#synapse necromage

[googlyeyesonmagiccards]

There's a fungus amongus

[almostlookedhuman]

[i-am-nickelbolt]

Bronze to Mythic: Lost Caverns of Ixalan, draft #4

I'll take a 4-3 with this pile, but I'm still kind of wondering where all the good cards are?

Pack 1, pick 1 Dusk Rose Reliquary over basically nothing? Don't love it but this pack is bad. Pack 2 Oltec Cloud Guard over Miner's Guidewing, might be a mistake. The 1-drops are just really good. Pick 3 Tinker's Tote over Goblin Tomb Raider, Stinging Cave Crawler, and Confounding Riddle. Just not enough to change colors. Pick 4 Sunfire Torch is enough better than Adaptive Gemguard, especially when I already have Cloud Guard at 4. Pick 5 Quicksand Whirlpool over kinda nothing. Pick 6 Miner's Guidewing over second Torch, then pick 7 Guidewing and pick 8 Guidewing. I could have had 4 Guidewings! I'm pretty okay with what I got at this point but I just keep wondering where all the good cards are?

Pack 2, pick 1 Bartolome del Presidio over Dead Weight. Where are the good cards? Pick 2 Broodrage Mycoid (ugh) over Gishath (lol). I was mildly impressed with Mycoid in my last draft, and I figured I would see if this sacrifice deck had any legs. Pick 3 Soaring Sandwing over a who's who of mediocre black and white filler. There was a Defossilize, which works pretty well *with* Soaring Sandwing, so maybe I should have gone there since it's at least a powerful card and I should be able to pick up Sandwings at just about any point. Pick 4 Skullcap Snail over Glorifier of Suffering and Oltec Cloud Guard. The snail is good, but Glorifier getting counters on the Guidewings is a powerful play. Pick 5 Ironpaw Aspirant over Rampaging Spiketail. Pick 6 Synapse Necromage over nothing. Pick 7 Quicksand Whirlpool over Fanatical Offering, which I think the timer ran out on me and I couldn't change my pick. Pick 8 Sandwing would have been nice if I had that defossilize.

Pack 3 Pick 1 was one of the most wretched packs I've ever seen. Pick 2 Synapse Necromage over Tinker's Tote and Oltec Cloud Guard, which is a mistake. Tote is just a better Necromage. Pick 3 probably should have taken second Bartolome, but I took Market Gnome instead. Pick 4 Warden of the Inner Sky over Tinker's Tote. Warden kinda sucks, I should have taken Tote. Pick 5 Tote over nothing. Pick 6 had a Waterwind Scout, but I took Queen's Bay Paladin over Attentive Sunscribe, but I have like 3 Vampires and probably could have used a 2-drop here. The Tinker's Tote i passed pick 2 came back around, as did a third Soaring Sandwing.

What should have happened was I should have cut all the Mycoid nonsense and splashed black for like 2 Bartolome, Defossilize with a bunch of Sandwings, and just tried to put counters on my 1/1 fliers and flood the board with golems. The deck I have is worse, but it was still good for 4-3, which I will take with this deck.

Not like my losses were blowouts. I did get ranched by Inti, Senechal of the Sun one game, but that card is busted. My other two losses were going long to UB, which felt winnable, and a long, frustrating flood out to mono R with a black splash. Their deck barely strung together enough threats, but Dire Flail/Dire Blunderbuss made all my blocks pretty awful. I managed to survive long enough to draw 3 lands in a row to lose a very winnable game.

I'm due for a draft with some good cards...

[i-am-nickelbolt]

Bronze to Mythic: Lost Caverns of Ixalan, draft #3

This deck played out much better than I thought it would! 5-3.

Pack 1 pick 1 Dead Weight as a disappointing first pick in a horrible pack. Pick 2 Deep-Cavern Bat over Confounding Riddle in another pretty bad pack, no real reason to switch colors. Pick 3 Dead Weight over Staunch Crewmate and Sunfire Torch, again, no real reason to go into another color. Pick 4 Primordial Gnawer and I'm wondering where the good cards are? Pick 5 was probably a mistake, River Herald Scout over Petrify, which I don't remember seeing in the pack (I'm still not used to arts yet). Pick 6 Join the Dead, pick 7 Tithing Blade, pick 8 Skullcap Snail, pick 9 deathcap Marionette, pick 10 and 13 Cartographer's Companion. I felt pretty good about where I was given how weak the packs were.

Pack 2, pick 1 Chupacabra Echo over Ojer Pakpatiq, as I realized I had only 1 spell to copy. Pick 2 Synapse Necromage over Spring-Loaded Saw blades as O figured I had enough removal I could just stay black. Pick 3 Clay-Fired Bricks over nothing, which felt like a good draw to white for a late game bomb-adjacent threat. Pick 4 Bitter Triumph. Pick 5 Spyglass Siren over Sunfire Torch with no black cards in the pack. Pick 6 was a Brackish Blunder to pick it over a second Primordial Gnawer or Attentive Subscribe. Pick 7 Acolyte of Aclazotz. The pick 8 Tinker's Tote pretty much solidified a white splash, and getting a second one pick 10 sealed the deal. The Clay-Fired Bricks will be real good. Vanguard of the Rose pick 11 feels like a crime.

Pack 3 did not go well. I got a playable but not fantastic Bloodletter oof Aclazotz, and then 4 packs in a row with basically no playable black or white cards before a pick 5 Snail, and that was basically the end of the draft.

I thought my deck was pretty medium, but it played out a little better than that. I do enjoy these kind of underpowered cobble together a win however you can get it grind-em-out attrition decks. I started 3-0 against three GW decks with better card quality but I just ground them into paste.

My first loss was to BW mostly because I couldn't draw a second black source and could never double-spell. Maybe I should have been 11-6 instead of 10-7. My second loss I kept a 4 land hand with Hidden Necropolis, Clay Fired Bricks, and Chupacabra Echo. A little slow but I have a low curve and lots of things to trade off and turn on Chupacabra. But I drew 5 lands, one spell, and they had the 3 mana 6/6 dino on curve, so... I won a nail-biter off the back of my Bloodletter of Aclazots, and a non-game where my opponent got stuck on 2 land. Then to return the favor, I had a really nice 2-lander with Dead Weight, multiple 2 mana plays on the draw and stumbled a couple turns on the 3rd land. I couldn't double-spell with my Dead Weight when I needed to. I had to Clay-Fired Bricks for my 4th land, which was also very awkward, and I just died to random creatures I could have otherwise beaten.

Grasping Shadows was pretty solid for me. The nice part is that the turn you transform it, it comes in untapped so you can draw right away. I wouldn't play it unless you can go wide and block though, because 4 mana to not affect the board is a tall ask.

5-3 is a good result, but I can't help but feel like my last two drafts have been bitten by mana/color issues.

The set is growing on me.