Pack 1 pick 1:
For me this pick came down to Blazing Hellhound vs. Soulblade Djinn. They are the two strongest cards in the pack by a lot. I think Hellhound is a tiny bit stronger, but ultimately I went with Djinn because it's more likely that I'll be able to end up in blue/X rather than exactly red/black.
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Pack 1 pick 2:
Pretty easy pick as well - Unholy Hunger is the strongest card in the pack, it pairs nicely with the Djinn, and U/B is a strong color combo (especially since I won the last PTQ with it).
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Pack 1 pick 3:
Pretty nice pack, lots of reasonable cards. For me it came down to Shambling Ghoul and Fetid Imp, and I went with ghoul since it's a bit more aggressive. I like Consecrated by Blood but it's too early to take it here I think.
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Pack 1 pick 4:
I'm only certain of one thing in this draft so far and it's that I'm being passed good black cards, in this case a Husk (who is rapidly rising in my pick orders). Joraga Invocation is a good green card but I haven't really seen a lot of good green otherwise so I'm not really itching to take it and jump ship.
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Pack 1 pick 5:
I like the Owl, but I am a bit concerned that there isn't much blue being passed (in fact, there's not much of anything other than black being passed). Still, it's better than Weight of the Underworld.
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Pack 1 pick 6:
OK, Hellhound is way too strong to go this late. Nevermind that I haven't seen any other red, it's strong enough that I'll either splash it in my UB deck or settle for only one pack of good red cards (pack 2, since in theory they should be flowing from my left in that pack).
I didn't think that much about the Shaman. It's OK, but you need a ton of elves to make it worth picking over a card like Blazing Hellhound, to the point where you need to start off in green basically.
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Pack 1 pick 7:
Speaking of elves...
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Pack 1 pick 8:
Normally I love crappy defensive blue cards like these but I'm still kinda daydreaming about the super late Hellhound I took.
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Pack 1 pick 9:
This is my shot to go B/R - maybe there just weren't many good red cards in pack 1 and nobody is red.
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Pack 2 pick 1:
Well, no matter what, I'm gonna be black/x, and Winnower is a slam dunk bomb. Unholy Hunger is in 2nd, and Starfish is in 3rd if I'm blue.
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Pack 2 pick 2:
Jeez another Shaman :( My B/G deck would have been kinda nice. Still, Fleshbag is a versatile card that would go well in both U/B and B/R.
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Pack 2 pick 3:
At this point I've decided to try and make B/R work. Thopter Engineer is great with Husk, great with the Fleshbag I just took, and just great overall.
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Pack 2 pick 4:
As I took the hellhound in pack 1, I was kind of lamenting having passed two Act of Treason and not seeing either of them table, since Act + Hellhound is a super nice combo (also goes well with the Husk I took). I resolved to take Act of Treason over pretty much anything at this point, and luckily here's one without anything else of any notable quality to make me feel bad about it.
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Pack 2 pick 5:
With Act, two sac outlets, and a bomb in Winnower, I felt like my deck might actually make reasonable use of Dark Petition. I'm not sure if I'll end up playing it, but I like the idea of it.
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Pack 2 pick 7:
One thing I'm missing so far is a reasonable density of 2 drops, and Bully fills this role pretty nicely. I have to remind myself here that the only good GREEN elf I've seen so far is a single Leaf Gilder so I don't feel too bad about the Trapper.
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Pack 3 pick 1:
It sucks to have to pass ANOTHER Unholy Hunger, but at least Cruel Revival is pretty much the same effect with the added bonus of returning zombies, and I have 2 awesome ones (and one mediocre one).
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Pack 3 pick 2:
Tough choice - all these 3 drops are great. I went with Gearcrafter since it's good with Husk, Hellhound, Fleshbag, AND Thopter Engineer.
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Pack 3 pick 3:
Now's the time to pick this card. Not only is the rest of the pack kinda crappy, but I have a lot of nice 3 drops to put this on and with my 2 thopter guys I have a good shot of being able to regenerate it as well. Now if only I could get some Dragon Fodders...
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Pack 3 pick 4:
Molten Vortex is another card that is way too strong to be going this late. It doesn't feel like a massive bomb, but I still think it is a bomb.
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Pack 3 pick 5:
More 2 drop love.
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Pack 3 pick 6:
At this point in the draft, this card is a wonderful gift.
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Pack 3 pick 7:
3rd Shaman :( At lest the Giant is awesome.
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Pack 3 pick 8:
Wow! The draft is really breaking my way.
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I think this deck is very, very good. I had 27 playable cards in total, the 22 I chose plus Volcanic rambler, Throwing Knife, Firefiend Elemental, Cobblebrute, and Weight of the Underworld. It was pretty easy to cut those 5 though because their quality is not nearly as high as the rest of the cards, except maybe Throwing Knife. I decided to cut the Knife rather than Titan's Strength or Chandra's Fury (the next two cards on the chopping block), because Knife doesn't contribute to Spell Mastery, and because I really wanted to play 18 lands. I felt it was crucial to hit my 5th and 6th land drops to be able to play my awesome 5 mana spells as well as potentially two 3 drops on turn 6. I also can very easily throw extra lands into Molten Vortex. Couple that with this deck's shaky mana requirements (need lots of red early, but double black later) and 18 lands with a 9-9 split is an easy decision.
My round 1 opponent was G/W. Game 1 started out as a race, where he had two pretty strong flying creatures (Charging Griffin and something else). I got pretty low pretty early, but stabilized with Gilt-Leaf Winnower and the Cruel Revival / Fleshbag combo, and eventually just won with with the Winnower.
Game 2 my opponent went for the same approach - a race. I tried hard to defend, and my life total went down as far as 2 life after a really scary turn where my opponent cast a main phase Mighty Leap on a 4/3 renowned Knight of the Watch (or whatever the 3/2 2W guy is called) to take me from 6 to 2. I turtled up as hard as I could after that. There was one really interesting turn:
My opponent had a 1/3 Valeron Warden and the 4/3 Knight, and I had a Blazing Hellhound, a Gilt-Leaf Winnower, and a Shambling Ghoul with Consecrated by Blood on it. I also have Molten Vortex in play, and my hand is Cruel Revival plus one other awesome spell that I can't remember. I'm at 2 life. I have 5 untapped lands in play. I think I'm going to win the game as long as I hold up mana for Cruel Revival, since I've generally been able to play a creature to match my opponent's creature so as not to get overwhelmed on the board. Then, my opponent plays a bomb of his own: Tragic Arrogance.
This is troubling because my opponent can give himself a 4/3 and let me keep my Ghoul + Vortex, or let me keep one of my 4/3s and the Consecrated by Blood (which would cause me to lose both since the aura would just fall off). I'd like to keep the Vortex if possible, since I don't have much use for extra lands at this point and it would be nice to be able to keep the board clear since I'm at such a low life total.
I decide to feed my two awesome 4/3s to my ghoul, giving it a regeneration shield, and forcing my opponent to either let me keep Vortex or to have a 4/5 flyer (neither of which are too exciting for him I imagine). He lets me have Vortex, which I'm kinda happy about. He attacks with the 4/3, but I end up just blocking since my guy has a shield on it. When he makes no play after that, it's easy for me to Cruel Revival his guy and get back Fleshbag Marauder for ultimate control of the board.
A few turns elapse and my opponent plays nothing really noteworthy and eventually dies.
My R2 opponent was B/W. This match isn't really notable since I have turn 1 Molten Vortex in both games, and my opponent's main strategy is to win with 2 drops. I was able to very easily take control of the board with Vortex in both games and win with pretty much any of my awesome creatures after that. My opponent mulliganed to 5 in game 2, so that also helped make this match very easy.
My R3 opponent was U/B. His deck... was not very good. I'm not quite sure how he won both the quarters AND the semis. Cards he showed me in game 1 included Scrapskin Drake, Rabid Bloodsucker, and Send to Sleep, all of which I'm generally hesitant to include in my deck as 23rd cards. This was the least eventful match of the draft. I was able to take control of both game 1 and game 2 very quickly with Gilt-Leaf Winnower and I won both games by a considerable margin.
So there you have it - two Origins sealed PTQs, two first place finishes. I played pretty well in both tournaments I think, but I also got incredibly lucky, especially in this one - I went 4-0 then 0-2 in the swiss and was pretty sure I was dead for top 8, then won 3 in a row and squeaked in at 7th, drafted an insane R/B deck and my matches in the top 8 just got progressively easier.
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