Just got home from our first Zendikar draft, which I have, apparently, won – Mr Coker can reach equal first on points (we’ve lost one game each, but he has a game left to play against Mr Karlov), but I’ll have a higher countback. So woo yeah! Go team awesome! (That’s me. I’m team awesome. No you can’t join.)

First picks. Alas, A2, A3 and A5 didn’t make the cut.

My card pool looked like this:

And my deck looked like this (plus, um… 12 Forests and 5 Plains):

(We use numbered sleeves so that we can reconstruct, analyze the bejeezus out of, and ultimately reverse the draft and give everyone back the cards they opened. Yes, we are that obsessed.)

Obviously there’s an Allies thing happening, plus a touch of landfall supported by the Khalni Heart Expeditions and the Frontier Guide. Removal consists of the first-pick Journey to Nowhere and not much else, so it’s definitely a deck that needs to stay on the front foot.

Fortunately it did, against everyone except Mr Shellshear, sporting a black-red deck without much synergy but with plenty of individual bombs, who beat me senseless with a huge creature with Fear Intimidate.

MVPs were Baloth Woodcrasher (can win on its own with multiple landfalls), Turntimber Ranger, and the pair of of Oran-Rief Survivalists. Play of the night was springing Summoning Trap into Turntimber Ranger against DMM who was playing a mono-blue deck built around Lullmage Mentor. (We were speaking in bad French accents at the time, which made it even more awesome. Don’t ask why.) Vines of Vastwood is very versatile as a combat trick and/or finisher, as you’d expect. Shepherd of the Lost seems good but the only time I got it out it didn’t do much (I was already on the back foot against Mr Shellshear).

Mr Coker had the honour of the first landfall.

Sustenance.

Allies doing their thing. The zombie miniatures are +1/+1 tokens or life counters, depending on the context.

My first impressions of Zendikar are definitely encouraging me to go back for second and third impressions.

We didn't quite find a Black Lotus...