Dave’s Personal Blog

I made it to draft at work this week. Good thing too, as I had the packs ;).

I drafted a sick deck… totally sick… and proceeded to go 3-1 with it.

Here it is:

I’m on my way home as I write this. Today was States in the US (Champs in Canada) and I was at Superstars for it. I got to Starbucks (a couple doors down from the shop) at 9:00 for coffee and breakfast. There was already a group waiting for the shop to open and starbucks was full of magic players.

It took a while to get everyone registered. Here’s the line when we joined it.

And they had to send some away… Only so many will physically fit in the building. In the end I heard there were 279 players.

Here’s a couple pics to give an idea. One toward the back of the room and one toward the front:

There were the usual regulars, yours truely included, plenty of folks from around the state, and the occasional celebraty… namely Luis Scott-Vargas, recent winner protour champion.

I ran Patrick Chapin’s latest take on 5 Color Control. I went 1-2-2 before dropping. Both draws were 1-1 with third game going to time without a winner.

After a burrito I drafted and started league play.

It was an awesome day! Played a bunch of Magic and got to meet one of the top players in the world.

Tomorrow I’ll be back for more league play and maybe some draft and/or team sealed.

Yesterday I took Pat Chapin’s “Reflecting Cruel” 5 colour control control deck to Superstars’ $1000 tournament. (You need a premium StarCity membership to access that link… if you’re serious about Magic, it’s worth it)

After 5 rounds I was 3-2 and in 12th place.

I lost round 1 to an expertly played UBR faerie deck. My opponent went on to make top 8.

I lost round 3 to one of the Superstars regulars who was piloting an elf deck. Game 1 taught me not to Esper Charm an elf player to discard. He had two Wilt-Leaf Leiges in hand which he could choose to discard and put onto play. I lost in combat after passing the turn. I won game 2 and lost the third from combat from a superior board.

The three rounds I won were fairly one sided games.

A few weeks ago I commented here that I was going to aim for 16+ hours of magic per week. Since that weekend (Sept 22) I’ve been averaging about 22 hours per week of time playing.

The practice already seems to be showing in the decks I’m drafting, and my win-loss record.

Today was (once again) spent at Superstars drafting.

It got off to a slow start, with the store opening an hour late. It was cool though.. there was a group of us waiting so we had a good talk.. comparing Shards drafting strategies and such. Eric came by near 11 and treated us at Starbucks while we waited for Jon to open the store. Then, to reward our dedication we got the first draft for half price (i.e. 1 ticket).

In draft 1, I drafted a WGr deck with a dual focus of exalted and big creatures, and good color fixing. I went 2-0, 0-2, and 2-1 for 2-1 overall… winning a ticket (the equivalent to 2 boosters… 1 per match win).

The second draft was time for something completely different: Gryxis, or more specifically uBr. Blightning rocks. Turn 3 & turn 4 blightnings totally rocks! My record was 2-1, 0-2, 2-1.. again for a 2-1 overall record… and another ticket.

The day had good value in addition to being fun and somewhat educational. I paid 3 tickets for two drafts, and won 2 tickets… plus picking up (between opening packs & trading) a half dozen rares for Nancy & I. So the day cost me $7, but I ended up with at least that in rares.

I spent today at Superstars again. A couple drafts and a few constructed games. In the first draft I ended up with a largely WG deck that was slanted toward an exalted theme. It didn’t do so well, going 1-2. The second draft resulted in a much better deck. Still no bombs, but much more solid, with more exalted creatures and a few fatties. The combination of the Rockcaster Platoon and Yoked Plowbeast with the Gustrider Exuberant was great… resulting in one final strike by 2 5/7 flying Rhinos.

Sunday saw me back at Superstars for the Shards of Alara release event: 2 flights of sealed, 4 rounds each.

I went 1-2-drop in the first flight… the deck wasn’t working so well.. and I needed to eat. Second flight went better at 2-2.

Lots of Magic… lots of fun.

My friend picked me up saturday morning and we spent the day at Superstars. First 4 round sealed, which I did moderately poorly in (2-2) followed after a while (we were the first 2 on the list for the next pod) by a 3 round draft. I went 1-2 in that. Not great… Yet! But it’s practice. At the moment that’s the primary goal.

Taking part in so many limited events is giving me a great opportunity to play with the different shards. At the prerelease I played primarily Naya colors. That worked out well. Saturday I gave Gryxis and Jund a try.

I’m really enjoying the new set.

The group I draft with at work got together for our usual Monday night draft this week. Pooling what we had gotten over the weekend we were able to do a Shards of Alara draft. It was interesting.

After a couple of 1-2 matches, I pulled two underperformers and added a couple more lands. My third match also went 1-2, but the losses were a lot closer. I got good hands the last game and the deck performed quite well. Flameblast Dragon was the clincher when I had consistent mana to drop him on the earliest turn possible.

Another day spent at Superstars and the Shards of Alara prerelease. I was in two flights today, an individual and a 3-man team event, both sealed deck… what awesome fun. I got to play with the new cards, collected up a handful of rares for my collection, including a few of the new mythic rares. To boot… I came out with 5 of the foil prerelease Ajani Vengeant card.

I learned a few things:

1. Big Green Monsters are very, very effective,
2. BUT.. you need white lockdown and/or black removal to manage the early game and clear the way for your monsters,
3. Having your lands removed from the game isn’t a pleasant feeling,
4. You can’t convince your opponent to add counters to your Feral Hydra.

So that was roughly 10am-8pm for two days. 20 hours of magic. Nice.

Next week is the release. Guess where I’ll be.