draft report - awesome experience!
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Posted on Jan. 18, 2015, 5:37 a.m. by digger_was_taken
I just played the best draft of my life. My list was so sweet. I developed a game plan on my second pick, and pulled it together perfectly. I won a 3-round tournament without losing a single game. I'll show you the deck, describe how it plays and explain card choice, and then go through the planning that went in to drafting this beauty. Finally I will give a short description of each round. I hope that ya'll enjoy and maybe learn something. But mostly I'm just reliving the glory without bragging too much to my friends!
M15 draft blue flying agro splash green end game
The core of the deck is the synergy between the 4 Aeronaut Tinkerers and the artifact creatures. A 2/3 for 3 CMC 1 pip is not bad on its own. Add flying and it's super efficient. Much of the rest of the deck supports this base, either by directly contributing to the beat down, or by clogging up the ground while the 6 efficient fliers get into the red zone over and over. If they do get up a decent flying blocker, the mid and end game are also really strong. There is card advantage, looting, counterspells, and a large resilient green end game.
Most of the card choices are obvious, because they fit into the game plan that I just described. But there are a few close calls that I believe put me over the top into undefeated.
I actually drafted two Paragon of Gathering Mists, but decided to only play one. I don't actually have that many blue creatures, and I wanted to keep the curve low.
Research Assistant is surprisingly decent. The deck has no 1-drops and is short on 2-drops, so it fits the curve. A 1/3 body matches up decently against a lot of early attackers, so it fits the game plan of clogging up the ground while flying in for damage. The looting ability is really expensive. But it lets me dig out of mana flood, and makes this 2-drop a decent late game top deck.
I first-picked a Chord of Calling on my third pack, but decided not to play it. The deck has redundancy, not a tool box, making the chord a more expensive version of whatever creature I got with it. And three green pips was just too much.
The mana was very consistent. I could have gone mono blue, but with only two cards with more than 1 blue pip, 10 islands was plenty. The green 6-drops have 2 pips each, but with plenty of card draw and looting, having only 7 forests was no problem. I drafted two Evolving Wilds, but decided that the risk of delaying an aggressive start was bigger than the risk of missing my colors. The standard 17 lands worked fine, requiring 1 mulligan over 6 games.
So how did I draft this monster? Well, my first pick was Encrust. My second pick had powerful cards of several colors, but I decided to commit to blue with Welkin Tern. My plan was to pick every powerful or even decent blue card that I could, sending a strong message to my left not to go blue. When no blue was available, I picked playable artifacts, which let me hold off picking a second color until the second pack.
Since I was already on the artifact plan, taking the Aeronaut Tinkerers that started to come my way in the middle of pack one was a no brainer. While taking only blue and artifact, I paid attention to what was being passed my way. The players to my right seemed to be leaving green and white open. Green seemed like the best choice of the two, since it shores up blue's lack of beefy ground creatures and weak late game bombs.
When a Phytotitan came my way on the third pick of the second pack, I knew what my second color was going to be. As hoped, my message was received and I continued to get passed powerful blue cards throughout the second pack. I was also picking up decent, but not great, green beefies that I ended up not using. On the third pack, my awareness on the first pack paid off when I got passed two Ancient Silverbacks, and my deck was done.
THE MATCHES
My first match-up was against red splashing black (2 seats to my right during the draft). Game 1 he played 3 goblins, an Obelisk of Urd, and some removal. He had that goblin that neutralizes a blocker, making defense a losing proposition. I alphaed every turn and won the turn before I would have died. Game two, my opponent mulliganed once and then stalled out. I played a Welkin Tern into an Aeronaut Tinkerer into a Juggernaut and finished the game out on turn 6.
Match 2 was against a blue/green mirror. He had been sitting all the way across from me during the draft, and may have had a lot to do with why blue and green were left open for me by those closer by. He was playing a much slower deck, with a defensive early game leading into more and better late game bombs. My fliers and Juggernauts matched up ridiculously well against his ground defenders. The match took about 10 minutes.
Match 3 was against a white/red deck. The ground got clogged on both sides pretty early, and he drew removal for the one flier I drew, so we were at a standoff. Divination got me the mana I needed to cast Phytotitan. An Ajani Pridemage and a lot of life gain put my Phytotitan on defense, and we were at a standoff again, but I had gained significant card advantage. I played a Military Intelligence, and eventually drew some fliers. It took a while to safely chip away at his life total without letting down my defense, but I won. Game 2 he kept a 1 land hand while I mulliganed. He stumbled, and I finished him off quickly with a Juggernaut.
digger_was_taken says... #3
Thanks. :)
Something else this brought home was the value of paying attention to the messages that you're sending with the cards you pass on the first pack.
I do realize that this was more or less a perfect case scenario for me. If someone to my right was drafting blue, I would have had to pick a second color sooner. If someone to my left first picked a blue bomb, then they'd take blue cards on the second pack regardless of what messages I was passing on the first pack. And then even with great reading abilities, it's super lucky to get passed a Phytotitan and two Ancient Silverbacks.
So this was a best case scenario. But of course that's why I went 6-0 in 3 matches. What I'm glad of is that this wasn't just a case of good variance for me. It was good variance, and I also played it really well. I've got my skills honed for future drafts, and I'm really looking forward to them.
ChiefBell says... #2
Well done for assessing the open colours well. That's the trick to drafting.
January 18, 2015 6:59 a.m.