It's Never Too Late to Give Up

Now that Scars of Mirrodin is dropped, any of these Limited articles will shift to it from M11. Just from the first draft I can tell that Scars is a more difficult set to draft, being that it's not a core set, added to the the artifact proportionality and the infect strategy. From that you can guess that my results were not up to my previous soaring heights, but oh well. I apologize because I do not know the set well enough to remember all the card names yet, so I will have to allude at some points. I drafted R/W and my deck was decent. I had Embersmith, two Shatter, the 3/3 dude that destroyers an artifact when he hits the battlefield, an Arrest, an Arc Trail, a Galvanic Blast, the 3/3 dude that exiles a permanent, and some other stuff. I really should hang on to my decks...

Just about every pick was tough, as I went in fairly blind and I'm fairly certain so did most of the others at the table, as the cards I was seeing were all over the place. I first picked the 3/1 pro-artifact Infect green guy, which might be terrible but nothing else really stood out. After that I got passed a little white and a lot of red. I saw a Ratchet Bomb pack one, pick two but took the 3/3 exile dude over it, which Rob told me was wrong and he is the Limited deity of Kentucky, so I'll go with him. I should've taken it just so I could sell it for five dollars. Other than that I don't remember many of the picks. This report sucks. On to the matchups.

Match 1 : Mon0-Blue

My opponent had a fairly artifact heavy blue deck, the highlight of which was two Volition Reins. The first game he takes one of my dudes, but I'm able to sacrifice the 3/1 artifact guy that hits players for 3, recur it with the 3/3 white flier that returns artifacts, sac it again and then Galvanic Blast him out. Second game I just die. This report sucks. Third game he stalls on land and I get a fast start with Myrsmith, so by the time he drops the Reins I've got too much pressure. Off to a good start.

Match 2: W/U

I've played against this guy before and he's always wearing good heavy metal t-shirts, so he's A-OK in my book. Sadly, the first game was a nightmare, as my draw was pretty bad and he was able to recur Contagion Engine multiple times. He was shaky on the rulers regarding how the Clasp could put poison counters on a player so he was not activating it, which I was hoping would give me an advantage (I mean, obviously it's an advantage...yeah, pretty pointless clarification of something that was unnecessary in the first place). Since I'm not on a clock, I manage to stay in the game just enough with Heavy Arbalest that he drops Sunblast Angel to just try and kill me. I misplay (thanks again Rob), as I have the resources to kill the Angel on my turn but don't see it and he kills me. When the first game is over we only have fifteen minutes left in the round...yikes. I do not know if I should have conceded earlier or not, but it at least would have bought more time in the match. Instead, I get an aggressive start Game 2 and win in about ten minutes. Still, that doesn't leave enough time for the third game and we draw. This is the first time I've ever gone to time in sanctioned play, so hopefully I will think about this in the future. Or just play faster. Or just play better. Or both.

Game 3 - G/B (not infect)

Well this was pretty disheartening. Game 1 he plays the black 3/3 flier for 2B where he loses three life. I bounce it my temporary exile guy, hoping to race him, but he has the -4/-4 removal spell for it and things aren't looking good and I lose quickly. Game 2 starts off much better, as he mulligans down to five. I keep a decent hand, but my opponent curves out from drops two through five, the last of which is the 2/5 Giant-er Spider guy, which shuts down my whole team. His fliers finish me off in short order. That series took about ten minutes. This format can be fast.

I don't have enough points to get into the Top 4 cut, so I leave to get some work in in lieu of doing a second (and cheaper, damnit), draft. Scars looks like an interesting set to draft, and I am wanting to try out the infect deck, so hopefully I will be able to draft again soon and please my legion of followers (MY READERSHIP HAS DOUBLED TO 2).