"He has outlived his usefulness..."

Wow...yesterday's half draft/half sealed event was fun! Fifth Dawn rocks!
I want to post a full review of it, but I don't have much time, so I'll just go through some highlights:

Stuff that happened during the draft
-dealt 10 damage in one attack with a Skyhunter Skirmisher equipped with a Cranial Plating, which many ppl think is the best limited common in Fifth Dawn

-managed to draft 3 Grimclaw Bats (had a chance at 4), 3 Chittering Rats, and 3 Cranial Platings, making it possible for me to build a pure black deck if I had wished, like the last time we had the Onslaught block draft at Duy's old house. Seems like the ppl we usually draft with don't usually like playing black or something, but also in this draft, Jason on my left and Mike on my right kept feeding me good black cards

-playing in a 2 vs 2 game, having my teamate Bao pull a Composite Golem/Bringer of the Black Dawn combo, only to have the opposing team of Jason and Duy answer it with an even more amazing Avarice Totem double switch and tutor for Shatter combo. (Jason casts the totem on turn one. A while later, he switches it for Duy's Arcbound Stinger equipped with a Dead-Iron Sledge. Then still later, Bao taps out cast a Composite Golem and sacs it for WGRBU to bring out the Bringer. Duy, taking the next turn after that, switches his totem with the Bringer at the end of Bao's turn, and then uses the Bringer to tutor for a shatter in his upkeep and destroy the totem. Thus, he ended up being able to keep Bao's bringer permanently.)

-the atmosphere during the whole day was really relaxed and fun, since we didn't have a tournament, and it was good 'cause that allowed for minimal pressure while drafting and deck building. Many ppl did stuff just for fun, such as Jason putting the 14 mana blue instant called Blinkmoth Infusion into his deck and going for a pure sunburst strategy lol. And also, in the above situation, I knew that Duy could possibly steal the Bringer once Bao brought it out, but I told him to do it anyways since it would be such a cool combo. It ended up being the highlight of the game

-people going "whoa" and saying various other exclamations when finally discovering some of the many awesome cards in Fifth Dawn, stuff like Desecration Elemental, Bringer of the Red/Black Dawn, Possesed Portal, Cranial Plating, and various sunburst cards including one that starts off with negative power and toughness!

-everyone generally having fun during the whole event, even though there wasn't that much interaction between Mike's group and our group, and ordering a lot of pizza

My deck did better than I thought it would do, considering that I couldn't decide on a second colour until really late into the draft, and by that point I had already passed up many good white cards. I would've been able to pick up another Skirmisher, but I passed it up for a Barbed Lightning, and I didn't even end up playing red. I was really tempted though, by the fact that I once again opened a Spikeshot Goblin in my Mirrodin starter. Making a deck with only 40 cards was really restrictive this time, forcing a lot of ppl to either jump to 60 card decks or have to cut out a lot of stuff that they drafted from their decks. I chose the latter approach for a 40 card white/black deck, most notabaly having to kill a Terror and an Isochron Sceptre, which were sitting on the table and mocking the whole time for not including them haha.

So all in all, I'd say that the event was a great success, too bad more ppl couldn't have come...I wonder if we'd be able to hold a draft with more than 8 ppl. Maybe some other time. And it seems Bao is now more interested in Magic/drafting, hehe. I don't mind that at all, as I love discussing about aspects of the game with anyone. And now that we've done quite a few drafts together since high school, it seems that we're all improving in skill, which is fantastic. Perhaps next time, if we go to another tourney at UW, we can actually win something lol. But anyways, people getting better = more challenging decks to play against = more possible discussions about limited strategy = very cool.

Ricky apparently is having his own d20 get-together today, and it seems like Bao and Duy and even David might have went. I couldn't go or do anything today 'cause I had no ride and was kinda busy...but oh well. We still have one more game of Bao's campaign to go before the summer ends. Hopefully that'll be a good one!







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[edit] Hmmm...I remember Bao saying that the last d20 game would be on the second weekend in August. I can't remember if that is the weekend of the 7th or the 14th, but now it seems there might be a slight problem. Fellowship on the weekend of the 14th is going to be on Saturday instead of Friday, 'cause they're going to Beachfest in downtown Toronto and it's going to be some big event. I already pre-registered for it too by paying $5. Fellowship is usually on Fridays though. But since I already promised Bao I'd help him with the game, it looks like here are the options.

1) Have the game on the 7th if possible.
2) Move the game to the 15th, which is a Sunday.
3) I would tank Beachfest and go to the game at Bao's instead.

Of course, I would prefer options 1 or 2, but I dunno if that's possible with other ppl. So Bao and others, if you read this, then tell me what you think. Whatever option, unless it's option 2, I'll end up tanking some other stuff to make it happen. Dang, why does everything have to be scheduled on a Saturday? :( [/edit]