8/21/10 Top Finishers: M11 Draft #2
1. 4-0 Mono-Red Burn by Joe Hammond
2. 3-1 BW Aggro by Dan Hooghkirk
3. 3-1 UB Control by Michael Smith
4. 3-1 UR Counterburn by Dominic Casali
5. 3-1 UW Skies by Brent Kollinger
2 rounds of play saw 14 players with at least one defeat, leaving me, Michael, Joe, and Ranger Dan as the only unbeaten players. Round 3 pitted the slower, blue-based decks Michael and I were playing against two quicker decks that Joe and Dan were piloting. Speed won out in both cases, pitting Joe's "I guess no one else at my table was drafting red" burn deck against Dan's "oops, I thought I was still drafting Zendikar block" black/white 2-drops deck in the de-facto final. After a well-fought match, Joe prevailed 2-1. Michael and I rebounded to win our round 4 matches and take 3rd and 4th, and Brent made an impressive recovery from a first round loss to jump all the way back to 5th and finish in the prizes. A lot of other players were piloting some pretty good decks as well, and many players finished 2-2 to earn at least 2 League Points for their efforts.
As promised, I have another winning decklist to share. This time it's a 42-card mono-red concoction:
Mono-Red Burn by Joe Hammond:
Creatures (11)
1x Chandra's Spitfire
1x Ember Hauler
2x Fire Servant
1x Gargoyle Sentinel
1x Goblin Balloon Brigade
1x Goblin Piker
2x Goblin Tunneler
1x Magma Phoenix
1x Prodigal Pyromancer
Other Spells (14)
2x Chandra's Outrage
2x Combust
1x Fireball
1x Fling
4x Lava Axe
1x Lightning Bolt
2x Pyretic Ritual
1x Shiv's Embrace
Lands (17)
17x Mountain
Relevant Sideboard (1)
1x Destructive Force
Relevant Hate Draft (5)
1x Blinding Mage
1x Cloud Crusader
1x Mitotic Slime
1x Negate
1x Overwhelming Stampede
When I saw this list, I was interested by a few things I saw, particularly the doubles of Combust and Pyretic Ritual, both of which are usually not played in main decks, let alone two copies. After the draft, I played my deck in a match against it (he won 2-1) and asked Joe a few questions about his deck so that I could share the insight with everyone else. He told me that he played the Combusts because he wasn't seeing much white or blue being passed around, so he figured everyone else would be playing them (which apparently was correct, as it was relevant against all 4 of his opponents, and me as well), and the rituals helped power out Magma Phoenix and Fire Servant. He also mentioned being particularly impressed with how effective Chandra's Outrage was.
Also, this is only my own opinion here, but I think it's worth noting that double Fire Servant makes those Lava Axes a heck of a lot better. I normally wouldn't recommended playing a deck with only 11 creatures and that many spells that don't affect the board, but when they eat half of your opponent's starting life total it doesn't matter very much whether they affect the board or not. It's definitely an interesting deck and a good example of the types of things you can do in draft that you usually can't do in sealed.
Finally, with such a large event, there were a bunch of League Points handed out (a total of 65 between the 18 players), which dramatically shifted the standings:
0*. 12 - Dominic Casali (3 events)
1. 12 - Joe Hammond (3)
2. 10 - Dan Hooghkirk (2)
3. 9 - Michael Smith (2)
4. 7 - Brent Kollinger (2)
5. 5 - Bryant Benson (3)
5. 5 - Scott Record (1)
7. 4 - Will Sturges (1)
8. 3 - Liz DiGangi (2)
8. 3 - Alycia Johnson (2)
8. 3 - John Kreinbring (2)
8. 3 - Emile Paul (1)
12. 2 - Shawn Brabant (2)
12. 2 - Nick Catalfano (1)
12. 2 - Michelle Karl (2)
12. 2 - Haren Lalchand (2)
12. 2 - Nikita Nikolayev (2)
12. 2 - Matt Wills (2)
18. 1 - Michael Carney (1)
18. 1 - David Chesnutt (1)
18. 1 - Helen Croce (1)
18. 1 - Kevin Crowley (1)
18. 1 - Kareem Elashmawy (1)
18. 1 - Hunter Garrett (1)
18. 1 - Stephen Kwokchoon (1)
18. 1 - Greg Lovell (1)
18. 1 - Krystal Lutz (1)
18. 1 - Jennifer Mori (1)
18. 1 - Glen Parker (1)
*Zero-rank players are not eligible for the top-8 invitational event at the end of the semester.
The large clumps of tied players may look a little strange, but everyone will separate as the semester continues and many more points are given out. If you're unsure how many points you received for this event or believe you did not receive the appropriate amount of points, send me an email and I can send you a copy of the spreadsheet I used to calculate everyone's point totals.
If you missed this event or had so much fun that you want to draft this set again, there may be one more opportunity to draft M11 next month, so stay tuned for that. Our next event is Standard next Sunday, August 29, at 1:30 PM. I'll post more about Standard and send out more emails between now and then. Until then, thanks for reading and I'll see you guys again next weekend!
- Dom
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