Tonight I wanted to try a little bit harder since all of the drafts I've done with Scars have been absolute failures. Things actually didn't turn out so bad. Well... Actually they did, but a little better than usual!
I thought to myself, "I need to pay attention to signals this time," because I never did before and they're really important apparently. I also realized I ruin other peoples' drafts when I mess with signals. Unfortunately I didn't understand the signals at all. I guess it's just going to take a lot of practice.
Ok so.. Pack one, pick one, I open a Steel Hellkite. Bomb; I grabbed it without looking at anything else. Pick two, I'm faced with a foil Darksteel Axe and the rare is missing. What kind of signal am I supposed to get from this? I dunno... I don't remember what the rest of pack consisted of, but my friend told me Darksteel Axe isn't much of an early pick.. I feel bad for not thoroughly examining the rest of the pack now. Pick three I noticed three black cards, a red, a white, some other stuff, and artifacts. So I thought to myself, "red and white probably isn't available.." Not the greatest assumption, but I'm still trying to learn what signals are. Now that I think about it, I should have looked at what the good cards were.. I ended up ignoring the colors and picking a Perilous Myr.. Does grabbing an artifact send any signals? I dunno, I felt so confused at the time. Starting my draft without several artifacts I didn't even know what signals were anymore... Except I noticed that a lot of blue was coming my way. Blue is my least favorite color, but I always end up playing it! It's always passed to me in large numbers, and if it's available then why not take it? So I spent the rest of pack one grabbing blue cards. Pack two, since I took pack one's blue cards, I was being passed more blue cards in pack two. That's just how it goes. Somewhere between pack one and two, I noticed I was lacking removal, so I decided to grab a Bloodshot Trainee to compliment my Darksteel Axe, which then later led me to grabbing a Barbed Battlegear to help him out even more. Since I started the draft with a bunch of artifacts and some equipment, I started to grab white weenies (Sunspear Shikari, Auriok Sunchaser, etc), but that didn't get me anywhere because white was clearly already taken by everyone else. At this point I had already ruined the draft by tampering with the colors and my pool had mixed colors.. It wasn't that big of a deal though because the other two guys at the end of the table were fairly new, so I think they ruined that side of the table more than I did on my side. As pack three came, out of nowhere, I was being passed red cards like crazy! Pick two Arc Trail, pick three Galvanic Blast, pick four Oxidda Scrapmelter, pick five Embersmith. What on earth was everyone taking over these cards?! Pack two went to waste with those white cards, but pack three practically built the second half of my deck. Guess I got lucky.. When I took a glance at my pool during pack three. I had blue cards, some white cards and some red cards, along with whatever random cards I got left with on the last picks. The guy sitting next to me saw my pool too and he was like, "My God! Make up your mind! What is that?! Four colors?!" I was already being blamed for ruining the draft by that point, but it's okay, I was still satisfied with my deck.
Lands 16:
9 Island
7 Mountain
Creatures 18:
2 Vedalken Certarch
1 Darkslick Drake
1 Neurok Invisimancer
1 Lumengrid Drake
1 Embersmith
1 Bloodshot Trainee
1 Oxidda Scrapmelter
3 Neurok Replica
2 Snapsail Glider
2 Gold Myr
1 Perilous Myr
1 Iron Myr
1 Steel Hellkite
Other Spells 6:
2 Stoic Rebuttal
1 Arc Trail
1 Galvanic Blast
1 Darksteel Axe
1 Barbed Battlegear
I didn't realize I picked up nothing but creatures. I also realized that 70% my deck was control, and I didn't have enough aggression in some cases, but I think thats why I suck at control... I don't know how to play it properly.
Round 1:
My first opponent was one of the new faces of the night. Surprisingly enough, I actually saw numerous new faces, which is always a good thing. I love to see new players. Not only because they're easy to beat (hehe), but because its always great to expand the Magic community. New players is always a plus (as long as they're not dicks). Unfortunately for this guy, I only saw him play maybe 3 or 4 (not-so-playable) cards before I got him to zero life in both games. I don't even remember what colors he was playing.. (Sorry buddy!) 1-0
Round 2:
My second opponent was a fairly large filipino man with spiked hair. He seemed to be pretty experienced because not only was his deck good (Green and Black), but he was the one complaining to everyone at our table. "Who does that?!" "Come on guys, lets draft seriously now." "Who's ruining the draft?!" "Wow, seriously?" Things like that.. Anyways, I'm pretty sure I could have beaten him, but he had the ONE card that hard countered my deck. Asceticism. Not a single card in my deck could put a stop to that. My Vedalken Certarchs couldn't tap anything but his lands (or be chumps). My burn couldn't go anywhere but his face. My bloodshot trainee became a chump. My Perilous Myr didn't do anything, but chump then go to face.. The way my deck was supposed to work, was to slowly control them and win with the few fliers I had, but since I couldn't target his creatures, I couldn't keep up with him. Game 1 he won with Untamed Might/poison. Game two I started to lock him down, until he pulled Asceticism.. He won with Strata Scythe and normal damage... He pulled out Asceticism in both games.. 1-1
But then he dropped, so technically I got the "win", but not the points, nor the booster pack. Which meant that my next opponent was someone who was 2-0...
Round 3:
Yup, a 2-0 got paired down to me. Which meant it was going to be an uphill battle. It was the filipino guy that was sitting next to me that thought I was drafting four colors. He was playing Red Black aggro. He said his deck was fast, but he knew my deck was control oriented so he had a feeling I would beat him. Anyways, game 1 he started off with Painsmith. Turn 3, he played Strider Harness, swung for 4, then played another Painsmith. Turn 3 for me, I Arc Trailed both, preventing me from having the mana to play any creatures. Turn 4, he played Vulshok Heartstoker, pumping itself, then equipping the Harness and swinging for 5, putting me at 11 life. Fast deck indeed! I started playing some nice blockers like Neurok Replica to help me out. He managed to get me at 4 life before I stabilized and won with a bunch of fliers on the field. Game 2, I was a little more cautious. As long as I could survive the first several turns, then I could win. Since he was constantly tapped out pushing out his aggro, I knew it would be safe to play my Steel Hellkite. I swung with it blowing up all of his 2 drops, which put him at 15. Next turn I swung blowing up all his 4 drops which put him at 10 life. I somehow had 8 mana and two myrs on the field at the same time, so I swung for 10 the following turn with a pumped Steel Hellkite hahaha. 2-1
I guess my tie breakers weren't so bad, which put me into the top 4! I couldn't believe it I was so happy. To be honest, I actually had the potential to win the entire thing, but luck wasn't on my side in the top four.
Semi-Finals Top Four:
My opponent was a white man who usually plays Type 2 on sundays, but I guess he was drafting for fun. He was playing green and white I think. Game 1, I started with a 5 land hand and mulliganed to 6 cards. He started off really strong with a Myrsmith, but I stalled with my Neurok Replicas. I ended up being mana screwed with 4 islands begging for red. During that time he was poking at me with a Sunspear Shikari equipped with a Blade Pinions. At this point I made the hugest mistake. I had 2 Neurok Replicas out (one was Arrested), 2 Snapsail Glider, and a Vedalken Certarch. There was a Stoic Rebuttal in my hand. I was spacing out waiting for him to finish his turn, and he played a Tumble Magnet. "Okay..." I said as I spaced off. 10 seconds later I look back down at the table and say "WAIT! Is it too late to counter that?!" I forgot I had the Stoic Rebuttal ready to counter, but then he said, "Well.. You already said 'okay'.." It cost me the game. He tapped my Vedalken Certarch at the end of my turn, then swung with his entire army or myrs and other mediocre creatures. He already had me at a pretty low life so at that point I was panicking. I finally drew a mountain and played Oxidda Scrapmelter to kill his Blade Pinions, but it was too late. His Tumble Magnet allowed him to swing at me with opportunities my deck shouldn't have allowed him to. If I countered that tumble magnet (and maybe was a little less land screwed), I'm almost positive my deck could have taken him. Game 2 I drew maybe 5 or 6 lands in a row? What do you for 6 turns with nothing but land? You lose.
The other two player in the top 4 was my friend and some other white guy that I played against earlier for fun. My deck pooped all over his deck, and he beat my friend! That means if I went to the finals against him, I would have won! Oh well, until next time.
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My friends and I were planning on going to Mad Fish for dinner again, but since we both made it into the top four we didn't make it to Mad Fish fast enough. They closed right when we got there! So we ended up going to In n' Out instead. It wasn't enough food for me, but still delicious nonetheless. We spent our dinner talking about drafting, and Starcraft II hahaha. We ended up going home and playing Starcraft until 3:30 in the morning. We more times than we should have, but it was still fun. I can't play numerous games of Starcraft for some reason though. I had an extremely sharp pain on the sides of head from all the constant thinking. I don't know how Starcraft caused it, but it really hurt. Fun night though! I went home in a really good mood.
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