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Drafting With LSV – Shards of Alara #5

Friday, December 26th – Canadian maestro Rich Hoaen has downed tools for good, as work and real life intrudes apace. As a replacement, we have Luis Scott-Vargas, who shares each pick from a Magic Online 8-4 queue. He talks us through the difficult decisions in the forums… do you agree with his choices?

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1 Filigree Sages
1 Resounding Wave
1 Viscera Dragger
1 Esper Charm
1 Fatestitcher
1 Puppet Conjurer
1 Gather Specimens
1 Yoked Plowbeast
1 Etherium Astrolabe
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Agony Warp
1 Sanctum Gargoyle
1 Scavenger Drake
1 Cloudheath Drake
1 Corpse Connoisseur
1 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Skeletal Kathari
1 Dregscape Zombie
1 Obelisk of Esper
1 Call to Heel
1 Metallurgeon
1 Infest
1 Tower Gargoyle
1 Seaside Citadel
4 Plains
6 Swamp
4 Island
1 Crumbling Necropolis
1 Esper Panorama

Sideboard
1 Soul’s Grace
1 Obelisk of Grixis
1 Soul’s Might
1 Sighted-Caste Sorcerer
1 Rockcaster Platoon
1 Marble Chalice
1 Plains
1 Fire-Field Ogre
1 Angelsong
1 Forest
1 Steelclad Serpent
1 Obelisk of Naya
1 Resounding Scream
1 Shadowfeed
1 Shore Snapper
1 Onyx Goblet
1 Island
1 Coma Veil
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Spell Snip

P1p1: I like drafting Esper decks a fair amount and I also think Tower Gargoyle is more powerful than Skeletonize. I wouldn’t fault anyone for taking the Skeletonize here just I prefer to draft the deck that Tower Gargoyle leads to.
P2p2: Sanctum Gargoyle is much better than Covenant of Minds a card that is consistently overrated in my opinion.

Overall I felt like the packs were pretty anemic since first picking Cloudheath Drakes and such isn’t what I want to be doing. Still the deck ended up passably well and hopefully other decks at the table were feeling the pain also.

Round 1 versus Grixis
G1/2 My opponent didn’t appear to have a deck very capable of dealing with Tower Gargoyle and I managed to get it out early enough to get him both games. Stupid Tower Gargoyle making games all short and boring to talk about.

Round 2 versus Bant
G1 Games like this are why I just hate Bant: Despite my opponent playing all sorts of “good” Exalted guys (Squire Sigiled Paladin Court Archers) my Puppet Conjurer singlehandedly made them all suck. I flew over with Cloudheath until my opponent died.
G2 He is stuck on just Blue and White mana and can’t play any really good spells. Not being able to play tricolor spells is pretty bad in this format as the gold cards are just that much better than the monocolor ones.

Round 3 versus Naya
G1 I stumble on lands and his fast draw punishes me for it.
G2 Again I have a somewhat land-light draw and again I don’t really get time to draw out of it. Matches like this aren’t great but better that they happen in the finals of a draft than in round 2.

Until Monday…

LSV