Drafting in real life at Optimism! The Nitro Shift is absolutely spectacular. The 9.1% ABV is also a bit dangerous when I have a bye in the first round. But it turned out the deck didn’t need the help!

It was pretty easy to find my lane since black was quite underdrafted at the table. I think there was a pack 3, pick 11 Reave Soul, which is just absurd. The heavy lifting was done by two cards honestly.

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Honestly, this was the engine to victory a shocking amount of the time. Turning food into “Drain 1” instead of “Gain 3” is shockingly big game. That it can also chump an attacker every turn turns it into pseudo-removal by blanking an attacker every turn.

A brief moment

Let’s chat about Doom Foretold. It won me a game and it was a blank in another. This is one of those classic cards where it looks kind of crappy because swapping Edict effects, when you’re the one who spent the card, feels very bad. However, I think it’s better than it looks. First, the fail case is that it’s a 4-mana 2/2 with vigilance that rummages. That’s… actually not that bad! Not great, but not bad. And the upside only goes higher, to where it’s a 2-for-1, drain 2, and a knight.

So when was it dead in my hand? When they had a bunch of small, irritating creatures and I only hand one or two really good ones. That was disappointing. It’s a “Build-Around B”. In a go-wide BW Knights deck, it’s a fantastic parity breaker. But the better your creatures, the more dubious it becomes.

Great art though.