#premiere draft

[i-am-nickelbolt]

Bronze to Mythic: Lost Caverns of Ixalan, draft #6

This deck was pretty sweet, but just a head's up, I'm going to complain a lot about all my games. 2-3

Pack 1, pick 1 Waterwind Scout over Souls of the Lost. Scout keeps me open, and Souls is good but it's a commitment--I'd rather it be passed to me. Pick 2 I ended up on Lodestone Needle over Abrade, Belligerent Yearling, and Oltec Cloud Guard. Looking to stay one color, Abrade is good but not unpassable. Pick 3 Volatile Wanderglyph over Earthshaker Dreadmaw. I'd have to really prioritize Dinos for UG, so I passed. I was kind of regretting that pick after pick 4 Poison Dart Frog over nothing. Pick 5 Pathfinding Axejaw over Brackish Blunder. Pick 6 Tishana's Tidebinder over Petrify which is probably wrong, but I wish this were paper draft. Pick 7 a late Etali's Favor over a late Skullcap Snail. Pick 8 Orazca Puzzle Door over Dinotomaton and a late Cosmium Blast. So after pack 1, I'm thinking, "where are the good cards?" yet again.

Pack 2, pick 1, kind of a sad Triumphant Chomp over Petrify. Pick 2 Enterprising Scallywag over Petrify and Tinker's Tote. Could have had a pretty good UW start here instead... Pick 3 Sunfire Torch over Triumphant Chomp. Pick 4 Cogwork Wrestler over second Tishana's Tidebinder and Cenote Scout. Pick 5 easy Staunch Crewmate. Pick 6 Careening Minecart over Staunch Pirates. Pick 7 Dinotomaton over Petrify. What is it about White cards that I just don't see? Like, I'm shocked about the white cards I passed. Pick 8 slam Staunch Crewmate. I still need a little help at the end of pack 2, but at least I have a plan.

Pack 3, pick 1 Goblin Tome Raider over Etali's Favor, picking up a nice 1 drop. Pick 2 Abrade over Master's Guide-Mural for the alternate universe UW deck. Pick 3 Chart a Course over the umpteenth Petrify. Pick 4 pretty easy Etali's Favor over River Herald Scout. Pick 5 just give me a 3 mana 4/3 Scytheclaw Raptor. Pick 6 Volatile Wanderglyph. Pick 7 brick. Pick 8 I don't know what happened, but I missed out on a choice of Cogwork Wrestler, Inverted Iceberg, and Brackish Blunder, and instead I got Disruptor Wanderglyph for some reason. Etali's Favor wheeled!

My games kind of sucked.

Game 1 my opponent appeared to be color screwed, scooped on turn 5.

Game 2, I played the early game rather poorly, but even if I played well, I flooded out pretty badly, and yet my opponent refused to actually kill me. I don't know what they were playing around, but I was dead for *many* turns.

Game 3 my opponent scooped on turn 4, they appeared to be mana screwed, but I mulliganed and was running out of gas. Seemed a little premature.

Game 4 was a game that I played too conservatively in the mid game, there was a turn where I didn't use a removal spell and instead offered a trade, which ended up cascading missed damage over the next few turns, and allowed them to string multiple topdecks together (it had to be multiple) and stabilize. Even so I had the game won with a Brackish Blunder on the blocker for my trampler but I looked down and didn't have an untapped island in play. It was still in my hand. *sigh*

Game 5 I mulliganed a 2 mountain hand for a 2 island hand on the draw, and went through 19 cards of my deck before hitting my third land. This game would have been trivially easy had I been able to cast red spells.

Okay, I've complained enough. The deck was good, I just played bad and got unlucky.

[i-am-nickelbolt]

Bronze to Mythic: Khans of Tarkir, post-mortem.

Khans of Tarkir draft has left Arena, and I am sad to see it go.

Here's my stats:

-51 wins, 29 losses, a 63.7% win rate (slightly higher than my lifetime win rate)

-3 trophies out of 11 drafts (slightly lower than my lifetime trophy rate)

-all 3 of my trophy decks were non-white, and all 8 decks I did not trophy with were white decks, which is a weird result

-my most drafted card was a tie between Ponyback Brigade and Debilitating Injury (10 copies each)

-my highest rank was Platinum 2

-I have approximately 60,000 gold and 12,500 gems. I continue to spend $0 lifetime on Magic Arena.

-----

It is hard to find enough time to do a true Bronze to Mythic run as a dad. I lost two weeks to a bad string of illnesses between myself, my wife, and my son and a few more days recently, again due to illness. That aside, getting even a draft a day is ambitious under the best circumstances. But it is something to aim for, so I will likely continue this run when Murders at Karlov Manor is released.

Khans of Tarkir still holds up after 9 years. Is it still the GOAT? I had been saying the last year or so that Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty was my GOAT, but after playing Khans again, I'm not so sure... I know for a fact I will be building a foil set cube in paper.

[i-am-nickelbolt]

Bronze to Mythic: Khans of Tarkir, draft #9

It took me literally 30 minutes to draft, build the deck and get to 5-1. Can I speedrun this trophy??Wait... 5-3, nvm.

Pack 1, pick 1, Mardu Ascendancy over Heir of the Wilds. Have to admit this was a yolo pick. Pick 2, Raiders' Spoils? Let's draft every red 2 drop and see what happens...pick 3 War-Name Aspirant over Mardu Hordechief. Pick 4, I stared down that Goblinslide, but it's a non-bo with Mardu Ascendancy, so Mardu Skullhunter it is! Pick 5 Ride Down, oh baby, let's chump attack with Mardu Ascendancy and Raider's Spoils! Pick 6 Monastery Swiftspear, yes please. Can we speedrun a draft??

Pack 2, pick 1, Sagu Mauler staring me down, but Seeker of the Way is excellent. Pick 2 Scoured Barrens over Mardu Skullhunter and Feat of Resistance. I'm feeling like Red/white splash for Raiders' Spoils and Mardu Ascendancy is what I want to be doing, and I noticed there were no lands in pack 1, so I figured I needed to jump on them when I saw them. Pick 3 brrrrrrick Swiftwater Cliffs. Pick 4 Horde Ambusher, back on target. Pick 5 and pick 6 Unyielding Krumar. Pick 7 Mardu Hateblade over Valley Dasher, which I think was wrong. Pick 8 Mardu Warshrieker, which I think will be important fixing.

Skip ahead to the deck, I *loved* this deck. Not thrilled about the Mardu Hateblades off the splash, and looking at it now I should have just played the Leaping Masters. Having two Ride Down really makes the Valley Dashers awesome. My mana isn't great, but I had to make concessions to play Mardu Ascendancy.

My first loss was to turn 2 Secret Plans, and, holy shit, that +0/+1 made it *really* hard to attack. They then had Avalanche Tusker, which I was lining up Mardu Blazebringer, but they had Roar of Challenge, which is extra brutal because Blazebringer just dies after blocks anyway, so they essentially had 10 damage to divide across my team who couldn't attack into 2/3 morphs, soooo... Yeah. Crushing defeat.

My second loss was to a mirror. They were on the play and had better cards. I managed to get the board clear, so we're at topdecks. We both traded land drops for 3 turns, and they drew Crater's Claws for 6.

My third loss was a mulligan to a weak six. I drew both Mardu Hateblades and no swamps. So we both built up mediocre armies until my opponent played Sultai Flayer. How do I ever beat *that* card in a million years? 4 life is *so much life* and they have *three* x/4s...

I've said before, it's hard to be disappointed at a 5-3 result. I see where drawing the bad half of my deck leads to Ls, but my wins were so disgustingly fast and brutal that I got lured into thinking this is an the easy trophy. But yeah, 5-3, good result!

[i-am-nickelbolt]

Bronze to Mythic: Khans of Tarkir, draft #8

4-3 with *this* trainwreck? (Should have been 3-3, but one of my opponents I assume lost connection.) I will take it.

Pack 1, pick 1, easy Murderous Cut. Pick 2, I ended up on Mardu Skullhunter over Winterflame, which is a mistake. Murderous Cut is very splashable, I didn't need to commit to black that hard. Given that I did commit to black, I should have taken pick 3 Bellowing Saddlebrutes instead of Sandsteppe Citadel, but man, I don't think I have the ability to make that pick. And had I taken Winterflame in pick 2, I would have Snowhorn Rider over a land that doesn't help cast my spells. Similarly, pick 4 maybe should have been Debilitating Injury instead of the Nomad Outpost I picked. The Winterflame/Rider line has me with Savage Punch, again over a not relevant land. I don't think I'll go through the rest of the draft, since I've Identified that Winterflame pick as the point things got derailed. I will say that the "stay black" plan wouldn't have gone well in pack 2 anyway, since that's where I really got into green. The Winterflame pick would have been better for the green in pack two.

I'm kind of off trying to learn anything else from this draft. I got too focused on the wrong things in the pod and ended up with a rare trainwreck. *shrug*

[i-am-nickelbolt]

Bronze to Mythic: Khans of Tarkir, draft #7

Trophy! We back, baby!

Pack 1, pick 1, Sandsteppe Citadel in a weak pack. 3-color lands are pretty decent first picks, they give you a lot of options. Pick 2, Debilitating Injury over Jungle Hollow. If it were a land that I didn't already have, I might have taken the land in this spot. Pick 3, Mardu Skullhunter over Monastery Swiftspear and Jeskai Windscout. No reason to get off black when I don't have the lands for them. Pick 4, another Skullhunter over Winterflame and Scoured Barrens. Again, no reason to get off black. Pick 5, Abomination of Gudul over Thornwood Falls. Maybe should have taken the land, but off-color morphs are fine. Got rewarded with pick 6 Dismal Backwater. Pick 7 Blossoming Sands. Pick 8 Sultai Scavenger. Picked up Disowned Ancestor and Hooting Mandrills on the wheel. Not a bad pack 1.

Pack 2, pick 1, Icefeather Aven over Rattleclaw Mystic. Pick 2, Debilitating Injury over second Sandsteppe Citadel and Highspire Mantis. If it were a different 3-color land, I probably would have taken it. Mantis is a little too far to splash right now. Pick 3, second Icefeather Aven, nice! Pick 4, third Debilitating Injury! Pick 5 Abomination of Gudul. Pick 6 Rugged Highlands over Mardu Hordechief. I think the splash speculation is better. Rewarded pick 7 with Ponyback Brigade. Pick 8 Thornwood Falls over 3rd Mardu Skullhunter. Set Adrift, Mardu Warshrieker, and Dismal Backwater on the wheel. I'm really happy with my deck.

Pack 3, pick 1, Mardu Heart-Piercer, a perfectly powerful card to splash! Pick 2, a disappointing Disowned Ancestor, but I already have several delve spells so Sultai Scavenger is a no, and Mardu Hateblade on the splash doesn't give me the same Raid guarantee Ancestor does. Pick 3 Snowhorn Rider over Crackling Doom and Dismal Backwater. Pick 4 Bloodstained Mire, helps with the red splash *and* fuels Delve. Pick 5, Sultai Soothsayer in a really good pack for me, but Soothsayer is perfect. Serviceable body with card selection that fuels Delve? Yes, please! Pick 6 was a brick, but pick 7 Treasure Cruise? This looks like a great Treasure Cruise deck! Finished off with a 13th pick Ponyback Brigade, and this deck looks sweet!

My only loss was to a Mardu deck that had turn 4 and turn 5 Saddleback Brutes plus a trick to blow out my double-block. That's just too much beef too fast for me.

Otherwise this deck was great. 7 wins is always nice, and I'm really feeling my confidence come back. Let's keep this rolling!

[i-am-nickelbolt]

Bronze to Mythic: Khans of Tarkir, draft #6

Back to the queues after a couple of weeks... 5-3.

Pack 1, pick 1 Ivorytusk Fortress over Armament Corps and Timely Hordemate. Apparently Armament Corps has a significantly higher win rate, and Timely Hordemate is below average. Pick 2 Sandsteppe Citadel (over Flooded Strand), perfect. Pick 3 Ainok Bond-Kin over Dead Drop. I like Dead Drop but probably the least in Abzan, and Bond-Kin is a premium 2-drop. Pick 4 Raider's Spoils. Pick 5 Mardu Hateblade over Mardu Skullhunter. Getting a 1-drop warrior that trades for whatever rumbles with it is nice. Pick 6 Kin-Tree Warden over Mardu Warshrieker, which is a mistake. I was thinking about it being a warrior and a morph to trade off, but it's so unlikely to make my deck. Pick 7 easy Scoured Barrens. Pick 8 Salt-Road Patrol. Pick 9 Unyielding Krumar, which I've been noticing plays a lot better than it looks. It's still replacement level, but it's a good wheel. Followed up with pick 10 Rush of Battle and pick 11 Krumar #2. Solid start.

Pack 2, pick 1 Butcher of the Horde! Nice broken rare, over Mardu Hordechief. Pack 2 really disappointing Mardu Hateblade over Thousand Winds (which I'm so far away from playing), Burn Away (it's expensive...) and UG and UR lands. Maybe should have taken Burn Away... Pick 3 Ponyback Brigade over Sultai Flayer. Pick 4 Kill shot over Alabaster Kirin, which I think is *the* pick which tanked the draft. This card sucks, it was stuck in my hand in awkward spots in my games. Don't draft kill shot in aggro. Pick 5 Bloodfell Caves over Abzan Battle-Priest. I think Battle Priest kind of sucks, a 4 mana 3/2 is just not where you want to be. Also, notably, I passed a second Icefeather Aven. Blue has been very open in this direction. Theres a world where my first five picks were Icefeather, Thousand Winds, Jeskai Windscout, Master the Way, and 2nd Icefeather. Pick 6 Scoured Barrens over Pine Walker and Savage Punch. Pick 7 Scoured Barrens, pick 8 Mardu Hateblade. Man, Temur was open this pack...

Pack 3 Ponyback Brigade over End Hostilities and RW and BW lands. Pack 2 Chief of the Edge over Seeker of the Way. Pick 3 Bloodfell Caves. Pick 4 Ride Down. Pick 5 War-Name Aspirant. Pick 6 Ankle Shanker. Pick 7 Highspire Mantis. Wrapped up the pack with an Alabaster Kirin, Disowned Ancestor, and a Wooded Foothills on the wheel. This pack was pretty good to me. My deck had some holes and I did come up a little short on playables, but definitely have the power in the right draws to do some damage in the queues.

My first loss, I kept a slower hand, and they had Highspire Mantis into Mardu Heart-Piercer (which was just a massive blowout) and a follow-up Feat of Resistance. I couldn't recover from these savage beats.

My second loss was one of those frustrating games... The board was at parity, I had Ankle Shanker, Ivorytusk Fortress, and Butcher of the Horde facing off against a wider board. Neither one of us could attack. I drew like 4 lands in a row, and my opponent drew like, creature, creature, make 3 warrior tokens, Trumpet Blast. I had so many draws that would have just won me the game on the spot.

My third loss I made a bad attack that forced a Mardu Hateblade activation that messed up my curve, they got to double spell (creature plus removal) and I never drew my 4th land.

Frustrating losses, but I do think 5-3 is pretty fair for this deck. The mid-game was a little weak and my mana wasn't great. Anytime I make my gems back, I've met my goal.

[i-am-nickelbolt]

Bronze to Mythic: Khans of Tarkir, draft #5

7-2, should have been 7-0, but in any case, we back, baby! I've been on a really bad losing skid, barely above 50% win rate for my last like 15 drafts, when my lifetime average on Arena is close to 65%. This was the first draft in a long time that felt like I navigated the draft well, my deck was great, I played well, and things just generally broke in my favor. I had honestly forgotten what this felt like. And 7-2 got me to platinum!

(Now, I wish I could have capitalized on this feeling instead of everyone in my family being sick for the next two weeks.)

Pack 1, pick 1 Snowhorn Rider over Dig Through Time, Incremental Growth, Kin-Tree Invocation and Mardu Charm. It's unexciting, but with no clear direction, Rider is the most powerful card that leaves me the most open. Pick 2 a pretty easy Heir of the Wilds over Jeskai Windscout, Temur Charger, and Thornwood Falls. I think it's the best 2 drop, and goes really well with my first pick. Pick 3 Swiftwater Cliffs over Smoke Teller, Glacial Stalker, Efreet Weaponmaster and Jeskai Charm. Pick 4 Alpine Grizzly over Chief of the Scale and Abzan Guide. the pick 5 Bear's Companion gets the plan rolling. Pick 6 Hooting Mandrils, nice to have a cheap 4-power creature. Pick 7 Embodiment of Spring over like Summit Prowler, whatever, I'm not playing any of these cards. Pick 8 Smoke Teller, 2 drops are good. Pick 9 Whirlwind Adept, which is awesome in Temur. Pick 10 Canyon Lurkers, it will make the cut as a 5 power morph. I'm liking where I'm at after pack 1. Savage Punch over everything, lets pick up some Awaken the Bears to smash face, and lets just always have Ferocious.

Pack 2, Pick 1 Arc Lightning over Secret Plans, Winterflame, and Snowhorn Rider. Arc Lightning is really good, but I think it is close with Rider in Temur. It's more of a Jeskai card, I think. Pick 2 another Heir of the Wilds over Snowhorn Rider. Hate passing all these Riders but Heir is premium. Pick 3 *another* Heir of the Wilds! Love it! Pick 4 War-Name Aspirant over Glacial Stalker, just another high quality 2 drop, and it's gonna be a 3/2 most of the time as I'm pretty likely to trigger Raid. Pick 5 Ponyback Brigade over nothing. Pick 6 Thornwood Falls, perfect. Pick 6 another Hooting Mandrils, which is looking pretty good in this deck. I'm going to trade off these 2 drops a lot so having two should be pretty good. This pack petered out from here, getting a third Mandrils which would be ambitious to play, but I did pick up a Dragonscale Boon 10th. I am pretty happy where I'm at, but I'm not happy that nothing is wheeling, and I am going to need a little help in pack 3.

Pack 3, pick 1 a sad Temur Charger over Zurgo Helmsmasher and Armament Corps, two cards that have been awesome for me and that I can never cast in a million years. Pick 2 a sad Longshot Squad over Rakshasa Deathdealer and Secret Plans. Pick 3 another sad Temur Charger over Sidisi, Brood Tyrant. My 2 drop slot is really stacked though. Pick 4 slam Savage Punch. Finally! Pick 5 Awaken the Bear over Alpine Grizzly (and another Armament Corps), I'm hoping Grizzly wheels. Pick 6 Canyon Lurkers because 5 power. Pick 7 another Awaken the Bear, perfect! I get Glacial Stalker and Alpine Grizzly on the wheel.

The games were fast and brutal. Awaken the Bear was MVP, with this fast start, and with 4/2 bears screaming "Chump block me" I got some really good blowouts. Not to mention how deathtouch works with trample got me across for lethal on more than one occasion.

I was 6-0, and my first loss should have been my 7th win. I missed that Longshot Squad gives all creatures with counters Reach, and I had a Bear token with the Dragonscale Boon counters on it in the face of their Venerable Lammasu. I had Squad in hand for multiple turns thinking it was too late to cast it, outlast it, and block. I thought I was dead, I attacked just to check if they would block, and then as my Bear was being chumpblocked, I saw it.

My second loss was disappointing, my 2 drop army got stonewalled by a pair of Unyielding Krumars (first strike bricking my deathtouchers) and Chief of the Scale, then I got completely blown out by Roar of Challenge.

Should have been 7-0, but a trophy is a trophy. I love this set!

[i-am-nickelbolt]

Bronze to Mythic: Khans of Tarkir, draft #4

*sigh* 2-3. Keeping the faith is getting harder and harder.

Pack 1, pick 1 was one of the worst packs I've seen. I should have taken Feat of Resistance, but if a weak pack is an excuse to try to do the fun thing, then pick 1 Secret Plans baybee! Pick 2 Ponyback Brigade over Mardu Charm. Could be 5 colors but I'm regretting the Secret Plans already. Pick 3 Ponyback Brigade over 3 non-Mardu lands. Pick 4 Debilitating Injury. Pick 5 Ainok Bond-Kin and I'm dropping the Secret Plans at this point. Pick 6 Ainok Tracker over 2 non-Mardu lands. Pick 7 Defiant Strike over Snowhorn Rider. I'm looking to pick up Jeskai Students for safe turn 3 raids, and this is a nice little combo. Pick 8 Alabaster Kirin, and a couple bad filler creatures wheeled. I'm feeling optimistic about this deck. Solid if unspectacular.

Pack 2 pick 1 Duneblast over... Disowned Ancestor, I guess? It's so hard to make that pick when you've got some time to get green lands to splash a bomb. Pick 2 Herald of Anafenza, which I've had a couple of times now and it just hasn't seemed as good as the 60%-ish game in hand win rate suggests. Pick 2 Raider's Spoils over Mardu Hateblade. Pick 4 Canyon Lurkers over Salt Road Patrol, brick. Pick 5 Mardu Warshrieker, which is good if you have a good number of morphs. Pick 6 Ruthless Ripper. Pick 7 Rush of Battle. The rest of the pack was junk. This pack went pretty poorly.

Pack 3, pick 1 Wind-Scarred Crag over Mardu Roughrider and Abzan Charm. I have no lands and I need the red splash for Ponyback Brigade or my deck kind of doesn't work... Pick 2 Nomad Outpost over about 5 other playables. My mana is good now, but a Mardu Hordechief would have been really nice. Pick 3 Chief of the Scale over Scoured Barrens. Pick 4 Nomad Outpost over nothing. Pick 5 brick, should have taken War Behemoth. Pick 6 Watcher of the Roost over Smite the Monstrous. Pick 7 Disowned Ancestor, pick 8 Timely Hordemate, and an Alabaster Kirin on the wheel.

This deck felt pretty underpowered, and yeah, there's a lot of filler here. All the Defiant Strikes I could ever want and no Jeslai Students to be found...

My first loss was to Temur. Their deck seemed good from the start, and I lost six goblin tokens to a Barrage of Boulders (obviously drew the Rush of Battle the next turn, sadge.) But I thought I clawed my way back into a slightly favorable position with a "value" Rush of Battle that mostly just gained me a bunch of life which gave me time to deploy a wider board. But they attacked with an Icefeather Aven, cast 1 mana Become Immense, then Crater's Claws for X=8 to put me to -2,and, well, this feels like my life these days.

My second loss was to Abzan. I made a dumb attack into open mana, they had Abzan Charm, splitting counters to both eat my attacker and give both creatures flying due to Abzan Falconer. But it turns out their next turn they just killed all my other relevant creatures. They had me covered like 10 different ways. Still, dumb attack.

My third loss, I got 4-for-1ed by End Hostilities, then clawed back in with the Ponyback Brigade plus Rush of Battle combo, only to get wrecked by Death Frenzy. I still got back to parity... They drew runner runner creature and I drew runner runner land. And that was that.