I've been a casual player for many years; most Sunday nights I get together with three or four friends and play a few games. Mostly it's chaos multiplayer; sometimes teams, hunter-prey if we have five or seven people, and emperor if we have six. I persuaded two of my friends, D. and J., to come to a regular Saturday booster draft at Phoenix Games in Minneapolis. I'd done a handful of booster drafts before but had never done all that well; they were total newbies. We drove over there on a snowy morning and after a short wait for the draft organizer to show up, found ourselves in a group of fourteen; they had just one big drafting pod with everyone in it, and four rounds of Swiss after the draft was done.

The Draft
Taking the rare in my first pack would have been a Risky Move. Actually, it would have been a stupid move, because there was a Sparksmith in it. My first four picks were all red commons; I get a Skirk Commando and a Battering Craghorn as well as a Solar Blast, and a late Aphetto Alchemist and Choking Tethers (the Tethers went something like 7th, and the Alchemist later yet) entice me into blue. With the second pack, the rare is again lame (Dream Chisel), but there's a Threaten there for me first pick, and a Lavamancer's Skill comes round; I pick up a couple Mistforms, including a Mistform Wall with mid-range picks, another Choking Tethers, and get an Erratic Explosion surprisingly late. I remember thinking to myself as I saw it: "Remember, Tim, you yourself advised D. and J. to take any removal you see, even if it sucks." I wasn't sure about the Explosion, but it definitely failed to suck, as you will see. I also grab a Chain of Vapor under the same principle, and an Essence Fracture falls to me with the 12th pick.

The Legions pack has a playable rare, the Synapse Sliver. This pack fills out my blue creatures nicely; it's the inverse of pack 1 as I think my first four picks were blue (Willbender, Primoc Escapee, Mistform Seaswift all went early), and I plucked a Gempalm Incinerator and Flamewave Invoker when I realize I don't have as many goblins as I thought. My deck wasn't looking terribly strong until Legions, which helped the blue side especially. Except for the Sparksmith, I didn't really get anything you could classify as a bomb, but I had good synergy with the Sparksmith, the Gempalm, and the Mistforms, and also several good flyers.

Deck List

Creatures (16)
Mistform Wall
Mistform Dreamer
Mistform Seaswift
Synapse Sliver
Shifting Sliver
Willbender
Aphetto Alchemist
Clickslither
Primoc Escapee
Warped Researcher
Gempalm Incinerator
Goblin Taskmaster
Sparksmith
Flamewave Invoker
Skirk Commando
Battering Craghorn

Non-Creature Spells (7)
Chain of Vapor
Threaten
Erratic Explosion
Lavamancer's Skill
Choking Tethers x2
Solar Blast

2x Forgotten Cave
8 Mountain
7 Island

The blue and red cards in my sideboard were:

Backslide
Essence Fracture
Sage Aven
Goblin Lookout
(these four were the only ones I ever sideboarded in)

Peer Pressure
Dispersing Orb
Mistform Wall
Mistform Mask
Spy Network
Airborne Aid
Covert Operative
Hunter Sliver

I had a handful of white cards including a Whipcorder and Aven Redeemer, and got some other off-color dreck with my last couple picks, including a couple late rare-drafts. The thought crossed my mind to splash white for the Whipcorder, but after crossing my mind it made a sharp left and peeled out of there, so I stayed U/R the whole time. One combination I didn't really notice until just now, when I was compiling the list, was to 'board in Peer Pressure and the other two Mistform cards; with four Mistform creatures and the Mask in the deck I might have been able to make Peer Pressure work.

I usually boarded in the Aven for the Shifting Sliver, a flyer that can block morphs and survive, and that orders your next four draws, proved to be better than an unblockable 2/2. The Essence Fracture came in against decks with huge creatures; it's really overcosted but it can actually lead to tempo advantage against big fatties, and could function like a lousy Choking Tethers, clearing a path for attackers, in a pinch. (Would it have killed Wizards to make Essence Fracture an instant? A double-Unsummon for 3UU would hardly make blue a powerhouse.)

I boarded in the Lookout when I wanted my deck to go a little faster; it also makes the Clickslither and the Gempalm slightly better, and Backslide came in a couple times as an experiment to see if I could get two uses out of my Willbender (hey, Backslide cycles for U, so no big loss if it didn't work - as it turned out, I don't think I ever drew it). All the other cards cheered me on from the sidelines the entire time. Another sideboard option I didn't take, which again in retrospect might have been a good idea, was to pull the Synapse Sliver for the Covert Operative. I did draw cards off the Synapse (and the Mistforms with the Synapse in play) several times, but a three-power unblockable creature would have made a difference in at least one game.

Onto the matches...

Round 1, against Mike, playing R/G.
Game 1 starts off well for me, with the Seaswift and the Warped Researcher pounding on him. I'm one turn away from victory - he's at six, with no fliers, and I have a cycling card in my hand to loft the Researcher overhead when he wipes the board clear with Slice and Dice.* Next turn, he drops Kamahl, Fist of Krosa, and cranks him up to 7/6 on the following turn and pounds me. I Threaten Kamahl and send him in for four, taking him down to two, and drop a Flamewave Invoker with the eighth land in my hand, but he draws his fourth forest the following turn, animates one land and cranks up Overrun Man again, and the 7/6 Kamahl and 4/4 land are just enough to kill me a turn before I'll get him with the Invoker.

Game 2, I learn my lesson and don't overcommit - so when he gets Slice and Dice again, he only catches two of my guys, and I save one of them (the Seaswift) with Chain of Vapor. I get the Seaswift back out and start swinging again. He drops a Goblin Dynamo with tons of mana available, but I Threaten it and tap it with X=4, mainly to kill it but the extra four damage just added to the insult.

Game 3 he fails to mulligan a one-land hand. Fortunately for him, I start slow. The Willbender figured early, when he attacked with a morph, I blocked with another morph, he Vitality Charmed his, and I bent it to my morph - a two-for-none trade. He starts getting some big guys out, but on his upkeep his team gets Tethered and a Clickslither leaps in with my fliers to finish him off.

1-0 matches, 2-1 games.

Round 2, against Steve, playing G/W.
They've announced that the highest-finishing kid gets three packs. Steve appears to be about fourteen, but they specifically say he doesn't count as a kid, so I figure when I'm matched up with him I'm going to get schooled by someone less than half my age. Turns out that's exactly what happens.

The first game he gets a Timberwatch Elf on turn 3, then another one on turn 4, then another one on turn 5. Then, Barkhide Maulers on the next two turns. I Solar Blast the second Timberwatch as it comes out, but he drops two more elves after the Maulers. The surprising thing is I nearly pull this out; a Choking Tethers buys me some time, and all the while I have a Seaswift hitting him for three a turn like clockwork. It takes him down from twenty to five; on my last turn I draw a Clickslither, but I'm looking at his half-dozen creatures and I have no way to get two more points through to help out the 'swift. He tells me after the game he was really nervous that I would draw burn on my last turn and kill him.

The second game starts out okay, but I get mana-flooded. For four turns I draw only land, and he overpowers me. This was the only game all day where I felt like I never had a chance.

1-1 matches, 2-3 games.

Round 3, against Jordan, playing R/U/b
He has a similar deck to mine, except he's splashing black for Smother and Oversold Cemetery, and mine just seems a little stronger across the board. The first game, the key play was my Threatening his Slipstream Eel, then killing his only untapped creature with an Erratic Explosion for four, and hitting him for a whole lot.

The second game, I don't seem to be able to hit him early but I'm killing his guys left and right - a Gempalm Incinerates one of his big morphs before he can turn it up, a Skirk Commando slips through and wastes another one of his morphs, a Solar Blast takes out his Covert Operative, and just as I'm about to run out of steam I get the Flamewave Invoker to knock him out.

2-1 matches, 4-3 games.

Round 4, against Ken, playing B/w with a lot of Clerics.
Ken made the Mistake of the Century against my friend D. earlier. He had a Scion of Darkness bringing the beatdown, and he pulled Phage the Untouchable out of D's graveyard. Yes, he really did. D. looked at Phage, read it again, and said, "Wait a minute - I think you just lost."

Ken looked at Phage in horror and said, "I cannot believe I just did that." His excuse he offered to me was that he's a bouncer and had been working until 4 a.m. this morning and was running on only a couple hours of sleep. I asked him, "Did you have to kick anyone's a** when you were bouncing?" and he said, "Naw, that was last week." I tried to offer the only solace I could, telling him, "If you're going to [screw] up, you may as well [screw] up in the most spectacular and hilarious way. At least you'll have months worth of stories about this."

The first game starts off with him getting a Sootfeather Flock that hits me twice before I get a Mistform Dreamer to hold the air, and then we have a stall. He threatens to break it by getting to his eighth land with a Smokespew Invoker and takes out a Sage Aven and a morph on consecutive turns, but I draw Lavamancer's Skill for the Dreamer and remove the Invoker. Of course, the Dreamer gets Smothered as soon as Ken untaps, but then my Primoc Escapee comes screaming out of the skies and with the help of a Threaten for one of his Flocks (he had since summoned a second one), the Beastly Bird does him in. He had two clerics, one the Dark Supplicant, waiting in vain most of the game for a third cleric to show up so they could turn into a Scion of Darkness, but it didn't play out.

The second game I get Lavamancer's Skill on a Mistform Wall by turn 4. He Smothers it but only after it's killed three of his creatures. He does hard-cast a Scion of Darkness, but he was getting hammered by my Primoc; it was going to be a race to see if my flyer could kill him before his Scion got me. This one was close, but I had enough answers that the Scion didn't kill me; when he got my Sage Aven with the Scion I burned it with a Gempalm, and when he tried to kill the Primoc with an unmorphing Skinthinner, my Willbender unmorphed, took one for the team (since he had only black creatures) and he conceded.

3-1 matches, 6-3 games.

Alas, packs were only awarded to the top 4 finishers, and tiebreakers pushed me to fifth. The guy that beat me finished second, and third and fourth place were taken by people whose match records were 6-2 and 7-3. Normally, they give out packs to the top four finishers in eight-person drafts; it would have been nice if they threw the 5th and 6th place finishers one lousy pack, just so I wouldn't walk away empty-handed, but it was not to be.

D. and J. didn't do as well, although D. got the gift win from the guy who picked Phage out of his graveyard. I think D. ended up 2-2 and J. 1-3, but they both had fun. They allowed as how it would be better when they know the sets, because, unlike me, they don't scan this fine site every day.**

Analysis
My deck performed about like I expected, with a decent supply of burn to hold off early threats, and then a flier or two to take to the air and win the game. Here's how some of the cards worked, or failed to work, in my deck.

Sparksmith - Best red common, reusable burn, blah blah blah. It served to draw removal whenever I cast it; I don't think I ever killed more than two creatures with it, and twice it got killed before I could untap.

Erratic Explosion - Better than I expected. It always killed what I was aiming at. In general, with only two one-drops in my deck I could count on it to deal 2, which is usually all I asked it for. The one time I tried to take down a 3-toughness creature I nailed it.

Gempalm Incinerator - Another excellent card. Cycling removal is great. Except for not being able to aim this at my opponent's cranium, this was quite a bit better than Solar Blast because it could do more than one damage (once it did four), and do it for 1R instead of 1RR.

Threaten - Probably the MVP of the deck. Won me at least two games outright. Since it's a sorcery, it can't be used defensively - but it sure gave me a warm fuzzy feeling to have it in my hand, knowing that I'd get to smack my opponent once with their strongest creature. I think the best play with this card is to hold off as long as possible, and wait until the 6cc-and-up creatures come out to play.

Skirk Commando - I'd never played with him before in Limited, and I can report that he is as good as advertised. It surprises me how many people will let morphs through, even against red or black, when most of the common morph creatures do Bad Things when they get through. The only obvious exception is the Craghorn - but even then a block will save you three damage. Incidentally, anyone trying to argue that the Craghorn's better than the Skirk is wrong. The Skirk can kill any small creature if it gets through; the Craghorn will kill only the creature that blocks it. Also, the Craghorn's double-red morph cost is a little harder to manage in a two-color deck.

Clickslither - Not quite as strong as I thought it would be. The casting cost was awkward, and although a 3/3 haste for 4cc is pretty strong, I found I didn't want to sacrifice goblins (or Mistforms) to it all that often. If I had more goblins it would have been a little more solid. I think to make this more effective I needed fewer spells and more creatures, so I could afford to sacrifice a couple.

Flamewave Invoker - I was skeptical, but most of my games went long enough to get to eight mana and use him. I only activated it once, but it did win me that game, and I came within a turn of being able to use him a couple other times. Plus, it's another Goblin.

Willbender - With Threaten, the other MVP of the deck. This is the best counterspell in Onslaught block for Limited, especially because it's the only card that can deal with morph-trigger abilities. And it does all this for only two mana. Even better, if you get one to work in the first game of a match, your opponent will be playing around it every time you have a face-down creature and 1U available. Definitely first-pick material, and in my opinion the best blue card in Legions.

Chain of Vapor- There is very little bounce in the format, and this is the only thing that can bounce non-creature permanents. And it's so cheap! The big risk, of course, is that it gets sent back at you, but I have found that doesn't often happen. Most people will just shrug and pick up their permanent. One underrated use of this card is to save your own permanent; you could even save one of your own guys, sac a land, and get one of your opponent's cards as well, or save two of your guys at the cost of one land. Compare this with Rescue, from Urza's Destiny (which bounces any of your permanents for U) and this is much more flexible. You can Rescue, but you can also bounce. The one situation where this isn't useful is if you're well behind on permanents, in which case your opponent probably will chain it back, potentially forcing you into a downward spiral that could clear your board of guys and leave your opponent with a couple ones left.

Essence Fracture - Yes, this card is weak. It's way overcosted, and it's a sorcery, and I wasn't terribly happy to have it in my deck. But, again, it's bounce in a format without a lot of it. It's strongest against green, with all those Baloths and Colossi and Hundrooooooooogs and such; bouncing two large monsters will cost your opponent some serious tempo as he struggles to recast them. In a game when you're racing, it could give you just enough tempo advantage to push you over the top. It also cycles in a pinch.

Choking Tethers - As good as advertised. I usually cycled it on my opponent's upkeep, tapping their strongest guy, but the "tap your whole team" option is nice to have in your pocket as well. A crucial spell for blue.

Aphetto Alchemist - It's cheap, and if you have another Wizard or Mistform it can get double-duty out of Lavamancer's Skill, but the untap ability never came into play as much as I thought it would.

Synapse Sliver - A little too expensive. I liked the Warped Researcher better for the same amount of mana; the extra point of toughness and the ability to jump over blockers and dodge removal is pretty cool. The sliver seemed to be a "win more" card, not a card that would swing the game for you. I'd still draft it and run it, but I don't think it's first-pick material.

In general, I did pretty well, but how might I have improved my deck?

In looking at the cards I drafted, I think I built a pretty strong deck. The two changes I would make pre-sideboarding would be to take the Shifting Sliver out for the Sage Aven, and possibly the Synapse Sliver for the Covert Operative, except that the Synapse's extra point of toughness makes it less vulnerable. However, another creature that would put my opponent on a clock might have made a difference; in my first match against Steve, if the Synapse had been a Covert Operative I might have been able to outrace him; as it was, I ended up using it just to chump-block the Barkhide Mauler.

I regret not trying to splash white in a couple games, just as an experiment; I had a lot of cycling in the deck and could have supported a couple plains for the Whipcorder and the Aven Redeemer (the other solid white card I drafted). I would have had to take the Clickslither out if I had done that, but the big insect wasn't quite the powerhouse I thought it would be.

Overall, I don't think Legions hurt U/R as much as others have claimed. Red got nicked, to be sure, but blue got at least as much of a boost, with several more flyers and a playable counterspell at last, as well as common bounce in the form of the Echo Tracer (which, alas, I didn't get). Also, the Lavamancer's Skill/Mistform creature combo is terrific if you get it working, but it is not absolutely central to the deck. If you don't get Skills, you'll definitely want as much burn and creature control as you can. In general, you will win by knocking out early threats and taking over the game with flyers. The deck's biggest weakness is an aggressive green deck that can throw out huge creatures which are out of range of your red burn. White decks with a lot of damage prevention might give it some trouble, as well.

If an inexperienced drafter like me can draft a U/R deck without any major bombs and steer it to a 6-3 overall record and be in all but one of the games I lost, I think it's safe to say that U/R remains an excellent choice for Onslaught/Legions draft.

* - Is it a rule that Wizards has to print one red card in each set with a stupid name? Need for Speed, Kaboom! and this.

** - Some jackass stole a few cards out of J's sideboard while he was getting his deck ready. J. didn't realize those were his cards until afterwards when he gave back his lands and noticed he only had 38 cards. What kind of jerk would bother swiping a few lousy commons and uncommons? I mean, not only is he being a low-down dirty thief, but he's doing it for about 47 cents worth of cards.