A second coaching session with Ethan from Lords of Limited! Incredibly helpful coaching session, both reviewing some old logs as well as a co-pilot (or maybe “check run” would be the more apt metaphor). A couple of big “ah-has” from the draft review. Fist, fight hard for single color bombs, as even if you are getting cut, you can probably still cobble a secondary color on pack 2 alone. Note that this isn’t true of gold bombs, since you really need your lane to be open (or have a splash-enabling format). Also weighing flexible creatures higher in this format seems quite good.

Draft log

P1p1

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The healer has a higher ceiling in the BW Clerics deck, but the Thundering Sparkmage will play in just about any red deck with mountains. Since the power-level is pretty close, I went with the sparkmage.

P1p2

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Ethan was pretty down on green (and white) so he does not particularly like Rabid Bite. But one of the best flip-land in the same color doesn’t make it a hard choice.

P1p3

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This is not where you want to be taking Molten Blast, so the higher ceiling on Pick Axe is probably worth it.

P1p4

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Deadly Alliance vs. Packbeast. Ethan on packbeast!! This blew my mind. His logic was how much it enables the sparkmage and trying to put the seat downstream firmly in BW clerics. I see it, but I don’t like it. Maybe I need to have Packbeast closer to a B- than a C+, but this strikes me as a little fancy-play syndrome. He turned out to be right (black was never open) but I can see deeply regretting letting instant-speed unconditional removal go by.

After that the draft was hoovering up all the red cards at the table, including three (!) Thundering Rebukes. That’s just nutty. Cracked open a bomb

Summary

Ran over a deck that I promptly forgot. Then beat a BW party deck on the back of Felidar Retreat (which is truly bonkers, especially when picking up lands) Dropped a game in round 3 when I flooded and oppo had a perfect landfall Yahtzee. Then in the deciding match–with my beautiful trophy on the line–they dropped the Ancient Greenwarden. Big-butt reach creature that I have literally (checks notes) zero outs against. I almost crawled across the finish line hoping to Fling a creature, but no dice. A great game of Magic; a worthy loss.

Interesting Moments

pack 3 pick 2 (link)

So… too much removal? Obviously Roil Eruption vs. 2/2 dork isn’t close in a vacuum, but we already have a ton of removal and we are a little short on creatures.

keep or mull (game 2 vs. bw clerics)

Crushed a fairly slow-looking clerics deck in the first game. Now, on the draw, I get this one-lander. This one I kept. It is only one land away from using Fissure Wizard to mull away a card to go digging for more land. And I have my Felidar Retreat bomb. I held the course and cruised to a victory.

keep or mull (game 1)

Similar story as above, two draw steps to draw a land to get the Night-Runner into play. Since I have plenty of good removal to back it up, I like my adds to go looking for additional land drops. Oh, and I also have my bomb.

2-1