Draft night!

[Matt]

My first time drafting with the full Time Spiral block. I think I was the only person drafting white for a long time. I started with Knight of the Holy Nimbus over foil Pandemonium, then a Terramorphic Expanse over the 4BB madness B terror. I took a Darwin and RG land and couldn't decide to splash red or green for the longest time. Red dried up big time but green never delivered the goods either. Here's what I ended up with:

//White creatures

Knight of Sursi
Ivory Giant
2 Shade of Trokair

Errant Doomsayers
Knight of the Holy Nimbus
Sinew Sliver

Saltfield Recluse
Riftmarked Knight
Aven Riftwatcher
Cloudchaser Kestrel

Saltskitter
Goldmeadow Lookout (worse than he looks on paper)

2 Lucent Luminid
Pulmonic Sliver

Angel of Salvation

//White Spells
Judge Unworthy
Pentarch Ward
Saltblast

//Red
Cautery Sliver
Avalanche Riders
Arc Blade

//Land
Terramorphic Expanse
Fungal Reaches
2 Mountain
13 Plains

//Sideboard I might even possibly side in
SB: Seal of Primordium
SB: Harmonic Sliver
SB: Deadwood Treefolk
SB: Giant Dustwasp
SB: Petrified Plating
SB: Imperiosaur
SB: Penumbra Spider
SB: Reflex Sliver

//Sideboard I would not touch with a 30-foot pole
SB: Molder
SB: Thallid
SB: Fa'adiyah Seer
SB: Fa'adiyah Seer (foil)
SB: Patrician's Scorn
SB: Tolaria West
SB: Nix
SB: Arcanum Wings
SB: Dementia Sliver
SB: Deadly Grub
SB: Skirk Ridge Exhumer
SB: Deathspore Thallid

I thought this deck was really pretty good. I went 2-0, then 2-1, then 1-1-1, drawing game 3 in round 3 that I probably would have won, since I had both Luminids and a Kestrel on the board with Arc Blade suspended and Judge Unworthy in hand, compared to his Serra Sphinx, when time was called.

After round 1 the guy looked pretty shaken. He said he hadn't lost a round in seven drafts, and asked if my rating was over 1700. I looked it up for him: 1614. He didn't like hearing that news.

I had a pretty good curve, with plenty of turn-1 suspend guys. My 2cc slot could have been stronger, with maybe a Blade of the Sixth Pride or another Sinew.

I had a lot of fliers - Sursi, Kestrel, and THREE Phantom Monsters for 3WW, plus Riftwatcher who Got In There (TM) when he needed to. I managed to get red everytime I needed it, so my manabase held up perfectly. I only sided into the green spells (Harmonic and Seal) in round 3, when I faced a deck with two Leaden Fists and an Eternity Snare. I didn't want to bring in Scorn because it would kill my Luminids!

MVP was probably Saltblast, which alternated between Time Walk (stone rain), Time Stretch (stone rain their only island), and just killing the biggest man around. It killed a Triskelavus, a Sphinx, and several large black rares.

Middle-VP goes to Avalanche Riders, which I a) forgot to echo at least once, and b) forgot to play in my first main phase at least once, but won me the games anyway.

LVP was Saltskitter, for never making it to my hand even once in like 10 games.

I don't know how good Shade is because everyone wanted to kill it ASAP. Future Sight seemed to have very little for my WW/x archetype.

I got two packs for my trouble, giving me a Seht's Tiger and a Glittering Wish, which are both cool.

[UR]

I agree with you that white aggro doesn't gain a whole lot from FS. Blade of the Sixth Pride is very good and so is Knight of Sursi but beyond those there aren't that many quality creatures. You did mention Lucent Liminid which is decent as a filler but I wouldn't pick it very high because it isn't very good in white aggro decks because of it's casting cost (it is better in controllish white builds). It is also an Enchantment which means it gets blown up by twice as many cards now, including your own Kestrels.

As for your sideboard. I wouldn't ever side the green stuff in I think. It would dilute your strategey too much with good late-game blockers (Deadwood Treefolk, Penumbra Spider) and double green cards that your manabase can't really support (Imperiosaur, Penumbra Spider, Giant Dustwasp). They are all good cards but not in your deck.

Good job on taking first place though!

P.S. Timed rounds in draft?

[Matt]

Liminid was actually really good. I was always happy to see it, it's more than just filler - it's not too much weaker than Castle Raptors.

[UR]

Yes they are pretty good to deal the last few damage. But WW is a deck that wants to go two drop, three drop, four drop. If you are playing a lot of these expensive creatures you'll A) need to play more land than you want to, and B) get really awkward opening hands that are too slow because you have too many Luminid or something like it. Like I said, that is fine if you are a W/X controllish deck but when you are trying to do aggro it is just not optimal. I'll say the same thing for castle raptors if you are WW. I usually won't put more than 3 5+CC cards in my deck (if possible ofcourse) and will draft less powerful cards just to support the deck.

[Matt]

That's pretty close to what I did, though. If you ignore Arc Blade and Saltblast because they're removal, I have three 5cc guys and only one big dude (and basically nothing to replace him with).

[UR]

Well without seeing how exactly you drafted it is hard to comment, but your two slot seems awfully small in comparison to your five slot for instance. All I'm trying to point out is that when you are WW this is something to look out for... I'd rather draft a cheap creature that isn't as good as an Arc Blade but allows me to curve out more smoothely and gain a bigger tempo advantage.

[Matt]

Duly noted! I was not familiar with the draft archetypes for this format (for example, I didn't know red and black went well together over madness). Now I know a little more, and know which cards work and which don't.

[Implacable]

Red and Black work well together, in that they are synergistic.

Red and Black do not work well together, in that Black sucks.

You were fine.  The deck seems solid, even if it could have used 1-2 more 2-drops and another 4-drop.

[UR]

Black doesn't really suck all that much. Just booster two if you don't open something like an Enslave or some good rare. Booster one and three have lots of quality removal spells. It's just that you are forced to draft a slow control deck that relies on just a few high-quality creatures to win (such as a Stronghold Overseer or some other bomb). Black aggro doesn't work... The weakness of the BR-control deck is that you'll lose to blue decks that can generate a lot of card advantage simply because BR can't do that and you are trying to win a war of attrition. Tempo-based decks however are good matchups so long as they don't do something stupid (i.e. T1 Baloth, T2 Dustwasp, T3 Nessian Courser, etc.).

Come to think of it... the only drafts I've won since FS arrived were drafts where I had a BR control deck.