Well it turns out you can burn a lot of gems/coins/bitcoin/doubloons if you carve out a streak of 1-2s & 0-2s. Still strange how poorly I’m performing in this set as it’s not THAT complicated. Last draft (not recorded, a bad UR draft that I don’t want to dwell over) I think I found my lane alright, it was just congested.

Draft log

P1p1 was a clear Dragonfire over medium cards, Both blue and red were distressingly dry in P1p4 with a lot of–sigh–black cards headlined by a Deathspore Thallid. So I ooched into UB but once again ended up in the unenviable position of drafting black cards without a single Grasp of Darkness to be seen. Which means someone else was drafting it… and you really don’t want to be fighting over black.

Summary

Well the deck SORT OF has a plan. A light reanimator theme with the Stichers with some control elements. Two Rousing Reads does a good Divination + win condition impression and my 4-drops were pretty good stabilizers. I beat a bad mono-red deck but lost in three to two pretty good decks.

Interesting Moments

Keep or mull?

On the draw, do I keep a 2-lander? I need two running lands of any color in the next four turns. But this is a pretty good hand and it turns out that the odds of getting the lands is 86%.

1-2

Okay, it’s the napping hour. Delicious pastry from Fuji Bakery in hand (something something taro I think?) and a lot of try-hards have left M21 to go back to Eldraine event. There is nothing that can possibly go wrong with this draft!

Draft log

Well, a lot went wrong. I think I ended up in the unenviable of fighting for black at a table of M21. This… is not where you want to be with black. If you’re not getting late Grasp of Darkness, you’re not wherre you want to be. White seemed dry but then I got P3p2 and P3p3 Seasoned Hallowblade, which is ridiculous. So I guess BW was my seat but it sure didn’t feel great.

Summary

The deck is not without power: Demonic Embrace, Seasoned Hallowblade x2, Goremand x2, these are all cards that can win games of magic. I had some bad luck and didn’t draw my power but I’m also missing key cards. My removal is weak, no Feat of Resistance, etc. 0-2 was disappointing, but not surprising.

Interesting Moments

P1p3

Scorching Dragonfire or Liliana’s Devotee? I think dragonfire is the better card in the vacuum, only because trying to be aggressive in black is a rough go in this set. However, with the very good (and aggressive) Demonic Embrace in P1p1, I probably should have tried to carve out a lane in black.

0-2

Draft log

Tough draft. It seemed like my seat was Green Black, except without any rewards for going either green or black. I got some good feedback on the Lords of Limited discord that A) confirmed that this was a tough seat and B) definitely didn’t think green was open. I probably should have taken the Silversmote Ghoul. I got scared away from it because white was cut so thoroughly, but you CAN still make it work with Trufflesnouts and black lifelink cards.

Summary

Ugly deck! Doesn’t really have a “win condition” per se. I emerged victorious in round one when my oppo made a misplay and then walked away for 20 minutes. Game two was losing in very short order to Baneslayer Angel. Game three was losing to a deck that actually “did things” and “had removal”. 1-2 felt like a definite overperformance. Also never even saw Radha, my only semi-powerful card 😦

Interesting Moments

P3p2

That’s right! Got passed a Sublime Epiphany! Definitely a real “feelsbadman” moment.

1-2

Draft log

Pack one was medium red but all the two-drops, Pack 2 opened a sublime epiphany, which is hilarious and I’m miles away from playing. Depressingly cut in both red & white in pack 2, which surprised me as well. After blue was so empty in pack 1, a late whale and then good green. At first I worried that I was in the wrong lane but I felt like the deck came together “with a plan” surprisingly well.

Summary

The deck played shockingly clear Magic: do you have an answer by turn 4? If not, I will run you over. One opponent was on the verge of turning the corner, only to use Read the Tides to draw cards instead of stabilizing.

Interesting Moments

Here’s Pack 2 Pick 1 with a Sublime Epiphany just begging to be taken. White was clearly not terribly open so I was very open to a pivot. But man, trying to twist all my 2-drops into a UR something-or-other with an Epiphany sitting at the high end just didn’t seem terrible possible. I held the course and despite ruthlessly cutting red AND white, got very little of either in pack 2.

3-0

Draft log

Lost the draft log because apparently I forgot to set up 17lands on my laptop. Regardless, a sort of botched draft (a lot of those lately) with a missed Liliana’s Devotee probably a signal that I should gone black. So I fought a contested RW lane coming up with something low to the ground, but no real power.

Summary

Not a totally embarrassing deck. I went with 15 lands relying on the three single-mana cantrips and a Thrill to smooth out. This deck loses by stalling out, no question. Ended up going 2-1, losing to a very good RU spells in three.

Interesting Moments

Kind of a fun Keep or Mull, since 5 lands is very very much not where this deck wanted to be. But it does have early interaction! I ended up keeping and had a little flood but nothing outrageous. Also drew the Brash Taunter and that card is just nuts.

2-1

Draft log

Yikes, well that went off the rails. P2p14 Frost Breath? What the what? That so confused me that I kept waffling between black and blue to the point where I didn’t really have a color.

Summary

Bad deck was bad! When you waffle and end up with two 75% decks, that doesn’t add up to a fully functional deck. Three quarters are not a dollar. Didn’t help that oppo had an Ugin.

Interesting Moments

Pack 1, Pick 6

I started with a strong slate of red cards: Geyser, passed a Dragonfire (!), Shock. Then a good black Scythe and then… this pack. I was thinking that I would try and “cut” red, but honestly Opt is a much much better card and at P1p6 is a borderline signal. Very weird thinking that Opt qualifies as a signal, but that’s the power of the RU spells-matter deck in this set.

Okay, we have got to start dragging the win rate up here people. This doesn’t feel like THAT hard of a format but I have been eating turf four drafts in a row. And three of them struck out 0-2 only for me to play a third round for literally no reason other than pride. It was very Greek.

Draft log

Here’s P1p1:

P1p1: Pretty easy Liliana’s Devotee. Only to get immediately pushed off black.
P1p3 cultivate over Opt. Allows splashing
P1p4: Shrine. Shrine deck? Multi-color stuff?

It started to hurt seeing all those Alpine Houndmasters go by. BUT SHRINE AWESOMENESS WILL NOT BE DENIED. Plus another 0-2 is really just a rounding error at this point. Unfortuantely, looking at my draft pile

Summary

Sadly, after all that work and alllllmost putting the shrine deck together, I go for the EV and build a very by-the-numbers RG big stuff. I led off against UR spells, though it didn’t seem very good. No doubt that the Drowsing Tyrannodon is the MVP. faced triple Conclave mentor but I powered through that with some pretty fun games. Then I went 2-0/2-0 in the final two rounds. My first trophy! And not a shrine to be seen…

Interesting Moments

I am on draw. Though I was not impressed with oppo’s deck speed and having the best removal in the format was a very comforting feeling. I kept, figuring any land turned this into a two-removal hand. I ended up immediately drawing a forest and putting a lot of pressure on. They landed Ugin, I responded with Soul Sear and that was that.

Happy 4th of July! All we have to do is stay inside, not look at fireworks, dwell on how to improve our nation. And maybe draft. Or remember how to draft. Or think about drafting.

Draft log

Tough Idol vs Siege? I took the aggressive card. Idol impressed me last game, but it’s more frosting rather than the cake itself. Mid-pack, no clear powerful signal so I keep ambling through white with a hint of UW fliers (my spirit animal deck for sure). In hndsight, I should have snagged Frost Breath at P1p9 over the Battalion and the Wall of Runes vs. Rousing Read at P3p6 is also an interesting contextual pick. Obviously the Read is the more powerful card, but I was dangerously low on ways to stay alive against aggro decks too.

Summary

First match I flooded out against a pretty fast BW (no lifegain, just beats). I almost pulled out game two, way behind on card advantage, with a Feat of Resistance to blow through their majority white defenders, but they played ooooone black creature to hold off on their final turn. That was a bit of a run-on sentence, but I feel the ‘near-win’ justifies that. I still go 0-2 and then trounce someone in the third round to salve my ego

Interesting Moments

I need to get better at snapping screenshots. I’m out of practice!

1-2

Draft log

P1p1: Pretty easy Basri Ket. Into… Glorious Anthem? I think I’m ready to fight for a 10 plains deck with everything I got. And fight I had to do as it was pretty clear that white was not terribly open in my seat. But I got enough in pack 2 to build a reasonably aggressive RW deck.

Summary

Opened with a loss against a very good RU spells deck. I would race them down to 5-7 life… then they would slowly stabilize and then grind me out with fliers. The tap-two for two turns card is just an absolute beating too. Then some bad luck in round 2 that caused me to play a fury round 3 (sitting at 0-2) and ruthlessly curb-stomp an unsuspecting foe when my deck actually functioned.

Interesting Moments

Last two cards? The Annointed Chorister is a decent 1-drop that is more on color where the Igneous Cur/Hobblefiend are probably better aggressive cards but stretch my mana further. I eventually went with the Chorister and was not disappointed (they did the fine, the rest of the deck I had words with).

Draft log

I could feel that this draft went awry. Just the wrong cards at the wrong times.

Great feedback from Raiderray in the Lords of Limited discord.
P1p2 I don’t think Reanimator is what you want to be doing in this format, going from the latest episode. I could honestly see taking one of the white creatures instead (including Houndmaster)
P1p3 Idol or Savior next.
P1p4 looks flat, but tricky since you could also take Dub or Sure Strike.
P1p5 I’d be off black, taking Shock.
P1p6 Chorister

If I had taken Raiderray’s line, I end up in a pretty good RW deck. Hey, that’s only the two most powerful colors in the format! I probably need to go back to more disciplined drafting, asking myself “am I committed to my colors, leaning, or open?”

Summary

It’s difficult to get excited when you realize that you just flat-out drafted the wrong colors. But sometimes you go to war with the army you have and sometimes that army goes 0-2.