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tigertoyFNM at the Gopher last night. For Standard, I looked through my spirit/tokens deck and realized that I'd cut all the blue out of it but the Drogskol Captains, and the three color mana base was being difficult, so I decided to try cutting the blue out entirely. (Really, without Geist of St. Traft, which I don't have and which is $22 today, blue isn't that compelling in the deck anyway.) It was pretty easy. I decided to throw in two Nevermore, thinking of it as a preemptive Oblivion Ring. If I can guess what the key card in my opponent's deck is, it seems like it's worth a card slot. Match 1, Damon Hebert was playing his Frites deck. Game 1, I mulled to 6, then kept a 1 land hand instead of going to 5, didn't draw enough to come back. Game 2, I still had land in hand when I won on turn 9; I had a Nihil Spellbomb out right away and he never got a big creature into his yard anyway. Game 3, my 7 card hand had no land, my 6 card hand was unplayable, and my 5 card hand had no land but a couple of key one drops. I decided my odds were better keeping it than going to 4, it didn't work. Game 2, against Austin Griswell, I didn't write down anything about his deck and I don't really remember it, but I beat him up; the one Blood Artist I threw in did quite a lot for me when I got it out early game 1. Game 3, Andrew Forbes had something with a bunch of fogs and control, but he only slowed me down, never locked me down, and I won two games easily enough. Match 4, James Manrique was playing U/W Delver, with Geist, Snapcaster, Restoration Angel, and a lot of bounce effects. Game 1, I didn't get enough land and it wasn't even close. Game 2, I wrote something down and I can't read it at all. I wore him down a little, but then he pulled a Runechanter's Pike for his second Restoration Angel and swung for way more than the 10 life I had left. 2-2 overall, my tiebreaks were good and I was 6th out of 20 for 1 pack, with a promo Nearheath Stalker as my door prize.
Stayed for after draft. I drafted AVR-DKA-M12. Pack 1, I had an awful rare but a Nature's Blessing, so I took it. I was quickly in green and black. Saw almost no removal -- aside from deathtouch creatures, I had one Parasitic Implant and one Wretched Banquet. Some decent creatures but nothing really amazing. It looked awful, I expected to be crushed. Ended up winning match 1 against someone whose name I can't remember and couldn't hear when pairings were announced, then drew against Tom, we each won 1, had 3 gentleman's mulligans, and went to time in the last game, for a match record of 1-1-*4*. Game 3, I walked over Lanie, who's still playing like a beginner. I hope she gets better before she gets tired of being crushed. 2½-½ overall, which somehow only made it to 4th place in the 10 man pod, got an ISD pack and a Chronicles pack. And my draft pool included an Undiscovered Paradise ($8) that I didn't end up running and a Korlash, Heir to Blackblade ($7), so I came out OK. But it didn't start until nearly 11, didn't finish until 2:30, and I was a bit tired by the end.
Stayed for after draft. I drafted AVR-DKA-M12. Pack 1, I had an awful rare but a Nature's Blessing, so I took it. I was quickly in green and black. Saw almost no removal -- aside from deathtouch creatures, I had one Parasitic Implant and one Wretched Banquet. Some decent creatures but nothing really amazing. It looked awful, I expected to be crushed. Ended up winning match 1 against someone whose name I can't remember and couldn't hear when pairings were announced, then drew against Tom, we each won 1, had 3 gentleman's mulligans, and went to time in the last game, for a match record of 1-1-*4*. Game 3, I walked over Lanie, who's still playing like a beginner. I hope she gets better before she gets tired of being crushed. 2½-½ overall, which somehow only made it to 4th place in the 10 man pod, got an ISD pack and a Chronicles pack. And my draft pool included an Undiscovered Paradise ($8) that I didn't end up running and a Korlash, Heir to Blackblade ($7), so I came out OK. But it didn't start until nearly 11, didn't finish until 2:30, and I was a bit tired by the end.