Innistrad Draft (4-3-2-2), 12/11/2011

The programming experiment turned out to be a massive bust because I don’t understand computers properly, so I figured I’d do another draft. I opened a Mentor of the Meek, and then picked some decent cards for green/white humans (after second-picking Geistflame), so I cemented myself pretty quickly. I was hoping to get a bunch of flyers and the dudes that make flyers, which led me to take Demonmail Hauberk fairly early in pack one, but unfortunately I got too many cards that need dudes to be good (Travel Preparations, Prey Upon, Blazing Torch, Mentor of the Meek), and too few dudes. I don’t think I ever saw a Midnight Haunting or a Mausoleum Guard, which would have both been crazy in this deck.

A combination of Blazing Torches, drawing a bunch of cards off Mentor of the Meek, and turning my Abbey Griffin into a Serra Angel with Travel Preparations got me through my first two rounds. Unfortunately both games in the final I got a combination of pretty land screwed and drawing too many enablers and not enough creatures to use them on, while my opponent had things like Skirsdag High Priest which I was unable to do anything about.

Innistrad Draft (8-4), 5/11/2011

White seemed pretty open with decent but not amazing cards. I was pretty open on a second colour going into pack two, but the best thing I opened was an Invisible Stalker, so I figured I would try for the human equipment deck. Unfortunately the only thing I found was one Spectral Flight and a Dagger. Overall I think this deck turned out pretty well; no bombs but pretty consistent.

Unfortunately I lost a pretty close match in the first round. Game one I stomped all over him, game 2 was pretty close and I got him down to around 3 life before flooding out and letting him stabilise, and game 3 I should have won, but I clicked through the beginning combat phase without tapping one of his dudes with my Priest, which let him deal me lethal. I obv was going to draw the Fiend Hunter that should have let me attack for the last few damage the next turn. Unfortunately I only played Mindshrieker once and he killed it almost immediately, but it would have won me either of those games.

Innistrad Sealed (6 Packs), 30/10/2011

I got a Garruk, so that was nice. Given I had Garruk, Kessig Cagebreakers, Ulvenwald Mystics, Spider Spawning, and some other solid dudes, I was definitely green, but I was torn between playing red or playing white. Red had the benefit of a far more powerful top-end, but apart from Harvest Pyre I would have no removal. White had a more consistent start, and also gave me Bonds of Faith, Avacynian Priest, Chapel Geist and Rebuke. Plus the human count was a bit higher, which made running Silver-Inlaid Dagger a bit better, and Travel Preparations gets way better when you can reliably flash it back.

I actually originally submitted a green/red deck, but then in the last minute of deck building I had a change of heart and switched to green/white. Unfortunately I didn’t realise that my deck had 41 cards until it was too late to change. I generally took Silverchase Fox out for game two. 

I played a bunch of red and white decks, and went 6-1 in games for the first three rounds, before splitting the finals. The Dagger did an incredible amount of work, along with my flyers, Spider Spawning, and Kessig Cagebreakers. The Cagebreakers won quite a number of my games, and another few games game down to a race where I was able to play Spider Spawning on the penultimate turn to chump with in order to make things in my favour. The deck played pretty interestingly in that I was generally able to play a dude or two and/or a Dagger in the early game and get in for some damage, and then after they played things to stop my attacks (or killed my flyers), I played things like Ulvenwald Mystics to block up the ground, and then I had Manor Gargoyle or Kessig Cagebreakers to finish them off after the board stalled.

Unfortunately I never drew Garruk, so I have no idea how he would have gone. The main disappointment was Woodland Sleuth, where in the few games I drew it I just never got any value out of it. If it was a 3/2 at least it would be so much better. I never even ended up boarding into red, mostly because I was scared of my opponents taking over the game while I had no removal. 

There were a number of really good games in this sealed, including my first match, where I won with 2 minutes left on the clock (I went 2-0; if my opponent had have won that second game I probably would have timed out in the third), and another game where my opponent went turn 3 Daybreak Ranger turn 4 flip and then kill your dude, which I managed to win but not before he killed two other dudes and then I used a sideboarded Rally the Peasants to finally get rid of it.

Now I’ve got a million packs, so hopefully I will be drafting a bit more!

Innistrad Draft (8-4), 28/10/2011

I pretty much forced green/white humans after picking an Angelic Overseer P1P1 and Ulvenwald Mystics P1P2. White seemed open enough to get some decent dudes and removal, but I’m pretty sure the guy to my right was in green/red werewolves, because I didn’t see a whole lot of double-faced cards come around in packs one and three. This deck seemed pretty good. I had only one very good game finisher, but the curve is good enough that I figured I might just be able to aggro some people out.

And aggro them out I did! I went 3-0 (my final opponent refusing to split). The Dagger was absurdly good and won me about half the games, with Angelic Overseer winning most of the other half. The one game I drew Sever the Bloodline, I didn’t have the swamp to cast it, but luckily the compromised mana base from having swamps didn’t hurt me in any game. I only lost one game in the draft, which was due to flooding out. I don’t know if this is just running good or if a consistent curve really is this important in Innistrad - for a lot of games my opponents didn’t do too much in the first three turns, while I tended to curve out on them.

Innistrad Draft (Swiss), 23/10/2011

It’s possibly not surprising after only having done two drafts and no sealeds, but I am feeling like I have a terrible grasp of this format. I regularly find myself confronted with packs containing six or so cards that could all be the best pick, and just not being able to evaluate cards properly. It is making it quite hard to determine what colours are open and which I should stay out of. For example, there are a tonne of white creatures that work really well together and with heaps of other cards, but don’t seem all that great on their own, so if I see them fairly late, I’m not all that sure what to make of it. In this case I picked Brimstone Volley and Geistflame early, and then got a bunch of white things. Red seemed to be cut fairly early, but I had a hard time seeing cards in other colours that I was all that interested in. In the end no one cut me off too much from white, and I got some werewolves and the Cultist in pack two to have enough red playables that I didn’t have to splash for green (although I would have, for Spider Spawning and Travel Preparations, if I was able to pick up a Shimmering Grotto or two). I wasn’t sure that my deck was all that good (when the highest power creature in your deck is Night Revelers, things do not bode well), so I decided to draft as aggressive a deck as possible. For this reason I took both my Geistflames over Pitchburn Devils, which probably isn’t right. 

This deck ended up playing really well, as it had just the right mix of small disposable dudes I could sacrifice, things that got bigger when other creatures died, and removal and evasion to allow my guys to get through. Despite playing what I feel like is a reasonable number of mountains, I did get stuck on all plains in at least three games in my matches. I ended up winning two of those anyway, though. All-stars in this deck were the Hanweir Watchkeep, Geist-Honored Monk, and Demonmail Hauberk. A large amount of my games involved playing Geist-Honored Monk, then next turn playing the Hauberk, saccing one of the flyers to equip the other one, and in the process growing one of my other dudes that cares about things dying. Midnight Haunting was also totally sweet, and I feel like Unruly Mob was a lot better than I originally gave it credit for (I was thinking of dropping it from the deck in favour of Crossway Vampire, but didn’t because of mana considerations). The Village Ironsmiths and Night Revelers were pretty much the only cards that didn’t work out terribly well, but I kind of knew that would be the case going in, and only picked them because of a lack of other stuff in those packs. I went 3-0 with this, which certainly makes me feel a little better about the format.

Innistrad Draft (Swiss), 20/10/2011

Urgh, this draft was kind of a trainwreck. I opened the Murder of Crows, and then got a bunch of decent white in pack one, and then got a little bit of green, so I was definitely white and wavering between blue and green. Unfortunately in packs two and three I seemed to get fairly cut on blue, green and white, which meant that I had to go into red in order to fill things out (and a Kessig Wolf Run didn’t hurt). I think this was partly because other drafters weren’t totally sure what colours they were and jumped around a bit, and because this was my second draft of the format I wasn’t sure what to consider as a signal and what not to consider. My deck turned out to be not terrible, but it definitely would have benefited from having to splash red for anything other than the Wolf Run, and maybe some more creatures to make things like the equipment, pump spells, and Prey Upon.

I ended up going 1-2, with one match loss being narrow and the other one being pretty decisive. My deck worked pretty well when the mana went okay, but in too many games I ended up with two colours of land and a hand full of the third colour. I can’t justifiably complain since you have to expect that sort of thing when you’re playing three colours with minimal fixing. I played really horribly, totally punting one game and making sure I died a few turns earlier than I should have in a couple of others. Please note that Prey Upon is not an instant!

M12 Draft (Swiss), 1/10/2011

Signals were all over the place in this draft, and I ended up with pretty reasonable cards in red, blue, black, and green, but not enough to have a solid secondary colour. I think there’s a case for maindecking the black instead of the green here, and I did side into the black a couple of times. Apart from the Siege Mastodons, I was pretty happy with my white in this deck, but I did not do well in the games. I lost the first two rounds two games to one, and just never drew into my best cards (Lavamancer and the Titan). I won the last round due to my opponent dropping. A pretty disappointing end to M12 drafting, considering how reasonable I thought this deck was.

M12 Draft (8-4), 26/9/2011

Urgh, I screwed this up pretty badly. I took an Incinerate over Pacifism first pick (which I’m not sure is right?), and then picked up some Chandra’s Outrages while passing some really good white cards (Gideon’s Lawkeeper and Assault Griffin), and then ended up going white anyway because nothing else but red seemed to be open. Then I think pack three I passed an Arachnus Spinner in favour of a shock or a Chandra’s Outrage or something. I just wasn’t even thinking about how it could be easily splashed; I was too set on my colours. I desperately needed a game-winner though, and that would have helped a lot. Of course the next pack had an Arachnus Web (along with a Sengir Vampire and a Rune-Scarred Demon, with nothing in my colours). My deck ended up with plenty of removal, just very few guys and no real plan for winning the game. I would have killed for some Blood Ogres or Gorehorn Minotaurs, but I never saw any.

Round one I was paired against the guy I was passing to, who killed me with the Arachnus Spinner in games one and three, which was karma I guess. Ugh this was dumb.

M12 Draft (8-4), 26/9/2011

I was left with two packs after the last draft, so I figured I would buy another one and play an 8-4, where I was very likely to lose, and that would be the end of my draft experience. This was the first time I have played an 8-4. I haven’t played one before due to a combination of just preferring to play as many games as possible (I want to get the most out of my money), and being a little intimidated and assuming I won’t get into the finals, so it seeming like kind of a waste of the packs. This draft started a little poorly. I picked up an early Mind Control and Aether Adept, but there wasn’t a whole lot else coming, and I had to be content with taking a bunch of mediocre black cards. I opened a Serra Angel in pack 2, and figured it was worth taking a chance of abandoning black for. White seemed pretty open in pack two since it was so cut in pack one, so I got a few more reasonable cards. I think I opened the other Mind Control in pack 3? Which definitely helped me out; before that my deck was looking neither powerful nor consistent. I almost splashed black for Gravedigger and Wring Flesh, but at the last moment I decided Greatsword and Cancel are okay enough that I don’t need to strain the mana base. I was a little concerned with the lack of removal, but I like having the Ice Cage and two Mind Controls with Auramancer.

I won the first two matches on the back of Serra Angel and/or both Mind Controls, as expected. It didn’t help that my opponents seemed to be having mana problems in a few of the games. I split with my opponent in the final round as I’d rather have the packs for two drafts guaranteed than two and a bit drafts if I win.

I swear I’m not just trying to draft blue/white all the time. In this case I opened Sun Titan in the first pack, and then got passed some pretty late Azure Mages, so I figured blue was open. Given that this deck was attempting to be pretty defensive (what with two Timely Reinforcements and a Titan), I maybe should have swapped out Coral Merfolk for Pride Guardian (which is what I did do in a few of my matches). With the Timely Reinforcements, Skywinder Drakes, and Aven Fleetwing, I would have killed for a Greatsword, but I don’t think I saw one in the draft. 

I made several pretty horrendous misplays, but managed to go 3-0 anyway. The Stave Offs ended up being very very good in this deck - countering removal, 2-for-1ing creatures that had auras on them, killing their creatures in combat, and swinging in for the win. I was a little worried that three was too many when I had so few creatures, but it ended up being pretty good, I just played a guy and then protected him as I hit them a bunch of times.