Draft

Hard to share a full draft log of IRL drafting (1/2 pint of Nitro Stout to help lubricate choices though). But here is my pick order (pack 1 on the left, bottom P1p1 to P1p15 on top). Opened a very legit bomb with Finale of Glory and then white was pretty clearly quite open. Did not solidify into green, kept worrying about black, but eventually put together quite a cruel little GW proliferate deck.

Deck

Results

• Round 1: Lost a round on manascrew when I kept a 2-lander and then didn’t draw any more land. Subsequent games went better when Finale of Glory put a lot of power on the battlefield, outpacing his BG removal suite.
• Round 2: facing off against Dan and his BFF Jace again. The first game was bonkers, when he got that stupid Hydra up to 14/14 trample, but I had just enough staying power (and lifegain) to race it and keep it tapped with the Law-Rune Enforcer. In the final game he put down some early planeswalkers that I just ignored and beat his face with three 4/4s, 4/5s (thanks to Proliferate)
• Round 3: in the finals I finally started drawing the Grateful Apparition which was basically unbeatable.

Learnings

GW proliferate can be VERY powerful. It power comes from playing good cards with incidental counters and/or proliferate that then combine into a powerful board presence. Ajani’s Pridemate + Battlefield Promotion turns it into an instant 4/4. Courage in Crisis is bonkers if you already have a +1/+1 counter on a second creature, a Pledge of Unity followed by the Raptor &c &c &c. Also, it’s not the most embarrassing thing in the world to put some +1/+1 counters on your Law-Rune Enforcer and swing in with it!

Oh, and Wanderer’s Strike has proliferate tacked on to the removal portion. Definitely did not realize that in round 1.

3-0