For your FLGS the cash injection that is a MtG release continues. There was Pre-release last weekend, and then this weekend it was the actual release and all product could be sold, and draft events.

While waiting for the draft to start I got to play some games of Standard against Sam and his deck. He was playing a deck built around Arclight Phoenix and Crackling Drake. It’s a strong deck. I didn’t sideboard anything. I think I’ll need some plummets in the sideboard to take this deck on. Plus some graveyard hate.

We started the draft and I pulled a Leyline of Sanctity in my opening pack. Sweet. I now had a playset of them. I’m very happy with that. It also set the colour I started drafting. That first pack I drafted only white cards. I knew I’d need a second colour, and decided to go blue.

I think I’m getting worse at this MtG thing. I managed to scrape a win against an ex-student. But otherwise things didn’t go exactly to plan. Against Sam I got mana screwed in our first game. Which never helps. But was the opposite to one of the losses I suffered against Andy in the first round when I flooded out! There was a little laugh with John when he beat me. When he was delivering his killing blow there was a misplay when he tried to do 2 direct damage to me from an ability. Only for me to point out to him that he was unable to target me, I was hexproof. It was a minor moral victory. Poor compensation for losing.

ok here are the cold hard stats.

Casual Games

Dean: Loss 0-1

Sam: Loss 0-3

Draft Stats

Participants: 10

Rounds: 4

Round 1: Andy Loss 0-2

Round 2: Tom Win 2-1

Round 3: Sam Loss 0-2

Round 4: John Loss 0-2

Record: 1-3

Final Position: 8th

Prizes: 1 participation pack

I have to say that I think with the changes to the prize support for events that WotC have made, things are definitely more stingy. If Not Standard Showdown plays our the way I think it will, then next week will be my last one. But we will discuss this in more detail next week. But the spoiler and headline for my theory that will be tested is that WotC are slowly killing off and discouraging these sort of events.