Preliminary note: I'm not posting full decks anymore.
2017-01-06: I drafted a mediocre/rareless BR deck (13 creatures + 1 Vehicle + 8 hard removal + 1 other spell + 17 lands), but remained a bit too low on 2-drop creatures (topping my curve at 5 CMC). I lost 1-2 twice in a row (against BG and UGR, respectively), to end in a bye (due to somebody dropping). Perhaps I shouldn't have speculated on White (instead of Red) as my secondary color in pack 2 (i.e. premium removal picks 1 and 2, but just nothing after that) ... Because I'll only be playing 1 of both Aether Revolt prerelease days, I'll take my last Kaladesh draft chance next week ...
2017-01-13: I drafted a great BR deck (containing enough 2-drops and 3 strong Verhicles, a.o. pack 1 pick 1 Smuggler's Copter). In pack 2, I briefly explored White as 2nd color, but I returned to Red (thereby slightly missing out on some additional Red strength). Anyway, I beat my BW and GW opponents 2-1 each, after which I lost against a lower-curve mirror match opponent (0-2). The games were very interesting, i.e. not so easy (especially considering all 3 strong opponents). Coming up next: the Aether Revolt prerelease events ... Last but not least: breaking news ! With great pride (on 2017-01-12), I finally launched my 'Magic Brew' deck building support website: https://magicbrew.jbridge.be/. Check it out ! (Aether Revolt update coming soon ...)
As always, nice new set exploration amongst nice people during the nice 2016-01-14 prerelease at the nice Demo-Spel venue :-). I'm not impressed by the set's new Revolt mechanic, nor have I tried the new Improvise mechanic, yet, but I rather interpret Aether Revolt as an all-round Kaladesh completion. This is confirmed by the many set reviews and archetypes previews.
My 1st Sealed card pool was a bit of a problem: zero Green/Red removal, barely any playable Blue creatures, and relatively high CMC removal in Black/White (luckily plus some extra removal under the form of White creature abilities). I stuck to both last colors (despite only 3 creatures in the 2 mana slot), but in retrospect the better curved Green/White or Red/White combination might have given me more play. Anyway, I obtained a 1-2 loss against the BW mirror, a 0-2 loss against a RW deck, and a 1-1 draw against a somewhat recursive slow BUW deck. My only prize support booster contained one of the new planeswalkers, so it wasn't all that bad !
I immediately spotted a couple of Thriving Rhino and a couple of Aetherstream Leopard in my 2nd Sealed pool, so I got a lot more optimistic, ending up with a very strong Green/Red Energy deck (despite some 2-drops shortage). This one brought me a 2-1 win against BR, a 2-1 win against BGW, and a close 1-2 loss against an equally strong but relatively low curve RW deck (where my opponent unfortunately topdecked first for the win, after his Fumigate). That's just variance ... To perfectly end this double-event day, I got the nice legendary Monkey token in one of my 3 boosters prize support :-). Coming up next: FNM release draft !
My 2016-01-20 Aether Revolt release draft went quite well. I drafted a nicely curved aggressive BR deck, containing about twice as much Red than Back (after having fished for some Green in the first pack). In fact, my deck contained no rares and just 2 uncommons, so basically it was just a bunch of (overwhelmingly solid) commons, like my 3 Aether Chaser (all coming from pack 2). I first lost 0-2 against an extremely strong BG counters deck, after which I won twice in a row (2-1), against BGW and UR, respectively. All in all, a pleasurable experience, tasting for more !
I again drafted/played a rareless but nicely curved aggressive deck (7 creatures in the 2 CMC slot, enough removal, etc.) on 2016-01-27, although RW this time (Red again being the primary color). I won 2-1 against BW and 2-1 against BG (= the strongest archetype, in my humble opinion), after which I lost 1-2 against a stronger RW mirror deck. Let's hope I can keep switching color pairs to explore them all ...
Strange things happened during my 2016-02-03 draft. After an entire pack 1 (having picked only a couple of decent Red cards, some mediocre artifacts, plus a bit of Blue, Green, and White, because of confusing signals), I consistently got good White removal, a couple of pump spells, and serviceable creatures in pack 2. This solidified me in RW aggro, picking any 2 CMC creature I could get my hands on in pack 3. I ended up with a half-decent 4/7/3/0 creatures curve (in the 2-/3/4/5+ CMC slots), and no other 4+ drops in my deck (which by the way only contained 1 mediocre rare card). Since more than half my cards were located in the 3 CMC slot, I still played 17 lands. This surprisingly led me to a 3-0-0 result, winning 2-0 against BU, 2-0 against BGW, and 2-1 against BGR. Apparently, aggro (i.e. cheap 3-power creatures + solid removal) really is the name of the KLD + AER game ...
I 'cowardly' played another RW deck during my 2016-02-15 draft, after having contemplated Green for a while (and ignoring potential color switch/splash possibilities later on). Counting only 3 creatures in the 2 CMC slot and again not playing any rares, I'm happy I didn't get butchered. I lost 0-2 against the eventual draft pod winner, who played an interesting BU Energy deck (drawing lots of cards), actually milling me just in time before an otherwise sure kill in game 1. After that, I won 2-1 against an equally interesting UR Improvise deck. After mulliganing to 5 and getting stuck for too long on the wrong mana color, respectively, I lost 0-2 to a GW Revolt deck. Next time, I clearly need to take more risk (i.e. be more open minded) during the draft portion. There's more color combinations out there ...
2016-02-17 ... At last, something else than RW ! This time, I happily went for GW Revolt. Mind you, I did pass quite a lot of solid Red removal, but by that time I was already cemented in my colors. My creatures curve (including creature spawning spells) was very reasonable: 6/3/3/3 (in the 2-/3/4/5+ CMC slots). Historic event: I played only 16 lands, because of the Renegade Map. Result: 2-0 win against BU, 0-2 loss against mono-R, and 2-1 win against RW. Nice ...
2016-03-01: drafting BR again ... This time I played a midrange deck (going up tot 7 CMC) with only 5 2-drop creatures, due to my left neighbour being in the same colors, i.e. practically no good pack 2 picks. Unfortunately, not much Black got passed in pack 3 either, due to my right neighbour ending up in Black as well. I lost 1-2 against GW (unable to kill a Aetherwind Basker), I won 2-0 against my BG right neighbour, and I lost the BR mirror match (left neighbour) 1-2, unable to timely stop a surprise Ovalchase Dragster. Anyway, I admit my decision not to mulligan a 5 lands hand containing only 1 creature on the play in game 3 was questionable, and perhaps the same goes for a similar game 3 mulligan decision against my 1st round opponent ...
2016-03-03: well, drafting GW again ... This draft was not so easy. I couldn't find any clear color switch, despite mostly getting sub-par GW card quality. I ended up with a somewhat strange 5/6/0/4 creatures curve (i.e. in the 2-/3/4/5+ CMC slots), unfortunately without enough removal, and also a bit meagre regarding the Revolt mechanic. I again played 16 lands because of a Renegade Map. My result was more or less as expected: I won 2-0 against a RW beginner, and then lost 1-2 to both BG and BR opponents (twice losing the initial die roll plus the 1st game, hence not being on the play to start off the last game within the AER aggro oriented metagame). Nevertheless, fun as always ...
My maximum (i.e. 11 participants) draft pod on 2016-03-10 didn't go well. I ended up in a URw improvise-ish deck, slightly too high on curve, and splashing White because of not enough removal. Result: 0-2 loss against my BG left neighbour, 2-0 win against my BG (beginner) right neighbour, and 1-2 loss against RW. I again tried the 16 lands + Renegade Map approach, but I didn't like the many mulligans (unrelated to my splash color), especially on the play. Well, I have tried all 5 colors now, but I'm definitely not in favor of Blue ...
On 2016-03-15, I almost drafted a mono-Green (Energy oriented) deck, except for a couple of White removal and pump spells. Within this 6 players draft pod, my main color simply kept coming. I won 2-1 against UW and 2-0 against RW, but I lost 0-2 against BW (twice getting slaughtered by the dreaded Noxious Gearhulk). I played 16 lands because of my 2 Druid of the Cowl. Apparently, still 6 untried color combinations will be waiting for me during my 5 remaining AER drafts, unless the signals would dictate otherwise ...
2016-03-24: I drafted an excellent BR deck, i.e. low curve + 9 hard removal (3 of which were 1-drops) + 15 non-Vehicle creatures + 16 lands + even a couple of useful sideboard cards. My deck consisted of just some uncommons, the remainder being commons. This finally brought me a draft pod win again: 2-0 win against GW, 2-1 win against BGr, and 2-1 win against UW. I know, 3rd time drafting BR, but the colors were really open ...
Unfortunately, my 2016-03-31 draft literally turned out to be a total loss. My non-synergistic BGw deck (holding on to a pack 1 pick 1 Winding Constrictor) lost 3 times in a row: 1-2 against UW, 1-2 against UG, and 0-2 against UR. Apparently, my right neighbour also drafted BG, so I should have switched. I simply didn't read the signals well enough. All of this implied me dropping from 3rd to 5th place in the quarterly Draft League final ranking. Oh well, there are worse things in life ...
I was undefeated at the 2016-04-12 draft. However, playing a mediocre BG deck (containing only 1 rare and 1 uncommon), I had to accept 2 draws (i.e. 1-1, against GR and BW, respectively), after having defeated a BUr deck 2-0. Except for the fact that this 10 participants draft pod was not so easy, there's not much more to tell ... Just a couple more drafts to go before the Amonkhet prerelease events !
Once again, my 'junk' style aggro-control point was proven during the 2016-04-19 draft: a low curve including enough 2-drops (in this case: 8) and enough cheap hard removal (in this case: 5 at 3 CMC, actually plus 3 even cheaper strong pump spells) very often does the job. I drafted a GW deck without revolt, simply bashing face. I won this event by means of a 2-0 win against Gbu, a 2-1 win against BR (losing the 2nd game after an unfortunate mulligan), and a 2-0 win against BU.
2016-04-21: another event win during the same week, playing GR energy(-ish), including Untethered Express and Skysovereign, Consul Flagship, despite less available hard removal than usual (presumably because the draft pod consisted of only 6 players). Results: 1-1 draw against BW, 2-1 win against BU, and 2-1 win against UR. Yes, Release the Gremlins is a fantastic card ... Also, I hadn't drafted this archetype before, thereby concluding Kaladesh block 'draft season' in a very nice way !
Only 1 minus point to the Saturday 2017-04-22 and Sunday 2017-04-23 AKH Sealed Deck release events: my small 4-pocket trade binder got stolen between events #1 and #2 on Saturday. Luckily, each week I 'agressively' trade towards non-foil singles collection completion, so I don't keep many spare cards around at any point in time. In fact, I only need to find 1 more AER card. Balance: about 40 EUR worth of (KLD + AER) cards lost, plus the handy binder itself. I have decided to purchase an even smaller 2-pocket trade binder, in the idle hopes of making it nearly invisible to potential future scavenging vultures. Anyway, Exert is a very nice mechanic, Cycling again provides a lot of flexibility (also lowering sideboard requirements), and there's a couple of strong Aftermath cards. Unfortunately, my 4 card pools didn't lend themselves to test the Embalm mechanic. However, my strongest 'board wipe' card pool (#3) did get a beating by a resilient UW Embalm/tokens/flyers deck. I wouldn't be surprised to see this last archetype rise to the top in the upcoming draft setting. I experienced relatively many mulligans, mostly playing 17 lands (which might have been a mistake, depending on the amount of Cycling cards), but that was mostly unrelated to splashing. Also, I barely found any value in my 4 card pools + 9 prize boosters combined, so (necessarily restarting at zero trade) let's hope the coming 11 weeks of pure Amonkhet drafting will compensate for that.
I had a good start, winning my 3rd event in a row (still during the same week) ! I played RW mini-splash Green (for an Aftermath 'fight' card plus a useful GW 4/4 Exert creature), i.e. aggro/Exert: 16 lands, including Evolving Wilds and a Forest + a low curve (including 8 2-drop creatures). This resulted in a 2-1 win against BR, a 2-1 win against UG, and a 2-1 win against GW.
My 2nd card pool was reasonable, but not exceptional. I played GR ramp/Exert, resulting in a 1-2 loss against URW (actually losing during the last turn in called time), a 1-1 draw against BW, and a 0-2 loss against BU (getting color-screwed twice, plus committing a playing error: denying myself the opportunity to consecutively cast 2 strong 6-drops by opportunistically sacrificing a land to finish off an opposing creature and then remaining stuck on my already available 5 lands for too long).
Card pool #3 was straightforward: lots of creatures in both Green and Red main colors, including some serious gas (Samut, Voice of Dissent and Khenra Charioteer), 2 very useful board wipers (Heaven /to/ Earth and Sweltering Suns), and a couple of artifact/flyer spot removal spells (due to their cheap Cycling ability). This twice led to an easy 2-0 win against BW, but then to a 0-2 loss against the aforementioned UW Embalm 'super deck'.
My 4th card pool provided quite a puzzle, including a reasonable amount of good Blue creatures (unfortunately also including bad ones at low CMC), good White removal + around 6 creatures, even better Black removal + around 6 creatures as well, the Red 'God' plus a couple more creatures without any decent removal, and mediocre Green creatures with barely any removal at all. This caused me to build/play 5 different decks during 3 rounds :-). During the first round, also biased to play yet untested colors, I tried a BU splash White deck. Losing the 1st game against UW, I immediately switched to my yet unsleeved GR splash White card pool complement, reusing the splash. I won game #2, but lost game #3: 1-2 loss overall. I used the remaining round time to completely rebuild a BW splash Red deck from scratch. Losing the first game against another UW deck, I switched to BW splash Green, i.e. this time reusing the non-splash cards majority. Alas, at no avail: I lost game #2 as well: 0-2. Not giving up, I completely rebuilt a BG splash White deck from scratch. Yes, I won round 3 (result: 2-0) against UR, but my opponent got mana-screwed/flooded twice, so the, in my humble opinion, only disadvantage in Magic (i.e. basic resource variance) kind of invalidated my time-pressured crazy deck rebuild work in between rounds. Anyway, the show must go on ... during next week's highly anticipated release draft !
2017-04-29 Amonkhet release draft: I drafted a somewhat clunky BR deck, i.e. rareless and not containing enough 2-drop creatures (slightly compensated by 3 high CMC / low Cycling cost spells). My reasonable removal helped me win 2-0 against UG and 2-0 against BRw, but I lost 0-2 to the dreaded UW(b) Embalm archetype (played by my right neighbour). Insightful evening, but I'm already hoping for some UGW mix myself, next time. Of course, draft signals always prevail, so it's extremely unlikely I would actually try and force this ...
The 2017-05-05 draft convinced me again that Blue is relatively inconsistent/weak, especially as primary color (despite pack 1 pick 1 Vizier of Many Faces and pack 3 pick 1 Glyph Keeper). I might not have read the draft signals correctly, because I ended up in a low-removal UW mini-splash Black deck, while my right neighbour apparently drafted GW. Red was slightly open in pack 1, but somehow I went back and forth between Black and White as secondary color. Unfortunately, in pack 2 (after my pick 1 Glorybringer) my left neighbour(s) heavily cut Red, so I reluctantly passed some very good Red removal in pack 3. After the draft smoke cleared, my 7 mediocre 1- and 2-drop creatures sometimes helped me stall towards a decent late game in the Swiss rounds, but I still drew 1-1 against BG, won 2-0 against GR, and lost 1-2 against RWb. It is abundantly clear to me that Amonkhet is a relatively fast format, headlined by the GW and RW color combinations (presumably in that order). It is also clear to me that UW attrition (i.e. Embalm) is next in line, especially against other non-aggro archetypes. Well, GW was my favorite color combination back in 1996, so I don't mind history repeating itself ...
A somewhat strange draft happened on 2017-05-12. I ended up with a GR deck (major color Red) without seeing any removal in those colors, having ignored reasonable Black removal (and Black creatures) in pack 1, and also having refused Blue flyers. Apparently, my right neighbour drafted GW, i.e. picking all Cartouches and Trials, but my left neighbour drafted mono-Blue: I played both of them within our 10 players draft pod. Hence, Red removal got cut elsewhere, in both directions. Nevertheless, I did pick good Red creatures (especially in pack 3), but I needed to resort to a couple of mediocre pump spells + (luckily) Hazoret the Fervent. Result: 2-0 win against the GR mirror, 2-0 win against mono-Blue, and 0-2 loss against GW (the 1st game getting flooded afer a mulligan to 5 cards, and the 2nd game getting hopelessly stuck on 3 lands). Next time, I might try following the draft signals again, although I'm definitely not in favor of Blue, and still having some doubts about Black's overall consistency (compared to the, in my view, more promising color combo/support potential of the 3 remaining colors: White, Red, and Green; let's face it, we're swimming in an aggro format again, perhaps more than initially expected).
Drafted a rareless but above average (i.e. decent curve with 7 2-drop creatures, reasonable removal, and 17 lands, due to no Cycling) BG -1/-1 counters deck on 2017-05-19. Lost 1-2 against BU Cycling (mulliganing to 5 in game 2, and getting stuck on 2 lands in game 3), won 2-0 against the BG mirror, and won 2-0 against BW Zombies. Apparently, I started this 2nd quarter of 2017 with 7 consecutive 50% or better draft scores. Not bad for the Draft League (where I'm currently, on Thu 2017-05-25, in 1st place) ! Already having drafted 4 different archetypes in 4 AKH drafts (all BGR combinations + UW), I'm hoping for some White non-Blue color combo next ...
2017-05-26: my badly curved (again rareless) BR deck lost 0-2 against a RW Exert deck. It also lost 1-2 against a UGw card draw/ramp deck. I was bye the 3rd round. Well, I couldn't bring myself to a 1st pack 1st pick Glyph Keeper over a Edifice of Authority. Jumping back and forth between Red and White as 2nd color (mainly drafting White in pack 2, knowing my right neighbour was drafting White in pack 1) barely got me enough playables in either color (and in fact not much more than that). My right neighbour became my first round opponent, so it turned out he had drafted Red as well. Hence, in theory, I should have been BU after all (because no Green was coming through), even after already having passed the aforementioned Blue bomb. However, I can't remember having encountered any 3-0 BU Cycling decks, yet. Simply having prefered Red over (multiple consecutive Gust Walker) White in pack 2 would at least have improved my situation. Oh well, drafting's never easy ...
After my 1st pack during the 2017-06-02 draft, it was clear to me that Red was going to be my main color, but I picked the strongest White, Black, and Green cards as well, because of the the overall low packs quality. Black quickly vanished, and halfway the 2nd pack I decided to stick with Green as my secondary color. I managed to draft a well-curved deck (this time with several strong rares): 10/3/2/1 (in the 2-/3/4/5+ CMC creature slots), with good removal, a couple of strong pump/Aftermath spells, and more than acceptable sideboard options. As a curiosity, I played 4 Pathmaker Initiate, which actually helped me in stalled battlefield situations. Result: 2-0 win against UG (Control), 0-2 loss (after a mulligan to 6 and to 5, respectively) against a very strong UW Embalm deck (including Aven Wind Guide, Anointed Procession, and 'regular' bomb rares), and another 2-0 win against UG (Ramp). All in all, an interesting FNM event, and at last some rares for my singles collection again.
Another GR deck on 2017-06-09, but this time I was cutting Green hard in pack 1. I ended up with a ramp deck, using Red primarily for removal. I drew a close 1-1 match against BU Cycle during called time, then I lost 0-2 against very strong BW Zombies, and finally I won 2-0 against some kind of UG Control. Apparently, I'm still underdrafting the potentially best color out there, i.e. White, so let's get our hopes up for next time. I don't mind underdrafting the weakest color, i.e. Blue, ...
2017-06-16: I drafted a weak version (in the sense of unexciting creatures) of the GW Exert/go-wide deck in a 6 players draft pod, mini-splashing Black for Start // Finish, and in some games also mini-splashing Red for an extra Electrify (by means of a Sheltered Thicket, my only rare card). I unfortunately lost everything: 0-2 against BU, 1-2 against RW (with a horrible mulligan to 5 on the play during the last game), and 1-2 against URb. Big note to self: please, hate draft all board sweepers in case of drafting a go-wide deck. Yes, I got utterly destroyed (twice !) by a Rags // Riches played by my 1st round opponent ... I also got flooded a couple of times, despite playing only 16 lands (including Evolving Wilds). If I would have gone for purely removal during my initial pack 1 picks, then I probably would have ended up in BR. Amonkhet doesn't contain enough removal for my 'junk' taste, so perhaps the latter picks would have made more sense, generally speaking. Nevertheless, I learned a couple of things from this 'experiment', and, after all, I'm still experiencing my best Draft League quarter (of 5), comparing my respective 11 events/weeks running totals ...
2017-06-23: I drafted a very reasonable BR deck (Red being the main color), containing 2 Canyon Slough for a perfect mana base. Alas, only 6 2-drop creatures and no 1 CMC nor 2 CMC removal made my deck a bit too slow. I obtained a lucky 1-1 draw against a bomby RW deck, I lost 1-2 against GW Exert, and I won 2-0 against a mediocre BU deck. Next Friday, this quarter's final Draft League standings will again result in due top-8 prizes. Let's hope I'll still be in that group at that time ...
My 2017-06-30 draft went a bit unexpected. I drafted a solid well-curved RW deck (without real bombs), but I still managed to lose twice: 1-2 against a BUR control deck, getting completely flooded on the play in the 3rd game, and 1-2 against a BW Zombies deck, getting completely mana screwed (after a mulligan) on the play in the 3rd game. Sigh. Yes, I did win the 3rd round ... against nobody (i.e. a bye). Unfortunately, this was the last Draft League event for the quarter, so I remained stuck in 5th place overall, whereby a 3-0 win would have implied a great 2nd place. My 76 points score (13 rounds) was only slightly worse than my 77 points best score. Perhaps I'll break my record next time (at the end of September) ...
My last AKH draft on 2017-07-05 was relatively hard. I went from Green to Red to Black to White, and eventually stayed in both latter colors (but not Zombies focused), despite picking Green as well until late pack 2. Again, I ended up without enough removal (for my taste), but at least I had a solid curve. This resulted in a 2-0 win against URW, a 1-2 loss against BU (where I played horribly during the 3rd game, but I still might not have won upon better play), and a 2-0 win against a weak BG deck (which simply didn't have enough 2-drops). After having concluded this format, I'm already looking forward to upcoming weekend's multiple Hour of Devastation prerelease events !
Like all prereleases at Demo-Spel, also the 2017-07-08/2017-07-09 Hour of Devastation prerelease events were well organized, in a friendly atmosphere as always. I went prepared, and I scored above average (resulting in 10 booster packs prize money). After both day 1 events, all my opponents had played B (2/3 of them BR). After all 4 events, 3/4 of the opposing decks had been Black, while 2/3 of the opposing decks also contained Red. I played 3/4 Red myself (or actually 100%, if taking splashes into account), and 3/4 Green. The only color I didn't play is Blue, which is a kind of historical legacy I can't seem to overcome. Writing the short summary below more than a week after these events, I'm afraid I don't remember most details anymore ...
My first card pool resulted in a GWr deck (mini-splashing for Insult // Injury, on a 7 Forest, 6 Plains, 1 Mountain, 1 Scattered Groves, and 1 Desert of the True mana base). During the 1st game, I almost bit off my tongue instead of strongly encouraging my opponent to play faster. Alas: a 1-1 draw during called time against a BUR deck (which I clearly would have won 2-1 otherwise). In fact, I lost the 1st game (mulliganing on a 5 lands draw), and I won the 2nd game (mulliganing on the play on a 7 lands draw, and mulliganing again on a 0 lands draw). In short, a somewhat weird 1st round. I did crush both next opponents, winning 2-0 twice (against a BU and a BR deck, respectively).
I assembled a somewhat clunky GR deck from my 2nd card pool (barely containing any spot removal), resulting in a 2-0 win against BR, a 1-0 win against another BR deck (where I would have won after called time expiration), and a 0-2 loss against BG (where my Mulligan to 5 on the play didn't provide much help). At least, my result ended up above my personal expectation ...
A rather mediocre creature quality based RW deck from my 3rd card pool resulted in a 2-0 win against BRG, but a 0-2 loss against UR and a 1-2 loss against BUR ...
My GRb deck distilled from my 4th card pool was a lot more to my liking. However, I mistakenly put a Desert of the Glorified instead of a Swamp in my deck to go with my Traveler's Amulet (additionally supporting my 2 Black removal spells splash), which cost me the 2nd game of the 2nd match (and thereby perhaps the entire match). Also, not including a Plains for my Pride Sovereign 4th color mini-splash clearly was too greedy, so I simply replaced this creature. Result: 2-1 win against UW (which must have been one of my toughest matches ever, helped by both my Hour of Devastation and Sweltering Suns, the former wiping out a Crested Sunmare and a first indestructible Horse token at just the right moment, and me empty-handedly topdecking a Open Fire for the win in the 3rd game with both of us at 2 life and my opponent still holding 2 cards), 1-2 loss against GW, and 2-0 win against BR. Coming up next: release draft !
Finally, during the 2017-07-14 release draft, I was able to gather 9 good hard removal spells again (probably due to a relatively weak right-hand side neighbour), going with 15 reasonable creatures (despite only 4 2-drops). The fact that my BR deck (main color Red) was rareless apparently didn't matter too much, in that I won all 3 rounds: 2-0 win against BW, 2-0 win against BWr, and 2-1 win against GR. Yes, there's a reason the BREAD acronym makes sense, but I did pick a Burning-Fist Minotaur over several solid removal alternatives. With no bad cards in my deck, and carefully having picked 3 Deserts over mediocre creatures, I just went for it ...
Sunday 2017-07-16 represented a double draft, i.e. one draft after the other. I deviated from my 'always pick removal over on-color creatures during the early draft phase' principle, which put me in a bombless low-curve GW deck (with a Overcome and a Trial of Solidarity, reasonable removal, and some pump spells). Unfortunately, my relatively low creature quality (despite a somewhat slow Steward of Solidarity and matching Dauntless Aven), and also a lack of Cycling cards, led to a 2-1 win against BWR, a 1-2 loss against UR, and a 0-2 loss against BW.
The 2nd 2017-07-16 draft went a lot better ! I ended up with a strong GR deck (main color Red, hence favorable 9/7 Mountain/ Forest split), in which 3 of my 7 excellent removal were the (in my opinion almost broken) Puncturing Blow common. My 6 2-drop and 8 3-drop creatures were of really good quality, so all of this culminated in a crushing 3-0-0 victory: 2-1 win against BW, 2-1 win against the GR mirror (being my right-hand side draft pod neighbour, who apparently switched colors and then luckily went for a ramping approach), and 2-0 win against BG. Winning 2 out of the 3 first new draft format events, I consider this weekend to have been really productive ! It stands out a mile to me that Red is an extremely strong color (also observing the fact that GR was playing against UR in the Booster Draft #2 finals). Historically, I've never been a mono-Red aggro player, but this kind of Red really suits my beloved 'junk' aggro-control style !
I ended up in a reasonable RW deck on 2017-07-26, except for the fact that I didn't have enough 1 CMC and 2 CMC creatures (in fact only 3 of those together). This turned out to be quite decisive in my 16 lands deck, especially after the terrible mulligan from 0 lands to keeping a 1 land hand on the play in the very last game. Results: 1-2 loss against a BW Zombies deck, 2-0 win against a weak GW beginner, and finally 1-2 loss against UR (where, after I already won the 1st game, I got extremely close to winning the 2nd game, but my 7th land didn't show up for several turns while holding a Chaos Maw). Oh well, that's Magic ...
On 2017-08-11, I drafted a well curved GR deck, but it only contained 1 rare and just 2 Deserts. Nothing spectacular happened during play. Unfortunately, against my first-round GR mirror match opponent, I had to mulligan to 6 on the play and to 4 on the play, respectively: 0-2 loss. I managed to win the 2nd game just in time against my 2nd round UW opponent after losing the long 1st game: 1-1 draw. My bye in round 3 simply ended the evening ...
I was quite happy with the RW deck I drafted on 2017-08-16: 4 Deserts (this time playing 17 lands) + a couple of pay-off cards, a couple of good Embalm and/or Flying creatures, some good 2 and 3 CMC Exert creatures, and my 5 heavy hitters all having Cycling 2 (hence more or less supplementing my 3 2-drop creatures). I just had 1 sweeper + 1 removal + 2 tricks, but apparently that was enough for a 2-0 win against GW and a 2-0 win against mono-B, however losing 0-2 against a strong UR deck (unfortunately in both games casting The Locust God, and actually casting Unsummon in response to my only hope Puncturing Blow in game 2). I made a couple of small obvious mistakes, but those didn't appear to make any difference in retrospect. Let's try to improve anyway ...
Underwhelming draft on 2017-08-18: a rather weakish despite low-curve GW splash R deck. Perhaps I should immediately have switched to the more open Blue after Red dried up, instead of proactively drafting a couple of Appeal // Authority from otherwise relatively weak packs. I lost 1-2 against a UR deck (again witnessing opponent's The Locust God in the 2 losing games). I then lost 1-2 against a BWg Zombies deck (getting hit by a Bontu's Last Reckoning and playing way too groggy in the 2 losing games). The last-round bye (because of someone dropping) at least gained me a couple of Draft League points.
My 2017-08-25 draft (pod size = 11) didn't go well, either ... I drafted a reasonable GRb Ramp deck (necessarily splashing for a couple of Black removal spells) after my 1st pack 1st pick Sifter Wurm. I lost 0-2 against BW Zombies (after getting stuck on lands twice, one of which was after a mulligan), lost 1-2 against UW Embalm/Eternalize, and finally lost 1-2 against a GRb Ramp mirror opponent (getting killed in the last turn after called time by a Overcome, because my Burning-Fist Minotaur couldn't use my penultimate turn mis-tapped Mountain). Oh well ...
2017-09-01: I drafted a Blue big splash White deck, just to at least try out Blue once, after a reasonable pack 1 pick 1. My deck was playable, but I didn't like it too much; it's just not my style ... Results: 1-1 draw against BW (i.e. my left neighbour apparently was heavy in White), 0-2 loss against GR, and 2-0 win against another GR deck. In principle, with 2 drafts to go, I should also try out Black once. Unfortunately, that seems to be the worst color in the current format. We'll see ...
Good things happen ... I drafted a main color White side color Black splash Red deck, for The Scorpion God (shutting out a potential Blue splash). I lost the 1st round 0-1 (in fact, almost 0-2 during called time) against a GW deck. I couldn't concentrate, hence made several playing errors, due to the extremely noisy environment (I could hardly hear myself talk). Apparently, lots of people showed up because of the Fatal Push FNM promo. To my surprise, I won both next rounds 2-1, against a BR deck (containing the No Mercy Invocation) and a UGR deck (playing Nissa, Steward of Elements), respectively. Yes, my 3rd place in the top draft pod was good enough for the aforementioned FNM promo, so that I could actually swap all my remaining trade for the cards I still needed to complete my singles collection (including Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh). Perfect closure ... also considering my current 2nd place in the overall Draft League standings ! Perhaps I'll just skip next week's last Hour of Devastation draft, and go straight to the Ixalan prerelease events ...
Because, in principle from now on, I'll be playing the Super Sealed Deck (= 1 full booster packs box as card pool) a couple of week after the prerelease (and because I don't want to skip my weekend fitness session), I only played in both Saturday prerelease events (2017-09-23). Both events as such were fine as ever, but I'm not extremely fond of the seemingly straightforward, i.e. somewhat less interesting, format. I doubt my view on this will change during the upcoming drafts, and I'm already hoping Rivals of Ixalan will introduce some extra dimensions.
I played a relatively aggressive RW (almost all) Dinosaurs deck during the 1st event, my largest White color also clearly being the strongest, additionally supported by the very useful Huatli, Warrior Poet breeding engine, plus some major punchy creatures ... My results: 2-1 win against GW Dinosaurs, 2-1 win against GRW Dinosaurs, and 1-1 draw against BW Vampires (where my opponent might have had the advantage after called time turn 5, if such a thing would exist). Yes, not a single match loss !
My afternoon card pool was way weaker, but I couldn't find anything better than playing RW Dinosaurs again. I lost 1-2 against a GRW -- yes, you guessed it -- Dinosaurs deck (getting completely Settle the Wreckage-ed twice), after which I won 2-1 against a GRW Dinosaurs deck. In the 3rd round, I closely lost twice (hence 0-2) against a more manoeuvrable UWr deck, getting my Territorial Hammerskull stolen, etc. It is a bit unfortunate that I barely used the Enrage, Explore, and Raid mechanics during both events. Also, I can't remember having produced any Treasures at all (although my opponent occasionally gave me a couple). Because I'll be playing the Super Sealed Deck event, I might be drafting less than once a week on average (i.e. just continuing until my singles collection is complete, and not so much caring about the Draft League leaderboard + top 8 prizes anymore). My reduced drafting frequency would actually be in line with the presumably no so rich Ixalan deck archetypes landscape. We'll see ...
I again played a (moderate) RW half-Dinosaurs deck at the 2017-09-29 Ixalan release draft, but perhaps I should have switched to Black as my 2nd color during pack 2; my left neighbour apparently also drafted RW ... Anyway, I won 2-0 against UG Merfolk, I lost 0-2 against GWr Dinosaurs (due to a couple of non-trivial playing errors), and I finally lost 1-2 against a sophisticated BUr Pirates deck. During the final game, I simply couldn't keep up with the Sunbird's Invocation + Vanquisher's Banner + Treasures generation combo. Playing 17 lands, I still experienced a couple of zero/one land mulligans: the only real downside of our beloved Magic: The Gathering game, I'm afraid. Coming up next (in 2 days): double release draft ...
At last, I played something else than RW Dinosaurs during the 1st 2017-10-01 draft event. Let's simply call my brew 'BW semi-Vampires'. Unfortunately, the dreaded Mulligan beast reared its ugly head again, so I kept it to a 2-0 win against a UG Merfolk beginner, a 0-2 loss against GRW Dinosaurs (too speculatively having kept a single land opening hand in game 2), and a 2-0 win against GW Dinosaurs.
I happily saw good Green cards during the 2nd 2017-10-01 draft event, ending up in a strong removal + splendid low-enough-curve (i.e 8 2-drops + 4 3-drops) + 16 lands (+ extensive sideboard options) hybrid GW Merfolk/Dinosaurs deck. However, I lost the 1st match (0-2) against a tricky/recursive BW deck, after which I won 2-0 twice: against a larger but clunkier GR Dinosaurs deck, and against a BUR deck, respectively. Most fun was playing the Merfolk hexproof/counters sub-theme, supported by additional pump spells and other interactive shenanigans. Next time: ramping up my singles collection + modest trade binder, by means of a full booster box sealed card pool per player event. Let's hope for some Blue Pirates possibilities, so that I will at least partially have tried out all tribes and most of the popular color combinations ...
My most complex deck building experience no doubt took place at the 2017-10-07 Super Sealed Deck event, i.e. a full box = 36 booster packs card pool (as opposed to 'only' 6 booster packs at any regular Sealed Deck event). I really underestimated the 'Magic on speed' mental focus required. Simply opening all packs, simultaneously sorting these 500+ new cards by color, already took 20 minutes. Subsequently sorting each color pile into creatures and non-creatures, plus further sub-sorting into strong/bombs, moderate/playable, and weak/sideboard cards took another 30 minutes. After that, of course, the real challenge was to actually construct the best deck possible (or at least some solid suboptimal deck). Never having played a Super Sealed Deck before, the above strategy apparently turned out to be too slow for the crazy 50 minutes alloted brewing time. With only 5 participating players, I gladly received a 1st round 'bye', so that I could continue trying to make sense of the big fuzz. Because many commons can be found about 4 times in this kind of card pool, the experience felt a bit like constructed (instead of limited) deck building. Considering my good Black removal options, I went for a BW semi-Vampires flying/deathtouch/lifelink build. However, in retrospect, I should have gone for the Dinosaurs tribe, which I was way more familiar with, and which generally speaking seems more straightforward: heavy hitters via early mana helpers. This would have allowed me to play at least evenly strong rares. I actually lost twice to GRW Dinosaurs (1-2 and 0-2, respectively), but both of my opponents had a reasonably sick card pool (including the dreaded Carnage Tyrant which unfortunately sometimes already hit the battlefield on turn 4, Fiery Cannonade, annoying Ixalan's Binding because of my lack of card diversity, etc.). Perhaps UG Merfolk might also have been an option, but then again I had some very reasonable Pirates as well. Bottom line: my game play during the rounds was OK, but I definitely need some other algorithm to more efficiently (and hopefully more effectively) squeeze my deck construction into the extremely limited time frame. Perhaps immediately (while opening the booster packs) laying out the bombs + strong removal by CMC, while simply ignoring (= color-sorting) the rest might be a better strategy. All kinds of (tribal) synergies are abundantly present in such a large card pool anyway, hence the latter kind of edge would become too time-consuming to exploit. Another thing to consider: at which points in time during deck construction should one pay attention to mana curve considerations ? Maybe this would come down to intelligently filling up one or more already layed out bomb/removal configurations, by means of the color piles (perhaps intermittently having sorted those piles alphabetically to assess card duplicates count). A last note: apart from the incredibly complex deck construction process, also the immense sideboard surely keeps things complicated in between games ... I'll definitely play in these kinds of events again, just to see whether I can improve on all aspects !
A giant traffic jam prevented me from attending the Friday the 13th (2017-10-13) draft event. I should have known ... However, on 2017-10-20 I once again realized that the current format is not comparable at all to the magnificent prior Hour of Devastation setting. My draft phase eventually put me in a 60% Vampires + 20% Pirates + 20% Dinosaurs BW deck. Perhaps the large draft pod (10 participants) had something to do with it, but I saw garbage pack after garbage pack. My mediocre rareless deck eventually put me at a 1-2 loss against BUR, a 2-0 win against GW Dinosaurs, and a 0-2 loss against a very interesting BUR Revel in Riches treasures deck. Unfortunately, I'll need to continue drafting the current set in order to acquire new tradable cards for my singles collection ...
I drafted a multi-tribal White deck again (for the 5th time in a row) on 2017-10-27, (for the 3rd time) combined with Red, after having abandoned Green near the end of pack 2: a reasonable curve, reasonable removal, plus some reasonable heavy hitters, i.e. nothing exciting ... The same goes for my result: 2-1 win against BUR Pirates (but this match easily could have swung the other way), 1-2 loss against GR Dinosaurs (where I got totally flooded in the deciding game), and 1-1 draw against BW Vampires (where I got decked in the 1st game after a very long board stall without enough fire power to finish the job, where I extremely quickly won the 2nd game, and where we simply couldn't finish the evenly going 3rd game). Same remark as before: the Ixalan draft experience as such remains not great (to put it mildly), due to the ton of mediocre cards in this format. I suspect the Ixalan set was kept extremely simple to accomodate the similarly themed board game, which would be regrettable ...
Unfortunately, on 2017-11-03 I made a bad draft decision by not taking a Hostage Taker as pack 2 pick 1, after already having established Black as main color in pack 1 (accompanied by just a couple of Red removal spells, which I should not have been married to). Especially in any 6-player draft pod it's crucial to correctly interpret the signals, but I just clearly was too fast asleep. In fact, I wasn't able to draft enough Pirates, and I didn't see any Pirate payoffs, either. I ended up with a 97.5% commons deck, i.e. including only 1 uncommmon, hence zero rares. My righthand side neighbour (= 3rd round opponent) was Green Red, so Black Blue (more Pirates) would have been perfect for me. After this horrible mistake, I ended up with a mediocre deck, consisting of good removal + mediocre creatures (and not a great mana curve). Result: 1-2 loss against UG Merfolk, 2-0 win against BW Vampires, and 0-2 loss against GR Dinosaurs. Presumably, I'm not paying enough attention because I really don't like the Ixalan set. That's not professional, but luckily I have no such ambition at all. Let's try to overcome my own resistance next time, anyway ...
At last, after more than a full month, my 2017-11-10 draft result (2-1-0) returned my overall Ixalan balance to 50%. My GW Dinosaurs (incl. some Merfolk) deck performed very reasonably, by virtue of its solid curve (topping at 7 CMC), despite including only 5 non-creature spells. Unfortunately, I lost 0-2 against a broken 5-color Huatli, Warrior Poet + Hostage Taker + Thundering Spineback deck, but otherwise I won 2-0 and 2-1 against rather weakish Merfolk and Vampire decks, respectively.
I drafted an acceptable, despite rareless, BR Dinosaurs/Pirates deck on 2017-11-17, but a dumb playing error (holding back a weak creature just once in successive 'more attackers than blockers' suicide situations to forcibly get my opponent's life total down) cost me the 3rd game and match against my 1st round UG Merfolk opponent, i.e. 1-2 loss. I won both next rounds 2-0, against a weak BR mirror deck and a GW Dinosaurs deck, respectively.
In addition to having played White color combinations 6 times already, I have played the Black Red combination 3 times (also during the 2017-11-24 event). My 'junk' style deck remained somewhat anonymous: a good mana curve (3 1-drops, 7 2-drops, 4 4-drops, plus a couple of higher-end bombs), augmented by a decent amount of removal slightly higher up the curve (even including a board wiper). Unfortunately, I lost 0-2 against GWr Dinosaurs, but after that I won 2-1 against GRW Dinosaurs and 2-0 in the BR mirror match. Nothing more to add, except for the fact that I remain unimpressed by the overall card quality during the draft phase ...
2017-12-01: mediocre RW Dinosaurs deck ... 0-2 loss against BUW Vampires ... 2nd round bye ... 1-2 loss against GW Dinosaurs ... the end ...
On 2017-12-08, I tried drafting Merfolk while my 2 right-hand side neighbours apparently also drafted Merfolk, implying I still was in 4 colors (except Red) at the end of pack 2. I kept a couple of Black cards as a necessary splash for my otherwise Green White very mediocre mixed tribes deck. Well, a 6 players draft pod is somewhat unforgiving: twice 0-2 loss against aformentioned UG Merfolk opponents + another 0-2 loss against GR Dinosaurs. Next, please ...
On 2017-12-15, I pivoted from my initial GRw plan into a 50% Dinosaurs RWg setup, strongly motivated by my pack 2 pick 1 Huatli, Warrior Poet. After my 1st round bye, I won the 2nd round 2-0 against a GRW Dinosaurs deck. I lost the 3rd round 1-2 against a strong Merfolk deck. Perhaps this was the expected result, but at least it involved considerably more fun than on previous occasions.
2017-12-22: Justice at last ... I won this Xalan draft event 3-0 with an in my humble view mediocre BW 75% Vampires deck (only contaning 5 non-creature cards, but relying on some strong uncommons and a good mana curve, incorporating enough 2-drops). I won 2-0 against GRW Dinosaurs, 2-1 in the BW Vampires mirror match, and 2-1 against an imaginative BUrw draw/mill control deck. As (mostly) usual, I'm 5th in the Draft League rankings right now, so looking forward to a couple of prize boosters again ...
On 2017-12-29, I went for a low-curve aggressive BR deck (in fact, containing only 1 uncommon plus a bunch of commons), but I could not win more than 1 match out of 3. That was 1 match too few, hence finishing 5th overall (instead of 4th). I lost 1-2 to a strong UGr Merfolk-ish deck (the eventual draft pod winner), I won 2-1 against a GW Dinosaurs deck, and I lost 0-2 against a BUR deck. Just 2 more Ixalan drafts to go at the beginning of next year, before we at least partially get rid of this not so interesting Magic set ...