RIX Release Night
Welcome back, Internetlings! This past Friday has seen the release of a brand new set, and hopefully a much needed refresher to the Ixalan draft environment. This past Friday also saw my first foray into draft since the Dino sized draft, all the way back in October, and as such, I was feeling a little rusty. Not only had I not drafted Ixalan more than twice, but I somehow decided it was a good idea not to read the set and get ideas beforehand. To add to all that, there were twelve of us drafting at the shop, and so we were split into six person pods. The first thing I can tell you about the experience is this. Don't draft Rivals of Ixalan in a six person pod if you can help it. The tribal nature of the set and the synergies involved mean that you just need critical mass of cards in your tribe, and with a six person draft, there are six fewer packs opened at the table for those synergy cards to appear in.
In our pod, both blue and green were wide open, and even though the two vampire drafters were across the table from each other, neither of us had an anointed deacon, for instance, but keeping that in mind, there's more to a draft than just what's opened, let's have a look at pack one.
I opened an It-doesn't-matter-because-there's-a-chupacabra-in-the-pack. I think it was a Kumena's Awakening, which is a fine card, I think, but if I'm first picking a four mana first pick, it's going to kill something. After that, I honestly tried to stay open a bit, figuring on trying a blue white flyers build with an aggressive curve, but when I saw the second Legion Conquistador, I decided to go in on Vampires, even when the first one didn't come back.
Early in pack two I seemed to have been rewarded, as my first three picks were all Vampires, and good ones, but then the pack dried up completely. There were even two other Legion Conquistadors which didn't return. I later found out that the person drafting vampires is the one who opened the Legion Lieutenant, but I didn't see what he'd picked over it.
Pack three was more of the same, and I had to branch out. Luckily, I picked up a pair of hammerskulls which are actually just good in any deck, and work well to get my smaller vampires in. I'd have liked a few more low drops, as I had a glut on three mana, but again, with fewer packs, there were fewer options. Still, the deck turned out alright.
In round one I played against the eventual winner of the pod. Not only was he playing blue red control, a usual favourite of his, but he also had a trio of Sailor of Means', which block my entire deck extremely well. He was also splashing the vampires' bane, a Raging Swordtooth. I didn't really stand a chance. Round two held a different kind of bitterness, a round two bye. Let me
take a moment here to mention how much I hate the idea of a person leaving after round one, especially with a six person pod. Someone decided, after a round one defeat, that it either wasn't worth their time, or they just weren't interested in carrying on, and that meant that someone else (in this case, me) had to wait for fifty minutes with nothing to do and no indication whether my deck has a shot at prizing, or whether my time would better be spent going home early and playing some MTGO, or clocking some hours on the Arena beta. Please, if you're going to go draft at your LGS, play the first two rounds. Okay, I'm done.
In Round three, with an official record of 1-1, I played against a black red deck. My opponent had a fine deck, but he tended to make bad attacks, so I managed to get ahead incrementally in the first game. In game two, we were neck and neck, and even though he had me at five, we'd managed to wipe each other's boards. I'd thought about not trading my last creature because I had removal in hand, but I didn't like the idea of going to 2. As it turns out, he had an unfriendly fire in hand, so I needed every single point of live I had left. It ended three turns later with my Legion conquistadors coming down one after another, and me pacifying his next three creatures.
Final record: 2-1 and second overall. Ah, the variance inherent in a six person draft. My final thoughts on the tournament, and my first thoughts on the format, are that it's going to do a lot to stir up Ixalan limited. City's blessing is much harder to get in draft than in sealed, and if you want it, you'll have to work for it, maybe taking damage rather than trading, or making sure you have lots of enchantment based removal to get you to ten permanent early. That's all I really have for now, but I intend to draft online soon, so you'll get to see the whole experience there. Until then, thanks for reading, -Step.
