Welcome everyone! Today I’ll lead you through my first 8-4 ROE draft walkthrough. See as I see, think as I think, and yell at your computer screens safely from your own home at my picks. I chose this draft because it really exemplifies my take on the format. Enjoy!

I’m pretty happy with the draft overall. A nice mix of removal, card advantage and win conditions should result in a 2-1 or 3-0. Let’s see what interesting build decisions there are…

The curve is a little higher than I like, but there are some very powerful cards. I end up a little short on playables and am forced to play a Warmonger’s Chariot and Luminous Wake, which is actually not bad at keeping me alive while my bombs come online. In retrospect, however, the Inquisition of Kozilek would be a better maindeck than the Chariot considering my game plan and creature count. On to the games!

Match 1 Game 1 (vs Flashjack711):

I win the flip and choose to draw. Opening hand: 3 Swamps, 1 Plains, Null Champion, Lone Missionary, Artisan of Kozilek. Easy keep. Flashjack711 keeps as well, and leads with a Mountain and Island, which prompts me to play the Lone Missionary first. This is to draw out any cheap removal such as Spawning Breath or Staggershock that my opp is willing to waste. He does indeed have Spawning Breath for the poor lonely Missionary and follows up with Ogre Sentry.

Meanwhile I have drawn Dread Drone, Smite and Survival Cache. I could play either Null Champion or Survival Cache, but Null Champion doesn’t do much against his Sentry so I prefer to Survival Cache while I have the window. Flashjack711 plays an Emrakul’s Hatcher while I’ve drawn Luminous Wake, Caravan Escort and Guard Duty. Neither Guard Duty nor Luminous Wake are necessary right now, and dropping both levelers leaves me open to Wrap in Flames and Forked Bolt, so I decide to drop Null Champion and leave mana up for Smite. In retrospect I like Caravan Escort and one level up better since it makes better use of my mana.

Flashjack711 attacks into my smite and drops a Bloodrite Invoker. I draw Guard Duty, level up the Champion and play the Escort. My opp simply passes the turn while I draw Mammoth Umbra, level up the Champion and pass back. Opp plays Ogre Sentry while I draw Corpsehatch and level up the Champion again, after which Flashjack711 Heat Rays it EOT. Opp then draws and Vendettas the Escort before attacking with Bloodrite Invoker. I draw Gideon Jura, an amazing card but not when stuck on my original four land.

I Luminous Wake his Bloodrite Invoker and he passes the turn back. I draw the plains (woot!) and play Dread Drone to prepare for Gideon’s entrance onto the Battlefield. Here is the current board state and my hand for reference:

At this point I’m looking quite good, with plenty of removal to protect bomb #1, and with a second bomb in reserve. Flashjack711 draws and passes the turn yet again. I draw a mountain and play Gideon Jura, using his +2 ability. I don’t mind trading a spawn and a Gideon activation for his Bloodrite Invoker even with the Wake, as it will be online soon anyway. Before this occurs my opponent plays Kozilek, Butcher of My Face. So much for confidence!

I don’t feel like annihilating four or dealing with a giant blocker so I Corpsehatch the Butcher after drawing a plains. Opp plays See Beyond into Vent Sentinel, and my planeswalker cringes. On my turn I draw Warmonger’s Chariot and attack with Gideon before saccing all the spawn but one to play Artisan, returning Caravan Escort(it will be easier to level up than Null Champion and combos nicely with the Mammoth Umbra once there). Flashjack711 answers with a Vendetta on the Artisan, going down to 4 life.

On his turn my opponent Heat Rays the Escort and plays a Guard Gomozoa before passing. I draw a mountain and cast Mammoth Umbra on the Dread Drone to apply maximum pressure. Then I activate Gideon and swing with both. My opp made a crucial error here, can you spot it?

His Vent Sentinel is still untapped! He should have used the Vent Sentinel in response to my Gideon activation, but now that all damage will be prevented to it his opportunity has passed. He sacrifices a sentry to the Mammoth Drone and blocks Gideon with the jellyfish. I play out the mountain and Chariot and pass the turn as Flashjack711 attempts to damage my Gideon.

Flashjack711 now plays Essence Feed and passes the turn. I draw Hartebeest and search out a Hyena Umbra to put on the Dread Drone before activating Gideon, to which my opp has no response but a post-priority “jeeeeees misclick”. Poor guy.

Flashjack711 plays another Ogre Sentry and a Bloodrite Invoker and this time does damage my Gideon in response to the activation, leaving Mr Jura at 2 life. I equip the Beest with the Chariot and swing with all three dudes. He annihilates two spawn and blocks with Guard Gomozoa and spawn tokens. My opp then plays a Valakut Fireboar before finishing off Gideon and passing the turn.

We both spend the next few turns drawing and playing land, however my opponent is activating his Invoker and Sentinel so manages to get up to 16 life to my 14 before dropping Kargan Dragonlord. I draw Cadaver Imp and use it to bring back Artisan and Null Champion, to which he responds with a Flame Slash and Last Gasp on the two smaller guys while leveling his Dragonlord to 4/4 and swinging in. I Guard Duty the Dragonlord and patiently wait for one of my Invokers to finish the game, which only takes two more draws. Which is convenient, as if I had to wait two more turns than that the Vent Sentinel would have finished me off.

I definitely got lucky that game with my opp misplaying twice to keep my Gideon alive that much longer. A hard-fought game, with only nine cards left in my library and thirteen in my opponent’s. Whew, on to number two!

Match 1 Game 2:

Pre-game sideboarding: considering his defender deck full of removal, I think I need to come up with a better way to punch through than Dawnglare Invoker in case he has removal for it. Meet Pathrazer of Ulamog. Normally I would never advocate playing this card in any deck without acceleration and lots of it, but when you expect a game to go to turn 20 or even later, Pathrazer becomes a viable way to victory. I side out the Lone Missionary since it is pretty ineffectual against multiple Ogre Sentries.

Flashjack711 chooses to draw first, and I keep a hand of 2 mountains, Evolving Wilds, Flame Slash, Caravan Escort and Pathrazer while he mulligans once. I start with the Escort, a level and a Warmonger’s Chariot while my opponent has nothing. I draw more land and in response to equipping the Chariot my Escort gets Heat Ray'ed.

Kargan Dragonlord is the follow-up, and I draw Artisan of Kozilek. My opp has 2 mountains, 2 swamps and the Dragonlord in play so I decide its definitely worth a couple damage to let him sink 2-3 mana into his leveler. He plays a mountain and swings before leveling it three times. I draw Dread Drone, play it and burn up the Dragonlord(hand: Pathrazer and Artisan, board: Drone, Chariot, 3 spawn and 6 land). Flashjack711 replaces his bomb with an Ogre Sentry and passes back.

At this point I’m in no rush to play the Pathrazer and would rather have another threat by returning the Escort, so I use Artisan to do just that after which Flashjack711 Spawning Breath’s the Dread Drone, following up with Emrakul’s Hatcher. I draw Mammoth Umbra but don’t feel like playing into my opponent’s open swamp, so I swing with the Artisan, which gets chumped, before equipping the Escort and leveling it twice. Flashjack711 draws and concedes.

This article is getting a little lengthy so I’ll let your eyes unglaze, cut it off here and finish the matches next week. As usual your comments are very much appreciated and I expect, indeed embrace criticism at the very least regarding the Pathrazer sideboard plan. Ta-ta for now!

Dylan Pratt - Jester123 on MODO

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

Rodrigo y Gabriela / A Serious Man / Arrested Development / Don Quixote