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Drafting With LSV – Shards of Alara #18

Draft with Luis Scott-Vargas every day... At StaCityGames.com!
Wednesday, January 14th – Luis Scott-Vargas continues his daily Draft series, sharing each pick from a draft in the 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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2 Goblin Deathraiders
1 Corpse Connoisseur
2 Dregscape Zombie
1 Sedris the Traitor King
2 Blister Beetle
1 Soul’s Fire
1 Bloodpyre Elemental
1 Obelisk of Grixis
1 Carrion Thrash
1 Obelisk of Naya
1 Esper Battlemage
1 Courier’s Capsule
1 Fire-Field Ogre
1 Sprouting Thrinax
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Vithian Stinger
1 Resounding Thunder
1 Undead Leotau
2 Bone Splinters
1 Jund Panorama
1 Seaside Citadel
5 Mountain
1 Forest
3 Island
6 Swamp

Sideboard
1 Dawnray Archer
1 Resounding Scream
1 Mountain
1 Etherium Sculptor
1 Deathgreeter
1 Outrider of Jhess
1 Lightning Talons
1 Master of Etherium
1 Goblin Mountaineer
1 Tower Gargoyle
2 Steelclad Serpent
1 Sphinx’s Herald
1 Cavern Thoctar
2 Skeletal Kathari
1 Etherium Astrolabe
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Shore Snapper

P1p1 I still can’t turn down Tower Gargoyle even if I have backed off Esper compared to before.
P1p2 Capsule and Citadel are close but I really value fixing highly.
P1p4 I ended up regretting this pick but moving in on Master sometimes pays off quite well. It’s called moving in for a reason and sometimes backfires.

I was kind of all over the place in this draft and ended up with a pretty messy deck as a result. Still the cards were powerful so that at least gives the deck a fair chance of succeeding. It is a lot easier to have a deck just need to draw mana well than to get both a good mana draw and draw all its good cards.

Round 1 versus 4-5c Control (but a pretty messy looking one)
G1 I am really unsure as to what my opponent is doing with multiple nonbasic lands and some Obelisks. I soon realize that since the only guys I played were Corpse Connoisseur and Undead Leotau he has all sorts of good removal spells in hand. Those good spells look pretty bad against my legion of undead and soon the Branching Bolt as Healing Salve plays run out and he dies.
G2 The heavy unearth deck just runs over five-color control as again his lack of real creatures and wealth of removal spells put up not much meaningful resistance. Nothing is more pathetic than a Dregscape Zombie being on the receiving end of both an Agony Warp and a Branching Bolt for simply lack of better targets.

Round 2 versus Naya
G1 I actually manage a pretty aggressive start mainly based on the turn 2 Deathraiders on the play. Two removal spells later and he is way too far behind and my Unearth guys start to punish him. They basically trade for two guys each time as my opponents dwindling life requires him to block them when they are unearthed.
G2 I get the dreaded turn 3 Thrinax and that plus Vithian Stinger plus Blister Beetle is able to secure a win. My opponent didn’t have many big guys and the Beetles and pingers were much more effective than they usually are against Naya.

Round 3 versus Jund
G1 I finally get to use Cedris to his full potential reanimating both Blister Beetle and Bloodpyre Elemental this game leading to a decisive win.
G2 The Bone Splinters + Unearth engine operates in full swing and Corpse Connoisseur does his job of stocking the graveyard and eventually killing my opponent.

Until tomorrow…

LSV