draft 11/22

So this one started out with one of THOSE packs. You know, the one where the first pick determines a huge part of the whole pod. Spear of Heliod, Keepsake Gorgon, and a foil Shipbreaker Kraken. I honestly could make arguments for all of these. But in the end I went with the spear which is cheaper and combos with creatures. This, as you might expect, forced the guy to my left into blue and the guy to HIS left into black. The draft had not a single gray merchant so I'm glad I didn't go black. Blue would have been pretty sweet though, although the 5 or 6 naiaids got scooped up pretty quick.


I P1P2 Wingsteed Rider and P2P3 Warrior's Lesson and figured I was in green/white heroic. However, this turned out to be a very inexperienced pod, with my 9 year old son probably the 3rd or 4th best player (not ranking myself) Two total newbies and a high school kid sitting next to me who P1P1 Fleecemane Lion and then we were BOTH in WG. However, this actually worked out OK at least on the green end, since I was mostly just taking green pump spells and he took all the fat guys.

Probalby this draft would have been very different had I gone for secondary blue instead of green, since it turned out that the guy who got the kraken was pretty clueless and passing voyages' end and such. My P2P1 was just terrible for WG. It did have a curse of the swine that I almost just hated (and would later lose a game to). I can't even remember what I took .. maybe a battlewise valor or some other card. Somewhere in here I took an ordeal of heliod over centaur battle master and a dauntless onslaught over something else pretty good. I did get a phalanx leader P3P1 so that was pretty solid.

I ended up with the following:
1 sedge scorpion
3 hopeful eidolen
1 phalanx leader
2 cavalry pegasus
2 leafcrown dryad
1 leonine snarecaster
2 wingsteed rider
1 nessian courser
1 nylea's emissary
1 setassan griffon

15 creatures
1 warrior's lesson
2 savage surge
1 battlewise valor
1 ordeal of heliod
1 feral invocation
1 dauntless onslaught
1 spear of heliod

10 plains
7 forest
(game 1 I went with a 9/8 split but decide I needed double white more than 1st turn forest)

Sideboard:
1 vanquish the foul - boarded this in for the snarecaster against decks with big dudes, but never played it.

Significant non plays:
2 voyaging satyr
1 nylea's disciple
2 satyr hedonist

I almost went 16 lands since I had 1 4 and 1 5 drop and all of 6 3 drops. but the only thing worth putting in was probably the disciple or vanquish, neither of which want fewer lands. Plus getting would be good. I did flood out in a game but I won anyway.

This deck was pretty good but not great. Have a fist full of combat tricks was awesome. Have almost no removal (spear!) was not. It actually wasn't very heroic at all with only the 2 riders and I never drew the phalanx leader. However, it turns out suiting/pumping up a bunch of cheap dudes and flyers is pretty playable. The pegasi flying power was pretty useless as I only had 1 human without flying, but pinging in the air is still useful and he can be suited up. The surprising star was probably setasssan griffon. I had sort of hoped that I wouldn't be needing 5 drops at all but this deck wasn't super explosive. Not a surprise was warrior's lesson again which as always (3 times) was a divination for . I never triggered heroic with it but I was quite happy with it. Especially nice was having pump tricks and lesson in your hand. If they block you can pump and kill their creature. If they don't, draw cards.

Match 1 - was against a noob. He was playing 50 cards. I never took any damage. I am not sure he even played a creature other than opaline unicorn. Enough said. I tried to help him.

Match 2 - was against the eventual pod winner. I think it was possible for my deck to beat him but I needed a pretty nut opening hand. First game I mulled to 6 and kept a slow but playable hand. He was playing a scryful Ur with 2 voyages' end, 2 griptide and 2 lightning bolt. Even so I bashed him down to 8 and 10 life in both games before expiring.

Game one I lost because I couldn't deal with a prescient chimera with thassa's emissary bestowed on it.
Game two I had a quick weenie start despite being stuck on 2-3 plains with eidolon and cavalry pegasus. But he played a turn 4 ember swallower, I countered with a spear of heliod. He bounced BOTH my guys, scrying to his monstrous mana blowing up 100% of my land (3 plains) and leaving me with nothing but a worthless spear on the board and a fistful of creatures to his 7/8 beater.

Match 3 was the closest, vs. my right-hand GW mirror.
Game one we both mulled to 6, he got stuck on mana, and I rolled him
Game two was actually a sort of a good game. He played a yoked ox and I played hopeful eidolon into cavalry pegasus into. I was way ahead eventually getting something like 14 life from the eidolon being blocked by yoked ox. Game went into a complete stall when he bestowed the 2/2 vigilance guy on centaur battle master for an 8/8 that I countered with a sedge scorpion. He countered my griffon with an asp, but I held dauntless and battlewise valor, he verdict'd my griffon before I could induce a block from the asp. I managed to get a few points of damage in with the cavalry pegasus as he was highly suspicious, but eventually he blocked and I blew 2 tricks killing his asp and gaining some extra life from the eidolon. At this point I have 34 life and he has 10. Now, after playing my combat tricks I find wingsteed rider and he starts to build another monster. I don't remember what it was, some kind of voltron'd 5/5. It didn't have evasion, reach, or trample though so I wasn't too worried, but I did only have the 1 scorpion. I top deck an emissary making the wingsteed a 7/7 flying trample. He top decks an asp to save him for another turn, but he's done.

My kid though had a most bizarre draft. Basically the whole "drafting" part went horribly wrong for him. Guy to his left was his RW (his favorites) and he started in black but abandoned it. He ended up with 4 colors, but the white was just some pumps and Heliod. He ended up in grixis with some black removal, 3 nimbus naiads (only blue), a two-headed cerebus and some red filler and combat tricks. He went 2-1, losing in finals to the nuts Ur deck.

Match one his opponent got manascrewed game 1, in a long game 2 my son couldn't beat the ship breaker kraken, game 3 had gone to time but the kid pulls it out with a double nimbus naiad on a fellhide + portent of betrayal on a boon satyr'd coastline chimera for 13 in the air with 3 turns left. Match 2 he beat the GW I beat in match 3 in 3 rounds, including the following magical xmas land game 1:
T3 two headed cerebus
T4 scourgemark, swing for 4
T5 double titan's strength for an 8/8 doublestrike and game.
Lost game 2 to a fleecemane+ordeal and won game 3 by mana screw.

Match 3 he was dispatched like I was.

So, what did you learn?

I learned that having lots of combat tricks makes combat very unstressful. I learned a little about mulliganing in aggro decks, in that I think I did not mulligan aggressively enough.

I still haven't figured out how to end up with the best deck, although at least I am starting to put together decks that make sense. Based on my son's experience I can say that even a terrible deck beats mana screw. (either that or "any deck with 3 nimbus naiads can't be that bad")