Draft

Interesting draft! Pretty good power cards early: Bedeck//Bedazzle, Consecrate//Consume and then a Skewer the Critics. From there the draft was pretty open. Was Skitter Eel a signal? No… So I veer around, grabbing a couple gates thinking Temur midrange… and then Gates Ablaze wheels at 14. I am… agog.

P2p1 was an interesting pick: Precognitive Preception vs. Troll-Bred Guardian. I think PP is more powerful in the vacuum, but where I was at (questionable mana strewn across three colors) made me pick the more sure-thing in TBG.

Gate payoffs come to me in pack 3, including a free Gateway Sneak. Rakdos was empty at the table, given how the Firewheeler wheeled (no pun intended, I promise) in pack 2, but I can’t see how I could have gotten in there.

Draft Log

Deck

Definitely very midrange. Only two 2-drops and four 3-drops, so I need to be careful about being run over. But some good payoffs (Colossus, Gates Ablaze, TBG) and some good stabilizing 4-drops. The removal isn’t the greatest: one Skewer, one Savage Smash, so I’ll have to rely on the creatures to get it there. Upon the advice of Drew & Chris, I took out an Axebane Beast and put in the Bedeck//Bedazzle. A little nervous with only 8 red sources, but the powerlevel is probably much higher.

Results

• Round 1 vs. Mardu: Facing a messy Mardu deck that did have a lot of removal (red splash for Get the Point & Skewer the Critics). He flooded in game 1 while I beat down and I took game 2 by sweeping his early drops with Gates Ablaze and then grinding him out.
• Round 2 vs. Gruul: tripping on red mana, oppo curves into Sunder Shaman, then a second Sunder Shaman. I win game 2 by just out-pressuring. Game 3 got a little goofy as he played a Saruli Caretaker (?) Spear Spewer (??) and a Spikewheel Acrobat (???). I build a board state, he gets his 6/6 Sauroform Hybrid but my adorable flying homoclulus gets me across the finish line. To the finals!
• Round 3 vs. Azorius: I mull to five but the oppo farts around a little bit as I perfectly curve out into a pair of Rubblebelt Recluse. Game two I start getting ground down by Dovin’s Acuity and Screaming Shield. Oh and two Sphinxes of Foresight. I start sacrificing to push through damage, to no avail. In Game three he gets that stupid Screaming Shield again and starts hitting me. I go wide, but he lands two chump blockers to live long enough.

Learnings

Screaming Shield was shockingly good against big dumb fatties that I was running. The Bedeck was probably better than Axebane Beast, it’s true.

2-1 (finals)