Draft
Draft Log
Early Picks
Very tough Tough pack 1, Eventually found a semi-open BW knights, shedding the black for more aggressive in the white.
Self-Assessment
Deck
Draft Report: 11-9-19
Draft
Draft Log
Early Picks
Early picks seemed very straight forward. Despite a P1p3 Revenge of Ravens, black dried up quickly. But I quickly found a green lane, fought through a tragic pack 2, and ended up in a weird non-food GB deck.
Most interesting pick: P3p2 Syr Konrad vs. Outmuscle. I only had a Pie and Reave Soul and my 5-drop slot was very full. So I think my overall deck EV was higher adding removal despite Konrad being a much better card.
Deck
Draft Report: 11-7-19
Finally broke in the Discord and pioneered the triple draft with co-Daddies Patrick and Chris. Each of us pilots a draft with two coaches then we all simultaneously play. Three drafts per game of Magic. Given how I enjoy the draft about 5x more than playing Magic, this was a pure spike of joy.
Draft
Draft Log
Interesting Picks
P1p1: Clear Pyromancer. Time to try the draw-many deck?
P2p3: I’ve started taking some white and here comes a Loch Dragon vs. Searing Barrage. Loch Dragon has really impressed me and is obviously great with the Pyromancer. I take the Loch, adding to my quad-reds.
P3p3: Redcap Melee vs. Ardenvale Tactician. I’m still unsure how “red” I am in this deck, but I think the efficiency of the removal is just too much to resist.
Self-Assessment
So the white became irresistible in pack 2 and I’m actually kinda proud of myself for grabbing it. Oddly, pack 3 was the hardest to draft since I wasn’t sure if I was 12/5 mountains for my quad-reds or more white with the Ardenvale Tacticians. This draft format is so, so very good.
Deck
Draft Report: 11-5-19
Draft
Sneaking in a quick draft before some Benalish Daddies with Chris tomorrow. I did some more chores earlier in the day anyway and the Benalish Momma took care of the bedtime. I did have to dash away mid-draft for a final hug goodnight. Such is the price we pay sometimes; though no picks were missed.
Draft Log
Early Picks
P1p1: Henge vs. Animating Faerie. Pretty easy Henge (THAT I NEVER SAW, uh, spoilers)
P1p2: this was trickier! Oven vs. 2 gold cards and the hybrid Fireborn Knight. I think it’s between the Knight
P1p3: Searing Barrage as strongest card in the pack.
P1p4: Ardenvale Tactician is the white card you just can’t have enough of. I’m briefly tempted by Rampart Smasher, but I think the power level of the white card is higher.
Late Outmuscle and Rimrock Knights put me in red… with absolutely no payoff in pack 2 or pack 3. Bleh. The P2p14 So Tiny felt particularly galling.
Self-Assessment
Well, not sure where red went there. I like my drafting early, taking powerful cards (still unsure about the pick 2 Witch’s Oven, but I think it fit).
Deck
Draft Report: 10-17-19
Draft
Draft Log
Early Picks
P1p2: Hypnotic Sprite//Mesmeric Glare vs. Golden Egg. Ahh the classice Eldraine tension. The powerful card that verges on a 2-for-1 or the generic cantrip that fixes. I think the power level of the Sprite is worth it, but just barely.
P1p10: After dabbling in blue, this is where the red playables start to flow. Nothing epic, but seemed fine. Also some white, but nothing better than Youthful Knight.
Self-Assessment
Felt like a smart draft, ending up in red. There was a lot of white, but nothing to every really encourage me to get into white. No Ardenvale Tacticians, or Trapped in the Tower. The Arcanist Owl in P2p7 felt bad, but the red came back in pack 3 and once again there wasn’t a top white common to be found. So that felt vindicating. Unfortunately I only have 4 two-drops and 4 three-drops, so it’s not AGGRO-aggro.
Deck
Draft Report: 10-30-19
The location: Optimism Brewery. Food: Filipino street food. Totally fine, but also a non-memorable combination of rice & pork. Beer: nitro stout and a Sweater Weather ale. Pod size: 6. Let’s do this.
Draft
Draft Log
Opened Embercleave, a legitimate bomb, only to not see… anything really. Some late playable green (Tuinvale Treefolk) sorta nudged me to that lane. Then got more green, only for green to evaporate again in pack 3. Turns out Big Kat upstream of me was mono-white, but also filching just enough green to make my life confusing. Well, it happens.
Deck
Book review: Positive Discipline (from ages 1-3)
One interesting side-effect of checking out ebooks from the library is that by the time the book arrives, I completely forget who recommended it or why. But Kindle told me that Positive Discipline was checked out, so off I went.
The good news is that it started off with a bang. It made a really fascinating distinction: discipline and punishment are actually two very different words that get blurred together when talking about parenting. Think of the discipline of a samurai or monk; it’s not really about punishment per se.
Unfortunately that was the peak. The rest of the book was just recycling the most generic parenting advice you could possibly imagine. Be nice to your spouse. Have a shared plan. Don’t physically harm your child. In fact, there’s probably some sort of literary drinking game where you take a shot each time the authors exhort you to “not spank”. You probably won’t make it out of chapter 2 without acute alcohol poisoning, but you’ll have a lot more memorable experience.
The shallowness of this book was kind of a mystery to me until I realized that the original book is just “Positive Discipline”. So this version, ages one to three, is either filling in a gap or a delightful cash grab to help cover the authors’ second mortgage. So I’ll read the real version (by process of elimination appropriate for 4+) when we get a little closer to that particular Rubicon.
Draft Report: 10-16-19
Draft
Another IRL draft at Optimism, this time with two pods. Why, that’s twice the pods. In deference to tradition, the website that was organizing crashed for one of the pods. But we managed to pair the third round anyway and it was fine. Good to have Chris and Patrick back in town with us!
Draft Log
So the bottom left is P1p1, Stolen by the Fae. I started veering into red with the P1p3 Slaying Fire and never really looked back. Paid off quite handsomely, iwth an Embercleave, Robber of the Rich, and other powerhouses.
Deck
Draft Report: 10-13-19
Draft
Draft Log
Well the naps started happening again. But without pants. The Benalish Momma won’t let me post photos without explicit written consent, which seems fair.
Early Picks of note
P1p1: The classic dilemna: efficient removal or high ceiling build-around?
I went with the higher ceiling in the Cauldron, as I think that’s what you need to do in this set. Fortunately I never saw a whiff of either black or red so it didn’t matter!
P3p1: Castle vs. So Tiny/Scavengers. I thought I was going to be more white (and that white was open in pack 1) only for there to be NO white and I ended up nearly mono-blue. Embarrassing that.
Self-Assessment
End of pack 1: feels like UW fliers to me with the super late flutterfox.
Pack 2 felt hideous almost the whole time.
Pack 3 was the reward! Arcanist Owl (x2!) and then Stolen by the Fae. Ended up way more blue that I thought. Listening to LR, I felt like I should have snapped up the So Tiny and Merfolk Looter.
Deck
Draft Report: 10-9-19
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.
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.
Benalish Dad 