Launch Party usually brings booster draft, FNM promo and now Launch Party promo. It's the first time you can officially draft and many times those drafts are fun. When I arrived last week from Festival Fantazie I was exhausted and couldn't really concentrate on the cards or what was going on at the prerelease. My pool lacked creatures. So I ended up in UBw with Vampire Nighthawks and Bandits. I was trying to control the game but I was usually overwhelmed by big green creatures, captain of the watch and some burn that could take down either my little vampire or the bandit (that proved to be better aggro creature^^). During the week I did not check the spoiler so I was still quite clueless about many cards.
(Little disclaimer. I did not expect to write a report from this draft so I wasn't taking notes.)
So when the time of a boosterdraft came I wasn't sure what the format would look like. I opened my first pack and did not hope for anything but my rare was Thragtusk! I picked that and checked the rest of the booster pack before I passed it to the left.
When I got another pack green wasn't any good. If there was something good in it the player next to me had it. So I looked for a white card (or a red one). There was pacifism in the booster. I wanted to ignore the card and pick a creature but then I read the card's text again. It said 'Enchanted creature can't attack or block'. I facepalmed myself and tried to forget about Avacyn Restored where a card saying 'Prevent all damage that would be dealt by enchanted creature' or ' Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt to and dealt by enchanted creature.' wasn't something I would want to pick high. I picked Pacifism and waited for next cards.
I picked quite early Ajani's Sunstriker even though I knew double white would be a problem, but the card is just too good and Timberpack Wolf twice. I knew that the player right of me is picking green so I wasn't expecting anything better and was trying to get something good in white. I got Griffin Protector. It reminded me of Kruin Striker from AVR. I remembered that I've passed Captain's Call and was ready to pick it if by a chance it would come back to me - it did.
In the second booster I picked few centaurs and war priests of thune along with safe passage. I wasn't really happy about it but I had my 2 drops and 3 drops in a good number already.
I waited what the third booster would bring and it brought some fruit! I got finally the 4/4 Vigilance, Reach creature. I was passed down farseek, Roaring Primadox and Acidic Slime. I also picked Naturalize if someone would want to bother me with Mark of the Vampire, rings or something.
In the end I ended up with 26 cards I would play but only 23 made it to the deck. I also had red cards that I wanted to splash but decided against it. I did not have really good cards in red anyway.
1x Thragtusk
2x Captain's Call
1x Naturalize
1x Roaring Primadox
3x Centaur Courser
2x Safe Passage
1x Prey Upon
2x War Priest of Thune
1x Griffin Protector
2x Timberpack Wolf
1x Titanic Growth
1x Ajani's Sunstriker
1x Yeva's Forcemage
1x Sentinel Spider
1x Farseek
1x Pacifism
1x Divine Favor
In round one I played against Blue/Black controlly deck. That showed me Sleep twice. Also Talrand was there early and Tormented Soul with a corresponding ring. I was quite afraid of Talrand making little flyers but in the end he was forced to block my creatures. Sleep though seemed to change the tempo and I would die in the next attack if I wouldn't draw one of the cards that can gain me life. I was lucky to draw my rare. It saved my life as Tormented Soul (being quite big from a 'black ring') would deal lethal damage next turn. I survived the attack, untapped and attacked for the win.
In the second game I tried to be as fast as possible and it worked out for me.
Round 2 I played against Black/Red deck with Thundermaw Hellkite. The pilot of the deck just started to play Magic once again so there were few things that he missed and that caused him to lose the games against me. I tried hard to survive and come up with an answer to the hellkite but even pumped Whelp could kill me. Anyway I still had my Safe Passages and I HOPED that these would solve the problem. It though required my only creature with reach to show up. The spider came hopefully. The little cat with lifelink was also trying hard to save me. Without this card even usually swearing because I couldn't play it early I wouldn't have won.
The final round I knew I would play against UW flyers. From the prerelease I knew that Arctic Aven is really evil (I played it myself). In the first game my opponent played the Aven on turn 3 and a second one turn later. I was bit colored screwed by my mana and couldn't play my lifelink creature. Anyway the game soon ended as I was unable to do anything with the 3/2 flyers with potential lifelink. In the next game I hoped for a draw that would look like 2 plains, Sunstriker, lands and 4/4, vigilance, reach. My wish actually came true partly. I had Sunstriker but the rest of my hand was plains, 2x forest and Yeva's Forcemage. Fortunately I drew the land, played Sunstriker and attacked for 4. Later I was drawing creatures and was able to deal with the annoying avens. Everything seemed fine but my opponent was capable to destroy all my creatures and even my remaining tokens from Captain's call that tried to deal damage via Kitesail. My opponent was at 4 and I was at about 11. We were both in top deck mode, but both of us were drawing lands. My opponent was the first one to draw a relevant creature. He played 2/2 knight with first strike that also brought another 1/1 token into play. Few rounds later I finally top decked my beast and won. (or something like that). The last game was in my favor even though it was also pretty tense.
I won the draft with 3:0 and picked Sublime Angel even though there was also the Hellkite available. I wanted the angel anyway. I got some booster packs and for some reason I opened another Nicol Bolas. (I already have a playset of the new ones)
No comments:
Post a Comment