Last week was so much fun, we decided to run another Chaos Draft again this week. If you missed that article, check it out here. Same three sets were used: TOA Draft Pack, 6 packs of Thor, and 6 packs of Green Arrow/Flash. Rules were the same where we had to use at least 2 cards from each set (not counting the BAC’s).
What Did You Play?
Since the Dice Coalition Team Builder is on the fritz right now with Chrome, I will just write out the build of the Team. The first to be opened was the TOA Draft Pack. I got Magic Missile and Insect Plaque as my BAC’s. Some shenanigans to be had for sure, but I would have liked ramp options more. Nothing really jumped out at me as an amazing win-con with the cards I had to start with. I grabbed a Rare Batiri Battle Stack with the hope that maybe another would show up. What got handed to me next? The Common Batiri Battle Stack. Now I have a plan and already have 4 dice for this guy. Time to make him work. Next pile had another Battle Stack. Using the Draft Rules, now I have 6 dice for the Battle Stacks and I am venturing into broken territory. The rest of the key pieces I grabbed from my TOA cards was the Common Kobold Trap (to help get more Battle Stacks into the field) and Valindra Shadowmantle (because she was the only Attune character that I saw).
The next set of cards we opened were from Green Arrow/Flash. There was still some salt from the rampaging Rare Grodd from last week, and I joked that it would be funny to get his Uncommon Cousin with all these Battle Stacks. My first set of cards had Rare Merlyn (Yes!), Rare King Shark (Double Yes), and… oh… my… (Uncommon) Grodd (Hell Yes!). Well, this selection was as easy as it could be. Grodd would lead my army of buffed Battle Stacks to overcrushing glory. The rest of the GAF cards that made the final cut were Common Hal Jordan (because I knew Merlyn was out there), and Common Firestorm (because I kept getting passed Firestorms for some reason). I never saw the Chalkboard or S.T.A.R. Labs, which would have been helpful.
The final cards came from the Thor pile. I am already going fully aggro with the Battle Stacks and Grodd. What could possibly make this worse? Yup… Common Mr. Fixit was my first round pick. Magic Missile + Fixit + Overcrush = Yes Please. Common Heimdall was the final add to the Team for Ramp.
The final build looked like this:
- Magic Missile (BAC)
- Insect Plague (BAC)
- C Kobold Trap (x 2)
- C Batiri Battle Stack (x 6)
- C Hal Jordan (x 1)
- C Firestorm (x 3)
- C Valindra Shadowmantle (x 2)
- C Mr. Fixit (x 1)
- C Heimdall (x 1)
- UC Gorilla Grodd (x 2)
Let’s see how this monstrosity ran.
Game 1:
Against the Rare King Shark I passed and another Common Hal Jordan. Overcrushing sharks was going to be my big problem. At least he brought Cake for me. While I was getting set up he managed to roll a level 3 Hal on one turn and hit me for 5 because my field was empty. OK. Not the end of the world. Next turn came out a level 3 Shark in front of my poor Sidekick who got pinged out with Magic Missile. Ouch. I was down to very little life, very quickly. However, you only need 1 life to win.
Cue the comeback. Once I got 2 Battle Stacks into the field, things started to turn around. I still took some shots from the shark, but I held the line until I built up my field. Eventually the time came for Grodd to show up. He came out with more Battle Stacks and some bolts. I used the Magic Missile Global to ping out some blockers and swung in with an obscene amount of damage.
At the end of the game we realized the he could have ended it a few turns earlier by using the Insect Plague Global, but we both forgot about it.
1-0
Game 2:
Super… Rare… Yuan… Ti. At least there was no Cube, but still could be a pain in my rear. Early Battle Stacks for me and early Yuan-Ti for him. It was multiple paper-cuts to me over and over and over again. However, the Battle Stack swarm built up to Grodd fairly quickly. Again, I got lucky when he missed his Green Devil Mask roll and I could keep my field. Grodd and friends came out to play again pounded lethal damage to my opponent’s face.
So kids, the secret to beating SR Yuan-Ti is to have Grodd and an obscene amount of Battle Stacks. Put those on your WKO Teams. It also helps where there is no Cube to be found.
2-0
Game 3:
Common Hulk was the big problem, and my Magic Missile made her worse. This would be tough once Hulk showed up. And she sure showed up early, and level 3 to make it worse. I continued with the Battle Stack swarm, but this time grabbed Fixit. It would be a Hulk out battle to determine the winner here. However, I had to wait for Grodd to make the engine work. He pinged his stuff with my Global to deal damage to me thanks to Hulk. I was down to 6 life before I could make my move.
I eventually had Grodd, Fixit, and a bunch of Battle Stacks ready to fire. However, I knew this would be a gamble as we were both hitting each other in the face at the same time. Fixit went unblocked, but I pinged him with Magic Missile and buffed him with the Hulk Global. That took him to 1. Now to math out the rest. I had more than enough Overcrush damage to kill him, but damaging his characters would kill me as well. We discussed this one to make sure we got it right because both effects were going to trigger. It was a matter of who died first. We agreed that all combat damage was simultaneous so the Overcrush would kill before Hulk’s damage would trigger.
3-0
Game 4:
Bye!
4-0
Post-Mortem:
The Chaos Draft format is fun… period. I didn’t like the first one I took part in as it was only one or two packs of certain sets. This version is awesome. Lots of building options present themselves. I highly recommend it if you can try it in your area.
The Batiri Battle Stacks alone are stupid in the Draft format. Grodd alone in Draft is crazy. Mr. Fixit and Magic Missile should never be put together. Put all of these things in one giant mixing bowl and you have a ridiculously crazy combat damage based Team. More Ramp options would have been better, but I didn’t have much to work with here.
The kill shot in game 3 was one of those Dice Mastery things that comes up from time to time. Both players are going to die at the same time, but who dies first. I am fairly confident that we came up with the right answer, but there is always that lingering doubt.
Did we play that one right? Have you had ridiculous combos fall into your lap in draft? Have you come up with a better Yuan-Ti counter than Batiri/Grodd? Let us know in the comments below.
As always, thanks for reading!
– jourdo