M15 Draft: Match Recap

Let's recap some Magical Cards!

Round One

First match against a very nice gentleman named Nathan. On his first turn he plays

 










 




That's right folks, the double Ornithopter opening! While Brian and Marshall shudder I proceed to basically obliterate him without any particular danger.

Game two was a little more interesting only because he got the live the dream of a turn 4
















Fortunately I had a pretty nice smooth curve out and was able to Covenant of Blood the Angel down. I have the game very nicely in hand and whittle him down to 4 life when he casts.


















Suddenly his very impotent Wall of Fire is just machine gunning my evasive creatures. I get him down to 1 and he drops a Profane Memento (a card so bad that I can't bring myself to cut and paste directly) but he starts rebuilding his life total, killing my creatures and works me down to 6. I'm flooding mana, I drew my Negate one turn too late to stop the Burning Anger, and I have *three* Covenant of Bloods somewhere in my remaining 18 cards and I am top decking NOTHING. He's at 2 life, I'm at 6 life and I draw

















You magnificent bastard: you read creature OR player. So I squeak out a victory and go 2-0. I review his deck with him and he also has *two* Staff of the _____ Magus to support a Junkyard Dog and an Aeronaut. I give some advice and I move on. (2-0)

Round 2

Facing off against Chris, running a red/white aggro deck. Actually competently put together, I won't lie, it had some serious race to start

  















That's some serious early beef, especially give how I have nothing except three drops. I was shocked by how much work the Oppressive Rays would do. Suddenly a solid 2/3 blocker is useless the turn I drop it (because my mana is tapped) and I'm given a choice between establishing my board and saving mana for a blocker. In the first game he raced me down to 9 until I stabilized with a Covenant, got blockers up and mana for Oppressive and killed him with evasion. In the second game he raced out, had TWO effing Oppressive Rays to stymy blockers and dropped a turn 5 Thundering Giant right on curve to finish me before I could stabilize. Game three wasn't as good: he didn't have a fast start with double Oreskos Swiftclaw but I drew my one sideboard change:

















Once that swept his weenies, he had absolutely no answer for a Chasm Skulker followed by a Jace's (why yes, that IS a permanent +3/+3 and three cards). (2-1)

Round 3

Sadly nothing interesting here because manascrew haunted me in a rubber match. We are both running control (he was red/black) and was JUST good enough where if I didn't draw my answers, I was in trouble. His Necrogren Scudder was out early a LOT and just exerted a lot of pressure. When I mulled down to a two-lander and didn't draw into any lands for five turns... there's just not a lot you can do. (1-2)


In conclusion, I was *much* happier with my play this round. I won games I should have won and was aware of good sideboard. I think the deck construction could have used a little more fast defenses (good two drops) and avoided drafting some cards that I had a 0% playing (the buffing artifacts, unmake the graves, etc.)