This is how I felt after going 7-2 to clinch my first day two at a GP:
After two draft pods, six rounds, two byes, and a 3-3 record. I looked like this:
But before we get there, let’s talk about Sunday morning, 8:30 AM. I met up with Hunter in the empty hall, chairs outnumbering people ten to one, and he asks, “Have you ever done a timed draft?” To which I respond, “We’re drafting today?”
Way in the back of my brain, I knew that all limited GPs had a draft component on the second day. Yet after the long drive to Baltimore, the longer day of Magic, and the scarce few hours of sleep, I had simply assumed we’d be battling with the sealed decks from yesterday. Whoops.
To answer Hunter’s question, I have done exactly one timed draft before. It was at a limited event at my LGS to determine the next member of Team Pandemonium. I didn’t win that one.
My pod didn’t have anyone I recognized in it, which seemed like good news for me. I opened my first pack to reveal a Sarkhan Dragonspeaker, which I snapped off quickly. Despite opening roughly three boxes worth of Khans, I have never cracked a Sarkhan and I was excited about the prospect of an indestructible dragon that also Flame Slashes. My plan was to force red and see where I ended up Mardu, Temur, or Jeskai. After picking up a Burn Away, I picked up a couple of fixers, two Leaping Masters, a late Ride Down, and a really late Efreet Weaponmaster in pack one. Midway through pack two I cemented myself in Jeskai by picking up more late Weaponmasters. I found a Flying Crane Technique that I certainly wanted and took a Rattleclaw Mystic out of a pack with nothing in it, since it’s still pretty good even without green mana. At the end of the draft my deck looked like this:
GP Baltimore Draft Deck One
| Lands (18) 1 Frontier Bivouac 2 Wind-Scarred Crag 1 Swiftwater Cliffs 5 Mountain 5 Plains 4 Island Creatures (15) 2 Leaping Master 1 War-Name Aspirant 1 Jeskai Student 4 Efreet Weaponmaster 1 Rattleclaw Mystic 1 Master of Pearls 1 Monastery Flock 1 Bloodfire Expert 2 Mardu Warshrieker 1 Warden of the Eye Spells (7) 2 Defiant Strike 1 Ride Down 1 Barrage of Boulders 1 Burn Away 1 Sarkhan Dragonspeaker 1 Flying Crane Technique | Sideboard (4) 1 Sage-Eye Harrier 1 Scaldkin 1 Master the Way 1 Warden of the Eye |
Ultimately, I didn’t love the deck. While I imagined I could get some free wins out of Sarkhan and Technique, the deck felt very clunky and disjointed. The deck looked like a tempo deck without the…tempo. I had lots of creatures but not enough ways to push through damage. I would have been happy with the deck if instead of two Defiant Strikes I had two Crippling Chills, or two Force Aways, or two Arc Lightnings, or any combination of these cards.
I lost my first round in a very close match against a Temur deck that came down to a game three where I would win if he didn’t play around Ride Down. He did.
Round two, I got a bye. Thanks seven person pod!
Round three, I played around a nice guy named Austin who had never drafted Khans before that day. Turns out it didn’t matter and his Sultai-two-treasure-cruise-two-dead-drop deck got there.
So with the help of a bye, I had 1-2’ed my pod. I was ready to redeem myself in the next draft.
Here’s what I drafted in the second pod:
GP Baltimore Draft Deck Two
| Lands (18) 2 Swiftwater Cliffs 1 Rugged Highlands 1 Mountain 7 Island 7 Forest Creatures (15) 2 Embodiment of Spring 3 Alpine Grizzly 1 Snowhorn Rider 1 Glacial Stalker 1 Jeskai Windscout 1 Mystic of the Hidden Way 1 Sagu Archer 1 Wooly Loxodon 1 Longshot Squad 1 Bear’s Companion 1 Whirlwind Sages 1 Hooting Mandrils Spells (7) 1 Savage Punch 1 Roar of Challenge 2 Crippling Chills 2 Icy Blast 1 Crater’s Claws | Sideboard (6) 1 Cancel 1 Wetland Sambar 1 Hooting Mandrils 1 Kin-Tree Warden 1 Waterwhirl 1 Scaldkin |
Now this is a deck. First off, the mana is good. The deck is base blue/green with three dual lands and two Embodiment of Spring to facilitate the splash. Second, the deck has a bunch of efficiently costed creatures, a ton of four power dudes to trigger ferocious, and an insane end game in Crater’s Claws and TWO Icy Blast. I was feeling good about this pod.
Round one, I lost to a guy on Four Color Control who wiped my board twice with Death Frenzy. In another game he responded to my lethal Icy Blast with his own Icy Blast. In that same game he Mindswiped me for nine. I just couldn’t win.
Round two, I got another bye. This is real life folks.
Round three, I finally won a match by handily dismantling a Mardu warriors deck that stumbled on mana.
So I won one match of actual Magic, but managed to 3-3 my first ever day two.
Prize payout was to the top 100. I was 117 going into the last round and anxiously awaited the final standings sheet. Then I saw this:
Shawn “Mr.103” Massak. I guess it could have been worse though. I could have been Michael Egolf or Jake Ralston.
Regardless, despite finishing right outside the money, I was happy to have made my first day two and come out with a final record of 10-5 for the weekend. If anything, this GP has got me excited again for competitive Magic with my calendar penciled in with back to back PTQs over the following weekends. We’ll see if I can finish in the money next time.
At age 15, while standing in a record store with his high school bandmates, Shawn Massak made the uncool decision to spend the last of his money on a 7th edition starter deck (the one with foil Thorn Elemental). Since that fateful day 11 years ago, Shawn has decorated rooms of his apartment with MTG posters, cosplayed as Jace, the Mindsculptor, and competes with LSV for the record of most islands played (lifetime). When he’s not playing Magic, Shawn works as a job coach for people with disabilities and plays guitar in an indie-pop band.