Woods RTR Draft Sunday Special

Woods RTR Draft Sunday Special
January 6th, 2013 (first of the year!) 4pm.
Chris, Ian, Sean, Shawn, Paul the Judge and me.

Ian texted me that it had been too long without a draft. Aye, this be true, laddie.
The holiday break was difficult to get guys together since we all had crazy schedules.
The UCSC kids were mostly gone (or playing in GPs!) and some others went skiing.
Where's the Magic dedication, people!

So when he contacted me, I jumped in quick. Getting Paul the Judge for #6 and we were set.
Woods was still selling slices (cheap eats, FTW) and the heat lamps were glowing outside.

My first pack had junk - no good rare or removal - so I went with a Gore-House.

When in doubt, draft speed. That's my new motto. That and "street gum is not free gum"*.
Got another Gore dude and some Glees to make me feel all Rakdos-y. Then a late Teleportal
opened up the Izzet option. I continued to pick both guilds until I got some good counters and a Blustersquall. The Angel of Serenity in pack 3 was a cruel mistress. Whip me, beat me, but at least
be splashable. Sigh.

My deck:
3 Gore-House
Splatter Thug
Skywatch Knight
Electromancer
Voidwielder
Runewing
Frost Weird
Fae Imposter
Judge Familiar
2 Cobblebrutes
Courier Mill-dude
Izzet Stratocaster

2 Backlash
Explosive Impact
Teleportal
Pursuit of Flight
Syncopate
Annilating Fire
Blustersquall

SB
Traitorious Instinct
Courier Mill-dude
Thoughtflare
Blistercoil Weird
Bellow's Lizard
Gob Rally
2 Glee
Thrill Kill
Sewer Shambler
Launch Party
Batterhorn
Dispel

The plan: get out dudes and counter their threats and finish with a Teleportal or 'Squall

First round was versus Paul the Judge. Hey, at least it'd be easy to call a judge!
He was next to me in the draft and he started playing blue. Then white. Then I knew he had the Angel. This was not good. Luckily, I teleported my dudes to his face game one, but the Angel came out game two and crashed me. Game 3 was long since I held counters and he held the Angel until I had whittled away his life and we was forced to play it. Backlash, baby! For exacties. So good!

Second round I was paired down with Ian. He played Sean close, who had a great Selesnia deck. There were some talk about all the Spheres of Safeties that went around -- did Ian have them? Well, he started with a Lobber Crew and then another. And out came the Spheres -- 3 of them! Oof. It made it 9 mana to attack him with one guy! His Lobbers then pinged me to death. Ugh. Game two, I got in some early beats and then when he walled up, I burned him out with the Impact and Fire. Game three, I sided in the other Courier and played that turn two with a Pursuit on it turn three. Ended up milling him that game. Whew!

Finals vs. Sean, master of the Selesnia deck. He was the only GW drafter at the table and his deck was solid. I took the first game even though he had many pump spells that killed my guys. My Familiar countered his Centaur Accord and I was able to burn him out. Game two was in my grasp when I stole his 7/7 slime with Traitorious and then played Teleportal overloaded. He had a fog with Druid's Deliverance however, and came back to stomp me. Game three was all centaurs populated and he took the crown.

Ended up in 3rd place (Chris had a better game record) and got a Deathrite Shaman, Smiter and Chemister for my trouble. It was a great pool with 4 duals and the Angel too. Hopefully, we'll get in some more RTR before the new set, Gatecrash, comes out at the end of the month.

Speaking of which, did you see this?!?

Oh man, I wanna play this with Rite of Replication so bad. How does that Modern combo not feel good? My other fav spoiler right now is:

 

Just thinking of the combos to play with him. Make him indestructible and ping him every turn? Too much fun. They are cheap right now for pre-ordering at $2 and $4 each. Are they constructed playable?

Thanks for reading. See you at the Gatecrash pre-release!
-JL

(* - paraphrasing a line from a classic holiday movie: can you guess which one?)