Tams first Aether Revolt Draft

Hey everyone! 

Boy, it feels like it's been a life time since I've written one of these things, but I'm super excited to be back at it.

I'm coming to Aether Revolt having not done much in Kaladesh, save for a sealed league and approaching this draft, I'd had no real exposure to the cards except for watching Loading Ready Run's Pre Pre Release, so to say I felt lost, was an understatement. That said, I'm always up to jump into an unknown draft format so I gave it a whirl.

My pack one pick one was Winding Constrictor. 

I knew that there was a bunch of stuff that put counters on things, as well as energy floating around, so this looked really strong. I live by the, don't marry your first pick, so I had no issue first picking a two coloured card. 

As I made my way through the first pack I picked up a Scrounging Bandar and a Defiant Salvager, giving me hope that I could make the counters on creatures train roll.

  

By the end of the draft, I had drafted 12 cards that produced counters, in one form or another, and I was thinking I'd hit the jack pot. 

My removal suite was very light, with only one unconditional destroy spell, one fight card, one spell that would take care of 2/2's and a couple of removalish creatures, but my thinking was that I would be Voltroning up my smaller creatures and being aggressive. 

The rest of the cards were ramp, card draw and bigger butt creatures to hold down the sky and ground if I went to the late game. 

Round one was against a blue green deck. In game one we battled back and forth, grinding each other down, painfully slowly, until my opponent came out on top, thanks to a well played counter spell. Game two was pretty much more of the same, again going to turns but finally squeaking out the win, putting down one more creature than I could block.

Round two saw me play Step, something neither of us really like to have happen. I started off strong, dropping a handful of creatures, but his removal found itself in his hand and he removed three creatures in rapid succession. There was just no coming back from that. In game two I didn't fare much better, never able to keep enough threat on the board to make any headway.

Round three showed me the biggest mistake I'd made with this deck, I relied too much on my ability to trigger revolt by attacking into my opponent. Most players will be wise to what seems like an unprofitable attack and won't block. More times than not, I wound up playing creatures for no value and never did get the Constrictor to go off.

I think this would have been a much more successful deck if I'd had other ways to trigger the revolt, such as bounce, or more cards that allowed me to sac my own creatures.

All in all though, it was a really fun night, and a great way to get my first taste of Aether Revolt.