Pack 1 pick 1:
For me this pick came down to Savage Punch vs. Debilitating Injury. By myself, I would have taken Savage Punch, because I love those U/G or Temur style tempo decks that Savage Punch is great in.
However, Frank said that he would take Injury. Since we didn't have forever to discuss the finer points of the pick, I went with Injury because Frank said so basically, and also so that I could venture a little bit outside my comfort zone and maybe learn something new.
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 2:
Frank and I identified the top cards in this pack as Sultai Flayer and Scoured Barrens in 1st/2nd (we weren't sure which order though) and Watcher of the Roost a distant 3rd. We spent the full amount of time on this pick deciding between Flayer and Barrens. I was leaning Barrens to be honest, but Frank said Flayer.
I think this is because Frank, as well as a lot of the other TCGplayer guys, favor the B/G big butt strat in this format, and Flayer is a defensive card that aids that strat. I still haven't successfully implemented this strat so I'm not too unhappy taking this card over what my intuition was leaning towards.
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 3:
We definitely bickered over this pick. Frank instantly said to take the Krumar Bond-Kin, which I think is borderline psycho. I think that card is mediocre and replaceable. The cards I liked were Mystic of the Hidden Way, and Abomination of Gudul, with Rugged Highlands not too far behind. Frank suggested that Scion is a better mono blue card than Mystic, which I also disagreed with (although a Scion with a lot of blue mana is awesome I have to admit).
After I vetoed Bond-Kin and Scion, Frank said that he would take Mystic over Abomination, which I was happy to do.
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 4:
This is a pretty nice pack. The best cards in it (in my opinion) are Pine Walker and Mardu Hordechief. Since the cards we have don't lend themselves too well to Hordechief strats, Frank and I both agreed to take Pine Walker.
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 5:
After agreeing that Kheru Lich Lord kinda sucks, Frank and I decided that the pick was Throttle or a land. We didn't have any lands yet, so I leaned land and Frank agreed, but we couldn't decide which one was better. I took the Jungle Hollow because it was foil.
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 6:
A slamjam. This pack must have been insane.
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Pack 1 pick 7:
It didn't take long for us to get another crack at a Throttle without losing too much.
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Pack 1 pick 8:
We aren't a U tempo deck (or U beyond a splash really) so Sambar is out. Kin-Tree Warden is also super replaceable. It's down to Shambling Attendants or Bitter Revelation. Without much to fill the graveyard yet, it made the pick much easier.
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 9:
I wasn't sure what to do and wanted to cut the Bloodfire Expert, but Frank said to just take the card that we have a small outside chance of playing.
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 10:
#game
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Pack 1 pick 11:
Wow, sick wheels. I think we will end up B/G splashing U, so Abomination fits right in and Scion doesn't.
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Pack 1 pick 12:
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Pack 1 pick 13:
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Pack 1 pick 14:
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Pack 2 pick 1:
Bleh, this pack is spectacular for a lot of people other than me. For me it came down to Hooting Mandrills or the land. Frank agreed and leaned toward Mandrills so I took it.
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 2:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199626/
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 3:
A lot going on in this pack. I liked Icefeather Aven and Woolly Loxodon the most, although there are a lot of other cards are worth mentioning too, like Mandrills, Aerialists, and Bitter Rev.
I let Frank break the tie by choosing Loxodon over Icefeather, the reason being that he wasn't confident enough in our blue splash yet.
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 4:
Another hard pick. I think Frank and I agreed on Sultai Charm because we didn't have enough blue cards yet to want to have an intense need for Dismal Backwater. Of course, to solve that conundrum we took a blue card. Seems kinda paradoxical doesn't it? Nevertheless, I like this card and this pick.
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 5:
Another damn fine pack. Easy pick for us since it's the only card we can really use.
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Pack 2 pick 6:
Let it be known that, although I wanted Rotting Mastodon, Frank is not an ass man, and prefers smokers instead. They are what cause him to "become immense," if you will.
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 7:
I kinda wanted Force Away here, but Frank talked me out of it by talking up Bitter Rev in slow decks like ours, and saying that Force Away is better in tempo-style decks (which explains why I gravitated towards it). Besides, we have monkeys to feed now.
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Pack 2 pick 8:
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Pack 2 pick 9:
I wasn't quite sure what to do here. I feel like a tempo deck could make better use of Bell Strike and Awaken, making the pick Abomination by default, but I actually kind of liked the idea of having Awaken the Bear as a pseudo-utility spell. I got Frank to agree and we tried it out.
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 10:
This pick makes our last pick look masterful.
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Pack 2 pick 11:
2 Bitter Revs is enough graveyard gas to support the Attendants.
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Pack 2 pick 12:
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Pack 2 pick 13:
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Pack 2 pick 15:
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Pack 3 pick 1:
Damn, lots of high powered packs. Dead Drop is definitely at home in our deck so we snatched it up.
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 2:
Not that much else going on in this pack, and Rattleclaw Mystic is both a morph and a blue mana fixer.
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 3:
With a bunch of blue cards that we'd really like to use now (2 Abominations and Sultai Charm in addition to Mystic), Frank and I agreed that we needed the Backwater (although it sucked passing an awesome card like Loxodon).
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 4:
I pointed out Disowned Ancestor and Mer-Ek Nightblade to Frank as the only options for us in this pack, expecting him to say take the Nightblade, but he said that we'd be happy with Ancestor. I thought about it for a second and decided that he was right.
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 5:
Parapet is exactly the kind of card you want for decks like ours I think.
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Pack 3 pick 6:
A straight chop, since the bar for making our deck was pretty high.
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Pack 3 pick 7:
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Pack 3 pick 9:
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Pack 3 pick 10:
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Pack 3 pick 11:
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Pack 3 pick 12:
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Pack 3 pick 15:
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I like this deck. I think it's pretty strong. Frank and I argued about the inclusion of Mystic of the Hidden Way. I really wanted it because I think that card is spectacular. Frank didn't think we had enough blue mana to rely on it (which, in my opinion, is bad logic and also not even true). We couldn't agree on a cut for it, so I ended up not playing it even though I really wanted to.
R1
Our opponent had a pretty stinky Abzan deck that was only splashing black. In both games, the creatures he played were all pretty bad and couldn't stand up to our steady stream of removal.
Frank and I did get into this weird situation in game 2 though, that I think is a really good example of the difference of our play styles (new school vs. old school, basically). There was a point where the life totals were 17 (oppt) to 20 (us), our board was an Archer's Parapet and a Shambling Attendant, and our hand was Murderous Cut. The opponent had a bunch of lands, a 3/4 Abzan Falconer, and nothing else in play with no other cards in hand.
On passing our turn, Frank's suggestion was to cast Murderous Cut and kill the Falconer during his upkeep (while he was unable to protect it with a peeled Feat of Resistance, or whatever else). I thought this suggestion was ridiculous, since we're ahead on the board by a lot and at 20 life. We debated it for a while and I ended up holding the Cut.
Frank's argument was that it was a bunch of damage that we don't really need to be taking, which cuts down on his outs of like, running off a few creatures to swing past our Parapet and then losing to some blowout pump spell (like Become Immense, which was present in the draft). He did have a very good point that if the opponent kept drawing creatures, he could just start chumping our Attendants and we'd be behind in the damage race. My argument was that he might have some ultrabomb like High Sentinels that I'd lose to faster if he were to topdeck it right after I burn the cut.
Thinking about it some, the difference in opinion makes sense - Frank hasn't been playing as long as I have, so the limited formats he has experienced have mostly been tempo slugfests and conserving life points (even at 20) is a completely reasonable concern for him. On the other hand, I've played in plenty of limited formats like Onslaught and Scars of Mirrodin, where you need to be very stingy with your removal unless you want to lose to your opponent's Rorix or Steel Hellkite or whatever. I also value my life points less (especially at 20) because I remember the limited formats where the creatures were crappy, and you generally didn't need to worry about taking a few early hits from some tiny dork because if you were going to lose to some tempo turning against your favor, it would happen over the course of 3 or 4 turns instead of 1 or 2.
What happened was, my opponent found a Temur Charger and a Jeskai Student, allowing his clock to officially match mine (4 per turn from each of us, Falconer and Student for the opponent and Attendant plus Parapet for me). After that, we both kind of flooded out and had no real action beyond what we had on the board. I took (according to Frank) an unnecessary 12 damage (four hits from the Falconer since the decision not to cut it) before finally drawing some action and playing the cut on the Falconer anyway to clear it out as a blocker and win with an Abomination of Gudul that I drew. I'm not sure if this is a typical run out, but it didn't seem to matter what we did so I don't really have any data about which line would have been better.
That line is still so alien to me. It would be one thing if we had another good removal spell, but Cut was the only one we had and we were at a very healthy 20 life. I can agree that I'd probably have to use it sooner or later if my opponent drew a steady stream of otherwise non-cut-worthy creatures to either pressure me or chump my clock. I can also find it plausible that this type of line in general (use all your resources, conserve your life points, stay way ahead on the board, live in the now) is way more successful in modern limited formats than it would have been when I first learned to play limited, so it's definitely not as if I'm suggesting the line is completely terrible or anything - just that it goes against the intuition I've built up from playing Magic for ten years. That intuition could be a relic of an older Magic, and that the new way to approach limited and succeed is to adopt this newer, more tempo-oriented intuition, or perhaps consider a balance between the two styles. Frank is a lot better at limited than I am, so it's worth considering. If you have any input about this specific situation or this philosophy in general, I would absolutely love to hear from you.
R2
Our opponent had a Mardu rush deck. In game 1 we were on the draw and I kept a really loose hand that needed any one land to not be completely embarrassed and any two to actually be in the game, and of course we missed our second land drop. Fortunately, the opponent also kept a 2 lander (on the play - the ultimate trap) and started passing turns without playing lands.
We quickly drew lands and started deploying threats, and it was too much for the opponent to come back from.
We built up a pretty quick advantage in game 2 and got the opponent down to 5 with a Pine Walker, but he drew the reason his otherwise poor-looking deck was in the semifinals - Sorin. After playing it and gaining a ton of life back with the annoying lifelink ability, suddenly we were at a super sick board stall. It was at this point I started yelling at Frank for not having a Mystic in our deck to just cruise through the creatures and kill the Sorin.
We eventually drew some lands and died to the opponent's neverending active Sorin. It didn't help that after his sixth land was in play, literally every card he drew was a spell and in a few cases was the exact perfect spell he needed to wrestle the board advantage back into his favor.
Frank and I spent so much time BSing in game 2 that when we finally died, we only had 4 minutes left on the clock for game 3. To make matters worse, we mulliganed to 5 on the play.
Fortunately for us, it was one of the best 5 card hands I've ever had.
Turn 1 Disowned Ancestor, turn 2 outlast it, turn 3 face down Abomination, turn 4 Bitter Revelation, turn 5 flip Abomination. My opponent didn't really play any super strong cards and I was quickly able to sculpt my hand into something great. I won with about 1m 20s left on my clock.
R3
Round 3 was kind of an anticlimax. Our opponent had a 4 color non-black deck and it had a lot of subpar card choices - like Dragon Throne of Tarkir (in a non-rush deck) and Temur Ascendancy (which he never drew a single card off). At one point in game 1 he used Roar of Challenge on his Salt Road Patrol, simply to kill one of the morphs I just played on turn 4.
I won the match pretty easily.
I'm really pleased with how this draft went and I'm glad that we won, even if I think some of Frank's suggestions are comically bad (like not wanting to play Mystic of the Hidden Way).
Shout out to Frank for helping me out with the draft, sticking around for the games, and creating an interesting situation for me to discuss with everyone.
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