We've been suggesting for a while that we organise a Draft or a Sealed evening and plans generally break down and we play Core again. This is fine - I love playing Core. However, I'm not sure if Julian spiked everyone's drinks as he managed to convince everyone to do a draft this week.
It just so happens that we had an extra six people turn up as well. Completely unheard of, and more to the point, completely brilliant! Jack Fejer and Amy C made the trip up, along with Tom Robinson and some of his compatriots from Beeston, who're picking the game up as an alternative to the super-competitive Magic goings-on. Far from having concerns that we wouldn't have enough for a draft pod, we were now looking at two very healthy ones.
We were all randomly assigned into a pod of 8 or a pod of 6, and got to work. I was assigned into the pod of 6 with Amy (who has drafted before), Jonty (who has not drafted for a while and requested to be put into the Spaz Pod), Dave (who chuckles a lot), Phil (Captain Obvious) and Neil from Beeston, who produced his 2009 Magic Tokyo World Championships playmat and made us all feel very inferior.
The tale of getting pissed the night before the tournament and missing the second round was pretty amusing though.
"We got ourselves a reader!" came the cry from my left, where Neil was trying to figure out what all of the icons for each class meant, as well as reading each card individually. Eventually we passed, I picked a couple of quests and a Frek Snipelix that had wheeled the entire table, before finding a Varandas Silverleaf at something ridiculous like tenth pick. I'd drafted a couple of average Priest cards as there wasn't much going, a Raging Shout because it's good, before picking an Execute towards the end of the pack, and my final card being Black Blood. Nobody playing DK either then!
After pack 1 I'd got three quests, a bomb ally in Korialstrasz and was leaning slightly towards the Horde. Pack 2 cemented my faction at least as contained inside was a Trade Prince Gallywix, along with six or seven other cards that I wanted too. I noticed a Thunderous Challenge hiding away and so sent it off to see if anyone bit. Nobody did, and so when it came back to me six picks later, it was mine.
Jonty, sat opposite me, cracked a Divine Fury and after seeking advice from the rest of the table, hate-drafted it, and ended up going Priest himself after a first-pack Warlock strategy. That was me out of Priest and firmly into Warrior either way. Most of the second pack was spent stocking up on only the best quests (Essence of Enmity, Challenge to the Black Flight) and being surprised at how many amazing Horde allies I was being passed - I saw a Kerzok Plixboom wheel twice before I snaffled it, and I started to fill out the top end of my curve, taking a solitary claymore just so I had some form of weaponry.
Pack 3 contained another rare for me to take - Bloodied Arcanite Reaper, and to top it all off, I got passed a Venerable Mass of McGowan. I'd taken quests early so could afford to skip out on a couple in exchange for better abilities and allies this time around, and when an Onslaught went to eighth pick I was pretty confident I was alone in Warrior. Unfortunately the girdle I sent off to wheel never came back - it was one pick away from coming back to me before Dave revealed he'd hate-drafted it as he knew how good it could be, the swine.
A quick squint around the table reveals a surprising statistic. Despite seeing all these great Horde allies wheeling around the table, I was on the wrong end of a 4-2 faction split. Bizarre.
After cutting my 37 card deck to 31, which was difficult enough in itself, I ended up with the following:
Jai Dawnsteel
2 Execute
2 Raging Shout
Thunderous Challenge
Ruby Flameblade
Korialstrasz
Telor Sunsurge
Landon Dunavin
Trade Prince Gallywix
Oruk Starstorm
Frek Snipelix
Guardian Steelhoof
Jezziki Shinebog
2 Dorladris Spellfire
Ceraka
Orkahn of Orgrimmar
2 Vala Carville
2 Kerzok Plixboom
Boki Earthgaze
Bloodied Arcanite Reaper
Venerable Mass of McGowan
Cleansing Witch Hill
The Essence of Enmity
2 Counting Out Time
2 Challenge to the Black Flight
I'd picked up an Onslaught and a Crushing Strike on their way past too, and after much debating, dropped the Crushing Strike in there just to have some form of hate against a card type that isn't 'ally'. Looking around the table there were two Priests (and to think I could have been the third), a Paladin, a Mage, a Druid and me, playing Jai Dawnsteel and getting the usual pre-game nerves as I rack my brains to think if I've missed anything vital out.
Whilst picking strong cards from otherwise empty packs, I'd managed to pick up 2 Grip of the Damned, 2 Frenzy and a Black Blood - given the weapon suite that would have been a perfectly decent class to play, and entirely by accident! Thunderous Challenge was the card that swung it slightly for me though, Grip is excellent but I felt I had enough ways of dealing with allies in either class.
Round 1: vs Amy C, playing Jaenel (1-0)
It's Amy again! Fresh off the back of a Top 4 defeat at her hands in Beeston at the weekend, Tracker gives us a grudge match. I immediately feel better for playing that Crushing Strike I mentioned earlier, and am delighted to find it in my opening hand along with an Execute, a quest and some not terrible allies.
If my memory serves, the game was over pretty quickly - we traded allies for a bit before Amy dropped a claymore on turn 5, only for me to crush it the following turn. My turn 6 sees me recruit my Arcanite Reaper, and having flipped on a particularly uneventful Turn 3, go to town on anything with four health or less before dropping Korialstrasz to seal the deal.
Or so I thought - he went straight back to my hand as soon as he attacked thanks to Censure, before I'd even spawned any whelps. I dropped a Kerzok on the freshly-empty board instead and pretty much locked out the game from that point on.
Round 2: vs Jonty, playing Yuna Sunridge (2-0)
From what he told me, Jonty had picked up a decent first pack's worth of Warlock abilities before finding himself with a Divine Fury at the start of pack 2. He'd supplemented it with Angry Red Men and after I mulliganed from a poor hand into another poor hand, he wasted no time in dropping Onnekra on the table and going to town on my hero - to, in his words, "even things out".
A turn 3 Emerald Tree Warder and a dissatisfied look suggested curve issues (at this point Jonty was sat on two face-up Challenge to the Black Flight) and after finally stemming the bleeding with a one-drop protector, I executed the dragon shortly after and dropped a Jezziki, a Kerzok, followed by backup in the shape of a great big axe.
Jonty did some maths, and ran his sizeable board straight into my hero, taking me to about 23. Now it was my turn to do some thinking - and after resigning myself to sacrificing my Jezziki to clear his board, he dropped Toz'jun, who went for the face. By this point I was desperately close to death, but Kerzok eating the angry Troll followed up with a Ruby Flameblade and a stashed mallet to make my axe more dangerous swung the game in my favour, but not nearly out of reach of Jonty.
He flipped. "Your hero has Mend 1. Seems good when I'm taking twelve per turn." An irrelevant Dragonkin came off the top of Jonty's deck, hit the board, and he completed both Challenges to dig for an answer.
It never came, and I got away with it. Just.
Round 3: vs Neil, playing Suvok Frozeneye (3-0)
It always unnerves me when people who don't really know the game do so well at limited. I guess the people who I play Magic limited with once in a blue moon think the same about me - I have no idea what any of the cards do but still manage to put in a respectable show and finish with a decent record.
I forget who went first, but I know I kept my opening hand. No one-drop, but a turn 2 Trade Price followed by a turn 3 Venerable Mass of McGowan and a stashed Arcanite Reaper elicited a groan from the other side of the table.
"So you're just making rares against me, then?" Seems that way - my board was looking pretty ferocious compared to the Pirate Bob that he'd spent two turns making, and me flipping a couple of turns later meant I could take literally anything in his deck out in one hit.
It wasn't quite as easy as that though - being Mage (or "Burny Stick Man") he'd likely be packing Fire Blast and/or Frostfire Bolt, and that spelt pain for my Kerzoks, Ceraka and Boki, with their two health each.
They made lovely face-down resources though, and Dorladris Spellfire did most of the face-beating throughout the game, which I don't think is what he was designed for. Eventually Neil ran out of cards while I was trading his board for my health, and dropped a couple of dudes and attacked for game.
 |
| Burny Stick Man |
So - not bad for a day's work. But wait - there's more. After almost wetting myself due to the inadvisable amount I'd drunk during the evening, I caught up with the top game in the other pod, and there was a mysterious lack of Jack Fejer in it, who had scrubbed out (only kidding) at 2-1. The final was between Julian "I'm really terrible at limited" Harse and Morgan "I really should stop calling him the new guy" Bartlett.
There was to be a playoff between the winner of the two pods for a mat that nobody really wanted and a t-shirt that was big enough to fit all of us in to. Morgan emerged victorious with his deck that looked depressingly like the Core Constructed deck I've been playing over the last few weeks, and we shuffled up out of the way while everyone else collected their prizes.
Morgan won the roll and came out of the blocks like crazy, dropping guys on curve each turn, though lacking in quests. Can you even call The Mighty U'cha a quest? Everyone seems to love it because it makes a monkey, but... anyway. I topdecked each turn hoping for a card that cost less than 3 for me to play to stop me from dying - and just when I thought I was getting somewhere, dropping a Dorladris, Morgan casually played a Demonic Soulstone on his Zulanji, ate my Card Draw Guy, and resurrected the pesky 4/1.
Turn 5 and I'm staring at a great hand, and a terrible board. Morgan has a Sardok which I've been completely unable to deal with since the first turn, Exxi the Windshaper and Zulanji. I pass with all resources open, Morgan makes a Ruby Flameblade and completes The Mighty U'cha, and I'm dead on board. Lucky for me, Thunderous Challenge saves the day, killing the monkey and the dragon, meaning I only take four damage in total from Sardok, and live to see another day. Just.
Morgan's not done yet though, with a quest and a couple more cheap draws hitting the table. I play Jezziki and start trying to frantically heal up, follow up with an axe and eventually the board is clear with me at 27 damage, and Morgan on very little. In my hand is the big guy though - Korialstrasz.
Big lad hits the board and I pass. I have no protectors available and I know Morgan is playing Boki, so all it takes is that one topdeck and I'm fucked. It doesn't come, it's his own Jezziki instead. Korialstrasz eats it, I play my own Boki and make a sea of whelps, and pass for what is hopefully the final time.
Morgan topdecks A Matter of Time. It's his sixth resource. He completes it anyway before passing back - I make a Vala Carville, five more whelps, and then run everything that can into Morgan to win in the most unconvincing manner possible.
Anyone want to buy a playmat?
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Big respect to Morgan for pasting everyone in his pod (and very nearly me) - he put it all down to luck but I think he's just being modest.
Big thanks to Leah at Chimera Ripley for running the event for us and putting extra boosters in the pool due to the bonkers turnout, and to Julian for stopping by at the Beeston store to pick up more WoWTCG product as we were looking like we'd be about six boosters short.
I'm crossing my fingers that the Beeston guys come to Ripley more often as by the looks of it they're going to be some stiff competition once they get some cards together.
To come in the future (maybe): Icecrown Citadel treasure pack discussion! I teach my nephew to play Yu-Gi-Oh! My brain melts when presented with a M:TG EDH deck! I finally give in to my wife's wishes and tidy all the cards away!
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