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Drafting With Nick – Shards of Alara #9

Draft with Nick every day... at StarCityGames.com!
Thursday, November 6th – That’s right, folks… it’s back! While Canadian draft maestro Rich Hoaen battles it out at Pro Tour: Berlin, we have Nick Eisel bringing us a Shards of Alara 8-4 draft walkthrough each day, from pick 1 to pick 45. Nick supplies draft analysis in the forums! Rich Hoaen returns soon, to battle Nick head to head… watch this space!

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Let me begin this one by apologizing. I had comments on 6 picks typed out during the draft and somehow my Firefox window froze and I couldn’t copy and paste the information. For this draft if you guys have questions on picks (and yes there were definitely some interesting ones) just ask in the forums where I’ll be happy to delve deeper.

Normally I would just scrap the draft if I lost my draft notes but this one was particularly odd and interesting so I decided to use it anyway.

1 Bull Cerodon
1 Kresh the Bloodbraided
2 Hissing Iguanar
1 Grixis Charm
1 Grixis Battlemage
2 Dragon Fodder
1 Deathgreeter
1 Puppet Conjurer
1 Thorn-Thrash Viashino
1 Undead Leotau
1 Scourge Devil
1 Cloudheath Drake
1 Blightning
1 Skeletal Kathari
1 Shore Snapper
1 Bloodpyre Elemental
1 Onyx Goblet
1 Rockslide Elemental
1 Executioner’s Capsule
1 Incurable Ogre
1 Goblin Deathraiders
1 Savage Lands
1 Seaside Citadel
6 Mountain
6 Swamp
1 Jungle Shrine
1 Island
1 Grixis Panorama

Sideboard
1 Soul’s Might
1 Gustrider Exuberant
1 Outrider of Jhess
1 Mountain
1 Savage Hunger
1 Dragon’s Herald
1 Cylian Elf
1 Cloudheath Drake
1 Lightning Talons
1 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Resounding Scream
1 Island
1 Sangrite Surge
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Vectis Silencers
1 Thoughtcutter Agent
1 Banewasp Affliction
1 Plains

Usually in BR I would rather stay aggressive and avoid splash colors but this time around the packs opened in such a way that I really had no other choice.

Round 1 I played against a five-color deck. Game 1 I got a super fast draw with Dragon Fodder Iguanar and the other usual suspects and mowed him down without much of a struggle. Game 2 I didn’t have Red mana early but Seaside Citadel allowed me to loot into it with Grixis Battlemage. From there I played Dragon Fodder and two Iguanars. My opponent dealt with one Iguanar and then Unearthed his Kederekt Leviathan which he had discarded to my Blightning a turn earlier. This killed all of my tokens and he probably thought he was in good shape until I cast Bull Cerodon into the empty board on the following turn. He made an attempt to stabilize at 5 life with Prince of Thralls and Sprouting Thrinax but I simply replayed Iguanar and ran guys into his until he got pinged out.

Round 2 was against some kind of four-color Jund build. Game 1 he mulliganed on the play and kept a one-land hand which allowed me to beat him down with a bunch of dorks before he could do anything. Game 2 he got a good draw including Minion Reflector and a bunch of bombs like Broodmate and Predator Dragons. Game 3 was one of the craziest I’ve played in a while as we both had Deathgreeter Hissing Iguanar and I had Rockslide Elemental and Kresh while he also had Algae Gharial. When he played Predator Dragon and sacced his side in a last ditch effort at least thirty abilities went on the stack. I ended up winning mainly because of Rockslide’s First Strike and also because Kresh was back to play defense.

The finals was against UGW Exalted. Game 1 I got a fast double Dragon Fodder Incurable Ogre Scourge Devil draw which made for a quick win. Game 2 my opponent played Stoic Angel Rafiq of the Many and two Waveskimmer Avens. Needless to say I didn’t win that one. Game 3 was even worse than game 2 as he played turn 3 War Monk turn 4 Rafiq turns 5 and 6 Waveskimmer Aven. This match was quite the blowout.

See you tomorrow!

Nick