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Drafting With Nick – Shards of Alara #12

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Tuesday, November 11th – Nick continues his Drafting With series, bringing us a triple Shards of Alara draft from the 8-4 queue on Magic Online. Along with Rich, he shares his pick process and draft thoughts with each one, and supplies more detailed analysis in the forums.

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P1P2 – I almost took Sigil Blessing here but I wanted to keep UW open as an option.
P1P4 – I think Covenant is just a bomb right? Obviously Red is open here as well but Covenant is also splashable.

P2P4 – Sigil Blessing is an option here too but I was really aiming for Exalted.
P2P5 – Man I’m all for never passing Kiss if I can cast it but I think I have to here.
P2P6 – Exalted makes this better than Skyward Eye.

P3P1 – Risky move but the other Waveskimmer tabled in pack two so I think it should make the lap again here.
P3P3 – I almost took Nacatl but with 2 Tri-Lands and a Panorama it seemed unlikely he’d come down turn 1. I also didn’t want to get too greedy and try to table two Waveskimmers.
P3P6 – I want to be able to accelerate to some Waveskimmers.
P3P9 – Ding ding we have a winner!

1 Cylian Elf
2 Akrasan Squire
1 Court Archers
1 Sigiled Paladin
1 Outrider of Jhess
3 Waveskimmer Aven
1 Bant Battlemage
1 Angelic Benediction
1 Covenant of Minds
1 Naya Battlemage
1 Topan Ascetic
1 Sighted-Caste Sorcerer
1 Knight of the Skyward Eye
1 Qasali Ambusher
1 Guardians of Akrasa
2 Welkin Guide
1 Jhessian Infiltrator
1 Steward of Valeron
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Arcane Sanctum
1 Seaside Citadel
6 Forest
3 Island
6 Plains

Sideboard
1 Resounding Scream
1 Deathgreeter
1 Tortoise Formation
1 Bant Battlemage
1 Dispeller’s Capsule
1 Cathartic Adept
1 Naya Panorama
1 Jungle Weaver
1 Cavern Thoctar
1 Soul’s Grace
1 Soul’s Might
2 Gustrider Exuberant
1 Coma Veil
1 Excommunicate
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Shore Snapper
1 Forest
1 Incurable Ogre

The mana for this deck was a little tough but overall I feel I built it right. I wanted to fit in Excommunicate but couldn’t really find a card I wanted to cut for it. Thoughts on that?

Round 1 I played against UWB Artifacts. Game 1 I got a pretty strong draw and got him low on life before he topdecked Scourglass and blew it up at one life. Most of his guys survived this and we were of to game 2. In the second game a similar thing happened except this time when he blew the Scourglass I was holding Covenant of Minds and two guys to reload and start over. I dumped some more guys on the board and killed him a couple turns later. Game 3 was yet another epic failure in this series of drafts as I mulliganned into a playable hand which didn’t contain Blue mana or Blue spells. I then proceded to draw three Blue spells off the top and never hit an Island. To be fair his draw included Esper Battlemage and Fatestitcher which would’ve been tough to beat anyway.

Sigh.

See you tomorrow when I can possibly get past round one. I hope.

Nick