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
Pack 1 on left, pick 1 on bottom
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In a possibly ominous sign of things to come, lil Chandra did not nap according to daycare. She “rolled around on her mat and then stared at me, silently” is the full report. I know that youth is wasted on the young, but what would you give for a mandatory 2 hour nap every afternoon? That would be the greatest.
P1p6: Witch’s Cottage vs. Silverflame Squire. I should have taken the land here P1p8: Flutterfox vs. Cauldron’s Gift. The gift isn’t that good, and this was my chance to get into BW. P1p10: again with the Fluttering Foxes.
Finished pack 1 firmly in black, feeling a little bad with playable black knights going around. I could go into anything. Unfortunately, I never really leave black.
Self-Assessment
Well that was weird. Great black removal but black didn’t feel… open? Someone was in food upstream of me. Should have been BW
P1p1: Reave Soul vs. Glass Casket vs. Dragonfire. I think Reave is best. P1p2: Shepard of the Flock vs. Outmuscle P1p3: Glass Casket vs. Searing Barrage
P2p1: Agonizing choice between Edgewall Innkeeper (great in GW adventure), Scalding Cauldron, and Trapped in the Tower. I take the Cauldron because despite the late green in pack 1, I’m still not sure of my lane. Responsible, but lacked flair. The Fierce Witchstalker in P2p5 solidified me in green
P3p4: Should have taken Once and Future over another Curious Pair.
Self-Assessment
The roughest hindsight: I should have taken that Innkeeper in P2p1. However, finding the green lane rewarded me handsomely in pack 3. Proud of myself that I didn’t get tempted by the Stolen by the Fae in P2p1, since blue was just cut to ribbons. But I stayed open, found my lane, and drew from the deep well of playables.
Jumping into a new format! My track record at puzzling out formats without first hearing LR/LoL is not very good. But sometimes you just gotta draft during a nap. Well, almost napping. Well being kind quiet in a dark room. A locked room. Listen, I had 45 minutes okay? Don’t judge me.
P1p1: I choose the Animating Faerie as the ceiling seems higher than Ardenvale Tactician (a very reliable card in the white dek P1p2: Tower vs. Foulmire Knight. Reading closer, a 2-mana deathtouch knight cantrip is probably the better card in a vacuum. I went with the safer pick of decent removal. P1p3: Syr Faren vs. nothing at all. P1p4: The sheer number of mediocre red cards was notable, but Silverflame Squire is a card I really want to see if it works (1/2 combat trick 1/2 mediocre body) Pack 1 ends up with a mess of Mardu cards. Three straight black removal cards in pack 2 firm me up in Black and I end up pretty happy with BW knights. P3p3 Pie vs. Youthful Knight was an interesting choice where I took the good 2-drop over the superior removal. I already had plenty though!
Self-Assessment
I felt like I did a good job of finding my lane. Not panicking in pack 1, hoovering the available removal in pack 2, and then just filling out the shape of my deck in pack 3.
Need to whittle away the hours before Throne of Eldraine finally drops? You bet you do! Enjoy watching Jed and Chris, the original Benalish Daddies ™, try to figure out if two stone-cold bombs make it worthwhile to draft white in M20. The results may speak for themselves… Do we start off with Chris trying to rare draft? YOU KNOW IT!
About the Author: As a certified Benalish Daddy, Chris is well-versed in multiple formats of Magic as well as the fundamentals of Baby Raptor handling. Additionally, he is a skilled artist, musician, cook and general gentleman-at-large.
Riding a little bit of a heater, with three trophies in my last four drafts. Of course when you’re trapped in a hotel room in an airport hotel, the alternatives are lacking. Plus I’m convinced there’s a conspiracy where hotel internet throttles streaming video (all kinds, not just THAT kind) to get you to pony up the extra $9.95 for Mega Hilton Marriott Plus or whatever. It certainly sounds plausible, which is good enough for me to leap to a firmly held belief!
P1p1: easy Vivien P1p2: Cloudkin is strongest card in pack. The Temple is sorely tempting, but too soon. P1p3: Ember Hauler vs. Pacifism. I like the Ember more overall. P1p4: I think that’s the second Weaponsmith? Seems weird. I take it.
Pack 1 I’m somewhere in Naya, only knowing white for sure (I think)
Self-Assessment
Did I draft the hard way? Well, falling in love with Vivien and Golos warped my draft a little. I think I should have taken the Silverback Shaman over a GW tapped land, but I had so many 5-drops already! Definitely the hardest choice.
Benalish Dad 