I first picked Gisela.. and started on this Naya ramp base. Then I opened Conflux and considering going super deep during the second pack picking a bunch of off colour things. Eventually I settled back into this naya configuration.
Match 1 vs Black Green sac.
New player wasn't super great with the rules. I managed to out last their early Phyrexian Ghouls attrition their board with my never ending stream of powerful creatures. For both games.
Match 2 vs Red White tokens
Game 1 Opponent went really wide with Zada in play while I was just sitting there behind my wall of large creatures... they didn't find a pump before I found removal then I was able to just attack into their tokens every turn until he ran out.
Game 2 was similar this time with Darien facing my Staang and abberation,, I found a skeletonize and my soulbright flame-kin gave my creatures trample and I ran over the tokens.
Match 3 vs UG can trips.
Game 1 A slow start from my opponent facing my Knights of the skyward eye and ramp, his creatures were just too small to fight them.
Game 2 This time he literally fought them both with Epic Confrontations and I died before reaching 6 mana.
Game 3 I was able to pick off two Lorescale Coatl, kindle then skeletonize then I was at 6 mana and had a never-ending stream of huge threats. I finally got to cast Giesla and I got to do my Cinder storm combo :).
I think the archetypes aren't as super defined as they were iconic masters so the end of the packs aren't absolute trash if they aren't in your archetype. It is more standard, "Oh I might sideboard this" or "I don't want to play against it" (e.g I hate drafted act of treason at the end of packs).
Also cycling is really good limited mechanic and there is plenty of other mana sinks which felt good.
Drafted Master at FNM last night. First pick was pendelhaven, mostly for monetary value, although it plays well in white token decks. I then picked mutiple pacifism and a few green and black cards. After pack one I was solidly in white. Unfortunately, I passed several good black and red cards in the early picks. (Stuff like edict and murder. I picked pacifism over murder because I was more white and murder has double-black.)
I ended-up beingh WB. I passed over doomsday in the second pack, got thalia in third pack. Opened no big money card. Pendelhaven and thalia were the only two cards with any value. (Got an ancient stirring and kor firewalker as the next most expensive cards. That says everything. Meanwhile, people were picking foil filter land all around...)
My goal was to manage the board early and win with flyers. I liked the urbis protector/ stamina combo to get an additional angel while chump-blocking. I played only 16 lands due to cyclers and land cyclers.
First match was and RB aggro. Lost 1-2. My first game loss was due to a miscalculation. I played pacifism on the red fire-folk that can give trample instead of using disfigure. I had two genju of the spires in his deck. I managed one with sword to plowshare, but the second I kept trading with 1/1 but he could give it trample. Without the trample, I'd have won in the air. My mistake. The second game I lost I was flooded while he dropped a wide board with the goblin that prevent blocking. I lost while he was still at 20 life...
Second match was against WB. (It was an 11 man pod, she drafted opposite of me.) I won 2-1. She had a lot of creatures with 1 toughness so my buzzard cleaned them up. At one point, she had played pillory of the sleepless on it and had 3 1-toughness guys out, so I murdered my own buzzard to get a 4-for-2. (Or 3-for-1, as my buzzard was already dead.) The last game she was stuck on three lands and only 1 swamp with multiple 3-mana cards with BB in their cost , buzzard and murder.
Last match was against UR combo. He had multiple sick combo with freed from the real: the one with the dagger that pings and draw card, the other with spikeshot goblin. Fortunately, I kept playing flyers and disassembling his combo with disfigurem sword and murder. I saved my guys multiple times with stamina and gods willing.
I got 1 prize pack. Opened crappy laqatus champion. I lost half the money I spent due to the low values of the pack I opened.
I'm pretty sure I was amongst the unluckiest of the night. Saw multiple jaces and nice foils. (Seems foil brainstorm is worth quite a bit!) The only foil worth mentioning I opened is notion thief, but he was in the same pack as thalia...
I drafted the elfcrab combo deck ... had a lot of fun and fired the combo every match (very close to every game!) but eventually lost out to removal, bounce, and the elf army’s greatest fear, Pyroclasm.
4 Horseshoe Crab
4 Presence of Gond
2 Nettle Sentinel
1 Retraction Helix (wish I coulda got more)
Some diggers (Vessel of Nascency, Brainstorm), some Lulls, some morph creatures (Broodhatch Nantuko, Fathom Seers), Lorescale Coatl...
Good times.
Pack 1 rare was Laquatas Champion, I wasn’t interested so I took a white creature and started drafting white blue but the white dried up so I jumped on Gond and went blue green from there. Terrible value opens - Laq Champ (shipped), Hulk (kept but wound up being not a good fit for the deck), and Vindicate (shipped).
1 Loyal sentry
2 Knight of the Skyward Eye
2 Soulbright Flamekin
1 Ambassador Oak
2 Stangg
1 Elvish Aberration
1 Noble Templar
1 Wooly Loxodon
1 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Spells
1 Ancient stirrings
2 Kindle
1 Prophetic Prism
3 Cultivate
2 Skeletonize
1 Cinder Storm
1 Ash Barrens
1 Myriad landscape
5 plains
5 Mountain
5 Forest
1 Plummet
1 Skirk commando
I first picked Gisela.. and started on this Naya ramp base. Then I opened Conflux and considering going super deep during the second pack picking a bunch of off colour things. Eventually I settled back into this naya configuration.
Match 1 vs Black Green sac.
New player wasn't super great with the rules. I managed to out last their early Phyrexian Ghouls attrition their board with my never ending stream of powerful creatures. For both games.
Match 2 vs Red White tokens
Game 1 Opponent went really wide with Zada in play while I was just sitting there behind my wall of large creatures... they didn't find a pump before I found removal then I was able to just attack into their tokens every turn until he ran out.
Game 2 was similar this time with Darien facing my Staang and abberation,, I found a skeletonize and my soulbright flame-kin gave my creatures trample and I ran over the tokens.
Match 3 vs UG can trips.
Game 1 A slow start from my opponent facing my Knights of the skyward eye and ramp, his creatures were just too small to fight them.
Game 2 This time he literally fought them both with Epic Confrontations and I died before reaching 6 mana.
Game 3 I was able to pick off two Lorescale Coatl, kindle then skeletonize then I was at 6 mana and had a never-ending stream of huge threats. I finally got to cast Giesla and I got to do my Cinder storm combo :).
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
I run WU sort-of aggro deck with Promise of Bunrei, Valor in Akros, Dauntless Cathars, lots of Self-Assemblers and Assembly-Workers and other weenies, also lots of decent flyers like Geist of the Moors, Genju of the Falls and Cloudblazer which was the main reason I run these colors (unfortunately, only one Squadron Hawk), all pumped by Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon". Oh, I also has freaking Luminarch Ascension! However, I decided not to put green as third color in my deck and maybe it was a mistake.
My first pick rares were Armageddon, Pendelhaven and Cascade Bluffs so only Armageddon was in my deck. But I never was in the good position to cast it.
The most sick card of the set is, what do you think, Horseshoe Crab. He even was tutored with Imperial Recruiter which speaks a lot! Heavy Arbalest, Presence of Gond, Quicksilver Dagger and Retraction Helix are just insane with it. In one game, I killed 20-25 blocking elf tokens made with it, still won, but man, it was tiring.
So I assume maybe there wasn't enough value in booster packs but the draft was interesting.
Also cycling is really good limited mechanic and there is plenty of other mana sinks which felt good.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
I ended-up beingh WB. I passed over doomsday in the second pack, got thalia in third pack. Opened no big money card. Pendelhaven and thalia were the only two cards with any value. (Got an ancient stirring and kor firewalker as the next most expensive cards. That says everything. Meanwhile, people were picking foil filter land all around...)
My deck was something like this:
1 Kor firewalker
1 Thalia, guardian of thraben
1 Dauntless cathar
1 Geist of the moors
1 Death's-Head Buzzard
1 Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon"
1 Bloodhunter Bat
2 Horror of the Broken Lands
1 Noble Templar
2 Urbis Protector
1 Ihsan's Shade
1 Twisted Abomination
1 Gods Willing
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Supernatural Stamina
1 Promise of bunrei
1 Disfigure
4 Pacifism
1 Murder
8 Plains
8 Swamp
My goal was to manage the board early and win with flyers. I liked the urbis protector/ stamina combo to get an additional angel while chump-blocking. I played only 16 lands due to cyclers and land cyclers.
First match was and RB aggro. Lost 1-2. My first game loss was due to a miscalculation. I played pacifism on the red fire-folk that can give trample instead of using disfigure. I had two genju of the spires in his deck. I managed one with sword to plowshare, but the second I kept trading with 1/1 but he could give it trample. Without the trample, I'd have won in the air. My mistake. The second game I lost I was flooded while he dropped a wide board with the goblin that prevent blocking. I lost while he was still at 20 life...
Second match was against WB. (It was an 11 man pod, she drafted opposite of me.) I won 2-1. She had a lot of creatures with 1 toughness so my buzzard cleaned them up. At one point, she had played pillory of the sleepless on it and had 3 1-toughness guys out, so I murdered my own buzzard to get a 4-for-2. (Or 3-for-1, as my buzzard was already dead.) The last game she was stuck on three lands and only 1 swamp with multiple 3-mana cards with BB in their cost , buzzard and murder.
Last match was against UR combo. He had multiple sick combo with freed from the real: the one with the dagger that pings and draw card, the other with spikeshot goblin. Fortunately, I kept playing flyers and disassembling his combo with disfigurem sword and murder. I saved my guys multiple times with stamina and gods willing.
I got 1 prize pack. Opened crappy laqatus champion. I lost half the money I spent due to the low values of the pack I opened.
I'm pretty sure I was amongst the unluckiest of the night. Saw multiple jaces and nice foils. (Seems foil brainstorm is worth quite a bit!) The only foil worth mentioning I opened is notion thief, but he was in the same pack as thalia...
4 Horseshoe Crab
4 Presence of Gond
2 Nettle Sentinel
1 Retraction Helix (wish I coulda got more)
Some diggers (Vessel of Nascency, Brainstorm), some Lulls, some morph creatures (Broodhatch Nantuko, Fathom Seers), Lorescale Coatl...
Good times.
Pack 1 rare was Laquatas Champion, I wasn’t interested so I took a white creature and started drafting white blue but the white dried up so I jumped on Gond and went blue green from there. Terrible value opens - Laq Champ (shipped), Hulk (kept but wound up being not a good fit for the deck), and Vindicate (shipped).