Looking good so far.
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 2:
Cards I'm considering: Inaction Injunction, Gore-House Chainwalker
This pack kinda sucks. I want to be blue/red after my first pick so I look at the two decent blue/red cards (even though neither of them are the Izzet guild). I've seen a lot of successful U/R decks be aggressive with cards like this and Pursuit of Flight so I take the creature.
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 3:
Bloodfray Giant is super strong and fits with the strategy I just mentioned. I'm not sure if it's a better card in the abstract than Ultimate Price, but I do think it's the pick here.
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 4:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 5:
I'm not sure what happened. There are no strong blue or red cards and three excellent G/W cards (judgment, herald, justiciar). In this format I often feel like if you start off drafting a guild and then the person to your right immediately hops into it, more often than not you are screwed, but I still don't have a good intuition for when to abandon your first few picks and switch.
In this case, I'm thinking about Justiciar vs. Judgment, and I go with Judgment because it's a better cut vs. Niv-Mizzet, and I could in theory end up a UR deck that splashes for it.
Re: Traitorous Instinct, I don't like taking it here because I feel like if I want them, I can get them later, and I also feel like my colors might be drying up so I don't want to end up too deep into a shallow card pool.
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 6:
The Gatecreeper Vine is an appealing card if I seriously want to entertain the idea of switching to GW. I don't want to end up with a pile of unplayable 5 color garbage though, so I just take the gate (which is still on-color for me now).
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 7:
That's comforting, I guess.
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 8:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 9:
The gate is really appealing but I already have the feeling that the people to my right are taking blue and red cards, and I don't want to end up short on quality playables.
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 10:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 11:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 12:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 13:
I feel like this card is better than this. I don't know what to think.
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 14:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 15:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 1:
Sucky pack for U/R. If I wasn't tempted to switch before, I am now, between Lyev Skyknight and Centaur Healer.
I end up controlling myself and taking the best U/R card. At least it's a decent card.
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 2:
Cool, nothing exciting for U/R. I really really really want to take a white card, but I still didn't want to pull the trigger.
I went with a middling card - Vassal Soul. I could play it in U/R, but if I end up going U/W or G/W I could play it in that too. If I knew I was going to switch for sure I'd take Trostani's Judgment.
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 3:
More nothing. I'm not interested in Tenement Crasher this early. I end up going with Vassal Soul for the same reason as before.
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 4:
This is more like it, I guess. I love Volatile Rig but if I'm going to make U/R work I need cards like this.
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 5:
All of the black/green cards flowing this direction are troubling. Nevertheless, happy to have an electromancer.
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 6:
I'm happy about this card. However, I'm still bothered by all of the strong playables left in the pack.
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 7:
More black cards! I feel like Thrill Kill Assassin is better than this.
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 8:
Ugh. Nothing for me so I just cut a troublesome card.
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 9:
I don't want another backlash and Axebane Guardian is definitely better than 9th pick, so I take it because whoever let it go this late doesn't deserve to have it. There would have been a Keening Apparition for my white deck.
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 10:
I wish Eyes in the Skies wasn't in this pack, but I'm still nervous about playables so I take big crashes.
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 11:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 12:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 13:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 14:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 15:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 1:
This pack is OK for me. I love Lobber Crew so he went straight in.
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 2:
I need guys more than card draw. Besides, Stealer is kind of card draw anyway, especially if I get a Pursuit of Flight.
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 3:
Having 2 of these guys makes me feel a lot better about the direction of my deck.
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 4:
I'm glad I got at least one of these to go with my 2 electromancers. I feel like having two Skyline Predators would be clunky.
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 5:
Solid man.
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 6:
I was happy to take Pursuit of Flight here, but I'm still kind of in shock about Assassin's Strike and Trostani's Judgment still being around.
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 7:
yus
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 8:
Incredibly happy to see this guy so late. I'm starting to feel better about my U/R deck.
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 9:
Tough call for me. I like Syncopate a lot, since it's only ever not useful in the late game when people are flooding out, and it's excellent with two Electromancers. I like Skywatch too but didn't really want another 6 drop.
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 10:
I'm not confident about the two Vassal Souls I already have making it in my deck, so I just chop Towering Indrik because I can never seem to beat it when it's in play.
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 11:
Close call. I don't have many SB cards for this deck and I feel like I'd rather have a decent one than another mediocre dude, given that I already have a fine amount of playables for my deck.
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 12:
I wish I'd have taken Codex Shredder. I find myself boarding it in a lot in slower matchups.
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 13:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 14:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 15:
My Pick:
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As pessimistic as I was during the draft, I don't hate this deck. Neither of the vassal souls made it in, so I'm glad I have one sideboard card, even if it is kind of ehhhh.
Round 1
I was resigned to my fate after I lost game 1 to a bunch of speedy Rakdos guys capped off with a Tenement Crasher, but he got stuck on 3 in game 2 while I gave it to him with an Electromancer and a Gore-House Chainwalker. Game 3 was an interesting dance, with him taking me to 14 with a Rakdos Flailer with Deviant Glee and then the board stalling (since it was clear he wanted to 6 me with its activated ability and not trade for my two Electromancers). After carefully weaving through the rest of his crappy creatures with counters and an Annihilating Fire, I risked killing him with Traitorous Blood through the possibility of Ultimate Price (which I hadn't seen him play yet, but I still passed one in pack 1). He didn't have it and I won.
Round 2
Both of these games were non-games. My opponents only 4 cards in game 1 were Forest, Grove of the Guardian, and two Centaur's Heralds, so I took him out with Stealer of Secrets and Pursuit of Flight. My opponent got to play more cards in game 2, but he still couldn't get a 5th mana to activate his Grove and ended up having to trade all his guys away to my mighty Electromancer squad.
I offered the split to my finals opponent, not because I hated my deck but because I wanted to play Minecraft with my niece before she went home. Of course, my opponent declined.
Round 3
In game 1, I got to play an electromancer and a Bloodfray Giant, but my opponent had two quick Keening Apparitions and a New Prahv Guildmage that I couldn't remove, so I died to a fast clock with detain backup. I drew a lot of counters in this game that I couldn't play because my opponent's cards were so cheap and already on the board.
I had a better draw in game 2, and I was going to win with a very well crafted Traitorous Instinct turn (on a Tower Drake with Knightly Valor), but my opponent's very last card was Mizzium Skin. UGH
Once again, there's no justice. I can't seem to win if I decline my opponent's split, and I can't seem to win if my opponents decline my split. I hate that this pigeonholes my finals options into exactly "say nothing unless they offer a split, in which case, take it."
Nonsense aside, I would say that this draft went OK, despite how frantic I was feeling at the beginning of pack 2 that my deck wouldn't come together. I don't know how often switching is right in this format, but the answer just can't be "never switch," because I've definitely had drafts where I first picked an awesome Rakdos card, took another one second, and then never saw another quality card for the rest of the draft and had a deck full of terribles because I didn't switch. I just don't have a good grip on how often to pull the trigger, mostly because it is terrifying to abandon your first few picks when they are supposedly the highest quality cards you'll have in the draft.
If you have any thoughts about this draft or switching in RTR in general, I'd love to hear them.
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