Pack 1 pick 1:
My Pick:
A really deep pack where we’ll probably wheel a playable card. Conundrum Sphinx is just the best card though and it’s in the best color. The guy on our left will probably pick the card that fits his first pick the best so it’s hard to know what color we’re putting him in.
Pack 1 pick 2:
My Pick:
A tricky pack. It has several powerful cards like Packleader Quag Sickness Sleep and Scroll Thief. The amount of green cards in the pack makes me want to steer away from it (as well as it being… well… green). While this is a corner case for picking slightly weaker cards to stay in color I think picking Thief here is the best choice. Picking Sleep over Thief isn’t something I do early in drafts since Sleep isn’t great in about half the blue decks I end up drafting.
Pack 1 pick 3:
My Pick:
Another tough pack with Stormtide Leviathan Liliana’s Specter and Squadron Hawk all being legitimate choices. I don’t like paying eight mana for anything in this format but the Leviathan is actually good enough to warrant that cost. Squadron Hawk is obviously great if we get more but it seems that a lot of people pick the first one quite aggressively. These reasons make me go for the Specter but I can’t say for sure that it’s the right pick.
Pack 1 pick 4:
My Pick:
A fourth pick Blinding Mage is just too ridiculous for me to pass up. Of course at this point I’m wishing I didn’t pick the Specter. Also it’s interesting to note just how strong all the packs have been; this pack still has seven cards that I’ve been happy to play in different decks.
Pack 1 pick 5:
My Pick:
A fifth pick Ingenuity is a nice gift and it seems like blue is at least reasonably open.
Pack 1 pick 6:
My Pick:
Seems like the fourth pick Blinding Mage was a false signal. And we haven’t exactly seen an abundance of black cards while green just keeps coming. At this point my draft feels really unfocused and the only thing I’m sure of is that I’m drafting blue so I pick the reasonable blue card just to make sure I don’t waste more picks.
Pack 1 pick 7:
My Pick:
No playable card except for a Canyon Minotaur which is one of the two colors I haven’t touched yet. Naturalize could end up being a good sideboard card – either against me or for me if I somehow end up green.
Pack 1 pick 8:
My Pick:
Cancel is an okay card in any heavy blue deck which seems to be what we are drafting.
Pack 1 pick 9:
My Pick:
We were obviously hoping that Wall of Frost would wheel out of this pack… still it’s no big disaster if three or even four players are drafting blue. Only one person took a green card though and for some reason chose to take Spined Wurm over Giant Spider. I can’t see how that could be correct.
If you’ve been following this draft series you know that I don’t like green at all but this is just too good an opportunity to pass up and the options here aren’t very good anyway.
Pack 1 pick 10:
My Pick:
And the green keeps coming. It’s the story of green in this format though: basically all the green cards are just “okay” and there are a lot of them meaning no one really wants to jump in on green early.
Pack 1 pick 11:
My Pick:
A very welcome late pick. The way our draft is looking right now we’ll need cheap blockers.
Pack 1 pick 12:
My Pick:
This pack (as I mentioned earlier) was really deep and something was bound to wheel. I did think it would be Phantom Beast though. Awakener Druid is a pretty sick card at times and getting it twelfth pick is really nice even if my deck so far isn’t looking like the best possible deck for it.
Pack 1 pick 13:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 14:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 15:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 1:
My Pick:
Why we draft blue – not sure what else I can say. Someone is getting another Squadron Hawk. Probably wheeling a Cancel or a Preordain or an Alluring Siren.
Pack 2 pick 2:
My Pick:
I really wanted to pick Birds of Paradise here since acceleration seems so important in U/G. Then again I’m not even 100% sure at this point that I’ll draft green and Azure Drake is really the kind of card we need to stall the board.
Pack 2 pick 3:
My Pick:
Another tough pick Cudgel Troll is quite a bit better than Water Servant and the other blue cards but like I said before we aren’t 100% sure that green will be drafted. At the same time I haven’t really seen many great cards in other colors at this point except for the Blinding Mage. It was close but the possibility of wheeling a blue card makes me pick the Cudgel Troll.
Pack 2 pick 4:
My Pick:
The choice here between Giant Spider and Ice Cage isn’t usually very close but I almost picked the Ice Cage here because my deck already has a bunch of four-mana creatures. In the end I still feel like I have almost half the draft left to pick up some cheaper stuff – but maybe I’m undervaluing the importance of a card like Ice Cage in U/G.
Pack 2 pick 5:
My Pick:
My deck really needs two-drops but it doesn’t seem like my deck reliably can cast Garruk’s Companion on turn 2 anyway. Maybe I should have picked it since Spined Wurm isn’t exactly what my deck needs.
Pack 2 pick 6:
My Pick:
Once again I go with the pick that I usually make in this situation. I think Preordain is an excellent card (if a card is getting played in Standard it usually is in Draft) and both Alluring Siren and Plummet aren’t spectacular. Maybe in this situation I should’ve gone for Plummet though since it helps with early defense against the most likely aggressive deck (U/W) and I can see situations where this deck draws Preordain and doesn’t have time to cast it. I’m not sure if it’s because I don’t like green but whenever I draft it I find myself in situations where I don’t really know what to do. Just feels like I’m choosing between equally mediocre options.
Pack 2 pick 7:
My Pick:
Once again I pass up an opportunity to pick Ice Cage. Cultivate is what we want to be doing since it gets us to five mana. Looking back at the draft however it feels like my deck at this point would look much better if I’d picked Ice Cage at basically every opportunity.
Pack 2 pick 8:
My Pick:
Another Giant Spider might not exactly be what we need but Giant Growth seems pretty miserable in a slow deck where my creatures should be big enough on their own.
Pack 2 pick 9:
My Pick:
Alluring Siren seems like a pretty good card with all these big creatures while Cancel could just be stuck in our hands while we’re behind on the board.
Pack 2 pick 10:
My Pick:
Makes me happy that I didn’t pick Birds of Paradise (since the Llanowar would most likely not wheel). A very nice late addition to our deck and basically a Time Walk if we play it on turn 1.
Pack 2 pick 11:
My Pick:
Uh oh. Lets see if I can resist the urge to play the Leyline. I’m sure there is a pun to be made here but I’ll try to resist that urge too.
Pack 2 pick 12:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 13:
My Pick:
A nice sideboard option.
Pack 2 pick 14:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 15:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 1:
My Pick:
Another excellent card that doesn’t fit well into our deck. Feels like I’m getting all these good cards when I would rather have another Llanowar Elves. Maybe I’m just doing this whole green-thing all wrong but it feels like green cards just don’t stack that well. What I mean by this is that there just aren’t many green cards that you’d want any number of while the other colors all have cards like this. When drafting green I find myself trying to get a few of each card and hope that makes a good deck while with the other colors you can just pick the best cards.
Pack 3 pick 2:
My Pick:
If we didn’t have a bunch of stuff that cost four I’d pick Azure Drake here. I probably should’ve picked Ice Cage again but thought that Mana Leak could help with early defense in the same way without the natural drawback of Ice Cage.
Pack 3 pick 3:
My Pick:
I find it a bit weird that Cloud Elemental always gets the same comment. It’s apparently great in aggressive decks but not very good in defensive decks. This is true to some extent obviously but I do think that in M11 most of the time what you need to block is a flier anyway and Cloud Elemental actually stacks up well against all of them. Anyway this pack doesn’t have anything else that we could possibly want to play making Cloud Elemental an easy pick.
Pack 3 pick 4:
My Pick:
Another case where my mana curve makes me want to pick the card that’s much worse (Augury Owl). In this case I go for Clone anyway but I’m not sure that it’s correct. A fourth pick Pacifism also makes me weep for what could have been.
Pack 3 pick 5:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 6:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 7:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 8:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 9:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 10:
My Pick:
Seems I’m destined to get every 2/4 for four even when I try my best not to.
Pack 3 pick 11:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 12:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 13:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 14:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 15:
My Pick:
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1 Alluring Siren
1 Augury Owl
1 Awakener Druid
2 Azure Drake
1 Clone
1 Cloud Elemental
1 Conundrum Sphinx
1 Cudgel Troll
1 Garruk’s Packleader
2 Giant Spider
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Maritime Guard
1 Sacred Wolf
1 Scroll Thief
1 Spined Wurm
1 Cultivate
2 Mana Leak
1 Preordain
1 Jace’s Ingenuity
1 Mind Control
Sideboard
1 Solemn Offering
1 Dryad’s Favor
1 Hunters’ Feast
1 Wall of Vines
1 Primal Cocoon
1 Runeclaw Bear
1 Sunpetal Grove
1 Naturalize
1 Harbor Serpent
1 Mighty Leap
1 Cancel
1 Diminish
1 Leyline of Anticipation
1 Jace’s Erasure
1 Giant Spider
1 Liliana’s Specter
1 Deathmark
1 Primal Cocoon
1 Wurm’s Tooth
1 Blinding Mage
Not even sure where to begin discussing this deck. Pretty sure this is the first time I’ve had Giant Spider in my sideboard and I’m not
really sure if that’s correct. There are many options for cards that could get played and most of them were in the maindeck at some point
(Spider Diminish Cancel Runeclaw Bear Wall of Vines).
I think this is in some ways the curse of green though: all the cards are okay and you get a bunch of them but what’s the point if you just end up
with more cards than you can possibly play? Maybe this means I should pick cards like Plummet more aggressively.
Overall there were many picks that by the end of the draft I would’ve wanted to do differently. Mostly picking cards that cost four over
cheaper cards which then led to picking even weaker cards over expensive cards later in the draft but I also have a suspicion that I should’ve
picked Ice Cage just based on value in a couple of cases.
In the final build of the deck I just went for a maindeck that has a lot of powerful expensive cards while hoping that my opponent wouldn’t have
a very fast deck with the plan of sideboarding extensively against faster decks. Most decks in any given draft shouldn’t be that fast and with
some luck I can avoid those that are.
In hindsight I probably should’ve skipped the Awakener Druid since it really doesn’t work well in this deck and played something like
Runeclaw Bear instead.
Quarters:
Game one:
I win the roll and keep two Forests two Islands Giant Spider Conundrum Sphinx and Mind Control on the play.
My opponent has turn 1 Island turn 2 Plains and Stormfront Pegasus. I play a Sacred Wolf on turn 3 and he answers with Squadron Hawk fetching two
more. I attack my Wolf into his Hawk (since it can’t really do much more than trade with a Hawk anyway) and he accepts the trade. I summon Sphinx and
pass.
On his turn he attacks with his Pegasus into the Sphinx and I block figuring he just has Mighty Leap and just wants to clear the way for his Hawks.
He doesn’t have anything and I’m still not sure if he was bluffing here (which seems bad) or if he didn’t know that the Sphinx has flying. He
follows up with a Hawk and a Silvercoat Lion.
I attack with Sphinx trying to find Augury Owl so I can set up more hits. I’d choose Azure Drake or Giant Spider instead if I hadn’t drawn one
of each (meaning I only have one of each left in deck). He tries to find an Island and we both miss. I follow up with Azure Drake and on his turn he
taps out for Serra Angel.
I Mind Control the Angel and at this point it feels like I can’t really lose. He hits on the Conundrum Sphinx though (getting an Island) and has
Aether Adept to get his Serra back and although he takes some damage and has to chump-block with a couple of Squadron Hawks he’s still in the
game. He has also plays a Warlord’s Axe that isn’t doing much until another attack from my Conundrum Sphinx lets him hit Sleep which actually will
kill me if I don’t have a creature that can block Serra in hand.
I have a Giant Spider and he doesn’t have a trick or removal to get through for the final points. He does have an Elite Vanguard which means that I
untap with five creatures to his three which means I can’t kill him.
I have a Spined Wurm that he can’t profitably block and I take the safe route and in three turns he runs out of creatures and concedes.
Interestingly if he hadn’t made that attack with Stormfront Pegasus he would’ve won although the big reason why he was even in the game was
those random hits off my Sphinx.
I board in Wall of Vines and Runeclaw Bears for Awakener Druid and Mana Leak. A bit weird to board out a Mana Leak but I felt like it wouldn’t be that
great on the draw against his deck filled with two-drops. Maybe I should’ve just boarded out Packleader or something like that though.
Game two:
My opponent keeps his hand on the play and I mulligan two Forests three Islands Clone and Garruk’s Packleader. That hand is just too slow against
his deck and drawing cheap cards off the top is not likely enough that I’ll keep it.
My six card hand is Island Preordain Giant Spider Azure Drake Clone and Mind Control. Certainly not the best of hands but the difference in
mulliganing from seven to six and six to five is big and I think this hand is definitely better than a random five-card hand so I keep.
My opponent starts off with a turn 1 Merfolk Spy (uh oh) while I fortunately draw a Forest. I Preordain into Augury Owl and Cudgel Troll (keeping Owl
on top) and my opponent has no two-drop. I draw another Forest and the Owl finds Cultivate which I cast on turn 3.
My opponent at this point is still just playing lands and attacking with the Spy. I play Conundrum Sphinx that gets bounced by Aether Adept but when I
replay it he has no play and just passes the turn back. Pretty obvious at this point that he’s severely flooded. At this point his Spy has seen
Azure Drake. Clone and Mind Control are still in my hand.
When I attack with Conundrum Sphinx and he doesn’t hit on his guess he just concedes. Not even sure if he had a theoretical chance of winning the
game at this point anyway so can’t really fault him for conceding.
Semis:
Game one:
I lose the roll and my opponent mulligans to six while I keep two Forests Island Alluring Siren Cultivate Conundrum Sphinx and Garruk’s
Packleader. He keeps his six and plays Island and Plains to Mana Leak my Alluring Siren.
He has a turn 3 Warlord’s Axe while I cast Cultivate. He plays Juggernaut on turn 4 and I cast Garruk’s Packleader. At this point I’ve only
drawn lands. My Packleader gets Unsummoned and Juggernaut gets through for five (he didn’t have the fifth land to equip the Axe).
I replay the Packleader and he taps out to equip the Axe and offer the trade. It feels like I can’t really afford to go down to seven here so I
accept the trade. I follow up with Conundrum Sphinx and Maritime Guard while he plays his fifth land and summons Air Servant.
I Clone his Air Servant and then draw Mind Control to steal his and the game ends soon thereafter.
I board in Naturalize and Harbor Serpent for Maritime Guard and Spined Wurm. His deck doesn’t seem to have any Silvercoat Lions or similar and
feels like more of a slow U/W deck. Naturalize should be decent against Juggernaut and Warlord’s Axe and he likely has more targets. Paying one extra
mana for Harbor Serpent over Spined Wurm seems like it should be worth it also. For some reason I choose to board out Spined Wurm when Awakener Druid
would’ve been a better choice against a blue deck that has at least one Unsummon.
Game two:
My opening seven is Forest two Islands Naturalize Awakener Druid Cudgel Troll and Jace’s Ingenuity. This is the point where I realize I
should’ve boarded out the Awakener Druid but this hand is still reasonable so I keep.
My opponent has a turn 2 Stormfront Pegasus and I can’t even cast my Druid on turn 3 (since if he has Unsummon or something like it I’m even
further behind). My turn 4 Giant Spider does get Unsummoned and he adds Blinding Mage to the board.
At this point I’m already down to twelve life and I can’t really race so I just try my best to stabilize. I have a good turn with Cloud
Elemental and Awakener Druid where he Condemns my Forest giving me some needed life. My Cudgel Troll gets Cancelled though and he plays a Water
Servant that — together with Blinding Mage — makes blocking very difficult.
I cast Ingenuity and draw into two Azure Drakes that should stabilize the board and maybe even let me attack for two. The problem however is that
he’s still stuck on five lands with several cards in hand and when he finds a sixth land he plays Harbor Serpent. I can’t possibly race and I
don’t draw Mind Control in the two turns before I die.
I sideboard out Awakener Druid and Naturalize (since I didn’t see any other targets for it this game) to bring in Cancel and the third Giant
Spider.
Game three:
I choose to play first and keep two Forests Mana Leak Cultivate Clone Jace’s Ingenuity and Harbor’s Serpent. This is obviously a somewhat risky
hand but I think even if I stall on land for one turn it’s still a pretty good hand. I miss my third land four times while he plays Stormfront
Pegasus and Juggernaut.
It really feels like I made some suboptimal picks during the draft this time or at least I feel that where I could’ve gone with either card
the card I picked turned out to be wrong.
Honestly when drafting green in this format I’m confused a lot of the time which probably explains why I don’t do that well with it. That in
turn explains why I don’t like drafting it. To me it just seems like you often are choosing between cards that are basically at the same power level
but with different applications. It’s hard to know which card will end up being better in your deck.
Then again I was at least close to making the finals and I did play against two U/W decks which probably isn’t the best matchup for my deck. That
last hand was pretty anticlimactic. But I’d always keep that hand.
As always questions and comments in the forums are encouraged.