Greetings fellow Planeswalkers!
On Part 2 of our, "Drafting Ixalan, is it too late?", we're here to talk about what loots we got and how the matches went with the players, in that order!
To recap, the value we've gotten so far from opening an Ixalan Box are the following:
Ixalan Booster Box PHP5750 Cost of box
Burning Sun's Avatar PHP30
Ixalan Treasure Pack PHP2000
Burning Sun's Avatar PHP30
Remaining Cost PHP3720
Now, it looks like this:
Ixalan Booster Box PHP5750 Cost of box
Burning Sun's Avatar PHP30
Singles:
Ixalan Treasure Pack
Settle The Wreckage PHP200
God Pharaoh's Gift PHP25
Madcap Experiment PHP25
Approach of the Second Sun PHP30
Foil Sheltered Thicket PHP250
Foil Aether Hub PHP100
Island (Standard Showdown 2017) PHP100
Mountain (Standard Showdown 2017) PHP100
Arguel's Blood Fast Alt Art PHP200
Total PHP1030
So with that, the Treasure Pack's value goes down from PHP2000 to just PHP1030!
Now, on to the Mythics and Rares!
Island (#264) Ixalan (Foil) PHP50
Sorcerous Spyglass PHP200
Huatli, Warrior Poet PHP150
Repeating Barrage PHP50
Sanguine Sacrament PHP25
Fathom Fleet Captain PHP25
Unclaimed Territory PHP140
Dragonskull Summit PHP300
Regisaur Alpha PHP65
Glacial Fortress PHP450
Tocatli Honor Guard PHP40
Bloodcrazed Paladin PHP25
Legion's Landing PHP175
Total PHP1695
Total Singles So Far PHP2755
Remaining Cost PHP2995
So we actually got more when we opened the packs we have! And this is just opening 12 packs! We still have 24 more to play with and open! This is looking to be a box with great value! We're hoping that we don't jinx it!
Let's go foils!
Now, for the matches.
Here is a recap of the standings from last week's pairings and their results:
Standings(Part 1):
David vs Dave, Dave 1-0
Tristan vs Jim, Tristan 1-0
Next pairing:
Dave vs Tristan
David vs Jim
Dave's Selesnya Dino Explorers vs Tristan's Naya Dino Aggro Burn
Dave's Selesnya Dino Explorers basically steamrolled Tristan's Naya Dino Aggro Burn with his big creatures. Tristan's burn spells did little to reduce Dave's life to zero because Dave answered back with Pious Interdiction and Sanguine Sacrament for all that life gain! Swinging with his mighty creatures, Dave wins their match!
Dave vs Tristan, Dave 1-0
David's Boros Dino Aggro vs Jim's Jund Dino Vampire Merfolk Control Counters
So, it went down like this: with small creatures like Nest Robbers and Tilonalli's Knights, David took the lead with damage while Jim flooded with mana. Jim was able to cast a Fathom Fleet Captain as his creature, but blocking with it would mean he wouldn't have any defenders on the board anymore and would just keep on soaking damage. David proceeds to pump his Nest Robber with a Swashbuckling making it bigger, now a 4/3 creature. Jim has no choice but to chumpblock with his prized Fathom Fleet Captain and watch it die. David finishes up with a Huatli, Warrior Poet to close the game.
David vs Jim, David 1-0
Current standings:
Dave 2-0
Tristan 1-1
David 1-1
Jim 0-2
Final Pairings:
Dave vs Jim
David vs Tristan
Dave vs Jim
Dave, with his good manabase, gets his mana fixed early in the game and plays a land each turn, getting creatures out into the board. Merfolk Branchwalker, Vineshaper Mystics, Looming Altisaur, and Belligerent Brontodon meant game over for Jim. Dave also got to play his Pious Interdiction to prevent Jim from blocking. Basically, Dave's deck was balanced in a way he could have a defensive front, and then swing with his creatures with high toughness to beat his opponents.
Dave vs Jim, Dave 1-0
David vs Tristan
David goes out and plays his usual Nest Robbers and Tilonalli's Knights(it really helps to get multiple copies of cards when you're drafting. Consistency is key). Tristan answers with his Repeating Barrage, Lightning Strikes, and Unfriendly Fires. He also gets on the board his Sky Terrors which rule the air since David doesn't have an answer to flying(they've yet to arrive). David plays his Huatli, Warrior Poet but misplays when he activates +2(he was down to 5 life) instead of activating Huatli's -X to deal 1 damage to Tristan's 3 creatures and swing for fatal(Tristan was down to 4). Tristan wins.
David vs Tristan, Tristan 1-0
Final Standings:
Dave 3-0
Tristan 2-1
David 1-2
Jim 0-3
Man, having experienced a 4-man draft, I'm looking forward to an 8-man one since that's the actual number of players a draft should be played at. Don't get me wrong, playing with 4 friends is fun and enjoyable, and we had more control over our picks rather than getting screwed with hate drafts and rare drafts since this was for fun, and we were able to focus on picking colors we actually wanted to play and build around. And for that, that's priceless.
So Dave had the glory of opening the Treasure Pack. He also picked the Arguel's Blood Fast as his loot.
I would say, the best experience with getting this box is that we still have 24 more packs to use! That might mean a full 8-man draft next time, or two more 4-man drafts!
So just watch out and keep tuned to see what crazy decks we'll brew next week!