Five Color Aggro Is Totally Fine, Really.

by Babbs

Hello again! Welcome to my third random draft in as many days, such is the luxury of having a Magic-inclined roommate and some free time!

This time around I started out drafting a red, black, and blue midrange deck, but found myself getting cut on those colors and had to abandon them for a Zoo strategy. In the end, because of a Harrow and a Cultivate, I elected to play a strange five color deck using the best cards I drafted. Go Team Five Color Zoo?

Dan, on the other hand, had a much simpler time drafting my red, blue, and black deck. His, however, was much more streamlined as a sort of Superfriends strategy featuring four planeswalkers and a suite of cards designed to keep himself alive long enough to ask his buddies for help.

Enough chatter, let's get to the smashing!

Game One

I lose the roll. Dan opens on a Mountain. We play land go until my turn three, where I run out a Bloodhall Ooze. Dan replies with a Guul Draz Specter. I have no play on my turn other than land, and Dan bolsters his air attack squad with a Hoarding Dragon, which became my Slave of Bolas on my turn as I counterattacked Dan to 15, netting him a Mindslaver for his trouble.

Dan casts See Beyond on his turn and thinks awhile before shuffling and attacking me again down to 16, and less one card in hand. I discard a Feral Hydra, but have a haymaker in an Obelisk of Alara on my turn. Dan runs out a Tidehollow Strix on his turn and attacks, ripping a Marsh Flats from my hand. On my turn I use the obelisk to put and end to his specter once and for all, and Cultivate some more lands. Then Dan and I trade critters in worthy combat, my ooze for his strix.

Dan finally drops his Mindslaver, as well as a Mutavault, and passes. I draw and play a Naturalize on the Mindslaver (YAY) and run out a Sun Titan, returning Bloodhall Ooze to play before passing. Dan plays an Arrogant Bloodlord on his turn and passes. I attack on my turn return Marsh Flats to play, but Dan gets tricky using Snakeform on my titan and blocking with an activated Mutavault. I simply use the Obelisk of Alara to kill it before damage and smirk.

Dan attacks me with the Bloodlord again on his turn, I refuse to block with my 6/6 titan because I sense a trick, but he simply grins as he uses Call to Heel on it postcombat (to draw, I presume) replays it and ends the turn with a Terminate for my Sun Titan. I attack into his Arrogant Bloodlord on my turn anyways, with the obelisk’s presence making it impossible for the Arrogant Bloodlord to block safely, but I elect not to pump in favor of leaving mana up and playing a Kor Firewalker instead. Me: 9, Dan: 12

Dan attacks for four again on his turn, but I gain five life with the obelisk in response, so I end the turn at 10 life. Dan passes with a card in hand, and I am thinking I have him beat when I turn my team sideways on my turn with some tricks up my sleeve. Dan flashes in a Wydwren, the Biting Gale during the declare attackers step, but before blockers are declared I cast Inferno, wiping everything but my firewalker from the board and dropping Dan to 7 and myself to 6 (after gaining one off of the firewalker). Then I pump the firewalker to 6/6 and knock Dan to one.

Dan doesn’t draw and answer to the obelisk and concedes on his turn.

Game Two

Dan opens on an Island, while I run out a Seaside Citadel. Dan continues the fixing trend with an Armillary Sphere, but I draw and play a Naturalize on it during my turn…in the spirit of friendship. Unperturbed, Dan drops a turn three Jace Beleren and starts drawing cards like a hero. I play and use Marsh Flats for my single swamp before using my Cultivate to grab the remainder of my five colors. Dan continues to draw cards and starts playing unfairly with a Fatespinner. Guess I won’t be attacking for a while.

I draw for my turn and play a Marisi’s Twinclaws, hoping Dan will let me draw off of Jace. I do get my wish, but Dan has other plans running out a Lilliana Vess and starting a bad trend of making me discard cards. Fortunately, I have a Sedraxis Specter I don’t mind binning, and on my turn I tomb hex the fatespinner and crush Jace’s face before dropping Kor Firewalker. Dan simply plays a Black Knight and forces me to discard some more, this time I choose to bin a land.

On my turn, I cast Bituminous Blast on the Black Knight, which Dan returns to hand with call to heel, netting a free 2/2 Wild Nacatl. The way now clear, I bash Vess down to one loyalty counter and pass, feeling confident that she is not long for this world. Dan shatters this feeling by forcing me to discard (Inferno), playing black knight, and then playing Time Warp.

Good feeling gone. I am going to die now.

On his extra turn, Dan gets my last card with Vess (Obelisk of Alara, owch) and plays a Hoarding Dragon. My next draw is land, so I am pretty much powerless to do anything as Dan plays a Mindslaver and passes to me, ticking vess up on loyalty because it makes him feel special. I draw land, and pass. Dan plays Sorin Markov and I concede in the face of two Mindslaver effects and no board presence. Sure, I could rip a Planar Cleansing, but that would require it being in my deck.

Game Three

I open (finally) on Savage Lands. Dan plays a Swamp and passes. I run out an Elvish Visionary with an Island, and Dan counters with another Swamp into Black Knight. I play a land and Bloodhall Ooze on my turn, and Dan seems to have no answer in hand as he spends his turn on a Pilgrim’s Eye searching up an island before passing with no attack, presumably to stave off the ooze.

I have no fourth land sadly, and cannot do much on my turn but tick up the ooze. Dan drops Jace Beleren on his turn and starts doing that thing again. The card drawing thing. This time he attacks for two, which I take gladly. On my turn I fail to draw land, but manage to trade Elvish Visionary for Pilgrim’s Eye in combat and run out a Beastbreaker of Bala Ged. Dan drops Lilliana Vess again and has us both draw before making me discard. Fortunately this found me a land, so no complaints for the Kor firewalker I had to discard for it.

On my turn I play the Seaside Citadel Jace gifted me, use Tomb Hex to kill off Black Knight and clear the way for my 2/2 beastbreaker and my now 4/4 ooze to crush Lilliana. On his turn Dan uses Jace to make himself draw, digging for answers and giving up poor Jace for dead. He digs further with a See Beyond, and it is during this time I realize he is missing a red source. I guess mana screw works both ways sometimes. Dan passes to me.

On my turn I drop a fifth land and attack, the ooze at Jace and the beastbreaker at Dan. He surprises me again with Wydwren, the Biting Gale flashing into play to eat my beastbreaker, but Jace bites the dust and I take advantage of Dan being tapped out to drop Uril, the Miststalker. Yay legendary fight! On his turn, Dan drops an impressive Extractor Demon and passes with an Island untapped.

I draw for my turn, cast Slave of Bolas on the demon, and bash for sixteen! Dan chumps the ooze with his faerie (milling two from the demon trigger) and drops to ten. I happily sacrifice the demon and pass. Dan draws and plays a massive Heat Ray for my ooze, finally sending it to the place all good oozes go… the graveyard. Then he passes with an untapped Swamp showing.

On my turn I drop Dan to five with another Uril attack and slam Obelisk of Alara into play…unfortunately short the mana to use it this turn but beggars can’t be choosers. Dan thinks for a while before tapping out for Merfolk Seastalkers and Magma Phoenix. On my turn I attack with Uril, prompting a double block from dan. I assign lethal damage to the phoenix, trading it for Uril and triggering the fiery bird’s graveyard ability dealing three to everything, and then follow up with a lethal poke from Obelisk of Alara.

Super Fun Game Four!

Dan convinces me that his deck can do better, so we decide on a fourth game before calling it quits. I refuse, however, to grant his request that we play a game five should he prove victorious this time around.

Dan opens on Swamp, while I open on Forest and Wild Nacatl. Dan drops an Island an passes, allowing me to run out a Mountain and bash for two before dropping a Beastbreaker of Bala Ged. At this point I am feeling pretty skippy until Dan drops Fatespinner on his turn and passes, forcing me to skip my next combat step for the sake of my better play… drawing into a third land with which to cast Cultivate, fetching white and black sources. Dan does nothing but run out a Armillary Sphere on his turn, and I make short work of his Fatespinner my next turn with a Vendetta before attacking with a leveled beastbreaker and superpowered Wild Nacatl for seven. Me: 18 Dan: 11

Dan fetches Mountains with the Armillary Sphere on my end step, drops one on his turn, and passes with no play. I attack with both critters again, but he casts Terminate on the beastbreaker and Snakeform on the nacatl, dropping to ten and drawing a card. I have no play and pass. On his turn he plays Chandra Nalaar (so many planeswalkers!) and removes three loyalty counters to off my poor Wild Nacatl.

I play a Marisi’s Twinclaws, whose high toughness is really awesome considering the Chandra, but Dan’s follow up play is to ping me with Chandra and cast Nemesis of Reason…. I am now dead in roughly two turns unless I draw a removal spell. When I draw no answers I concede, showing Dan my hand full of Esper Charm and Power Sink… with no blue source.

So there you have it! Dan was right in claiming his deck was better than it had played thus far, although I have to point out that not once did I draw my own planeswalker... Sarkhan Vol. Next up on my Noggin Whack agenda should be a recap of a M11 draft I intend to compete in at my local card shop for FNM, so a change of pace is coming and the write up should be more strategy focused than these silly cube articles!