So yea, time to restart my blog with a new topic, MtG draft! This has the bonus of being a regular enough event that I should be encouraged to actually keep posting about it beyond a couple of weeks. But anyway, enough blather and on with the draft.

This was my first time drafting with this group and I expect there will be many more drafts with them to come. A convenient 16 players were present allowing us to easily split into 8 player pods. The prize pool was set to be a redraft of all the rares and foils from the draft packs so no need to rare draft here. As a side note I must say that I really prefer this prize style; no rare drafting from players generally means there are going to be a lot more consistent and fun to play against decks around the table. Plus you need to try hard to actually build a winning deck in order to keep hold of that foil Ajani you just pulled at the end of the night (or to take it from the other guy who just announced pulling it).

First pack gave me nothing special really, grabbing a fairly average white rare to start I decided to speculate and grabbed a few more white cards. I also picked up a couple of interesting blue and black cards for a touch of variety and to keep my options open in later packs. The only individual card that was really of note from pack 1 was an Elixir of Immortality, a card that lends itself well to stally white/blue shenanigans in draft format. Probably an average/terrible card in constructed, but with a 40 card deck having a strong anti-mill with reasonable lifegain that keeps on repeating is good.
Going through the second pack quite a few interesting mill style blues appeared and I decided to snag a few, 2 Vedalken Entrancers and a Mind Sculpt. I picked up a Scroll Thief along the way which fitted in well with a late pack Master of the Pearl Trident, also making my 1st pack Merfolk of the Pearl Trident more useful. White cards were being thinned out fast and those that I saw were all fairly unexciting so I decided to switch out to drafting blue with a splash of black. I picked up a Murder (always nice) and got a next to last pick Diabolic Revelation.
The third pack delivered for me with some more nice blue, I picked up a second Mind Sculpt (though I really wanted a third too), got a third Vedalken Entrancer, and was ecstatic when I picked up 2 Talrand's Evocations in a row. As the 8th pick came round I was amazed to see Sands of Delirium and didn't hesitate in taking it; it really bolsters mill style in draft (not as much as Planeswalker Jace but still, he'd decided not to show up at this party). As things headed to the end I got a selection of uninteresting dregs and the nice bonus of a Harbor Bandit.
Deck
3x Vedalken Entrancer
3x Talrand's Invocation
1x Augur of Bolas
2x Mind Sculpt
2x Scroll Thief
1x Master of the Pearl Trident
1x Merfolk of the Pearl Trident
1x Redirect
1x Negate
1x Unsummon
1x Rewind

1x Murder
1x Giant Scorpion
1x Diabolic Revelation
2x Blood Reckoning
1x Vile Rebirth
1x Harbor Bandit

1x Sands of Delirium
1x Elixir of Immortality

13x Island
4x Swamp
Sideboard
1x Tricks of the Trade
1x Harbor Serpent
1x Faerie Invaders
1x Arctic Aven
1x Sign in Blood
1x Veilborn Ghoul
1x Dark Favor
1x Ranger's Path
1x Rootbound Crag
1x Griffin Protector
1x Divine Favor
1x Faith's Reward
1x Aven Squire
1x Prized Elephant
1x Angelic Benediction
1x Volcanic Strength
Things went off to a bad start with a quick 0-2 defeat against a strong red/green deck. These matches can best be summarised by 3 words. Flinthoof Boar, Rancor. We played a 3rd game whilst waiting for other matches to finish which I won by milling and by redirecting Rancor onto a Scroll Thief. Just a pity that win didn't count.
The second round was against an interesting red/black deck; it was red/blue/black with Nicol Bolas in the first round, but it hadn't worked out and the player had decided against trying the same again (much to my dismay, my smattering of islandwalk would have been nice). First match he won with a fairly interesting back and forth game, I
was mana screwed with 4 islands for quite a while but managed to not lose immediately. In the second match my mill all came together wonderfully, 2 Mind Sculpts followed by Elixir of Immortality and a 3rd Mind Sculpt, and all the while Sands of Delirium was hanging around doing its thing. Third match he got out a Ring of Valkas and a Slumbering Dragon, though the ring was kept on creatures that could actually attack rather than rapid pumping the dragon. I built a strong offensive, pulling all 3 Talrand's Invocations (though I only played 2 by game end) along with the Harbor Bandit and the sheer amount of unblockable damage pushed me to win just as the Slumbering Dragon awoke.
The third round was very fun. In the first match things didn't really click for either of us and we got to slowly see what both decks could do. I got a bit of mill, a couple of drakes, and he got a smattering of black action with some decent green creatures. The win was pretty much due to my drakes being negated by his topdecking a Sentinel Spider by using Mwonvuli Beast Tracker. Having seen this, I held on to a Mind Sculpt in the second round and waited to see Mwonvuli Beast Tracker drop again. Sure enough 5 turns in, he played Mwonvuli Beast Tracker and topdecked the Sentinel Spider looking to close out my air again; unfortunately my Mind Sculpt was ready and waiting. From here on he couldn't pull anything big enough to kill me before another 2 Mind Sculpts (1 of which was topdecked by Elixir of Immortality) and the Sands of Delirium finished the job. The third match, he had seen that a slow game wouldn't work and picked up the pace. A first turn Cathedral of War, third turn Vampire Nighthawk, and 3 Bond Beetles meant I as taking 6 a turn from turn 4 and couldn't stop the bleed in time. It was the perfect counter to my deck. So overall a 1-2 loss, but an entertaining loss.

Overall I placed 5th out of 8 in my pod and picked up a Nefarox, Sands of Delirium, and Redirect as prizes. I just couldn't resist taking the last 2 and effectively having my draft deck back again.

If I had to sum up the deck I played in 3 cards I would say:
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