I hope you have all been enjoying Amonkhet as much as I have so far. The format is quite fun, and I have been enjoying drafting and playing sealed deck with it. I'd like to apologise for the lack of article last week; my ISP decided to "accidently" terminate my connection and now, due to a network shortfall, cannot reconnect me. So my articles may be sporadic for a little while.

This week, I am trying something new: I have a video of the draft! This is my first time doing video content, so forgive me if it's a little rough around the edges. I am not abandoning the written portion, though, as I know many of you enjoy that part more than video. Now, the video is just of the draft portion, not the matches - in my experience a lot of people who watch draft videos don't watch the games anyway, so I haven't bothered recording those. There is still a summary of the matches at the end of the article.

THE VIDEO

THE DRAFT

Pack 1 pick 1:



My Pick:



This is a reasonably weak first pack, with only two cards I was interested in: Crocodile of the Crossing and Cartouche of Strength . I'm really not happy first picking either, but end up taking the Cartouche.



Pack 1 pick 2:



My Pick:



This pick was between a second Cartouche of Strength or Splendid Agony . The latter card is okay, but I haven't been greatly impressed with it, so I took the second Cartouche.



Pack 1 pick 3:



My Pick:



This pick wasn't particularly close, with Final Reward being quite good. Naga Vitalist was also a consideration. But I took the unconditional removal.



Pack 1 pick 4:



My Pick:



Wow, some pretty bad cards in here. Giant Spider is on colour and nothing else is very good here, so I took it.



Pack 1 pick 5:



My Pick:



In this pack I looked firstly at Doomed Dissenter . In green/black, it's a value creature that you can dump -1/-1 counters on to and get a zombie out of. But I was more interested in Fan Bearer . I only had one black card so far (that is splashable) so I might move into white if it's open.



Pack 1 pick 6:



My Pick:



So, here we had another Giant Spider, a Sacred Cat and Horror of the Broken Lands . I deliberated for a bit before deciding to take black; my one black card so far is better than my one white card, and that's was what influenced the decision.



Pack 1 pick 7:



My Pick:



For this pick it was between another Giant Spider or another Horror of the Broken Lands. The Horror won out solely on the fact it has cycling.



Pack 1 pick 8:



My Pick:



This is not a great card, but was better than the alternatives.



Pack 1 pick 9:



My Pick:



I'm not too unhappy with a Pouncing Cheetah ; it can act as a removal spell by flashing in to block an attacker, or can just be a creature you cast end of turn to surprise your opponent.



Pack 1 pick 10:



My Pick:



This is a reasonable creature, though I'm not a huge fan of it.

The rest of pack 1 was:



Pack 1 pick 11:



My Pick:





Pack 1 pick 12:



My Pick:





Pack 1 pick 13:



My Pick:





Pack 1 pick 14:



My Pick:





Pack 1 pick 15:



My Pick:



After pack one, I'm a little worried - I'm drafting a colour pair that cares about -1/-1 counters, and I have nothing that does that in my picks so far. I have drafted a similar deck and it went horribly, so I am hoping at this stage the same thing doesn't happen.



Pack 2 pick 1:



My Pick:



Trial of Zeal is the best card in the pack and I almost took it here. The fact that I had two green Cartouches almost swayed me to think about splashing it. In the end though I decided not to stretch the mana base, and took Greater Sandwurm .



Pack 2 pick 2:



My Pick:



I picked another Final Reward here and am pretty happy with my removal right now.



Pack 2 pick 3:



My Pick:



Here, I flirted with the idea of taking Canyon Slough . This cycle of rare lands are still fine if they are in one of your colours; if you've ever gotten flooded, you'll know that paying 2 mana to discard a land and draw a card is quite good. In the end though, I went with Wasteland Scorpion . It gums up the ground and is a great blocker.



Pack 2 pick 4:



My Pick:



Dune Beetle is not a card I'm particularly happy to pick, but looking at my deck at this point I realised I was quite a defensive deck, so it would fit in. I'm now looking to pick up some more high-end creatures to compliment the Sandwurm.



Pack 2 pick 5:



My Pick:



Starting to wish I took Canyon Slough here... seeing an Electrify here makes think red is open. I took it and hope to splash it.



Pack 2 pick 6:



My Pick:



Initially I looked at Grim Strider , but in a defensive deck that's not looking to dump its hand, it gets a lot worse. In the end I took Cursed Minotaur .



Pack 2 pick 7:



My Pick:



Giant Spider is better than Miasmic Mummy , so I took it.



Pack 2 pick 8:



My Pick:



Battle of the combat tricks. Shed Weakness is cheaper than Spidery Grasp which is what I am looking for in my combat tricks, so it got the nod.

Here is the rest of pack 2:



Pack 2 pick 9:



My Pick:





Pack 2 pick 10:



My Pick:





Pack 2 pick 11:



My Pick:





Pack 2 pick 12:



My Pick:





Pack 2 pick 13:



My Pick:





Pack 2 pick 14:



My Pick:





Pack 2 pick 15:



My Pick:



I'm really worried that the power level of my deck isn't there at the moment, and really need to open some good cards in the next pack. The deck just feels a little too weak and is relying on a lot of medium cards. Here's hoping pack 3 brings me some goodies.



Pack 3 pick 1:



My Pick:



Wasteland Scorpion , Splendind Agony , and Destined/Lead were the cards I looked at. I took Destined // Lead as it's a decent enough trick on its own and I wanted to test it due to not having played with it yet.



Pack 3 pick 2:



My Pick:



Trail of Ambition with two Cartouches made me pick it. It was better than anything else in the pack.



Pack 3 pick 3:



My Pick:



Is no one playing blue? Seeing Angler Drake , a bomb, here is interesting. But I can't play it, and Giant Spider was the best card for me.



Pack 3 pick 4:



My Pick:



I like Bone Picker , even if you don't get to cast it for 1 mana. It's evasive and not really overpriced at 4 mana.



Pack 3 pick 5:



My Pick:



I decided Festering Mummy might be better than one of my Dune Beetles , so I took it.



Pack 3 pick 6:



My Pick:





Pack 3 pick 7:



My Pick:



Wow. I'm pretty unhappy to see this pack like this; it says to me other people are drafting green and black and that we are fighting over those colours. This has me worried.



Pack 3 pick 8:



My Pick:



My first card that cares about -1/-1 counters, and I have no pay offs. I take it, but am not happy the way the deck is turning out.

The remaining picks are:



Pack 3 pick 9:



My Pick:





Pack 3 pick 10:



My Pick:





Pack 3 pick 11:



My Pick:





Pack 3 pick 12:



My Pick:





Pack 3 pick 13:



My Pick:





Pack 3 pick 14:



My Pick:





Pack 3 pick 15:



My Pick:





THE DECK

Like I said, I'm not really happy with how this turned out. It's not a train wreck, but it's not great either. I'm just going to have to make do the best I can.

THE MATCHES

Match 1

Versus: Black/Green

Result: 2-0

This was a mirror, and our decks were quite similar. The two games were pretty grindy; I won game 1 on the back of a Blighted Bat my opponent couldn't do anything about, and game 2 I won by casting the second half of Destined // Lead, allowing me to attack through for lethal.

Match 2

Versus: White/Black

Result: 2-1

I figured I'd be facing zombies in this match up, but my opponent did not seem to have much zombie synergy going on. I lost game 1 after drawing the majority of my land early; and I won game 2 when my opponent could not find black mana. Game 3 was also not much of an event; going into the game, my opponent had less than 2 minutes left on their clock, and although they had the upper hand in the game, they could not close it out quickly enough.

Match 3

Versus: Blue/Black

Result: 0-2

This match was brutal. In both games, my opponent played two Ruthless Sniper s in the first two turns, and was able to shoot down any creature I played due to the fact they had every possible cycling card in their draft pool, I think. Game 2 was not much better, though it was painfully short; I had to mulligan to 5 and kept a hand of 4 Swamps and a Horror of the Broken Lands. I did draw some early black creatures but, again, the Ruthless Snipers made short work of them. My opponents deck was quite awesome and they deserved the win.

CONCLUSION

I finished with a 2-1 result, though if time wasn't an issue it may well have been 1-2. Like I said, I wasn't overly happy with the deck, and the fact I had to play the matches over a two week period hurt me a little as well, I think.

If you watched the draft video, let me know what you thought. You can post in the comments or reach me on Twitter (@The_Wolf_MTG) or on Facebook.

I'll be back when I can; until then, keep on drafting!