Conspiracy!

I drafted my second Conspiracy Take the Crown set last night.

Let me just say this at the outside, I am not a great drafter... I need two, maybe three, drafts to really understand whats going on. So the first time I played the set, I think I could have done well if I didn't get mana hosed. This time, I sort of went the same direction with the drafting. I went mostly W with some light G. Lots of ways to take the crown. Yes, I know it meant I would be a target, but I counted on others being worried about each other.

It turned out, I won with 1 life for 3 rounds. Muahahahaha...

Players as I saw it:

- Rob was playing something that never worked. Got totally mana screwed, and only came in second because of a Ghostly Prison. No one ever had the mana to pay for it and the 3 creatures he had in defense

- Andy was playing a R/U flying deck which never showed any fliers. He was the only one I saw with direct damage. He also had the Rogue's Passage which is huge in this format. I got EXTREMELY lucky when he killed James during the one turn he could have killed me. The down side of his deck, he never got any fliers out.

- Dan was G mostly with some W. He had lots of trickery, moving enchantments around, pumping stuff. He was also on the other side of the table so I was never sure what he had out. He did have some of the largest critters, and had them removed three times.

- James was on the other side of me. He likely had the best deck out there, R and G. Fairly large creatures, but the kicker was the Dragonlair Spider. He became public enemy number 1 when he played it, there was just no way that could last. Thank goodness he was out before me, otherwise I would have not won.


Things that helped me win:

• Hold the Perimeter. That little card helped knock about 12-15 life off everyone else while I just sat and built defenses.
• Juniper Order Ranger- (x2) This guy helped later game in pumping up everything I had. My little sac'd Doom Traveler became 2 2/2 Flyers! Woot. (They lead to killing the last three opponents)
• Spectral Grasp- (x2) Helped save me from the biggest creature out there in the mid game.
• becoming the Monarch- I had six different cards that allowed me to become Monarch just by playing them. The card advantage was huge.
• Beast Within- This allowed me to kill off Dan by removing his one threat and killing him with my 2/2 flyers.
• Netcaster Spider- Allowed me to discourage any flyers. (plus it came down after the Juniper, so +1/+1!) 

     My true MVP though- Protector of the Crown. It came down, grabbed a +1/+1 from the Juniper Order Ranger, and became my "survive another turn" card. It was down fairly late game, so no one took my 1 life TOO seriously. (we can kill you at any time!) No one could do anything about it. Even if I was tapped out, I could easily recover. They would need to do 6 damage JUST to kill that, then have to attack me again to get one damage. Hence why I had to kill Andy to remove the chance at direct damage.
     Also, this time and my previous time, I drafted Ghostly Possession. First draft I nearly won with this card alone. The second time, I never drew it. If I had, put it on the Protector of the Crown, and I would have been nearly invincible. Well, almost. 

    Happy note- I did open the 4 packs of Conspiracy I won. I know, I know... I should have saved them for a later draft. Honestly I don't know when I was going to do that. I opened a Kaya, Ghost Assassin. One of the most "valuable" cards in the entire set. Ha. (well, top 10 in value) It was the only value card opened all night from the set.


postscript:  One aspect of this set that I am really bad at- the politics. I kept quiet for the most part. I allowed everyone else to talk about what they might or might not do. The deck I drafted reflected my attitude in the game for the most part. Stay low, stay strong, stick around long enough to have a chance.