My Last Draft as a Free Man

The title isn't technically true, as I haven't been "free" for four years, but hey, there's some sort of marriage next weekend and I'm told I will be there in a tux waiting for some chick to walk down the aisle. So I am supposed to be shopping for wedding supplies (just like I'm supposed to be cleaning my old apartment right now) but instead I play Magic. XXXth draft, to be exact. We have six people, so no sanctioning, and cheap packs. Tony McRome wants to team draft, so we randomize and sit down. First pick is a Civic Wayfinder over Sift and Midnight Ritual. I feel like forcing blue and end up passing some quality red (Shock) and green (Craw Wurm) to do so. I get a Cloud Elemental, Dehydration, and a Counsel of Soratami for my troubles. I see no black removal. My last four picks are middling red cards. Pack two I have a tough call between Sift and Mogg Fanatic. I pass the Sift reluctantly, knowing that it's the worse card. Six picks later the Sift comes around and I'm fine with taking it on the lap. I also pick up some decent green including Spined Wurm, Rampant Growth and Enormous Baloth. Looks like Civic Wayfinder might be getting to the deck after all. Third pack opens with a foil Reya Dawnbringer. I take the Guerrilla Tactics and ship her. Then I pass a Lord of the Pit. Geez, guys, can you not draft the good cards in my colors? I am finally rewarded for cutting blue up front with a third pick Air Elemental. Hot. Then I am forced to hate a foily Lord of the Pit. He eats your opponent's whole team, but he also 7/7 flying and trample. I would hate to kill one of them and then have the dude lay down another. As it turns out, the first Lord of the Pit tables. In the end I draft a Green/Blue deck with a heavy splash for Shock, Guerrilla Tactics and Lavaborn Muse. I had double Rampant Growth and the Civic Wayfinder for fixing. Turns out my whole team drafts base blue. Good job guys! We know what the best color in Xth is. Collin (skinny kid with cool glasses) drafts Doubling Cube. With double Looming Shade. And Consume Spirit. This is not actually terrible. It's pretty damn cool. Tony McRome does okay; the usual, double Merfolk Looter, Platinum Angel, and Whispersilk Cloak to make her stylish. Seems okay.

I play Kelvin round one, who wins the first game with one card in his library. Then my deck comes to play the next two games and flyers get in there. 1-0.

The next match is against the guy with 15 removal cards and 8 creatures. Seriously, the dude has dubs Terror, Essence Drain and is still splashing white for Pacifism. His two Gravediggers cycled around while he searched for his two Ghost Wardens to make them 4/4. Awful. No, actually what's really awful is when I swing with my Civic Wayfinder into his Severed Legion. The man has an active Ghost Warden, but it's cool, I have the Guerrilla Tactics in hand, and frankly I need to kill the Legion before it starts swinging away. He blocks my Wayfinder with the Legion, pumps with the Warden, and I respond with the activated ability on the stack, hitting the Legion with the Tactics. He bins the Legion, then tells me to bin the Wayfinder. I then realize that I have not specified where in the combat phase we were when this whole routine unfolded. I argue that we had not yet stacked damage, since neither of us said anything to that effect and if I were pumping a guy I'd do it prior to damage. He calmly replies, "Yeah, well actually I always pump after damage in situations like that." Whatever, I am mad at myself for obviously not specifying where we were at (since then we both would have seen if he really would have waited until damage was stacked or if he would have walked into the 1 for 1 trade). I let it go mostly because I feel like it was shoddy play on my part (I really think most guys would take a prompt like "it's declare blockers and I'm ready to move to damage" and throw the +1/+1 on there right away) but I also feel like the dude was slimy for weaseling it into his favor. Am I out of line here? At any rate, the fact that I can't either a) trade with the Warden the next turn or b) get an extra two damage in that next turn becomes very relevant when I have him at one life and can't quite off him before his Grave Pact with recycled Gravediggers overwhelms my team. So now I have to win the next two games. I mull the six and keep a four-lander with a Rampant Growth for the double blue on the Air Elemental also in my hand. Turn four, right on schedule, down the Air Elemental comes. I'm really pinning a lot on this fatty but it seemed like a better play than mulling to five. Yeah, he has the Terror. Yeah, that's pretty much game.

Next match. This gentleman is playing lots of weenies, which my big guys outclass. He's running light on creatures but has just enough to hold my land borne monsters back. Eh, I could start making some big swings, but I have Mr. Cloud Elemental doing okay for me. I get him down to 8 and then he plays Reviving Dose to go back up to 11. (Who plays Reviving Dose? Honestly, a few of his creatures seem pretty sub par, so I think it's an easy win and see if he can actually find an answer to my flyer instead pressuring him. He's at 5 now (still Cloud Elemental all the way) and then he plays Natural Spring going to 13! I actually say to him, "Don't you know that life gain is bad?" and continue my air assault. Then he plays Wrath of God and drops four weenies, the first of which happens to be Soul Warden. I have been sandbagging guys so it's not a blowout, but all that life gain turns out to be good for him. He swings all out and I elect to go to four, then he Lava Axes me. Ouch. Game Two I mull again to six. I drop a Spined Wurm and Cloud Elemental early, but he just Wraths them away. I proceed to draw one more creature the whole game. But I'll tell what I did draw, land. Fourteen of them, to be exact. Now, this is not a bad beats story. This is a "see how making stupid mistakes in the first game of your last two matches have caused you to get screwed by bad luck later" story. If I win the games I should have, I go to game three and we see if the deck can get there or not. But instead, it's my first 1-2 draft in a month. All my fault.

This story does have a happy ending. My team pulls it out (Collin goes 3-0 with Doubling Cube.dec, and Tony 2-1, winning more than one game with no cards left in his library and/or at negative life. Platinum Angel with Whispersilk Cloak gets things done)! Collin takes the Wrath, Tony, the Plats, and I get... a Battlefield Forge. Could be worse. Thank you team drafts. Hey, if you have to go 1-2, at least do it a team draft. You've got a shot at a decent pick that way.