Shards Draft 3

I haven't had a chance to draft in a while. Zombie Planet's Friday Night Magic drafts are only every other week, and two Fridays ago I was busy, and four Fridays ago was Halloween, so I hadn't had a chance to go for six whole weeks…UNTIL LAST NIGHT. Normally I teach until 5, so I wouldn't be able to make it down there in time to play, but it was Thanksgiving weekend, so there was no teaching. And OFF I WENT!

I got there early and there were only three people there, but eventually we got 15…quite a small number for a tournament, but doable. I was at the 7-player table, and as I opened up my first pack, I discovered…

Utter crap. The rare was Archdemon of Unx or Cradle of Vitality or Gather Specimens or Immortal Coil or Ooze Garden or something that I didn't really want, so I ended up taking an Arcane Sanctum. (Those rares I named are all ones I saw and passed at some point…I just don't remember in which order. I ended up grabbing Gather Specimens on its second time around, though.)

I kept getting passed junk, so I figured I'd start trying to work my way into Esper. I basically grabbed every artifact I could find, or good removal if it was available. My second pack was similarly unimpressive but I kept getting passed Esper dudes so I kept taking them. However, on my second pick, someone passed me a Quietus Spike (he must have seen a card he liked even better), so I snatched that up. I was lucky enough to get two Metallurgeons, the best card ever.

As I mentioned in a previous article, I like to arrange my packs in a certain order. My first pack had an illustration of Steward of Valeron, and lo and behold, there was one of them in the pack. But the token was a Homunculus…an excellent omen. My second pack depicted Broodmate Dragon, but I was not so lucky. I like to keep the pack with the biggest dude for last, and when I opened my Godsire pack I saw…Sharding Sphinx, the best card ever! My silly little superstition seems to pay off…that's at least the second time I've been heavily invested in a shard for the first two packs, only to open a relevant bomb in the third.

The Homunculus omen proved worthy, as I eventually got a Puppet Conjurer, the best card ever. At one point I hate-drafted a Naturalize, but almost all of my cards ended up being relevant and playable.

I ended up with:

39 Cards

15 LAND:
1 Arcane Sanctum
6 Island
4 Plains
4 Swamp

14 CREATURES:
1 Esper Battlemage
1 Etherium Sculptor
1 Glaze Fiend
2 Metallurgeon
1 Puppet Conjurer
1 Sanctum Gargoyle
1 Sharding Sphinx
3 Tidehollow Strix
1 Tower Gargoyle
1 Vectis Silencers
1 Windwright Mage

10 OTHER SPELLS:
1 Cancel
1 Courier's Capsule
1 Dispeller's Capsule
1 Etherium Astrolabe
1 Hindering Light
2 Obelisk of Esper
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Resounding Wave
1 Quietus Spike

"Wait," you are probably saying, "39 cards?" My reply: "WHAT OH SHIT!" When I was doing my land calculations, I knew I wanted 16 lands. I had Arcane Sanctum already, so I mentally started off with 5 Island, 5 Plains, 5 Swamp. Since I had more blue, I shifted it to 6 Island, 4 Plains, 4 Swamp…not realizing that it should have been 7 Island. A ridiculous and embarrassing calculation error.

However, I didn't notice this mistake until the fourth round. So I had been playing with an illegal deck for three rounds with no one noticing…and doing pretty well with it! The shame is unbearable. After writing this article I may be forced to commit seppuku.

But here's what happened. My first opponent was a guy who usually owns at Magic, but he had some mana troubles. He was playing Naya colors, and didn't get green for a long time. My legion of tiny dudes overwhelmed him. Twice. Illegally. :(

My second opponent was another veteran, also running Naya colors. However, he had grabbed THREE Hissing Iguanars and a Goblin Assault, a deadly combo. The first game he dropped one of his Iguanars, and I played Esper Battlemage, which would have destroyed his entire deck had he not burned it out with Naya Charm. So I lost. Then in game two, it was much closer. At one point, I had a ton of dudes, and was about to attack, but he played…Naya Charm to tap all my dudes. HOWEVER, I had been cleverly keeping my mana open, and I Canceled it. I dealt him a sound blow to the facebone. The next turn, I prepared to attack again, and he cast…Naya Charm. He tapped all my dudes, then attacked on his turn to finish me off. Bluh. He went on to win first place.

My third opponent was a dude who everyone seemed to hate, and I soon found out why. He was friendly at first, but whenever I played a spell, he would reel in his chair as though I had just played Black Lotus. It got a little out of hand, though…it made sense for Quietus Spike, but then I'd play some little dude that doesn't even do anything and he'd fall out of his chair and rip his hair out. I was afraid to even play a land for fear of him shooting himself right then and there.

But anyway, his real distastefulness was revealed more gradually. At one point, he had a Rockslide Elemental with one counter, and I had a Puppet Conjurer and Glaze Fiend. He attacked, and I made a Homunculus, pumping my Fiend, then blocked with the now 2/3 Fiend. Then he said something like "but damage is already on stack," and I was like "what," and we had a brief exchange by which it was clear he had not realized I could do that and was trying to weasel out of it. However, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and let him take back his attack. Another time, I attacked with a Tidehollow Strix equipped with Quietus Spike when he was at 15 life, and I'd say "ok that's 2, plus 7 more" and he put his life counter at 7, and I had to say "no it's 6." This happened several times. Either he was pretty dumb or pretty weaselly. I am convinced it is the latter. During the third game, a guy came over and watched, so I at least had someone else to keep him in line. He tried to play Resounding Roar on his Algae Gharial, but the dude watching pointed out that the Gharial has shroud, so I was grateful (since I hadn't noticed and would have let him do it). Anyway, I eventually beat him 2-1, which was satisfying since he was a douche. Too bad my deck was illegal.

During those games, though, I got to use some of the awesome interactions in my deck. Etherium Astrolabe + Puppet Conjurer/Sharding Sphinx = great source of cards. And of course, Metallurgeon worked very well with Tidehollow Strix, the best card ever.

So I was 2-1 so far, and the fourth and final round rolled around. My opponent this time had some sort of compulsive shuffling disorder where he would shuffle his own deck 1000 times in 6 different ways. Then when I presented my deck for him to cut, he shuffled MY deck 1000 times in 6 different ways. He remarked that it felt a bit light, and he counted it, revealing, to my VAST EMBARRASSMENT, that my deck was illegal! The judge ruled it as a game loss for me, and I realized what I had done and stuck in the final Swamp. He won the next game with his Bant dudes (we both had a lot of dudes but his were slightly bigger and more evasive). We played again for kicks, and I won, so I wonder what would have happened if he had not noticed. Or if I had been playing 40 from the start. Ah well.

Anyway, I ended up coming in 7th out of 15, which is not bad for a loathsome cheater. I used to always count my deck before playing to make sure it had the right number of cards, but then I got overconfident in my mathematical abilities and stopped doing that. From now on I will be sure to return to that habit :)

During one of the rounds, after I had finished my matches, I watched some other matches, and I saw one guy with a Puppet Conjurer. So after the tournament, I asked him if he would trade it, and he gave it to me for free. O FRABJOUS DAY! Unspeakable bliss.

When I got home, I used my new Esper fellows to augment my existing Esper deck, focusing on speed and numbers. I took out the clunky Sphinx Sovereign in favor of Sharding Sphinx, and basically packed the deck with awesome creatures. It's weak against mass removal (in testing, an Infest wiped out the entire board), but it is fast, and furious, and sharp as a tack. Metallurgeon + Tidehollow Strix, as I have mentioned previously, is a rock solid defense. Or, etherium solid. Actually etherium isn't very solid. OK WHATEVER.

So although I was embarrassed at my mistake, and at throwing off the results for players who care about stuff like that, I still had fun, and got some neat cards. That's all you can ask for, really. (Well, you can ask for victory, but I won't push my luck.) Two players were randomly selected at the end for a PROMO CARD from the PROMO CARD ENVELOPE, and I was one of them. There were Woolly Thoctars and Isochron Scepters and some other stuff. I was strongly advised to take a Thoctar (the other guy did) so I just went with that. The Scepter is a great card, and worth more, but it's also from Mirrodin, and cards from Mirrodin burn my skin when I touch them. It's like they're coated in some sort of evil artifact acid. So I'm happy with my Thoctar.

Until next time…whenever that may be! (Perhaps the day after Christmas! We'll see.)