fbpx

Drafting With Nick – Shards of Alara #20

Draft with Nick every day... at StarCityGames.com!
Monday, November 24th – 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.

  Pack 1 pick 1:

















  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 2:
















  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 3:















  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 4:














  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 5:













  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 6:












  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 7:











  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 8:










  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 9:









  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 10:








  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 11:







  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 12:






  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 13:





  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 14:




  My Pick:

  Pack 1 pick 15:



  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 1:

















  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 2:
















  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 3:















  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 4:














  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 5:













  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 6:












  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 7:











  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 8:










  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 9:









  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 10:








  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 11:







  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 12:






  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 13:





  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 14:




  My Pick:

  Pack 2 pick 15:



  My Pick:

  Pack 3 pick 1:

















  My Pick:

  Pack 3 pick 2:
















  My Pick:

  Pack 3 pick 3:















  My Pick:

  Pack 3 pick 4:














  My Pick:

  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:

  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:

This draft converter created by Benjamin Peebles-Mundy.
Visit the draft converter today!

P1P1 – I think I can probably take Iguanar here due to wanting to keep options open but Splinters is obviously awesome.
P1P3 – This was a weird pick but I think Connoisseur offers the best value for me at this point.

P2P1 – Wow. This is probably one of the toughest picks I’ve had to make so far in this format. One one hand I could just take Oblivion Ring and move on with my life. On another Gargoyle just may be better in this deck so far. On a third Caldera Hellion is a stone cold bomb. I almost timed out so I had to play it safe and take the O Ring but I wasn’t happy about it. I’d love to hear thoughts on this pick because I truly didn’t have enough time to digest it during the draft. One thing I will say is that I think Hellion is probably wrong because Red didn’t look very open in pack 1.

P3P7 – I went with Screecher here because I was somewhat low on three-drops and also to have an evasive option to search up with Connoisseur.
P3P8 – Wish I could splash this Charm. Cancel isn’t making it because I have too many playables so I might as well at least hate the Charm.

1 Agony Warp
1 Kathari Screecher
2 Viscera Dragger
2 Dregscape Zombie
1 Bone Splinters
1 Tidehollow Strix
1 Corpse Connoisseur
2 Fatestitcher
1 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Call to Heel
1 Welkin Guide
2 Courier’s Capsule
1 Grixis Battlemage
1 Sanctum Gargoyle
2 Cloudheath Drake
1 Resounding Wave
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Obelisk of Esper
1 Crumbling Necropolis
1 Esper Panorama
2 Plains
6 Island
6 Swamp

Sideboard
1 Grixis Panorama
2 Cathartic Adept
1 Onyx Goblet
1 Naturalize
1 Deft Duelist
1 Savage Hunger
1 Goblin Mountaineer
1 Rip-Clan Crasher
2 Gustrider Exuberant
1 Hindering Light
1 Marble Chalice
1 Grixis Charm
1 Shore Snapper
1 Dreg Reaver

I built this deck differently than I usually build Esper. Since I had two Draggers and two Capsules I decided to run only 16 land and run the second Obelisk as both acceleration to my Cloudheath Drakes and a fixer. I also cut Deft Duelist for Welkin Guide since this deck had more ground guys than normal and it was unlikely I’d be casting Deulist on an early turn with so few sources of White. The plan was definitely to board him in against Red though and possibly some other matchups.

Round 1 was against Michael Jacob playing Jund. Game 1 was all about a combination of Caldera Hellion and Necrogenesis. The Hellion wasn’t too bad for me because I had Call to Heel but as usual Necrogenesis proved to be too much. Game 2 I mulled to five and drew a ton of land. The only spells I cast were Strix and Bone Splinters and these were easily overpowered.

Until tomorrow…

Nick