A Tale of Two Drafts

Spoiler Alert: I love the Coyotle.  When I first laid eyes on Ozawa, Cosmic Elder and Howling Brave, I had high hopes for making a Coyotle theme deck.  Unfortunately, the Coyotle in set one didn't exactly get a bunch of cards that formed a cohesive deck strategy like the inspiring Humans of the artifact obsessed Dwarves.  While the cards are somewhat lacking, the Coyotle champions have very strong abilities, particularly in limited, where Feather Drifting Downriver has what I consider to be one of the most format defining abilities.  I did two drafts recently where I got to run Coyotle Champions.

The first draft I opened a poor pack one and just took a Comet Strike for my collection.  For the second pick I got shipped a Mancubus and figured I'd get to run my boy Flynn again.  Third pick had a Buccaneer and fourth and fifth had a Murder and Brood Creeper, none of three having anything noteworthy in ruby.  I figured I'd just stick to those three shards through the first pack and make a decision on my next pack.  The second pack had a Throat Cutter which I picked up assuming I would still be in ruby for orcs, but to my surprise I was passed a Bird O' Plenty.  At this point I had mostly Blood Cards with only a Ruby Pyromancer and the Mancubus keeping me in ruby.  When the third pick offered a second Brood Creeper, I cemented myself in Blood-Sapphire since it would give me access to Feather and let me fly my spiders in the air to create an small army.  The deck I ended up drafting had an abnormally high amount of repeat uncommons, flying in the face of probability.  I ended up going 3-0 in this draft (6-3 in games, I had to sweat it out every round), the list follows:

Champion: Feather Drifting Downriver

2 Darkspire Priestess

1 Effigy of Nulzaan [Flight]

2 Buccaneer

1 Darkspire Enforcer

1 Giant Corpse Fly

3 Brood Creeper

2 Throat Cutter

1 Devoted Emissary

2 Mazat Ranger [Flight]

2 Boltpaw Wizard

1 Bird O Plenty

1 Sapper's Charge

1 Time Ripple

1 Murder

2 Terrible Transfer

10 Blood Shard

6 Sapphire Shard

1 Shard of Fate

I want to say three things about this deck.  The first is that I think it demonstrates how a pile or unimpressive troops can just win if they can fly over your opponent thanks to Feather and the Flight Gem.  Here are my plays for one game:
Turn 3: Throat Cutter

Turn 4: Murder opposing flier, attack for 3 (TC: 3/2)
Turn 5: Mazat Ranger, Feather: Throat Cutter, attack for 4 in the air (TC: 4/2)

Turn 6: Attack for 10 in the air (TC: 5/2, MR: 5/1)

I didn't even play a Sapphire card in this game, yet without access to the Shard I certainly would not have won the game in as timely a fashion as a did, and there is a good chance I would have lost if my 1 and 2 toughness Orcs could have been ground blocked.  If you look closely (pic below) you'll see that I'm actually only running 5 Sapphire cards in the deck, but access to the Sapphire Shard changes the entire dynamic of the deck.  This is an important lesson when you are looking at draft and specifically when you are trying to hate draft people out of a shard: it's extraordinarily difficult to do with Sapphire.  While you can steal removal and bombs so you don't have to deal with them, you can't hate your opponent out of the Sapphire Gem of Flight and Feather Drifting Downriver.

Second thing I want to point out is the shard count, since it's somewhat unconventional.  10-6, with a SoF.  Normally this would be considered a splash for Sapphire, where among all my cards I only have 5 sapphire symbols, and in the entire game i'll only ever need one sapphire threshold.  I paid for this a couple games where I never saw a second Blood Shard, but having Feather means you need a reliable way to activate the charge power, which means that in a deck like this, where I would otherwise be okay with going 12-5 (I'm actually somewhat motivated with 2 Terrible Transfer), or trying to pare down the Time Ripple for another Blood card to restrict my need for so many Sapphire cards, since I want to reliably get something in the air turn 4 or 5, I want to ensure I hit my threshold reliably early.  My normal recommendation for draft decks is running 17 lands, and counting the threshold symbols to determine which shards you need an extra copy of, or which cards have more double-threshold requirements, or which shard you need earlier.  Maybe you have small Ruby troops but big Wild troops, so you add the extra Ruby Shard to ensure you don't get deprived in the first few turns.  

The third thing about this deck is the different modes of play it has from the two-card combos in it.  Granted you aren't likely to even see multiple copies of most of these uncommons in the same draft, much less manage to acquire the ones that I did, sometimes getting a few sets of four or five cards that have synergy with each other will give you the ability to respond to whatever your opponent is playing in the first game, and let you tweak the deck with your reserves between games.  Here I have a set of seven Orcs that the Throat Cutters pump (Mazat, Darkspire Priestess and Enforcer).  I have a disruption group with the Corpse Fly, Buccaneers, and a Devoted Emissary to replay them for added annoyance (and it is annoying).

Lastly I have Boltpaw Wizard + Brood Creeper for control, reversion, and maybe once in a blue-moon spider mill.  While the Brood Creeper spider army is self explanatory, I feel I may need to explain the Boltpaw more in depth.  I'll start by just exclaiming that reversion is incredibly strong and possibly a bit undervalued in Hex.  Though reversion is attached to a few cards like Polymorph: Dingler and Corrupted Afterlife, in its most straightforward form it only appears on three cards: Reversion, Manti Elder Druid, and Boltpaw Wizard.  Of the three I consider Boltpaw to generally be the weakest since it requires a troop to sacrifice, but having him ready with a Spiderspawn or two on the field can really stall an opponent's attack, and sometimes even their play.  First, it is a direct counter to Auras, which are solid combat tricks.  If you can't Time Ripple the troop in response to a Diamond Aura or a Ruby Aura, you could quickly find yourself in trouble.  Reversion will directly remove the effects of these cards, netting you card advantage assuming you didn't lose a troop in the trade.  It can reset Rage on cards like Thunderbird or Wrathseeker, and can straight-up kill a Honeycap.  It also counters many popular champion abilities like Feather, Palamedes, or Lionel.  My third round opponent had a Feather of his own, and in staring at the Boltpaw with a couple of support troops was often resigned to not using Feather on a few of the turns he might have, since he couldn't attack with his new flying troop since I could revert and block.  I often see Boltpaw Wizard going later than he should in drafts, though this may be a reaction to Blood being comparatively unpopular.  In any case, while the 3/3 body isn't that impressive and you probably need some Battle Hoppers or a Darkspire Priestess to get the most bang for your buck with the Shin'hare Mage, the threat he produces can be game altering.

The second draft started with me abandoning my first pick again, this time a Ritualist of the Spring Litter.  After a somewhat lackluster first pack where I added a Rune-Ear Commander, a pair of Inner Conflict and Adamanthian Scriviners, I had the makings of a weird Diamond-Wild Shin'hare deck, which might be salvaged if I opened Oath of Valor.  Instead I ended up being passed a slew of bulky Wild dudes, including Boulder Brute, Tyrannosaurus Hex, and a Battle Beetle as a first-pick from the third pack.  I found myself with a plethora of playables, so i cut all the Shin'hare except for Rune-Ear Commander.  However during the draft I had planned on playing Monika'shin, and I was desperately searching for a Champion to play.

I noticed I had two Howling Brave and a Wind Whisperer in my deck.  This prompted me to play One Eye Open, a champion who allows you to ready all troops you control for 3 charges and a diamond threshold.  This allowed me to play a turn 3 Boulder Brute off a Howling Brave, since it could add an additional resource to my pool; and also allowed me to tap two opposing troops with Wind Whispered to help push through my massive Wild beasts.  I gemmed my Boulder Brutes for Swiftstrike, which may seem to be a bit of a weird call considering how strong Spellshield is (indeed, one of them was targeted by Inner Conflict in the last round), but the ability to attack with a Swiftstrike Troop and have it up to block the next turn is incredibly strong.  Plus my deck had a fairly sizable number of threats, so I was perfectly content with letting my 4/4 soak up a removal spell if it meant my T-Hex or Battle Beetle got to live.  

This deck ended up going 2-1 with this deck overall (5-2 in games).  I didn't get a screenshot of this deck, but here is roughly the list.  I will note it's not that impressive on paper, but it played strong and really utilized the champion to ramp and then late-game control with Wind Whisperer and the Swfitstrike Squad:

Champion: One-Eye Open

2 Howling Brave

1 Shield Trainer

1 Feral Ogre

1 Kraken Guard Mariner

1 Grim Skull Sorcerer [+1/+1]

1 Wind Whisperer

2 Quick Strider

1 Spearcliff Pegasus

1 Sensei of the Wounded Petal

2 Boulder Brute [Swiftstrike]

1 Protectorate Sorcerer

1 Battle Beetle [Solidarity]

1 Tyrannosaurus Hex

1 Gigantasaur

1 Sapper's Charge

1 Howling Ambush

1 Wild Growth

1 Reversion

2 Inner Conflict

9 Wild Shards

8 Diamond Shards

Overall I'd like the chance to draft around One Eye Open again.  Howling Brave & Wind Whisperer have excellent synergy with him, and I can imagine Stargazer, Concubunny, and Succulent Roostasaur would fit in nicely as well.  I plan on doing an article about Reversion in general, highlighting exactly what it does and some of the game states where it comes in handy for newer players.  I think I gave a decent primer in the first section with Boltpaw Wizard.

Until next time, good luck in your drafts.

A screenshot of the first draft deck... for science.