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By: Jester123, Dylan Pratt
Aug 16 2010 12:39am
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Hidy Ho Neighborinos! After getting a few drafts under my belt I’ve found blue to be my favourite color by far in M11 (big surprise), providing tons of card selection/advantage, fliers and tricks. Nipping on its heels is the packed-full-of-fliers white. I think green is a little underrated and is tied with black in third place, as its top end has been significantly boosted. Black has some great cards but lacks in depth. Red, meanwhile, gets the usual core set shaft and I won’t be touching it with a ten foot pole unless its obviously extremely open or I crack an irresistible bomb.

With all of this in mind let’s see how my next draft turns out!

The draft started a little shaky as I gently tried to force my preferred colors, but as soon as I settled into black the quality came rollin’ in.

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Whew, just barely made the minimum amount of playables, looks like sideboard decisions will be mighty easy. I think this deck is quite good, with tons of card advantage and evasion. The curve is a little high and I’d like a few more removal spells but overall it should be a 2-1 or 3-0.

Match 1 Game 1 (vs Mons):

I win the roll, choose to play, and see the following opener. Keep or send it back?

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Similar to a two-lander, when I see a five-lander my instinct is to mull unless there is a good reason to keep. Generally that means a combination of a very mana hungry deck and two quality spells. This deck wants mana, but not that badly, and the quality of these two cards does not nearly make up for the flood that will inevitably occur. Mull!

My six is not much better, but still better than five: Swamp, 4x Island, Foresee. My opponent keeps and we’re off to the races. I find a Preordain for my second draw after a Swamp, and keep Corrupt and Cancel. Meanwhile Mons gets in touch with his inner goblin raider with a Goblin Piker. On turn four I have the option to either Foresee or hold Cancel mana up. I like getting pro-active with Foresee here as I’m not afraid of the Piker and most of green’s scariest drops start at five. Scry shows me two land, AEther Adept and Preordain. I draw the spells and ditch the land.

Meanwhile our villain lands an Obstinate Baloth and swings at my face. I draw a Swamp and cast Preordain before deciding on anything else, seeing a Swamp and a Phantom Beast. Again I take the spell and ditch the land. Next I play out the Beast and cross my fingers for it to stick around a while. Mons spends the next couple turns playing a Prized Unicorn after I bounce it back to his hand with Adept.

Next I draw another Foresee and use it to put a land on bottom while drawing into double Liliana’s Specter and Barony Vampire. I hold three mana up instead of playing out a dude, and am happy I did when I catch Duskdale Wurm with the Cancel. Here’s the current board state:

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The game plays out as you might expect, with me forcing discards and applying the flying beats as Mons succumbs to my dark forces.

Match 1 Game 2:

Mons chooses to play first and I have another tough mulligan decision:

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My best case scenario is drawing an island in the first three turns with another land so that I Cancel turn three and Foresee turn four. This is a fine start, if a little slow. However, if I whiff on the island I’ll be in a world of hurt. The Warlord’s Axe isn’t doing much in this hand, and Fireball probably won’t be put to good use until much much later in the game. The main problem with this hand is that pretty much every card is a late game card, and with only two land I need to both draw early action and lands. This is pretty unrealistic, let’s see what the next six have to offer:

3 swamp, mountain, island, Corrupt. On the bright side I have all of my colours, and Corrupt will gain me some of the life I’m surely to lose before I cast it. This is slightly better than a random five.

Mons starts with his goblin raiders again while I have a Barony Vampire to trade with his Vulshok Berserker. Unfortunately all the other cards I’m drawing are land, and even after I Corrupt a Canyon Minotaur I’m left at 8 life facing a Berserker and Goblin Piker. Armored Cancrix is a great stabilizer, until Mons steals it with Act of Treason bringing to one. I have a Fireball to clear his board and stay hopeful, but a Prodigal Pyromancer off the top forces the concession.

Match 1 Game 3:

Another mull, but at least an easy decision this time: 5 land and Liliana’s Specter. The six that follow only contain one land and I’m forced to go to five, but its a pretty darn good five:

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After drawing a Barony Vampire my Augury Owl scry’s Preordain, Azure Drake and Warlord’s Axe. What do you do? Think on it a sec.

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Ideally I would love to keep all of these cards, but without the land forthcoming that’s just not possible. Its tempting to toss the two expensive cards and keep the Preordain to find that sorely-needed land. However, I’ve always got this thing in the back of my brain, a voice constantly pestering me with one question: “how will you win this game?” This particular game won’t be won by the measly creature’s I’m currently holding, I can tell you that much. However, equipped with a Warlord’s Axe…small creatures + equipment are a nice combo in general, but especially Skeleton can actually just win a game on its own given some time. The drake is toss-able, but the Axe is currently my plan to victory, and its actually a pretty darn good one. I keep the Axe and Preordain on top, planning to use the Preordain to find a land past the Axe and run out the Skeleton with it next turn.

Everything goes according to plan, with Mons running out his trademark Goblin Piker and a Giant Spider. I draw a Corrupt and choose to play the Axe since neither of my other creature’s currently affects the board. Mons follows up with a Spined Wurm while I cross my fingers for a land to enable the Axe, but instead see Howling Banshee. I drop Barony Vampire looking to trade it and the Skeleton for Mons’ fatty.

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The trade does indeed take place and Mons follows up with an Obstinate Baloth as I draw a lovely swamp. My only option is to equip the Owl and hope to trade it for Mons’ 4/4 beater, but unfortunately my opponent has an Act of Treason to bring me to two, followed by Plummet to add insult to injury. There’s nothing left to do but wish him luck in the future and nurse my pride with some frozen yogurt.

Another day another draft, see ya’ll then.

Dylan Pratt (Jester123 on MODO)

Artist / Film / TV Show / Book of the Week:

Atmosphere / Clockwork Orange / Californication / Neuromancer