Flew back from the east coast with the Baby Raptor in my carry-on luggage. Overall a good performance, though it started to fall apart for the latter third. She fell asleep right on schedule… but then woke up! We then proceeded to two hours of Delirious Baby as she would rapidly cycle between happy/sad/curious/fidgety in 5-15 minute segments. I had a saint of a seatmate who is a grandpa and was very willing to have the Raptor investigate his tattoos very closely. Then she woke up at 3:30am. So this draft happened during the rarely seen 7am nap. Yikes

The Draft

Draft Details

This was a really fun draft that I felt great about. Some really interesting forks, starting with

Pack 1 pick 1

Interesting choice! Both require a pretty heavy commitment to a color. Settle the Score is obviously very solid removal… and Tempest Djinn can be very powerful. Is bomb-ish enough to take over removal? I don’t know, but I wanted to experiment with it, so I took it. Taking removal first is just so boring.

From there I found my lane in G/x/x. I got positively gifted two Skittering Surveyors, so the splash is on! Then an interesting pack 3…

Pack 3 Pick 1

This is a really, really interesting choice. I picked the SLC for the power-level. I think this was wrong. The ramp of the Llanowar is just too good in this format. Also, splashing and GGG for the SLC isn’t the world’s greatest combination. Plus with green underdrafted at the table, it’s not impossible (though unlikely, given that it is Standard-playable) that it would wheel. The mana-elf will never wheel.

Of course, there’s another SLC in pick 3. So who even knows anymore.

The Deck

I like how this deck feels! I’m always a little leery splashing, timing when to take the enablers and when to take the payoffs is always a bit tricky for me. But I got three sources of splash, and two quasi (the filtering elf and the Adventurous Impulse). Not a lot of 2-drops, but I feel like I can stall around and have some good power on the board.

Learnings

But not as much power as the black Sagas!

These cards are all extremely good and I extremely did not have any answers for them. A 6/6 demon is rudely just out of reach of all of my removal. And Phyrexian Scriptures is a great wipe that leaves the opponent’s best creature. And I saw one of these every game!

Clearly a bit unlucky to face off against the bombs that I had no answer for. I also played right into a Syncopate when I wasn’t thinking ahead very clearly. Still, a good draft with a bad outcome. Fun sidenote: I played against CalebD! After the game I watched his stream to see how I did. Answer: decently. Perhaps overly cautious against a Syncopate in game 2, but he drew one fairly rapidly and it was still the right thing to play around.