Feln Mill (7-2, draft)

This deck was a ton of fun to pilot. In a lot of games of draft, there is the eternal question of 'who's the beatdown?' Identifying which player is the beatdown and which player has inevitability is a key part of victory, and misidentifying your role can cost you the game.... which makes it very relaxing when you know that your deck can always function in one of the roles. This was a very solid control deck that also happened to have a ton of inevitability.

P1P1 Petra, Auric Launderer. The next-best card in the pack was probably Toxic Wisp, which I wasn't that excited by. P2, I picked up Arachnoid Terror over Marisen's Legacy and Calderan Captain - I think they're slightly stronger, but I felt like trying to stick to one faction while searching for the open lane. P3 Call the Hit - I noticed this deck was missing Time, signalling a closed lane. The best cards in the pack were probably Breach the Defenses and Icy Hold, but, again, sticking to a single faction.

This continued for a few more picks - I got Midnight Hunter, Usury Writer, and a few multifaction cards (Unseen Marksman and Face of Betrayal)... but what ultimately made me finally commit was a late Chloric Mix and Snowpeak Eagle, which made it look like Primal was open. Packs 2 and 3, I was somewhat rewarded - I got Fall to Ruin, Crackling Bauble and Inciter of Madness, plus multiple Lightning Strikes and a late Sadistic Glee.

P4 was when things finally came together - I picked up 2x Sweet Dreams, The Rat King, and a Runebinder as something to loop with Sweet Dreams.

The deck I put together was designed as a control deck - lots of removal and value, with the intent of running opponents out of resources and winning with whatever was left over. This worked out pretty well - Fall to Ruin is a strong card, and shuffling a ton of removal back into the deck with Petra provided a lot of inevitability in the long game. However, what really made this deck pop was, in fact Usury Writer of all things - with 2x Sweet Dreams and Sadistic Glee, it was really easy to loop it multiple times an mill out my opponents. Not something I realized while drafting or building the deck, but it turned out to be a fantastic win condition that opponents weren't able to disrupt.

MVP: Usury Writer + Sweet Dreams (tied). This was the backbone of multiple victories. Usury Writer was also just a great body for blocking.

Highlight: played against one opponent two games in a row. Lost the first one - they played in a way that made it really awkward for me to play the Fall to Ruin I was holding for most of the game, and ultimately killed me with an aegis unit (Feral Serpent).... but in the second game, they didn't play around Fall to Ruin at all and instead flooded the board, letting me nuke everything with ~4 cards left in hand (including multiple removal spells) when they had none. Not that they had an option - all their units were 2/2s and blocked by Usury Writer.