I want you to know that I am PERFECTLY CALM leading up to this election. I am not doomscrolling, pointlessly refreshing politico.com. While I believe that there are major, *major* underlying factors that make this election very different from 2017, I am not so confident where I am going to make a prediction. I can barely make an observation before the Benalish Momma starts yelling at me, “Yeah?! You were baking cupcakes with blue frosting last year!!!! I don’t want to hear it.”

I don’t think the cupcakes were the causal tipping-point, but it’s hard to refute her emotional truth.

Draft log

Slam the Leyline Tyrant and GET ON RAILS BABY. Super awkward draft though. It felt like black was underdrafted at the table but I couldn’t get into the BR party deck at all.

deck

game plan

RW remains RW: curve out and attack. Honestly a few too many 3-drops (granted, they are 4/3) and not enough cheap combat tricks but it’ll get there.

round 1

Played against a BW hodge-podge deck that was pretty easy to pressure and run over. One borderline keep/mull where I had 5 lands and a 2-drop. Great example of ‘what’s my deck’s game plan”. If I was a defensive deck, I would probably keep and trust my deck to draw out of it. But if I’m counting on

round 2

This is a feel bad mulligan. Sure, drawing one land gets my Champion into play. But needing a plains to turn on the hand isn’t great.

I mulled into a very playable hand. I can work with this. Shipped a plains to the bottom and then an interesting sequencing question (see below) as I wanted to bait out removal before dropping the Tyrant.

Tougher keep or mull. Drawing one land turns on two additional cards that goes well (with the Sell-Sword turning on the Tactician and the Binding clearing the way). So I opted to keep. Then no land for 4 draw steps, which was… unfortunate. But oppo didn’t have enough power (weird Abzan-y deck) to take advantage of my stumble out of the gate.

round 3

Pretty easy keep. Though the big question: do I rummage with Fissure Wizard? See below! I run over a GB deck with a clean curve two games in a row. Trophy!

Interesting Moments

sequencing (Round 2, game 1)

Leyline Tyrant in hand versus a high-removal color pair (BW). I opted to slow-roll and play out the Paired Tactician first to bait out removal. And it worked like a charm! I felt clever.

Rummage?

Do I rummage away a playable card to look for a land? I think this is a pretty clear “Yup” since hitting three lands puts a lot of pressure on opponent. Pitch the mediocre combat trick. I drew the land and had a very nice game.

3-0