Worldwake Draft Report (From the Launch Party)
February 9, 2010
Last week, I had the difficult decision of choosing a deck to play for FNM. It was between Jund or RG Valakut. I was undefeated with Jund in the previous FNM, but I went with RG Valakut. The combo deck is much more fun to play and I was excited to play with the 3 Chandra Nalaar that I won in the past FNM.
I made it to the tournament site right before they got started. I went over to the TO to pay and he said, “You in on the draft?” I thought, that’s cool having a draft along with the Standard tournament. I said, “No, but I’m here to play Standard.” He said, “There’s no Standard tonight. We only do draft for the Launch Party. So, you wanna draft?”
I had some experience with Zendikar Sealed, but I never drafted Zendikar or Worldwake before. I didn’t even have time to read the whole Worldwake spoiler. Still, I wanted to get my weekly MTG tournament fix so after 3.2 seconds, I said, “Sure.”
While the players were getting situated, I tried to remember some of the Zendikar Draft articles I read in the past. I recalled that red/black was pretty good. Mono red was powerful if you could pick up some Spire Barrage. Also, many writers talked about how aggressive the format was and that drafting control was pretty bad. However, out of the few spoilers I saw, it looked like there were good control cards in Worldwake.
I asked my friend, Jacob, one the better players at the store, for advice. He said Allies were strong because of Worldwake.
The draft booster packs were Zendikar/Worldwake/Worldwake. We had about 30 players and the tournament was 4 rounds of swiss with a cut to the top 8. We were broken up into four draft tables.
I found my seat and got ready to draft.
My first pick was between Torch Slinger, Bladetusk Boar, and Kor Skyfisher. I took Torch Slinger. After that I took a couple Highland Berserkers and Goblin Shortcutters to stay on color. I dabbled into black and blue with Heartstabber Mosquito, Nimana Sell-Sword, and Umara Raptor. I got a late Inferno Trap and Spire Barrage so I thought Mono Red was open. Bladetusk Boar came back around, which further confirmed the red signal.
The first Worldwake pack rewarded me with Celestial Colonnade. Yeah, I’m a rare drafter 
Fortunately, I didn’t have to pass an powerful red card. After that, I mostly took red cards.
I think I went for Mono Red too soon since I passed Tomb Hex for a random red dork. The red cards were solid but not as good as the ones in the Zendikar booster.
In the third pack, I was surprised that red dried up. The only playable red cards I saw were Claws of Valakut, Skitter of Lizards, Grotag Thrasher, and Deathforge Shaman. Also, Grotag Thrasher and Deathforge Shaman were in the same pack. I took Kitesail and Pilgrim’s Eye because I thought I wouldn’t have enough playables for my Mono Red deck.
In the end, I ended up having to splash a Tomb Hex I drafted in the third pack.
| Red Deck Wins (Splashing Black) | |||||||||||
Creatures (16) | Spells (6) Lands (18) Sideboard (14) |
| |||||||||
I wanted to play 17 lands since I had Pilgrim’s Eye. But I didn’t have a playable 23rd spell that would fit the deck.
On to the matches.
Match 1
I got the bye.
Match 2 (Versus Don)
Game 1
Don had a black/blue deck. On the draw, I had a great start while his only early play was Bojuka Brigand, which is pretty bad against me because it can’t block. My early plays were:
T1: Skitter of Lizards (He went to 19 life.)
T2: Teetering Peaks and attack (16 life)
T3: Kick Skitter of Lizards #2 and attack (13 life)
T4: Cunning Sparkmage, attack, and ping on his EOT (9 life)
On his turn 5, he drew his 4th land and tapped out for Jagwasp Swarm. I countered with Claws of Valakut on my 1/1 Skitter of Lizards, which made it a 3/1 first striker. I attacked. He traded his creature for my 2/2 and went down to 6 life.
Turn 6, he tapped out for Caustic Crawler. I pinged him EOT (5 life). Then, I cast Crusher Zendikon ftw.
Game 2
This game was close. He had flyers and I had Shortcutters and Smoldering Spires so neither of us were blocking.
I made a nice play by casting Crusher Zendikon on Smoldering Spires when he had to block it. I got the land back but then I misplayed it. I had Grotag Thrasher and he only had one blocker when I played it the second time. I thought it was okay to play it since I wanted to maximize my mana development since Spires enters the battlefield tapped. But I already had a lot of mana so I didn’t need to maximize my mana.
Fortunately, I got lucky. He attacked me down to 3 life but left only one blocker. He was at six and I topdecked Spire Barrage ftw.
Matches: 1-0
Games: 2-0
Match 3 (Versus Anthony)
Game 1
This was a beating. I had a slow start and he had the aggro draw of 3 Wind Zendikon and Kor Skyfisher. I didn’t draw removal so I quickly died to his flyers.
Game 2
This was an interesting game. He had the advantage with flyers and four defenders, Makindi Shieldmate, Guardian Zendikon, and 2 Perimeter Captain (!). However, his flyers were Zendikons and he had to tap them for mana so that gave me time to draw removal to kill his flyers. Also, luckily he blocked Guardian Zendikon with my 6/1 first striker.
On the critical play, I drew Inferno Trap and had a big decision to make. He had one flyer left. I could kill it but I was already at 4 life and he had Makindi Shieldmate and 2 Perimeter Captain that could gain him a lot of life. I chose to kill a Perimeter Captain instead. Then, I attacked with everyone to take him down to 8 life. Unfortunately, I forgot that his Calcite Snapper could attack so I had to cast an unkicked Skitter of Lizards as a chump blocker.
This proved to be a bad play since he didn’t attack with Calcite Snapper. I think he thought it was a defender like I did lol. On his turn, he cast Vapor Snare on my 6/1 first striker and tried to attack with it. I told him he couldn’t since it was tapped. Still, he took me down to 2 life.
He could’ve won by stealing my untapped Skitter of Lizards and then attacking with it, Snapper, and his flyer. However, I misplayed right back. I topdecked Smoldering Spires, which would’ve given me the win but I forgot to trigger the ability of Cosi’s Ravager. Doh.
I sheepishly asked him for a takeback but he didn’t let me.
Matches: 1-1
Games: 2-2
Match 4 (Versus Matthew)
Game 1
Matthew had a red/white deck but it had no removal. My opening hand had Slavering Nulls and a Swamp. The creature wrecked his hand as I had Shortcutter and Spires so that he couldn’t block. He didn’t recover from the card disadvantage.
Game 2
I cast Claws of Valakut on a Highland Berserker on turn 3. Since he didn’t have removal, that creature easily dominated the battlefield. Shortcutter and Kitesail made it so he couldn’t chump block and I finished the swiss rounds with a 3-1 record.
Matches: 2-1 (3-1 with the bye)
Games: 4-2
I didn’t think I would make the top 8 since I got paired down in round two. Also, there were six undefeated players after round three. However, the tiebreaker gods smiled upon me and I somehow made it in. I felt pretty lucky considering that my misplay in round three cost me the match.
Quarterfinals (Versus Steven)
Games 1 and 2
He got mana screwed both games while I had good draws. In game 1, he mulliganed to six and kept a one-lander. He was on the draw, I think. But that play still seems loose.
I didn’t feel too bad winning by mana screw because his deck was three color Allies without much fixing. It seemed a good matchup for me.
Matches: 3-1
Games: 6-2
Semifinals (Versus Jacob D)
Game 1
Jacob D was also playing Mono Red. His deck was more controlling with Chain Reaction and Lavaball Trap. Game 1 was even until he wrecked me with Lavaball Trap.
Game 2
He had a slow start and didn’t draw any Wraths. I quickly killed him with flying Lizards and Shortcutters.
Game 3
On the draw, I had a turn 1 Skitter of Lizards (19 life). He had a blocker to trade with on turn 2. I played Slavering Nulls and then took him to 14 life after enchanting it with Claws of Valakut. He took 6 more (8 life) before drawing Searing Blaze to kill it. I finished him off with Grotag Thrasher and Spire Barrage.
Matches: 4-1
Games: 8-3
Finals (Versus Jacob A)
Two “Jacobs” in the top 4. I am the Jacobslayer lol.
I thought we would split since he split the finals with me in the previous FNM. However, he liked his blue/red deck and wanted to play. We negotiated a 10/8 split in packs so the loser wouldn’t lose too much. The normal split was 12/6.
Game 1
This game was pretty even but then he flooded horribly and I beat him a flying Grotag Thrasher.
Game 2
I was winning the early game but then he played Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs and my whole offense was stopped. I didn’t draw anything to kill it and he came back by a bunch of card draw spells and flyers.
Game 3
Unfortunately for him, he didn’t cast anything this game. He kept a two land hand and didn’t draw another land for five turns. I played T1 Lizards, T3 Lizards, T4 Claws, and T5 Crusher Zendikon. Yeah, it wasn’t pretty.
Matches: 5-1
Games: 10-4
My deck was very fast but it did feel a little underpowered at times. If I was to build it over again, I’d make these changes:
+1 Nimana Sell-Sword
+2 Caustic Crawler
+1 Heartstabber Mosquito
+1 Dead Reckoning
-1 Cosi’s Ravager
-1 Kitesail
-1 Claws of Valakut
-1 Skitter of Lizards
-1 Spire Barrage
+6 Swamp
-6 Mountain
A couple notes about kicker. I played Skitter of Lizards on turn one more times than on turn three. It may seem bad to play it as a 1/1. But it’s usually the right play since you maximize your mana. And a T1 Lizards does the same amount of damage up to T4 as a T3 Lizards. Also, I played Torch Slinger unkicked about as many times as I kicked it.
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