In part 1 of my release weekend report I focussed on the events of Saturday. This blog entry will focus on two other drafts I did over the weekend. The first is the midnight draft Friday morning just as soon as the cards were legal. The other is the usual Monday night draft held here.
Going into the Midnight draft, I was thinking UW was where I wanted to be. I really like UW and I thought that maybe it would be underdrafted at the midnight draft.
With that in mind, I first pick a Fulminator Mage. $$. Yeah, expected prizes don't beat the currently most valuable card in the set.
2x Inkfathom Infiltrator
3x Briarberry Cohort
Puresight Merrow
Pili-Pala
Mistmeadow Witch
Parapet Watchers
Silkbind Faerie
Scuttlemutt
Wingrattle Scarecrow
Kinscaer Harpoonist
Barrenton Cragtreads
3x Curse of Chains
Power of Fire
Ghastly Discovery
Consign to Dreams
Helm of the Ghastlord
Elemental Mastery
Biting Tether
12 Islands
3 Mountains
2 Plains
SB:
Helm of the Ghastlord
Chainbreaker
Torpor Dust
Cerulean Wisps
2x Whimwader
Parapet Watchers
The one thing I'm not sure of with this deck is if Mistmeadow Witch actually belongs. It's the only card which requires white and the deck would be marginally more consistent if I didn't have those Plains. Either the Wisps or the second Helm of the Ghastlord would be what I add in its place. Overall, I was very pleasd with the drafting of this deck. As I suspected, blue was somewhat underdrafted at our table of 10.
Round 1: Michael with GB. Game 1 he kept a 1-lander on the draw and missed his turn 2 land drop. Meanwhile I dropped creatures on turns 2, 3, and 4 and then an Elemental Mastery on my Puresight Merrow leading to a turn 6 kill. Game 2 Michael decided to draw and then didn't drop any guys until turn 4. Meanwhile I stuck a Helm of the Ghastlord on my Wingrattle Scarecrow and then used Scuttlemutt to make the Wingrattle both blue and black. 1-0 (2-0)
Round 2: David with RGB. I started on the play with a Briarberry Cohort, Silkbind Faerie, Wingrattle Scarecrow, and Inkfathom Infiltrators into a wonderfully evasive kill. Game 2 we both had a little bit of a mana flood and a Barrenton Cragtreads dealt most of the damage. I had Mistmeadow Witch but no white source. 2-0 (4-0)
Round 3: Eric with RGB. Game 1 I finally drew a Curse of Chains and slapped it on a menacing Boggar-Rang Gang. I plinked away with Inkfathom Infiltrator and Pili-Pala. My notes indicate that Eric should have had more creatures so I'm not sure how I won the race. Game 2 was a longer game as I had a dearth of creatures because of a terrible mana flood and Eric's creatures were simply small. A Polluted Bonds made all those extra lands useless. Eventually I found a Power of Fire and stuck it on my Puresight Merrow and immediately killed all three guys Eric had. 3-0 (6-0)
Round 4ish: Ten players should be four rounds, but we were down to two undefeateds so we agreed to an Intentional Draw so as to not require a round 4. Since some others were still playing their Round 3, we played for fun. I won 2-0 again and we finished prior to at least one of the Round 3 matches.
As I said at the start, a very good deck. I know I did make one mistake, taking a third pick Corrosive Mentor thinking I would be more heavily black. On the whole, i think I made the correct picks for this draft. It'll be a long time before I draft another deck that beats this one.
Draft 2
The Monday night Mayhem draft has now switched over to Shadowmoor as well. We had a perfect 16 for this draft. This one is of course a little more competitive than the Midnight draft was.
I first picked a Boggart-Ram Gang and then got a second pick Kulrath Knight. This put me solidly into RG. Pack 2 brought me Demigod of Revenge and then a second pick Knollspine Invocation. I'm pretty sure that the person to my right was also in RG, but she passed enough good cards to me that this deck turned out okay.
Manaforge Cinder
Bloodmark Mentor
2x Mudbrawler Cohort
Spiteflame Witch
Boggart Ram-Gang
2x Gloomwidow
Hungry Spriggan
Tattermunge Duo
Mudbrawler Raiders
Kulrath Knight
Demigod of Revenge
Crabapple Cohort
2 Viridescent Wisps
Cerulean Wisps
2x Scar
Power of Fire
Puncture Bolt
Knollspine Invocation
Flame Javelin
Runes of the Deus
Sapseed Forest
4 Forests
12 Mountains
SB:
2x Crabapple Cohort
2x Pili-Pala
Presence of Gond
Cerulean Wisps
Viridescent Wisps
Smash to Smithereens
Blight Sickle
This deck I'm far less certain is built right. First of all, it's 41 cards. One of the things I noticed from reading Grand Prix: Brussels decklists is how many Wisps were played. I decided that I wanted to load up on Wisps in this deck and see how it played. I chose to take a very aggressive route, and Pili-Pala's 1/1 body for 2 just didn't fit into that vision. Figuring out how much priority is to be given to attempting to pair Pili-Pala with Power of Fire is something I'm still working on.
Round 1: Matt with UB. I'm on the play and get a bunch of hits in with a red Cohort which isn't receiving any back-up. Fortunately Matt isn't playing anything either. Eventually I play my Knollspine Invocation and then start throwing everything at Matt's face, including a Flame Javelin. Flame Javelin does 6 in this way.
Game 2 I get blown out by an Incremental Blight and draw 2:1 lands to non-lands (including all three of my Wisps). Game 3 I play turn 1 Manaforge Cinder and game 2 Spiteflame Witch. On turn 4 I throw a red Cohort on the table too. I get very nervous when Matt makes his fifth land drop, but there's no Incremental Blight and I breathe a sigh of relief. I kill on turn 6 with the Spiteflame Witch having done 7 loss of life to each of us. Round 1 and I've already hit two of my minicombos -- Knollspine Invocation + Flame Javelin and Manaforge Cinder + Spiteflame Witch. 1-0 (2-1)
Round 2: Scott with UW. Game 1 I have a turn 3 Gloomwidow, turn 4 Mudbrawler Raiders, and turn 5 Runes of the Deus. Sadly Scott had a Niveous Wisps to tap the Mudbrawler Raiders then he uses a Turn to Mist to get rid of the Runes. I was very sad. Fortunately I had Knollspine Invocation and again enough burn to kill Scott.
Game 2 Scott played turn 3 Thistledown Duo, turn 4 Silkbind Faerie, turn 5 Steel of the Godhead on the Duo. I did make a mistake of not saving a Power of Fire for Kulrath Knight. That's assuming Scott didn't have a Turn to Mist. It was a painful beating.
Game 3 I made a couple big errors. The first was playing a Scar when I probably didn't need to in order to save a Bloodmark Mentor, which probably wasn't worth saving. I assembled the Mudbrawler Raiders with Runes of the Deus again and it met Niveous Wisps and Turn to Mist again. Ooh, I hate UW. I walked into a conspired Aethertow the turn after Scott played a Flow of Ideas for 3. I'm not entirely sure if I could have avoided the conspire since one of the conspiring creatures was summoning sick and the other was an Elvish Hexhunter. The Aethertow was back breaking and allowed Scott to win the race. Oh, and a Steel of the Godhead on Thistledown Duo. 1-1 (3-3)
Round 3: Dan with WG. Game 1 I land a late Knollspine Invocation and shoot things like Wilt-Leaf Liege and Kitchen Finks, but I just run out of cards and lose to the bigger creatures. Game 2 Dan makes it up to 35 life off Kitchen Finks and Windbrisk Raptor before I manage to get to five mana so I can shoot down the Raptor off of Knollspine Invocation plus a Gloomwidow. I then wear Dan down with more creatures then he has. Looks like game 3 I get out both Gloomwidows and a green Cohort and beat with larger creatures. 2-1 (5-4)
Round 4: Andrew with RG. Game 1 Andrew keeps 3 lands plus Devoted Druid. He powers out a turn 4 Scuzzback Marauders. I then Puncture Bolt the Marauders and Scar the Druid and Andrew misses the next two land drops. Just when Andrew thought he had stabilized, I played Demigod of Revenge and he couldn't answer that. Game 2 Andrew can't answer a Gloomwidow plus Crabapple Cohort. 3-1 (7-4)
That places me in the top 4 and worth prizes. I don't know if I built the deck right, I could have played more fat or more combo, but it got there. My one match loss came to a very good UW deck, but the other matches were way too close. I won by being aggressive and getting some good draws with Knollspine Invocation. This is an archetype that I'm not yet comfortable with playing. It's got some good plays, but I think I'd rather stick with blue for the most part.
So what have we learned? Knollspine Invocation is good. So is Silkbind Faerie. And so is Steel of the Godhead on Thistledown Duo. The green and red Wisps need more testing, but I can absolutely see the value of the white and blue Wisps. Aggro works in Draft, although that might be partially my opponents not being great.
I can't wait to play some more Shadowmoor draft and see what else is a viable strategy.
See you Friday,
Zachary
Tags: Magic Shadowmoor Draft
