The pool for this night was 8 players drafting, the most preferring Standard to prepare for a GP, and before we begin I must say, I hadn't even seen nor read a single Theros block card so far, so I would be all in noobish mode and expected a 0 - 3 defeat.
But, the first booster I cracked revealed The Reveller, a good Planeswalker for aggressive play, so I started to pick reds and greens all ready. Normally dedicating to soon isn't that a good idea, but it only got better in booster 2. Here I opened the red God, and received a Temple of Abandon AND a Mistcutter Hydra. The guy on my left clearly wasn't draftin in my colours...
Booster three I opened a Spear of Helios, but passed this on, I didn't want to go in a third color for that thing. Luck being with me tonight, a Sylvan Carythad came my way, so to the left, no green player. Okay, I never saw that wall during the whole event, but heck.
Another thing to note is that you keep what you pick at the Outpost, but not the rares and mythics. These go in a pot after the event together with two stacks of two boosters and a single booster, and starting the winner you get to take a pick. This all the way round the pool, then start afresh so everyone has 3 rares in the end, and the top enders have 4 'picks'.
This system to discourage money pickers is okay in my book, you always have a chance to get something decent instead of ending up with crap rares due to a bad draft or sucky initial booster packs.
Here is the deck I decided to play, and count to that the 5 rares listed above, this is a nice 'Gruul' aggro deck, with a killer combo with the Planeswalker and God together on the table: spawn 2/2 Haste tokens that do 2 damage to the opponent as they enter the battlefield.
My 'sideboard' aka other picks where these, as you can see I could pick nicely into my colors, and the rest was mostly removing flyers as they passed, as this is by far the most usefull ability in sealed play IMHO.
So, with zero knowledge of the setting and 5 months of rust on my skills, I went to face my first opponent, Bart F. playing a mono white devotion deck.
I started and won the first round thanks to Purphoros, simple as that, as he kkept shooting for 2 while I popped small critters and attacked when feasible.
However, round 2 I lost, he was nearly gone when he could sacrifice his Ordeal and popped the life tally back to high to kill of again, but luckily in game 3 my killer combo hit the table and Xenagos and Purphoros just simple killed him.
Unexpected, but 3 points to the tally and safe from the shameful 0-3...
Then I got to face Chon Sie. Now I know he is an aggresive player from the past, so no surprise he popped down his first mountain. However, he then went on to plains, so I was facing a 'boros' deck.
Nevertheless, he had unfortunatly gone down by mulling to 5 in the opening round, and never recuperated. Round 2 initially saw me having mana issues, but my Centaurs could stall, and then the mountains came. And with them, the killer combo went back onto the table. He did cast a Spear of Helios, but that was also destroyed by my instant, securing the game.
What is this, me in the finale????
Yes indeed, against buddy Kenny, who is the far better and more experienced player so I had little hopes. And so it turned out, game one saw an initial mulligan, then nothing just wanted to come out of my deck and I lost to... yep, flyers indeed. Game two was worse, only the weak beasties showed up, and Phuro did make an appearance when it was far to late, as well as me struggling with that new Devotion mechanic, not something I'm going to aim for again in future drafts.
So the finale was lost... but I ended 2nd none the less! My best result ever in a draft and I scored my first ever FNM promo, the Warleader's Helix, without having to roll for it.
My 'loot picks' where as first pick two boosters (not opening those, they go in the trade batch), second pick was a Temple of Abandon (there where 3 lands for pickings still by then, so I just took the one I played with), third pick I grabbed Anax and Cymede and ended my fourth pick with Anthousa, Setessan Hero.
Topping it all off, I gained a total of 7 Planeswalker Points tonight from the 10 that could have been earned, so that is a step forward as well to qualify in the end for the Belgians... which I, as I type this, isn't sealed but constructed so I won't be playing that anyways, ooops. Even though my very first ever victory was close tonight, it'll have to be postponed to a later date, but never the less I had a blast and am very glad to be back on the 'scene'.
Now the only thing to do is list the cards over at Trade Cards Online and see if I can get some exchanges done.
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