This past Friday I went to Magic Comics, as usual, to play at Friday Night Magic.
The last few weeks they've been running 2 events, 1 Standard and 1 Draft at the same time. There's a lot of folks who love to draft (I'm one of them) but not everyone can afford to spend they money every week and they understandably prefer Standard.
After doing so well on Wednesday with the 5 Color Control I was planning on doing Standard but ended up playing draft at the last second. I'm not sure what pulled me into the limited format, besides my absurd love of opening packs that is.
We ended up drafting 1 pack of M12 and 2 packs of Innistrad, something that the store has done a couple of times before. I'm personally not a huge fan of mixing sets that have no synergy but it wasn't my choice so I made the best of it. Another odd thing was we were split into 2 pods, one of 6 and one of 5 because of the number of players. All in all, it was still a hell of a lot of fun but it was unlike the drafts I've done on line.
THE DRAFT
I didn't open any exciting rares or foils which is always disappointing, especially since 1 guy got both a Foil Geist of St. Traft and a Snapcaster Mage while the other table had a Liliana of the Veil, but I did end up with a very good Blue deck splashing Green and Red.
I first picked a Mind Control and ended up getting passed a 2nd one not long after and quickly settled into picking up Blue Flyers after a brief dabbling into Green for a Jade Mage. There didn't seem to be that many exciting cards in other colors but the Blue kept on flowing.
Innistrad didn't change things for me although I did scoop up a Rolling Temblor and a Geistflame to splash for a little removal. Festerhide Boar and Somberwald Spider joined the Green Team and more Blue Flyers finished things off.
When I got to build my deck I had a solid, if unexciting, 40 cards with 17 lands to make sure I hit my big cards that I was sure would win the games.
Round 1 -
This was the fella from the other pod who pulled Liliana (yes, I know we're not really supposed to mix pods but the shop set it up) so I knew of at least one card going in that I had to be on the look out for. I don't remember meeting this guy before but he was definitely friendly and had some spiffy Lavender sleeves.
Good - I hit a solid curve in both games of mid-sized flyers that he had no answer to.
Bad - He suited up guys in both games with Furor of the Bitten, making them really big, really quick. Unfortunately he had to Fling one of his Furor'd fellas at my Stitched Drake to survive for a turn.
Outcome - Win, 2-0, thanks to my beefy flyers.
Round 2 - Cameron
This was another new guy to me. He was excited to first pick a Phantasmal Image as well as a Ludevic's Test Subject so I knew he'd have some of the Blue cards I passed. He was also very nice and a lot of fun to play against because he was very open about how certain cards made him feel!
Good - He was playing a mill myself deck with a Laboratory Maniac! I remembered passing him(and being sad when he didn't wheel) so I knew, as soon as he enchanted himself with Curse of the Bloody Tome, what my opponent was up to. He played a lot of nice stall cards to buy himself time and had no trouble getting rid of his whole deck fairly quickly.
Bad - After milling his last few card my opponent slammed down the Maniac and proclaimed "I win!" with a huge smile on his face. I'd been holding my removal spells and was able to Silent Departure the little fella twice then Mind Control him when Memory's Journey bought my opponent a couple of extra turns.
Outcome - Win, 2-0, once again thanks to my large flyers. I was actually pretty sad to have to win this match when my opponent had such a neat deck.
Round 3 - Brian
Brian is a member of a group of folks that shows up every few weeks and almost always drafts. I'd never played him before but I knew he was a competent player before we sat down. He was all smiles and definitely seemed to be having a blast.
Good - We played 3 very good, back and forth games with me churning out solid, mid rangey flyers and him landing big bombs. His whole deck was designed to pump up a Dungrove Elder and a Runechanter's Pike and it was pretty neat to see in action. In game 1 he never drew the Dungrove and I flew to victory. In Game 2 he drew Dungrove which ate one of my creatures every turn. In Game 3 I was able Mana Leak the Dungrove and won from there.
Bad - He had 2 Fogs in his deck that bought him a lot of time to ramp up to big threats. Game 3 ended when he swung all out and I realized the last card in his hand had to be a Fog. I swung for exactly his life total and Dissipated the Fog for the game and match.
Outcome - Win, 2-1, this was probably the most exciting match of the night and it felt like it could have gone either way.
Round 4 - Intentional Draw
At this point there was only 1 other undefeated and we drew it out after agreeing to split prizes evenly. I forgot to write down his name but I have been keeping up with him all night and he was obviously a good player.
The prize support paid for my draft which is all I could really ask for and I picked up some packs to bring home to the wife. Is there anything better than opening packs of cards with the woman you love?
Thanks for reading folks, I hope you'll check back again soon!
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