M15 Draft Recap

So Jed and I were at Card Kingdom this weekend for the M15 draft. For those not familiar it is a weird draft where the split all the people who show up (in this case N=25=8+8+9) into draft pods. The you play four rounds of suisse against everyone. Easy for the TO but lame for the magic. My pod had a dude who highly prefers foil cards to anything else and a guy who had never drafted before and post draft asked "so do I have to play with all the cards I took?".  So you can't really take any of this draft too seriously. But having those two on my right was sweet. Anyways we'll cover the draft in this post and later on get to a match report. Plus a bonus rant about a card I love and hate.

So I rip open my first pack, giddy as a school boy and here's the best card:

  

But instead I rare draft the land. Clearly a mistake, but whatever. Pack two rolls around and it's similar. This time however there is an old favorite squaring off with a rare land.

 

Side bar: Which card has better art? There is only one right answer. It's up against the Red/Blue pain land and I decided not to rare draft again. So now I'm leaning white. Pick three was a no brainer, the pack was dead except for

I snap that bad boy up. Afterwards I did some sluething the guy who passed it was the foil man and he said "well it was triple green and costs 7 so I don't know". Clearly this guy doesn't listen to limited resources. Oh and btw he was running green/blue, he really really doesn't listen to limited resources. So now I'm feeling some solid green/white convoke action. We still are no where close to knowing what's open. Pack four is even easier than pack three. There is complete crap and a

Yes please! Now I feel like green and black should be open. But you never know. The rest of the pack rounds out with nothing exciting. In pack two I get the hook up with some green and note that absolutely no red or white or blue is coming my way. Could be variance,  but it feels like the guys to my left are in those colors. I certainly passed some red in pack one and they are clearly not green. Possibly they are into black but that means I should be good to go in pack three. Which is exactly what happens. So far I'm ok having picked up in pack two some role players and

 

Also I picked up a black uncommon late. The ole slyblade.

 

I didn't know what to think about this guy. Vanilla fail. I have no enchantments and the ability costs 4 to activate. I decided I'd rather have a witch's familiar so that's what I wound up running in that slot. The in pack three there was nothing amazing. I was low on removal and had some holes in the curve and got paid off. I managed a pick 3 and a pick 5

 

I mentioned a bunch of role players and whatnot. In green black you wanna be playing the graveyard angle. First you get stuff into the yard with your early plays

 

i had two of both of these guys

Then you grind out the wind with some graveyard recursion.

 

I also had to rotfeaster maggots (3/5 gain life for graveyard exile = toughness). Let me tell you Rotfester for Rotfester was almost as good as teachings for teachings. But I digress.

Overall I was pretty worried about the deck. I was a little soft early but had  solid late game. I felt pretty good that if I could survive I would do some winning. The deck wound up being a ton of fun to play and was more powerful than I thought. As Obi-Wong mentioned the green/black deck is better than it looks.

Here's the deck list:

1 drop: Typhoid Rats

2 drop: 2x Satyr Wayfinder, Runeclaw Bear

3 drop: 2x Necromancer's Assistant, Witch's Familiar, Netcaster Spider

4 drop: Gravedigger, Accursed Spirit, Zof Shade (not sure how I feel about the number and quality of my 4 drops, there are two more in the board and I balanced based on what I faced. If the Spirit was unblockable then the second one came in)

5 drop: Nightfire Giant, 2x Rotfeaster Maggot

7 drop: Hornet Queen

"9 drop": Feral Incarnation

6 Spells: Meteorite, 2x Flesh to Dust, Unmake the Graves, Covenant of Blood, Caustic Tar

18 Lands: 1 mountain, 8 swamp, 9 forest

Sideboard of Note: Witch's Familiar, Zof Shade, Accursed Spirit, Leeching Sliver, Xathrid Slyblade, 2x Shadowcloak Vampire

Given the meteorite and 2x Satyr Wayfinders I figured I could run a solo mountain for the Nightfire Giant. Two sources for the ability and sometimes the bonus +1/+1. It would up working for me every single time. One game I did have trouble with the 3G in the Hornet Queen, it probably cost me that game. But I had 10 lands in that game. Oh well.

Also as you all know I was rocking the Lannister sleeves but I have used them so much it was time to retire them. Needing new sleeves there was only one way to go:

Also I would like to rant about a card. Take a look at this guy:

I love this card. Flavour win. I would prefer that if he blew himself up that you not get the landmine for the turn. I prefer the flavour of him trying to set a mine and messing it up. However I guess they want you to get at least something out of him, even if he goes on the first turn.

That said I absolutely had the coin flip part. Not from a power level concern or anything. But rather from a, I can't stand watching my opponent scramble around trying to pick his quarter up off the ground or out of someone's drink. It was excruciating to play against. Also I do think this guy is good. I would play it.

Also for this set I didn't look at the gallery because I am boycotting the stupid new look to the wizards page. So basically I don't know any of the rares. It's kinda fun to not know what's in a set. Also I have still yet to touch a triplicate spirits. I'm hope the next draft turns out better.

And finally. Let's talk about sideboarding. I'm on a crusade to get better at it. Previously I focused on mulliganing and I think I've gotten better at that and directly led to some more wins. As far as the sideboarding goes there are some really easy situations. Often you may have a narrow but efficient removal spell and if they are vulnerable to it, you bring it in. Another thing I've been working on is trying to figure out your opponents plan. In this case my caustic tar wasn't necessary against aggro. If I survived to the point where I could cast it I had already won. So it came out for a Witch's Familiar. I'm just setting out on this quest but there is one thing I have put together.

Sideboarding starts during the draft.

Always be looking for good board action in the second half of the packs. And don't be afraid to look at your sideboard during game 1. The rules let you do that now.

Ok enough for now. See you all in a few days with the match recap.