It's time for the final installment of my journey through this season's Los Angeles Team Draft League: Lorwyn Eclipsed edition. Last time, our heroes (my team, &sons) had an undisputed 4-0 record. With Top 4 all but locked up and two weeks until the single elimination rounds, we had our eyes on the prize - becoming the champions of the Lorwyn Eclipsed season.

The Decision to Draft Orzhov

Historically, I've made the point that Orzhov is one of the best non-"theme" decks to play in the format. As a refresher, Lorwyn Eclipsed Limited revolves around a key few archetypes: Golgari Elves, Azorius Merfolk, Rakdos Goblins, Izzet/multicolored Elementals, and Selesnya Kithkin. The other color combinations don't have strategies nearly as strong as these. The biggest trap of the non-theme decks is Dimir Faeries, which gets run over quite easily by any of main theme decks.

However, the one archetype I really enjoy playing outside of the main five is Orzhov, sometimes Mardu, Control. In the first few weeks of the format, I found that only one of our players would end up in White. With White being one of the better colors, we wanted to change that.

Me and my teammate Walski usually ended up in Blue strategies - some sort of Elementals deck - while Shaun, our third teammate, would snap up whatever Aggro deck was open. This made for a good starting strategy because we'd always have an Aggro deck on our side while me and Walski would look for more Midrange and Control strategies.

While Aggro is certainly good in Team Draft, the fact that you don't have as many packs available as an eight-player Draft means that sometimes your decks rely on power rather than synergy. That's why I usually like playing grindier decks.

After watching Shaun play various White-Black decks, both in and out of League Drafts, I decided to try Drafting it for myself on MTG Arena. Here's one example of an undefeated 7-0 Orzhov deck I played.

While there isn't exactly a supported Treefolk archetype, pretty much all of the Treefolk cards in the set are good in this deck. You primarily want Blighted Blackthorn and Reaping Willow as your main two sources of value. Together, you can continually Blight onto your Reaping Willow to keep reanimating small creatures back from your graveyard. All the while you're drawing a card each turn with Blighted Blackthorn.

Moonlit Lamenter is another great Blight target and source of card advantage. Ultimately, you want to utilize these Treefolk with decent removal and other value creatures, like Meanders Guide, to go over the top of your opponent.

The Round 5 Match

For our fifth week of league, we were paired up against 3Clipse (Alex, Ryan, and Mike), the previous title holders. While we were locked for the playoffs, our match still mattered in terms of seeding. If we ended up the highest seed in our division, we'd get to pick the location of our semifinals match against the lower seed of the other division.

As you know, I ended up in Orzhov, with teammates Shaun and Walski being Goblins and Merfolk, respectively. I opened some pretty solid Rares in Slumbering Walker, Champion of the Weird (secretly an Orzhov bomb), and Bitterbloom Bearer. While I did have decent removal, I do think my deck needed some better win conditions.

A card I really wanted for my deck that I just didn't see was Rooftop Percher. The Changelings in this set are so powerful. They work in conjunction with cards like Champion of the Weird, but can also provide value with cards like Unbury and Meanders Guide.

Our match was actually over quite fast - in round one I faced off against Ryan's Four-Color Elementals. I flooded out badly in Game 1, and was able to outdraw him in Game 2. In Game 3 I couldn't deal with the onslaught of not one, but two copies of Prismabasher. I even hated one from his team during the Draft! While Spiral into Solitude was good at holding him at bay, I couldn't deal with the extra points of Trample damage.

Shaun and Walski also lost their matches, noting that Alex on the opposing team had Trystan's Command and Champions of the Perfect in his deck. Those are two of the best Rares in the entire set. In round two I was able to defeat Alex's deck. I took Game 1 thanks to the fact I had Bitterbloom Bearer on turn two on the play in Game 1. Game 2 he got mana-screwed. However, Shaun and Walski were unable to clinch their matches, so we lost 5-1.

It was a pretty rough beating. While I do think we were all in the correct seats during the Draft and had decent decks, sometimes them's the breaks (but also, Alex's deck was nuts).

The Round 6 Match

In the last week of the season we faced off against a new team to the league, The Bitter Boys. While this match didn't matter for the final standings, we decided to play it out for fun anyway. One of my teammates was out of town, so I recruited my friend Adam, known purveyor of crazy five-color decks, to our side.

In pack one, my opponent to the right exclaimed his pack was nuts, and while he ended up taking the best card (known later as a Slumbering Walker) I did get a free Figure of Fable. So, our team's night started off strong.

At the end of the Draft, my deck was honestly a bit strange. I had a weird mixture of Creatures from various archetypes, some solid removal, some Treefolk, and at least some game-ending threats in the form of Bitterbloom Bearer and Figure of Fable.

However, this is sort of how the Orzhov deck comes together. It's a weird mishmash of archetypes grouped together to just be a grindy deck. I had double Meanders Guide to keep recurring removal (my Mudbutton Cursetosser) and my big threats. My Moonlit Lamenter was a fantastic self-Blight target for my Blighted Blackthorns, Dream Seizer, and Spiral into Solitudes.

In round one, my opponent and good friend Andrew had a solid Sultai deck, relying on powerful rares like Trystan's Command and Gloom Ripper. However, I was able to rely on my eight removal spells to deal with his threats. I was eventually able to go over the top with my grindy creature package.

In round two I faced off against Jaxson, the player passing to me on my right, and funny enough he also ended up in a Mardu build. However, I felt like he passed on some of the better Blight-centric cards, like my Blighted Blackthorns and my Moonlit Lamenter (which wheeled). I think he tried to play too-aggressive of a strategy. I was able to play the right value engines to shut down his plan.

Finally, in round three I was defeated by a fast Selesnya Kithkin deck. While I had a pretty solid defensive plan against his strategy, some untimely mulligans and mana-screw left me open to his curve out. He also had a Champions of the Perfect to bury me in card advantage.

Walski clinched a match with his multicolored-brew, and Adam, with his crazy five-color Elementals deck was able to also get two wins, so we won the match.

The Semifinals

While my team was hoping for a clean shot at the finals, our semifinals match proved to be our toughest yet. Again, I don't think me or my teammates opened any particularly powerful cards, but our opponents definitely did. We ended up with me in Orzhov, Shaun in Kithkin, and Walski in Merfolk again. While we had some close matches, they were ultimately very tough to win.

Our opponents, having a combination of Spinerock Tyrant and Oko, Lorwyn Liege in one deck and Ashling's Command in another definitely hit pretty hard against my team's aggressive strategies. While we did fight until round three, we ultimately fell short in this match. I actually forgot to take a picture of my deck this week, but the one thing I learned from this Draft is that I needed to prioritize removal harder.

I did have Dawnhand Dissident in my deck and another Champion of the Weird. In pack two I opted to take a Gnarlbark Elm over a Liminal Hold, which ended up being a mistake. In the short-term, I know I needed good Blight payoffs, and Gnarlbark Elm is one of the best self-Blight creatures to have in Orzhov. However, I didn't see any good removal spells the entire Draft besides one Bogslither's Embrace, which I nabbed in pack three.

There were no copies of Spiral into Solitude in the entire 18-pack pool, and the only Liminal Hold I saw was the one in the Gnarlbark Elm pack. Maybe in hindsight I wouldn't have known there would be no good removal spells in pack three, but I should've prioritized that hard removal better.

While the season ended in a way we didn't anticipate, we did have a good run. I'm grateful for all the lessons I learned the last few weeks. Lorwyn Eclipsed isn't my favorite set of all time, but I do think the knowledge I took from these Drafts is invaluable.

In Team Draft, I definitely err on the side of playing three-to-four color strategies that rely on power rather than synergy. However, in a set that pushes its key archetypes pretty hard, you need to be disciplined.

This is reflected in my decks throughout the season. Some of the worst weeks I had, my decks were lacking this sort of internal consistency. This was especially true when I chose to be in a Blue deck as opposed to just forcing White Aggro.

Even if we didn't clinch the title this time, I do think this season gave me valuable insight into how I can be Drafting better, both in and out of League.

The finals underway at our season end party

Congrats to 3Clipse on another well-earned victory! &Sons will be back soon for another season, celebrating Draft and the wonderful Los Angeles Limited community.

Until next time...

-Roman Fusco