Some Like It Aggressive - Monday Draft Report - June 5, 2017

I ended up going to an FNM draft at our Friendly Local Game shop, and I had a great time! I was in a pod with several new/newish drafters, which always makes for an interesting time reading signals. However, I feel like I drafted my seat correctly, and ended up with a very strong deck overall. Let’s get into the draft:

My first pack was pretty weak – the rare was Cascading Cataracts, which I will likely never play in this format, never mind first-picking it. I ended up taking an Electrify, as the card is very good and I like red in this set. I bounced around a little bit after that, taking a Prepare//Fight and then Open into Wonder and Defiant Greatmaw out of another few weak packs. By this point I thought I wanted to be Red/White, but was pretty spread out. However, I ended up taking a couple of Impeccable Timings and an Unwavering Initiate along with some nice red cards such as the Emberhorn Minotaur and Nef-Crop Entangler.

Going into pack two I knew I was Red, and thought White was likely my secondary color, so I was thrilled to open a Heart-Piercer Manticore. I followed that up with a Trial of Zeal, a Cartouche of Solidarity, and a Gust Walker. Following the first couple of picks White was really cut off, but Red was wide open. I picked up another bunch of great playables, and felt really good going into pack three.

Pack three just helped fill out my curve, with the Cartouche of Zeal, Bloodlust Inciter (a card I am very happy to play one of), and a Minotaur Sureshot. I was passed a Cast Out surprisingly late – fourth or fifth pick – which is surprising for a chase uncommon in the set. It turned out that the next two players to my left were in White, which is why it was so cut in pack two, but not many people to my right were interested. The only other red drafters were across the table from me, so my deck ended up very strong. I was surprised to be the only player in Red/White agro, since that’s widely considered to be the best deck in the format, but the other aggro decks were in different color combinations (White/Black, Red/Green), and the control decks don’t want cards like Pathmaker Initiate.

My first match was against a very solid Green/Black counters deck. There was no Hapatra to worry about, but he did have the Decimator Beetle and many counter creators. I agro’d him out in game one, but ended up just losing game two due to a forgotten Unwavering Initiate in my graveyard. If I’d remembered to embalm him the turn before I actually did so, I would have had enough damage on board with Initiate plus an embalmed Heart-Piercer Manticore to throw him at my opponent. I won quickly in game three though, which is really how a Red/White agro deck prefers to play.

My second round was against an interesting White/Black agro list – it had some Zombie synergy, but was playing some non-Zombie aggressive creatures to fill out the curve. On our first game we both mulliganed, but I managed to stop at six while my opponent ended up going down to four. Unsurprisingly I ended up overwhelming his board, and finished the game simply on card superiority. Game two I just drew both of my Brute Strengths (I love that it gives trample), which combined with my Emberhorn Minotaurs to smash through lethal.

Round three was against a very interesting deck – it was Blue/White splashing Green just for Sandwurm Convergence. This format doesn’t usually reward that type of deck, so it was fun to see him in the finals. In game one he kept drawing lands, so I simply overran him with my smashy exert creatures. Game two we both flooded out, but that just allowed him to play his Sandwurm Convergence on curve and slowly out-value me. I hung on a lot longer than I thought possible, but top-decking four more lands in a row meant that there was nothing I could do. Finally, game three had my deck doing exactly what it wanted to do, which was draw quick threats and combat tricks. I won quickly, which isn’t that surprising against a control deck that needs to draw well to win against this type of aggressive deck.

Overall I was very happy with how my deck turned out, and not just because of my 3-0 record. I was impressed with Prepare (I did not splash the Green for Fight), and also with the combination of Minotaur Sureshot + Cartouche of Solidarity. Despite not having any anthems my creatures all had enough quality to carry me to victory purely on their own, with the exert mechanic plus pump abilities they had. The ability to make things unblockable or hasty as-needed also helped me get through a fair amount of damage, and is a very important part of finishing up despite board stalls. Brute Strength is always playable in this type of deck, and the trample definitely won me a few games.

-Laura