Strixhaven, Round 4 (WUBRG Drafting)

My Friendly Local Gaming Store (FLGS), Intergalactic Plastic, has had an excellent pattern of running "old" drafts with boxes they have.  Last night, they held a Strixhaven draft!  As you might expect, I dropped everything to go!

This is a format I'm actually familiar with!  Three years ago, I ventured back to my New Hampshire FLGS, Games Ahoy!, protected by my recent COVID shots and a mask, for my first in-store drafts since early 2020.  I was so excited to draft in person again, I went to three June drafts in 2021, where I went 1-2 each time.  I went back over my notes in preparation for this draft, and that did help a lot.  However, as you'll see, I failed in my basic WUBRG needs.  

The drafting was fun.  I grabbed a lot of lessons, which paid off.  I also kept seeing good Lorehold cards, of which I took three Expels.  That card was great for me!  I picked a Zimone, a Needlethorn Drake, and a Rootha, because I remembered that those were all great.  Here are all my picks:

I picked that Onyx over a Channel.

See the issue?  I only got three dual lands.  While drafting I passed up a Cultivate and an Archway Commons, which seems like quite a mistake now.  (I don't remember what I took over them.)  There is a bit of a reason for the lack of lands: to my right was another WUBRG drafter.  In fact, it was the same player that drafted WUBRG with me this week!  They gobbled up most of the campuses before I could even see them.

I am reminded of when F Zero X would tell me I had a rival.

On the plus side, I drafted a ton of removal.  All three Expels went in.  I also followed my recommendations from 2021 and ran 18 lands instead of 17.  Here's what I put together:

My Learn-board was twice as big as my dual lands.  I did go heavy on the forests.

In the first round I was paired up against a Witherbloom (Golgari) player who had Dina and a bunch of life gain effects.  I think I lost the first game and won the second.  (I could have that backwards.)  In the game I won, I mulliganed once and put Rise of Extus on the bottom.  I was in such a drawing/searching frenzy with spells and Quandrix Apprentice that on the turn I won, I completed the cycle and drew the Rise of Extus, without having shuffled.  We drew game 3; my opponent later said I had the coolest deck of the night. 0-0-1.

In the second round I was matched up against an aggressive Silverquill (Orzhov) deck with a lot of good small utility creatures.  This match went better in many ways.  I won game one while controlling the board for a long time, but lost game two pretty quickly.  In game three, we had time called on us when my opponent was around 17 life and I was at around 5.  Unfortunately, my only creature was Zimone, though she was getting some counters from a Sparring Regimen.  On turn 2 of our 5, I got my opponent to 15, had a mess of lands out, and played Onyx.  On turn 4, I attacked again to put them to 12, but I could only muster four instants/sorceries (I ran out of mana) so Onyx dropped them to 4.  I was so close!  0-0-2.  Here was the final state of the game:

Just two more!

In the final round, I was up against a Prismari deck that had a lot of good utility spells.  Unfortunately, in both games they got stuck without many creatures.  I was able to keep their board mostly clear, even when I got stuck without one of my colors.

Good thing I have all those Expels in hand.

I was able to win the first two games.  In the second game, Dragonsguard Elite got in for a bunch of damage as it grew.  1-0-2.

This went marginally better than my prior Strixhaven outings!  I think I did a good job gobbling up removal as it went around, but I missed a bit on the balance between lessons and lands.  I think another 1 or 2 dual lands would have made a big difference, as I was sometimes stuck without the right color.  I actually think that 18 lands was the right call!  In many games I was wishing I had more land to run out because I often had a lot of spells to cast.

Strixhaven drafts are super fun, though.  There are so many different ways to lean, even if you're running all five colors.  I remember having a blast pulling off a bunch of Lorehold shenanigans in past drafts.  If you get a chance to do one, take it!

Mod3rn Hor12ons "Tour" (WUBRG Drafting)

We did a not-chaos-but-still-wacky thing this week: a draft where each player opens one of each of the three Modern Horizons sets that have been released: Modern Horizons, Modern Horizons 2, and Modern Horizons 3.  One of our group aptly named this format "Mod3rn Hor12ons Draft".   

We had to open them in the normal 1, 2, 3 order.

We had 7 people, our biggest home draft in recent memory.  We decided again on single-game rounds and got to drafting.  Here's what I picked:

Is Garth actually five colors?  Oor-Tael is only UG (though I always thought it was WUG).

Note: I may have messed up the order of some of my picks from pack 1.  (I forgot to take the picture first!  I do think I reconstructed it pretty close to correct.)  While drafting, there was lots of table talk about how underpowered the first pack was compared to the other two.  It didn't exactly work out that way for me, because I spent a lot of picks in pack 2 on mana-fixing instead of strong spells, which worked out really well.  I didn't even wind up running the Battle Plan, because I felt like I had enough without it.  All in all, the drafting process felt a lot like a Neopolitan Commander Draft: the synergy was lacking, but there were some consistent themes. 

I also tried to synergize some Enters-the-Battlefield effects, after picking up Soulherder.  What happened instead is that I had some good +1/+1 counter action with Cursed Wombat.  Here's the deck I built from those cards:

Aside from winning, I really wanted to cast Garth!

I really expected to get some comboing with Soulherder + Munitions Expert and Garth.  The counters turned out to be much more fortuitous.  

Though we each had 6 possible opponents, the rounds took varying lengths.  Players got in between 4 and 6 matches.  I managed to squeeze 5 in before the end of the evening, so this post is a bit longer than normal.  (Having irregular numbers of rounds does also help prevent some ties in records too.)

In Round 1, I was up against an Orzhov deck.  Lots of colors paid off right away, because I got Soulherder out with the Cursed Wombat.  Unfortunately, my opponent was ready.

Boo, Flay Essence.

The game slowed down a lot.  I had Larry Niven's Disk in hand, but my opponent slapped a Seal of Cleansing on the board, so it stayed it in my hand.  I played an Idol of False Gods that was useless for many turns because I lacked a source of colorless mana.  (I swapped it out after that first game.)  After a while, my opponent started to build up a bit of a force.  I drew one of the best things I could in that case, my Twisted Landscape.   The Seal of Cleaning immediately took out the Idol, which meant I got Nevinyrral's Disk out and popped it the following turn, taking out three creatures.  I followed that up by drawing into enough value to win.  1-0.

In Round 2, I faced off against a Gruul deck, which was held back by mana problems.  I got ahead, but then my opponent started to wrest control of the board from me.  Cursed Wombat kept me alive until I discovered another combo in my deck.  In one turn, I cast Sweep the Skies for five thopters, and the next turn I played Kudo and swung in with some Bear-sized thopters.  I won shortly thereafter.  2-0.

My opponent's Wren's Run Hydra, did get a bit bigger too.

In Round 3, I lived the dream and cast Garth on turn 5!  

I think having the book should count as a free Arena token. 

I was matched up against the only other WUBRG deck at the table.  As you can see, they were pretty well stacked up against me.  Sadly, Garth died to a Toxic Deluge after my second turn.  Thankfully, that was enough time that I was able to cast a Black Lotus, which was pretty exciting.  (That's two different power-nine cast in three drafts!)  Unfortunately, without Garth I didn't have enough gas to stay in the game and I lost the WUBRG battle.  2-1.  (I am starting to doubt that I'm even the best WUBRG drafter in my group!)

In round 4, I was pitted against a really fast Selesnya deck.  This is what I was facing on their second turn:

Guide of Souls is real good in this format.  Just sayin'.

I lost three turns later.  I don't even know if I played anything menacing at all.  That player ended up winning the draft with a 5-1 record.  They were one of only two people that managed to play everyone!  2-2.

In my fifth and final round, I was matched up against the only player who managed to beat the winner!  Yikes!  They were running a Grixis deck that had a lot of value cards.  The game was extremely tight; we went back and forth trading control of the board.  As the end approached we were tied at 5 and I had the awesome Soulherder + Cursed Wombat combo, and then I drew Kami of Jealous Thirst, which was just enough to secure the win.  

I just barely squeaked out with this one!

Final record: 3-2, which was technically enough to put me into second place.  Sweet!

This format felt like an overpowered chaos draft.  Like a normal chaos draft, synergy was hard to come by (though extremely gratifying).  The individual cards, however, were certainly stronger.  Immediately after doing this draft, I was ready to do another one.  (I know it will be better to wait, though!)  Although the cost of this draft was on the expensive side, I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes oddball prescribed drafts.

Happy drafting!

Five-Color Contagion Spreads in Chaos: WUBRG Drafting

We did a chaos draft with five and three of us wound up in WUBRG!  Let's get right into it.  Here's what we opened:

13 different packs!

Yes, you see that right, FUTURE SIGHT!  It's not that often that we open such old (and cool) packs in our little draft group.  That was awesome! :)  Less interesting, this time I decided ahead of time to mix it up and avoid the Ikoria-LotR-Capenna rut I've been in.  I opened Ikoria, Zendikar Rising, and Strixhaven.  Here are my picks:

Yet another Mythos.  How many times did I cast it for full value?

Two multi lands.  Oof.  I was not the only person on the hunt for mana fixing; two other players went WUBRG!  60% of us had five colors in our decks.   Five years ago I was able to win a Ravnica Allegiance draft with six people with one other WUBRG drafter.  33% maybe, but 60%?  I grabbed some extra fixing, including Wizard's Rockets, Valakut Awakening, and Farfinder. 

I did pick up on a bit of a +1/+1 counter theme, which paid off.  I had three ways to pay it off: Temperamental Oozewag, Envoy of the Ancestors, and Deepwood Denizen.  

I hope you like glare.

Here's the deck I put together:

Very light on Blue.  I might not have been the most evenly balanced WUBRG player there!

Two of my opponents were WUBRG, "mostly Jund" (according to them) and the other two were on Esper!  (Crazy that we fell into so few categories!)  Since we had five players, we agreed on single-game rounds.  (When we do this, we give everyone a free first mulligan.)  Everyone was pretty aggro (maybe not me) so we were able to complete the round robin.  

I was immediately matched against one of my two WUBRG opponents.  I got steamrolled, especially after my opponent got a Bayou Groff on turn 3, sacrificing Serrated Scorpion for a bunch of value.  I put up a fight; I was able to remove the Groff, but didn't keep up as I got swarmed with other threats.  0-1.

In the second round, I played against one of the Esper players who had a strong control element in their deck.  I got a good sequence of creatures out, and got to use the Deepwood Denizen with Prowling Felidar to get cheaper and cheaper draws.  I cast Mythos of Vadrok, but without the bonus.  The Denizen allowed me to outvalue my opponent.  1-1.

In the third round, I was up against the other WUBRG player, who had drawn a lot of attention by winning with flip-Etali.  He had already gotten to cast an opponent's Inevitable Betrayal with it.  Here we go!  I started off doing pretty good value-wise, killing two creatures with the Mythos.  (I got the bonus--thanks Wizard's Rockets!--though it didn't matter because they were dead.)  I got a bit stuck on missing lands, but I was keeping up.  Until Etali landed.  

I donated my Fatal Attraction to the dinosaur's cause.

Etali flipped two turns later.  I was able to get some strong things down, including a 7/7 Fractal off of Leyline Invocation, which meant the Deepwood Denizen was drawing cards right away.  (That Denizen was really great!)  Unfortunately, it only got to draw one, because I needed it to block the 11/11 trampling not-quite-toxic-not-quite-infecting Etali, so I only took 9 damage, putting me at 5 life and 9 poison counters. I still had an out I could draw: Baleful Mastery could save my life.  Sadly, that is not what was on the top of my deck.  1-2.

In round four I was up against the final Esper deck, running Horn of Gondor.  Guess what landed on turn 3?  I was ready, though, and my Mythos three-for-one'd the token and two other creatures.  

Meaningless Rockets bonus #2!

On turn 4, another human hit the board and I had to react again, this time with Baleful Mastery.  Turn 5? Disciple of the Sun.  Well, I was stuck on five Sultai-colored lands, and a Boros-shaped hand.

My final hand.

1-3.  Though, in one way, I was lucky, because that Horn player had one more match to go after me (vs Etali) and that was when they combo'ed off:

Yeah, that's Horn of Gondor + Coat of Arms.  Those ad cards are all human tokens, each getting +7/+7.  Simply amazing!  The best part of chaos drafting is the wild comborific interactions across distant sets.

I am honestly not sure what else I could have done to improve.  I made a small play mistake in game 1, but I don't think it made the difference.  I think I need to draft tighter when the table is making it tough.  Nevertheless, this was a wicked fun draft and I think all five of us had a great time!

Time Sidewalk in Chaos: WUBRG Drafting

We had six at our last chaos draft, a first in recent times!  The selection of packs was excellent, but I brought some special packs for myself:

• First pack: Ravnica Remastered, which I bought on my honeymoon at Alaska Robotics, which is a little art gallery downtown in Juneau, Alaska that also carries games and comics.  It was not obvious ahead of time that they had gaming supplies, but the local bookstores sent me in the right direction.  I don't know that they hold events there, but the store is super cool and the cashier was wicked nice.  If you are on a cruise, as we were, it's very easy to get to from the rest of the town. 
  
• Second: Dominaria Remastered, which I picked up at the end of my honeymoon at Rain City Games in Vancouver, British Columbia.  This is a big store with walls of board games and a big space to play games.  The staff was super nice and I wish I'd had time to play there.  This store is in a cool international mall.  
• Third: I was hoping to have a third pack from my travels, but a later COVID diagnosis cancelled those plans.  So, I followed my habits and opened Streets of New Capenna. 
  

 Here's what the six of us picked to open overall:

13 of 18 Possible Unique Sets!

I've opened some Time Spiral Remastered packs in chaos drafts before, but the Ravnica and Dominaria Remastered seemed more fun somehow.  (Maybe I just got really lucky with these two packs.)  Here are my picks:

Naturally, I'm most excited about Time Sidewalk.

I felt really good right off the bat.  My first two picks from the Ravnica Remastered pack were both dual lands.  Combined with the World Weary and Alabaster Host Intercessor, I felt really confident in my first seven cards.  (Of course, I was determined to run Time Sidewalk.)  I do think I probably took Xira Airen too soon in pack 2, as she probably would have made it around the table.  

Here is the deck I built from these picks:

Enough color fixing?  Not really.

(I started with Invasion of Segovia and put the Deadly Derision in later.)  The biggest question I had for the night was: How good is Time Sidewalk?  Luckily, I was able to answer that question!

In the first round I lost to the player who won the tournament.  They ran a quick Selesnya deck that steamrolled me in the first game.  In the second game, I exiled Time Sidewalk from my opening hand.  Boom!  Four Time Walks shuffled into my deck!  I drew three of them in a row early on the game, which turned them into nothing-burgers as I didn't have a land to drop on any of those turns.  I lost that game as well.  Me: 0-1; Time Sidewalk: 0-1.

In the second round, I was up against a quick Mardu deck.  My opening hand was rewarded with the Time Sidewalk, but with only one land. 

Let's Walking Go!

I lost.  I put up a fight, but I did wind up losing that game.  I fell behind and just couldn't catch up.  I may have blown my chance by searching up a Forest off of World Weary.  I drew two Time Walks after that, but didn't have the proper land to cast it and another spell that same turn.  Had I grabbed an Island instead, it could have worked out.  (Maybe I should have mulliganed that hand.)  I did manage to pick up the next two games, though, mostly on the back of Xira Arien and Nexus of Becoming, two good cards that get even better together.  In game 3, I also hard cast Time Sidewalk for an extra turn, which seemed a bit crazy.  Me: 1-1; Time Sidewalk: 0-2.

We didn't have enough time to get a third match in last night, but I kept my deck together and got a match in today on SpellTable against one of the other drafters.  My opponent had a strong Izzet deck.  I got slapped in the first round by efficient little aggro creatures, including an Erebor Flamesmith, and some counterspells that kept me out of the game.  In the second game, I drew Time Sidewalk in my opening hand. 

And the land to support it!  LWG!

It was on!  Storm God's Oracle slowed my opponent down and I got Xira out and even cast one of the Time Walks.  Unfortunately, my Nexus of Becoming got countered and I didn't keep up.  I got Hinata down against a field of some small creatures with 10 life left, thinking I could turn it around.  Unfortunately, Hinata perished in a Mine Collapse and the remaining critters were enough to kill me.  Me: 1-2; Time Sidewalk: 0-3.

Is Time Sidewalk bad?  It's certainly bad if you don't have it in your opening hand.  if you do, however, 4x Time Walk seems like a real benefit.  It does unbalance your deck a bit, though, as you suddenly have four new non-land cards in there.  I can't imagine that it's not worth it, though!  I can't imagine a situation where you have an opening hand with Time Sidewalk that you're keeping and you don't exile it.  Please share your opinions on this!  No matter what, it was really fun to run it.

Other Takeaways:

• I need to play better, especially when playing around counterspells.
• Remastered packs are really fun in a chaos draft!  (Maybe I just had bad luck with the Time Spiral Remastered packs I've opened before.)
   

Wilds of Eldraine 3 (WUBRG Drafting)

I am extremely lucky.  Not only did my local store, Intergalactic Plastic, hold yet another Wilds of Eldraine draft, but I got lucky over and over throughout the night, as you'll see.

I reviewed my previous WOE draft notes and had a good plan going in to this one: grab Evolving Wilds, Crystal Grotto, and Scarecrow Guide whenever I could and maybe get lucky with a rare dual man-land.  There were eight people in the draft pod, so I felt pretty good.  Unfortunately, I think I've gained a bit of a reputation at the store, so people might have taken the lands early.  In total, I only got three.  I also remembered to push into multi-colored adventure cards, which is a really good plan.  In addition to that, a lot of fairies came my way, so I went pretty heavy into that tribe.  Here were my picks.

That fifth-pick Restless Fortress was real helpful!

Making cuts was tricky, and my deck wound up really being Grixis with a Selesnya-splash.  I did wind up cutting Archive Dragon to keep Leyline of Anticipation.  That was a really good choice.  Here is the deck I ran:

The curve is low, but there are no land-cyclers that often occupy top slots.

In the first round, I was up against Selesnya with lots of enchantment (and role) trickery.  The first game was pretty evenly matched and I won eventually.  My opponent made some good changes, and I started the second game without great mana in my hand, except that I could cast the adventure on Cruel Somnophage.  I used it on turn two and whiffed and said goodbye to a bunch of my lands.

Nooooooooooooooooooo!

My oppponent got me down to 2, but I managed to find some land, and got the Somnophage and gained the advantage on the board, except for a mean little combo my opponent had with Redtooth Vanguard and Spellbook Vendor:

A very solid combo!

Thankfully I got enough attackers down to overcome this graveyard recursion and won the game.  1-0.

The second round was all about Leyline of Anticipation.  I was up against Jund rats, including Song of Totentanz and Ratcatcher Trainee, which I think is a great card.  I got the Leyline in my opening hand all three games and I even had it in my first hand that I had to mulligan.  I am certainly now very biased towards that card, but for good reason:

• Every creature in your hand becomes potential removal because you flash it in then block.
• Creatures on adventures become rattlesnakes that discourage your opponent from attacking.  (I looked for an old wizards article where Anthony Alongi first described the term "rattlesnake" but I couldn't find one.)  This happened to me in this round; I had three adventured-creatures just waiting to come out:
  

 

• Vantress Transmuter is way better, because both it and its adventure can be played at instant speed.

I think I came back from 4 in game 1.  I lost game 2 quickly.  Then I won game 3, coming back after being down to 2.  Both wins were because the leyline let me play all my creatures during my opponent's turn.  They used Gingerbrute's evasion ability in response to my new creatures many times.  This all let me save my targetted removal for the bigger threats. 2-0

In the third round I was paired up against Sultai food and adventures.  It was here that I learned just how good Chancellor of Tales is.  (That would have been great in my deck!)  The first game was a long slog where I went down to 3, but I got my faerie tribe activated with Talion's Messenger and Obyra.  I made some incorrect choices with the placement of the +1/+1 counters from the messenger, but I had enough card advantage that I just overwhelmed in the air in the end.  (Also, Cruel Somnophage was great on the ground.)  I started the second game with the Leyline on the board and used that a ton.  We went to time and I won in the last turn with extra removal in my hand.  3-0.  Here was the board state on turn 0 or 2 of time:

Quick Study is so good!

I did a lot of things right, but I also just got really lucky:

• I got a lot of great things passed to me late in the draft.  These packs are deep, but I also got really lucky.
  
• Leyline of Anticipation started on the battlefield in 4 of my 7 games!
• I came back big in four games, from 2, 2, 3, and 4 life when my opponent was still at or close to 20.  (I think they were all 18+.)  Many of these were thanks to Restless Fortress that gained me a ton of life.

I really like Wilds of Eldraine drafts.  All three I've done have been very different, but I've had amazing results.  I hesitate to say conclusively that this set is perfect for WUBRG drafting, because I just got so dang lucky last night. 

Legacy Payoff Amidst Chaos: WUBRG Drafting

We opened a really fun set of packs last night in a chaos draft.  We had a variety of normal draft boosters, Mystery Boosters, and boosters for alternative formats (Conspiracy and Conspiracy 2).  Here's the whole assortment:

This draft went really well.  I had a sufficient mix of multi-color lands as well as land cyclers.  Here were my picks:

Smuggler Captain named Absorb Vis.  I should've been more patient there.

I ran 17 lands, which I think were too many.  I think I need to compensate for lots of land cyclers.  I got mana-flooded often.  Here's the deck I built:

A tall 2-MV slot this time!

I named "cycling" for Inspirational Antelope's Legacy mechanic (I refused to actually write on the card) because it counts basic landcycling and swampcycling.  (We looked it up!)  That means I had 4 cards that could become cheaper with it.  As it turns out, it probably would have been better to name "flash".  Nevertheless, I was determined to get a discounted spell off the antelope!

We played single-game rounds and were able to get all three rounds in.  In the first round I was up against aggro Grixis.  I got steamrolled.  I made a big play mistake, removing a bigger creature instead of a smaller creature with Followed Footsteps.  It wouldn't have made a difference, though.  I lost so fast that we played two more games and I lost them both.  0-1.  (I did not get the antelope out.  In any of the games.)

In the second round I was up against aggro Boros.  Daring Skyjek was good against me in Return to Ravnica block, and it hit the battlefield on turn 2.  Two turns later and it was flying in to my life total.  I tried to get some blockers down, but couldn't keep up and lost even faster.  0-2.  (No antelope.)

In the third round, I was up against value Selesnya with a bunch of toxic creatures.  I got the antelope out early, but didn't get to cast any cards with cycling.  (Sadly, the benefit doesn't help with Ketria Triome.)  I went down to 9 as the battlefield supremacy went in my opponent's favor, then wavered back and forth.  My opponent became The Monarch and then With the ground gummed down, I got Spire Monitor out and that turned the tide for me until we were both near 10 life, then it died to a Smell Fear.  Then I played Juniper Order Ranger and creatures over the next few turns gave me the power to break through the ground lock.  The turn before I swung for lethal, I cashed in on the Legacy mechanic and cast Gloomfang Mauler for 6.  Yes!  1-2.

I was inspired to share the +1/+1 counters around.

This draft was wicked fun.  I often feel more comfortable flipping through Mystery booster cards than recent packs, because I'm less familiar with many of the newer cards.  Also, as soon as we were done I was ready to draft again.  (That actually happens a lot.  I wonder how many drafts I would have to do in a row before I needed a break.)

I do really want to know how things would have been different if I had run one or two fewer lands.  (I need to actually remember this lesson during the next draft!)

Modern Horizons 3 (WUBRG Drafting)

I got into a 10-person Modern Horizons draft last night at my local store, Intergalactic Plastic.  I knew to look out for the tri-color lands and MDFC (Modal Double-Faced Cards) dual lands.  At the end of the first pack, I had taken 8 lands (only one basic).  Unfortunately, I didn't keep myself balanced and (probably) went overboard.  Here're my picks:

Sorry for the weird angle!  I had to lean way over to avoid the glare.

The second pick of The Necrobloom prompted me to take even more lands.  The Wight of the Reliquary didn't help, and I really thought I was on my way to excellence.  When I opened Six in pack three, I thought I was home free.  

Deck construction was quick; I only needed seven basics and had to cut from 26 reasonable spells to 23.  However, I'm pretty sure I made a mistake with how I accounted for the MDFCs: I considered them all as spells, but perhaps should have counted half of them as lands.  I found myself mana-flooded a few times, but I don't recall whether that was during games I had already played one or more MDFCs as land.  Maybe with The Necrobloom and the Wight of the Reliquary, I made the right choice.  I don't know.  Here's what my deck looked like:

I'm sure it's okay to run nearly no interaction.  Right?  Right?

Either way, I got run over by Gruul Eldrazi-counters aggro.  In the first round, my opponent outpaced me in two games.  Temperamental Oozewagg nullified my chump blockers and I didn't draw enough from the Snapping Voidcraws I got out. I did use Abstruse Appropriation in both games to grab Wumpus Aberration, but both times after I'd already suffered enough damage that I didn't recover for.  0-1

In round two, I was up against Eldrazi + counters again, this time Naya-flavored.  My deck ran better, but any combo-rificness I could have imagined was far overshadowed by Branching Evolution + Writhing Chrysalis.  That combination was absolutely brutal.  Our game 1 board got crazy and just kept on going with no breaking point in sight:

This board state is brought to you by Infinitokens.

Well... there was a breaking point, I just didn't see it coming.  With Propagator Drone, Path of Annihilation, and that dang Oozewagg, their Chrysalis got 39 +1/+1 counters during one attack, which was enough to trample over all my blockers.  In the second game, I got The Necrobloom out earlier and seemed to get the upper hand near the end, but we didn't finish in time.  0-2.

In round 3, I faced down a tough Rakdos artifact deck with some value synergy.  This time I finally got some combos going with parts of Six + The Necrobloom + Wight of the Reliquary, though sadly not all at the same time.

Removal stops the triple-threat from assembling.

In the first game, Six filled up the graveyard for the Wight to take advantage of a few turns later.  A vigilant 8/8 is good way to win a game.  In the second, The Necrobloom got a few turns with Six, and then my zombie legions won the game in turns.  1-2

I played with and met a bunch of new people and had a blast!  I think the big mistake here is that I didn't take enough removal for me to keep up with the rest.  After a few recent outings where I underdrafted land, I may have overcompensated this time.  However, in the games I was competitive in, The Necrobloom really helped make that come together.  What should I do if I draft MH3 again?  Is WUBRG a viable strategy for this set?