Well well well . . .
After missing like 4 drafts i finally managed to sign up for my 2nd draft ever. Before that i was scouting the deck lists at wizards.com and decided to build myself a valakut deck because i always liked that nasty mountain. The deck costed me 147$ with 2 missing cards. Actually 6. . . because there were no overgrown battlements but i replaced those with rampant growth. And now im thinking of switching the growth for a Llonawar Elves because i kinda like having the option of blocking if the early pressure becomes problematic. The deck is fun still have to do some practice and figure out which hands are good to start with and which i should mulligan. On 2v2 however the deck performs really well. When you can afford to take some extra damage at the start of a match it becomes very easy to ramp up the mana and start dropping Primeval Titans like crazy + theres the insane Avenger of Zendikar that late game becomes just mindblowingly strong. I like this deck and i think its much better suited to compete at FNM than my current vampires. + Valakut i am given to understand has been one of the top decks for awhile so its a tested strategy and hopefully ill get some wins this friday.
Now lets talk about the draft.
First of all the draft was really rich on rares. We had a Chandra and 3 Sorin Markovs (1 of which was FOIL) + a whole bunch of other cute cards. One guy said during the end pickings that 7th pick Inferno Titan will never ever happen again in a draft. Not sure how good the Inferno is but ill take his word for it, Couple of the guys even took picture of the cards before we started picking.
So we cracked open the boosters and on my first one i had a Gideon Lawkeeper and i have already experienced the awesomeness of that card and since there were no other cards that i really liked in the pack i passed it. Then i got passed another white card Gideons Avenger so i thought hey this is a good white card. . . and in the next few passes i kept getting alot of nice white cards. I took a couple of Griffins and Stonehorn Dignitary and it was like everything was arranged for me to get the white cards. Then during the 2nd pack i kept getting more and more cards. I got a Pacifism another Lawkeeper and Oblivion Ring and until the end of the 3rd pack i had 3x Stonehorns also drew a Day of Judgement, Timely Reinforcements and couple of other cute cards. I had to put couple of black ards to fill the last spots of the deck and since i got a Sengir Vampire which is a great bomb for drafting i put him and a Doomblade + 2x Consume Spirits which . . .turns out is not that good of a card in a 2 color deck. I never had too much black mana to spend on the spell so its efficiency was reduced for me. And for a good measure i dropped 2 Emperor Scepters which proved to be a very very good choice as that card pretty much helped alot in winning my games later.
So Round 1 Me (2) vs (0) Jeremy
He was playing a black deck i think he had some white cards but he never really got the chance to use them. At the start of our first game i managed to drop a lawkeeper and 2 defenders with 0/3 stats that kept his creatures at bay because everytime they block id get 3 life. He dropped down a Blood Seeker vampire and for a moment i was worried that this might bite me in the ass but next turn i drew my Personal Sanctuary and totally nullified the vampire`s effect. After that i was slowly chipping away his HP with 3 griffin an kept tapping his one flying insect so he cant atk me. He managed to drop a nasty blue creature that for 1 mana put the top 2 cards of my deck in my graveyard. And even tho he removed some lands for me which was cool later on as the turns kept rolling i lost some good creatures. Eventually i drew my 2nd lawkeeper and then started tapping that remover too. Chipping away with a scepter and a griffin until i finally got my sengir vampire and it was pretty much GG so he surrendered.
Second game went alot faster as i got better draws. I dont remember exactly how that played out but i got him early on again and this time i had more creatures to use. In retrospect beyond my Sengir i didnt really have a bomb creature in my deck. Tho i had alot of good defenses and a bunch of flyers i guess i was kinda betting on the flying damage to win me my games.
Round 2 Me (2) vs (1) Francis
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| This baby won me the match against Francis |
The 1st game went really bad for me. I was trying to hold on and i managed to draw my creature control spells but everytime i took care of one of his bombs he just summoned another one. He had fat green creatures a big fat vampire, he had the Inferno Titan and even Chandra was in his deck. So the first game he completely smashed me and i was kind of losing faith. I got intimidated by his big bombs and saw no real way to handle him.
2nd game however he had to mulligan so he had a smaller starting hand. It was very close and i barely stole that game. The Emperor Scepters were a big part of my vinctory and i even forgot to hit him couple of times. But eventually i won.
3rd game was rather epic. First turns it was going slow and i even managed to do some damage. And then he started unloading his big bombs again. But i had a doomblade, pacifism and oblivion ring in my hand i was confident ill hold the line. I killed one of his fatties with the doomblade and then i drew my day of judgment and the very next turn he dropped his big vampire and i cleared the board with a big smile on my face. But he had put the inferno titan in his hand with the ability from the vampire and summoned him the very next turn. I dropped my pacifism on that i had countered pretty much all his finisher now. I was getting the upper hand and i was trying to do some damage with the scepters. He got his chandra X_X But again my oblivion Ring came to save the day. There was some punching between us and then a lucky timely reinforcements and one consume spirits won me the game. I was very excited and happy. Only my second draft and i was going to face Byron to fight it off for the first place!
Round 3 Me (0) vs (2) Byron
Well i knew i had a pretty good deck and i was hoping to give Byron a run for his money but i couldnt handle him. He even made me an offer to draw and just play for fun to see who gets first pick because sometimes one of us might end up in 3rd place instead of 2nd which i think has something to do with % win rates and whatnot during the report. But i wanted to fight it off and just have fun with it. I lost but it was all good. It would not have felt right to just get that draw and try to secure a card pick. At the end i still got my 2nd place and i got the foil Sorin Markov as my first pick so i was pretty happy. I also drew the day of judgment and 1 land that i was missing from my collection of M12 and then the personal sanctuary enchant simply because there were not any other good cards to pick up. All in all it was a great event i had fun and i got better and hopefully ill keep improving and one of these days ill get to be the winner and get the first pick :D
Well thats it for today.
Keep it real and ill see you guys next time.
1 comment:
FNM:
+ 32$
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