Quick Draftstravaganza Recap

I am currently laid low with a virus of some sort, so I will be making this post a short one. It doesn't seem fair to leave the Draftravaganza un-commented, so I will do some quick recapping from my perspective. First off, thanks to CBG for hosting. It was awesome. Second, boo to Wizards for fucking up our Rotisserie draft. Who would have thought the company that makes the cards can't send out an accurate full set to someone who has redeemed it on MODO? And it wasn't just one or two cards off, this sucker had a duplicate common run and no uncommons, to say nothing of the missing rares. I know lots of us were really looking forward to this, and it sucks that Wizards is directly responsible for screwing us out of the opportunity to use the product they sell in the way we had planned. Great marketing, WOTC.

First up was Carroll draft, Which I really do enjoy as a format. Can you imagine a draft where players open packs 360 unique cards? It is still possible to get doubles of a spell, but even that is a rarity in Carroll draft. It totally gets you back to the basics of drafting. It didn't go as I had hoped. I ended up taking B/W weenies, which did not seem like a great strategy. At least I managed to pick a color with some removal. During one early pick from the Guildpact pack I had to choose between a Douse in Gloom and Pillory of the Sleepless. I tried to wheel the Pillory, which was a little too greedy. It would have been great because I was lacking unconditional removal, and I had to be the only one in B/W. I did end up picking up several other "pacificism" effect, the strongest of which turned out to be Cowed by Wisdom. It really forced my opponents into some bad choices. I was surprised. What ended up saving my ass from a 1-2 or 0-3 record was the combat tricks. Guided Strike was cantrip removal all morning, and Douse in Gloom turned out to be pretty good at instant speed as well. Since I had almost no fatties, keeping my little guys swinging was the only way for me to have a shot at winning. Masked Gorgon was the only big guy I had, and he was obviously swingy (but turned out to be good). I did lose to Swizz, as is recapped here. I was happy with 2-1 because I did not expect to do that well with the deck.

Second format was 2HG Rav-Gpt-Dis draft. It was super fun remembering how the pick orders changed based on playing two opponents. Major Luck and I did pretty well in 2HG with this format, I was looking forward to it again. But my partner this time around was CBG. We argued a lot, took too many bouncelands (hard to play six in a single deck...) and generally figured we'd lose. We did have Sunforger and Lightning Helix (in my W/U/R deck- I guess I heart Numot even in different formats!) and double Mortipede (in CBG B/G/W/R? deck, I don't remember which color he didn't play). Those Mortipedes kicked ass all day for us. Not only did they usually give us a two for one trade, they also let the rest of our team get in there. We lost our first match, but the joys of round robin play dictated that if we beat our final round opponents we still take first. Sunforger on a Mourning Thrull is all business, let me tell you. We got there and with a 2-1 record took first. Too bad there was only one dual land in the pool.

We ended by with EDH 2HG. I was really tired by this time but luckily partner Swizz did not need very much help after powering out Niv-Mizzet on turn 2. His deck is sick. After we won one game it was Swizz's turned to be distracted- by the thought of leaving soon to party with a lady. He decided to jet, and surprisingly, none of our opponents seemed to mind that the team with the turn-2 Legendary Dragon was disbanding. I was ready for bed, and packed it in as well.

I would love to hear other people's experience of the night. I would also heartily recommend Carroll draft and limited 2HG to anyone looking for a different way to spend their draft night. I wish I could recommend Rotisserie because it sounds like it would be awesome, but... you know.
T

Undefeated Lists after 2 rounds

1 Branchsnap Lorian
1 Krosan Restorer
1 Ronom Unicorn
1 Sporeback Troll
1 Reveillark
1 Accelerated Mutation
1 Hail of Arrows
1 Ferocious Charge
1 Viashino Bladescout
1 Dragon Mage
1 Akki Drillmaster
1 Jedit, Ojanen of Efavra
1 Saltskitter
1 Journeyer's Kite
1 Fever Charm
1 Inner-Flame Acolyte
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Matsu-Tribe Sniper
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Battlefield Scrounger
1 Divebomber Griffin
1 Sawtooth Thresher
1 Cetavolver

1 Gruul Turf
6 Forest
6 Mountain
4 Plains
1 Island

Swizz-Dizzle's

1 Reef Shaman
1 Fire/Ice
1 Soulless Revival
1 Mesmeric Fiend
1 Confound
1 Compulsion
1 Izzet Signet
1 Warren Weirding
1 Rend Flesh
1 Runeboggle
1 Blind Phantasm
1 Frost Raptor
1 Wail of the Nim
1 Toils of Night and Day
1 Exotic Curse
1 Wonder
1 Myr Quadropod
1 Clutch of the Undercity
1 Mercurial Kite
1 Dematerialize
1 Zombie Cutthroat
1 Ixidron
1 Spire Golem
1 Floodchaser

1 Rakdos Carnarium
1 Mountain
6 Swamp
8 Island

Round 2-Carroll Draft

Fugie dropped after getting rolled so Major_luck got the bye.

Table 1-The Captain vs. Tabasco. Game 1 Cappy tempos Tabasco out. The ending was a grafted Reveillark swinging for the win with protected by Matsu-Tribe Sniper. Game 2 Tabasco went to Paris and then started speaking French. A double-kicked Cetavolver may have been involved. Sawtooth Thresher became a 6/6. Hot Sauce is crying now. It is sad.

Table 2-Swizz-Dizzle vs. TooSarcastic.
Game one TooSarcastic keeps a four land hand and then draws seven lands in a row. Swizz get that one. Game two Swizz mounts a aliant deenes but is stuck on 3 land for too long. Silver Knight and Kami Ancient Law, combined with Whipgrass Entangler finally get there, despite multiple bounce spells. Game three Swizz unmorphs a Zombie Cutthroat turn four on the play. The race is on. Unfortunately for TooSarcastic his Spined Basher is cacked before he can eqiup the Runed Stalactite. Frost Raptor and Mercurial Kite come down in support. TooSarcastic drops Conclave Equanaut to stem the air force, but Swizz rips removal off the top and comes in for lethal.


Table 3-CBG vs. Scoop_phase. Scoop made 7 land drops in a row. That is bad. In game 2, CBG managed to create a whole bunch of dudes and alpha strike through Magnigoth Treefolk for the win.

Draftstravaganza thoughts. T-72 hours.

The first format is Lorwyn Rotisserie draft. A complete set of Lorwyn is laid out and the first person chooses. Then drafting continues clockwise to pick 8. The person who picks 8th also picks 9th and the draft goes counter clockwise back to drafter #1. Drafting continues like this until Bog Hoodlums is taken*. I am curious what people think is the first pick. The_captain felt pretty strongly that Mirror Entity was it. I do like that pick, but could see taking a planeswalker or a command there as well. How early do you think removal will be taken? Will Fugie 1st pick Horde of Notions? Here's a good article with some stuff to chew over by Chad Ellis. Rotisserie bears a lot of similarities to Rochester but I would think is a more powerful format due to the number of rares.

The second format is Carroll draft. Carroll draft is a normal 8 man format which uses 24 different packs. The intention is to use the 24 most recent expert-level expansions, though the release of two-set blocks requires a little rejiggering (we are adding a pack of Coldsnap for this version). First everyone opens a big set (Lorwyn through Invasion). Drafting proceeds as normal. You will travel backwards in time as you go through the packs so if your first pack is Lorwyn, your second pick will be from Time Spiral, then Ravnica, and so on. The second pack you open will be from a second set (Morningtide through Planeshift). Again, you will travel back in time as drafting moves to the right. Finally, the third pack will be all 3rd sets, though Coldsnap will be in the mix due to Lorwyn being a 2 set block. The first time we ran this format, it was awesome as heck, despite the presence of Skullclamp. Fricking Skullclamp. To me, this format is all about sticking to your basic drafting principles of remaining open to colors as long as possible and reading signals very carefully. I think this is an incredibly skill-intensive format due to the constantly shifting foundation.

The third format will be Ravnica-Guildpact-Dissension Two-Headed Giant. We will randomly assign teams and draft as normal for 2HG, with each team taking 2 cards from each pack. Note, mana fixing=very, very important. Just saying.

Any further thoughts? I am psyched.

* That's a joke. Drafting Bog Hoodlums will not just end the draft, so don't take it just because you want to screw with someone.