Drafting Boros

Hello Everyone!

There are two stores in my town to get cards, and both of them only offer draft for FNM. Last year I would have had a problem with that, but nowadays I have been too busy to pay attention to constructed too closely or invest in standard, so I'm actually grateful for the major draft option being there. I wound up going to Larry's Comics where there was 22 people signed up for Draft FNM. We split everyone up into pods (2 of 8 and 1 of 6). I was in the 6 person pod and had a very exciting first pack where I opened a Master Biomancer. Of course going in I felt that Simic was by far the worst guild, but I was hoping to go Dimir or Gruul and splash the Biomancer. It was a noble thought. I tried to go Gruul through pack one, but instead I was mono-red with a few green cards. In pack two I got a small influx of decent white cards including 2 Guildmages, so in pack 3 I had to drop my awesome green and blue cards and forced Boros as hard as I could. With just 4 cards left in pack I realized I only had 21 cards in red and white so I had to get lucky or pay for a worse mana base. I was able to pull it out in the end and created this beauty:

2x Boros Elite
Foundry Street Denizen
Daring Skyjek
Syndic of Tithes
Skinbrand Goblin
2x Sunhome Guildmage
Firefist Striker
Skyknight Legionnaire
Warmind Infantry
Viashino Shanktail
Scorchwalker
Towering Thunderfist

Mugging
Smite
Arrows of Justice
2x Act of Treason
Massive Raid

2x Madcap Skills
Five Alarm Fire

3x Boros Guildgate
5x Plains
9x Mountains

Sideboard:
Ghor-Clan Rampager
Zhur-Taa Swine
Skaarg Guildmage
Gruul Guildgate
Wildwood Rebirth
Gruul Keyrune
Voidwalk
Incursion Specialist
Hands of Binding
Gridlock
Cloudfin Raptor
Simic Guildgate

In case you didn't feel like reading and analyzing the decklist, here's some stats:
3 one-drop creatures
6 two-drop creatures
2 Madcap Skills
2 Act of Treason

So basically I was balls to the walls aggro. I actually found that 17 lands was too much and I wish I could have drafted just one more card in my colors so I could build a leaner deck. Regardless, I usually won with just enough stuff, rarely finishing the game with any spells in hand. Thankfully though I always had just enough to win, and win I did!

4-0 in matches
8-1 in games
1st place

Yes, I went 4-0. We did the drafts and then we had swiss pairing with the whole group of 22. Normally that would be 5 rounds, but after round 4 I was the only undefeated left, so the event ended an hour early, to no one's dismay.

The only game I lost I kept a 2 land hand on the draw with a 1 drop and a 2 drop and a bunch of 3's. I never drew my 3rd land and died. Besides that I just kicked ass and took names. In fact, I won so fast that I was the first to finish every round and usually my friends were still in game one as I started looking for ways to cure boredom.

Overall I really liked my deck and would draft it again in a heartbeat! If I were dedicated to Boros from the beginning I may have picked up other cards like Truefire Paladin and Wojek Halberdiers and probably only played 16 lands.

Before the draft I ranked the guilds in terms of playability at: Gruul, Dimir, Boros, Orzhov, Simic. However, Boros thoroughly impressed me. I thought that it wouldn't play through removal very well, however I was able to fight through 5 removal spells in one game and two Hands of Binding. So that, plus the super fast clock it puts the opponent on thoroughly impressed me. I think Boros may be the best to draft, with Gruul as a close second. So no my power rankings are:

1. Boros
2. Gruul
3. Dimir
4. Orzhov
5. Simic

Red is easily the best color to force yourself into as quickly as possible. This format actually isn't all that exciting to me. Basically you just try to do the most powerful thing possible while completely ignoring the opponent. With Boros you just kill them fast before they can get away with anything. In Gruul you're a combo deck that's bigger than Boros trying to kill in as few swings as possible. Dimir is Cipher + Unblockable + enough removal to stay alive and card advantage your opponents into the ground. Orzhov and Simic both try to play fair, but Simic has the compounded issue of not having interaction with the opponent and not being very powerful. Orzhov has potential, but is basically a second string Boros.

That's all I have for today! Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack