FNM: Drafting Zendikar

My friends have been trying to convince me to go to FNM at this huge MTG store in San Jose, but I’ve been reluctant to go b/c I don’t know the Besieged block all that well and I hate going into an event unprepared. Plus they said the store was full of nerd stench with zero ventilation. Eww… So instead we decided to buy a box of Zendikar and do a draft ourselves! Although Zendikar won’t even be standard anymore in another few months, I really just wanted the draft experience.  We ended up doing 2 sealed drafts and I surprisingly ended up winning most of the night! Well, that is until we did FFA and they started ganging up on me. :P

Zendikar is definitely all about Landfall and even Allies if you can pull that off. I decided to play Blue and White and was really excited to pull a Luminarch Ascension although I ended up rarely using it. It was really more about the combos of Living Tsunami, Windrider Eel, and Steppe Lynx that ended up being the most useful cards in the deck. Even though with Living Tsunami, I would get stuck on only having around 4-5 lands, the early hits was pretty worthwhile. Kor Hookmaster actually came in pretty useful as a defensive move and Archive Trap proved to be a really fun card to play especially since you knew that an opponent was bound to search for land. Shepherd of the Lost ended up being one of my buffest cards and equipment like Adventuring Gear, Trailblazer’s Boots, and Trusty Machete were extremely powerful.

All in all, I really enjoyed drafting Zendikar. Maybe now I’ll have the confidence to look into drafting Mirrodin Besieged at Wondercon 2011! I can’t believe the prizes they are giving away!