Hey folks, I'm doing something different tonight.
This is going to be a gameplay journal of sorts. Me vomitting all over the page about a recent gameplay experience. I am to make these whenever I do something interesting playing Magic.
In this case, I drafted Shadowmoor with four other guys at my local game shop.
This is cool to me for a number of reasons.
1. I rarely get to play limited formats that are no longer relevant.
2. This was highly nostalgic for me. I got into Magic just after Shards of Alara was released, so most of my friend's casual decks at the time consisted of janky piles of Shadowmoor/Eventide cards.
I'll spoil the ending of this story by telling you straight up, I didn't do well. I think I may have come in last place. We planned to do Round Robin (each participant plays each other participant once, the winner is the player with the best overall score) and have one player sit out each round because we had odd numbers.
We quit after three rounds because, God only knows why, we didn't play with timers as we might at an more official event. Thus the games went far longer than they needed to, and it got late in a hurry.
Like I said I didn't do so hot. I was highly unfamiliar with the format and its ins and outs. I forced my picks too hard and didn't pick up much removal.
My first pick: Wilt-Leaf Liege.
My second pick: Spectral Procession.
My third pick: Wilf-Leaf Cavaliers.
With picks like those, and play skills like mine, I thought it was a sign. "You must play green-white. NO EXCEPTIONS." So I did just that. I almost exclusively picked cards that were green-white when available, to try to make the most of my fantastic first few picks.
Now shadowmoor is an interesting set. The flexibility of hybrid mana spells allows to more easily than in most settings draft a three color deck. However the color-matters or basic land-matters effects of a lot of card incentivize you to play few colors. Its a nice bit of tension that allows for some interesting archetypes (or at least I suspect as much, I wouldn't know, I'm terrible at Magic :P )
I ended up with a very top-heavy green-white deck.
No three drops. A bunch of four drops. A number of 6 or higher drops. Only two Last Breaths to act as my removal.
Can you tell that I had no idea what I was doing?
I will say though, that despite my craptasticity, I managed to pull of the coolest thing I've done in Magic limited I can recall.
I managed to assemble the following boardstate.
Kithkin Rabble with power greater than six (thanks to my procession).
Mossbridge Troll (a personal favorite than mine).
Pale Wayfarer (which I very nearly cut for having too many high cost creatures).
On my turn, I declare Troll and Rabble as attackers.
In response to my attack tap Rabble (who has vigilance, mind you) and Wayfarer to give Troll +20/+20. In response to that, use my open mana to use Wayfarer's untap ability to give Troll protection from my opponent's most relevant color.
Like a boss.
I did have to attack three times to get it to stick because he had a high life total (damned Last Breaths...) and two colors of creatures, but eventually I did secure a very dynamic victory.
Felt good man.
What's the most dramatic victory you've gotten in limited?
Cool.
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