Conflux Draft Tournament Report (Alara/Conflux/Conflux Boosters)
March 27, 2009 | Posted by Dee
Yesterday, I played in a Alara/Conflux/Conflux draft at my local comic book shop. We had two tables of six Magic The Gathering players. The tournament director paired us up regardless of table, so I had one game where I played against someone from the other table.
We played four rounds of swiss.
The first pack gave me a tough decision. It was between Feral Hydra and Resounding Thunder. I picked the green fireball creature but in hindsight, I should’ve pick the red burn spell. It’s hard to find good cheap removal. Resounding Thunder fits well in the Five Color Control archetype. That archetype can easily get to eight mana and it wants the card advantage that Resounding Thunder can bring.
Plus, there are a ton of cheap aggressive flyers in Conflux, which makes Feral Hydra not as effective as it used to be in triple Shards of Alara draft.
For my next pick, I took Drumhunter. For the rest of the Shards of Alara booster, I ended with these cards as my playables:
Jund Panorama
Executioners Capsule
Branching Bolt
Waveskimmer Aven
Cloudheath Drake
Bloodpyre Elemental
Knight of the Skyward Eye
Exuberant Firestoker
Incurable Ogre
With these cards, I realized that I needed to play all five colors since my most powerful cards were in all five colors.
I opened the first Conflux booster pack and was happy to take Noble Hierarch. There were better cards in the pack but Noble Hierarch would pay for a good chunk of my draft 
Since I had my eye set on Five Color Control, I took mana fixing highly. I picked up Sylvan Bounty, Rupture Spire, and Armillary Sphere.
The last Conflux booster gave me another difficult decision. It was between Paragon of the Amesha and Maelstrom Archangel. I thought the white creature was the better card but I didn’t know if the mythic rare was worth much money. In the end, I picked the Maelstrom Archangel and was happy to find out that it’s worth around $7 on eBay.
Here was my final decklist.
| Five Color Midrange Beatdown | |||||||||||
Creatures (14) | Spells (8)
Lands (18) Noteable Sideboard Cards (13) |
| |||||||||
I thought my decklist was not bad, but I did overestimate the power of two cards. I’ll talk about these two cards after I go over the matches.
Match 1 vs Naya Aggro
Game 1
He started off well by killing my Spore Burst tokens and Drumhunter with Volcanic Fallout. However, I played some creatures to come back and we soon at a standstill. I added Executioners Capsule and it looked like I could break through. Then, he played another Volcanic Fallout on my first main phase, which I found questionable, because it left him with only Sacellum Archers while I had Beacon Behemoth and Nacatl Hunt-Pride. Also, we had no cards in hand.
However, I made a huge mistake. I attacked with both my guys. He blocked Beacon Behemoth and then shot Nacatl Hunt-Pride before damage. I totally forgot about the damage from Volcanic Fallout. So, I traded both my fatties for a Sacellum Archers 
We were both in topdeck mode. He got a 3/3 Wild Nacatl but I drew into Knight of the Skyward Eye and Ember Weaver. He was at 11 life while I was at 5 life. I felt like he drew a land so I decided to go for it. I attacked him down to 6 with my knight. He attacked me down to 2. I swung with everyone but he had drawn Fiery Fall while I had drawn two straight lands.
Game 2
He had a fast draw and easily killed me since my draw was slow. I spent most of my early turns fixing my mana. By the time, I played something worthwhile, he had enough guys to swarm and kill me.
I think I made a mistake by drawing instead of playing since he had a fast aggro Naya decklist.
Match Count: 0-1
Game Count: 0-2
Match 2 vs Jund Aggro
Game 1
I went up against 4-Quenchable-Fire.dec. Yes, my opponent had four Quenchable Fire. He killed me in game one with a fast start and three Quenchable Fire to the dome. I was one turn from killing him but he was able to chump block my big creatures until he topdecked the third Quenchable Fire for the win since I was at 3 life.
Game 2
He had another fast start including a Quietus Spike. I was soon at 7 life. However, I wrecked his three card hand of gas with Voices from the Void. Then, my two flyers finished him off while my ground fatties kept his creatures at bay.
Game 3
He had three Quenchable Fire but it wasn’t enough. Voices from the Void showed up again to knock out three spells out of his hand. I stabilized at eight life. He had small creatures while my guys were bigger. Then, I played a 10/10 Feral Hydra. He drew his card for the turn and conceded.
Match Count: 1-1
Game Count: 2-3
Match 3 vs Esper Midrange
Game 1
Fun game for me as my deck came out to play. I went turn one Noble Hierarch, turn three Ember Weaver, turn four Rhox Meditant, and turn five Nacatl Hunt-Pride. His first play was a turn four Esper Cormorants.
After my early turns, I had removal for his creatures and we were soon off to the second game.
Game 2
This game was close.
I had Nacalt Hunt-Pride and a 5/5 Feral Hydra. However, he had infinite chump blockers and his Scavenger Drake got pretty big. I drew some more creatures and raced him on the ground.
I played Sylvan Bounty, which helped me win the race. On the critical turn, I attacked him down to 2 life. He had one turn to live since I had much more creatures than him. Still, he had a 6/6 Scavenger Drake and I was at 4 life. I had Ember Weaver ready to chump block. He needed a topdeck to win, but he drew Sphinx Sovereign with only seven mana in play.
Match Count: 2-1
Game Count: 4-3
Match 4 vs Esper Aggro
Game 1
I thoroughly punted this game. I had Executioners Capsule and Drag Down. I thought in my mind, I better kill his guys while he’s tapped out. Esper has a lot of ways to save its creatures like Hindering Light, Unsummon, Countersquall, and Call to Heel. However, for some reason, I used my removal spells when he had mana open.
He had Unsummon to counter Executioners Capsule and Countersquall to negate Drag Down. These cards kept his flyers alive and I lost a close game that I probably should’ve won had I used my removal better.
Game 2
On the play, I kept this sketchy hand:
3 Forest
Drag Down
Voices from the Void
Rhox Meditant
Sylvan Bounty
I should’ve mulliganed since even if I get a Swamp, Drag Down and Voices from the Void for two is not very exciting. Also, it’s a slow hand.
I got lucky to draw a Plains early. Also, I was able to hit him for three cards with Voices from the Void. However, the slowness of my hand caught up to me as he came back strong with the card advantage of Scepter of Insight. Scepter of Insight ultimately won him the game as I kept drawing land and he just overwhelmed me with a horde of small Esper creatures.
It didn’t help that I took forever to draw a red or blue mana source. This left Cumber Stone and Bloodpyre Elemental stranded in my hand for many turns. If I had the right mana earlier, it could’ve made the difference.
I could’ve given myself a chance to avoid the color screw if I had mulliganed my opening hand.
Match Count: 2-2
Game Count: 4-5
What I Learned
I asked my last opponent if he could critique my decklist. He seemed like a good player.
He said I could’ve cut a Plains for Kaleidostone. This made sense since I felt like I was getting flooded a lot. I have a top heavy curve but I can go with just 17 land since I had Armillary Sphere, Sylvan Bounty, Noble Hierarch, and Drumhunter. Plus, Kaleidostone and the two Rhox Meditants can help me draw land if I need it.
He recommended playing Waveskimmer Aven over a Nacatl Hunt-Pride since I didn’t have a lot of evasion. That seemed like a good idea since there are lot of cheap flyers in Conflux and Waveskimmer Aven could block them.
Also, he said he really didn’t think Nacatl Hunt-Pride was very good. I told him he was right since it wasn’t as powerful as I thought it would be especially with so much evasion in Conflux. Actually, after playing with it, I would rather have Cavern Thoctar.
Finally, after examining my decklist, I realized I should cut a Forest and a Plains for a Mountain and an Island. This move improves the power of my four domain cards while adding more mana sources for my splash cards. The mana base for my main colors would be weakened but I think the trade off is worth it.
Just counting the lands and Armillary Sphere, I would still have eight green mana sources and six white mana sources. And the white mana sources does not include Noble Hierarch or Sylvan Bounty.
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