Yeah, it was coming.

I went 0-3 in my very first draft after P1P1 Necroduality. I ended up with a lot of zombies, but I simply got pressured out game after game. The white 4/2 indestructible-on-attack creature chewed through all my Necroduality tokens. I also lacked targets to exploit, and it overall felt like I didn't have enough synergy since I lost all three games with Necroduality in play. Alternatively, I did have enough synergies, but not enough mana to execute all of them.

I went 7-2 in my next draft with this deck though.

2 Traveling Minister
2 Parish-Blade Trainee
2 Drogskul Infantry
1 Twinblade Geist
1 Undead Butler
1 Gryff Rider
1 Kindly Ancestor
1 Welcoming Vampire
2 Courier Bat
2 Markov Purifier
1 Bloodcrazed Socialite
1 Skulking Killer
1 Nebelgast Beguiler <-- almost never cast, because I never drew it most games

1 Piercing Light
1 Fierce Retribution
1 Adamant Will
1 Bleed Dry
1 Grisly Ritual

9 Plains
8 Swamp

Cards in sideboard not used: 2nd Piercing Light, Vampire Slayer x2, Nurturing Presence (how good is this?), Blood Fountain, Ragged Recluse, Mindleech Ghoul

I was worried I lacked a way to win games, and indeed I lost a couple of games when my creatures got outstatted. My biggest ground creature is literally 4/2, and a 3/3 menace that can grow to 5/5 when attacking. But I had enough flyers to win in the air, and more importantly I gained enough life to outrace many opponents.

Traveling Minister overperformed. Repeatable life gain for Markov Purifier is great, and it can also provide some Training synergies. Kindly Ancestor turned out to be completely filler, and I debated cutting it quite a bit. Welcoming Vampire was excellent to nobody's surprise. Skulking Killer was very bad, and I never actually triggered it. I still kind of had to have it though since my top end is so barren, and in one game it did train up Parish-Blade Trainee. Speaking of which, Trainee was okay. I was concerned it would be bad, but turns out it's not *that* hard to give it a +1/+1 counter, potentially more, but even after 1 counter the on-death ability is reasonable

It's possible I should've included the Blood Fountain and Recluse (the latter of which overperformed when played against me) for the small blood synergies, but since Socialite is the only real "payoff", and since Socialite is the only ground attacker that can threaten to trade, it didn't seem worth it. Of other cards played against me, Lantern Bearer overperformed like hell. Do some damage in the early game, upgrade big ground creatures into flyers later. Very strong, only drawback is the second half is rather mana intensive.

One of the losses was to another BW lifegain deck that was better than mine, since it had more payoffs + a real win con in the 6/6 flying demon. It seems like there aren't enough good payoffs in general, with only Courier Bat at common.

To the next draft

7-1 with this deck:

1 Traveling Minister
2 Parish-Blade Trainee
1 Fleeting Spirit
2 Ragged Recluse
1 Restless Bloodseeker
1 Gryff Rider
1 Courier Bat
1 Gluttonous Guest
1 Bloodcrazed Socialite
1 Innocent Traveler
1 Edgar, Charmed Groom
1 Angelic Quartermaster

1 Fierce Retribution
1 Parasitic Grasp
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Sigarda's Imprisonment
2 Bleed Dry

8 Plains
9 Swamp

Cards in sideboard not used: Aim for the Head, Grisly Ritual, Desperate Farmer, Pointed Discussion, Piercing Light

Not surprising since card quality was great. There's not a single card in my deck that I'm sad to have, and I had some reasonable cards in sideboard too. Edgar was of course a bomb. Angelic Quartermaster was also great. It's not just that it's a reasonable flyer, it's also that the +1/+1 counters help enable training. Traveling Minister again proved its worth by comboing with Restless Bloodseeker; I drained one opponent out with it. Other blood synergies were also not bad, although I did get one Bloodseeker/Guest loop broken up by opposing removal.

I did make a few kamikaze attacks that weren't lethal, which might be misplays. On the other hand they put opponent to really low life totals (like 2) and if I didn't make the attack, they would surely add to the board and stop my smaller creatures from doing anything. I failed to close the distance in one game, but I got there in the others, even against opposing lifegain.

I do find I'm kind of losing interest in limited. I had this deck drafted and didn't play it for two days, although I still got to 15 wins. Historic is more fun. On the other hand if I don't use gold/gems on limited, I don't have anything to use them on. We'll see how things go, I suppose.

I did not enjoy drafting VOW and dropped off it fairly quickly. The past year of drafts was really relatively weak for me. From the current sets in Standard, I think I really only enjoyed drafting KHM and NEO. ZNR was fine. STX was okay but I got bored soon too. MID was fun to play in that there were a lot of tight games, but drafting was rough.

What would you say makes a draft format fun? I'm not sure how I would answer that question. I think the most fun draft format I've played is Dominaria, but I am hard-pressed to explain why.

Good draft formats:

1. Multiple viable decks
2. At least one viable non-linear deck
3. Fun build-around gold uncommons
4. Aggro is viable, but not oppressive


If you liked Dominaria, they'd have the first 3, at least. If you liked Dominaria, you like slower formats. They don't get much slower than Dominaria.