Booster Draft: 5th Edition/Visions
PT New York took place in Rye Brook at a nice, tranquil andgreen place. Very tranquil, to the point that one couldn’treally go anywhere without a car from there. I didn’t caremuch, for one doesn’t need to go anywhere to do the 2 mainthings one does at a PT: playing cards and meeting people.
The format: booster draft - 2 packs of 5th Editionand 1 of Visions, with which we had to play thrice against peoplewho had the same number of points. Top 64 (out of +240) would gointo the 2nd day, where the process would be repeated.
For the 1st draft, I got myself a nice U/r deckwith Binding Grasp, Phantom Monster, Phantasmal Forces, Tim,Man-o’-War, some counterspells, Dwarven Vigilantes and 2Unstable Mutations (r was in only for creatures - I never seem todraft enough creatures). After winning my 1st 2matches 2-0 against Pavel Fojtik (I won a duel because I had 2Chimeras out - a headache for the opponent) from the CzechRepublic and Marcel Baran from Germany, I played the finals of mytable against Matt Place, who played U/W fatties with 2 AirElemental, Seraph, Personal Incarnation and Dandan standard (badfor me). After 2 very interesting games, he mulliganed, then kepthis hand with only 1 Plains, and had to discard after 3 turns. Hewasn’t the only one: 1 table away, Mike Long was Manascrewed as well against Jon Finkel. Thus I won my table, whichwas a big step for making it to the 2nd day: as thebest 4-2 would make it, it meant one had to go 1-2 at a 3-0table, as the tiebreaker should then be good enough.
The next deck I drafted wasn’t as good as the first:U/r/w, it had nice things like Desertion, Ray of Command andFireball, but with only 11 creatures, it was as far from beatdownas a deck could be. My 1st match with it proved it: Istarted every duel on the defensive, and ended losing 1-2 toRobert Kruger (USA). I then managed to win 2-1 against ShawnDavies from Canada - thanks to a Magus of the Unseen (theArtifact borrower) who I had put in my deck as a 1/1, my 11thcreature, which destroyed Shawn’s Chimera and prevented himfrom summoning his Clay Statue. I was then very happy to acceptthe intentional draw proposed to me by Matthieu Poujade fromFrance, so that we were both sure to play the 2nd day.We played for fun, and I lost.
Thus I ended the 1st day 4-1-1. Jürg Häberli, theother Swiss player engaged in New York, went 3-3. The 2nddeck he drafted had 4 Giant Growth and the funny CrystalRod/Shrieking Drake combo (1/2 Stream of Life every turn) we hadspoken of between the two drafts!
The 1st deck I ended with the next day was... Bad.G/W/B, mainly not-so-powerful ground creatures, 3 small flyers,and only 1 key card:
Wrath of God. Worse, I had the misfortune of playing my 1stmatch against David Korejtko (Czech Republic), who had beensitting to my right and who had passed me the Wrath, so that heknew I had it. In a very long game, he beat me 1-0 - he veryintelligently always kept 7 cards in hand, preventing me fromWrathing effectively. With only 2 minutes left, I renounced evenbeginning a 2nd game.
In my next match against Paul McCabe, a funny thing happened:I won the third and deciding duel with a "last pick" -the card one usually gets tossed to with a"try-to-do-something-with-that"-smile. The card wasCloak of Confusion. Having played it back at home in our RandomEnvironment league, I knew it could be annoying for the opponentwhen played early on a small flyer; and I was also alreadyfamiliar with the new 5th Edition wording which allowsyou to put it on an opponent’s creature. Because of thisversatility, I included it in my deck.
The situation in which it saved me was the following: I was at8 life, had no flyer, and Paul had just put out a WaterspoutDjinn, which meant 2 turns to live for me. I had 4 cards in hand:Giant Growth, a creature, a land, and the Cloak. I attacked witheverything (2 1/1s and a Jamuraan Lion), hoping he would blocksomething with the Djinn so that I could Giant Growth it todeath, but he wisely chose to block only the Lion with a Python,letting the Djinn out of the fight. I Giant Growthed the Lion,dropped my land, cast my creature and put the Cloak on his Djinn.He was surprised when I activated the Cloak as he attacked me thefollowing turn, making me discard 0 card at random (I had none)and take no damage, to the point that Charlie Cantino had toconfirm the 5th Edition use I was making of the Cloak.Thus his Djinn was neutralized, and 5-6 turns later I drew theAngry Mob I had sided in which made me win the game (he had 6Swamps out then).
My next match was against Svend Sparre Geertsen from Denmark -he told me he wasn’t very happy with his deck either. When Isaw him play a 1st-turn Tarpan, I understood what hemeant: I always know my deck is crap when I have to play withTarpans or Gray Ogres. He had lots of creatures, though: in theprevious round, he had beaten Mark Justice by inflicting 17points of creature damage in one round with a Lure on a 1/1! Evenafter a Wrath, they poured out. I beat him 2-0 thanks to ElvenRiders (my best creature), but it was close.
2-1 with this deck - I was happy. But it seemed none at ourtable had ended with a great deck. The next draft would beexactly the opposite.
I ended with what I believed to be the best deck I had draftedthe whole week-end: U/W with 6 flyers for aerial offensive, agood ground defense (Flood, 2 Gossamers Chains, Sea Serpent,banders, D’Avenant Archers), Disrupting Scepter and KrovikanSorcerer for card advantage, and... 5 Circles in the sideboard (2Green, 1 Black, 1 Blue, 1 Red)!
I got beaten 1-0 by Don Gallitz (Tongo Nation - greetings fromthe Pacific Ocean!), though, who had a very good U/R deck withWaterspout Djinn, multiple Man-o’-Wars, and a Flood/Betrayalcombo! In the 2nd game, he got out an early COP: Blueagainst me (all my flyers were blue), and I got both Blue and RedCircles later - no way we could end this game.
After that I won a very tough game against Arto Hiltunen from Finland who had drafted 2 Pestilences (it seemed everyone hadgood decks now!). In the 2nd duel, he Coerced the COP:Black out of my hand on turn 3, but I played COP: Green, Floodand 2 Gossamers Chains to freeze the game. when I drew theDisrupting, I really believed I had the game in my favor, butthen he played... Winter Orb! This made it really complicated,the more because we had rules discussions (land tapping omissionfor COPping for me and too many lands untapping for him under theOrb - we were under time pressure). Finally, time was called - heprobably would have won that game.
My last game should have been against Eric Tam, but seeingthat because of our tiebreakers, we very probably wouldn’treach top 16 even with a victory, we settled safely into top 32with an intentional draw: 29th for him, 28thfor me.
Now I wish good luck to Amiel Feldman, Freddy Lenoir,Christian Strebel and Timur Dogan at the Worlds - hope to seethem in Chicago.
Alexander Blumke (blumke8@uni2a.unige.ch