Amonkhet Draft, v0.1 5-2-17

Drafting with the NIRD Wednesday night group on a Tuesday as we wander for a new home (RIP Nird collective) like the Israelites in the desert. What's that? Sam has a totally awesome common area in his condo that has a fridge and an eight person table? Truly our long nightmare has finally come to an end.

Now let's crack them packs!

Yeah that's a "My Little Ponies: Friendship is Magic" playmat. I'll fight you.

Exemplar of Strength seems perfectly servicable: good aggression while having some late game relevance and some -1/-1 counter synergy. Totally don't recall my rare at all.

 

Insult to Injury brings serious beef. Doubling all damage and putting a nice little 4 damage (post-doubling) is serious business. Cards that say "You're probably going to win the game on this turn" are always worth taking.

After that, it was nothing but green. Seriously, I don't even recall seeing a card that made me think anything was even remotely open. So I load up on a nice bread and butter creature base. Maybe I can move into a second color or get some... divine inspriation?

Hi Oktera. Some say you're not the strongest god, but you're good enough in my book, especially since I already look to be rocking the creatures to, uh, turn you on. I was very confused in pack 2, with a surprisingly late P6 Fan Bearer, a P5 Crocodile. But whatever, stay the course. The mid-pick Ahn-Crop Champion made me feel decent about going GW. Sure.

 

Blurry because reasons. Possibly the ponies.

So my opening pack 3 was a pile of hot garbage. Nothing beats taking a 3/1 sacrificial 2-drop as pick one! The entire pack feels like a complete mess with all that flowing green going completely dry. I eke out a few playables and the crappiest 3 mana combat trick in the game. With a heavy heart I go to deckbuilding.

Incidentally I find out why green vanished. My right-hand seatmate opened

Coulda had a double-divinity deck...

on pack 3 and moved in. Hard to fault taking the $20 bill but I will harbor animosity to Adam until the end of days! Or next draft, whichever happens sooner.

I splash for the Deem Worthy as it is in fact, quite worthy (copyright LSV's Pun Central) Aside from that, I have a very dull aggro deck aiming to go 2-3-4 and hopefully smash the door down before they can do anything. Given how strong the synergies are in the set, and how awkwardly I straddle -1/-1 and exert, I don't feel real good about this.

I go 3-0. Well, sort of.

My first two rounds I dispatch Drew & Daniel as my deck brings a lot of pressure fast. If they stabilize, I'm toast, but I don't give them much time to find answers. Ornery Kudu to Quarry Hauler is 7 power on the battlefield in a real hurry.

 

Incidentally, Drew fell for the fatal lure of trying to go double Decimator Beetle with the -1/-1 counters, fighting for scraps of green among the four green drafters at the table. So he only really has himself to blame.

Facing against Chris in the finals and he has an absolute powerhouse of a deck.

   

It goes wide very quickly, basically ignores blocking for a turn or two and then alpha-strikes for 20 damage shockingly quickly. In one game I had a pretty sweet curve out and attacked for 8 on turn 4, which would put him at 5. He said "no blocks" (with plenty of sacrificial tokens available) and then tomahawked me down the next turn.

"Fortunately" he was manascrewed twice so I won the finals. We played a fourth game where he absolutely crushed me again. I can confidentially say that he had the best deck. It was a good reminder that luck counts for quite a bit. Also, the RW go-wide deck is definitely a thing.