We drafted with my fat roll of pre-release packs. And I immediately fell into the obvious gatewatch trap.

P1P1 Oblivion Strike (seems obvious)
P1P2... a blue card with colorless activattion. Probably Gravity Negator?
mid pack 1, bunch of blue cards including 2 blinding drones.
by the back half of pack 1, I realize I am going to have to take some colorless lands, I think 1 wheels.
I get a late Hissing Quagmire
Pack 2 I get a 2nd or 3rd pick Baloth Null because yolo and I can fix green. I end up taking 3 more coloreless lands early at the costs of real picks.
Pack 3 I don't get much but a pick 2 evolving wilds, and a breaker of armies as a finisher.

I though this deck was pretty sweet:

1 x Hedron Crawler
2 x Blinding Drone
1 x Makindi Familiar
1 x Eldrazi Skyspawner
1 x Halimar Tidecaller
1 x Kozilek’s Shrieker
1 x Incubator drone
1 x Havoc Sower
1 x Gravity Negator
1 x Jwar Isle Avenger
1 x Deathless Behemoth
1 x Baloth Null
1 x Breaker of Armies

1 x Unnatural Endurance
1 x Spatial Contortion
1 x Tar Snare
1 x Flaying Tendrils
2 x Oblivion Strike
1 x Comparative Analysis
1 x Overwhelming Denial

//Sideboard
2 x Ancient Crab
1 x Mist Intruder
1 x Ulamog’s Despoiler


I did have a couple "Ds" including the bad counterspell and a good combat trick in a deck that doesn't want one. Creature wise, I think the crawler dork is probably unnecessary.

oh but dat mana base:
1 x Wastes
1 x Evolving Wilds
1 x Holdout Settlement
1 x Unknown Shores
1 x Crumbling Vestige
1 x Hissing Quagmire
1 x Forest
6 x Island
5 x Swamp


Note. I probably should have main decked Ulamog's Dispoiler. 5/5 for 6 is fine in this format; probably should have cut the counterspell.

I did choose to draw first with this deck because the manabase is so shaky

Match 1 was the mirror. And it was SERIOUSLY the mirror. I think our decks shared 60% of the same cards. My deck had more power and that green splash won me the game. THE game, as we went to time in game 2. I completely misplayed a boardstate for ~8 turns with a "permanently" tapped Breaker of Armies -- I didn't realize that if my Breaker was tapped, I could tap his tapper end of his turn and get (~game winning) swing in . N00b. I did resolve my counterspell with a single island in play (I almost did it with 0 islands, but I played something, then drew island and countered his removal spell following turn).

Match 2, game 1 vs UR, I just got crushed by double Cinder Hellion on mull to 6. Wandering Fumarole was good against me too.
I decide to take out the green splash and board in 2 islands and 2 Ancient crabs. I get stuck on 2-3 mana with 1 island and 2 crabs in hand.

Match 3 I lost to the 6x Sky Scourer deck. I won the middle game. I never drew my Flaying Tendrils which would have basically been an insta-win. I think I mulled to 6 both games I lost as well. Witness the End WRECKED me in both losses, getting 4 key spells.

Overall I think I took at least 1 too many colorless lands and probably should have not tried to play Spatial Contortion. The mana base was bad but I wasn't playing my best either, it was late and grindy and a rough day at work.

Looking back, it's easy to see that you are seriously lacking a plan, and a finisher. Happens to me all the time. I just draft all the sweetness that comes my way. And forget to look for what the deck needs.

BTW, how is it now in paper land, are you allowed to look at your picks while drafting?

The CR added text about "Conspiracy Draft" with the release of Conspiracy, which as far as I know was just an evolution of the existing draft rules to add the parts about handling Conspiracy's draft-modifying cards. And seems to be OK with viewing cards already drafted without any specific restrictions.

905.1c During the draft, a player can look only at cards in the booster pack he or she is currently drafting from, cards he or she has already drafted, cards that are currently revealed as described in rule 905.2b, and cards that have been drafted face up as described in rule 905.2c. A player may not reveal drafted cards to other players unless an ability instructs him or her to.





I didn't draft OGW launch night like I normally would for a new set but will try to get out next week. What I was curious about in this set is the contention for colorless mana producing lands and for the cards that require them. Could you discern how early those lands started going, and whether the cards with costs and abilities lingered until late in the pack?

My worry was always that people who chase the spells early risk getting locked out of the lands and people who chase the lands early risk being locked out of the spells, making any attempt to go into colorless-matters a shaky proposition.

Well, it's my draft so I do what I want. At LGS nightly drafts they don't seem to care at all. I think PPTQ level they might only let you look between packs.

This set is VERY short of finishers. Shrieker isn't bad in this deck, although I specifically passed the "drain 1 for " for a colorless land pack 2.

I think I struggled with deciding between Deathless Behemoth or Wave-Wing Elemental Pack 3 pick 2. My first three picks of Battle were Skyspawner, Behemoth, Evolving Wilds. Not 100% on the order.

What I did was note what I was passing in pack 1 to see what wheeled while I took playables (typically with colorless activations!). Only 1 wheeled so I knew I was going to have to devote early-mid pack 2 to colorless lands.

EDIT of decklist! I forgot my 8-drop! (I also had 2 [c]Eldrazi Devastator[/c[ in the board but I didn't ramp hard enough to put in the 2nd.

I think my general plan was to play control, grind them out and just drop 1 beater. It worked match 1, but as I said; match 2 I lost to 4/4 tramplers and land screw and match 3 to mind rots and not drawing my baby wrath.

I think (now that you can see Breaker of Armies in my deck) - this deck would have been great (maybe 1 evasive threat short of great?) with 2 UB duals or a 2nd evolving wilds. Possibly I should have moved tendrils to the board, played 9 blue sources and maindecked the crabs.

Bane of Bala Ged would have been bonkers with Gravity Negator

Well, Breaker certainly makes a difference.

I'd be much less abmitious, cut the Null, play Despoiler. Maybe even the Intruder over the counterspell. Or over the Tidecaller, that one has nothing to bring back, right? That way, your mana is decent (two more Islands, no Quagmire, no Forest), you get to play your spells, and your removal and counter might get you to late game in good shape. But hard to say, when the format is this new.

Oh I lived the Dream. If I may

pack 1 Kozilek was all like pick me pick me. and i was all like. screw General theory of Limited deck building and curve. i'll P1-1 a 10 drop. but more so cause it was worth money, but i wanted to have fun and cast the big boy. so i picked some dumb waste producing cards like a main deck Abstruse Interference. Which meant i couldn't tell people things like "that's not a good card you should try this instead" when they'll look at my Abstruse Interference and wonder. I felt dirty and sick to my stomach when i sleeved it up. and of course it was one of those drafts where a 3-0 white/X deck was being gift wrapped for me with pick 5 isolation zones and such, but i again refused to follow limited rules of signaling and moving in because i wanted to cast Kozilek for fun.

Pack 3 came along and I opened the twin brother Ulamog. and couldn't help but start laughing at the table. As I was instantly rewarded for all the crap i was drafting to cast the Kozilek, I now increased my chances from 1/40 to 1/20 of finding a eldrazi titan in my games. To answer the age old question. Roughly about half my games i seen a Titan I died with it in my hand, while the other half i was able to cast it, and wouldn't ya know it 2 games i had 10 mana and never seen them.

I got a chance to play with
2x Mindmelter
1x Thought Harvester
1x Essence Depleter

those gentlemen were very good
also I really liked Sweep Away

Halimar Tidecaller gives Hissing Quagmire flying!
I did play the intruder against (pumpable) storm crow.dec. it did almost nothing. 4 mana counter spell actually countered things!

Maybe you are right about Nulldrifter. Best card in the deck though. (And laughably the one time I boarded it out, I got totally land screwed).