Ultimate Masters Draft 12/8/18
Unfortunately 11 people showed up, so we had to have an 11 player pod. First and second would win a box topper.
In the draft, I opened Through the Breach P1P1. I spent most of the rest of the first pack looking for good targets, and got Penumbra Wurm and Woodfall Primus. I also had a Faith’s Fetters so at this point I thought I was probably in Naya.
Second pack, I open Emrakul. LOL. Too much good blue goes around and I gradually shift into Jeskai control with Emrakul / Breach and Rise from the Tides as my win conditions. I had vacillated between Naya and Jeskai in the draft and so my deck was not as focused as it could have been. I wish I could've picked up a Mystic Retrieval or a Rune Snag or two. However, some neat tricks I could pull included casting Turn to Mist on a breached Emrakul to keep it, or gain 15 life by finding Emrakul off of Reviving Vapors.
On to the games:
Match 1 is against Dimir control. Game one, I hold off his zombie tokens from Moan of the Unhallowed and his Gurmag Angler and manage to Breach in Emrakul and put him to 5. I gradually finish him off with burn. Game 2, I don’t sideboard anything and end up losing to double Gurmag Angler and Ulamog’s Crusher. I manage to resolve a Rise from the Tides for 5 zombies but then remember that they come in tapped. Game 3 went to time, and so the match ends up a draw. The board was stalled between my zombie tokens and his Moan of the Unhallowed tokens, but I think I would have had the long game.
Match 2 was against Azorius auras. I won game 1 off of a Rise from the Tides for 8 zombies. I had managed to surprise-kill an un-aura-ed attacking Bogle on t3 with Plumeveil and I don’t think he ever drew his second one. This was just a long control-on control game, gradually fighting through his 4x Rune Snag and killing his Celestial Colonnade with Warleader’s Helix. Game two I side in Rolling Tremblor and manage to kill one bogle with it before he can aura it up, but he gets the other one out and sticks Hyena Umbra and Daybreak Coronet on it and I lose. Game three goes in a similar fashion.
The main problem I had was I didn’t consistently have a good way to deal with his bogles. In retrospect what I should have done was to side in my 2 Icatian Criers, my 2 Skywing Avens, and my Firewing Phoenix and just try to turn my dead removal into chump blocks, blocking the bogles until I could Breach an Emrakul if I couldn’t actually remove them. I saw Hyena Umbra and Mammoth Umbra but I don’t think he had anything that could give them flying or trample. Ultimately I blame Commander. I'm seriously out of practice when it comes to thinking about match play and sideboarding.
Match 3 is against BG graveyard / sacrifice. This guy is obviously a new player as he moves creatures forward to indicate attacks (and didn’t tap them until after combat, which I had to correct him on before killing an attacker with Swift Reckoning), draws and plays land before untapping, doesn’t recognize evergreen keywords, etc. I avoid throwing the book at him for the most part, and nothing of note really happens as I kill everything he plays. Welcome to Magic. Game 1 I kill him with 10 Rise from the Tides zombies. Game 2 I mull to 5, keeping a one lander with another on top. I never find a third land and concede 5 turns in. I have to explain to him that this means he wins the game. “I won?” he says incredulously and starts laughing and calls his friend over. “What happened, how did I win?” Game 3 I kill his 18/18 Boneyard Worm (Grave Strength), Emrakul him and finish him off with Fiery Temper and Fire / Ice.
I got one standard pack for my single win and opened Dream Eater and a foil Conclave Tribunal. Very playable; both will find a place in my Brawl Cube once I update it for GRN. The Box Topper we were competing for turned out to be Lavaclaw Reaches, so I don’t feel too bad about missing out on that.
According to CSI, my most valuable pulls were:
Foil Magus of the Bazaar - $4.99
Dream Eater - $3.49
Woodfall Primus - $2.99
Disrupting Shoal - $2.49
Foil Conclave Tribunal - $1.99
Through the Breach - $17.99
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn - $21.99
Total value: ~$53. Which, accounting for the difference in money I'd actually get for trade-ins, is a little more than breaking even for a $40 draft. This is the only time I will draft Ultimate Masters so at least it was memorable. Overall it seemed like a very grindy, recursion-heavy format, but then it was hard to tell as my deck itself was extremely grindy and I may have just been looking at it through that lens.
