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Drafting With Rich – Shards of Alara #5

Draft With Rich Hoaen every day... at StarCityGames.com!
Friday, November 14th – Canadian Draft maestro Rich Hoaen returns to the pages of StarCityGames.com. Each day, he brings us a triple Shards of Alara draft from Magic Online, from pick 1 to pick 45, sharing his insight on the more difficult picks along the way. For more in-depth analysis, visit the forums!

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Naya Battlemage
Resounding Thunder
2 Blister Beetle
Carrion Thrash
2 Bone Splinters
Rip-Clan Crasher
Jungle Weaver
Dregscape Zombie
Sprouting Thrinax
Branching Bolt
Blood Cultist
2 Corpse Connoisseur
Volcanic Submersion
Shore Snapper
Executioner’s Capsule
Rockslide Elemental
Viscera Dragger
Undead Leotau
Dreg Reaver
Skeletal Kathari
Jund Panorama
Savage Lands
Crumbling Necropolis
Jund Panorama
Naya Panorama
4 Mountain
3 Forest
6 Swamp

Full disclosure: this was a 4322. I think it was an interesting draft nonetheless. Despite some cards coming later than they probably should I still struggled to get to 23 playables and had to play some rather mediocre creatures (Dreg Reaver and Shore Snapper).

I think my first pick was erroneous. I should’ve taken one of the Red cards probably the Bloodpyre Elemental because it’s more splashable. I think that pick would’ve made my life easier and I’d have a more focused Black Red deck instead of this three-color mish-mash.

In the first round I played against a four-color non-Black deck. Neither game was particularly interesting as I simply played more and better spells than he did twice.

Round 2 I played against a decent looking Black Red Blue deck with Agony Warps Tidehollow Strixs and 4/2 first strikers as well as some plains for reasons unbeknownst to me. I had a pretty good draw game 1 but a couple well-timed Agony Warps were enough to take the game. Game 2 my draw was just too fast for his awkward draw with a bunch of Plains. I bet if those Plains were Islands and Swamps he’d have been able to cast Agony Warp and may have won. Game 3 I had a pretty quick start with Sprouting Thrinax on turn 3 and Rip-Clan Crasher and Blister Beetle for his Tidehollow Strix on turn 4. I got a hit in with Skeletal Kathari before he Agony Warped it. I sacrificed my Thrinax to Bone Splinters then alpha-struck and finished him with Resounding Thunder.

I got someone to take over the finals because I was late for work!

Until Monday…

Rich