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So the deck was as follows:
Vulshok Berserker
2 Spikeshot Goblin
Krark-Clan Grunt
Fangren Hunter
Leaden Myr
2 Iron Myr
Goblin War Wagon
Oxidda Golem
Arcbound Worker
Arcbound Hybrid
Yotian Soldier
Grab the Reins
2 Electrostatic Bolt
Detonate
Echoing Ruin
Deconstruct
Terror
Echoing Decay
Echoing Courage
Skullclamp
Lightning Greaves
Great Furnace
Tree of Tales
Vault of Whispers
Swamp
7 Mountain
5 Forest
At least, that's what the plan was.
I was obviously doing a draft walkthrough, and having all of those Paint windows open sucked out all the memory and made Magic Online crash. I was unable to rejoin in time to submit a deck before the clock ran out, and was given a random 60-card 5-color deck via Magic Online's autopick. In case you haven't read any draft articles yet and skipped over everything anyone has written about Magic, this isn't a good thing.
*@&^#*&!
This was a very solid deck perfectly capable of winning this draft, and now I have to start it all a game down in each match. How disheartening.
I went into game one against my opponent hanging my head in disgust and about ready to simply concede game one just to skip it and get on with my real deck. Then again, I'm always ready for a challenge, despite how poor my odds are, so I cursed my computer and myself a bit and played out game one.
And won.
I lucksacked this one, plain and simple. As my opponent rightfully laughed at me for having a sixty-card deck, I proceeded to go turn 2 Myr, turn 3 War Wagon, turn 4 Spikeshot, turn 5 Echoing Ruin your Crystal Shard, Skullclamp Spikeshot, shoot down your guy. The crushing blow was a Detonate on his Dross Golem.
How embarrassing.
I sideboarded into a real deck to make it through game 2 on the back of Grab the Reins and Detonate.
So here I am at 1805. I can't really say I've hit my goal if I end up losing next round and fall back under 1800 in the same tournament. Also, as my next opponent's rating was much higher than this guy's (1803), I figured his deck and play would be better than whatever horsepocky luck I could pull out of my rear end and he'd have a free game win. At this point, I pulled a sin in the eyes of Rizzo, Mousseau and purists everywhere - I dropped. I ended the tournament with two packs and a goal met. I have no more need to write about Limited in this space ever again (although I will from rare time to time).
I am now closing this article with some information. For those of you who haven't paid attention (or don't care) to Magic Online in the past few days, there was a bug (gasp, shock). However, this was actually a good bug. It gave a bunch of extra packs of Onslaught Block and 8th edition plus a number of tickets to somewhere around ten percent of the people on Magic Online.
Most people got something like three sets and half a dozen tickets, some got as many as a couple dozen packs. I stand before you today, a huge lucksack. I received 81 packs and 65 tickets. Yes, 27 free draft sets. Yes, 65 free dollars. I am a huge lucksack, Ted Knutson hates me for it, and I couldn't be happier. Some people got even more than I did. A fellow denizen of #mtgwacky and pro-poker player, Ribs got himself 66 8th packs and 250 tickets. No, I didn't add on a zero by accident. I swapped some of my 23 OLS sets with him for some 888 before he sold all of his at auction for a cool 220 tickets more. A guy in one of my subsequent drafts, Beloved Chaplain, claimed to have gotten something like 93 packs. The message boards for Magic Online are full of tales, large and small, of the joyous insanity - and they're letting us keep it. One chap, JacsUK has the highest I've heard of so far with"I got 240 x 8th ed boosters and 8 sets of OLS, with 170 tickets (yes i can show you, for those doubters)".
Ah, life is amusing at times. Thanks for reading.
