Drafting With Olivier – Shards/Shards/Conflux #29

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My Pick:

Citadel and Capsule are pretty close as they are both quite good in the same decks (Five-color and Esper). Capsule is a little better in Esper while the triple land is a little better in five-color. Both picks are as good.

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My Pick:

Nothing really strong so I just pick the most powerful card in case I’m either forced switch or I have the possibility to run green mana (with Citadel and/or Spire). In the worst case it’s still a playable card.

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My Pick:

This time however I think I made the wrong pick. I was just a little lost by the way the draft was going. Basically I can still end up in four archetypes I’d be willing to play: WGr WUb (see Antoine’s sections in the article series by Manu and I) Esper or five-color. The Knight is the correct pick in only one of them while Necropolis is better in the other three. The Necropolis was therefore the right choice.

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My Pick:

These first four picks are giving me a difficult draft. There is no sign any specific archetype is open so far so I’d rather try and go UWb.

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My Pick:

Not that I like the Obelisk in aggro but with double Knight of the Skyward Eye it has to be fine.

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The first signs that Esper could be open are coming very late.

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Pick after pick this draft is getting more and more confusing. I can either take the very average and possibly wheeling Cloudheath Drake or take the Branching Bolt just in case. I can either go Esper-based five-color (I agree that sounds really bad but at this point I have to be open to anything) or in the worst case I can counterdaft a card that will kill any aggro deck I can play from now on.

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Okay UWb it is.

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My Pick:

I don’t have enough artifact guys to run Astrolabe which is not very good as I am only splashing Black anyway.

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My Pick:

I’m not playing two Sages with no combo pieces.

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My Pick:

Wow a good card!

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My Pick:

Decent in sideboard versus five-color.

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Not the pick I was dreaming of again but still pretty good in my deck as it fixes and I will run a lot of guys.

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My Pick:

Eventually one good card. Well it’s kind of Green but as I’d like to get a second land cycler and run a Forest why not?

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My strategy is now to try and get as many flyers as possible so I have a winning plan.

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I now have many flyers and good synergy. Even though it’s kind of late for that one landcycler would help a lot.

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With these last two picks my deck is actually becoming pretty good.

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I’ve now enough flyers. A card that can both hold the board and deala finishing blow seems slightly better than the 3/3.

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7 Plains
7 Island
3 Swamp
Forest
Court Homonculus
2 Knight of the Skyward Eye
Aven Squire
Etherium Sculptor
Tidehollow Strix
Aven Trailblazer
Kathari Screecher
Sedraxis Alchemist
Giltspire Avenger
Sludge Strider
Faerie Mechanist
Fatesticher
Filigree Sages
Tower Gargoyle
Steelclad Serpent
Courier’s Capsule
Agony Warp
Obelisk of Bant
Obelisk of Esper
Angelic Benediction
Gleam of Resistance
Traumatic Visions

ROUND 1: Jund (Limited rating: 1830)

The first game is as fun as the first 34 picks of my draft: I triple mulligan and lose fast.

I’ve a fast draw in the following game pushing him to sacrifice all his guys to make a huge Thunder-Thrash Elder. An Excommunicate later we can move to game 3.

With a Squire into Trailblazer start I take the lead pretty fast. By turn 7 he has still not managed to stabilize when I play Gleam of Resistance and finish him off.

ROUND 2: Jund splashing Blue (1790)

In the first game he plays turn 5 Fallout and kills my four guys but he concedes two turns later. Oh yes I forgot to mention that he took four mulligans in that game.

In the second game I force him to play another Fallout again but this time my Trailblazer survives. I’ve only got my 2/3 left while he has a CYlian Elf and life totals are 16 to 8 for me. The game looks in my favor as we’re both running out of fuel until he draws Mycoloth. Luckily he forgets to sacrifice his creature and four turns later I take the game!

ROUND 3 Naya(1795)

I take a double mulligan in game 1 and don’t play my first spell Court Homonculus until turn 2… of game 2 in which I also started with a five-card hand. From then thankfully I’m eventually able to develop my game until the last turn of the game when I’ve one flyer that will kill him in two turns if and only if I draw a blocker or a removal spell while he doesn’t draw a pump spell a removal spell or a flyer of his own. I untap and draw… Island.

Until tomorrow…

Oli