Magic 2012 Draft 2

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but unless it's not mulliganning properly I'm not sure what it is. So I figured I'd do another draft and see if anyone can point out any glaring flaws...



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1 Stonehorn Dignitary
1 Spirit Mantle
9 Mountain
3 Lightning Elemental
2 Fiery Hellhound
2 Gorehorn Minotaurs
1 Goblin Arsonist
1 Stormblood Berserker
1 Goblin Tunneler
1 Gideon Jura
1 Manic Vandal
2 Slaughter Cry
8 Plains
1 Goblin Fireslinger
1 Roc Egg
1 Incinerate
1 Siege Mastodon
1 Benalish Veteran
1 Peregrine Griffin
1 Shock

Sideboard
1 Swamp
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Warpath Ghoul
1 Lure
2 Manic Vandal
1 Act of Treason
1 Lava Axe
1 Circle of Flame
1 Devouring Swarm
1 Plains
1 Brink of Disaster
1 Angel's Mercy
1 Sengir Vampire
1 Mountain
1 Tormented Soul
1 Sorin's Vengeance
1 Sorin's Thirst
1 Wall of Torches
1 Runeclaw Bear
1 Wurm's Tooth
1 Cemetery Reaper

So... Yeah. Picks 1 and 2 of pack 3 took the full amount of time. I eventually decided keeping Gideon out of someone else's deck was better than adding a stupid skeleton to mine. Then I had to decide if I was going to actually play with him or not. And if I did, would I be RW, or WB, or RBW? Eventually I decided that black was cut pretty hard in pack 1 so I probably wasn't going to get enough cards to build a WB deck which would be my preference with a tutor, a planewalker, and a couple very powerful cards. (At least, I think cemetery reaper, sengir, and sorin's vengeance are very powerful.) So if I'm playing red would I rather play with gideon or those three? Or hope for some pack 3 manaliths and play super greedy?

I decided to put the decision off a pick and take incinerate. I think I might even rather have incinerate than pacifism in a RW deck anyway. Certainly over child of night. Pack 3 was either spirit mantle or gravedigger. Spirit mantle has seemed great every time I've seen it in play so far so I decided to play my planeswalker. I can't well whine about how broken they are and leave him on the bench, can I?


Match 1 - Game 1

My opponent wins the flip and chooses to play first. (I still have no clue if I should play or draw...) My gand is P, P, M, goblin arsonist, gorehorn minotaurs, lightning elemental, gideon jura. I'm not going to lose without drawing my bomb this draft! I keep. My opponent opens with an island and a phantasmal bear. I draw roc egg and bust out my goblin arsonist. I'm trying to figure out if I want to trade or if I want to try to bloodthirst my minotaurs out with him later when my opponent plays a land and doesn't attack. Huh. Pretty sure illusions should trade whenever they can... I draw plains and don't attack either. He gets in an attack this time and I take it. Now that I have roc egg coming online next turn I figure 2 life is a small price to pay to keep arsonist around. He follows it up with a second phantasmal bear keeping mana leak mana up.

I draw goblin tunneler (who can tap to kill a bear) and need to decide which dude to play out. I eventually decide if he's going to leak one of them I want it to be the tunneler. I attack first because I doubt he's going to trade at this point. He doesn't. I play tunneler and he isn't countered. My opponent beats for 4 and plays a blood seeker. I draw a plains (and therefore can't cast gorehorn) and decide to just play my egg and say go. My opponent casts an aether adept and bounces my goblin arsonist for some reason. I guess he wants to keep his blood seeker around? He then attacks with both bears and the blood seeker. Guess not. I trade tunneler with seeker, tap to kill a bear on the way out, and block the other with the egg. I draw mountain and bust out Gideon since he doesn't have leak mana up. I decide to just kill the bear for 2 loyalty. He plays a Belltower Sphinx and says go.

I draw stormblood berserker. Am I supposed to start beating for 6 with Gideon? He has 2 cards in hand and I have a mitt full of beaters so going control with Gideon seems better. I make the enemy attack Gideon and bust out arsonist and lightning elemental. Who attacks with haste? I then consider if I should play my 4th plains or not. I decide that I might draw a 7th land and want to pay for mana leak on my minotaur so I play it. Then my opponent promptly mind rots me and I have to discard my 2 beefy creatures. He then knocks 2 loyalty off Gideon and says go with 1 card in hand.

I draw slaughter cry, use Gideon to kill his sphinx, and bash for 5. He says go. I draw mountain and beef up Gideon by forcing an attack. I don't swing with anyone. At this point I'm actually worried about doom blade killing Gideon if I make him into a dude so even though the aggro option crosses my mind I decide to ignore it.

My opponent casts phantasmal image and chooses to copy lightning elemental. I kill it with slaughter cry and again block aether adept with roc egg. Maybe I should have chumped with the egg to get a bird? But then the adept gets through and punches Gideon and I don't like that idea. I draw my second slaughter cry and decide not to kill the adept. It can keep attacking my egg. I swing for 5. I could have attacked for the kill here but I was again worried about removal on Gideon. Instead I just knock him to 9. On his turn he casts dark favor on aether adept knocking himself to 8. Then he attacks, I chump with my egg and get a 3/3 flyer. I now have 8 power ignoring Gideon. My opponent concedes.

Match 1 - Game 2

He chooses to play again. My opener is P, P, M, shock, benalish veteran, roc egg, Gideon. Yeah, I'll keep that. He plays an island and says go. I draw incinerate and play a mountain. He plays a looter on his turn and I shock it. I draw a mountain and say go. He plays a bear with leak mana up. I draw a plains, play an egg and he doesn't leak it. Instead on his turn he casts doom blade on it (so he does have one, maybe I was right to worry in game 1) and then unsummons the roc. The Gideon in my hand is happy. I draw Al Gore (minotaur) and play the veteran. He offers the trade and I decline. He passes the turn with 4 mana untapped.

I draw slaughter cry and don't feel like having my Gideon countered. Instead I swing for 3 and play Al Gore. It doesn't get countered. I make very sure to keep 3 cards in hand so I won't lose Gideon to mind rot. On his turn he plays the phantasmal image and copies Al Gore but his is only 3/3 and mine is 5/5. I draw lightning elemental and consider using slaugher cry to kill his Al. I'm a little worried about turn to frog though, so instead I just swing with both dudes. He doubles up on Al and I let them trade away. Post combat I play lightning elemental (haste sucks). But now I have 7 power in dudes, he's at 14, and will probably have to let me resolve Gideon soon. He plays a 6th land and taps 5 of them for belltower sphinx. I draw mountain, bust out Gideon, and force the attack. He swings for 2 loyalty and says go. I draw another mountain, kill the sphinx with Gideon and bash for 7.

He taps 7 and plays Sphinx of Uthuun and is now dead on board. I ask if his last card was mana leak and he says it is cancel. I turn Gideon into a dude and kill him.


Match 2 - Game 1

I win the roll. Most of my deck is aggressive, so should I be playing? I have Gideon, should I be drawing for the extra chance at him? I decide to play. My opener is P, P, M, M, shock, spirit mantle, lightning elemental. Am I supposed to mulligan this? I have double spells of both colours in my deck so two of each land is very useful. I have an early removal spell but the aura and lightning elemental are both sketchy at this point. I have mulliganning so I keep. He plays an island and says go. I draw a second lightning elemental and play a land. He plays a plains and says go. I draw a plains, play a land and say go. He plays gideon's lawkeeper with leak mana up. I can shock it now and have my shock countered or I can delay my lightning elementals and hold off on it. Probably getting one of them countered in the process. I decide to shock and he leaks it.

I draw siege mastodon, cast a lightning elemental, and crack for 4. He casts crown of empires (spirit mantle was looking good, not so much now) and says go. I draw a 6th land, bust out my second elemental, and beat for 4 after one gets tapped. He plays a 5th land, casts timely reinforcements (6 life and 3 1/1s... What a beating against 2 lightning elementals.) and then attacks for 1 with lawkeeper. Not sure why, I guess his plan was that the soldiers would own my elementals.

I draw Al Gore. He doesn't have the mana to use crown up but might have another leak. Whatever, if he does then he's awesome. I bust out a spirit mantle on an elemental, crack for 5, and bust out Al Gore. He doesn't have a leak and I bet he's wishing he didn't swing for 1 with the lawkeeper. He then taps out for thran golem, guaranteeing a hit from my 5/2. I draw incinerate and swing with the 5/2 and Al. I figure I can incinerate if he triple blocks or something. Instead he just chumps. Now, I can incinerate lawkeeper to keep Al online, or I can off the Golem now. He is at 8, so I can hold it and kill him with incinerate and a swing from 5/2 if he lets it in again. But he tapped out to played the golem so I'm betting he has an aura to put on it. Probably 3 life and +1/+3. So my plan is to off the golem in response and hope he doesn't have a trick.

He has divine favour. I incinerate in response. He has no trick. I draw slaughter cry and he taps my 5/2. He doesn't have a 6th mana so he can't tap Al who gets chumped by another soldier. I play my 3/5 and say go. He casts Belltower Sphinx leaving a white up to tap something but can't touch my 5/2. He's at 8. I have slaughter cry. He is dead.

Match 2 - Game 2

He chooses to play. My opener is P, M, incinerate, spirit mantle, benalish veteran, fiery hellhound, stonehorn dignitary. I keep since I have a lot of game with any land. He plays a plains and says go. I draw mountain and have no play. He plays island and a stormfront pegasus. My deck actually has no real answer to flyers so I incinerate it. After drawing a plains, of course. He plays an azure mage. I draw lightning elemental and play my veteran. He plays a stonehorn dignitary of his own and says go. I draw stormblood berserker and decide to play fiery hellhound. He casts a serra angel.

I draw Gideon. I only have 4 mana and it turns out Gideon isn't very good against Serra. I look at my board and think that hellhound can trade with serra so maybe I should mantle up my veteran and swing for 4 with him and some with the hellhound. Then I realize that I can make my firebreather unblockable and can kill him in 4 swings. Serra is going to take 5 to kill me back. And I have gideon and dignitary. So I go for it. Enchant up the hellhound and in for 5.

He cracks back for 4 with serra and plays a chasm drake. That changes the math a little. Now his clock is 9 power of flyers and I'm dead in 2 more turns. I draw mountain. 3+6+6 is still enough to kill him so I can afford one turn of no pumps. I bust out Gideon as gain 9 life. He kills Gideon, draws a card with his mage, and plays alabaster mage.

I draw shock. The right play here is to just shock the mage and crack in for 5. Or maybe to shock the mage and play my dignitary. What I do is play the dignitary and crack for 4. Ok, that's fine. He can't attack this turn so he can't gain any life. He draws an extra card and plays an 8th land.

I draw goblin tunneler. I am sad, for a mountain would have killed him. (shock + 3 pumps) Instead my only real play is to kill the mage and swing for 5. I'm a little worried about a cancel so I wonder if I can trick him into tapping out to draw another card. I swing, pump twice, and then realize if he just doesn't draw a card I'm screwed. He'll untap and lifelink his team before I can shock. So I run out shock. And it gets mana leaked since this is post combat and I tapped my mountains for pumps. FAILURE!

He gains 9 life on the swing. I am dead and concede.


Match 2 - Game 3

A long time ago Jer and I played at a Pro Tour: Los Angeles. We went to the Question Mark game show where Mark Rosewater got a couple of his own questions wrong. (One dealt with alphabetical ordering of rebels and apparently development changed the creature type on his answer to not be a rebel anymore. Those of us in the crowd didn't know it was ever a rebel and therefore had a different answer.) Mark's solution to the problem was to throw unopened packs into the crowd until we stopped complaining. It worked! Except for one crazy guy who looked like he might have been homeless. He walked up to the front, pointed at Rosewater, and yelled out FAILURE! FAILURE! YOU DESERVE A PRIZE! Jer and I were concerned the prize was going to be a semi-automatic weapon but I think it was just some packs thrown back at Rosewater.

Anyway, long story short, I made a big failure and therefore clearly deserve a prize.

I choose to play and my hand is P, M, goblin fireslinger, shock, manic vandal, fiery hellhound, siege mastodon. I keep and bust out the fireslinger. He plays a plains and says go. I draw spirit mantle and say go. He plays a looter which I shock. I draw mountain and play out the hellhound. He has a 3rd land but no play. I draw goblin arsonist. I'm worried about a leak so I just double pump and swing for 4. He plays a 4th land, taps and untaps lands a bunch as he tries to decide what to play, and goes with amphin cutthroat. I've been pinging a few times so he's down to 13 at the end of his turn.

I draw a plains. His 2/4 is probably a good answer to most fiery hellhounds but I decide that the plan last game was a good one and go for it again. Enchant up, double pump, swing for 5. He hits back for 2, plays a 5th land, and a stonehorn dignitary. I ping him down to 7.

I draw stormblood berserker. I ping him down to 6 and play the arsonist and the berserker. (I considered one less pump last turn to play the arsonist and am glad I didn't what with the dignitary and all.) He doesn't have a 6th land. What he does have is 2 divine favours, going up to 12 life. He doesn't swing because of the berserker.

I draw another fiery hellhound. I crack for 5. It turns out with my pinger 12 life isn't actually very much at all and he's dead next turn if he has nothing up his sleeve. On his turn he cracks for 3 and plays a second dignitary. Good sleeve! I ping him down to 6.

I draw a mountain and play my siege mastodon. He has nothing up his sleeve and scoops.

I deserved a prize!


Match 3 - Game 1

My opponent offers a split. I tell him I'm practicing for Nats and want to play and he's cool with that. He wins the flip and chooses to play. My opener is P, P, P, M, goblin fireslinger, slaughter cry. I was reading a report from US Nationals where someone said he took a 5/5 flying dragon for 6 that fireballed when it attacked over a goblin fireslinger and said it was a mistake. I'm starting to think it was a mistake. Fireslinger is just insanely good in a bloodthirst deck and still gets in for 1 every turn regardless. I'm keeping this hand and a lot of the reason why is because of him. (Also I like 7 card hands.)

He plays an island and ponders. I draw Gideon (huzzah!) and play my fireslinger. He plays a second island and says go. I draw roc egg, play a plains, and say go. He plays a mountain and says go. I draw a second mountain and bust out my veteran. On his 4th turn he plays both azure mage and ice cage. My plan was to slaughter cry my caged dude for big beats but draw Al Gore. Instead I ping him with the fireslinger and bust out Al. He has an ice cage for Al too, and swings for 2.

I draw stormblood berserker. Now, he has 3 mana untapped and I remain paranoid over mana leak. I don't want to play Gideon into the leak. Instead I want to slaughter cry Al to knock off his ice cage and also want to bust out a 3/3 berserker. If one of those is getting leaked I want it to be the slaughter cry (cage still drops) so I ping him, bust out berserker, and then slaughter cry. My opponent has a blue instant but it isn't mana leak.  It's frost breath which locks down Al and the new berserker for another turn. Sigh. On his turn he draws a card with the mage tapping 3 islands and a mountain. He then plays a mountain. So he has 2 mana up, but they're both red.

I draw a mountain and cast Gideon with no fear of him getting countered. Gideon doesn't even get to resolve as my opponent scoops.

Match 3 - Game 2

My opponent goes first again. My opener this time is P, M, M, goblin fireslinger, spirit mantle, benalish veteran, lightning elemental. Smash! He starts with a forest. Maybe that's why he scooped to Gideon while still at high life... Double (or triple) green spells in hand. At any rate I draw a plains and play fireslinger. He plays azure mage. I draw Al Gore and say go. He has his third basic land type and a manalith so he's good to go on colours this game. I draw Gideon and play my veteran. He has a chasm drake. I draw incinerate, swing for 3, and bust out Al Gore. He flies over for 5 and plays a cudgel troll with a forest and manalith untapped.

I draw a plains and have a few options. I could sacrifice my veteran to the troll to get him off leak mana and get Gideon out. I can incinerate to force the regenerate and get in for 8. Or I can spirit mantle up Al Gore and crack for 6. He's at 14 and I have the fireslinger so he's dead in 2 turns if I do that. I have a 5th land so he can't even leak the mantle. So I go with that plan. He draws a card on his turn, azure mages up another card, and scoops.


Maybe not the best draft for learning but I feel like this draft really brings home my point from the weekend. I drew Gideon in 5 of 7 games. Though I did win two of the games where I didn't draw him. And lost one where I did. (Though I lost that one to a brutal misplay. Really I shouldn't have lost a game with this deck. Somehow.) I didn't even cast Gideon in one of my wins where I drew him. So maybe my deck, which felt pretty terrible, is actually really good? How is lightning elemental such an all-star?

Possibly it's just that goblin fireslinger and spirit mantle are both really strong. I've had drafts where I got several Al Gores and he didn't seem great then but this is actually the first draft I ever took a fireslinger so maybe that has something to do with it. And maybe I just got lucky. But the idea that throwing away a third of my cards including 3 very strong ones to switch into a new colour seems wrong. Stupid planeswalkers.