The "MTGO Crash" Draft Walkthourgh

I'm going to try to do this anyway, even though I never got play a freakin game. Stupid servers. I am using screenshots of draftcap, because it's about 8 million times easier for you guys to see pics of the packs and then digest the stuff instead of reading a string of names. Yeah it's convoluted, but it also breaks up the picks nicely so I can talk about them in chunks.

Here we go. Click on the pics for enlarging.

What a disappointing first pack. Plenty of fine things to take- for pick 5. I chose the colorless removal spell since I knew it would make the deck and I don't have to commit. Second pick was all about removal. We've got four removal spells in three colors! And one really good creature (Cloudcrown, obv.) I took the Final Revels for the possibility of a wrath effect.

Pick 3 we have plenty of good creatures. The Sentinels and Baloonist are both tempting but I'm really excited about the Boggart Harbinger. This is how nuts goblin decks start. Inevitably someone passes me a Fodder Launch in pack three and I'm cursing myself that I don't have a Harbinger to go with it. Still, Hoofprints is a great rare that wins long games all day. I snap it up.

Pick 4 Silvergill Douser tells me that Merfolk are open, but I have take another Final Revels. Sexy!

Pick 5 Stonybrook Angler and Harpoon Sniper? Merfolk are definitely open! The uncommon is better, but I know the Angler will be great, and the Sniper needs a critical mass. I'll let it pass for now.

Pick 6 Might as well go all in. My pick, which you can't see on the screenshot is Streambed Aquitects, over Sentry Oak, I guess. Not much else.

Pick 7 Tough choice for me. Both the Feast and the Skeletal Changling would go well in the U/b deck that seems to be shaping up here, but I ultimately choose the Vivid land because I want the freedom to splash for white Merfolk, if they come around

Pick 8 Sweet! Another Feast! Now I feel better about tkaing the Vivid, too, because otherwise I might have considered the Drum.

Pick 9 Hearthcage Giant wheels. Maybe I should start looking at red...

Pick 10 Glimmerdust Nap. Some removal in blue. Soubright flamekin is late, but he is an enabler, not a key to the Elemental combo engine.

Pick 11 Red is still open, Goatnapper it is. If my black gets more solid in Pack 2 I may need the goblin plan anyway.

Pick 12 Late Inkfathom. Nice

Pick 13 Wispmare for opposing O-rings.

Pick 14 Triclopean Sight, hatedraft the shitty trick.

Pick 15 Protective Bubble

After Pack 1 we have some good mass removal and the beginnings of a Merfolk deck.

Pick 1 Well, once again not very exciting. Peppersmoke, Paperfin Rascal and Moonglove Extract seem to fit our deck. I could snap up the Smokebraider in case I get some more red, but I just go for first pick colorless removal spell #2.

Pick 2 This pack is incomplete, and none of the missing uncommons or possibly the rare came back around so they can't have been awful. One of the uncommons was a third Final Revels, but I decided two was enough. Whatever the reast were, I took the Nameless Inversion over all of them and a Streambed Aquitects. Seems fine.

Pick 3 Hamletback Goliath and Neck Snap seemed good, but I have the on-color Ghostly Changeling which is ridiculous in its own right. I seriously considered the Giant, though. Ultimately it came down to being able to drop a great dude on turn three instead of dropping Goliath a turn after you were already dead.

Pick 4 My eyes alight on the Avian Changeling but rest on the two-drop merfolk. Great curve, here I come!


Pick 5 Aethersnipe over Tarfire and Inkfathom.

Pick 6 Thought about the Glimmerdust Nap, but a quick count of the merfolk told me I could probably make the Silvergill Adept a two drop. Things are shaping up nicely!

Pick 7 I take the fixing (Vivid Marsh this time) over the iffy off color removal. Seems like the right call to me, but I may be wrong.

Pick 8 I almost auto-picked the Amoeboid Changeling without even looking at the off-color cards. Summon the School seems like a great splash for this deck. Man, no one is touching Merfolk!

Pick 9 Paperfin Rascal tables. Nice.

Pick 10 It was between the Battlewand and the Blades. I prefer taking combat tricks as hate drafts, but the Battlewand is really great early drop in the right deck. Also, treefolk have been coming late.

Pick 11 Runed Stalactite over Nath's Buffon, which is surprisingly good (Changeling removal and Eyeblight's Ending don't kill it).

Pick 12 Wellgabber Apothecary on the off chance it makes the deck.

Pick 13 Boggart Birth Rite

Pick 14 Zephyr Net

Pick 15 Giant's Ire

Pack 2 gave us more merfolk, some removal and a nice splash card in Summon. We could build a decent but unexciting draft deck with these two packs alone.

Pick 1 Finally a juiced first pick! Warren Pilferers and Judge of Currents are great cards, but the real choice was between Drowner of Secrets and Austere Command. Our deck becomes nuts if we can start to mill people out, but the ability to literally wrath the board is too good to pass up. I make the switch. Let's play U/w/b!

Pick 2 Cryptic Command! We are sooo heavy blue, too. Another Stonybrook Angler would be great, but the counterspell + card draw, or bounce, or whatever is too good to pass up. Also, it's worth tix.

Pick 3 Wow. We've got another Judge of Currents, Crib Swap in our new second color, and the bomb Fallowsage. I hate to pass the life gain again, but I think drawing cards is just better. We have enough removal. On a side note, the Deeptread Merrow will probably table given the way things have gone thus far.

Pick 4 Stonybrook Angler. Don't know what the two missing cards were, but I get our second Angler, so that's good.

Pick 5 Mulldrifter. Pick FIVE. C'mon people, don't you like blue???

Pick 6 Silvergill Adept numero dos over the great Whirlpool Whelm. I want more merfolk and have some really good removal already.

Pick 7 Paperfin Rascal over Ethereal Whiskergill. I think normally I would pick the sideboard card here but I am trying to max out my merfolk count for Summon the School and the Adepts. The Rascal is also easier on my curve.

Pick 8 Vivid Marsh #2 over the blue removal. I have removal. The marsh will definitely get played.

Pick 9 Judge of Currents wheels! Everything is going according plan.

Pick 10 Streambed Aquitects wheels as well. It would normally have taken a miracle for the Angler to wheel, but I half expected it, given how open Merfolk are.

Pick 11 Right on cue, Deeptread Merrow. We have TOO MANY playables now.

I am having issues uploading the last screenshot, so just trust me on these last picks.

Pick 12 Faerie Trickery. Man blue is underdrafted.

Pick 13 Protective Bubble

Pick 14 Boggart Sprite-Chaser

Pick 15 Ringskipper

Here is the deck :

It's a little creature light, so I cut the second Final Revels for another dude. Same goes with the second Extract, though they could both come in against beefier dudes. Fairy Trickery is similarly sidelined due to creature concerns, and because it is inferior to the Cryptic Command. The Wellgabber may actually come in if we need to beat down. The Wispmare was going to be main for enchantments (since we have none of our own to hit accidentally) but our creature quality is too high to waste a slot on that thing. Footbottom Feast helps us spend guys early in combat without worrying too much down the line about getting a critical mass of merfolk for shenanigans. I feel that if I played solidly and got lucky, I should win the draft with this sucker. Unfortunately, the server crashed multiple times after we finished drafting. I gave up trying to log in after over an hour had passed since the last crash. I put in a request for a refund coupon, but I don't know if it will be granted. Could I have built this better? Any picks you would have made differently?

T