About
Alessandro Lippi

30 years old
Travel Agent, Italy
TOP 4 GP Utrecht and Turin

My Pick:

It’s always wonderful having such a bomb to begin a draft with. A 6/6 reach for 5 mana who can kill a flyer next turn simply by turning himself into a 9/9? Seriously? I’m in! The fact that is green, possibly the best color of the set (a close race with blue), surely doesn’t hurt.

Pack 1 pick 2:

Here the best cards are Pharika’s Mender and Dauntless Onslaught. Onslaught is much powerful in general, but I take the BG guy for several reasons: I’d much rather being BG or UG than GW, I want to take the best green card in the pack, I prefer to splash a Mender in my UG deck. So Mender it is.

Pack 1 pick 3:

My Pick:

This is a very tough pick. I really like UG and I really like the Chimera, but I don’t have particular signal of U being open. Scorpion is another valid candidate, but I think ramping is very important in this format (we started with two 5 mana drops..)and Caryatid allows us to be fast, to fix our mana and provides a solid hexproof blocker. A very good card.

Pack 1 pick 4:

My Pick:

Sorry Sip, but Time to Feed is too good to pass on. This good removal cementifies us into green. Let’s stay open for the second color and see what happens.

Pack 1 pick 5:

My Pick:

Here we have a late Coordinated Assault, but I don’t like GR and Pharika’s Cure is a very good card to survive until we can lay our fatties. Also,taking it as 5th may lead us to think black is open too.

Pack 1 pick 6:

My Pick:

No green cards for us here, we take the lone black one which is a solid card.

Pack 1 pick 7:

My Pick:

Definitely not a good pick. I don’t want Centaurs since I already have two five drop, but I might play Boon which is a decent trick.

Pack 1 pick 8:

My Pick:

Acolyte is a solid card which helps with monstrous guys. Fine.

Pack 1 pick 9:

I don’t like Rescue in a non-Merchant deck. I take the Amulet just in case we have to splash something.

Pack 1 pick 10:

My Pick:

See above. Presence cycles, too.

Pack 1 pick 11:

My Pick:

Don’t like the Steed, we can play Scourgemark if we happen to take any heroism creatures.

Pack 1 pick 12:

My Pick:

Pack 1 pick 13:

My Pick:

A decent sideboard option.

Pack 1 pick 14:

My Pick:

At the end of this pack we’re 100% green and 70% black, altough we can splash a couple cards. Let’s see what happens in the following packs.

Pack 2 pick 1:

My Pick:

You can definitely call it a signal from above. Agent is one of the best card of the set in a dedicated deck, and is able to win the game by himself if unmolested. We absolutely want to be BG now, and we won’t look back.

Pack 2 pick 2:

My Pick:

Dryad is not just a good card, it has a good synergy with Agent, so we’re happy to take it.

Pack 2 pick 3:

My Pick:

Another dryad! Oh wait…we have a fake uncommon. Gorgon is very very powerful, and we’re very happy to slam it. Now we hope to open a Satyr pack3 to accelerate into such powerful 5 drops.

Pack 2 pick 4:

My Pick:

A good way to stay alive to cast our bombs.

Pack 2 pick 5:

My Pick:

We need creatures and this is a solid one.

Pack 2 pick 6:

My Pick:

This is not exactly a control card, but I prefer to keep mana curve as low as possible.

Pack 2 pick 7:

My Pick:

Emissary is ok, but Eidolon is better in a control deck and its beastow cost is cheaper and combines pretty well with Agent.

Pack 2 pick 8:

My Pick:

We’re probably not going to play this, but I want to cut every black playable.

Pack 2 pick 9:

My Pick:

With Agent I could end playing two Scourgemark

Pack 2 pick 10:

My Pick:

A late decent green removal. I wouldn’t mind playing it maindeck.

Pack 2 pick 11:

My Pick:

Ok, maybe three is too much, but you never know..

Pack 2 pick 12:

My Pick:

A good sideboard option against aggro decks

Pack 2 pick 13:

My Pick:

Pack 2 pick 14:

My Pick:

Pack 2 pick 15:

My Pick:

At the end of this pack we’re set on BG and definitely improved our card quality. We need two or three more good creatures, possibly another removal and a Satyr and you can call it a deck.

Pack 3 pick 1:

My Pick:

…And Satyr it is! Disciple is fine, but we need acceleration and Satyr is the best green common.

Pack 3 pick 2:

My Pick:

We said we needed cheap and solid creatures. Also known as Nessian Centaur

Pack 3 pick 3:

My Pick:

Black disciple is good, but for the abovementioned reasons I want another copy of the Eidolon.

Pack 3 pick 4:

My Pick:

Another Satyr! With 3 two mana drops we can reasonably expect to cast our fatties earlier, and that’s usually a good way to win the game.

Pack 3 pick 5:

My Pick:

Nothing for us, counterdraft

Pack 3 pick 6:

My Pick:

A third Eidolon isn’t bad for this deck’s phylosophy..

Pack 3 pick 7:

My Pick:

With 3 mana dorks and 17 land we tend to flood a bit, and a second copy of Read the Bones, balanced with the lifegain from the two Pharika’s Cure, helps us to reduce this possibility.

Pack 3 pick 8:

My Pick:

Counterdraft. We want our removal to resolve.

Pack 3 pick 9:

My Pick:

Altough I really wouldn’t mind playing a playset of Eidolon in a deck like this, I want to give Horse a try.

Pack 3 pick 11:

I don’t think we’re going to play this because of devotion, but if we have to hurry up..

Pack 3 pick 12:

My Pick:

Pack 3 pick 14

My Pick:

Pack 3 pick 15:

My Pick:

At the end of the draft I felt confident with my deck. Its goal is to control the board until we find one of the two bombs to win the game with.
I submitted the following 45:
I mained Scourgemark over Boon of Erebos because of the cycle ability, but it was a close call and in some matches I switched between them.
I played the first match against UW, won the roll and started with Agent of the Fates, which was met with Voyage’s End. I replayed it on turn four and managed to trigger its ability in the following three turns, killing almost every one of my opponent’s creatures and eventually killing my opponent with the Agent itself with little help from a Centaur. G2 he mulliganed to six and stumbled forever with two lands. I just played a Read the Bones and a Keepsake Gorgon to earn a concession.
Match 2 vs RG: I started the first game with a Harpy, which raced until it was stopped by an Asp. I drew an Arbor Colossus, which forced my opponent to make a bad 1 for 3 to kill it. Unfortunately for him I had Pharika’s Mender to take my rare back and when it became monstrous again he was forced to concede. Second game he had a fast start and responded to my turn-4 Arbor Colossus by equipping his 5/3 with the Red emissary. I played Fade into Antiquity to resize his beast and he was forced to 1 for 3 again to kill my 9/9 after a couple of turns. Once again I got Pharika’s Mender but this time when I was tapped out to re-cast Arbor Colossus he was ready with Hunt the Hunter to kill it again. I managed to stabilize at 2 life, drew Agent at some point killing his lone guy and started to race. He wasn’t able to find his Lightning Strike to finish me off and the game was over.
Finals vs BR aggro. I stumbled a little in G1 with lands but managed to stabilize with a 3/3 reach Baleful Eidolon. My opponent then gave intimidate to a Red creature, and the turn before I could profitably kill it with Time to Feed he drew…

I died shortly after.

He had an explosive start yet again in G2. When I finally managed to stabilize and get a measure of control over the game he slammed runner runner Mogis’s Marauder followed by Cavern Lampad on a Red creature.

I didn’t draw my Fade into Antiquity and it was soon over. I think the deck could have made 3-0 but I’m not too disappointed since I missed crucial land drops in both of the games I lost.
Hope you’ve enjoyed this. See you next time.

Alessandro Lippi