Draft

Jumping into a new format! My track record at puzzling out formats without first hearing LR/LoL is not very good. But sometimes you just gotta draft during a nap. Well, almost napping. Well being kind quiet in a dark room. A locked room. Listen, I had 45 minutes okay? Don’t judge me.

Draft Log

Early Picks

P1p1: I choose the Animating Faerie as the ceiling seems higher than Ardenvale Tactician (a very reliable card in the white dek
P1p2: Tower vs. Foulmire Knight. Reading closer, a 2-mana deathtouch knight cantrip is probably the better card in a vacuum. I went with the safer pick of decent removal.
P1p3: Syr Faren vs. nothing at all.
P1p4: The sheer number of mediocre red cards was notable, but Silverflame Squire is a card I really want to see if it works (1/2 combat trick 1/2 mediocre body)
Pack 1 ends up with a mess of Mardu cards. Three straight black removal cards in pack 2 firm me up in Black and I end up pretty happy with BW knights. P3p3 Pie vs. Youthful Knight was an interesting choice where I took the good 2-drop over the superior removal. I already had plenty though!

Self-Assessment

I felt like I did a good job of finding my lane. Not panicking in pack 1, hoovering the available removal in pack 2, and then just filling out the shape of my deck in pack 3.

Deck

This is a very generic deck. Curve out then remove blockers with removal. Seems good! I did take out the Beloved Princess for the Gargoyle (tolerable mana-sink) and the Idyllic Grange for a regular plains eventually.

Results

• Round 1 vs. : A 1-2-3 curve-out with two Reave Souls is going to win a lot a games. In game 2, oppo was slow to find their second color of mana. This led to an improbable Alliance (spew out 1/1 Faeries). The All that Glitters on the Gargoyle (?) proved to be too much however. I think I’m going to permanently side out the Princess for the Gargoyle.
• Round 2 vs. UR: I got some early power on the battlefield with the Gargoyle, Shambling Suit, and a Skewer. Oppo stalled out on 4 mana and never really recovered. No sideboarding. Game 2 I get stalled on lands and didn’t read cards correctly. The Pyromancer (0/4 ping 3 on 2nd card drawn) is a very real threat. When combined with the dragon that rummages on ETB *and* attack, well, that’s not going to go well for me. In game 3 oppo stuck on 3 lands and I curved out rather nicely.
• Round 3 (finals!) vs. UG: I kept a 5-lander with some early action. Oppo had a nice curve out with the Hengehammer (the +x/+x attacking booster) while tempoing me out with a brutal Pumpkin. I almost stabilize, but it wasn’t to be. Game 2 I flooded pretty hard (9 land out of 14 cards). which is sort of a death knell against this deck.

Learnings

You can curve out and win games in this format for sure. Honestly having a sub-theme of artifacts & enchantments in the white base was totally fine.

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