Conspiracy Draft

I went along to a Conspiracy draft a few weeks ago - it was a fun event. I didn't see many of the special draft cards, but ended up getting an interesting black green deck. When we went to our multiplayer game, I was sat next to another black green player. The early game consisted of me playing a Runed Servitor, an opponent playing Grudge Keeper, and the next opponent also playing a Grudge Keeper... So possible to lose life regardless of which choices were made while voting. 

I threw around a lot of damage in the mid game with a Pelakka Wurm equipped with a Fireshrieker, and then moved it over to a Spiritmonger when it died. At one point I sacrificed a Sakura-Tribe Elder to allow me to get extra wolves from Predator's Howl due to morbid. 

With a lot of creatures on board (a lot of tokens too), the game was starting to stall. I was running low on cards (so didn't want to play my Skeletal Scrying) so instead made a massive attack to try and end the game. With a lot of creatures dead, I cast Assasinate on a Magister of Worth I had enchanted with an Unhallowed Pact, so got to bring it back. This caused me to lose due to direct damage, but the game did end quite soon after, so I was partially successful. 

I'm hoping I will be able to play it again sometime as it was a fun game. 

Theros first picks

Due to doing well at a recent tournament, I have some Theros packs to look through, so I'll think about what I would choose if I opened it in a draft (as I don't get to draft very often, just doing the thinking about it helps).

Pack A
This pack has: Fleshmad Steed, Breaching Hippocamp, Fleetfeather Sandals, Aqueous Form, Nylea's Presence, Divine Verdict, Traveler's Amulet, Two-Headed Cerberus, Setessan Griffin, Pharika's Cure, Triton Tactics, Battlewise Hoplite, Shipwreck Singer, Abhorrent Overlord

I think Cure and Verdict come under consideration as removal, as does Triton Tactics which can potentially be more effective given the right circumstances. The Abhorrent Overlord is expensive, but given the right deck can be quite powerful. For me, it's quite close between Verdict and Overlord and my answer would probably depend on what mood I was in :) Verdict is good for consistency, but the overlord seems fun so I'd probably pick that. My last couple of drafts seemed to end up Green and/or black so for me the black card would be better as I'm more used to that play style.

Pack B
Battlewise Valor, Feral Invocation, Boulderfall, Loathsome Catoblepas, Griptide, Gods Willing, Omenspeaker, Sedge Scorpion, Prescient Chimera, Timed Ox, Magma Jet, Heliod's Emissary, Horizon Chimera, Celestial Archon

I took cards out of this pack when I found an interesting one. The first was Feral Invocation, which I like as a persistent surprise. Next was Griptide which is good for tempo and better on a target with an aura, but between the two I'd probably pick the Invocation.

Then I set aside Gods Willing, which is good as it will protect against the already small amount of removal in the format. Sedge Scorpion is also one to consider as the death touch makes it close to removal. Magma Jet is also powerful, killing smaller creatures and smoothing the next turn or two.

I think, however, that Heliod's Emissary and Celestial Archon are the two more powerful cards in the pack. The Elk has the benefit of being possible to splash in a deck and the creature side is cheaper, but I think the Celestial Archon is the pick here due to the higher power. The bestow cost is essentially the same, but for a more powerful effect.

Pack C
Nessian Asp, Nimbus Naiad, Messengers Speed, March of the Returned, Unknown Shores, Benthic Giant, Returned Phalanx, Silent Artisan, Satyr Hedonist, Traveler's Amulet, Spellheart Chimera, Stoneshock Giant, Insatiable Harpy, Nepotism Charlatan

The 4 I like from this pack are Nessian Asp, Nimbus Naiad, Stoneshock Giant, Insatiable Harpy. The Asp and Giant are quite similar, but I think I prefer the Asp here as the monstrosity is cheaper and larger, and the reach is going to be useful over multiple turns as opposed to the one off effect of the giant. I quite like the Harpy here, as it is possible to increase the power and get a better effect from the lifegain. The Naiad is aggressively costed which I think gives it the edge over the harpy, but for this pack I think the asp is the best choice here.

Pack D
Boon of Erebos, Deathbellow Raider, Breaching Hippocamp, Bronze Sable, Nessian Courser, Fleshmad Steed, Wavecrash Triton, Wild Celebrants, Opaline Unicorn, Evangel of Heliod, Witches Eye, Centaur Battlemaster, Chained to the Rocks, foil Ordeal of Erebos

I have seem Evangel of Heloid make a lot of tokens so I know it can be powerful. Wavecrash Triton looks good if if can be repeated, but I think Centaur Battlemaster is the most powerful here, the bonus it gets even if targeted once is impressive.

Modern Masters Draft

As rare as it is, I was lucky enough to get to draft the Modern Masters set. By the time I got to St Albans to meet up with Liz to take over from looking after Kaleb, I had just about finished listening to the Limited Resources podcast on Modern Masters. 

Looking over the set once spoiled, I liked the look of the BG graveyard archetype, so would keep an eye out for it. 

I started off with a Cryptic Command, but then got a Murderous Redcap second, followed by a couple of red removal spells, and then some decent black removal spells. I was also able to pick up a Worm Harvest, so kept the graveyard deck in the back of my mind. I finished off the pack with a couple of leftover green cards. The second pack started with a Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, soon followed by another Murderous Redcap. I picked up some good Green cards and some more black cards, before finishing off the draft with the third pack for more of the same. 

I had the minimum necessary to get some good graveyard interaction (Worm Harvest, Stinkweed Imp, Moldervine Cloak, Dakmor Salvage), which was nice as a side interaction, but my deck was mostly value and removal. 

Two Drops
2 Mogg War Marshal
Sudden Shock
Warren Weirding

Three Drops
Stinkweed Imp
2 Eternal Witness
2 Rift Bolt
Moldervine Cloak
Citanul Woodreaders
Drag Down
Kodama's Reach

Four Drops
2 Murderous Redcap

Five Drops
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Worm Harvest
Warren Pilferers

Six Drops
Pardic Dragon
2 Death Rattle
Sylvan Bounty

Land included Vivid Marsh and Dakmor Salvage, with about 6 of each land type needed (Swamp, Mountain, Forest). 

First match (against Islands)
I drew the first match, just winning the second game before time was called. My opponent got Vedalken Shackles out both games, playing mono-blue artifacts... Not too much I can do in general, which is why I lost the first game, but was able to get enough damage early on, followed by just lots of small creatures so the one they stole didn't matter. 

Second Match (with tokens)
In the second match, I lost the first game but won the second one quite quickly. I did quite well in the third game, using Kiki-Jiki to make tokens of Murderous Redcap a couple of times  before finishing the game with some Pardic Dragon tokens. 

Third Match (value)
In the final match, my opponent was playing Red/Black Goblins, and we both got out a lot of tokens, before I eventually wore down his side to win. 

I gained quite a bit of card advantage. This was my start:
Turn 2: Mogg War Marshal (including token)
Turn 3: Don't pay echo cost (get another token), cast Kodama's Reach
Turn 4: Warren Pilferers, returning Mogg War Marshal (attacking with haste)

A couple of turns later, having killed the Mogg War Marshal again and the Warren Pilferers, I cast Eternal Witness to get back the Warren Pilferers, which I used the next turn to get back the Mogg War Marshal again. 

In the second game, he got out two Mad Auntie's early followed by a couple of goblins and I couldn't get enough of a defence up so lost. 

The final game went to the final turns, and my opponent killed all my remaining creatures when I had the on 2 life. Stuck on 4 mana with a couple of cards I couldn't cast in hand, I lucked into drawing a second Forest that I needed to cast Eternal Witness... returning a Murderous Redcap, which I could play next turn (turn 4 of final turns) to do the final 2 damage. 

All in all, it was a fun format. It would be nice to be able to draft it again, I may be able to get one more chance, but I doubt I'll get many, so am happy to have had the opportunity at least the once. 

First Dragons Maze Draft

Unlike the last set, I actually found time to draft this new set, which I'm happy about as I usually prefer draft over sealed. Due to the numbers at the comic shop, we had a number of smaller pods, so I was drafting with 5 others. 

Opening the first pack (Dragons Maze), I found a Warleader's Helix, but was more interested in the foil Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch, which I took. This sort of set the tone for the draft, and I picked up as many red and black cards as I could. I also like playing green, so took a few late, but also knew that white could work well too, so kept an eye out for those. At the end of the first pack, I had Blood Scrivener, Carnage Gladiator, Punish the Enemy, Ubul Sar Gatekeepers (but no gates...), Riot Piker and Phytoburst, as well as two cluestones. 

In the second pack, first picking a Stomping Ground from a fairly weak pack, I picked up of note a Scorchwalker, a Pit Fight and a Gruul Keyrune. I did also get a Wojek Halberdiers, but didn't really have much white to play, and the card needs to come down early so isn't a great splash. I did know, however, that if I was in black red, and possibly green black, I would have more to choose from in the final pack, where I did pick up a Korozda Guildmage, Electrickery, Giant Growth, Dead Reveler and Gore-House Chainwalker. 

Building the deck, I did need to include green as I didn't have enough black red cards to stick two colour, which is not entirely unexpected. I did have three mana fixers (four if you include the shock land), but didn't want to add a fourth colour just for two cards, so stuck with three. My curve topped out with one card at 5, so, with the mana artifacts I played 16 lands. 

I won both games of the first round, the set is a fun one to play. Some of the games took a surprisingly long time, considering I was in theory playing a fast deck - the games were very attrition heavy. 

In the second round, I won two of three matches, playing some very close games. One game my opponent tried to get the upper hand in a trade with Weapon Surge, so I played my own one to even things out. In the last game, I narrowly won a race, getting just enough creatures on the battlefield at the end so my opponent couldn't do much about them. 

In the final round, I won a close first match being dead on board next turn. My opponent had played a Sluiceway Scorpion, as the only blocker (a good blocker to have), and to win I drew my second additional green source so I could activate Gruul Keyrune and play Phytoburst on it to trample enough damage through. I was running out of steam at this point, but luckily had done enough early damage that I only had a little more to do to win. 

The second game I faced a turn two Pack Rat. I started racing a bit, but think I should have thought ahead a little more. I saw it in the first game, but killed it with Electrickery before it could do anything, but didn't have anything this time. 

In the final game, I was ahead after my opponents slow start, but they were starting to stabilise. They ended up having a good blocker that they could pump, so I could only profitably attack with a Wasteland Viper, getting in a little bit of extra damage before he played a creature to trade with it. Then, with them on 7 and me on 18, time was called and we had to start 5 extra turns. My opponent calculated that he couldn't win, but by returning a card to give his pumpable creature lifelink, he could get a draw instead. He had to tap out to do this, and I had played out my hand (hoping to get some value out of Blood Scrivener, but it was killed before I could draw). I drew for the turn and attacked with my 2/2 and 2/4. They blocked one so I used the bloodrush from Scorchwalker on the unblocked creature to deal the exact 7 required to win.  Another very close, but fun game. 

I do enjoy this set, hopefully I'll be able to draft it again at some point. There seems to be a lot of scope for many different decks, which looks interesting. Again, playing in the last round made me remember why I prefer drafting over sealed; the final round in sealed is usually the 5th, so including deck construction it is a long time to be concentrating while playing. Drafts are generally 3 rounds, so even though the pre-game part may be longer as it involves the draft and deck building, the draft is finished before I get to the point of starting to lose concentration (like I did at the pre-release, losing only in the final round). 

Plus, this draft I did have Liz and Kaleb there to keep me company.  Kaleb more active than the last draft when I had him on my lap, so I gave him a token card at one point to entertain himself, which he decided would look better folded in half and chewed...

Return to Ravnica - first games

I have, so far, now played Return to Ravnica limited twice. The first time being the prerelease where I played Golgari, and the second being a draft where I drafted, erm, Golgari. 

The prerelease, at Chaos City Comics in St Albans, was a fun time. Liz had been out in London during the day, but came back with Kaleb to cheer me along. I thought I had a really good sealed pool (I had the Golgari prerelease box), with a Lotleth Troll, and a couple of scavenge creatures (plus the creature search thing), but only managed to win the first match. All other games were fun and close, which is the main thing. I think I've been out of practice for a while (not that I normally do well in sealed anyway). 

At Hemel the other week, both me and Liz were there to draft, again with me having Kaleb on my lap. I opened up a pack with the red X spell with overload, so took that first. After that, I didn't get passed too much red, and got a couple of BG cards, so moved into Golgari. In the second pack, I opened a Niv Mizzet, which I took wondering if I could get enough cards to support him, but saw very little blue or red so didn't bother risking trying, and stuck with the Golgari plan. 

In the third pack, I was passed an Underworld Connections (the opener taking a on-colour Mythic over it). I build my deck quickly so I could keep Kaleb amused before we started, I had a fairly low curve, but a fair number of scavenge cards, so did have a couple of things to be doing in the late game. 

In the first game, I played Joel, where we had some close matches, and I was fortunate to win the last match with a pair of Giant Growths. 

The second game, I played Liz, playing Rakdos, and we had some interesting games. The first looked like there was a bit of a board stall, I had some good defenders, and she had some big unleash creatures (who couldn't block, but would do a lot of damage on the swing back if I attacked). I won the first game, but lost the second very quickly due to a lack of lands of the right colour. She had a very aggressive start which punished me greatly...

I was able to win the third match, when she unfortunately had similar problems that I did  (although could do more with less, so it wasn't as quick). Kaleb at this point had decided to go to sleep...

In the final round, I played Sam, who we hadn't seen for some time. He had the four mana Demon, but by the time it came out I had a big enough board that I could tap it and swing for the win. I did stall a couple of turns once he played a swampwalker and I kept a swamp in hand, casting my black spells using only a gate, until I was able to deal with it otherwise. 

The set is a fun set, and I'm sure I'll play another guild eventually... I do quite like the multi coloured scavenge creatures, I had multiples in my deck and they seemed to work quite well. I did like the green hexproof dude, that worked well with the scavenge creatures. Removal seems a little light in the set, but the hexproof is always handy against what there is, and it makes the deathtouch creatures all the more useful, and giant growth a nice trick to help in combat. Hopefully a set I will be able to play some more in the coming future. 

Last Avacyn Restored draft

Me and Liz organised a trip to Hemel the other week, to see everyone and bring Kaleb along.

As the M13 release was imminent, it would be the last time we would draft Avacyn Restored. Well, last time for me anyway, Liz planned to look after Kaleb and maybe get a board game in.

I can't remember too much about the draft (my first pick being not very memorable), apart from the fact that it was very diverse. End of the first pack I had a playable in all colours, but mostly green, so decided to stick there and see what else I could get.

In the end, I had more black cards as a secondary colour, so went with that. Deck was a little lucky, but had 2 each of the black common two drops, and some fairly aggressive green, so it was looking good. Two trusted forcemage and a wolfir silverheart were the top cards, and both interacted well with wandering wolf and howlgeist.

I lost the first game of the first round. My opponent had some good fliers which I couldn't do much about. I won the next two games by gathering more creatures to push damage through. A quick interlude to test out my modern infect deck, and I was on to the second round.

First game of match two, I won with the wolfir-howlgeist interaction. In the second game, my opponent played the hexproof soulbond creature before another one, so I was able to remove it before things got silly. A close game later and I git the second win.

The third match was very quick, I won both games with an aggressive trusted forcemage with blades bracers. And wolfir silverheart which was actually passed to ne last pack by this opponent. I'm sure they regretted that... The second match ended with both paired and a joint assault for lethal.

I think ended the night 3 matches up and one game down which I think was a good way to end the set :-)

Drafting Avacyn Restored

Me and Liz went along to Hemel to do a draft of Avacyn Restored last night; probably the last time we'll be able to go for a little while. This would be the second time to draft the set, so we had a bit of an idea about what some of the cards did. 

The Helvault and Avacyn Restored draft

Due to some illness, I didn't go along to a Avacyn Restored pre-release. With a baby coming along soon I'm not going to be going to as many events as usual, so I didn't mind too much. I had a look through the set while it was being spoiled and it looked interesting though (but I sometimes find it hard to see what a set looks like without playing it). It wasn't one that I looked through and thought it looked awesomely fun straight away, but not all sets do that, so that's fine. There were a couple of fun looking cards, that I might try to get for a couple of decks. It seems to take me a couple of days to listen to the Magic pod casts I listen to (The Mana Pool and Limited Resources), so I think by that point I had listened to the pre-pre-release ones so was about as prepared as a pre-release (which, it kind of was to me, the second interaction with the set [1])


Even though we had missed the pre-release, on the weekend the set was released we popped in the comic shop I play at sometimes (Chaos City in St Albans) as it was free comic book day (and we were passing through St Albans), and were asked if we wanted to come to the Monday night Magic event they were doing, which would be a draft of the new set. We said we might come along if we had the time spare to. As it was on a bank holiday, we did have a bit of time, and did make an effort to go along, if anything because it's a few set and we'll have less Magic playing time soon...

Dark Ascension draft

I've not been able to draft as much as I would have liked recently, so was happy that me and Liz had a spare evening to go along to Hemel yesterday. Getting ready, we wondered how many times we had actually drafted the set, figuring it had only been once, maybe twice. I had gone to the pre-release so was one time up, but it was still a lot less than I would have liked. 


Sitting down, we opened the Dark Ascension pack and I had a look through, before deciding that, as I hadn't played the set much (and won't have much of a chance to soon), I would go for a fun deck as opposed to a super powerful one, and went with Diregraf Captain, with the intention to get a fun Zombie deck. 

Innistrad First Picks

After the last draft I did, I got one booster pack as a prize, and didn't have enough time to look through it last night, so will do so now. 


Interestingly, there are no white cards in the pack, but the other colours are fairly well represented. The top 4 cards are Unburial Rites, Rage Thrower, Mirror-Mad Phantasm and Mayor of Avabruck // Howlpack Alpha. 

Drafting the Laboratory Maniac deck

I did another draft last night and, while I didn't do well with blue last time, ended up playing blue again. I had been reading about an archetype where you mill yourself and make many spider tokens over and over again, but didn't want to go into the draft looking to play the deck, and just went with what I saw. As it turned out, I ended up going with a deck very similar anyway. 


When I opened the pack, the first card I picked was Skaab Ruinator. Massive creature, evasion; generally a great bomb. Meant I was going to be in blue again, but I had a win condition, whereas last time I just had ways to delay my inevitable defeat. It also meant I would have to be looking into playing cards that filled my graveyard, so kept that in mind. I can't remember what my next pick or two were, it might have been a Victim of Night. But my pick either 3 or 4 was Laboratory Maniac, which looked so fun I took it and decided to build my deck around it...

Innistrad draft

I got around to going to another Innistrad draft last night. I think the deck I drafted was very good, and I was doing well, but lost some close games in the finals. But it was fun to play regardless. 


My first pick was a Manor Gargoyle, passing Tribute to Hunger and Geistflame. The Tribute came round again so I took it late, which was handy as I had been taking a lot of black that pack. I had a few green cards and an Unburial Rites, so was looking into playing black with green/white as a splash. In the next few packs, I got more black cards and a few good green cards, but not too many white cards. I did also open a Gavony Township, so was thinking so splashing both green and white, even if only slightly, and looked for mana fixing some more. 

Innistrad First picks

I opened an interesting looking booster recently. Definatly something that has multiple good cards to consider for a first pick.  


This was the top 7 cards that there was in the pack. 

First experiences with Innistrad (and some first picks!)

Although I didn't make it to any of the official pre-releases and releases, I have been able to play some games now (including a draft!). 


So far I have done a practice sealed deck creating and playing with Liz, and started an Innistrad league, and done a draft at Hemel. Playing with Liz was the first time I used the double sided cards, and I tried both with sleeves and without using the checklist cards. I like the cards themselves, but so far think they are a bit awkward to play with. I didn't like them too much in sleeves because I wanted to be able to see the other side a bit easier when it was in play (and it would be a bit obvious what is in your hand if you try to look at the other side while in your hand). I didn't like the unsleeving it to transform it too much as it was a little awkward. Hopefully these issues will be lessened once I know what is on the other side of the card a bit better so I won't need to check the other side as much. Playing with the checklist cards was a bit better when they were in play because it was easier to check the other side, but I didn't like using the checklist cards while not in play too much. When I played a checklist card, I had an awkward moment when I didn't know what to do with the checklist card - I couldn't keep it in my hand as I had cast it, I didn't want to put it on the battlefield in case I mistook it for a token (I sometimes use the back of cards for tokens), so I ended up making an awkward pile away from my graveyard (again so I didn't mistake it for my graveyard pile). I also had the problem of not knowing exactly what the cards did by name when having checklist cards in my hand, with extra awkwardness when drawing multiples (image below is my hand from turn 2 or 3 when I was playing against Liz)

Summary: DFC's are a bit awkward

Last M12 draft - Winston Star

At Hemel last night was probably the last M12 draft I'll be doing. As there was only 5 of us, we did a different format than usual. We did a Winston Draft between the 5 players, planning to play the Star Format as there was 5 of us. 


I started off the draft, with nothing particularly interesting in either pile, but opted to take a Plummet in the last pile as it is somewhat alright (and going to have some targets with multiple opponents) as I didn't want to risk getting something worse. In hindsight, I should have taken the card off the top as it was Sorin's Vengeance which the person after me took. 


When the pick came round to me again, the first pile hadn't been taken and now had about 6 cards, so I took it as there were a few slightly alright cards. 

M12 draft: splashing Overrun

I went to another M12 draft yesterday, where I went 3-0 again (yay). 


The draft started off with a couple of potential colours, but it turned out that I was going to be heavy black so I stuck with that, picking up a few cards from other colours in case I wanted to splash, which I did in the end (I don't think I had enough to make a mono colour deck). 

Fast M12 draft deck (& first picks)

I went to the usual Hemel draft yesterday. It was M12, so this would be the third time I have drafted it so far I think. Last time I had a fast blue deck. 

M12 (almost) mono blue Draft (and first picks)

After not being able to go draft for a while, I finally managed to get to Hemel to do a M12 draft yesterday. So this post will briefly cover that, and after look at the packs I won and think about first picks from them. 

M12 First picks

I did a practice sealed with Liz earlier today, to try and improve a bit after doing badly at the weekend. Deck I made was fairly similar to my last sealed deck, although with a bit less removal, but this time I had a Sorin's Vengeance - a card that I have nicknamed "I win" because every time I have seen it resolve, it wins the caster the game. 

M12 Release

I went to the M12 release event at my usual place, as the London pre-release I usually go to wasn't running, it was the first time I got to play with the new cards. 


In general, I think the set is quite fun. I didn't do very well on the day (a mixture of my opponents being very good, but mainly me playing badly).