WELL! I managed to go to another Shards of Alara draft! Hurray for me. Here are my tales.
There were 25 people, and we were going to be drafting at tables of 6/6/6/7, but some people wanted larger tables, so it ended up being 8/8/9, and I was at one of the 8. I'm not superstitious, but I like to pretend that I am, so I decide the order in which to open my packs based on the art. My three boosters had art of Hellkite Overlord, Godsire, and Sphinx Sovereign, which is the order I decided to open them. My decision turned out to be awesome.
My first pack contained nothing of real interest. I think I took Oblivion Ring. The second pack was also lame and I took Bull Cerodon. After a few more unexciting picks, I noticed that I kept getting passed a lot of Esper cards. So I thought, LET'S TRY IT. And I began to draft Esper.
I took pretty elementary staple Esper cards like Glaze Fiend and Sanctum Gargoyle, not getting many bombs. I did take Brilliant Ultimatum – two of them – but decided later not to play them. But in the second pack, I got passed a Battlegrace Angel on my second pick, so I snatched that up faster than a hobo grabs a bread crust off the sidewalk. I continued taking pretty-okay Esper cards until third pack, where I opened the booster with the art of Sphinx Sovereign discover…SPHINX SOVEREIGN. After barely avoiding crapping myself, I took it and continued getting more generic Esper stuff, and a few Bant cards such as Akrasan Squire and Call to Heel. I focused mostly on artifact-related stuff to make my deck as resilient and aggressive as possible.
After a bit of fiddling, I came up with a deck of which I am actually pretty proud.
17 Land:
1 Esper Panorama
5 Island
6 Plains
5 Swamp
16 Creatures:
1 Akrasan Squire
1 Battlegrace Angel
1 Blister Beetle
1 Filigree Sages
3 Glaze Fiend
2 Sanctum Gargoyle (one was foil)
1 Sphinx Sovereign
1 Sphinx's Herald
1 Steelclad Serpent
1 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Tidehollow Strix
1 Vectis Silencers
1 Windwright Mage
7 Other Spells:
1 Call to Heel
1 Courier's Capsule
1 Dispeller's Capsule
1 Executioner's Capsule
1 Hindering Light
1 Obelisk of Esper
1 Oblivion Ring
And now, the games. It was a five-round tournament, so one loss would mean that I would still have a chance at winning a prize, but I'm not the type who does things like winning or anything. Winning, pfft. Anyway. My first opponent had a powerful Jund deck splashing blue that would have totally crushed me if not for him getting horribly mana screwed the first game (he didn't get any black for a long time, and when he finally did, it was in the form of Obelisk of Grixis which I summarily owned with Dispeller's Capsule). I also kept topdecking exactly what I needed in every situation, which proved very irritating to him. The next game he got horribly mana flooded, drawing 14 land out of 20 cards. I've never seen anyone get so frustrated at mana problems, and insist so many times that it wasn't my fault. But he later made up his lost ground.
So I got off to a great start. My second match was against another Jund deck, but this one had no such mana problems. The first game, Vein Drinker killed my entire deck, and the second time, I got overwhelmed by massive number of tokens from Sprouting Thrinax and Jund Battlemage. I was now 1-1, out of the running for good prizes but still in the running for fifth place.
Then I faced a guy playing Bant. He clobbered me first game with a ton of exalted dudes that I couldn't get rid of. But the second game, I edged out a win with judicious use of being awesome, and the third game he got mana screwed. So now I was 2-1, though my wins could both be partly attributed to luck.
Then I faced an Esper deck, leaning heavily into Bant. That is, it was white-blue-black, but focused more on exalted than on artifacts. His mass of Akrasan Squires made me reluctant to waste my removal spells, and Deft Duelist didn't even give me the option. I got destroyed 0-2.
In the final round, I faced a Grixis deck played by a guy who does not embody Grixis at all because he was super nice. He realized I was kind of new, and when I played my Sculler, he gave me some advice as to which cards to remove (advice which was clearly not meant to sucker me). However, I once again got owned by superior removal. So I ended 2-3, with most of my wins being luck-based. A decent record, but not great, since I won 4 games but lost 7.
Whenever I got the Sphinx or the Angel out, I would usually have one turn of being able to use it before it got taken out by a Bone Splinters (in the former case) or Grixis Charm (in the latter). I definitely made some mistakes, a few of which probably lose me some games, but I had difficult choices to make, and of course I kind of suck. It was only my second Shards draft, after all. But I had fun, and it was neat to try a different shard, especially one I had railed against previously. But Esper used for aggro rather than control is plenty fun, and the few control spells I had were mostly defensive and relatively not obnoxious. One guy had FOUR Blightnings in his deck…I am glad I did not have to play him.
Some fun moments: Attacking with a Windwright Mage with Battlegrace Angel in play, giving him DOUBLE LIFELINK. (I have decided that lifelink is my favorite ability ever.) Trying to execute an elaborate method of getting my poorly played Oblivion Ring back by using Dispeller's Capsule and Sanctum Gargoyle, only to realize that I had already played Sanctum Gargoyle, and Oblivion Ring was of course not an artifact anyway. Using Hindering Light and Call to Heel to protect my dudes and draw more cards. Successfully using Sphinx's Herald to summon the Sovereign, only to lose it to a one-mana Bone Splinters. Trying to play a four-person multiplayer game in between rounds, three of us using Standard decks and one using an Elder Dragon Highlander deck because he didn't have anything else with him. (We got three turns in before the next round began.) Playing a Standard game between rounds against the nice Grixis guy who owns like twelve jillion cards and was playing Esper control, only to overpower him with my crappy red-green giant common dudes when he tapped out to play Scourglass, playing Soul's Fire on my Morselhoarder targeting his face as my coup de grace.
So that's the story of my second draft. I got only two real bombs, but I might be able to build an Esper deck now, and the Angel will definitely go into my exalted deck. As usual, I don't know how often I'll get to draft, but when I do, I'll be sure to post about it!
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Shards draft!
The shop that I've started going to didn't have a Shards of Alara release party, but instead, they turned last night's Friday Night Magic into a Shards of Alara booster draft, complete with promo Ajani Vengeants. (They actually do a booster draft every other FNM, which is great because I love Limited.) Anyway, I went to that draft last night, and HERE ARE MY TALES.
There were 25 players, seated at tables of 6, 6, 6, and 7. I was at one of the 6-player tables, and I was of course super excited. My excitement was immediately justified when my first pack contained an Emyprial Archangel. Bant is my favorite shard anyway, and I already have a decent amount of Bant cards (though not quite a deck's worth), so I was glad to grab the shiny Angel and immediately commit myself to Bant. Neither of the players next to me were playing Bant, so I kept getting passed a lot of Bant cards, which was awesome.
Another pack had Clarion Ultimatum, which is nigh useless in Limited, but I grabbed it for use in a deck later. I also picked up another Angel's Herald, which, it turned out, was also not especially useful. My second pack contained a foil Spearbreaker Behemoth and a Ranger of Eos. The Behemoth was just too awesome not to take, but the Ranger came back around to me, so I grabbed him too. (He too later proved useless, though.) I picked the Behemoth thinking "OH MAN I CAN MAKE MY EMPYRIAL ARCHANGEL INDESTRUCTIBLE AND PREVENT ALL DAMAGE TO ME EACH TURN FOR A MERE ONE MANA." But then when I went to actually do it in game, I noticed that the Angel had shroud. And I wept bitter tears.
There weren't any other really outstanding picks, but I grabbed a Minion Reflector for later use. Or rather, because it looked cool. I also got a bunch of repeats of cards I had from the Sealed tournament, which allowed me to make a shiny Bant deck afterward. Anyway, I of course mixed all my cards together again before recording any of them, and changed it between games, but here's the closest estimate of what my final deck looked like (and I actually managed to keep it to 40 cards after other players gave me stern looks when I told them my deck was 46):
16 LAND:
1 Bant Panorama
1 Esper Panorama
5 Forest
5 Island
7 Plains
14 CREATURES:
1 Akrasan Squire
1 Algae Gharial
1 Cylian Elf
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Jhessian Infiltrator
1 Qasali Ambusher
1 Rhox War Monk
1 Rockcaster Platoon
1 Sighted-Caste Sorcerer
1 Spearbreaker Behemoth
1 Sunseed Nurturer
2 Waveskimmer Aven
10 OTHER SPELLS:
1 Angelic Benediction
2 Courier's Capsule
1 Gift of the Gargantuan
1 Hindering Light
1 Obelisk of Bant
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Resounding Silence
1 Sigil Blessing
1 Soul's Grace
So that's what I had as of the third round. Now to recount the actual games...
My first opponent was also playing Bant, but he had a Battlegrace Angel as well as a Stoic Angel, which was very painful. Our first game went back and forth with life gain and Exalted, but I finally managed to turn the tides by using a Resounding Silence on his freaking Battlegrace Angel, and somehow I got enough damage through to win the first game. The second game was a different story, as he got the Battlegrace Angel out again but I couldn't stop it. The game dragged on even longer, and we even went into overtime with each of us having only 3 cards left in our decks. He won just in time, since his Knight-Captain of Eos was able to prevent too much of my damage, and so we drew 1-1 in the first round without even getting to game 3.
I then fiddled with my deck a little and faced a Grixis player. I hadn't faced a dedicated Grixis deck before, but he wore me down in small increments with Onyx Goblet and two Kederekt Creepers, spelling my doom. I lost 1-2.
Then I consulted another player, who made some recommendations for my deck, and I got it configured as you see above. My third opponent was playing what seemed like an Esper control deck, but he hardly played anything, so I never really found out what it was supposed to do. I won 2-0.
My final opponent was playing only two colors (white-blue), but had trouble getting his blue out. He had a TON of life gain (two Crystal Goblets as well as an Invincible Hymn), but he didn't have enough defense, and I had even MORE life gain with my Rhox War Monk attacking with Exalted. It took a while, but I won 2-0.
I don't know how I would have done if I had made the deck properly from the outset, but I was pretty happy with how I did. 6 wins and 3 losses is solid, even though I had no chance of winning a prize after the second round, but I definitely enjoyed myself. And now I have an Exalted deck! I may post the full decklist at some point, but it's not really necessary: it's just every Exalted card I have, plus a few others thrown in (Rhox War Monk!). I don't use Empyrial Archangel because, as awesome as it is, it's really not that useful to an Exalted deck, and its extremely high mana cost makes it much less playable in Constructed.
But I DID make a red-green Naya deck using some of the cards I got, plus a bunch of Shadowmoor cards, and even a few from Tenth Edition:
25 LAND:
14 Forest
11 Mountain
26 CREATURES:
1 Algae Gharial
1 Belligerent Hatchling
1 Briarhorn
1 Cragganwick Cremator
2 Devoted Druid
2 Elvish Visionary
1 Exuberant Firestoker
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Foxfire Oak
2 Incurable Ogre
2 Jungle Weaver
2 Loamdragger Giant
2 Morselhoarder
1 Oakgnarl Warrior
2 Roughshod Mentor
1 Scuzzback Marauders
1 Spearbreaker Behemoth
1 Stampeding Wildebeests
1 Tattermunge Witch
9 OTHER SPELLS:
1 Branching Bolt
1 Double Cleave
1 Gift of the Gargantuan
2 Mighty Emergence
2 Naturalize
1 Soul's Fire
1 Where Ancients Tread
I opted not to use white because I really don't have many good white cards that would fit in here, besides Rakeclaw Gargantuan. I left out Sarkhan Vol because he just doesn't do anything especially useful for Naya. Most of my creatures are going to be more concerned with attacking than blocking, often leaving him undefended, and his abilities just aren't that helpful to the deck. That said, let's look at some of the awesome parts.
Stampeding Wildebeests is really good. I didn't realize how awesome he was, but he has really great interactions with many of the other cards in this deck. He allows me to reuse my Elvish Visionaries and Farhaven Elf, and if I have Where Ancients Tread, I can return the Wildebeest himself and replay him for 5 more damage each turn. Many of the creatures here don't start out with 5 toughness, so they don't trigger the comes-into-play enchantments, but they still quickly get up to 5, which supports Exuberant Firestoker and allows them to be targeted by Spearbreaker Behemoth. It's slow to get going, but if it lasts long enough, it will finish the job quickly. I also like how it uses cards from a variety of sets despite being based on a Shards of Alara theme.
So there you have it. My first Shards of Alara draft, and a few decks that resulted from it. I hope to draft Shards again at some point, but I don't yet know when that might be. Comments and suggestions on my red-green deck are welcome :)
One final story: after one of the rounds where I finished early, I wandered around looking at other people's games. I found two guys locked in the most epic battle of all time. One had a Windwright Mage with 60 +1/+1 counters on it, made possible by a Cradle of Vitality. He also had a Metallurgeon and a Tidehollow Strix, making any attack against him very uninviting. He had 88 life. His opponent had a Feral Hydra with 19 +1/+1 counters on it. He was at 52 life. There were a bunch of other creatures out, but they didn't do much. The guy with the artifacts eventually won, but it was a very amusing battle. Seeing a 62/62 creature with flying and lifelink in Limited is just ridiculous. RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME.
There were 25 players, seated at tables of 6, 6, 6, and 7. I was at one of the 6-player tables, and I was of course super excited. My excitement was immediately justified when my first pack contained an Emyprial Archangel. Bant is my favorite shard anyway, and I already have a decent amount of Bant cards (though not quite a deck's worth), so I was glad to grab the shiny Angel and immediately commit myself to Bant. Neither of the players next to me were playing Bant, so I kept getting passed a lot of Bant cards, which was awesome.
Another pack had Clarion Ultimatum, which is nigh useless in Limited, but I grabbed it for use in a deck later. I also picked up another Angel's Herald, which, it turned out, was also not especially useful. My second pack contained a foil Spearbreaker Behemoth and a Ranger of Eos. The Behemoth was just too awesome not to take, but the Ranger came back around to me, so I grabbed him too. (He too later proved useless, though.) I picked the Behemoth thinking "OH MAN I CAN MAKE MY EMPYRIAL ARCHANGEL INDESTRUCTIBLE AND PREVENT ALL DAMAGE TO ME EACH TURN FOR A MERE ONE MANA." But then when I went to actually do it in game, I noticed that the Angel had shroud. And I wept bitter tears.
There weren't any other really outstanding picks, but I grabbed a Minion Reflector for later use. Or rather, because it looked cool. I also got a bunch of repeats of cards I had from the Sealed tournament, which allowed me to make a shiny Bant deck afterward. Anyway, I of course mixed all my cards together again before recording any of them, and changed it between games, but here's the closest estimate of what my final deck looked like (and I actually managed to keep it to 40 cards after other players gave me stern looks when I told them my deck was 46):
16 LAND:
1 Bant Panorama
1 Esper Panorama
5 Forest
5 Island
7 Plains
14 CREATURES:
1 Akrasan Squire
1 Algae Gharial
1 Cylian Elf
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Jhessian Infiltrator
1 Qasali Ambusher
1 Rhox War Monk
1 Rockcaster Platoon
1 Sighted-Caste Sorcerer
1 Spearbreaker Behemoth
1 Sunseed Nurturer
2 Waveskimmer Aven
10 OTHER SPELLS:
1 Angelic Benediction
2 Courier's Capsule
1 Gift of the Gargantuan
1 Hindering Light
1 Obelisk of Bant
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Resounding Silence
1 Sigil Blessing
1 Soul's Grace
So that's what I had as of the third round. Now to recount the actual games...
My first opponent was also playing Bant, but he had a Battlegrace Angel as well as a Stoic Angel, which was very painful. Our first game went back and forth with life gain and Exalted, but I finally managed to turn the tides by using a Resounding Silence on his freaking Battlegrace Angel, and somehow I got enough damage through to win the first game. The second game was a different story, as he got the Battlegrace Angel out again but I couldn't stop it. The game dragged on even longer, and we even went into overtime with each of us having only 3 cards left in our decks. He won just in time, since his Knight-Captain of Eos was able to prevent too much of my damage, and so we drew 1-1 in the first round without even getting to game 3.
I then fiddled with my deck a little and faced a Grixis player. I hadn't faced a dedicated Grixis deck before, but he wore me down in small increments with Onyx Goblet and two Kederekt Creepers, spelling my doom. I lost 1-2.
Then I consulted another player, who made some recommendations for my deck, and I got it configured as you see above. My third opponent was playing what seemed like an Esper control deck, but he hardly played anything, so I never really found out what it was supposed to do. I won 2-0.
My final opponent was playing only two colors (white-blue), but had trouble getting his blue out. He had a TON of life gain (two Crystal Goblets as well as an Invincible Hymn), but he didn't have enough defense, and I had even MORE life gain with my Rhox War Monk attacking with Exalted. It took a while, but I won 2-0.
I don't know how I would have done if I had made the deck properly from the outset, but I was pretty happy with how I did. 6 wins and 3 losses is solid, even though I had no chance of winning a prize after the second round, but I definitely enjoyed myself. And now I have an Exalted deck! I may post the full decklist at some point, but it's not really necessary: it's just every Exalted card I have, plus a few others thrown in (Rhox War Monk!). I don't use Empyrial Archangel because, as awesome as it is, it's really not that useful to an Exalted deck, and its extremely high mana cost makes it much less playable in Constructed.
But I DID make a red-green Naya deck using some of the cards I got, plus a bunch of Shadowmoor cards, and even a few from Tenth Edition:
25 LAND:
14 Forest
11 Mountain
26 CREATURES:
1 Algae Gharial
1 Belligerent Hatchling
1 Briarhorn
1 Cragganwick Cremator
2 Devoted Druid
2 Elvish Visionary
1 Exuberant Firestoker
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Foxfire Oak
2 Incurable Ogre
2 Jungle Weaver
2 Loamdragger Giant
2 Morselhoarder
1 Oakgnarl Warrior
2 Roughshod Mentor
1 Scuzzback Marauders
1 Spearbreaker Behemoth
1 Stampeding Wildebeests
1 Tattermunge Witch
9 OTHER SPELLS:
1 Branching Bolt
1 Double Cleave
1 Gift of the Gargantuan
2 Mighty Emergence
2 Naturalize
1 Soul's Fire
1 Where Ancients Tread
I opted not to use white because I really don't have many good white cards that would fit in here, besides Rakeclaw Gargantuan. I left out Sarkhan Vol because he just doesn't do anything especially useful for Naya. Most of my creatures are going to be more concerned with attacking than blocking, often leaving him undefended, and his abilities just aren't that helpful to the deck. That said, let's look at some of the awesome parts.
Stampeding Wildebeests is really good. I didn't realize how awesome he was, but he has really great interactions with many of the other cards in this deck. He allows me to reuse my Elvish Visionaries and Farhaven Elf, and if I have Where Ancients Tread, I can return the Wildebeest himself and replay him for 5 more damage each turn. Many of the creatures here don't start out with 5 toughness, so they don't trigger the comes-into-play enchantments, but they still quickly get up to 5, which supports Exuberant Firestoker and allows them to be targeted by Spearbreaker Behemoth. It's slow to get going, but if it lasts long enough, it will finish the job quickly. I also like how it uses cards from a variety of sets despite being based on a Shards of Alara theme.
So there you have it. My first Shards of Alara draft, and a few decks that resulted from it. I hope to draft Shards again at some point, but I don't yet know when that might be. Comments and suggestions on my red-green deck are welcome :)
One final story: after one of the rounds where I finished early, I wandered around looking at other people's games. I found two guys locked in the most epic battle of all time. One had a Windwright Mage with 60 +1/+1 counters on it, made possible by a Cradle of Vitality. He also had a Metallurgeon and a Tidehollow Strix, making any attack against him very uninviting. He had 88 life. His opponent had a Feral Hydra with 19 +1/+1 counters on it. He was at 52 life. There were a bunch of other creatures out, but they didn't do much. The guy with the artifacts eventually won, but it was a very amusing battle. Seeing a 62/62 creature with flying and lifelink in Limited is just ridiculous. RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME.
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