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Drafting With LSV – Shards of Alara #7

Tuesday, December 30th – 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 Ridge Rannet
1 Necrogenesis
1 Magma Spray
1 Hissing Iguanar
2 Dragon Fodder
1 Caldera Hellion
1 Thorn-Thrash Viashino
2 Undead Leotau
1 Scavenger Drake
2 Algae Gharial
1 Branching Bolt
1 Dregscape Zombie
2 Bone Splinters
1 Bloodpyre Elemental
1 Rockslide Elemental
1 Infest
1 Blister Beetle
1 Jungle Weaver
6 Swamp
6 Mountain
5 Forest
1 Grixis Panorama

Sideboard
1 Resounding Wave
1 Welkin Guide
1 Rip-Clan Crasher
1 Drumhunter
1 Hindering Light
1 Swerve
1 Forest
1 Ajani Vengeant
2 Carrion Thrash
1 Dreg Reaver
1 Forest
1 Topan Ascetic
1 Blightning
1 Shore Snapper
1 Lush Growth
1 Kathari Screecher
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Onyx Goblet
1 Sacellum Godspeaker
1 Godtoucher
1 Crucible of Fire
1 Volcanic Submersion

This was a somewhat odd draft since I ended up with no color-fixing at all. That led me to bench quite a few good cards which is unfortunate. I did like the final product and am more and more impressed with Algae Gharial every time he hits play.

P1p1 Topan Ascetic commits to fewer colors than War Monk and I almost refuse to draft Bant. It is by far the worst shard and I have almost never been impressed by it.
P1p3 This is actually one of the harder picks as what I really had to do was decide between Jund or Naya. Steward is obviously Naya while Dragon Fodder is really only good in Jund. The Panorama is also a possibility but I would rather take a spell here.
P1p5 Taking Dregscape over Agony Warp goes against all my greedy instincts but I really have no reason to take a 4th color of spells here.
P2p1 Gharial over Bloodpyre is a testament to how good I think the Gharial is (in Jund or Grixis not so much Naya).

Round 1 versus Grixis splashing 2 Bull Cerodon (esteemed author Adrian Sullivan no less)

Game 1 – This game is all about Gharial as I play it turn 4 then proceed to Branching Bolt two guys and Infest making Gharial quite large. Necrogenesis gets in on the party and Gharial grows to something like 13/13 before the game ends (in my favor).

Game 2 – I keep a two Mountain hand and never play a 3rd land.

Game 3 – I keep Rockslide Elemental and two Dragon Fodder plus lands and draw one spell before dying to some enraged Cerodons. A sad end for a sweet deck but it happens and not many draws would be able to handle turn 3 Stinger turn 4 Fatestitcher turn 6 Cerodon turn 7 Cerodon anyway.

Until tomorrow…

LSV