Draft #6 - Abandon my first pick, end up mediocre again

  Pack 1 pick 1:




 Cards I'm considering: Dearly Departed, Victim of Night


One thing I don't like about this format is that I'm not convinced Dearly Departed is a slam dunk. In almost every other format, I'd love to open a dragon-esque card like this. In this format, all this card can do is use up all your mana for a turn and get clutched, or departured, or grasped, or tapped with priest, etc. What's different about this from normal formats? Well, the answer is that people tend to build decks that vomit up guys, and so unless you've kept up with your opponent properly, spending an entire turn to play one vulnerable guy could just mean that you've exposed yourself to whatever your opponent has. It's not like Sunblast Angel or whatever where the card comes down and immediately gives you some defensive benefit, this card is just a dumb idiot 5/5.

Nevertheless, I'm still stuck on old draft philosophies, so I took it without a whole lot of serious consideration for the removal card (or any other card). Is this card even good?

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  Pack 1 pick 2:





Cards I'm considering: Elder Cathar, Spectral Rider, Chapel Geist

I'm pleased to see so many options in white after my white first pick, but I'm not sure which one is the best. Spectral Rider is the heaviest white commitment, but the deck I want to be drafting (the W/x aggro deck with a dragon finisher) utilizes it the best.

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  Pack 1 pick 3:





Cards I'm considering: Skirsdag High Priest

There aren't any serious white cards, so I have to take another color here. I was immediately drawn to the card of the highest power level, and didn't give much consideration to any other card, but maybe that's not right, since it would set me up to be B/W which I don't think is very good. Still, it doesn't feel right to take a card like Think Twice or Sensory Deprivation over this guy.

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  Pack 1 pick 4:





Cards I'm considering: Chapel Geist, Feeling of Dread, Silent Departure

I've come to evaluate this card very, very highly and I'm surprised to see it 4th pick. It's kind of wishy washy to take a 3rd color here, but I haven't seen much black so my thoughts are that I could end up in U/W, or U/B, or B/W and splash for this card. Overall, I think the only card to take over this here is Chapel Geist and that's if I want to stay in strictly white and try to read signals for my second color. Which line is more reasonable?

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  Pack 1 pick 5:




 Cards I'm considering: Walking Corpse, Shimmering Grotto, Selhoff Occultist

No white cards. It's starting to look bad for my first two picks, and none of these alternatives are looking any good. I chose Selhoff Occultist because it's more interesting than a doofy 2/2.

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  Pack 1 pick 6:




 Cards I'm considering: Delver of Secrets, Moon Heron, Sensory Deprivation

It looks like the blue is flowing, so I decide to move into it. Of these 3 choices, I feel like the heron is the most solid.

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  Pack 1 pick 7:




 Cards I'm considering: Makeshift Mauler, Selhoff Occultist

Lots of blue coming through

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  Pack 1 pick 8:





Cards I'm considering: Spectral Flight, Fortress Crab, Traveler's Amulet

I like Spectral Flight a lot in this format, just because of the edge it can give you in the aggro vs. aggro draws. I feel like crab is still generally undervalued, so if I need that kind of card in my deck I can pick it up later. I didn't consider Ghoulraiser because I still only have the high priest for a black card at this point, and I'm thinking I'll end up in U/W because of my first two picks.

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  Pack 1 pick 9:




 Cards I'm considering: Lost in the Mist, Wreath of Geists



Why this card? Well the answer is, prior to this draft I had conversations with John Moore and Justin Simpson about the mill deck, which is their favorite in this format, and how lots of the cards for it go late. I'm not too optimistic about white OR black, and I have a couple decent cards for U/x mill, so I took the wreath in case I started to pick up some late green mill components like Mulch so I could try this deck. Besides, my only alternative, Lost in the Mist, didn't really thrill me.


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  Pack 1 pick 10:




 Cards I'm considering: Grave Bramble, Stromkirk Patrol, Lost in the Mist








See? If I want them, they're usually available. I took Lost so I didn't have to feel bad about taking Wreath over it, but maybe the black or the green card is better. Still, Lost has staying in blue going for it. It might not matter too much. I hate how much thought you have to give to late picks like this that still probably won't matter too much.



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  Pack 2 pick 1:




 Cards I'm considering: Disciple of Griselbrand, Mausoleum Guard, Villagers of Estwald

Pretty underwhelming pack. The only reason I gave Villagers any consideration was because of the whole U/G mill train of thought from earlier. In the end, I only have a High Priest for a black card, and I have two strong white cards, so I go with the white card thinking I'll be U/W.

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  Pack 2 pick 2:




 Cards I'm considering: Stitcher's Apprentice, Deranged Assistant, Blazing Torch, Feeling of Dread

Tough pick for me. I pass on Blazing Torch a lot more than I feel like I should, so maybe I gave it some undeserved extra weight here. Stitcher's Apprentice would be excellent with either my U/W or U/B direction, and Feeling of Dread might be a little stronger overall if I do end up U/W. Deranged Assistant is also a very good engine card for U/B and still very playable in U/W. In the end, my presumed U/W deck was looking light on removal so far, and torch always gets a guy, so I took torch. This is a hard pick and I have no clue if I got it right.

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  Pack 2 pick 3:





Cards I'm considering: Spectral Rider, Claustrophobia, Makeshift Mauler, Curse of Death's Hold

This is another hard pick. I liked Spectral Rider but I didn't like what it would do to my mana (and besides, color commitment wise, if I took it half of my white cards would require WW on turn 2 to be most effective). I briefly considered Curse even though I kind of felt like I wouldn't end up U/B. Eventually I decided I was definitely playing blue and so the choice was between the 4/5 and the removal card. I went with the removal card, for the same reason I went with Torch last pick.

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  Pack 2 pick 4:





Cards I'm considering: Skaab Goliath, Stitcher's Apprentice, Gallows Warden

I like Skaab Goliath, but so far for my deck he would be a gas card without the necessary engine cards. I decided to take the engine card, especially since a blank 3/3 flyer would be kind of out of place in my deck.

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  Pack 2 pick 5:




Cards I'm considering: Gallows Warden, Silver-Inlaid Dagger, Unruly Mob

I don't have enough humans or a stalker yet, so I ultimately didn't choose dagger, leaving it down to mob vs. warden. I took warden because I felt like it was stronger in a vacuum, and I didn't have enough engine cards to make mob a strong choice yet.

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  Pack 2 pick 6:





Cards I'm considering: Feeling of Dread

I'm really happy to see this card here.

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  Pack 2 pick 7:




 Cards I'm considering: Mask of Avacyn, Abbey Griffin

I like the mask, but not enough to take it over creatures which I frequently end up light on.

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  Pack 2 pick 8:





Cards I'm considering: Markov Patrician

I don't know why I didn't consider Ghostly Possession. I don't normally consider it playable. I guess I wasn't feeling optimistic about my white.

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  Pack 2 pick 9:




Cards I'm considering: Disciple of Griselbrand

Same thing here. How good is ghostly possession?

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  Pack 2 pick 10:




Cards I'm considering: Deranged Assistant

Pretty happy to see this.

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  Pack 2 pick 11:





Cards I'm considering: Makeshift Mauler

And this.

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  Pack 3 pick 1:




Cards I'm considering: Isolated Chapel, Chapel Geist

Blech. I'm not thrilled with any of these cards. I took the chapel for these reasons

-I still wasn't feeling optimistic about white as a main color
-Geist would make the mana in my U/W deck pretty greedy
-The chapel would let me somehow weave 3 colors together if I needed to, most likely U/B with a splash of W for feeling of dread

What tipped the scale for me was:

-The chapel was foil and I wanted to offset some of the costs of losing in these drafts over and over

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  Pack 3 pick 2:




Cards I'm considering: Forbidden Alchemy, Unburial Rites

I chose Alchemy because of how awesome an engine card it is, how I'd likely have to stretch to play Unburial Rites, and how the only guy I have worth reanimating is Dearly Departed (well not like it's bad to reanimate makeshift maulers, just not exactly what I imagine doing with unburial rites).

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  Pack 3 pick 3:




 Cards I'm considering: Delver of Secrets, Silverchase Fox

I'm not sure why I took or even considered Delver.  I think because it was the only blue card, and I wasn't convinced I would play white as more than a splash.

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  Pack 3 pick 4:




 Cards I'm considering: Mindshrieker

I'm surprised to see this so late. Jarvis said that this was one of the few cards he'd take over Invisible Stalker first overall.

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  Pack 3 pick 5:




Cards I'm considering: Shimmering Grotto, Ghoulcaller's Chant

I took chant because I figured it would be awesome with maulers, and with the general direction of the U/B deck I was planning on making at this point.

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  Pack 3 pick 6:




Cards I'm considering: Stitched Drake

Picks like this feel like wonderful gifts.

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  Pack 3 pick 7:




Cards I'm considering: One-Eyed Scarecrow

At this point I decided I was definitely not going to use white as a main color, so I didn't even consider the other white cards.

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  Pack 3 pick 8:





Cards I'm considering: Feeling of Dread, Fortress Crab, Corpse Lunge

Surprised to see a feeling of dread here, but I took corpse lunge because I felt like it would be more useful in my deck, even if it does kinda suck.

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  Pack 3 pick 9:





Cards I'm considering: Corpse Lunge

If I knew another one was coming, I'd have taken Feeling of Dread. I don't like playing more than one Corpse Lunge.

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I don't really like this deck. Making pick comments in retrospect had me feeling like I was crazy for not staying in the U/W mindset the whole time, but hopefully when you see the deck and sideboard like this you understand why I felt that way: my white cards just aren't that good or plentiful. I went with 16 lands because I didn't have a drop bigger than 4.

Round 1:
In game 1, my opponent plays a turn 1 Reckless Waif on the play, so I end up taking a ton of damage very early. After I stabilize as best I can, he plays 2 more waifs and moan of the unhallowed, crashes with everyone to take me to 5, then bumps me out.

In game 2, not only does my opponent curve out with T1 Waif T2 Disciple of Griselbrand T3 Rakish Heir T4 Crossway Vampire (which isn't even that good of a start, it's just a guy every turn), but I don't ever draw a third land so I don't get a chance to play Magic and keep up.

Kind of a salty loss. I know my deck wasn't that good, but I hate it when I can't even make any decisions.