Draft Report 7-15-17: I blame Chris

Time to plunge into my very first HoD draft! Sadly I won't be able to rely on my foolproof sealed game plan of opening five on-color bomb rares so I'm going to have to actually "think" about a "plan". Dammit.

Pack 1 Pick 1

 

This is actually kind of an interesting face-off in pack 1. Overcome (Wizards is *clearly* trolling us with the name and the PTSD we all have with Overrun) is a slick little card that can also just win you the game out of nowhere. Torment of Hailfire is a little more up in the air. Edict cards, where your opponent gets to choose the effect, are always weaker than they look because your opponent gets to plot a way to minimize the impact. That said, this can also do a lot of work. I go with the lower variance Overcome.

Pick 2 is such an incredibly lame pack I take a Traveler's Amulet in hopes that it might help a splash. That sound you hear is me making a very loud farting noise with my mouth as I take it.

Pick 3

Easy choice. Not a lot of competition. I do notice a fair amount of blue in the pack.

Pick 4
 

This... this I found an interesting choice. So I had a very solid creature in my Overcome/Overrun color. There is also a tempting blue/red card that has a pretty decent overall power level and *very* sweet art. I actually don't know the proper pick here. I went with the cowards' choice of the vanilla green creature. It might be the hindsight bias speaking, but pick 4 is exactly where one SHOULD speculate on powerful gold cards. Because what I feared would happen, what *did* happen, is someone taking this as a signal and moving into my colors.

facebook stalking ftw

This guy... taking black and blue cards for a constructed deck and then moves into UR spells. My spells! Sure I wasn't "technically" in those colors yet but they were still mine! Anyway, I complete my move into blue with a pick 8 Aerial Guide (wtf) and a very hopefuly pick 14 (!) unsummon

Pack 2 was very straightforward.

The Khenra Scrapper in pick 10 was shocking to me as I think that's a pretty sweet little dude. Makes me think red is underdrafted at the table.

Pack 3... tested my dedication.

 

Do I take the perfect gold card for my deck (and someone else is in it because that Bloodwater didn't wheel) or the God? I behave myself and take the Enigma Drake. I guess Rhonas has dropped to $5.

Oracle Vault at 5 surprises me. I mean, it's home in any midrange deck, right? I also get some sweet 1 and 2 drops that my deck badly needs to function at sufficient speed so I am very pleased.

The Deck

While it didn't *quite* get there with sweet 1-2 drops, it did get most of the way there! Three bounce effects, a good utility counterspell, two pieces of direct damage is a pretty good spread. Almost all of the 1-3 drops do work and my high end is reasonably spicy. I like the Oracle's Vault in this deck too because of the low curve.

Matches

The first match I get some sick draws and pummel a manascrewed Nick in two games in very short order. The second match I go up against Luka and his very oddly shaped Naya deck. Unfortunately I fall in three games. I was able to overwhelm him in one game but he had a surprisingly good play to save him in game 2:


My army of fliers was headed in for the kill and he tossed this out on his 3/3. Now with six toughness, his creature survives and I'm totally tapped out. Geeeearrrgh.

Game three, after a boardstall and a bit of manascrew on my part, he kills me with a Frilled Sandwalla. Two of them actually. They're really hard to block!

Game three I'm matched off against Joe's black/white control. He had some good controlling pieces

   

The Rags to Riches was a particularly harsh boardwipe against me. But I was able to systematically race and pressure well. This was definitely a deck that would have been great to have an extra good counterspell or two. Interestingly, I got some comuppance from my p1p1 pick. Remember this friend? 

ohai

Joe closed out a stalled game two by casting this for X = 8. Had neither the cards in my hand or permanents on the battlefield he just domed me for 15 kinda out of nowhere. However on the second game he had to cast it for only three and honestly... whatever. I had a dominant enough board position where it didn't really sting that bad. So as advertised, it belongs almost as a finisher in an aggressive deck. 

But helped along by a little bit of manascrew in game three, I was able to close it out and finish 2-1 overall. 

Drafting

Jesse:

Chad:

Daniel:()

Your Hero, Jed:

Joe

Nick:

Chris: 

Luka ()

Daniel seemed a bit all over the place in pack 1, taking some choice blue and red cards that I would have enjoyed for sure. But overall I definitely found my lane for sure and even put together a deck. Imagine if I got the second Enigma Drake or the Bloodwater Entity, Chris.

Lessons

This guy is the real deal. Just imagine it reads 4/2 flying, because functionally that's what it acts like. Prioritize for sure.

I only got it in two games but I was very pleased with it. With 9-10 spells in the deck it makes for some rotten choices for your opponent's combat math. The scry also came in useful in a stalled board state.