Pack 1, pick 1 Siege Veteran. Boom! Pick 2 Mishra's Command out of a pretty weak pack. Looks like they picked an uncommon. Pick 3 Sardian Cliffstomper over Queen Kayla bin Kroog and Dwarven Forge-Chanter. No white cards. Maybe mono red is on the table? Pick 4 Goblin Blast-Runner, I'm liking where this is going. Pick 5 Unleash Shell, still no white cards. Pick 6 snapping off Evolving Wilds to splash Siege Veteran in mono-red. Pick 7 Conscripted Infantry over Aeronaut Cavalry. Pick 8 snapped off second Evolving Wilds over Blitz Automaton and Dwarven Forge-Chanter. I got Whirling strike on the wheel and a couple filler-level red creatures. I'm feeling a little underpowered, no Scrapwork Mutts, no Excavation Explosions, no Strongbulls, but I got all the red cards and I can easily splash my bomb, so it's hard to be upset.

Pack 2, I got a Mutt pick 1, a Strongbull pick 3, then... kinda bricked the rest of the pack. No white or red cards of note, I did get a couple Combat Couriers 6th and 8th.

Pack 3, I got another pick 1 Mutt, and second Sardian Cliffstomper pick 2. There was a pick where I had to choose between 2nd Blast-Runner and 2nd Strongbull, and in hindsight I think I should have taken Strongbull. I don't really have the sacrifice outlets for Blast-Runner but I don't really have the artifacts for Strongbull.

My first loss was to black red removal. My hand looked pretty good, but they Explosioned my 2 drop, they Shelled my Cliffstomper, and they got my Chaindancer's throat, and somehow managed to play an off-color 3/5, which is a nightmare stat for me. I drew my Siege Veteran, but couldn't cast it.

My second loss I'm going to chalk up to a pretty significant misplay. I had 2 Forge-Chanters and a Cliffstomper up against their 4/4 with a Courier, Mishra's Domination and Supply Drop. I ended up playing the domination on the 4/4 and getting in for 8, but I think I should have just attacked and Supply Dropped to kill the 4/4 on blocks. Bad play on my part.

My third loss was to drawing 9 lands and my opponent having turn 3 Siege Veteran.

I have to admit 2-3 was pretty disappointing. I didn't think this deck was great, even though whenever you're mono-red you end up having to run some derpy cards, but I thought I was at least fine for 4 wins. I was hoping to get a good curve out at least a couple of times, and I didn't have a 1 drop in any of my games.

Sometimes you open a Titania's Command. I mean, that's just the draft. Pick 2 Skyfisher Spider, lets go! Pick 3 Boulderbranch Golem. Pick 4 Gnawing Vermin over Mishra's Bauble and Evolving Wilds. Pick 5 Haywire Mite over Emergency Weld and Unleash Shell. Pick 6 Energy Refractor over Audacity, Gaea's Gift, and Moment of Defiance. Pick 7 Goring Warplow over Ravenous Gigamole and Hoarding Recuse. Blanchwood Prowler and Mightstone's Animation wheeled.

Pack 2, pick 1 Liberator, Urza's Battlethopter (which is my pick for the most dystopian sounding name in the set; I don't know if I trust Urza to truly liberate anything.) Not many interesting picks, but a lot of good white cards wheeled. I think I could have gotten into white here somewhere.

Pack 3, pick 1 Overwhelming Remorse over Draconic Destiny. Pick 2 Gix's Command. Golgari it is.

It's hard to say that I didn't like my deck when I have two of the best rares in the set, but it felt kind of medium. I liked my early game, and I liked my late game, but the middle turns felt a little lacking.

Two of my three losses were games that I just played so, so badly. One of the games I got too aggressive for no reason, killed the wrong things for no reason, then got buried by Third Path Savant. It was just such a bad, bad game.

My second loss was to a soldier curve out where they had Skystrike Officer and Thopter Mechanic. I had a turn where I could remove both, but I exiled the Mechanic thinking to avoid the Thopter, but they had Recommission for Skystrike Officer. Literally every single time I have ever killed a Skystrike Officer, they have Recommission. Ugh.

My third loss was very much like my first loss. I was needlessly aggressive, and got myself in a position where they had Rust Goliath and I attacked my Liberator into it because apparently Rust Goliath has reach. They topdecked better than I did, but it shouldn't have mattered.

6-3 is what it is, but like, if I can go 5-3 in every draft for the rest of time, I would take that.

Whenever I do poorly in a draft on Arena, I always get this thought like, "Whelp, that's it for me, I'm never going to win a game again and all my gold and gems will disappear." And I know that's silly, I have a 64% win rating in limited since I started using 17lands a few years back. I am a good drafter and I will win again.

Pack 1, pick 1 Phyrexian Dragon Engine. The wheel for this pack is going to be bad. Pick 2 Hajar, Loyal Bodyguard over Corrupt, Blanchwood Prowler, and Wing Commando. Double R on the dragon unearth put me off Corrupt, but maybe that was just wrong. It seems like I've always been able to get an Elsewhere Flask. Pick 3 Scatter Ray over Hulking Metamorph, Wing Commando, and Deadly Riposte. Pick 4 Combat Courier over Yotian Tactician, Overwhelming Remorse, and Prison Sentence. I ran out of time on this pick. Pick 5 Giant Cindermaw, which felt like a signal that red might be open but there just weren't any good red cards. Pick 6 Scrapwork Mutt over Scatter Ray. Pick 7 Scrapwork Rager over Elsewhere Flask, which was a last second choice. Pick 8 Gaea's Gift over nothing. Pick 9 Branchwood Prowler wheeled, which I did not expect. Also got a Giant Growth and an Argothian Sprite, which kind of pulled me back towards green-red.

Pack 2 all of the green cards wheeled, but other than the Skyfisher Spider, it was a pretty mediocre pack overall. Pack 3 went really well, with multiple burn spells, the Arbalest Engineers... I did punt on a Blitz Automaton, which i didn't see in the pack, but I would have liked the option of a nice 7 drop, and with all my combat tricks, a hasty 3/2 would have been fine too.

I originally thought my deck was great, but the more I looked at it, the more I felt like it was just a bunch of mediocre creatures, especially at 3 and 4. I also just thought Fallaji Chaindancer had double strike naturally. Whoops.

My first loss was to Urza, Prince of Kroog. I couldn't for the life of me draw a removal spell. That said, I was really not impressed with what else was going on in their deck, it was just they had uncontested Urza and I couldn't break through.

My second loss was to GW. Their draw lined up pretty well against mine. I think I might be underrating Warlord's Elite. It seemed more like filler and I think it's maybe a C+? At least it seems like it's always been good against me. I guess I don't see the games where it rots in their hand when they can't cast it early. Anyway, I think I messed up a block late in the game and they topdecked me when we were at parity. I was 2-2 at this point and really feeling the mediocre creatures.

I should also point out that I misread Phyrexian Dragon Engine. I forgot entirely about the Unearth trigger. I was trying to go for a Giant Growth shot for 10, but the game didn't let me respond to it's etb. So I had to decline and they had a removal spell. Disaster! I still won that game though.

My other loss was to a "mirror," where we traded off all game, except they had Ironclaw Crusher, which notably has 6 toughness, with Audacity, and I only had 5 power with which to block. I died with two Unleash Shells in my hand that I couldn't even cast because I drew the maindeck Swamp I played instead of the Mountain it would have been had I not splashed.