Back spasms or 2-8 over my last 10 games? Both don’t feel great! I can blame the former on both turning 40 and feeling so healthy I became cavalier about my nightly stretching. There’s no such clear causal chain for the latter. And while technically not the worst part (the chronic pain is the definite, actual “worst part”), being unable to game of any kind while flat on my back was pretty frustrating. I did plow through a frightening number of books though.

Draft log

Dragonfire vs. Subirais an interesting P1p1. I think Dragonfire is just better, but I thought about it. Waffled through Mardu colors and thought I’d make a go of BW lifegain only for both white AND black being cut in pack 2 (which didn’t feel great). Limped into a decidedly mediocre RW aggro deck.

Summary

Not a great deck!

Tough round one, mulling into keeping a 1-land hand both times (see below). Came closer than I deserved to, though I definitely had no idea Elder Gargorth had reach. Mental note: always re-read mythics. Round two I started with some truly heroic flood followed by not drawing any red mana. Somewhat ironically, I did draw the plains I put instead of the dual land.

Interesting Moments

Keep or mull?

Already mulled a 1-lander. Do I go down to 5 cards? This only needed one mana of any color in two draw steps to be decent. Not a great feel-good keep, but I kept. And didn’t draw land for three draw steps and lost.

16th land?

I did have a RW tap land. Do I play it to improve my mana-base? Or, since my only game plan is pure speed and hope opponent hiccups, is it too costly to lose a turn? I opted for speed which I think was the right plan: variance is the friend of bad decks. But it did directly bite me in one game.

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