THS #5

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Really good pack. Hard pick. I think Boon Satyr, Keepsake Gorgon, and Lightning Strike are all pretty good first picks. I also think Baleful Eidolon, Aqueous Form, and Battlewise Hoplite are excellent cards too and I'd be OK first picking them if there weren't way better cards.

I went with Boon Satyr. Of my 3 top choices, it is the toughest to predict and/or play around.


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This pack is a lot worse. Luckily there's an ordeal for me. I wouldn't be unhappy wheeling that scholar and going B/W.

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Another hard pick. I could reasonably pick Nimbus Naiad, Voyaging Satyr, or Ordeal of Purphoros. It looks as if the players to my right might not want blue or red cards.

I chose Ordeal because I think it's the strongest card. I could easily take Voyaging Satyr and try to stay green, but I need to practice staying open early in drafts and seeing how I end up.

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Having 4 different colors worth of cards in 4 picks and no real idea what colors are open is not really where I wanted to be, but alas. Of these cards, Pharika's Cure is the strongest single color card. I like it more than Sip because I think it's important to have answers to very fast starts.

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Shipwreck Singer is awesome and the rest of these cards are replaceable.

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It looks like I have a decent chance of ending up U/B if cards like Triton Tactics are coming this late.

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I took this over Boon of Erebos because I'm not locked in to U/B (or anything really) yet. I generally don't like playing Sealock Monster so I didn't even consider it. I'm still trying to practice "hard mode" drafting and I'm not sure if now is the time to commit and take the black card (or the blue one) or still try to get a feel for what colors are being passed.

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Here's where I'm at. I'm very likely to play black and very unlikely to play red or white. I'd like to play U/B if possible (since it's better than G/B). Nimbus Naiad is likely the strongest card in the pack anyway, so that makes this decision pretty easy, and I think I've locked into the U/B mindset here.

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I like Psychic Intrusion a lot, and knowing I'm trying to end up U/B, maybe it's a better pick overall, but I took Harpy. I'd rather just have a good creature that I know I'll always play, rather than a card like Intrusion that might not be useful vs. a low curve heroic deck.

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Cheaper is better. Horizon Scholar is underwhelming.

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I always tend to cut cards I think are better over ones that I don't really want to play in spots like this. Maybe that's bad, since there's a good chance I'd have played a giant if I ended up with one. With cards like Giant I always feel like I'll have a chance to take them if I really want them.

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Man, why couldn't these be spread out a little more? Voyage's End is the best of these 4 by far (the other 3 being Omenspeaker, Harpy and Aqueous Form) but I'd love having all of them.

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omg

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I'm reasonably happy with this final product. I don't think this deck is great, but it's fine. Unfortunately there are not many deckbuilding decisions or sideboard options. If I didn't rare draft the Xenagos in pack 3 I'd have taken Blood-Toll Harpy, but I don't think my deck would be that much better with an extra one.

I won round 1 vs. a R/W aggro deck. In game 1 he only played mountains and I beat him down with  2 drops. In game 2, by turn 5 he had played five lands and two spells, both of which cost 1 mana. I bet he was playing 17 lands. I won very easily with flyers.

Round 2 I played against the U/B mirror. He also had a Shipwreck Singer and a Voyage's End, but he didn't have any super notable cards. I won game 1 with flyers, and he missed a few drops in game 2 and died to a Triton Fortune Hunter that I drew two cards from.

Round 3 my opponent appeared to be playing B/W. In game 1 he cast one spell, and it was a Gray Merchant on turn 5. He died to my early creatures after he played it. He had islands in game 2 and put up more of a fight, with Sentry of the Underworld, Wingsteed Rider, and the white Ordeal on a turn 3 Burnished Hart, but I had early creatures backed up with Lash of the Whip and Griptide for the offending creatures.

I definitely didn't expect to 3-0 with this deck, especially given how my draft started out, but I'll take it. Plus, I got a Xenagos out of it too.

I got a lot of mileage from Prescient Chimera in this draft. I've been hating on him since I started overvaluing cheap aggressive strategies in this format, but he is actually kinda nice if you survive the first few turns, and especially in U/B decks like this with lots of spells.

I'm really happy that my deck came together despite how wacky my first 7 or so picks were. One of the reasons that I've been historically bad at assembling limited decks was because I have a lot of anxiety during the draft portion about making sure I'm in the "right" colors, getting cut, and not ending up with enough playables, and it's always been easy for me to rationalize frantically switching colors over a late errant power card in a color that I had previously abandoned. This draft gave me a little more confidence in the "stay open and adapt" strategy.