Just kidding. I don’t have a draft cap or anything. I went drafting with our would-be GP Taipei contingent last November 12 (Wednesday). I actually almost never play sanctioned matches outside of the weekend tournaments, but I was a bit tired from work and wanted to blow off steam, so I went ahead to Robinson’s Galleria and waited a couple of hours for the 8-man draft to fill up.
I opened with Cruel Ultimatum as my first pick, then got a couple of white weenies (Akrasan Squire and Sigiled Paladin) before getting a 4th-pick Agony Warp. I grabbed some more blue and black fliers and felt myself going into Grixis again.
Second pack I opened Flameblast Dragon, Oblivion Ring, Branching Bolt, Soul’s Fire, etc. I gazed longingly at the removal for a bit before tucking away my flying bomb rare. I got a Resounding Thunder later on and also rare-drafted Rafiq of the Many and Ad Nauseaum.
Here’s my draft deck:
I put in the Obelisk of Bant so that I had a late game chance of cycling my supercyclers.
Round one game one, my opponent was Esper stuck with no islands, so I happily went Obelisk into 5-drop flier into Quietus Spike, winning quickly.
Round one game two, I hit the correct combination of seven lands to play Cruel Ultimatum and there was no recovery from there.
Round two game one, we were exchanging small blows. Eventually he was at 8 and I had Resounding Thunder in hand and the Obelisk of Bant in play so I only needed one more swing from any of my 3 fliers on the board to win the game. Unfortunately at this point he case Crater Hellion and I had stupidly failed to leave up black mana to regenerate my Sekeletal Kathari. I never recovered.
Round two game two, mana screw. Nothing to see here, but obviously if I had been smart enough to leave regeneration mana open in game one I would have gotten the benefit of a third game.
Round three game one, I bring him to two, but he stabilizes and clears my board and I don’t draw burn to finish him off.
Round three game two, I manage to go obelisk into five drop into quietus spike again, quickly taking him from 20 to 8 in one swing. I win the game and we go to the rubber match.
I shuffle up and the TO hands us the pack that we’re playing for. “We should open it, so that if it’s a crap rare we don’t have to play the third game”, I joke around as I search for any useful sideboard cards.
Round three game three he doesn’t draw any creatures and I have a steady stream, so I keep the prize pack.
It turned out to contain a Mindlock Orb, if we had opened it I might not have wanted to play the third game. :p My other prize pack had another Cruel Ultimatum, I think it’s a set now!
Good luck to the pinoy GP Taipei contingent!
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