Fallen Empires draft @Mythic 11-17-12

Fallen Empires Draft
Mythic Games, Santa Cruz
Nov. 17th, 2012

My Saturday was crazy. An old friend talked me into running in the SC Turkey Trot 5K at 8am on West Cliff. In the rain. Then, after much coffee and pumpkin bread, I raced up to UCSC and the KZSC Music sale at 10. Six dollars and 24 CDs later, I stumbled home for a much needed shower. Because at 1pm, Mythic was hosting a FREE Fallen Empires draft!

So if you don't know, Mythic Games is THE gaming destination in Santa Cruz. They recently expanded and now have lots of well-lit, clean gaming room for all players. If you play Magic, or any table-top game like Mech-Warrior, this is the place to play.

One of their regulars, Joe, bought a box of FE and wanted to draft it. So Mythic advertised on FaceBook and I got the 6th spot. Joe would keep the cards, but he would give out prizes to the top 4. Deal!

My buddy Larry Bee was there, but wasn't drafting, so he quietly watched my picks. I had done some FE drafting research on the web, but it mostly said "don't do it". You see drafting wasn't a thing yet in 1994, when FE came out, so it wasn't built with drafting in mind. After looking at the cards, I could see it did at least have a tribal theme: Thrulls, Thallids, Orcs, Drawves, Soldiers, Hominids and some Goblins. Also, the most expensive card in the set is Elvish Farmer ($2.50), which makes Saprolings that can be sac'd to gain 2 life. Really? Oh, and the packs have 8 cards each. So we drafted 5!

My first pick in the draft was Order of Leitbur:

White it was! My second pick was Icatian Town, which let's you play four 1/1 soldiers. Almost as good as Lingering Souls! I then proceeded to pick up 4 Icatian Javelineers, which are some of the only removal in the set.

I ended up in mostly W with some G for 2x Night Soils and a Feral Thallid (6/3, who can regenerate).

Some interesting things about FE - they had some cards with multiple artwork like the Javelineers above. It was a small set (102 cards), but with the extra art, it seemed like more. There's barely any removal and the average size of the creatures is probably power 1.3 and toughness 1.6. This causes for a lot of stalled boards. There's a reason you don't draft this set, but hey, it was a crazy Saturday and the price was right!

My first round opponent was Casey running mono-blue with 2x Deep Spawns and 2x High Tides. Combo anyone? High Tide makes all Islands double their output for a turn. And a bunch of Hominids.

Game one my Javelineers took out some of his dudes and I was able to overrun him with 1/1s before he could stabilize. Game two was a turn 4 Deep Spawn by way of High Tide. Ouch. I had an Elvish Hunter to keep the Spawn tapped, but he played a Merseine on it and I was done. Game three was a board stall, but my Thallids kept making Saprolings and I eventually got in FTW.

Second round was versus Jacob running Brassclaw Orcs (3/2 that can't block creatures with power 2 or more) and Hymn To Tourachs.

This is regarded as one of the best cards in the set. This and High Tide. Two discards at random is harsh! But my army of 1/1 dudes all spilled out onto the battlefield in a few turns and beat Jacob in two games without much resistance. He showed me his deck with Orcs and Thrulls and he just got mana screwed.

Onto the finals vs. Tully, who had called for us to meet there when we started. Tully and I have had many fun Magic battles over the years and this would be no different. We agree to draw and play for the extra pack. (1st was 4, 2nd was 3). He was running GB with Thallids and Thrulls. Lots of counters were needed for our games.

So with Night Soil, you like having guys in the graveyard to make more dudes to fight with. Unfortunately, he had some too, so we were fighting over who could trigger their Soil first. He also had a Druid that could make his forests into 2/3 fighters. Ugh.

I was able to take a game with my army of 1/1s and he stomped me back in game two with forests. Since I had some movie plans with the family, I needed to head out, so I offered the extra pack to him. He was stoked and asked me to sign it. He said he was going to start a collection of all the Magic packs. Good luck on that, Tully! It should make for a fun Chaos draft one day!

Props:
Joe, for a fun blast from the past draft. I'm inspired to buy a box myself!
Mythic, for a cool place to hang out!
Icatian Javelineers, you know to clear a board.
Slops:
Deep Spawn, no fair being a 6/6 trampler in a world of 1/1s!
The rain. Nice to look at, but a drag to run in.

Let me know your Fallen Empire experiences in the comments below!

GP Philly Pt. 2

The continuing adventures of Greg and Spencer into Day Two!

After an exhausting Day One, we all crashed early. The tropical storm was upgraded to a hurricane, which was moving up the coast. Coming right for us! Stores were boarding up their windows. Sandbags around the doors. Starbucks was closed! But the Marriott was connected to the convention center by a skybridge, so we never had to go outside. Up and atom for more Magic!

Day Two means drafts, so G&S got their seats into 8-man pods. Greg drafted a aggro GW pool with the GW Guidemage and Wild Beastmaster and a splash of black. He rolled to a 3-0. Spencer, unfortunately, did not get a good draft pool and bombed out 0-3. He decided to keep playing for the free cards and planeswalker points.

Greg's second draft wasn't as good as his first, but he beat his first round opponent and could draw the next two to get into the Top 8. Wow, what a ride! For more deets, check his webpage: GregsDayTwo

Russell and I did some side drafts and got food for the players. We also checked out some of the local sites.

Philly Mint

Philly Cheesesteak

Hanging with the Bell

Meanwhile, Greg drafted in the Top 8 and got paired up with Yuuya Watanabe, who has two Pro Tour Top 8's and 16 GP Top 8's to his name. Not bad. And Greg beat him. He's in the Top 4!

Some Czech beat Greg the next round, but Greg was in the money for $1500, a travel voucher to PT Quebec and the right to call himself a pro. So proud of our boy! Read the GP coverage at the mothership!

We partied later at the hotel and because of the hurricane, flights were cancelled and we ended up stuck for two extra days. So we played more Magic in the lobby with the other stuck players. LSV, Kibler, Wrapter and even Marshall from Limited Resources were all there. We played on team draft with him and his posse.

Weird format - draft normal then randomly pick 4-man teams. Teammates can help each other build decks. Then everyone randomly picks a player on the other team that they don't play. So now you have your opponents. Best team record gets all the rares. Then they pulled the rares "Italian" style. They put them all face down and each teammate would pick and flip one over. Whichever card had the highest CMC, that player would get them all. If there was a tie, then repeat. Spencer played on Marshall's team and they won in  a tie-breaker round. Best rare? Foil Jace. But Spencer didn't pull it. Oh well, still fun.

Whew, what a trip! Congrats to Greg's BIG win! Philly was fun and I look forward to another trip there. 

GP Philly 2012 Pt. 1

Grand Prix Philadelphia (Sealed) - October 27-28
Greg, Russell, Spencer and I representing SV and SC crews. Cali style.

Early morning flight from SFO. 4:30am early. Not joking. Real early.
Hung out with Ryan the night before and watched the Giants win at Tony & Alba's. He wished us well.
Spencer crashed at my place and we met the Smith brothers at their house the next morning.
Their dad Art was kind enough to drive us up for the flight.

Some bagels and coffee later, we were in our seats and airborne. Hey, let's try the onboard wifi!
$14.95 per trip with a warning that streaming videos will be too slow. Fire up MODO. Erg, a snail's pace. Read the fine print... "online gaming is considered streaming videos". What? Fire up the online chat with support. May I help you? REFUND! No refunds, sir. REFUND! I can send you a discount on your next purchase. ARGH!

Luckily, I had packed some books and crosswords. There was also in-flight movies in the headrests. Virgin America is cool. Didn't need the $2 headphones for a James Bond movie. Nice hat, Oddjob.

Touchdown in Philly around 4pm on Friday Grinder Day. Hop a train to our hotel, which is connected to the con center downtown. Run over after dropping off the bags and... they are out of playmats. Dang! Saw them later in the weekend selling for $50 at vendor tables. Double dang!

People are talking about some tropical storm moving up the Eastern seaboard. Huh? Whatever.

We all decide to skip the grinders in exchange for some dinner and scouting the area. Holy Moley, the Reading Terminal Market (pronounced "Reading") is across the street is like Foodie Heaven. So many food booths crammed into one huge building. Greek, Chinese, cheesesteaks, Italian, Moroccan, Deli, Mexican, smoothies, cookies, bakeries, etc. etc. We get a snack and hit up Yelp for some vegetarian places. Found a cool place with a bar and small plates. Delish! And I didn't lose the credit card game. Thanks for dinner, Spence!

Up at 7am for the sealed registration. But really 4am Cali time. Erg. More coffee and snacks at RTM. Seats arranged and almost 2000 players show up. The largest North American GP ever. Natch. Opened a pool, passed it and got my own with these rares:
Hallowed Fountain, Carnival Hellsteed, Volatile Rig, Angel of Serenity (Now), Grave Betrayal & Havoc Festival. Woe is me. What to build? Here's a feeble attempt:

1cc: Judge's Familiar
2cc: Az Charm, Drama Rescue, Doorkeeper, Concor Pegasus
3cc: Seller o' Birds, 2x Stealer, 2x Lobber Crew, 2x Para Grasp
4cc: Az Justiciar, Eyes Skies, Hussar, Phantom General, Rig, Soul Spirit
5cc: 2x Voidwielder
6cc: T's Judgement, Isp's Skywatch
7cc: Angel of Serenity (Now)

What a mess. UW with R slpash for Lobbers? What was I thinking? I should have played the Syncopate & Cancel in my sideboard to be a more controlling deck. My results will tell the tale.

Rd1: played John with Golgari splash R
Game1 died to Shaman, CJack, Guildmage and removal. Game2 his Imp with +2/+2 counters did me in.
Rd2: played Jeff with Radkos
Game1 got out Angel and he scooped. Game2 was all about a timely Ragemutt taking me down. Came back game3 to win with detain and Stealers stealing many cards.
Rd3: played Ant with 4color (GBWU)
G1: was flooded and died to early beats. Game2 got out double Lobbers FTW. Game3 my Angel was too late vs. his Rhino with a Passage.
Rd4: played Mitchell with Azor plus G
Angel took game 1 without much resistance. Game two was longer, but my Lobbers did the trick.
Rd5 at 2-2 - do or die time. Played Eric with Seles plus U
Wow, his deck was good. Detainers, flyers, pumps and a Verdict for dessert. In game2, I got out my Angel, but it was supremely verdict-ed and that's all she wrote.

Well, five rounds --> drop was my worst performance in awhile. Spencer and Greg were still rolling - they had great decks. Shake it off and try some Twisted Draft. Russell decided to side draft as well. What's Twisted Draft you ask? $25 for 3 random boosters and draft them. Everyone gets a different three. Here's what I got:

Invasion (yay!) and 2x Dissention. Maybe force some old school Ravnica guilds?
Here's what I ended up with:
1cc: Spell Snare, Dispel, Vendetta
2cc: Sage Owl, Daggerdrome Imp, Mask of Ayacyn, 2x Ravenous Rats, Vicious Hunger
3cc: Encrust, Root Commando, Probe, Searchlight Geist, Minister of Imped, Balloon Peddler
4cc: Enigma Eidolon, Disciple of Tevesh, Lay Bare
5cc: Deny Reality, Homicidal Seclusion, Soul Seizer, Spire Monitor
6cc: Wrexial, Badass of the Deep!

Blue black with some tricks. I went 2-1 and split the finals for 5 packs. My finals opponent who won fanned out his packs and asked me to pick one, then open it. A Temple Garden was inside. Yes!

Greg and Spencer got to Day Two! Greg actually went 9-1. Check out his story on his webpage here:
eastwestdraftcast.com.

Check out the rest of the adventure in part two, electric boogaloo! Hey, why are all the stores closing and taping up their windows? (cue foreshadowing music...)