The Gitrog is not enough 4-23-16

First Shadows draft and I have to say that I was a little nervous going into it. This looks like a complicated set with a lot of synergies between cards and archtypes. But everyone has gotta have their first draft sometime, might as well dive in.

Draft

I didn't do much notetaking during the draft but I was blessed with being able to very early lock into my colors of green & black. This was proved post-facto by two Foul Orchards going around the table and me being able to snag them with 4-5 cards left in the pack.

Matthew  
Hunter 
Jed:  
Tim: 
Phil: ??
Ziad:  
Chris:  

Creatures

   
  
   
   

Spells

        

Land

x7 x8  x2

Sideboard

  

Results & Thoughts

Unfortunately I went 1-2 with this deck, though it had four convincing victories and four very close losses (all to aggro decks). There were definitely some slight construction issues, such as the TOTAL lack of instants. Kind of important to have an extra type of spell to help activate Delirium. Black/green feels like a straight up value seat draft, where the good cards are the same good cards that other decks aim for (Vessel, Obsessive Skinner) so you best not be fighting your neighbors. 

Other downs:

I really missed out on some good early defensive cards like Moldgraf Scavenger and Grotesque Mutation. You are definitely a slow deck and there are decks out there with fast, fast starts. 

Put a mild priority on drafting instants. Here are your only options in these colors (not counting Confront the Unknown because very little room for clues, Moonlight Hunt because of werewolf lack, and Clip Wings because bad). Throttle is probably best, because removal. But the Grotesque Mutation is a close second with the lifegain. I had the Merciless Resolves, and maybe I should have run them.

    

Similarly, artifact creatures are great (two card types). I would run any you get but the defenders and/or easy to trade ones are particularly excellent.

  

The payoff of this deck is there. Obviously you can't count on cracking a mythic, but The Gitrog Monster is the absolute truth. Even its drawback isn't that much of a drawback, drawing cards every time you sack a land. Plus when you Fork in the Road, you get to draw a land off the discarded land! It's excellent and would splash for in any deck. The Morkrut Necropod is surprisingly good as well. It helps finish games, which is what this deck needs. And Autumnal Gloom is a legit payoff for being in this deck. Cracking a Vessel on turn two into a turn three Autumnal is pretty close to a guaranteed 4/4 trample, hexproof creature. 

This is a fun set, and I look forward to more!