This is a pretty hard pick because this pack is so underwhelming. A lot of the cards are fine, but nothing really grabs me, you know?
The cards I'm considering are Nyxborn Triton, Archetype of Aggression, and Ephara's Enlightenment. I think the strongest one is the Enlightenment, but I hate the idea of starting out with a 2 color card. Nyxborn Triton is awesome, but it's not super splashy. The Archetype has OK stats and a neat ability, but he might be hard to use since the trample ability is best in either red/green (where green is usually the more dominant color) or red/black (which I haven't seen a good iteration of yet in BTT).
I went with Enlightenment, just to try it out.
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Pack 1 pick 2:
Another kind of underwhelming pack. If I had taken Archetype, I'd take Kragma Butcher I think, but since I wanted to use Enlightenment I took the Eidolon. I think this card is pretty good (if it is a bit expensive to bestow) and it's not even bad as a 3 drop if you have some other good auras for it (and conveniently, I already have one).
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Pack 1 pick 3:
The secret must be out about this guy, or maybe it never really was a secret. Most white decks in this format are full of cheap, efficient guys, so this is just more power for less mana. The only other good cards in this pack are the black cards, but they don't go too well with what I'm trying to draft (and aren't strong enough to switch into in my opinion).
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Pack 1 pick 4:
I saw the Retraction Helix and got excited, and then I saw Glimpse. This card is excellent. It's hard to anticipate and it makes it easy to beat opponents that are just sitting around not winning.
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Pack 1 pick 5:
I still need creatures, so I kind of wanted Sun Guide here, but Retraction Helix is just too good to pass I think.
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Pack 1 pick 6:
Very happy to take this Triton, especially since there isn't much else.
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Pack 1 pick 7:
Maybe I like this card too much, but I think it plays a lot of roles in this format. I love versatile, cheap cards.
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Pack 1 pick 8:
At this point it would take a lot for me to switch out of U/W, so I just cut the card that I felt would be most effective against my deck.
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Pack 1 pick 9:
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Pack 1 pick 10:
I actually think this card is reasonable, and it becomes awesome if you get to reuse things like Fate Foretold and Chosen by Heliod. I do want to try out Gorgon's Head at some point, but I plan on being more evasive than usual in this deck so I feel like its payoff is lower than the Serpent.
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Pack 1 pick 11:
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Pack 2 pick 1:
Wow, awesome pack. Hard passing Whip but Phalanx Leader is just the card I wanted to see.
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Pack 2 pick 2:
Man, I want Battlewise Hoplite but Wingsteed Rider is too strong.
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Pack 2 pick 3:
Well, this got ugly fast. Maybe Prescient Chimera is better than Sealock Monster here, but I went with the Monster since I don't really want to play against it and it could be an effective card against the beefcake decks.
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Pack 2 pick 5:
It was either Battle Priest or Chimera, and I want to keep my curve low.
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Pack 2 pick 6:
Nice, now I can give my Battle Priest flying.
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Pack 2 pick 7:
Not really the ideal deck for this guy, but I can see it being useful if I flood out (which I always do) and have some nice combat tricks like Battlewise Valor. If I'm lucky enough to get a Voyage's End, whooooooo doggie. Also, hey, it's a human so it can ride on the Cavalry Pegasus.
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Pack 2 pick 8:
I actually think this card gets way better with Born of the Gods, since there are a lot more enchantment creatures, especially non-bestow ones. I mean, have you played against Courser of Kruphix yet?
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Pack 2 pick 9:
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Pack 3 pick 1:
Well, at least my decision is easy. This format can be very trick-oriented at times, and Gods Willing is both a trick and a trick trump.
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Pack 3 pick 2:
Bleargh, crappy pack. I don't really want another Battle Priest (and it's likely to table anyway). I guess that makes Last Breath the easy choice, since it can remove some problem guys (although I hate giving them 4 life in decks like this that can't go super silly with heroic).
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Pack 3 pick 3:
I need people, and this guy's a people. I took him over the Pegasus since I need to hit hard, and even though 2 isn't really that hard, it's harder than 1.
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Pack 3 pick 4:
Nice! Not only is this the only card I can reasonably use, but it's one I like a lot.
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Pack 3 pick 5:
This is a really tough pick. I chose Dauntless Onslaught because I only have one Wingsteed Rider and no other good heroes, and I'm looking like more of a barf-up-100-guys than a make-one-guy-awesome deck anyway.
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Pack 3 pick 6:
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This deck didn't turn out quite as I planned, but I don't hate it, so that's a plus. Floodtide Serpent didn't make it due to lack of cantrip auras (as well as auras in general) and Sealock Monster was too demanding on blue mana. I went with 16 lands because of the super low curve. I considered 15, but I wanted to have a shot at bestowing my two good bestow creatures.
Round 1
In game 1 I played a Loyal Pegasus and a bunch of other losers out early, but I only got my opponent down to 8 before losing to a Shipbreaker Kraken that I have no answer for.
Game 2 was pretty interesting. It was very long and drawn out. I had some decent early guys but my opponent played Arbiter of the Ideal and started to go aggressive with it. I responded with Phalanx Leader and one spell to make my team more respectable, but that dream got shut down pretty quickly with a removal spell. It looked like I was able to make it an interesting race since I could tap his only other flying creature (a Nimbus Naiad) with my Ephara's Warden, until the first inspired trigger of the Arbiter revealed Ashiok. My opponent's plan then turned from "beat with Arbiter and trigger inspired a bunch of times" to "cast Ashiok and defend forever." Fortunately I had Aqueous Form on my lowly 2/4 Setessan Battle Priest to keep some slow pressure up. I chose to attack my opponent rather than Ashiok since there was no way I was grinding Ashiok down far enough with just one creature. Things were looking bad until I drew Glimpse of the Sun God and had a reasonable path to victory - most of my creatures were 2 power, so if I could get my opponent down to 10 or so then I could tap his team and crash in to win. Unfortunately an untimely Breaching Hippocamp made that very difficult, since it gave him 3 surprise blockers (the Hippocamp, the Arbiter, and the creature he got from its inspired trigger). I counted up the damage on the swing back and realized it would be lethal, so I burned my Battlewise Valor on the Battle Priest to get more damage in and survive at 2 should I need to. My opponent had one more draw step to kill me and didn't, so I was able to bestow Ghostblade Eidolon to win next turn.
Game 3 was a strange game. I had a Ghostblade Eidolon on 3 with Ephara's Enlightenment on 4, so I had a decent clock but my opponent had Shipwreck Singer and Shrike Harpy, which became a 4/4 since I had no other reasonable way to win the game other than the Eidolon. I offered the "trade" the turn after he cast Harpy (it wasn't really a trade since I had Battlewise Valor in my hand), but he just took the damage. Not wanting to attack into a bunch of mana the next turn, I cast Aqueous Form on my double striker. My opponent responded by copying his Harpy with Fated Infatuation, which I had no choice but to make a 4/4. After trying to shrink my Eidolon to a 1/1, I used Battlewise Valor to make it a 3/3 and crack my opponent down to 6.
The next turn my opponent attacked me down to 5 and passed. I basically reasoned that if the Eidolon's fate was to die, it probably would have died many turns ago, so I should lean on it as my only way to win. I bestowed Nyxborn Triton on it to make it a 4/4, so it would still be lethal through a Shipwreck Singer activation, and hoped for the best. Lucky for me, my opponent had nothing and died.
I totally did not expect to win that match, especially after the first game and the first half of the second game.
Round 2 was vs. the other U/W deck. (Two blue decks so far, one of them with Fated Infatuation - no wonder my blue was so skimpy.)
We traded the first two games pretty quickly. I can't remember the details of those games, but I think his deck was better than mine. I won a pretty awesome game 3 after my opponent attacked me for lethal-in-2-turns with all of his creatures except two, which left him with just enough blockers for me to tap with Glimpse. On my turn I untapped and cast Battlewise Valor and Dauntless Onslaught on my Phalanx Leader to kill my opponent from 13 with two other creatures in play.
I feel like I played well to win, but I also can't deny that I got outrageously lucky in both matches.
I got destroyed in the finals by a R/G deck that cast Arbor Colossus by turn 6 both games.
As far as what I learned from this draft, I feel like aggressive is always better than non-aggressive in this format - my deck was not very good and I still made the finals just by attacking with 2 drops. I also was able to verify that Glimpse of the Sun God is in fact very very strong and easily worthy of a first pick.
Ephara's Enlightenment is pretty good, but I don't know if I'd first pick it again - you basically have to force U/W to use it.
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