After the standard tournament we had a draft - my personal favourite format, although i'm not quite as keen on the SoM format itself. Scars is okay, and it doesn't seem to rely on bombs as much as M11 before it did, but the lack of exciting rares does make the pack opening part slightly less exciting. As much as i enjoy playing nuts and bolts limited for limited's sake, i like to open an awesome card as much as the next guy.
I ended up with just two rares, neither of which were on-colour but both of which will see their way into my EDH decks. I know this isn't very "Spikey" but i just couldn't resist, besides, True Conviction seems amazing for my soldier deck! On top of that, i actually ended up with a solid deck and a 2-1 record. I would've gone 3-0 but my 3rd opponent simply drafted a better deck than mine and piloted it nicely. We had an insanely long stalemate game which was broken by Heavy Arbalest + Infect guys combo. It sounds janky, i know, but when both players have 4-5 medium sized guys each it gets the job done.
As fun as that game was, and don't get me started on my first round game against the Ajani kid from the last post (I ended up milling him in both games with Screeching Silclaw - i'm not joking), i actually wanted to write a little about my draft technique for this set.
I don't pretend to be a limited god - although i do enjoy it more than standard, on the whole - but i've done well in my few Scars drafts and feel like a lot of people seem to be missing something in Scars. While everyone else veers towards Infect.dec or Metalcraft.dec, i've had much more success with Goodstuff.dec. I often end up in black because of the "nobody drafts it" feeling it has (at the last Steel City Magic i ended up with three copies of Grasp of Darkness!) I go down the LSV-style of card advantage a lot, which is easier than you might think in this set.
Instil Infection seems like a pretty poor card in most sets and would likely make the cut as filler once in a while. But it's been incredible for me so far in Scars. Against Infect decks in particular it wrecks so many of their important creatures (regenerate blight mamba? nah) at the same time as drawing you a card. In terms of consistency i also rate Grasp higher than Galvanic Blast. Blast is a great card, to be sure, but without metalcraft it's merely "good." Grasp, on the other hand, kills basically every relevant creature in the set.
Oh, and lest we forget, black has Skinrender. D'uh.
As for blue, it feels like a pretty normal set for that colour. Proliferate is fairly underwhelming to my mind so far. I did have Steady Progress this weekend with both Trigon of Corruption and Culling Dais but never at the same time. Maybe i just haven't played with it enough. I like Sky Eel School a lot and Plated Seastrider holds the Infect deck off for quite a while by itself. Again, none of these cards are spectacular, but that's the point i'm making.
Would i pass Skithiryx or Hand of the Praetors though? Of course not.
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