@Z Good Questions! Team draft is a 6-person pod format that runs like a normal draft, except the "match" happens across three games running simultaneously. Your record is based on how your whole team performs, so if you win, Zen wins, and I lose, our record is 2-1 and we move on to the next round. However, given we weren't at a big tournament, we just played each opponent in our pod.
It's different than normal draft because signaling matters and hate drafting matters. You can get a feel for what everyone in the draft is drafting; for example, I knew the guy to my left was in white, my teammate to his left was in blue, the guy to my right was in blue, and the seats farthest from me I knew one of them were in black. (Turns out both were.) Reading the signals is easier because you can count the rares/uncommons in the pack and see how they lead back to the person who opened the pack, then use this information alongside what you see wheel and such.
Paragons one was a pick 4 and Paragon two was a pick 5, respectively. The only other person in red was my teammate, and he drafted all the removal, which is why I got all the creatures.
I think this would fo very well in a normal draft. It's certainly better than most draft decks because it's so linear and aggressive. I don't think it would win a pod, if only because it has no removal whatsoever and I literally had a
torch fiend and a
naturalize in my sideboard, the rest was hate. So, barring
cone of flame and
festergloom, I think this would do well. The
feral incantation, obelisk, and
thundering giant, alongside the damage evasion via the ape and the goblins, really sync well together.
Obelisk was a very late pick in pack 2, maybe as late as 10, but probably around 9. At that point I had 2 frenzied goblins, one rough rider, and one rummaging goblin. After I just drafted every goblin to come my way. It was a fantastic card for me, because several times when this deck ran out of steam and my opponent's creatures were superior to my board, I managed to upgrade my board with it. I definitely had a 6/5 roughrider (+Paragon) at one point that just dominated the game.
I make it a rule to never run 16 lands unless my curve stops at 4. The thundering giant alone is reason enough to run the 17th land, however, I do have a 6-drop and a 9-drop respectively, even if they're technically lower in curve than that via convoke. I know each time I cast feral incantation (is it invocation? it probably is. oops.) I had to tap down my entire board to do it, so I definitely utilized all my land drops. Also, those frenzied goblins need red mana, and the hammerhands and the paragon's hasting ability all technically could be considered to bump my curve up a bit. I was never sad to draw lands, and one of my losses came from not drawing lands.
@ajunior P1P1 was the ape. It's a bomb. A 4-mana 4/4 that's easily splashable and provides inevitability via a mana sink in a format where the winner is usually the ones with the best 3-drops and removal. When I resolved this guy, I won, plain and simple. My next five cards were red cards, and once I snagged a runeclaw bear and a netcaster spider, I felt pretty solid into RG. (I ended up not maindecking the bear just bc, as good as it is, I didn't trust I could always start with a forest in-hand and thus curve out w/ the bear.)