Shards Draft 4

I went down to Zombie Planet last night for another Shards draft. Unfortunately this one wasn't very interesting, but there were a few Moments Of Interest, as you'll see. Anyway…

My first pack contained an Empyrial Archangel, so it was pretty obvious I would be going Bant. Others at my table were going Bant, though, so I did have some trouble getting decent stuff. Usually my Bant decks have at least a few Rhox Chargers, for example, but not this time. I did get more rares than usual (many of them passed to me), though, which was kind of interesting. My deck ended up being:

40 Cards

17 Land
5 Forest
4 Island
7 Plains
1 Seaside Citadel

15 Creatures
2 Akrasan Squire
1 Algae Gharial
1 Bant Battlemage
1 Cloudheath Drake
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Jhessian Infiltrator
1 Kathari Screecher
1 Knight of the Skyward Eye
1 Knight of the White Orchid
1 Rhox War Monk
1 Sharding Sphinx
1 Sigiled Paladin
1 Waveskimmer Aven

8 Other Spells
1 Bant Charm
1 Covenant of Minds
1 Gift of the Gargantuan
2 Obelisk of Bant
1 Resounding Silence
2 Sigil Blessing

In-color sideboard cards, some of which I should probably have mainboarded
1 Angelic Benediction
1 Angelsong
1 Cradle of Vitality
1 Dispeller's Capsule
3 Etherium Sculptor (lulz)
1 Hindering Light
1 Minion Reflector
1 Naturalize
1 Outrider of Jhess
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Soul's Grace
1 Tortoise Formation

Meh. I probably should have kept Angelic Benediction in the deck, but it usually just gets killed, and I figured I'd rather have another creature. I never actually sideboarded anything in throughout the entire tournament, which may have been a mistake, but whatever. I also let myself be forced into Bant early, but saw very little removal that wasn't black, so I only ended up with only two real removal spells, which hurt me a fair bit. Here's how it went down:

First round I fought a dude with a Naya deck, which steamrolled me because his dudes were just so FAT. Mosstodon and Rhox Charger just punched my face open with their tramply goodness. I think I won one game, but I can't remember.

Second round I played a dude running four colors (all but white). He had some bad luck in his draws; the first game he got two Blightnings off early, but I somehow managed to squeeze out a win when he kept drawing land. The second game he got Vein Drinker out, and pinged one of my dudes with it, but I responded with Sigil Blessing. Not to be outdone, he Swerved it onto another dude. The next turn, he pinged again, and I responded with…another Sigil Blessing, which I had just topdecked. He died a little inside. Then I played Empyrial Archangel and he scooped.

Third round I played against another Naya deck. The first round I only got white and blue, and my green cards were all dead in my hand the entire game. I died. The second round, HE only got green and white, and he died. The third round, he only got green and red, and he died. It was basically mana screw wars the whole way through. Hilarious.

The final round I played against an Esper deck splashing green. There were a few moments where it was close, but his Metallurgeon and Excommunicate sealed my fate. I ended the tournament 2-2, with a win-loss record of 5-5. Not bad, for me anyway, and with such an uninteresting deck.

One person at the tournament managed to build a mill deck around Memory Erosion, which actually won a few times. Lulz.

At least I got a bunch of decent cards for my collection. Most of the rares and uncommons I got can be used in my decks. And, I signed up for the Conflux prerelease, Saturday the 31st! I am greatly looking forward to it. (There are two days, but at $30 a pop, I think I'll just do one. But I may also go to the release party the following weekend.) I will certainly have something interesting to talk about then. Until then…I don't have anything inspirational to say. Kbye.