EPTA small disclaimer: to those who followed my previous blog entries, this one will be quite a bit different. I can't really bear much to open up about my life as I used to, especially after reading how optimistic the last entry was and how the past year turned out for me (and how depressed I am right now after talking with my wife about how shitty the next year will be). Certain things are going...on track at the very least and I'm otherwise pretty decent for now. But enough about me, onto MTG!!!
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I'll be trying to keep the terminology simple and put a few explanations and links throughout to make this easier to understand for people who don't play MTG, me being fairly new to it myself.
So a very longtime friend of mine has been playing Magic: The Gathering in increasing amounts over the past couple years, and I got invited to try out a draft earlier in the year. I tried it out and now am (unfortunately..?) successfully hook on the cardboard crack many of us know and love.
I played when it first came out waaaaay back in like 1995 but back then nobody actually wanted to play, they only ripped me off and traded me shitty cards for my Killer Bees and Goblin King, and I like most younger kids grew bored of it and waited for the newest fad to come along. While I never forgot how to play, coming back to MTG after so long is pretty daunting and it is very difficult to catch up on years of missed knowledge, so for all intents and purposes it was like starting over again. (My little brother just gave me his collection of cards though so at the very least I have SOMETHING to work with if I ever feel like playing EDH/Commander or go to a FNM or event---don't think I'm quite ready for that at the moment though, and not sure that I'll ever be.
SO, about today: I had my best draft ever so far today, so I feel like just outlining how things went and my thoughts. Advice/tips/comments are welcome as always.
So this was my first time drafting something actually played in regulation (other drafts so far have been Conspiracy or cube) so I was pretty excited. I did a lot of reading on the new set, Fate Reforged (and consequently probably not enough on the larger Khans of Tarkir) and knew what sort of things to be looking for. My friend bought a whole bunch of packs of KTK/FRF rather than buying a box and opened 3 FRF packs himself before the draft---lucky bastard somehow managed to grab Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Brutal Hordechief, and a foil Temporal Trespass in THREE packs. (You can look up the value of those cards yourselves---Ugin is the highest valued card in FRF right now for starters, so he did REALLY well for himself.) I was kind of annoyed/jealous at the time but, little did I know I'd be getting pretty lucky myself.
My last few drafts were overall fairly unsuccessful and I know from playing HS for ages now that drafting is a HUGE weak point of mine, so I made sure to brush up on the basics before starting. I knew I wasn't going to be beating any of the longtime players coming to the draft but at the very least I resolved to give them a few good matches, maybe even take a game or two. For reference past drafts have included a subpar Boros (R/W) defender deck (the fliers I wanted never showed), and a very misbegotten Golgari (G/R) rushdown deck.
THE DRAFT
I opened my first pack of FRF to find one of the KTK fetchlands staring at me. Sweet! I immediately knew about their huge value and usefulness in every format so I wanted to pick it up. Only problem was it came alongside a Whisperwood Elemental. Tough choice, but I took the fetchland (which I think ultimately was probably the right call). After a few passes and few blue and white evasion and/or prowess creatures thrown my way, I figured it was probably time to go Jeskai (R/U/W). I managed to grab a Herald of Anafenza passed somehow but the first round otherwise was mostly uneventful. Sideboard thus far consisted of a Goblin Boom-keg that everybody complained about and some leftover black/red cards. Second pack, KTK, what do I see? ANOTHER fetchland! A lot of removal showed up in this round of the draft as well as some cheap draw such as Tormenting Voice, and a couple Jeskai Banners. Good thing I had picked up a whole bunch of cheap spells because upon opening the third pack: Jeskai Ascendancy. Unfortunately it's come down in value a bunch since the KTK delve card bans (Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise) but it still fit perfectly with my deck and is still a very good card. Picked it up as well as a Howl of the Horde (which I ended up sideboarding). Somebody picked up a Soulfire Grand Master but other than another couple fetch lands I don't think anything else particularly memorable came up. Abzan (B/G/W) went completely undrafted and in particular black was incredibly under-represented.
I was ready to go. It was tournament style, single elimination. Played my first opponent who went with a Temur (G/U/R) morph deck.....and I lost 0-2. Got crushed by a Mob Rule once and got mana screwed out of red the other. At the very least I managed to put up more of a fight than before but part of my problem (which my opponent graciously helped me with) was that in splashing red I didn't add enough mountains which was holding me back from it being effective in any way. He also helped me tweak some of the more useless cards out. I played a few more games for fun---won one series 2-0 and lost another 2-1 but they were great, enjoyable games and I actually feel like I'm getting a little better and have a better idea of how to draft MTG.
The decklist is linked below with card descriptions. Once again, comments/tips/advice are more than welcome.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/basic-jeskai/
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I then bought a few extra packs from my friend, and managed to pick up a Mantis Rider (imagine if I had gotten that in the draft!), Tasigur, the Golden Fang, and a foil Murderous Cut, with the others not being particularly memorable.
All in all, I got great value (both monetarily and construction-wise) from these cards and had a lot of fun, and can't wait to play again soon. I'm thinking maybe a sealed draft in my near future....
