More Magic Fun

Last night I went to Gnome Games for their weekly Wednesday night draft.  I love drafting.  Always enjoy it.  Plus on Wednesday nights, Gnome Games runs a $10 draft, which means you get 3 packs of cards for the draft for less than it actually costs to buy 3 packs of cards.  Plus you spend a few hours playing a fun game with fun folks.

In the Dragon's Maze pack I opened Council of the Absolute and Ascended Lawmage. The Council seems like a fun card to build around, but with draft emphasizing creatures, it didn't seem like it would be a good fit in any decks. So I took the 3/2 hexproof flyer. I was passed a Warleader's Helix. So the guy to my right (Wesley) either had a good rare to first pick or isn't going RW. Pack 3 he passed me a Deputy of Acquittals. Passing a 2/2 for 2 mana that's also a neat combat trick AND allows you to reuse come into play effects seems like a good sign Wesely wasn't going UW. So I decided to go RWU and started looking for manafixers in those colors while watching for any remaining good picks.

I got two Gatekeepers (white and blue), but was disappointed to only get one Gate. Meaning I might have to get lucky in the next packs to make the keepers playable. I wasn't really disappointed in any other way with Dragon's Maze, but the only other notable card I picked was Blast of Genius. I wasn't sure I'd play it, and almost didn't, because six mana is kind of expensive in draft... but I figured they were saying the format is slow and if nothing else it's a net two cards and the possibility of killing an opponent's creature. Plus I was very light on removal. I had the Helix and two Rubblebelt Maaka for good combat tricks, but really nothing else.

Turns out I had read the signs wrong regarding open colors. Wesely was going RWU, but just had even better picks in the packs he passed me. With both of us in those colors, it meant I would have first shot at RW picks in Gatecrash, but he would have first pick at both WU and UR in Return to Ravnica.

About half way through Dragon's Maze I was passed a pack containing both a Rot Farm Skeleton and a Golgari Cluestone and all the cards were either green or black. I almost, almost switched to BG right there.  Not because those are so amazing, but it seemed apparent that BG was open to draft, at least at my end of the table. Maybe if my 3 chosen colors weren't all NOT either black or green I might have. But man, I already had the Lawmage, Deputy, Helix and both Gatekeepers. So I stayed my course. Watching all the good black and green cards that came my way after that I kept second guessing myself the whole draft. It turned out okay, but who knows? Maybe it could have been even better. Especially considering that the players to my immediate right and left were both sharing colors with me. Wesley, of course, in exactly my colors and the other guy in WUB.

Ah well. Noteworthy in Gatecrash: I somehow thought that having gotten 2 Maakas, the Helix and the Blast, I had a good start on removal, so I would prioritize creatures. I opened a Luminate Primordial and was happy to take it despite it's heavy cost. Pack two I was passed a Stomping Ground. There was also an Emberbeast and a Punish the Enemy, but a dual land man! It's worth more than I paid for the draft. I had to take it. The Emberbeast circled the table. The Punish did not. Next I was passed an easy decision Wojek Halberdiers, 4 or 5 packs in I got a Sunhome Guildmage and managed to pick up one more guildgate. Otherwise, the picks were okay, but not spectacular. Again, I saw a lot of late black and green cards.

Then in Return to Ravnica I opened a Corpsejack Menace. GAH! Why didn't I switch into BG!? Of course, it was way too late at that point, so I passed it. Wesley passed me a Street Spasm. He must have opened a simply amazing card, but at the time I just assumed it was because I'd read the color signs correctly and snagged it fast. Other than that though, there was nothing spectacular in the last round of the draft. Solid, but not spectacular, including a third guildgate, an Essence Backlash and I rounded out my set of 3 drops. I probably should have recognized that meant I'd read the color signs incorrectly, but what could I have done about it anyway?

Over the course of the draft I actually passed on a lot of removal. Not once did it ever circle the table back to me. Because they were expensive I passed on Punish the Enemy, Angelic Edict, Trostani's Judgement and Explosive Impact. Because they required double colors (RR or UU) I passed on Homing Lightning, Annihilating Fire and Counterflux. Because of their conditional natures I passed on Smite, Spell Rupture, Avenging Arrow, and Arrows of Justice. Simply because they appeared in packs with some good creatures, I passed on Act of Treason, Mugging and Dramatic Rescue.

Conventional wisdom says you don't pass on removal unless you're taking something spectacular. In all those cases I had decent, but not necessarily spectacular creatures to take instead. Maybe in this format conventional wisdom is wrong. Maybe there are sufficient easy to cast, cheap removal spells so passing on most hard to cast or conditional spells is the correct thing to do.  It worked for me, anyway.  The only one of those I wanted in the end was the Mugging.

Once I laid out my picks by casting cost I realized I could put together a relatively fast deck. I was concerned that the number of 2 toughness creatures would be a problem in a game of x/4 blockers, but between the Helix and the Maakas it turned out to be not a problem.

Land
Azorius Guildgate
Boros Guildgate
Izzet Guildgate
Stomping Ground
Island x4
Mountain x4
Plains x5

Creatures
2cc:
Deputy of Acquittals
Goblin Electromancer
Sunhome Guildmage
Wojek Halberdiers
3cc:
Ember Beast
Selesnya Sentry x2
Tower Drake
Viashino Firstblade
4cc:
Ascended Lawmage
Cobblebrute
Keymaster Rogue
Knight of Obligation
Opal Lake Gatekeeper
Rubblebelt Maaka x2
Sunspire Gatekeeper

Other Spells
Blast of Genius
Essence Backlash
Last Thoughts x2
Street Spasm
Warleader's Helix

I rarely cast the Maakas as creatures. They were just that good as a combat trick on the attack. Being able to use them as creatures was simply a nice bonus in the one game that my draw came up creature light.

Notable things I cut:
Armory Guard
Blustersquall
Concordia Pegasus
Izzet Cluestone
Luminate Primordial
Mizzium Skin
Prophetic Prism
Syndic of Tithes
Transguild Promenade

The Cluestone, Prism and Promenade were cut because I felt good about my mana base with 3 guildgates. Plus, trying to focus on a faster deck, I didn't want to spend any early turns on slow mana any more than 3 guildgates already forced me to. I think it's noteworthy that I didn't have any spells with double color casting costs. That turned out to be a smart thing. Even with all the color fixing in the format, all three of my opponents, at some point, sat with cards in hand they couldn't cast because of the mana requirements. I had to mulligan twice over the evening because of bad mana in my opening hand, but otherwise never had any mana issues.

The Blustersquall and Mizzium Skin would actually have been decent tricks in my deck and maybe I should have played them instead of the Last Thoughts. Especially because I have few creatures with evasion. The Last Thoughts generally only drew me one or two cards. Which for four mana... well, I don't know. Drawing cards is nice and there was one game when I drew a bunch of cards off a ciphered Last Thoughts.

What might have been even better is putting in Syndic of Tithes and Concordia Pegasus in instead of the Last Thoughts. I definitely should have put in the Armory Guard instead of the Sunspire Gatekeeper. Most games I had one Gate in play and a 2/5 with Vigilance would have been better than a 2/4. Only, like, twice did I have two gates in play when I played a gatekeeper.  Although one of those times I was able to play the Opal Lake Guardian 3 times off a Keymaster Rogue and a Deputy of Acquittals.

I think the Luminate Primordial has potential to be very good. However, the 7 mana casting cost is just too much for a fast deck.

The matches were a lot of fun. Match two I played a kid who was new to magic and had, accordingly, made some questionable calls building his deck and playing. He was a quick learner, though, and the games weren't exactly cake walks. I did win 2-0. Game two I was actually very lucky. I drew no sources of blue mana, but also drew no spells that required blue mana. The game was something like T1: land, go, T2: Halberdier, T3: Sentry, swing for 3, T4: Sentry #2, swing for 6: T5 Helix a blocker, swing for 9, he chumps 3 with a lifelinked creature. In turn six he had one blocker, 7 life and I had a Maaka to pump the dude he didn't block.

In fact, MVPs in all three of my matches were my 3 power drops: the Halberdiers, Sentries and Emberbeast, backed up by Maaka combat tricks. I was able to beat down very quickly and remove blockers well.

Matches one and three were both against experienced players and were well fought, intense, close, fun matches. I won the first 2-0. Fun play to win Match 1 game 2: I knocked my opponent to 5 life before he got a blocker on the table staring down my two attackers. So I pointed the Blast of Genius at his head, drew three cards and discarded a Gatekeeper to take him to 1 life. His turn he played a second blocker. My turn I played the Sunhome Guildmage I drew off the Blast, created a 1/1 token with haste and swung in for the win.

Match 3 was against Wesley who took my good RUW sweetness. He won game 1 on the back of his own Ascended Lawmage, Scion of Vitu-Ghazi and Tenement Crasher. He also showed my a Punish the Enemy, Izzet Staticaster and Counterflux that I had passed. With such meaty creatures in his deck I figured I'd need better ways to deal with them in mine so I swapped out the Sunspire Gatekeeper for the Armory Guard and a Last Thoughts for the Luminate Primordial. I figured that even if it was unlikely I'd cast the Primordial, neither was it impossible and I'd need to get a little lucky to win against a creature set that clearly outclassed mine.

Game 2 I got a turn 2 Halberdier again while Wesley stalled out on two mana until about turn six. So I beat him down, using overpowered removal (Helix and Blast) on really small blockers, but that allowed me to keep the Halberdier going and knock him down to, like, 5 life before he started to get mana and stabalize the board. He nearly even came back to win, but a Street Spasm (which he passed me in the draft!) for 4 to all his non-fliers cleared the way for me to win.

Game 3 was kind of anti-climactic. He got the wrong mix of colors in his mana and had a fistful of uncastable spells. Once again I started with just the Halberdier in play, but I was holding a Helix, Backlash and a Maaka. So I just played carefully, keeping Backlash mana open and hitting for three at a time even though I had other creatures I could have played. So when he drew a single white mana I stopped him from stabalizing and he never drew the second white he wanted.

Altogether a very fun evening.