Welcome back to the next installment in my journey through Los Angeles' premier Limited league: Team Draft League - Lorwyn Eclipsed season. If you've been following along, among the ten teams in the league only two remain undefeated, my team (&sons) and the current title holders for the past four seasons, 3Clipse.

With a strong start to the season my team is making its way further to the top two cutoff for our division. With ten teams with two divisions of five, we have to win at least four matches and hope to have good tiebreakers over the other teams we play against in our division for a chance at top four, and we were itching to nab our fourth consecutive match win, which would secure us that spot.

I hadn't drafted a ton between our last match and this one, aside from playing on MTG Arena. Here's a 7-win deck I cobbled together during some play-testing:

I've really been impressed with Mardu as one of the "off-theme" decks you can play in this set. I even wrote an article recently about how you can build some of the non-theme decks of the set when things might not go your way. Mardu, mainly Black-White, is probably my favorite of these decks. White and Black are just deep colors in this set, and boast not only efficient removal spells, but great value engines in cards like Blighted Blackthorn, Reaping Willow, and Moonlit Lamenter.

As I've written about time and time again for this set, your deck always needs some sort of engine or way to snowball an advantage. It's sometimes more important to draft commons and uncommons that don't seem powerful, but have synergy together, rather than focus on individual card power level.

This is something I still struggle with, especially in a format like six-person Team Draft where you have more limited resources compared to a regular eight-person Draft. This is also why I had my roughest Draft of Lorwyn season to date.

While it's fun to write about your wins and when you crush an event, I believe it's equally as important to write about when you're wrong and what lessons you can learn from your mistakes. Let's dive in!

This week we were matched up against the Sentinels of Glen (Elendra) a team captained by League mainstay Glen, certainly boasting one of the best team names in the League. His other teammate Alec, who I've played against multiple times at casual Drafts, was my round one opponent, who historically has played mainly White or Red-based Aggro decks against me. In my pack one I was met with this rare:

Maralen is a card I've only played a handful of times but it's incredibly powerful in the right Elves deck. Since Dimir Faeries is a pretty weak archetype compared to the other theme decks in Lorwyn Eclipsed, such as Goblins and Kithkin, I opted to take this rare and try and move into a Golgari Elves deck. I've played Elves a number of times, both in paper, and on MTG Arena, and I've had a really high win percentage with the archetype. The only problem was, I didn't see any Elf cards.

This is where I struggle in Draft, even after playing the format for so long. It's hard for me to give up early powerful picks, since I want to lean on just having good cards against my opponents - but I do this to a fault.

I had a hard time finding a lane, not only in this pack, but in the Draft as a whole. In pack one I did see a Thoughtweft Lieutenant and a Boggart Cursecrafter, but opted to pass on both. What I was really looking for was a value card that could solidify me into Elves, like Morcant's Eyes, Morcant's Loyalist, or Eclipsed Elf - but saw none.

I did end up taking a lot of removal spells and mana fixing, like double Firdoch Core and copies of Blight Rot and Bogslither's Embrace. However, staying too much in Sultai colors without the Elves to back my "theme" up left me with a mish mash of random cards. Here's where my mistake lies.

I did see a lot of Merfolk cards, both in White and Blue. I passed multiple copies of Pestered Wellguard and Gravelgill Scoundrel. I even passed a copy of Meanders Guide at one point, but didn't think too much about it. I also passed a copy of Reaping Willow and at least one copy of Spiral into Solitude as well.

Looking back on it, I should've opted to take lesser powerful cards that have an overall more powerful synergy than just generally good removal spells and creatures that don't really have an engine between them.

Here's what I ended up with at the end of the Draft.

Overall I was pretty disappointed with where I landed. I wasn't exactly Dimir Faeries, I wasn't Elves, and I certainly wasn't a mainly Blue-Red based Elementals deck. I built my deck as best I could. Thankfully my teammates Shaun and Walski had powerful Goblins and Elementals decks, respectively, meaning our opponents were probably all White-based aggro, due to the lack of Elves cards we saw at the table.

In round one I faced off against Alec's Kithkin deck, and he thoroughly crushed me. There isn't much to say here other than the fact that my deck, even having good removal and defensive cards, couldn't break through Alec's curve out of Thoughtweft Lieutenant into Thoughtweft Imbuer. Thankfully Shaun and Walski both won their matches, and we started round two with the 2-1 lead.

In round two, I faced off against another Kithkin deck, but since this one was downstream of Alec's it wasn't nearly as fast. This deck did have some of the slower value cards I passed, like Reaping Willow, but my deck was able to slowly take advantage in the long games we played. Dundoolin Weaver was able to buyback my threats.

With another win from Shaun we entered round three with a 4-1 record, only one win shy of closing out the match, but the Sentinels of Glen weren't going to hand it over so easily. I faced against Glen, who had the Merfolk deck I had passed him. Our match was... interesting.

In Game 1 I was able to actually keep pace with my Flame-Chain Maulers, and was able to surprise Glen with my copies of Reckless Ransacking and Dawn's Light Archer. Eventually my Sunderflock was able to completely bounce his side of the board, leaving behind a Squawkroaster on my side that got in for some serious damage.

In Game 2 we both mulliganed to five, and even though I kept a one-lander on the draw with Stratosoarer, Glenn's multitude of two-drops were able to out-power me fast, especially with me missing land drops. In Game 3 I had Glen on the ropes, having a turn where I was able to Chomping Changeling his Blossombind on my Dawn's Light Archer, and then also Bogslither's Embrace his Tributary Vaulter that was equipped with Bark of Doran.

I was feeling good in my position with a Brambleback Brute on the field - that is, until he played a Prideful Feastling and a Chronicle of Victory to stop me dead in my tracks. Sadly, I was only one damage short of winning the game with Brambleback Brute making some creatures unable to block. Since I wasn't able to close it out on my turn Glen was able to gain enough life with this enlarged lifelinking creature, and I lost my match.

Walski ended up flooding out against Alec's nuts Kithkin deck, leaving everything on the table to Shaun's Goblin deck versus the other Kithkin deck. Shaun's match was a slog, especially after he lost an incredibly close Game 1 to Evershrike's Gift.

The Evershrike's Gift having enchanted a Reaping Willow was what made the game go so long, due to how much lifegain the Kithkin deck accrued. However, in a fast Game 2, and a grindy Game 3 where Shaun was able to enact his combo pieces, he won the match and we locked ourselves into the Lorwyn Eclipsed season's playoff rounds!

I was very relieved, albeit disappointed in my performance, that we ended up winning the match to lock ourselves in for top four. The Sentinels of Glen played some tight games and drafted very well, and it's no wonder our match went to a 5-4 record with us winning it in match 9 Game 3. Overall, I was really impressed with Shaun's trophy deck:

Shaun's deck's success lies in the combo between cards like Boggart Cursecrafter and Boggart Mischief, backed up by just good aggressive creatures and removal spells. He can refill his hand pretty easily with Blighted Blackthorns and Graveshifter, so his deck is both good at presenting early threats while also being able to survive the long game.

I think this is why Black is such a powerful color to be in due to how many value creatures and efficient removal there is in the color - it pairs with everything well, except for Blue.

While I'm happy my team bailed me out from my disappointing 1-2 performance with a lackluster deck, the experience definitely gave me some perspective. I don't think I'm a bad drafter or player, and I certainly have had success in this Limited format. I do think I get too locked in on singular cards when I draft, which can lead me to ignoring more powerful strategies that are being fed to me.

I think what I've learned from this experience is to be more open to playing Aggro decks, especially if I'm seeing the cards in a certain theme. I think I was too scared to commit to an archetype because I didn't see many signpost uncommons after the first few picks in pack one, and I opted to be more open. However, this just led me to never picking a lane, and I would've benefited more from just forcing Merfolk, Kithkin, or some other White grindy deck.

Again, this is the fourth week in a row where neither Walski or I have played a truly base White or Green deck, so it makes me think that I could be vying for White as my base color more. While I do think I avoid White Aggro decks mainly because I feel like Shaun or our opponents have valued them more, I could probably be the Merfolk seat more often.

I'm happy to have dependable teammates and that we're now 4-0 and pretty much locked for our semifinal match. Tune in next time and see where we end up on our road to claim our title in the Team Draft League Los Angeles' Lorwyn Eclipsed season!

-Roman Fusco