Wednesday night draft
Battlewand Oak
Bosk Banneret
Cloudthresher
Dauntless Dourbark
Earthbrawn
Everbark Shaman
Gilt-leaf Ambush x2
Kithkin Daggerdare
Lammastide Weave
Lignify
Lys Alana Bowmaster
Lys Alana Huntmaster
Oakgnarl Warrior
Winnower Patrol x2
Black Poplar Shaman
Blightsoil Druid
Dreamspoiler Witches
Makeshift Mannequin
Thieving Sprite
Weed-Pruner Poplar
Moonglove Extract
Murmuring Bosk
Forest x11
Swamp x5
This was a 12-man draft, which ended up being two six-man tables. I opened the Cloudthresher and the Dourbark, so I was pretty solidly in green, but I was having trouble settling on a second color. There was someone else at the table taking green - I saw several Handservants disappear - but I was hoping it was only one person. That hope proved false when I opened Earthbrawn, Bowmaster, and Elvish Warrior in my Morningtide pack, took the Earthbrawn (yes, I was passed a Bosk) and got the pack back with no green cards in it. I would have liked to play mono-green, but with only 18 green cards drafted I had to throw in the black. I can't do anything really unfair - a Thorntooth Witch or even a Branchbender would improve this deck greatly - and I didn't have high hopes.
Round 1
I was paired against Mike Gurney in this round; if he wasn't the best player in the draft, he was certainly second. He just absolutely flattened me in two games; he was playing red-green elves, but where I have treefolk that don't do much he had combat tricks. I put up some token resistance in game two with a turn two Nath's Buffoon from my sideboard, but he eventually got enough incrementally grown creatures on the table to finish me off.
0-2 games, 0-1 matches
Round 2
This opponent was playing elementals, with a red-green emphasis. Game one he got down an early Nova Chaser, and had combat tricks to keep it alive two turns in a row. Taking multiple hits from a trampler with two-digit power is not a recipe for health, and I quickly imploded. Game two, he had to mulligan and kept a six-land hand with no mountains. He didn't find one before I finished him off, and failed to play a single creature. In game three, a possible reason for his mana problems emerged; on turn five, he had one basic land of each type in play. This wasn't a major problem until he dropped Horde of Notions on the table. I had an Oakgnarl Warrior to hold it off, but I was clearly going to lose very quickly to it. I played my Sprite to force him to discard his last card... which turned out to be a Consuming Bonfire that he hadn't been able to cast. He used it through the Horde to burn down my Warrior, and then swung with everything. I had five power worth of creatures on the table at this point, and I was thrilled to trade them for the Horde. This left me way behind on the board, since he still had a Searblades and a Pathblazer. I took repeated hits down to two, but I eventually managed to get Battlewand Oak and a critical Black Poplar Shaman on the table, along with Dreamspoiler Witches; I now had his creatures contained, and a five-turn clock in the witches. Of course, I was dead if he drew any action, but he drew nothing but land until the Witches finished him off. I was very lucky to escape that one.
2-3 games, 1-1 matches
Round 3
I was paired against Zaiem in round three. He was at my table, and he turned out to be the Merfolk drafter. He was the only one, but he may actually have been hurt by the quality of the merfolk running around - the merfolk were so good (multiple Drowners, Harbingers, at least one Harpooon Sniper and Reejerey) that multiple people were grabbing the merfolk when there was nothing for them in the pack. I ended up with a Sniper and a Merrow Harbinger in my sideboard, and the player next to me had a Reejerey and a Judge. This left Zaiem with a deck that was just short of being fantastic - he had multiple Drowners, Summon the School, and almost all of the pieces, but no Judge meant that it was much harder for him to keep his life at a reasonable level while he tried for the milling kill. In game one, he came within one card of getting me, but I had managed to draw the Dourbark and he couldn't find a way to stop the gigantic trampler in time. Game two was even closer; this time, he did manage to Weight of Conscience my Dourbark. He correctly declined to remove it from the game - I had no enchantment removal - and just focused on milling as quickly as possible. I was able to pound him down to three before he completely stalled my offense, and on what we both knew to be my last turn, he flashed in a flying blocker, which I removed with an evoked Cloudthresher, dropping him to one. He still had enough blockers, finished off my library, untapped, and passed the turn. He was very confident in his victory - up until I untapped and Mannequined Cloudthresher back out.
4-3 games, 2-1 matches
Round 4
The pairings got very strange here; a 2-0 player had dropped after reaching the 1900 limited rating he needed, and things worked out such that I was paired down not against a 1-2 player, but against a 0-3 player. His deck wasn't very tight, and he was clearly inexperienced at the format - I had several opponents read Lammastide Weave, but at this point I would expect most people drafting to know what Dreamspoiler Witches do. I had no problem beating him in two.
6-3 games, 3-1 matches
I got very, very lucky here - I should have lost round 2 (if he doesn't attack with Horde of Notions, I'm pretty sure I cannot win that game), I took both games in round 3 by the thinnest of margins, and the round 4 pairings were just silly. I think this may be the weakest deck I've ever won store credit with.
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rupes) wrote,
