Flample! 10-29-16 Draft Report

Greetings loyal reader. Your intrepid hero drafted yesterday at a very goofy (though fun) 10 person pod at the Gamma Ray. 10 person pods are always kind of a mess but at least you don't have to worry about the wheel since nothing ever will.

Current Distraction: quick start guide to Civ 6

I’m just going to go ahead and assume that you have sunk 300+ hours into Civ5. The good news is Civ6 seems to add some interesting layers of strategy to that glorious Civ gameplay. The bad news is that a lot of your tactical habits are going to actively undermine you.

Let's do the time warp again: 10-15-16 Draft

Risking the elements for some hot drafting action at the Gamma Ray. A lot of the regulars, so it promises to be... well something I'm sure.

Pack 1

My opening rare was... uninspiring.

Quoth Marshall, "Sure."

It might be better than that, but a kinda weird "sort of damage, sort of card draw" wasn't really what I wanted. I ended up taking the Seedsculptor as I like having a guaranteed two drop. The pack felt very unsettled with picks 6-8 being three high quality commons (Dragster, Gearseeker, and Malfunction) I end the pack feeling very, very open. Definitely not red or white though, I can confidently rule that out.

Pack 2

Suddenly the green and the black just start flowing for real. The pick 6 thriving rhino & pick 10 (!) Fairgrounds Trumpeter felt great.

Pack 3

Not really any substitute for opening a solid rare in your color, so Gonti is in! I vaguely recall blue opening up again in this pack, but I felt pretty pot-committed on the green so I take some borderline playables. I ask if there's an achievement for having a deck with Wily Bandar in it. Margo said no.

Deck

Tapped Out Link

Once again, I'm kind of straddling "artifact matters" with "+1/+1 tokens matter". Oh, and a splash in white for the Consul (seemed pretty painless with a mana bear, Prism, and a (more questionable) Attune with Aether). My high end isn't great, my removal is mediocre, and I completely forgot to grab any artifact hate. Still, it feels like the baseline card quality is high.

Did I find my lane?

Orlando:
Nicolas:
Scott:
Your Hero, Jed:
Margo:
Cameron:
Taylor: 4 color mishmash I think
Nick:
(down = right, so Scott passed to me for pack 1)

It's a bit surprising that I didn't see more black in pack 1, though the Ovalchase Daredevil in pick 8 makes more sense here. In the abstract, maybe blue/black artifact-matters makes more sense, but I just didn't see the pieces.

Results

Unfortuately, it felt like I underperformed a little. First match was against Scott's Red/White aggro. Except he also had the following:

 

When those come down on curve, about the only legible part of my notes is "FUUUUUUUU". Yup!

I moved on to some humorous games against Margo's R/U energy deck that had ALL THE ENERGY... just no finishers. Two games where we raced to draw more land and she won. And by "won" I mean that she didn't draw land.

Met up with my B/G mirror in the final where suddenly my deck decided to curve out in an aggro-killing machine. On curve Maulfists, Rhinos, stealing his removal with my Gonti. it felt slick. It just didn't do that against anyone else.

MTGO Draft 10-13-16

It's draft time suckers! God I love this league where I can draft and then take a break. Let's take this from the top:

Draft Log

Pack 1

Pick 1
  

Two half synergies do not add up to synergy, Draft Report 10-8-16

Not going to sugarcoat, it was a bit of a disaster at the Gamma Ray.

Tapped Out deck