

Greetings Forgeborn, and welcome to another Drafting Pick by Pick, and this time we’ve got a real doozy for you; this weekend’s Weekend Warrior is the High Rarity Draft. Woo!

So, what is a High Rarity Draft? As the name suggests, all of the cards drafted are higher rarities. Each 6-card pack consists of nothing but legendaries, and each other pack is all heroics. Now it’s a shadow draft (you don’t keep the cards) so it is still behind Guaranteed Legendary Drafting in popularity, but not by much and certainly it’s a nice change of pace.

The Draft

P1P1: Shardplate Behemoth, Ebonskull Diabolist, Synapsis Oracle, Ghox, Metamind Paragon, Everflow Eidolon, Grimgaunt Devourer – Okay, so first pack and we have three nicely playable cards here. Shardplate is the king of underdrops (but it doesn’t feel right picking an underdrop for P1P1), Ghox is a serious card advantage beast, and left unchecked Devourer (especially levels 2 and 3) can be insane. All of the others require too much work to pull off successfully. All things considered, I would rather pick the kick ass bomb first.

P1P2: Shadowsmith, Metamorphosis, Firestorm, Aetherphage, Patron of Kadras – This pack came down to the ‘Smith or the Metamorphosis for me. The ‘Smith locks me nicely into AN, which is my personal favourite faction pairing and leveling is always nice. However, the Metamorphosis is one of the rare removal cards actually present in the format. It took a wee while to decide, but in the end faction loyalty won out.

P1P3: Soulscourge Grimgaunt, Patron of Tarsus, War Tinker, Discordant Strike – I did briefly lean towards the Strike, but the body won out (and it can be an insane body if you play right/get lucky).

P1P4: Energy Prison, Grimgaunt Betrayer, Repress – Not even close; it’s a body and it’s a Darkforged.

P1P5: Patron of Anvillon, Necroplasm – I rarely like taking the patrons in any kind of draft anyway(except Mono-Faction Draft, obviously), and Necroplasm has a better body at every level. I’m not even too fussed about getting the formation proc.

P2P1: Oreian Warwalker, Suruzal, Emissary of Varna, Nethershriek, Scythe of Chiron, Immortal Echoes, Drix, the Mindwelder – After pack 1, I feel that any of the four Nekrium cards would have been a good pick. Ultimately, it was the potential for Darkforged fun that swung it for me. Probably too little Darkforged to be focusing on so far, but I like them.

P2P2: Apocrymancer, Steelforged Avatar, Grimgaunt Betrayer, Repress, Overwhelming Force – And speaking of the Darkforged, here’s another one. Plus, in this format most of the others are too underwhelming (you need better/more spells to make Apocrymancer work, Avatars are in the same group as the Patrons, Repress is meh in all formats.) Overwhelming Force is a nice mass buff, but is it nice enough? Not really sure here.

P2P3: Xrath’s Will, Ebonskull Knight, War Merchant, Cercee’s Call – Will and Call are both awesome if you’re playing zombies, but I’m not. War Merchant is a helpful if somewhat restricted buff. But in the end, the massive underdrop was the way to go.

P2P4: Patron of Anvillon, Metasculpt, Unrelenting Dead – And then to make me look silly, the zombie is the pick here.

P2P5: Discordant Strike, Scout Drone – If you are able to level it Scout Drone is a useful little free body, but otherwise it is just too insignificant. Even without leveling, the multi-lane combat trick can still be relevant.

P3P1: Sparky, Forge Guardian Dog, Frontline Combatant, Iniog, Carrion Demon, Dread, Arcflight Squadron, Ironbeard, Hammer of Anvillon – Sparky and Iniog are both too build around, Arcflight requires at least some other robots, and Dread isn’t relevant enough (and only 50/50 chance of respawning). Of the other two, Ironbeard is definitely very nice (and a Forgeborn- major cool factor), but the Combatant is more immediate removal in a format without much. One-eyed man, Kingdom of the Blind, and all that.

P3P2: Scout Drone, Shardthief Druid, Tomb Pillager, Soul Harvest, Aeromind Squadron – The best of a mediocre bunch here is all.

P3P3: Alloyin Highlander, Cercee’s Call, Portal Shade, Rite of the Grimgaunt – Another uninspiring pack. I did consider the Rite, and the lack of removal would make this a slightly stronger pick than normal, but the potential for extra bodies on rank up is still just better.

P3P4: Explosive Demise, Hellforged Avatar, Discordant Strike – The Strike is really the only choice. Would be more excited if I hadn’t already picked one.

P3P5: Grimgaunt Warrior, War Tinker – This is seriously starting to look like a Grimgaunt deck here. On the bright side, this one is definitely a decent one for draft.

P4P1: Lucid Echoes, Epoch Hawk, Woebringer, Doppelbot, Xerxes, Immortal Echoes – This pick was made simply for the possibility of copying their coolest big level 3 before they are able to play it themselves. Very funny…

P4P2: Cercee’s Call, Byzerak Frostmaiden, Omnomnom, Nexus Techtician, Sonic Pulse – Yet again, not much to excite me here. Obviously came down to Techtician or Pulse; Pulse just feels more useful.

P4P3: Rite of the Grimgaunt, Onyxium Allomancer, Alloyin Highlander, Dysian Broodqueen – Didn’t even need to think about this one- Allomancer all the way, baby.

P4P4: Grimgaunt Betrayer, War Merchant, Warmonger Mod – Again, it’s a Darkforged.

P4P5: Explosive Demise, Esperian Scarab – Ugh. Both are pretty much useless here. Grudgingly taking the body.

P5P1: Synapsis Oracle, Ghox, Metamind Paragon, Ironmind Acolyte, Doomwing, Dire Drake, Dread, Ambriel Archangel – Definitely the weakest of the legendary packs so far. Ghox is the only pick here.

P5P2: Xrath, Dreadknight of Varna, Necroplasm, Patron of Anvillon, Shardthief Druid, Forge Guardian Delta – With so few zombie cards so far Xrath loses a lot of his value, but he is still the best of what’s there.

P5P3: Oratek Explosives, Onyxium Allomancer, Spitesower Acolyte, Nexus Techtician – A second Allomancer? Don’t mind if I do! And the rest were somewhat underwhelming, so…

P5P4: Cacklebones, Oreian Battledroid, Xithian Tormentor – Both Nekrium creatures here have drawbacks that can be worked around or negated in constructed, but in limited can be lethal to you- certainly not worth playing. Which only leaves one option.

P5P5: Ceaseless Grimgaunt, Spitesower Acolyte – And ANOTHER unimpressive pack. Ceaseless is another constructed rather than limited staple, and Spitesower is that bit too small and fragile to be of much use. Suicide combat trick on a stick. Meh.

P6P1: Spiritstone Sentry, Oreian Warwalker, Frontline Combatant, Specimen 001, Keeper of the Damned, Immortal Echoes – I’ve passed on the previous two Echoes, I can’t really skip the third as well; the card is just too useful, especially at level 3. An extra creature on your board at the end of your turn for free is never to be sneezed at.

P6P2: Soul Harvest, Tomb Pillager, Explosive Demise, Unrelenting Dead, Repress – Tomb Pillager has a couple of things going for it here- as a zombie it gets buffed by Xrath, and it allows you to trim the unleveled chaff and thin your deck. Add an average sort of body and we have a winner.

P6P3: Darkfrost Reaper, Tomb Pillager, Patron of Anvillon, Ambriel’s Edict – Still the best answer to unpleasant swarm problems, the Edict was a gimme.

P6P4: Crypt Conjurer, Automaton Prime, Spite Hydra – Conjurer has too few targets to work, and we are in the wrong faction pairing for the Hydra (and without the proc it is mediocre at best really), so it’s the Automaton as an underdrop here.

P6P5: Indomitable Fiend, Progeny of Xith – Not really the best pack it could be, but both creatures have some potential, especially the Fiend if I get lucky with the reanimation.

So there we have it- a sort of slower controly-reanimation-with-Grimgaunts-and-Darkforged sort of deck. We have a couple of ropey picks in there (and I should probably have picked at least one more Echoes in place of either Suruzal or the Doppelbot), but on the whole I’m feeling relatively confident with it. To the queues!

The Play

Game 1 – My first match was against an AT level up deck. Highlights included at least one Ignir, Synapsis Oracle and a rather annoying Leyline Sentry that kept popping in. Unfortunately for my opponent, they were unable to stop the GGD (I finished with a 29/14 GGD on board eating their blockers and smacking face for lots); I also got really lucky with both the Darkforged and Fiend. My opponent conceded mid Rank 2. 1-0

Game 2 – Next up was an AU Grow wide, with Nova, Tuskin Sporelord, H.E.R.M.E.S., and Ironbeard, Ascendant. The Anvilbreakers kept interferring with my game plan, but in the end the Devourers took the game for me; I had both a level 2 and a level 3 sat on board at the end. The Betrayers and Discordant Strikes also played an important role. 2-0

Game 3 – Game 3 was an AN control mirror. Extremely good use of his (at least) two Contagion Lords allowed my opponent to level a fair bit of his deck, along with decent reanimation from both Immortal Echoes and Varna. His top end consisted of a Zimus and a Scrapforge; I had to concede early in Rank 4. Well played indeed to yjlbl6ka (hope I got that right!). 2-1

Game 4 – The final match was against AU Grow wide, with Forge Guardians, Guardians Assemble, Bramblewood Tracker and Energy Prison. The latter did a lot of work for my opponent, managing to keep my level 1, level 2, and reanimated level 2 Devourers from getting in even one hit. Thankfully for me the level 3 managed to stay Prison free though, and finally managed to swing for the win (with help from a well timed Discordant Strike) in my 3.4. Final score 3-1

Well, the take home from this is that AN still appears to be a powerhouse in limited at the moment, even in the more unusual formats. Good fun was had by all, and GGD proved once again that there’s still enough life left in some of the old guard of Alpha- all three wins were at least in part down to how insanely they can grow.

I shouldn’t have gotten quite so fixated on the Darkforged; they worked for me, but in honesty it was more luck than anything with them. The fiend was also more of a lucky than skillful heavy hitter. And I really should have picked up one or more of the extra Echoes, as Suruzal and Doppelbot both saw no playtime. Something to remember for next time.

I just want to thank all of my opponents for a fun time with this draft and Kaelari and all at team Reforged (I think they’re still running off that name…) for another fun Weekend Warrior. Here’s to next time, and until then, I’ll see you in the queues!