I'm so glad Lorwyn is finally out on Magic the Gathering online.  I quickly got tired of drafting Time Spiral Block and I really did not have the drive to do so anymore.  I am sure I learned all that I could from that format, and I figured it out finally.  Well I figured it out well enough to crack the mythical 1700 barrier that I set for myself in my Drafting with a Donkey series (By the way, that is going to get a fresh start, and my goals for the new Donkey series will be listed than!)

1700 is a pretty low goal, but I got there, and sadly it is nothing worth writing home about.  The new set offers up a tribal theme and I have some pretty bad memories from the last tribal themed set in regards to limited play.  Sparksmith killed my dreams more often than not, and if it was not him, than Timberwatch Elf would give me another nightmare when Legions was introduced.  We may not have power commons like those two guys were in this limited format, but what we do have is a solid limited environment where tribes intermingle between colors.  White's Kitkhins play well with Green Kitkins, and the Blue Merfolk work well with the White Merfolk.  I know this may be pretty simple, but within the limitations of each color's "slice of pie" the tribes have taken up a nice well rounded form. 

Okay, enough of my rambling, I want to show you my most recent sealed pool, and how I got to where I ended up (That would be a nice healthy three wins and two losses.  Thankfully it was a release league, so I am not out much.)

I am going to take a look at this pool in two ways, the first will be by tribes, and than the second look will ignore the tribes and just look at the remaining cards.  Let's start off with Kithkin

Kithkin:  In white we have the two Changelings (yeah I know they are not really Kithkin, but they count!) Wizened Cenn is nice we have the Crusade effect going on here.  Thoughtweft Trio is a rather large man for a very small cost, and we have some Plover Knights for evasion.  We have a few dorks in white as well with the Springjack Knight, Kinsbaile Skirmisher and Knight of Meadowgrain.  Surge of Thoughtweft gives us a cycling pump effect, and the white Kithkin looks really solid in my opinion.

The green Kithkin though just do not exsist.  In fact there is not a single green Kithkin in my entire pool.  Frowns.  I really enjoy the Daggerdare, he's a cute little pump spell. 

Well if Kithkin could not go two colors, maybe Merfolk could?

White Merfolk include (Wellgabber Apothecary), and um...just him (I know, I know, my Changelings count, but you all already know that.).  I consider this guy to be pretty terrible, so he would not make the cut in a Merfolk centered deck. 

My blue Merfolk though includes one of the best blue commons in the Douser, but only two more fishmen to go along with him.  I know, I know, the Harbinger could always go fetch him up, but he is getting joined by Adept and Sygg, so that is a total of four merfolk I would consider playing, so the Merfolk tribe has to be knocked out of contention in regards to this pool. 

Let's take a look at another White tribe, the Giants.  None, neat.  So far I am weak in all the major white tribes minus the Kithkin, so maybe there will be some stellar giants in red.

Red giants include (Blind Spot Giant) (Oh yuck sick gross) Lowland Oaf (maybe good with some gob... err Boggarts) and the changelings. So far I am not impressed with the tribal aspect of the pool.  I mean Kithkin is playable, but merfolk and giants are out.  We're left with Elves, Boggarts, Treefolk, Faeries, and Elementals. 

The green elves that I do have are not in my mind an impressive bunch.  Vanquisher sure is nice, as is the protection from Goblins elf, but there really is not much here for me to take notice about in the elf tribe.  The black elves are nothing too impressive either, we have a Scarblade, who would be insane with a lot of elves, but we are potentially looking at six playable dorks, so he would be too much of a stretch. 

Boggarts are the pretty much the same as elves, we may have more of them, but they are not exactly quality men, and I am missing a key Boggart card in Fodder Launch.  Too bad, I think Knucklebone Witch would have been a lot of fun to play with. 

Faeries are also weak, and this continues a sad trend in this pool.  In fact the Fae are pretty much not here at all.  Frowns.  It's looking more and more like I am going to mash some cards together to get my forty.

Elementals look pretty solid.  We have Smokebraider, who is key to the tribe.  We have Flamekin Bladewhirl, Brawler and Spitfire.  The later two are a bit mana intensive if you will, but are solid beaters.  Ashling is a solid bomb, so he (she?) would take a prime spot in the deck. 

At this point I am going to take a look at all the playable cards in each color. 

So red was in, I needed a second color.  Black looked nice, it really did, but I think that was because Nameless Inversion was staring back at me.  In the end I decide that I was going to be Red White.  I would be splashing Black for the Inversion and the Eyeblight, it would be easy to splash with Twig,  and the off color Vivid land.  White had a really good Kithkin theme, and a giant man bomb in the Trio.  Plus it gave me a couple of fliers, which are Changelings, so they could play nice with the Smokebraider.  Plover Knight is going to be fantastic. 

Let's take a look at the final deck that again left me with a three win two loss record.

At least eight points ended up with two packs, so the entire release league was not a wash!  Thanks for reading, and join me soon for a look at an under the radar standard deck that has been wrecking in the eight man queues!