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. 

Continuing the first pack, I was happy to pick up not one but two Reap the Seagraf and a Highborn Ghoul. Also notable from the first pack was Sightless Ghoul, Screeching Skaab and Haunted Fengraf. 


The Innistrad pack started off well as I was able to pick up a Falkenrath Noble as a first pick, and was then passed another one. Not a Zombie, but good nonetheless. 


Over the last two packs, I also managed to pick up two Tribute to Hunger, Victim of Night, Dead Weight, Silent Departure, Stitched Drake, Claustrophobia, Ghoulraiser, Armored Skaab, two Walking Corpse, Fortress Crab, Ghoulcaller's Chant and a Forbidden Alchemy. 


In all, 9 Zombies (including the Zombie Lord), plus the two Zombie token creators, so a fairly decent stab at a tribal deck, even if I do say so myself. 


I tried out the Haunted Fengraf as my threats were on a fairly low curve, so I wanted something to do in the late game. I don't think I activated it, but almost did one game (I used Ghoulcaller's Chant instead I think).  


In the first round, I won one and lost two, playing an aggressive red/green deck. I made some good use of using Tribute to Hunger on flipped werewolves, and graveyard recursion but ultimately was overwhelmed in the end. 


In the second round, my opponent was playing white green, and I was able to win this round after some close games. I was slowed down by some One-Eyed Scarecrows which were good against both Highborn Ghoul and Falkenrath Noble, but could eventually get enough damage through to win. 


I lost the first game in the final round; my opponent got out Thalia, Guardian of Thraben on the second turn, making my Walking Corpses look bad by comparison. They played a lot of fliers and there wasn't much I could do. 


In the next game, I curved out very well and won very quickly, playing out three or four 2/X creatures, and using removal once they started getting creatures down, winning after a few turns. 


The final game was quite close, but I was able to win, thanks to Falkenrath Noble (attacking with a number of 2/X's while they were on 2 and had to block them all, which would kill at least two of them). 


All in all, it was a fun evening. 


A nice bonus was one of my winning packs: Increasing Savagery, Mondronen Shaman, and a foil Elbrus, the Binding Blade // Withengar Unbound :-)