.
• Streets of New Capenna... this was not on theme, I just like opening this set!

Here's what we all picked:

Yeah, Magic 2012, baby!

Notice those three interesting packs to my right.  Those were opened by my WUBRG Rival, whom I've mentioned in prior posts.  They were sitting just to my right, which is the worst place for me!  That means they can take all the multicolored lands before I even see them! 

One excellent thing I did was to take a Snow-Covered land mid way through pack 1.  That paid off when I grabbed a Frostwalk Bastion late in pack 2 and an Arcum's Astrolabe in pack 3.

I definitely got greedy in the draft, and often picked fancy-looking cards over lands.  I have a problem with that.  Here are all my picks:

When I took the Forced Fruition, I told myself I had to run it and I did... but I never had a good time to cast it.  

I took the Depopulate, promising to myself that I would pick a bunch of multicolored creatures.  As you can see, I failed to stick to that.

When the Grim Lavamancer was passed to me, I told them (my WUBRG Rival) that they should look it up first.  They did and it is apparently now only worth a fraction of a dollar.  Freaking power creep!  

This deck was relatively easy to build.  I kept in as much removal as possible.  I'm really glad I kept The Jolly Balloon Man in.  I managed to accidentally include some great combo pieces.  Here's the finished deck:

Five snow permanents, let's go!

We played single game rounds (with a free first-mulligan) and I think we managed to get 20 of the 21 possible matches in, and the last match happened afterwards to complete the Round Robin.  (That's a sign of a great draft... to me anyways.)

In the first round I was matched up against a nifty Temur deck.  I got Charred Foyer out on turn four, generating sweet value.  I opened the Warped Space side a few turns later, but then it drew the hate.

Naturalize destroys the rooms in your house!

I kept my lead in the value race, however, and pulled out the win. 1-0.

In the second round, I faced a speedy Boros deck.  I got steamrolled.  I kept a land-poor hand after the free mulligan with mostly islands.  I continued to draw Islands as I died to Endrider Catalyzer and Most Valuable Slayer with Lightwheel Enhancement thrown in for good measure.  I thought I bought myself some extra turns with some chump blockers, enough for me to get the land down and unleash The Rollercrusher Ride.  Unfortunately those chumps got removed and then a Turn Inside Out beat me before I was expecting it.  1-1

The Lavamancer didn't have time to Lavamance.

 

My third opponent was a Golgari player who was also able to take me out with a two-creature team.  

Team featured here.

Both the Gluttonous Slug and the Conceited Witch have menace, putting me constantly on the backfoot.  Many times I was one or two mana short of doing something smart with the Mirage Mirror and the Lesser Masticore.  Sometimes I was able to pull off a kill.  Unfortunately, Supernatural Stamina and Fake Your Own Death negated two of those.  (They didn't happen at the same time, but I made my opponent pull them out for photo evidence of the repeated crushing blow.  Is black death escapism a kinship?)  1-2  After that match, my opponent revealed that they had refrained from playing Terramorphic Expanse because they didn't want me to copy it and sac my mirror to solve my mana problems.

In the fourth round, I was against a tight Simic deck (actually Bant, but only white for Salvation Engine.  Gastal Thrillseeker was good early on, but it did and the game became a war of attrition where both of our removal played a big role.  I ran out of it when the Salvation Engine came out, but at that point there wasn't enough to crew it.

So many creatures are dead, exiled, or frozen... except for some 1/1s.

Haunted Screen helped me break the stalemate here and I won before more creatures showed up to crew the Salvation Engine.  2-2.

Haunted Screen showed up for me in the next round too, but my Mardu opponent was ready with an Untimely Malfunction to take it out.  

I did still kill the First Sliver's Chosen.

Thankfully I had enough other gas to stay ahead and I won.  3-2.

Once again, my WUBRG Rival had engineered things so that we didn't play until the very end of the night.  Thankfully my deck decided to shove combos in my face so hard that I couldn't miss them.  My opponent played Springbloom Druid, a card I would have loved to have.  My Jolly Balloon Man couldn't copy that since it's my opponent's, but I could copy it with the Mirage Mirror, then make a copy of my own.

Ragavan is standing in for a Springbloom Druid token.

It was an expensive combo, but I used it two or three times before the druid died.  The mirror powered another combo, though.  You can only activate Haunted Screen's ability once... but if you can get some +1/+1 counters on Mirage Mirror first, then you can activate it on multiple turns.  

Hi.

Thanks, Revival of the Ancestors for those initial counters.  4-2.

Takeaways: 

• Three snow lands was enough to run the snow splash.
• I think I lost at least one game to a lack of mana fixing.
• I love drafting!
  

I hope you have some great drafts yourself.  Happy Magicking!

Chaos Mutates an Army (WUBRG Drafting)

Last night we did a quick little chaos draft with six people.  We got started late so I only got two rounds in.  Tarkir: Dragonstorm just came out, so that was the desired pack this time around, though there was still lots of Aetherdrift.

I would claim to be the most chaotic, but Ikoria, LotR, New Capenna is actually back in my rut.

The drafting part was quite fun, but I thought I'd drafted more lands than I had.  My manabase was not good.  Here were my picks:

My WUBRG rival, seated to my left, got more lands than me.  I passed them to them!  What was I thinking?

I almost turned down the Cubwarden, but then decided to draft it and hope that the Migratory Greathorn would table, which it did.  I never got them out together, but Cubwarden turned out to work great on its own nonetheless!

From those picks, I built this deck:

Scary Alien Card is scary to me.

We only got two rounds in because we'd started a bit late.  (We probably should have done best-of-1 rounds instead of best-of-three.  Or we should have Emperor Drafted.  Maybe that second one.)  In the first round, I was up against a brutal Abzan deck with lots of fighting and not-fighting (e.g. Cosmic Hunger).  I squeaked out the first game by decimating all the creatures with removal.  In the second game, my opponent had a turn three Regal Imperiosaur, which I was lucky enough to Cut Short.  Later on, I mutated Cubwarden on top of my 2/2 Orc Army from Swarming of Moria.  That essentially just replaced the token with the Cubwarden, +1/+1 counters and all, while still getting the tokens off the trigger.  That was just about all I had going my way and succumbed later to the onslaught of beaters.  In game 3, their Synchronized Charge had me taking 10 damage in two consecutive turns.  0-1

And Aggressive Negotiations took away my Bedhead Beastie! 

In the second (and my final) round, I was once again up against my WUBRG rival, still on a quest to finally win against me.  My Barrensteppe Siege showed up here and I played it well.  In the first game it worked well with Ledger Shredder, but Cubwarden stole the show (again) after I mutated (again) it onto the Orc Army token (again) from Swarming of Moria.  I won that first game as the Siege kept buffing the cats.  This game took a long time as we were both above 30 life at different points.  In the second game we both pulled off natural turn five WUBRG lands!  I got good value out of Gitaxian Spellstalker, but then I felt like I was playing against one of my own draft decks as Zada and Radha hit the board.  I got rid of Radha, but then lost to Pedal to the Metal on Zada and copied on Hyrax Tower Scout.  In game 3, Zada and Radha came down together again.  At the end of the game, I was at 11 and they both swung.  I had just played my first red land and had Bedhead Beastie in hand, with Mardu Devotee to get that second red mana.  Unfortunately, that red land was tapped, so I had to wait and hope the devotee would survive a turn.  The pair of legends attacked, Radha gave Zada +4/+4, and I chose not to block to go to 1.  Except instead my opponent played Raking Claws.

How about 20 damage instead?

That was all she wrote.  0-2.  More import than my record this night, after ten or so attempts, my WUBRG rival had finally defeated me in a match.  My streak was done.  In the last month before they graduate and move away, at maybe the last draft they'll ever have with me, they finally defeated me.  They've been trying and trying and trying, making sure to play me in each event, often delaying it to the last match of the night for extra emphasis.  Now it is complete.

Now they can go forth and draft WUBRG with a whole new group of players! 

This draft was great.  I didn't do well, but that means only one thing: I want to draft again!  No matter what, Happy Magicking!  

Repack Draft #(n+9): Tim Team (WUBRG Drafting)

I held a repack draft on the last Saturday in March.  It happened with short notice, but we had four and that's enough to draft.

Although there wasn't amazing Sunburst cards like last time, I saw a bunch of pinging Tim-type creatures come by, so I grabbed them: Spikeshot Goblin, Crossbow Infantry, Vithian Stinger, Flamewright and Viridian Longbow all found their way into my pile.  Here were all of my picks:

I don't remember what was in that second pack that got me to first-pick a land.

Here's the deck I put together from all that:

I wanted to run the 2/2s with protection (e.g. Yavimaya Barbarian) but had to cut them both.

We played best-of-three rounds.  In the first round I was matched up against a first-time drafter running a slick Orzhov deck.  Spikeshot Goblin was the MVP here, especially since I got it equipped with Goldvein Pick in both games.  In the second game I had it out on turn 5 while my opponent was mana screwed.  Two points of repeatable direct damage was too much for them to overcome and I won both games.  1-0.

In the second round I was paired up against my WUBRG rival, against whom I was undefeated.  The first game was very tough.  I took out their Gold Myr with my Spikeshot friend, but they returned the favor by using Dire-Strain Rampage on my Unknown Shores.  That was followed up with Drain the Well on my Orzhov Guildgate.  I won the game with only four land out.  In the second game, they cursed my Moonstone Harbinger with Morgul-Knife Wound, but I kept it around because I'd made it an archer.

Pew pew deathtouch arrows!

I got Relic Sloth out, which was enough to race the wound damage.  My rival was forced to Decommission my longbow, but I still beat them.  This was my first game without the Spikeshot Goblin, but the win was more due to the fact that my opponent had a hand of blue cards without blue sources.  2-0  My undefeated streak continues!

My third round opponent was on Bant, with a bit of mill power with Drowned Secrets.  In the first game their Sludge Monster threatened to give me a bad day, but I drew into Command the Storm.  Relic Sloth became the big creature to beat and won the game.  In the second game, Spikeshot came up big again, controlling the board until Relic Sloth could win it again for me.  3-0.

Others may make fun of me for how much I draft Razorfin Hunter, but Tims are great in draft!  I got lucky and my opponents played into things a bit, but this deck still felt really strong.  I'm not sure whether I'm just good at drafting from these weak "packs" or whether the set of cards I pull them from is biased in my favor.  In any case, it was really fun!  Happy Magicking!

Repack Draft #(n+8): Infused with Sunburst (WUBRG Drafting)

I ran a little free draft for students last Thursday.  Eight people came out, one of them a first-time drafter.  I even managed to snap one of the most boring show-your-packs photos:

Not in an octagon, however.

We agreed on single-game rounds (with a free first mulligan).  There was quite a bit of table talk.  People were mentioning about how I liked to draft five colors and that could be dangerous.  Well, I still managed to get some good WUBRG-enabling and enabled cards.

Hello, triple Infused Arrows!

In deckbuilding, I really wanted to run Talon of Pain (Norin has a bad feeling about it) but I remembered that Boros Battleshaper wins games and ran that instead.  I didn't like the idea of dropping some removal, but as it turned out, I had plenty.  Here's the deck that I ran for the whole night:

Also land cyclers in four colors!

People really wanted to play against me and stayed late to do so, so I managed to get all 7 games in, which was super!

In the first round, I was up against a Grixis Amass/Mill deck.  (The Amass part was on purpose; the Mill part was a product of two copies of Surrounded by Orcs.)  I was able to keep the big creatures off the field and won, but with only four cards remaining in my library!  Dangerous!  1-0.

In the second round, I was paired up against an Azorius deck.  I did not understand just how good Dream Trawler is in limited.  It's real good!  I was able to get in off the table, but I almost died.  I was real glad that I avoided these two from being on the battlefield at the same time:

So nasty together!

I escaped that round with a win.  Whew!  2-0.

In the third round, I was up against the first-time drafter who had put together a good Glint-Eye deck.  They got a bit stuck on land and I overwhelmed them (I think I got Garrison Sergeant with Opaline Bracers in this one) but it was an excellent first showing and I applaud them for running four colors!  3-0.

In the fourth round, I was up against a Simic deck that packed a blast from the past.

It's startling to me how an amazing card from the early days can be so less menacing now.

Fishing Pole showed up here, keeping the Blastoderm mostly at bay.  I got the Battleshaper down and after the Blastoderm faded away, I was able to keep supremacy of the board and win.  4-0.

In the fifth round I was up against someone who treated their Magmatic Channeler as the commander of their Mardu deck.  They cast it three times during the game by getting it back from the yard with other spells!  (I appreciate all my removal!)  This was a tough one and, to be honest, I got real lucky here.  I got the Battleshaper out, but it got murdered.  I then managed to assemble the Garrison Sergeant + Opaline Bracers (with 4 counters) combo, and I just happened to attach the Fishing Pole to it after attacking.

Seems like a good choice for Act of Treason!

Two important rules helped me out here:

1. My opponent didn't have any gates (I did) so the sergeant didn't have double strike while on my opponent's side of the board.  I was only facing 7 damage instead of 14.
2. (More importantly) I still controlled the Fishing Pole, so when the Act of Treason untapped the creature, I got to put a 1/1 fish into play, which seemed very willing to block the sergeant.

Whew!  After surviving this combat, I was able to pull out the win, but I definitely got lucky here.  5-0.

In the sixth round, I was up against an Abzan lifegain deck.  I was once again able to put together the Sergeant + Opaline Bracers combo, but that turned into just a Fish-generation machine.

Guess who I moved the bracers over to?

5/5 Fish helped me win the game, but not before Gargos showed it's face on the battlefield!  Thankfully I got it off before my opponent could target it with a spell and won the game.  6-0.

My seventh and final opponent was my current student rival who is working to defeat me at least once!  They have been going WUBRG lately and didn't disappoint this time.  They even had Reap and Sow in their deck, but had to cast it without the entwine and only to search because they were so desperate for one of their colors.  That could have been devastating to me!  The real story about this game, though, is that all three of my Infused Arrows showed up to party.  Serrated Arrows was good in Homelands, but Infused Arrows is an absolute beast in WUBRG limited.  With 12 counters in total, I had complete control of what stayed on the board.  They even dropped their own Gargos!  (Two opponents in a row!  How is that possible?)  I think I took out the hydra with alternative removal so I was left with tons of arrows counters at the end.  7-0.

This deck worked out really well.  I did get real lucky and escape some tight situations.  I really enjoy running these free drafts and the students seem to have a good time too.

Until next time, Happy Magicking!

Mystery Booster 2 Draft (WUBRG Drafting)

At our chaos draft last night, all seven of us agreed to do Mystery Booster 2.  This is my first!  Let's do it!

These are the least exciting-looking packs.

I was terrible at drafting this.  I whiffed on two tribes (one by being an idiot), let my greed get the better of me, and passed a Mox Poison.  However, my desire for playtest cards actually paid off.  Here are all of my picks, in order:

Goblin Lackeys on picks 2 and 3.  Then no great goblins.

It's important to point out that the packs for this draft came from two different boxes.  (15 from one and 6 from another.)  According to the other players, there aren't doubles in the same box.  

I ditched the Goblin tribe and realized I never drafted any merfolk, so Map to Lorthos's Temple was out, sadly.  Here's what I went with:

Arcades and two Axebane Guardians.  Let's go!

 

 

Since we had seven, we decided to do single game rounds with the first mulligan being free.  Right away I was paired up against a WUBRG player who had pulled O-Kagachi.  Unfortunately, they got stuck on Red/Green land and even their Hymn of the Wilds couldn't get them out.   

The Burning-Tree Emissaries weren't even in their hand at the same time.

That was the worst of luck.  1-0.

In the second round I was up against a player who often runs Rakdos.  I kept a many-land hand and they got flooded.  I had a turn-4 Arcades the Strategist, so I was feeling pretty solid, except that Arcades wasn't strategic enough to block Order of Yawgmoth.  Those discards cost me dearly, especially when I pitched my second island only to draw Spined Megalodon the next turn.  The Rakdos removal killed Arcades and my other creatures and I perished.  1-1.

The third round had me up against someone who first-picked Hogaak.  Their Golgari deck went deep into the graveyard recursion theme, complete with Buried Alive and Brood of Cockroaches.  They played an amazing turn two Rotting Regisaur! 

The Mox Poison is so on theme for the Regisaur.

Thankfully one of the best cards I played with was in my hand: Questing Cosplayer!  That card is so good.  My opponent realized they had to attack into the trade, which I gladly took.  Sadly, they didn't draw another land for many turns, and I was able to keep up the tempo to win.  2-1

My fourth and final round was epic.  It went extremely long.  My opponent was playing Bant and had pulled lots of good cards, including Teferi, Time Raveler, Noble Hierarch, and Uro.  I got the Questing Role on my Spined Megalodon and was hoping to break through, but my opponent got their third plains with Brightling and was able to bounce it back to keep the shark in check.

This seems like it was the state of the game for many turns.

Uro hit the board multiple times and I was down 32 to 20 even after dealing some dribs and drabs of damage.  Teferi kept bouncing my creatures every few turns, but Momir Vig, Simic Visionary kept my hand full of creatures.  I played creatures every turn for over ten turns, and searched all but one of them up to put on top of my library.  With all that value, I finally broke through.  The final attack included a 9/9 Quirion Dryad, the Questing Megalodon, Arcades and two Axebane Guardians, and a 10/10 A Girl and Her Dogs, and it was only barely enough damage to win that turn.  This was a monster battle line game and the win wouldn't have happened without Momir Vig.  3-1

The 3-1 was enough to net me second place in the draft.  I wish I had been able to get games in with the remaining two players.  I was really glad with how my deck performed.  I bet I would do well in another MB2 draft.

Happy Magicking!  

Repack Draft #(n+7): Fix it for a Gold Star (WUBRG Drafting)

Last week Tuesday I sat down with three students to do a free repack draft.  We started passing the packs around.  Nine picks in to the first pack, a fifth person showed up.  We were expecting them, but to be too late to join in.  Technically they were too late, but we really wanted to have a fifth so we could play Star.  So... we came up with a quick "patch":

• We let them open two packs immediately and make nine picks from the 30 cards within.
• The remaining 21 cards were shuffled and then six cards were selected to be the remainder of the pack that would be passed around the table. 
• We all waited for them to finish before we continued with the draft.
• Monetarily this wasn't a problem because these were repacked cards from a large amount of bulk that had been donated to me.
• Benefits for them:
• They got to make the best few picks from two packs at the same time.
• They could use that information to optimize two good colors. 
• Downsides:
• They didn't know what kinds of things had been being passed so they weren't up on any signals that had been made.  
• They were limited in the number of cards that fit their color choices in the two packs.  

(I'm sure there's a better way to handle this.  Let me know what more fair processes you've used!  Both for repack and normal-pack drafts.) 

Here are my picks:

I misread Invasion of Regatha.  I didn't even run it.

I got plenty of lands and was able to put together what I thought was a good five-color deck.  I had a bit of a token/lifegain theme going.  Here's my deck:

My 2-drop pile is never that big!

We randomized seating and sat down in our circle.  To my left was A on Mardu, then B running Izzet, C, also on Izzet, and finally D playing Simic.  We play Star with the opponents to our direct left and right (so that we don't have to skip players when switching turns), so the two Izzet players were my teammates.  We were also playing with the Cutthroat Combat rule, which is where when a player attacks, both of their opponents are the defenders.  They block as normal, but any unblocked creatures damage both defending players.

The game started slow.  B went first.  On my second turn I played Dawn of Hope, which surprisingly didn't get a lot of interest from the rest of the players.  I would have been able to make better use of it, but instead I got stuck behind on land drops.  I was two land drops behind on turn 6, but I was fine life-wise because it was a battle of little creatures and some removal had come out early.

I think this is from before my seventh turn.  Still at 20 life.

A couple times I was spending 4 at the end of my opponent's turn to create a 1/1 lifelinking Soldier, then saving my mana to get the extra card draw.  Nevertheless on the seventh turn I didn't draw a land again.  Player A followed this up by slamming down a Dawnfeather Eagle and attacked for six in the biggest successful combat so far.  Thankfully B helped deal with some of those creatures over the next few turns.  (They followed this up by getting mana flooded.)  I got lands on turns 8 and 9, but still hadn't grabbed any blue mana sources.  

My life dropped to the lowest, but I caught back up with lifelink.  I missed the land drop on turn 10 and again on turn 11, but I did get a really well-timed Perilous Predicament to take out three creatures.   

Boom!  (The 9 life total is me.)

That cleared out my opponents' creatures and I swung in for six.  On their next (12th) turn, B swung big and dropped A down to 1 while D was at 2.  C followed up by attacking for 1 more.

Both of my opponents were at 1.  On my 12th turn, I cast Twin Bolt to win!  

Pew pew!

I was actually afraid of some counterspells that I had seen floating around, so I first swung out with my team.  My opponents seemed defeated, so before damage, I cast the Twin Bolt.  No counters.

B and C duked it out for a few turns and B won it shortly thereafter.  

I'm so glad we got to add our fifth person in because I really enjoy multiplayer formats.  (More wackiness is good for me!)  It also gave me a chance to remain competitive even when I was stuck on low lands.   

If you haven't drafted Star yet, I highly recommend it!