Me
Greg Ogreenc
Ben Friedman
Joseph Kambourakis
Bryan Veil
Brock Parker
Sebastien Alarie
Jacob Gagnon
I might have got Bryan and Sebastien mixed up because I don't know / didn't play against either of them.
I opened a really strong pack with Kiora, the Crashing Wave and Ornitharch. I've never played with Kiora, but I have played with Ornitharch and although it's hyped up as one of the best cards to open, the best non-rare, etc. I've still been kind of unimpressed with it. Obviously big flying creatures have always been good and probably will always be good, but the times I've cast this card have always ended up with my opponent making it a 5/5 and then dancing around it with Voyage's End, Griptide, etc. I suppose I dislike it in the same kind of way that Ben Stark dislikes the U/B god - it doesn't do much to dig you out of holes vs. the best decks (fast two drop ordeal decks) and all it does is help you put the game away faster if you're even or slightly ahead.
Still, I took it anyway, since I didn't want to commit to U/G right off the bat.
I took Bile Blight second, Asphyxiate third, Elite Skirmisher fourth, and Odunis River Trawler fifth. I wasn't really seeing quality white cards, so I focused on trying to wheel the Marshmist Titans I was passing and hoping to open Gray Merchants in the second and third packs.
I opened Wingsteed Rider in the second pack, and decided to just go with it, hoping to wheel a million Scholars of Athreos like I normally do. I didn't get bombarded with great white, but I got enough cards to make a respectable deck, plus I did end up with one Scholar. I opened Celestial Archon in the 3rd pack and got passed the Nighthowler, so I was liking where I was at.
I think this deck is good but not fantastic. It's creature light (all my decks in this format seem to end up like that) and it's a bit confused about what its gameplan should be (does it want to play a low drop into an ordeal, or does it want to kill everything and win with Ornitharch?) but I liked all the cards in it well enough.
Round 1 I played vs. Jacob Gagnon, who was immediately to my right. Turns out he ended up in U/G, so if I took Kiora and tried to go U/G I would have got destroyed. He mulliganed to 5 in game 1 and I cleaned up pretty easily with a turn 1 Favored Hoplite, turn 2 Ordeal draw. He kept a 2 lander on the play in game 2 and didn't make a land drop on turn 3, so I was celebrating my victory until I started missing my land drops (after keeping swamp-swamp-plains on the draw). I had a reasonable amount of pressure but not being able to cast my Wingsteed Rider to keep the pressure up to the max really hurt me.
I made a play that I have been thinking about a lot, wondering if it was a mistake. On my turn 5 I had Blood-Toll Harpy with Ordeal of Erebos and one +1/+1 counter on it, and he had some doofy ground creature and four lands untapped (GGGU). My hand was Chosen by Heliod, Celestial Archon and maybe one or two other cards that weren't super relevant. I attacked into four open mana without much thought, triggered Ordeal and made my guy a 4/3, and then got ambushed by Horizon Chimera. I was kind of unhappy to lose my awesome threat like that, but I don't know for sure if it would have been a good play to cast the aura before combat. I did pass Horizon Chimera, but the Harpy already had kind of a big target on its head and if he shows up with Griptide or Voyage's End there, I don't want to lose out on another card.
After my offense got taken out, I ended up dying to a huge Scourge of Skola Vale.
In game 3, my opponent played two Agent of Horizons and then Prophet of Kruphix. I was able to build a reasonable board but I couldn't beat the two Agents being unblockable each turn (with the ability to keep building a board on my turn) and I eventually died to a Sudden Storm.
I feel pretty crappy to have lost that match since I was so far ahead and could have possibly prevented it, but oh well.
The worst happened: Ben also lost round 1 (to Greg) and I got paired vs. him in round 2. He was U/G also, which was strange since Greg took the Kiora and ended up G/R splashing blue.
I got trashed in game 1 after I immediately killed a turn 4 Horizon Chimera with Bile Blight, only to see Ben cast another one on turn 5. If I had waited, I could have got them both, but given that Jacob had one too, and that Bile Blight could easily be stopped by Savage Surge or whatever, it's a lot less likely for waiting to be the percentage play.
I won game 2 super easily with the T1 Hoplite T2 Ordeal draw. I then won the deciding game after Ben flooded out a bit and I peeled Celestial Archon on an uneventful board.
Beating Ben out of top 8 contention felt a lot worse than losing to him would have. I wish we didn't have to play.
Greg lost to Brock in round 2 and I ended up getting paired vs. him in round 3.
He won the die roll and had T2 Bronze Sable, T3 Karametra's Favor for it in game 1, but he missed his third land drop, for many turns in a row. I didn't have much, but I was able to capitalize with a turn 2 God Favored General that ended up making six tokens.
I lost the second game after being unable to deal with a sick curveout of red and green monsters.
The third game was relatively uneventful since Greg mulliganed to 5 and ended up flooding anyway (one of the worst feelings ever). I played it way safer than I probably should have, but I was still never really in danger of losing.
There was actually one interesting spot in that game, where I had 4 mana open on turn 4. Greg had just cast a Pheres-Band Trompers on his turn 4, and played a 5th land on turn 5 before attacking with it. I picked up my pen and said "17" (indicating no blocks or effects) but Greg said "hang on, before damage" and cast Feral Invocation. I then played Divine Verdict to get both cards.
We talked about it after the game and Greg said he thought I might have been pen tricking him, but decided that it was more likely I had nothing. In retrospect, I can see how it might have looked like a pen trick, but the truth was that I was playing pretty fast because the games were running kind of long and I didn't want to draw. I didn't want to use the Verdict on just a 3/3 when I was at 20, but I couldn't pass up the easy 2 for 1, especially when he was on 5 cards.
I made it out of the draft at 2-1. Luckily Ben won round 3 also, so he didn't 0-3. I'd have felt really bad if he did.
My second draft pod:
9 Heal, Nicholas [USA] 30 73.61%
10 Alarie, Sébastien [CAN] 30 73.33%
11 Gagnon, Jacob [USA] 30 73.21%
12 Tom, Kar Yung [CAN] 30 72.50%
13 Majlaton, Alex [CAN] 30 71.83%
14 Chang, Morgan M [USA] 30 71.11%
15 Burnett, Kai [USA] 30 70.71%
16 Benn, Adam [CAN] 30 69.86%
Jacob and Sebastien were in my pod again. Nicholas Heal was also my round 9 opponent from day 1. I don't remember the exact entire seating, but Nicholas was to my right and Kar Yung Tom was to my left.
I opened a pack with most of the good commons (Skyguard, Helix, Bolt) and took Skyguard. Then I got passed Fate Unraveler and slammed it. There were no good white cards in that pack, so I was looking forward to white being cut and started to think about black/x. To my surprise, the black actually dried up super fast and I ended up with more good white cards. My 3rd and 4th picks were both Elite Skirmisher. I got a few more decent aggressive white cards, but didn't really have a second color yet - the closest I had was the Unraveler and a couple Mortal's Resolves and Snakes of the Golden Grove that I picked out of empty packs.
Pack 2 was strange - I opened and took Mistcutter Hydra, even though I hate G/W, because I was able to lap up so many mediocre green cards in pack 1 and felt like it might be open. Then I took a steady stream of great white aggro cards and was feeling OK about my deck.
Pack 3 really made me feel awful. Every pack there was a decent green card that I could have used, but the white card was just way better - cards like Gods Willing and Hopeful Eidolon over Voyaging Satyr and Nessian Asp. I already had an Asp from pack 2 and I didn't want to clog on 5 drops, so I passed two in favor of cheaper white cards (I took Traveling Philosopher over one). Then I saw a THIRD Asp super late and just took it. I was also seeing the black cards in this pack - I ended up passing Agent of Fates and Keepsake Gorgon. I'm not really sure what happened in this draft but I didn't feel like I could have reasonably ended up in black after that first pack.
I hated this deck. I have a pretty reasonably defined strategy (curve out with cheap losers) but something about this deck felt off to me. I couldn't put my finger on what it was. I was hoping to just get a good aggressive draw and get those free tempo wins that this format was known for.
I showed my deck to Ben and Calcano and they both said it was awesome, so that gave me a little bit of confidence.
Round 1 I played against Adam Benn. Pretty nice guy from Canada playing in his third GP / first day 2. He was on my right with two people in between him (Nicholas to my right, Jacob to his, and then Adam). His deck was U/B, with more U than B I think.
I got destroyed very rapidly. I mulliganed to 5 in game 1 and kept 2 forests, 2 white cards and a green card on the draw. I had a small chance if I drew one of my 10 plains and could curve out, but I just never drew another land and died very quickly. Game 2 I kept two Plains, Philosopher, Pegasus, Elite Skirmisher, and two other cards I don't remember. I played the two 2 drops and started to attack, but I just never drew a third land and died after a semi-prolonged struggle.
It felt really bad to be out of top 8 contention like that. On paper it doesn't look like my deck would have any kind of egregious mana issues, but for some reason I just had a very Gerard Fabiano-like feeling that my deck wouldn't cooperate with me. Maybe that's dumb and I just got unlucky, I don't know.
I played vs. Kar Yung Tom in round 2. He was on my left, so I expected him to be in green and/or black based on all the awesome cards I passed him. He was exactly green/black. As it turns out, he opened Reaper of the Wilds in one of the packs, and then just slam dunked every awesome card I sent in his direction.
I won game 1 because he mulliganed to 4 and didn't have any time to draw out of it since my draw was very aggressive. I lost games 2 and 3 because he had reasonable Voyaging Satyr draws, and his cards were so much stronger than mine that I couldn't even come close to competing.
And just like that, there went my chances at top 16 (one of the only finishes I can use at this point). I can't say I was too surprised because I hated my deck, but it still felt bad.
Round 3 I played a rematch vs. Nicholas Heal. I was really curious to see what colors he ended up. I predicted that he would be red/black, since I basically didn't see any red at all in packs 1 or 3 (or any black in pack 1) and it's not out of the question that he would be in heavy red and couldn't afford to play the awesome black-heavy cards he passed me in pack 3. It turned out that he was U/W.
We split the first two games because we each had one good aggressive draw.
In the third game, I tried very very hard to give it away. His board was 6 lands, Setessan Battle Priest, Bronze Sable, and Traveling Philosopher. Mine was Oreksos Sun Guide, a tapped 1/1 Akroan Skyguard, and four lands. My hand is Savage Surge & Gods Willing so I'm pretty sure I'm going to blow him out if he attacks. He sent the two 2 power guys. I played Savage Surge on my Skyguard and triggered heroic. He then cast Retraction Helix on the Battle Priest and tried to bounce it. I played Gods Willing, triggered heroic, and started counting my money on the way to the bank.
Then I named blue.
After I finished scrying and went to block, he told me that my guy was in my hand and I felt soooooo stupid.
I traded off the Sun Guide with the Philosopher and tried to carry the game on as best I could.
Fortunately for me, my deck delivered the goods. I drew a Nessian Asp and a Hopeful Eidolon, so I was able to race his Hundred Handed One. I also kept drawing ways to enhance it (bestow creatures) so it just became a huge unstoppable monster. He got to monstrous his rare and he went for a triple block to trade off with it, but I was able to Last Breath one of the dinky doofers to scoop his board and put the game away.
I got really lucky to win that match.
I finished in 34th place, right behind Greg Ogreenc. 32nd place went down to all the people with 34 points, so I didn't really have a shot at top 32. I got a whopping 1 pro point, which I can't even use thanks to the stupid GP cap. I did however collect a cool $300 thanks to the increased GP payout, which is awesome.
I'm disappointed to have gone 3-3 in draft, especially since that seems to be my record in almost every PT, GP, etc. that I draft in. On the other hand, I'm pleased that I did so well in a limited tournament. Limited as of late feels so random to me. Between all of my imperfect plays and strategies and all of the inherent tempo variance in these modern super fast high powered draft formats, winning can feel unattainable to me sometimes, so this result (as well as the fact that I got so close) was reassuring.
Came for #mtgstories left disappointed
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