Xandor's Stuff

Flashbacks!

Last night was draft night at the bar, so I made my usual visit to meet up with friends and sling some cardboard. We were still waiting on Avatar to come out, and it was pretty close to Halloween still, so we went with a spookier themed set (with relatively cheap packs): Duskmourn!

I really enjoy Duskmourn as a draft set. It's got a lot of cross-over between the various colour pairs in terms of synergy, the "Room" enchantment type unique to this set is fun, and you can play pretty much anything so long as it's open at your seat. The theming is suitably spooky, with the whole world being one big haunted house (though the 80's themed survivors are a bit cheesy). Lots of demons, ghosts, and ghouls to get you in the spirit of the season.

Draft

We had a very good turnout of 12 people, so we split up into 2 pods of 6. 2 pods of 6 is much better than a single pod of 12, and if you find the open lane, you're gonna end up with something pretty strong. It does end up a bit closer to Sealed deck though, since you see fewer cards in general, so decks are "weaker" on average.

Pack 1 was not particularly difficult to navigate for me. I opened Overlord of the Balemurk for my pack 1 pick 1, followed up with Defiled Crypt/Cadaver Lab for pack 1 pick 2. I wouldn't usually pick the Crypt so highly, but with the Overlord, I felt it'd be sweet if I could ever get that combo going. I got sent a couple Trapped in the Screens as well, so I felt white was also going to be relatively open, so I fell into WB as my lane pretty quickly.

Pack 2 had a few surprises for me, with an Overlord of the Hauntwoods as my rare (which I shamelessly raredrafted), and a Balustrade Wurm as the pack 2 pick 2. I vaguely flirted with the idea of moving off of white into green for these sweet rares, but green was otherwise pretty dried up for the rest of the pack. Oh well! I did manage to grab some reanimation spells during this pack, as well as a Shroudstomper and a Victor, Seneschal of Valgavoth. White Black reanimator was pretty much locked in for me now.

Pack 3 was also pretty straightforward, but I opened an Unholy Annex/Ritual Chamber as my rare. My streak of opening super hot fire continued. I filled out the rest of my deck with a bunch of generic good stuff in this pack, but nothing about the draft portion for pack 3 was super notable. My deck ended up super fun and powerful. WB reanimator isn't a super common archetype, but when it comes together, it's a ton of fun. Here's the list I ended up with:

Round 1

I got paired up against the player that was drafting directly to my left during the draft, and they were pretty fun to play against. They ended up on a white-blue eerie (enchantments) deck with an aggressive bent.

Game 1 was a pretty normal game of Magic. I lost the die roll, and they got off to a quick start with a fast Gremlin Tamer. Luckily they only triggered it once before I was able to find removal for it. I was still on the back foot for a while though, since they were doing some solid pressuring with a pretty wide board regardless of my interaction. I was able to make some solid profitable trades and removed a few key creatures to stabilize around the high single digits of life. They kinda hit a few too many lands, and I was able to grind them out by buying back some cheap creatures with Savior of the Small. It really overperformed in this game, buying back 3 or 4 creatures. Combined with my great top-end, I kinda ran away with the game after stabilizing.

Game 2 was pretty similar. They had a bit of a faster start and drew fewer dead draws overall, but I was able to keep pace and slowly grind them out with value from my Overlord and prudent combat choices. I needed to just sort of go around a giant first-striking creature (thanks to Ethereal Armour), but thanks to the Defiled Crypt I had online, I was making a chump blocker every turn, so I ended up winning the race. I did come close to decking out due to all of the Overlord triggers though, so I needed to stop attacking with it after a point, and I think I ended the game with less than 5 cards in my library.

Result: 2-0 in my favour

Round 2

My second opponent was also a pretty nice guy, and they were playing a pretty grindy blue green Manifest Dread deck, with a little black splash for a few key creatures/removal spells. They had a pretty slow start in game 1, and I was able to get on the beatdown with my Dashing Bloodsucker and a ton of eerie triggers most turns to make it a pretty nasty threat. They were forced to chump block most turns, and I eventually got a Widow's Walk online, making all of my attacks pretty nasty (if easily chumped). It was a very long grindy game, and they even got their Osseous Sticktwister's delirium effect going for a while which was pretty annoying. They drew a few too many lands off the top, so I managed to eventually put the game away.

Game 2 ended was more of the same, with a slow start for my opponent, and a bunch of grindy value/reanimation stuff on my end. I almost decked myself again with my Overlord, but the value it produced was worth it. I had to contend with the Sticktwister pretty much all game, which led to some annoying choices, but I was able to feed it a lot of sacrifice fodder with the horrors from the Crypt for most of the game. They bounced/removed my Overlord a few times this game, but I had enough recursion to keep it a major threat until I ran low on cards in library. I eventually put the game away with the 6/6 demon from the Ritual Chamber and some life drain from a Shroudstomper, but it ended up closer than I would have liked. Fun grindy magic!

Result: 2-0 in my favour

Round 3

Finally, my last opponent was from the other pod of 6, with a pretty sweet blue-red rooms/good stuff deck. They got off to an incredible start in game 1, with an Entity Tracker that they curved into cloning with a Mirror Gallery(!!!). This led to them drawing like 10 cards off the two of them, but *somehow*, none of those cards were lands. Since they had some nasty mana trouble, they were unable to turn their massive amount of card advantage into anything too threatening on board (though they did have what felt like infinite interaction), and I was able to grind them out thanks to the Overlord and somehow triggering Victor 3 times in a single turn.

Game 2 was a bit more lopsided, since I kept a pretty weak hand with a slow start. I was never able to stabilize, since they always had interaction for my one creature per turn, and they never ran out of cards thanks to an Entity Tracker I wasn't able to remove before it drew them a few cards. I nearly turned it around, but they were able to burn me out with a combination of Shattered Yard triggers, a delirium enabled Fear of Burning Alive, and a well-placed combat trick to 11 me all at once. Oh well!

Game 3 was my first time on the play all night, and I was pretty glad for it, since they had a pretty fast start again, and I needed to trade off my Victor with a random 2-drop to prevent them running away with the tempo advantage again. My hand was full of good reanimation enablers like the Overlord though, so after stabilizing, I had basically infinite value. I eventually got back Victor and triple-triggered him to reanimate a Shroudstomper, and the game was pretty much over by that point. I was lucky they didn't draw into their Entity Tracker this game, or else I think it'd have been a lot closer. Good enough for the win!

Result: 2-1 in my favour

Final Thoughts

I've been opening hot hot fire the last couple of drafts, letting me play some sweet decks. This one was extra sweet, with tons of card quality and awesome gameplay lines. It sometimes felt like I was playing a totally different game than my opponents with all of my reanimation effects and sweet synergies. This was easily one of the strongest versions of this deck I've played. I don't think I played particularly better than average, but my deck's overall quality did a lot of heavy lifting.

I was pleasantly surprised by Savior of the Small and Dashing Bloodsucker, and felt they overperformed for me over the course of the night. I also got to live the dream of Defiled Crypt's maximum potential, making tons of Horrors over the course of the night. Triple-triggering Victor was also a fun treat I haven't been able to pull off before, and boy was it fun. I hope my next Duskmourn draft is half as sweet as this one was. I got extra lucky with my prize packs and opened a Valgavoth too! If I ever sold my cards, I'd be significantly up on the night, even including refreshments, so that's always sweet. Looking forward to the next one!

Final Result: 3-0, 6-1 🏆