ATMFTW and Team No Name are two teams from vastly different backgrounds. No Name is named as such because there isn’t a player among them who has appeared in a Sunday match before. ATMFTW is a team that everyone knows, even if not by the name they’re playing under today. Nick Little broke the ice as everyone sat down by asking if they wanted to trade Chris Kuligz for Karl Horn, claiming that Karl was the weak link the previous day with a 3-3 record in his played matches.

Nick seemed pretty confident with the draft and explained some of the different hand signals that they had devised, using one hand to relay which teams they would be on and the other to communicate which drops they had. I singled out Nick to cover, hoping to see what his favorite strategy was. He told me that he had already firmly decided on a plan. (The bolded cards are what he took, and the others were some notable cards.)

1)     Helm of Nabu; Bizzaro, ME AM BIZARRO #1; The Phantom Stranger, Fallen Angel; Brother I Satellite; June Moon ◊ Enchantress, Bad Witch; Revitalize

2)     Maxwell Lord, Black King; Alexander Luthor, Diabolical Double; Laser Watch

3)     Atom Smasher

4)     Grand Gesture, Dr. Occult, Thanagar, Arthur Kendrick

5)     Amanda Waller, Huntress, Reluctant Queen, Grand Gesture

6)     Tricked-Out Sports Car, Jacob Lee

7)     Huntress, Reluctant Queen, Revitalize

8)     Nightmaster, Jim Rook

9)     Arthur Kendrick, Nightmaster, Jim Rook

10) Witchfire

11) Cheetah

Nick also got a Divination in his remaining picks that he considered a nice late gift. It looked like he was attempting to draft an aggressive Checkmate deck using various equipment like Laser Watch and the Knights to overpower his opponent.

Throughout the entire pack, Nick and company were running the table with a series of signals they had devised before the event, while No Name sat quietly, focusing on their own drafts.

1)     T-Spheres, Michael Holt ◊ Mr. Terrific, Secret Checkmate HQ

2)     Helm of Nabu, Grand Gesture

3)     Roy Harper ◊ Arsenal, Knight; Amanda Waller; Hourman III ◊ Hourman

4)     Fate Has Spoken, Surveillance Pawn

5)     Helm of Nabu, Mystical Binding, Rann

6)     Bizarro, Leslie Thompkins’s Clinic (At this point, Dair signaled that he was Villains United, so Nick passed the Bizarro for his teammate.)

7)     T-Spheres; Kendra Saunders ◊ Hawkgirl; Nightmaster, Jim Rook

8)     Harry Stein (Dair signaled during this pack that he received the Bizarro Nick had passed.)

9)     The Oblivion Bar

10) Surveillance Pawn

The rest of the pack proceeded with Nick adding a Tricked-Out Sports Car and Death from Above. He seemed fairly satisfied with how the draft was progressing, but it looked like he was going to have a weak deck if the next pack didn’t give him some common characters like Aspiring Pawn and some 2-drops.

1)     Laser Watch, Amanda Waller

2)     The Conclave, Rann, Madame Xanadu

3)     Cloak of Nabu; Thanagarian Invasion; Knightmare Scenario; The Calculator, Evil Oracle

4)     Nightshade, Eve Eden; Stepping Between Worlds; Talia, Beloved Betrayer

5)     Helm of Nabu; Black Thorn; Knightmare Scenario

6)     Secret Checkmate HQ, Helm of Nabu

7)     Amanda Waller

8)     Stepping Between Worlds, Traitor to the Cause, Rose Psychic

9)     Stepping Between Worlds, Traitor to the Cause

10) House of Secrets

11) Blue Devil, Dan Cassidy; Tricked-Out Sports Car

The draft ended with a Stepping Between Worlds as his fourteenth pick, but overall, Nick got up from the table pretty disappointed. Nick was even more upset when he saw that Karl had panicked and drafted a Checkmate Armory because Nick’s deck was the one it needed to be in. He also pointed out that he was looking for Aspiring Pawn; Sasha Bordeaux, Knight; Christopher Smith ◊ Peacemaker; Sarge Steel; and Ahmed Samsarra. The main thing he needed for the deck was more 2-drops.

Dair ended up with a strong JSA / Villains deck, and Karl had a Shadowpact deck featuring Zatanna, Showstopper and Shazam. When I talked with Team No Name, they seemed pretty intimidated by Nick, Karl, and Dair’s hand signals; they didn’t know that communication had become convoluted halfway through the draft. Nick was hoping that Dair and Karl’s strong decks would be able to carry him into another draft to redeem himself.