Theros - Gods - BLUE!

Editor's note:
From the Theros FAQ:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/faq/ths
Hybrid mana symbols, monocolored hybrid mana symbols, and Phyrexian mana symbols DO count toward your devotion to their color(s).

The second mechanic from Theros that really gets me excited is Devotion, because it's a mechanic I've thought about long before the release of Theros, and it makes me want to do strange things like try to break the mechanic by utilizing permanents that do not suffer from the major disadvantage of the mechanic (flooding the board, and getting destroyed by "sweeper" effects like Mutilate or Supreme Verdict)

We can work around this by utilizing enchantments, planeswalkers, artifacts, which will stick around after those effects.  We can also use powerful creatures like Boros Reckoner, Burning Tree Emissary, or  Nightveil Spectre, which can actually go in quite a few color combinations, and get us 75% of the way there for god-activating purposes. (require 5 devotion, but all come with one symbol already)

The easiest gods to activate are the red and green ones, because in those decks, you will almost by definition have more creatures as part of your normal strategy.

This is all well and good, but these gods aren't all that exciting to me.  They cost 4, and their stats aren't that impressive.  Heck, you could just cast a 5/5 for 4 any number of ways these days, and their abilities aren't that exciting.  They help prevent flood, but I'd rather be powering in to more and more creatures (to ensure these guys are turned on.  Both of the static abilities are good, but in general require follow-up to be effective.  (The creatures that matter to give trample are cast after Nylea (who doesn't give herself trample), and the creatures most effective to be cast after Purphoros are your little guys, which you've already cast.

In general, people are pretty excited about the White god:

But most of the shells I see him put into have no way of activating his devotion.  He's just a creature factory.  8 mana for a 2/1 is not exactly a great deal (and the tokens don't turn the god on, which is flavor fail to me).  Now, to be sure, this is a quite reasonable activated ability, that doesn't overextend you card-wise (though surely tempo-wise with the large mana investment)

Granting vigilance with the only creatures in your deck being tokens or token generators (you likely have the new Elspeth in this deck too) is not too exciting, so this mostly counts as a creature generator, not a creature pumper.

The black god is also getting some press:

Black is set up the most to turn on devotion well, with various black-intensive enchantments that would work well to activate Erebos.  However, his abilities don't exactly keep you alive, nor do said enchantments like Dark Prophecy or Underworld Connections.   You have a reasonable shot at just being run over by an aggressive deck before this guy (or your other enchantments) even matter, so I'm a bit skeptical that he does enough.  He's also representing the only color whose god + weapon BOTH cost 4 (and neither is particularly speedy)

Overall, he just seems too slow.

The god I'm most excited about at this point is actually the blue one

Thassa has several advantages over the other gods:
1) She's the cheapest.  You could be swinging with her, before the other gods are even awake (turn 4)
2) Her stats are really incredible for her casting cost.  5/5 for 3 is way better than +1 to power or toughness on that for +1 mana.
3) Her static ability is going to be relevant even if you have NOTHING ELSE going on (the worst case scenario).
4) Her static has the highest chance of turning herself on. None of the other god's static abilities do anything at all to help activate them.
5) Her static is one of the best for an aggressive-minded deck, because it lets you play lands to hit your drops, without being flooded late-game.  Aggressive decks are probably the best place for gods, because it's the easiest way to turn them on.
6) Her activated ability means she's the only god here who can actually do damage against an opposing board presence (god or no god)
7) Her activated ability is also the best to target herself with.
8) Her activated ability does the best with "saboteur" creatures (on combat damage to opponent), which tend to be pretty strong, especially in blue, if you can get them through.
9) Her static is the best way to get rid of more copies of herself (by not drawing them), which is a problem for these relatively hard-to-deal-with cards.

So, what are the questions Thassa poses to us?

How do we turn her on?
The Theros set itself is pretty god-awful for turning Thassa on.  It has few double-colored creatures, few enchantments that you'd want to play.  It mainly has a bunch of spells (which do nothing for devotion), a bunch of terrible 4-drops, and a few monstrous creatures (which don't combo very well with activating Thassa, since you spend a bunch of mana but don't increase your blue count).  Thassa will help you find your mana to turn these huge drops on, but that's not that exciting.

Thassa's weapon does work pretty well with her.  It does a pretty good job of turning her on (3drop Thassa into 4drop Bident, into attack on turn 4 if you have two other devotion).  This puts the opponent into chump-block mode as early as turn 4, and on later turns, Thassa's activated ability won't let them chump.

However, thankfully, we aren't just reliant on this single set to find good permanents, we just came out of a block that was very color-intensive, and also thankfully, very hybrid-color-intensive.

The easy part, creatures:

Nightveil Specter is a pretty awesome creature.  It has evasion, it doesn't cost too much, and it provides a ton of devotion towards swinging with your Thassa.  It also means you're likely to have some lands to activate Thassa's ability, to get the Specter through in future turns.  This is an easy four-of.

Frostburn Weird is another exceptional creature.  It's very difficult to kill, and it has a ton of stat for it's cost, especially for a blue creature.  Unblockability is another solid feature for this creature, who holds the fort for you, then starts swinging for 4 a turn.  Not bad at all for a 2-drop.  I'd play eight if I could.

Unfortunately, that's where the love for playable omni-color hybrid stops.

It's important to remember that including these two creatures in our deck commits us NOT AT ALL to playing either red or black.  Dimir Guildgate doesn't help cast Nightveil Specter more than Basic Island, or Azorious (UW) Guildgate for that matter.  All it means is that we won't be playing any basic lands of any splash color we might have.  As long as those lands tap for blue, we're good to go to cast either of these spells.

The hard part, non-creatures:
We've already mentioned the Bident above, but that's not a card you can play four of, or probably even three, because it's legendary and doesn't do anything on it's own.  So where else can we find sources of non-creature devotion?

Claustrophobia is a good way to lock down a problematic creature, or even god with enough devotion.  Three is about the limit to pay for this kind of effect, and it will stick around unless your opponent kills their own creature off.  This doesn't work well against wrath effects, but it does lock their guy down, and that's about as much as you can expect out of blue removal.  Three is probably as many as you'd want of this type of thing main-deck.

These really are the best options we have for turning Thassa on, and they all work pretty darn well, without over-committing ourselves to the current board state.

How do we be aggressive with her?
We've talked about how we want to be aggressive with Thassa.  We want to have creatures in play to make unblockable, and we want to turn her on ASAP so we can start smashing for 5 and scrying lands we don't need to the bottom.

So we need some early creatures, to beef up our offense, and add to our early devotion.

I'm excited to play with Cloudfin Raptor.  It has the potential to get huge in our deck already, with Frostburn Weird and Nightveil Spectre, as well as most any other creature we'd play, pumping it up into the two power range, which is where we need to be.

Judge's Familiar I was less excited about, but we really need low drops, and gatherer searches for one drop blue creatures comes up VERY short.  The best you can hope for is really a 1/1 flyer with an ability, and Judge's Familiar has a better ability than Winged Sliver, or the Izzet creatures (which want you to play a bunch of spells, not creatures, for marginal effect.  It'd also be possible to minimize the Judge's Familiar presence, and just rely more on our two-drops.

I wish Faerie Imposter could bounce itself, because that would make for some awesome turn 2's with Cloudfin Raptor, but that's not to be.  (And this deck doesn't have much in the way of comes-into-play for the Imposter to reuse)

In the mono-blue realm, we have Vaporkin, and the sideboard card Tidebinder Mage.  Vaporkin has evasion, which is what we're looking for.  Tidebinder Mage is going to be awesome out of the sideboard.

If we consider Green as our splash (Remember, Simic Guildgate casts Frostburn Weird and Nightveil Specter just fine), we get the potential for Frilled Oculus and Zamec Guildmage.

I really like Frilled Oculus, because it's going to evolve Cloudfin just like any 2-power creature.  It's cast-able without your splash, and it can use your extra mana at quite a good rate to do some damage.  It's also pretty awesome at blocking early, which, along with Frostburn Weird, gives us a pretty solid lock-down on opposing aggressive decks.

Zamec Guildmage is a fine one-of, but I wouldn't go much past that.  I don't think we'll reliably have untapped Green on turn 2, or enough green to activate it's abilities too many times to warrant playing more of him, but he's great flood-mitigation.  He also helps your 1-drops be less dead if you have them after your opening hand, or if they get bounced, etc.

Three-drops are a bit lacking for blue, but that's where we're dropping Thassa to hedge wrath, Claustrophobia to clear away a blocker, or Spectre to deploy a strong threat.

There really aren't any strong mono-blue options, but perhaps Beetleform Mage, Drakewing Krasis, or Elusive Krasis are worth investigating.  I don't like having a Green three-drop though, because having untapped green on turn 3 is hard with our extensive 2-drop collection.  Having it on 4 is quite a bit easier...

How do we have a late game?
Thassa's Scry helps us still be drawing good stuff late, but we don't want to be totally dead if the game goes to turn 6, or if we don't have Thassa (she is legendary after all).

So what can we do about that?

Speaking of Green on four, and speaking of ways to make your one-drops better late-game, Master Biomancer is a card that can get pretty crazy.  Speaking of ways to make Master Biomancer crazy, take a look at Master of Waves.

Master of Waves pays you off for your devotion to Blue, and randomly is awesome against Red.

Master Biomancer is also pretty solid if it get's going.  It's also possible that since we're providing some solid pressure from our early creatures, the enemy may be out of their targetted removal by the time this guy hits the board (post-wrath likely)

Neither of these turn on Thassa particularly well, but Water Servant and Archeomancer may be the only 4-drop creatures that have a double-blue casting cost left in the format, and neither of those are exactly constructed powerhouses.

Both of these are good in multiples (second Biomancer gets insane, second MoWaves keeps the other's elementals alive if the first is killed...), and with each other, but they are both four-drops, so we can't go too crazy here, especially if we include a Bident or two as wrath-protection.

Vaporkin is also an elemental, for what that's worth (almost nothing)

How do we not get destroyed by wraths?
Thassa and Bident help a bit here, but these are legendary permanents, so we can't over-commit in deck-space there as well.  Claustrophobia helps us get devotion without creatures

Jace 5 seems pretty darn awesome against "control decks" sporting these wraths, and gives us a way to quickly close out the game against them.  We also have a metric ton of creatures to block with to keep his "0" grinding our opponent to insanity..  Jace AoT is less intriguing for an aggro deck, but is a bit cheaper.

I don't know how many if any of these should be main-deck, since they don't go with the main game-plan of the deck, but they could be strong out of the sideboard.

This is the last piece of technology I've been considering.  It seems strange, but equipment right now is absolutely terrible.  The Saber however, does a pretty passable Bonesplitter impression in this deck.  It is a one-drop, so it fills in our curve, and is Rancor-like, in that it gives us evasive power (more because our creatures are evasive than due to trample), and doesn't walk us into wrath effects.

Do we want any spells?

We're playing some evolve guys, and have a partial devotion strategy, so having non-creatures is a real cost in our deck.
We also have a ton of mana-sinks to turn our excess lands into damage to our opponent.  This makes "holding up counters" pretty awkward.
We also have a fair chunk of evasion already, so bounce cards like Cyclonic Rift are good for racing, but don't help our guys get through as much as just turning them sideways does.

Mizzium Skin does quite a bit, for a very low cost (1, or maybe 2 mana).  A card like Dispel or Negate might be conditionally better against sacrifice effects, planeswalkers, or (non-Supreme Verdict) sweepers, which is a real consideration, but Mizzium Skin seems like it wins the "efficiency" race, allowing us to develop our board on any turn before turn 6 or so, without having to commit to leaving mana up to protect our guys.

I think having up to 4 of this kind of effect is going to be pretty strong.  It won't dilute our strategy too much, and give us some protection.  Whether this is in the main or side, or how many we play is an issue up for discussion. (Also, the Judge's Familiar count could impact this)

So, a decklist?

Creatures: 26
4x Cloudfin Raptor
2x Judge's Familiar
4x Frostburn Wierd
4x Frilled Oculus
1x Zamec Guildmage
4x Nightveil Specter
3x Master Biomancer3x Master of Waves

Thassas: 4
4x Thassa

Permanents: 5
2x Claustrophobia
2x Civic Saber
1x Bident of Thassa

Spells: 2
1x Mizzium Skin
1x Negate

Lands: 24
4x Simic Guildgate
4x Temple of Mystery
4x Breeding Pool
12x Island

Sideboard:
Tidebinder Mages (R/G)
Jace, Memory Adepts (Sweepers)
Master of Waves (R)
Negate/Mizz Skin (Control, targetted removal)
Sensory Deprivation?  (Aggro)
(Needs work)

Mana curve:
1: 9
2: 10
3: 10
4: 7


I want more of all the non-creatures, but I don't know if I can afford it.

Getting excited about Theros. (Ember Swallower)

So, it's been a while (only 6 months!), but with new sets going out, it certainly gets the creative juices flowing.

The first mechanic from Theros I'm interested in is Monstrous.  Or more particularly, one specific monstrous card

This card makes me really excited.  The base rate on this creature is pretty good, with power equal to it's casting cost, and a toughness that survives any sort of damage-based removal.  This particular implementation of the Monstrous mechanic that on it's face is symmetrical, but in actually, it is anything but.  You get to build your deck with it in mind, with mana acceleration from Xenagos, or mana creatures (which also work well together to get the 4-drops out faster, and power you up to 7 mana)

Turn 3 Xenagos, Turn 4 Ember Swallower, Turn 5 Activate Ember Swallower is something we can do with only 3 land, Xenagos, any mana creature, and Ember Swallower.  We can even sustain the loss of one of the satyrs with just drawing a 4th land.

Wrath against that board position (turn 4, or never after they lose 3 lands) is not even that devastating, because you still have Xenagos, who'll be ready to punch them in the face the next turn, or accelerate out other monstrous threats.


I'll have to think about this a bit more before I put out a full decklist, because there is a certain amount of conflict between the cards.  You want a lot of creatures, but you don't want to die to wrath effects.  You will have a ton of mana, but you want to have action even if things aren't operating at full power (a reason I like Monstrosity so much, you can run it out earlier)

4x Mizzium Mortars (We have a board presence, so it works well, and we'll have the 6 mana)

4x Xenagos

4x Sylvan Caryatid
4x ZurTa Druid/Gyre Sage

4x Ember Swallower
4x Kalonian Hydra

Red Hammer?
Some huge green creatures or planeswalkers?

12x RG dual lands (shock, tap, scry - CIPT is not a huge downside, since we'll primarily have 2 drops over 1 drops)
12-16 basic forest/mountain

Example Winchester Draft part 2: Deckbuilding and play

So, this post we'll be taking a look at the deckbuilding and gameplay from the Winchester (2-player) draft format from the previous post.

Player A from the last draft ended up with a fairly solid Green-White-Black ("Junk") deck with strong mana fixing, and some reasonably sized creatures.

Player B ended up with a Red-Blue (Black) ("Grixis") deck, with quite a few early creatures, and some early interactive spells.  Things didn't look good for player B if the game went late, because while they had card drawing, their creatures weren't the best.

Game 1:
Player A won the roll, and decided to play first.  They opened a hand of Ambition's Cost, Goblin Piker, Unsummon, and four blue-red lands.  This is playable, but they sent it back, to a one-lander, with a bunch of two drops, but in a three color deck, playing any of them might be problematic.  The Four card hand had a Child of Night (2/1 lifelink for 1B) and again all blue and red lands, but we basically had to keep it at that point.

Player B kept a hand with all three of his colors, Youthful Knight (2/1 first strike for 1W), Assault Griffin, and a Jayemdae Tome.

Player A's Youthful Knight, did a good job of holding off player B's little guys, due to his first strike.







Player A got his Child out on turn two thanks to a "lucky" draw of a Swamp off the top, but was left with no good options when Player B deployed their Youthful Knight.  Player B drew some more two-drops off the top, but the Youthful Knight held them all off, while an Assault Griffin beat down in the air for player A, and the Tome drew him more cards.

Player B did draw into some card drawing, which drew him into even more two-drops.  He eventually found a Blisterstick Shaman, which killed off the Youthful Knight and allowed an attack for 8 damage, but it just was not quite in time, and player A managed to fly  over for lethal the next turn.

Looks like the mulligans, and the good defensive creature were enough for player A to hold on for the win, all in all an inauspicious start for player B, to be sure.

Game 2:
Player A was on the play again, and started with a much better hand of Ambition's Cost, Goblin Raider (2/2 can't block for 1R), Aven Fisher (2/2 flyer for 3U), Unsummon, Volcanic Dragon (4/4 flyer with haste for 4RR), and all three of his colors.

Player B had only black and white lands, but had a Ravenous Rats (1/1 for 1B) to slow the early game down, a Centaur Courser (3/3 for 2G) a Tome, and a Siege Mastodon (3/5 for 4W) for later-game plays.

Player A led out with lands, and the Raider, while player B drew a Forest off the top, making his early game look significantly better with the Centaur on turn 3.  Player B drew some lands off the top, one of which was discarded to player A's Rats, and just developed his board with the Aven Fisher.

Player A liked his position, and drew some more big creatures off the top, so he started to attack with his Centaur, leaving behind the Rats, and a freshly-drawn-and-cast Roaring Primadox (4/4 for 3G with a "drawback") on defense.

 Yup, Roaring Primadox's "ability" is a "disadvantage"... more like an "engine"...








Player B drew a card, and just had to run out the Ambition's Cost, drawing three and losing three in the process, but the cards he drew would turn out to be pivotal:  A Island, a Flame Slash, and a 2-drop.  He had an Unsummon in his hand at the time, so he used the Island and the Unsummon to bounce the Roaring Primadox back to player A's hand, and attacked for 4.

Player A drew a land, so they played the Siege Mastodon, which should put the brakes on player B's attacks, and allow player A to continue to play out cards from their hand, without worrying about the Primadox's disadvantage for the time being.  This was rough for player B, since their Flame Slash does 4 damage for a single R, but the Mastodon has 5 toughness.

Knowing the Primadox was likely to show it's face again, player B swung for two in the air, dropped a Phyrexian Rager (drawing a card and losing a life), and followed up with a Dragon Fodder (generating two 1/1 goblins), but held off on using the Flame Slash on the Centaur, or to finish off the Mastodon.  Player B had 6 land in play at this time (drew a land off the Rager), so the Volcanic Dragon was about to come online...

Player A drew another land, making 6 total, and recast the Primadox, then attacked in with his two three-power guys.  Player B thought for a while, before throwing one of his goblin tokens under the bus for three life.

Player B had plenty of lands from all their draw spells, but needed to draw one more to do both of these in the same turn!







Player B tapped the top of his deck, and drew the land he needed to play both the Flame Slash on the defending Primadox, and to cast the Volcanic Dragon.  He sent in for 6 in the air, and 2 on the ground from his Goblin Raider (can't block), taking player A down to 4 (dead on the next turn without a removal spell), and even with a Glorious Anthem, player A couldn't muster the 5 damage he would need to kill player B through the few terrible creatures player B left back to block.  Player B sent his flyers over the top for the final 6 damage it would take to finish off player A.

Victory for player B!  Card drawing, and terrible, somewhat evasive creatures for the win this game...

Game Three:
This would be for all the jelly beans, and player B would have to win a game on the draw for the first time....

Player A kept a hand of Forest, Swamp, Plains, Sunpetal Grove (land, taps for G or W), Birds of Paradise, Primal Clay, and Smite the Monstrous (Player B's deck isn't overloaded with four power creatures, so this might not be the solid removal spell it typically is...)  Player A will need to draw some good-sized creatures to not get run over, but the Clay as wall or 3/3 should hold the fort for a while.

Player B keeps a hand of Island, Island, Swamp, Phyrexian Rager, Ambition's Cost (draw 3 lose 3 for 3B), along with a pair of uncastable red spells in Goblin Piker and Wave of Indifference.  Hopefully with a land or two, and so many draw steps, we'll find what we need to give player A the beating he so richly deserves...

Player As first few draw steps were quite good to him, providing a solid defender in the form of Bottle Gnomes, and a stalling creature in the form of Master Decoy.  Player A of course did not draw his fourth land until the 6th turn, developing his board with 2 power dorks for 2 and 3 mana, and getting in for some pathetic beats, enabled by his Squee's Toy.  (All of player A's creatures had 1 power, so he would have to trade off his Master Decoy in a double-block to kill even player B's pathetic Coral Merfolk (2/1 for 1U). 

Squee's Toy + Coral Merfolk, why don't we see more articles about this interaction =P








Player B didn't have much to play, and drew some more red spells, but eventually got his fourth land for Ambition's Cost (draw 3, lose 3, for 3B).  It of course, drew him no more lands, but he got some cheap interaction, with Unsummon, and Divination among the cards drawn.  He eventually started hitting some lands, and a Siege Mastodon being bounced, and a 3/3 Primal Clay being Flame Slashed destroyed player A's defensive board position, and allowed attacks for 2, 4, and 6 to head in.  The following turn, he unleashed a Wave of Indifference to get through even more damage!





 Sorry boss, I'm "busy"...











Amazingly, though player B had around 9 power in creatures, he had nothing with more than 4 power, so the Smite the Monstrous in player A's hand was not looking to smite-worthy.

Eventually player A drew some creatures, and Player B's beat down was halted, until a Essence Drain ensured that the Master Decoy would not hold off player B's Welkin Tern.  Player A of course top-decked a Feral Shadow (2/1 flyer for 2B) to hold it off instead.  Player B eventually drew a Blisterstick Shaman to kill the Feral Shadow, and the Welkin Tern beats commenced anew, with player A on a precariously low 5 life after the first swing.

Player B had only a Essence Scatter and a land in his hand, with 8 in play, but held off using it on a Borderland Ranger, since it would not prevent the Welkin Tern from beating down.

Bottle Gnomes are great on defense, but they couldn't keep up with the massed hordes from player B...






A turn or two later, player B drew a Volcanic Dragon, and sent everyone in.  Player A was glad to Smite the Monstrous Dragon, but still had to block with everything, and sacrifice his Bottle Gnomes before damage to just stay alive, leaving player B with ~5 creatures to player A's lonely Siege Mastodon.  With Essence Scatter in hand, player A had no outs.

Victory for the improbable player B, and a solid end to Winchester Draft 1!

Example Winchester Draft: Part 1

Winchester is a draft format for two people that I learned about when reading a Tom LaPille article a while back.   The gist of it is that you shuffle together 6 packs (84 cards), and put one card in each of four piles.  The first player takes one of the piles, and then you put one more card on each of the four piles.  Keep at it until you run out of cards.

The advantages this has over other two player draft formats are:

1) It is simple.  There are something like 25 total decisions to make between all parties.

2) It is fast, you can get right to the playing.

3) It exemplifies draft in that if you take a powerful card, you have to leave behind some other cards, which makes future picks potentially stronger than your current pick.

4) You get around 12 picks to assemble ~23 playables, so you can't over-value single card piles, or you just won't have enough to play.

I decided to try this for my first "solo draft" walkthrough because it involves a small number of pictures (~25), and decisions, while letting me get a feel for the idea of doing this on a grander scale later.

I used a "starter cube" I made to help teach my fiance Kristina the game.  It has around 15 cards of each color, 10 artifacts, and 12 lands, for a total of ~90 cards, which was just enough for this exercise.

Pick one showed at least two good options.  Welkin Tern is a pretty aggressive creature, but I picked Borderland Ranger, because it will help fix my mana, and I assumed I'd have to play three colors in this format.

Player A Picked: Borderland Ranger

Revealed but not picked:  Ravenous Rats, Welkin Tern, Goblin Piker

Pick two put probably the best new card, with the best remaining card, so it was pretty easy to snag the two blue cards, and stay "open" as far as a second card for the time being

Player B Picked: Essence Scatter, Welkin Tern)

Revealed but not picked: Hinterland Harbor, Plague Beetle, Rotting Legion.

Pick three gave a couple options for ways to go.  Pile 1 had a removal spell, and some mana fixing, pile 4 had two aggressive red cards, so Player A stayed on-point with the mana-fixing and removal spell of the first pile.

Player A Picked:  Pacifism, Hinterland Harbor, Ravenous Rats

Revealed but not picked:  Raging Goblin, Thunder Strike, Goblin Raider.

Player B has just two blue cards, so they have the option of a removal spell, or a pile of red and black creatures to fill out their selection.  They ended up going with the pile of creatures.  I figured at this point they could be Red/Blue, and maybe the black would be okay.

Player B picked:  Hill Giant, Goblin Raider, Rotting Legion, Goblin Piker.

Revealed but not picked:  Essence Drain, Glorious Anthem, Keldon Warlord.

These piles seemed pretty marginal at this point, so player A grabbed the mana fixing of the land to go with what would likely be a multi-color deck.  A case could be made for pile 1 or 2 being superior, because pile 3 actually only has one relevant card at this time, so Essense Drain, Anthem, or even Nether Horror could be better than the land.

Player A picked:  Isolated Chapel, Keldon Warlord, Thunder Strike, Plague Beetle.

Revealed but not picked:  Giant Growth, Nether Horror, Dragon Fodder

Player B grabs the first pile here, with another spell being added to it.  No blue cards, and no great red cards mean we need to consider other options, and three "removal spells" is a fine reason to snag a pile.  Maybe pile 4 will "wheel", since it is basically terrible at this point for player A, and it could be useful for our 2-drop "tempo" deck.

Player B picks: Ambition's Cost, Giant Growth, Essence Drain

Revealed but not picked:  Youthful Knight, Duskdale Wurm, Wave of Indifference.

The addition of Terramorphic Expanse to pile 2, when player A is already "in" green and white, and looking for multicolor fixing makes pile 2 a fairly easy pickup for player A.  Player A is likely hoping that pile 3 i not chosen by player B, since it could be a fine top-end for them.

Player A picks:  Terramorphic Expanse, Youthful Knight, Nether Horror, Glorious Anthem, Raging Goblin.

Revealed but not picked: Mind Stone, Assault Griffin, Rampant Growth.

Sulfur Falls adds some much-needed mana-fixing to player B's setup, along with a couple spells that will likely help them win in the mid-game.  It sucks to pass pile 3 here (or pile 1 to be honest), but we need playables, and pile 4 is where they're at for player B.

Player B picks: Sulfur Falls, Rampant Growth, Wave of Indifference, Dragon Fodder.

Revealed but not picked: Fangren Hunter, Squee's Toy, Bottle Gnomes.

Pile 3 didn't get much better for us with this pick (we'd play the Divination or the Smite), but we need to take it anyway.  Pack 1 was a close runner, since it offers a similar ability of cards, but I didn't remember I had Hinterland Harbor for some blue-fixing, so I was only comparing the green, white, and artifact cards when I made this pick.

Player A picked: Merfolk Looter, Bottle Gnomes, Assault Griffin, Duskdale Wurm

Revealed but not picked: Divination, Mons Goblin Raiders, Smite the Monstrous.

Not much good here for player B, so we take the only halfway good card, and maybe some fixing.  We also ensure that player A doesn't get a juicy mana fixing plus acceleration plus fattie pick here "for free".   Unfortunate all around though.  Hopefully nothing good gets put on top of the Ranger to make the next pick super-easy for player A...

Player B picked: Clifftop Retreat, Divination, Fangren Hunter, Mind Stone

Revealed but not picked: Child of Night, Sylvan Ranger, Harbor Serpent.

Roaring Primadox is a super-fun card, and player A can't resist taking this, along with a removal spell we can (theoretically) cast.  Picking any of the other piles might be defensible as well, for the mana fixing in pile 3 (or 2), or the cheap brick-wall that is the Courser....

Player A picked:  Roaring Primadox, Harbor Serpent, Smite the Monstrous

Revealed but not picked: Centaur Courser, Dragonskull Summit, Unsummon.

Quite out of focus here, but we have one clear pick for player B.  Deny the Ranger to the omni-color deck, pick up a tempo spell and a removal spell in the form of the just-revealed Blisterstick Shaman.  Unfortunate that player A seems to have several good options now, but that's what picking mana fixing does for you I guess?

Player B picked: Blisterstick Shaman, Unsummon, Sylvan Ranger

Revealed but not picked: Master Decoy, Restless Dead, Vulshok Berserker

Player A sees three solid playables in pile 1 here and can't resist.  Pile 2 is getting very large here, but outside of the fixing, it doesn't offer too much that they care about.  If the Righteousness was instead a blank, I think we would have seen player A scoop up pile 2 for the sheer volume + value.

Player A picked:  Righteousness, Master Decoy, Centaur Courser

Revealed but not picked: Woodland Cemetery, Sunpetal Grove, Gravedigger.

Player B's about had enough of how the piles have been falling, so they scoop up pile 2 here, with some black mana fixing to go with the likely splash there, and a few aggressive creatures to fill out their pile.  Pile 4 is probably their second choice, since it has a couple cards on-color in theory.

Picked: Llanowar Elves, Woodland Cemetery, Restless Dead, Dragonskull Summit, Child of Night, Mons Goblin Raiders, Squee's Toy.

Revealed but not picked: Venerable Monk, Feral Shadow, Crushing Vines.

Player A saw a Birds of Paradise roll off, and snapped it up, along with some other mana fixing and a potential flyer.  Pile 4 was a hard pile to pass by, and maybe pile 3 is more likely for player B to NOT take, so taking pile 4 may have been the right decision.  Card advantage to the max there...  We decided we wanted to be sure to be able to cast our spells though.  Not an easy pick.

Player A picked: Birds of Paradise, Feral Shadow, Sunpetal Grove

Revealed but not picked: Drowned Catacombs, Savannah Lions, Jayemdae Tome

Player B had a hard choice here.  They realized here that they probably need to be playing a third color, because the good red and blue just isn't coming, so taking a high-impact 6-drop, and a mana fixer, might help their cause here.  Very unfortunate to pass pile 4, since it also has a couple cards they could use.  It's unlikely that either pile 1 or pile 4 would come back, given that I "saw" player A in Green-White-Black colors as central.

Picked: Phyrexian Gargantua, Drowned Catacombs, Venerable Monk.

Revealed but not picked: Fire Elemental, Prey Upon, Stormfront Pegasus.

Now the blue and red cards start flowing...  Pile 4 is an easy pick-up for player A, since they view themselves in GWB and the value is overflowing there.  (Also, player A doesn't see anything else that is comparable, and player B could reasonably take pile 4 if we take one of the other piles)

Player A picked: Grizzly Bears, Stormfront Pegasus, Jayemdae Tome, Crushing Vines, Gravedigger, Vulshok Berserker.

Revealed but not picked: Siege Mastodon, Scroll Theif, Volcanic Dragon.

This pick was not easy for player B.  Pile 3 offers two very solid finishers, some of the bigger creatures in the cube, but pile 2 has three good cards, so I went with that.  Pile 1 and 3 are equally likely to be taken by player A on his next pick, so let's just hope they get something good in any pile but three?  Bah.

Player B picked: Aven Fisher, Scroll Theif, Fire Elemental, Savannah Lions

Revealed but not picked: Benalish Veteran, Air Elemental, Archaeomancer.

Player A couldn't refuse the fixing of evolving wilds, to pair with a big ground blocker in the elephant, so they stuck with their overall strategy here.  It's possible that pile 3 was superior, because we probably have a fair amount of red fixing, and Prey Upon is not bad.  (And player B can't use pile 1, they have to take 2 or 4 just for the playables, we hope?)

Player A picked: Evolving Wilds, Benalish Veteran, Siege Mastodon

Revealed but not picked: Claustrophobia, Flame Slash, Primal Clay.

Finally good cards for player B are showing up (Red and Blue cards).  The pick between piles 3 and 4 (or even pile 2) was not easy, but player B is hurting for playables, so 4 cards is better than 3, and huge evasive guys and a removal spell isn't bad.

Player B picked: Coral Merfolk, Flame Slash, Air Elemental, Volcanic Dragon, Prey Upon

Revealed but not picked: Tundra Wolves, Phyrexian Rager, Man-o-War.

What can I say, player A is a jerk.  This was the last revealed pile (bug in Winchester, player A gets the first pick and the last (new) pick?), and player A gets one playable out of pile 4, and one more good playable from whatever of the other three piles are left, so they just denied the more problematic cards with this pick, and made player B's life tough on playables.  Player B actually has 5 sources of blue with one Island in his deck, which is pretty insane...

Player A picked: Flying Men, Man-o-War, Primal Clay, Archaeomancer.

Revealed but not picked: Giant Spider, Alpha Myr, Midnight Guard.

Player B takes pile 2, which, in retrospect was only slightly worse than pile 4 in terms of playables, and it has a "real" removal spell and some card advantage.  It sucks that we give up a spider here, but such is life.  I think in the future, using 4 more, or 4 less cards would be advisable, at least when drafting this with a "cube" (rather than packs).  Player 2 seems like they're always on the back foot here.

Player B picks: Alpha Myr, Phyrexian Rager, Claustrophobia.

Revealed but not picked: None.

Player A grabs the spider, and Wolf from pile 1

Player B puts the Midnight Guard into the garbage can, and my first attempt at a Winchester draft is over!

For the deckbuilding and play, we'll have to wait for part 2, it's Kristina-time now =)