Draft of a Gamer: something from nothing

This was a frustrating draft for the draft potion, but in the games I pleasantly surprised myself. My deck was the opposite of what I’d like a Magic Origins draft deck to be. Low creatures, and little creature action before turn 4.

Pack 1, pick 1: Fiery Impulse

Nothing wrong with first picking a powerful common, and Fiery Impulse is certainly that. My other choice was Cruel Revival, a more expensive removal spell. After this pick, things got a little shaky.

The deck: red/black

I ended up extremely low on creatures, to the extent where I had to take a creature over almost anything else in Pack 3. I started that pack with just 7 creatures in my deck. Clearly not good enough. I had to take whatever was going. Unfortunately what was going was mostly 4-mana creatures. I added a couple of Undead Servants and a Firefiend Elemental to my deck. A Shambling Ghoul came round so I snapped that up.  It became my only 2-mana creature. The final act of desperation was a Volcanic Rambler.

There were some positives to the deck, a trio of Reave Souls gave me some good early removal to go with Fiery Impulse, and also the chance of getting that Spell Mastery online. Really though, I was scrapping to find the positives here.

The result: 2-1

I surprised myself with this. I won the first match 2-0 against a red/white player who appeared to have a similar problem to me – a lack of early plays. My heart sank when I saw a mountain and a plains across the table on turn 2, but nothing came down before turn four. In both games the first creature to be case was my own Ghirapur Gearcrafter.

With a surprising creature advantage I was able to use Reave Soul and Fiery Impulse to remove his blockers and swing through for the win.

Match 2 went very well – for my opponent, that is. A red/green deck overran me first with Rogue’s Passage and next with Joraga Inovaction on a large Zendikar Incarnate. My opponent cast Call of the Full Moon to give the living land trample and make sure of his win. I was left to consider how a marginal deck makes your opponent’s marginal cards into effective cards.

The final match would decide if I was having a good time or a bad time. 1-2 or 2-1. My opponent’s deck was green/black, and similarly slow. Multiple games started at turn 3. I won this 2-0 again in a reasonable replay of the first match. I was also aided by my opponent’s willingness to concede in both games. Game 1 I had three unopposed creatures out, and my opponent conceded at 8 life. Fair enough I would swing for 7 in his turn, but you still get to draw a card. It’s not over until it’s over.

The second game was more egregious. Three creatures faced off against one another. I was at 18, my opponent at 14. I cast Reave Soul at his opposing Orchard Spirit and he responded with Might of the Masses. Fair enough. It let that resolve and promptly cast Act of Treason on the now 5/5 spirit that neither me nor my opponent could block. My opponent conceded on the spot. This was a far from lethal situation for him, neither was combat going to be a particular blow out. Nothing to do but shrug and take my win. I was having a good time.

Best cards:

Reave Soul was clearly the best card, due to its triplicate form too. In that last match I had played all 3 in the first game, and 2 in the second before my opponent threw in the towel. Nothing else really stood out.

Lessons Learned

Scrappy play can salvage a poor draft. I was not looking forward to playing with a single 2-drop. Turns out, all my opponents had similar issues reliably dropping a creature on or by turn 2. It happened, but turn 3 starts were present in all 3 matches played. Huh.

I didn’t see Volcanic Rambler at all across the 3 matches, and was happy not to.

The deck sorted by  converted mana cost (CMC) with lands last

CMC 1: Fiery Impulse, 2 Titan’s Strength

CMC 2: Alchemist’s Vial, Infernal Scarring, 2 Reave Soul, Shambling Ghoul

CMC 3: Act of Treason, Akroan Sergeant, Ghirapur Gearcrafter, Nantuko Husk, Read the Bones

CMC 4: Firefiend Elemental, 2 Guardian Automaton, Skyraker Giant, 2 Undead Servant

CMC 5: Embermaw Hellion, Revenant, Unholy Hunger

CMC 6: Volcanic Rambler