After splitting the finals in AVR Draft #1 I immediately jumped in to another pod. Oddly, we had 12 people in this pod, and our store typically will not do 6-man pods under any circumstance, we keep them to 7 or more. So this pod was a little wonky to say the least.
Link to Mainboard
3 2-drops:
2 Nightshade Peddler
1 Nearheath Pilgrim
6 3-drops:
2 Gloomwidow
1 Trusted Forcemage
1 Silverblade Paladin
1 Emancipation Angel
1 Borderland Ranger
5 4-drops:
2 Goldnight Commander
2 Nettle Swine
1 Midvast Protector
1 5-drop:
1 Yew Spirit
3 6+drops:
1 Howlgeist
1 Archangel
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
5 Non-Creatures:
2 Righteous Blow
1 Joint Assault
2 Blessings of Nature
I first picked a Silverblade Paladin from a weak pack, and was left with an interesting choice P1p2. I selected the Nearheath Pilgrim over a Righteous Blow and I felt it to be a tough choice. The Righteous Blow is obviously very strong, but I really wanted an the aggressive creature and the lifelink gives you a huge edge in races. I'm still not sure if it was right. Considering I ended up with two other Righteous Blows, it worked out fine. What do you think about that pick? Third pick I saw a pack that was almost entirely green. The player on my right is a strong player, and a friend of mine, so I took that as a signal he wanted me to be in Green. Doesn't take much to convince me of that in this format and I moved in. I took a Blessings of Nature here over a Trusted Forcemage and a Borderland Ranger, and neither one tabled (because the pod was so large, so this isn't very telling). Pack 2 was pretty empty on Green for me, but I loaded up on white, and pack 3 I opened a Vexing devil that I took for money and was passed a Craterhoof Behemoth. I didn't really have many interesting choices other than early in pack 1, and the deck was pretty natural to build. It had a few more high end dudes than I'd like, but overall I was happy with the deck.
I lost in the first round to my friend Ori. Last week at the Pre-release, he beat me for the first time in sanctioned history. He's a much better player than I in general, but variance proved its ability to go to the extreme by granting me 14 wins in a row until last week. As the ongoing joke continued, I threatened to re-curse him with the inability to beat me. Game 1 was extremely short. Nearheath Pilgrim + Nettle Swine made racing impossible for him. Game 2 i kept a questionable 6 card hand, and was punished. I kept 3 plains, Pilgrim, Borderland Ranger and a Nearheath Peddler. I never drew a forest but deployed a couple white creatures, but Mist Ravens prevented them from keeping me afloat. Game 3 I mulliganed to 4, and kept Forest, 2 Plains and Midvast Protector. Things were looking grim to say the least. On turn two I drew a Nettle Swine and thought for a moment I had a chance as he hadn't cast anything yet either. On turn 3 he cast Appetite for brains stripping me of my Protector. When my Nettle Swine came down he bounced it 4 turns in a row and I was dead. I think this deck was actually pretty strong, but the poor keep game 2 cost me. I realized afterward that I could have mulliganed much more aggressively, even with that 4 card hand I wasn't far out of contention of the game. I get too scared to mulligan past 6 and I need to make the conscious adjustment to really compare that 6 to what I expect an average 5 to look like. In retrospect, i kept a 4 card hand, as 2 of the cards I had no way to cast without drawing a forest. (although i had 9 forests in the deck). Although our drafts are single elimination, i battled one more person and got to see a little of what the deck can do. It wasn't as great as the green deck in the draft before, but it really was capable of some powerful draws. The noticable difference, however, is the lack of Wandering Wolves. There were spots where I passed some for what I felt were better cards, but its likely I need to bump those up a bit in my pick order. They are devastating with all the pump effects Green has access to.
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