Booom

I'm feeling better about Thero's draft now. 
Getting the right mix on your mana curve is very important and it has a slightly different feel. There is no particular slot where you must stack with cards but you need to be playing your mana and using it every turn. 
My deck the week before had some great cards and hit hard in the fith and sixth spot (2 Horizon Scholars, 2 Sea God's Revenge and 3 Prescient Chimera) but losing the mana race against the green decks was the end of me.

This week I drafted a blue black deck that turned out quite solid despite my neigbours again fighting with me over blue. And the player to the left drafted blue black as well.
I won the first and third rounds 2 nil but lost the second round 2-1. The deck felt great because it always felt like my 5th or 6th drop was pushing me over the edge rather than evening up the game. There were a couple of games where my opponent thought we were racing until I played a Grey Merchant or two to show otherwise (insert evil laugh).

In the final game of the round I lost I came off second best against a Bow of Nylea which felt like playing against Umezawa's Jitte, in that as long as he had creatures it was sad times. I eventually killed all his creatures which gave me a window of about 3 turns to either kill him or put him on the defensive.
Despite having a Prescient Chimera and a Carven Lampad in play to his nothing but the bow I still couldn't do enough (thanks to the bow switching from combat nightmare mode to life gain mode) to worry him before he drew some very good fat. 

I'm not sure if the bow is good enough for constructed but a lot of the time cards that are that good in limited eventually get there. 

2-1 and a couple of packs as prizes felt good. Opening and drafting Espleth (third pack over a Lash of the Whip) was sweet icing on top.

Our hero has been slain

After going undefeated in the two M14 drafts I did the false economy has crashed and I got hit with a big Theros hammer of reality.

I drafted a pretty solid red blue deck that played hard but fair. Unfortunately both the player to my left and to my right were also in blue which didn't seem to effect pack one and two but I really felt the pinch in pack 3. 
I did well in red for the first pack getting a third pick Hammer of Purphoros from a guy (2nd to the right) who eventually drafted red white and cut
me in pack 3.

My deck was fairly good, good enough to get there with a bit of luck but would have been much stronger with just a few more early turn drops. Not bombs but say a couple of Vaporkins and another Nimbus Naiad and we would have been away. This is where being in the blue corner of the draft really hurt because pack 3 was barren with only 3 or 4 playables arriving.

As it played out unless I continuously hit my land drops then the decks featuring big green creatures didn't have to worry about their life total before they were dropping giant guys. Big green monsters proved my nemesis, what me being mortal and all.

Mistcutter Hydra hitting the board when I had 2 blue creatures on the field and 3 blue cards in hand was also saddish times. I ended up 1-2 but had fun overall and I think I learnt a bit about the format and how important those pressurizing early plays are to compliment those medium range dudes that can get scary (the big blue flyers and red monstrosity guys). 

Charming

Last Friday I broke the drought that goes back to April 2009 since I last played an FNM.

An M14 Korean Draft where I was passed a 4th pick Howl of the Night pack which inspired me to try the base green deck Brian Wong talked about on the Limited Resources podcast.

You basically try and draft mono green with small splashes for removal and using Lay of the Land in land spots. The aim being to have around 14 forests in your deck.

I fell short of that and had to play a decent amount of red (including creatures) plus a splash of black and about 11 forests. I had a minor sliver theme with 4 of them and had one game where they all came out fairly early which was a savage beating.

I won the first two and ID'd the final round to add a Dimir Charm to my FNM card collection.

On that collection I am very tempted to break it up because FNM Brainstorm and Remand buylist for $25 and $15 respectively. 

Back on the Wagon

After a pretty tiring search with long trips to Seoul, Dalmuti has become my Local Game Store (LGS). 

99% because of its proximity and 1% due to the fantastic customer service. Fantastic customer service isn't really a decisive factor because all the Korean shops I have been to have been awesome compared to what I was used to back in Australia.

I played in Return to Ravnica block draft which was pretty mind bending. We used Korean cards and it was the first time I had played with Gate Crash or Dragons Maze. I was allowed to use my smart phone to look at the spoiler but I didn't want to hold up the draft by reading what every card in the pack did.

Quite a few picks were made blind but I ended up with a reasonable enough deck. I went 1-2 in matches but was able to put up a decent fight in every game.

I will have to study up between now and Friday when I plan to play in the FNM booster draft.