I partipated in three Sealed events and three Drafts events over the GP Melbourne weekend.

The three Sealed events:

* GP Melbourne Trial Grinder #2 (2-1 knockout)
* GP Melbourne (2-2 drop)
* PTQ Austin (0-1 drop)

I was completely overwhelmed by the quality of the pools I opened and passed away - and completely underwhelmed by the pools I received. Particularly disappointing was the PTQ Austin pool. I gave away an amazing UW control pool with Luminarch Ascension and a metric tonne of removal, and then passed through an astounding BR deck with double Geopede and Hideous End and the Bloodchief himself, and ended up with a deck with no finishers and no removal.

Three terrible sealed pools in a row made my mind kinda want to explode. When people look at your pool, shrug, and tell you to give up Magic, you know the Gods have it in for you.

On the flip side, I had three interesting Draft events:

* FNM Draft Event
* 2 x Sanctioned Drafts

FNM Draft Event

I drafted UW for the FNM draft event. I confess, I'm a little in love with Blue in Zendikar draft. However, there was a major problem with this particular draft - FOUR players opened a Sphinx of some sort, three in the first packs. So three players immediately went blue. The one player who didn't was a Japanese pro-player, who simply picked up the pieces with a truely insane BR deck. He had triple Geopede, triple Lacerator, triple 2/1 black intimidator dude, and Adventuring Gear. I met him in the finals, and though my deck was pretty aggressive (four Lynx, 2 tern), it simply could not keep up the pace and I came second.

Sanctioned Draft #1

I think I probably got lucky in this draft. I P1P1 a Scute Mob. I started heading into a Gr deck, a few big dudes and mana acceleration. I grabed a Nissa's Chosen as well, as I've seen them played and they're very effective holding the ground. Then P2P1 was Nissa Revane. I've already tweeted how many Nissa Revane I've opened; she and I have a thing together. Suddenly I'm prioritising Nissa's Chosen over everything. Then P2P2 is an Oracle of Mul Daya. That card is insane. Mana accelerate? SURE! Never draw another land again? SURE! Trigger landfall a million times? NOT A PROBLEM! Obviously my deck is now insane. And with Blade of the Bloodchief and Carnage Altar, the shennanigan possibilities are huge. Certainly the card advantage is. I go an easy 2-0 and ID at the top for packs.

Sanctioned Draft #2

I open yet another Jwar Sphinx, but that's okay, because Blue is fairly open. Red is clearly available, and I draft a wonderful UR deck with so. much. burn. I had three Spire Barrage, a card I believe is hugely underrated at the moment. Sure, it's Sorcery speed. But these so little to counter or prevent it, it can hit just about anything, and it can end a tight race fast. If you count a Spire Barrage as five damage, the deck was packing 23 points of burn. My first game I simply stomped my opponent. My deck had a beautiful curve: Turn 1 Adventure's Gear; Turn 2 Geopede; Turn 3 attach, landfall, attack, Welkin Turn; Turn 4 Bladetusk Boar, etc. I really dig Bladetusk Boar in this format and he was going all the way each game. Game 2 was the toughest, my opponent has a very fast BG deck with triple Hideous End. However his Lacerators did him more harm than good, as he was racing and I had so. much. burn. The final game ended with a five damage Spire to the face on one turn, and another five damage Spire on the next. Not a lot of decks can deal with that. Again I ID'd at the top for packs.

I have no doubt both the Sanctioned Draft decks would of gone all the way - heck, the second deck had won four times without any losses and hadn't even played the Sphinx. I think Red is really underrated in this format and should be explored if you have the opportunity - Burst Lightning is a brilliant card. And, of course, Blue is just a powerhouse; Living Tsunami, Windrider Eel, the Sphinxes, Welkin Tern... what's not to like?

At the moment I don't rate Green in draft, although I'd always take an Oracle if I saw it. Nissa was good, but I had a really hard time killing my opponent in one game that just dragged to a halt. White is pretty conditional and has the most fun tech, but Red, Black and Blue are deep in opportunities and don't rely so much on everything coming together nicely.

That's my impression so far: Sealed is a bust (for me!), and Draft offers real opportunities if you have a plan.

One last thing: I think the general quality of cards is so good it's hard to detect signals from the other players. I also think the randomness of colours in packs is a little strange, with some packs almost devoid of one or two colours. In my second draft I had to hold firm in my belief that I was forcing Green, even though two packs in a row contained no green cards. Then I suddently had two Oren Reif Recluse passed to me in a row and I knew I was okay. Just something to think about.