As you've probably already read, Matt Tatar is a man on a hot streak. Tatar went 9-3 yesterday despite playing Common Enemy in a Sentinel world, and now he's sitting at a powerhouse pod two, where he'll be looking at showdowns with Antonino DeRosa and Alex Shvartsman, amongst others.

 

Tatar entered the draft with a strategy to pick unaffiliated plot twists until underdrafted teams made their presences known to him. With the streak on the line and a long day ahead of him, he cracked the first pack at the Chark's cry.

 

Sitting to the left of vsuniverse.com editor John Fiorillo, Matt made what he believed in retrospect to be an error, taking Yellow Impurity over Light Armor. The pick isn't cut and dry, but he was probably correct in his hindsight, because while both effectively increase an attacker's ATK, the Armor does so more effectively and possibly longer.

 

His second pick indicated the aforementioned pre-draft strategy. Matt took Lanterns in Love over Book of Oa, a card he loves, because he was worried that making that kind of commitment to a willpower deck this early in the draft could be dangerous. Lanterns would be playable regardless of his next forty picks. It was a safe choice.

 

With one Yellow Impurity in tow, Tatar passed on the opportunity for a second, taking Thunderous Onslaught with his third pick, a strong choice. With this initial Anti-Matter leaning, his next choice was an easy one—Q Energy over Space Bears. Little did he know it wouldn't prove playable in his deck.

 

Pick five was an automatic slam as far as Matt was concerned. Coast City is a Tatar favorite. “Everything in this set has flight, so you can't protect your characters with formation. I think cards like Coast City or Manhunter Protector are really important and underrated.” It was pick six though, where Matt got a nice surprise.

 

That initial mistake was effectively rectified when Tatar received a sixth pick Light Armor. With the ability to make a character an offensive juggernaut, the Armor should always be picked highly, and receiving it this late was something of a godsend. With no characters in his drafted-cards pile, Matt briefly paused on Olapet and took a second look at the underrated Apokoliptian Hospitality, but this really was a no-brainer.

 

Finally, with his seventh pick, Tatar found his first character in Owlman. According to draftmaster Gabe Walls, one should aim for non-concealed characters on turn 4, but Owlman takes that concept a step further, leaving your options open until the situation calls for a decision. He then was passed Emerald Twilight, suggesting to Tatar that Emerald Enemies was being underdrafted. Slipstream came next, with Matt explaining later that it combines particularly well with Thunderous Onslaught. Nero Unleashed and a second Slipstream followed before Matt made what felt to be his first clear mistake of the draft, taking Birthing Chamber over Rot Lop Fan. Chamber is very playable, but with Matt so low on characters, fueling it would be difficult, and he needed the Lantern's solid body to help fill his 4-drop slot. This pick would come back to haunt him—his deck's largest flaw in the end was its lack of 4-drops. His final two picks of the pack were Xallarap and Manhunter Engineer.

 

Matt's second pack offered no easy answers. Opening Element Man, Olapet, Jackhammer, and Helping Hand, Matt eventually decided to stay with his blue-over-red policy, taking the 'hammer. When asked about the option of taking Element Man to help his character base, he felt that his team was being underdrafted, and that the 5-drop wasn't strong enough for non-Anti-Matter decks to use. In other words, he had hopes it would table.

 

With his second pick, Tatar took No Evil Shall Escape Our Sight, a solid team-up, which he felt he'd need because the mono-Anti-Matter deck seemed unlikely. Eugene Harvey and his TOGIT teammates have told me that with the high number of team-ups in the set, their value has dropped in Green Lantern draft, but with the relatively small 7-drop Ultraman and the out of flavor Guy Gardner, Strong Arm of the Corps his only other real options, it felt like getting something his deck would definitely need was the way to go.

 

Finally, some beef found its way into Matt's pile with fourth pick Boodikka and fifth pick John Stewart, with the 6-drop seeing inclusion over Uppercut. Jack T. Chance was next, coming from a very weak booster, and then it was Ultraman, Matt's first 7-drop. Frostbite and Manhunter Protector were thrown into the pile before Matt's first pick prognostication proved itself true: Element Man tabled, giving him an extraordinarily strong fifth turn option and his deck remarkable synergy. Salakk, Brik, two more Jack T. Chances, and Recharging the Ring rounded out the pack, giving Matt a curve consisting of two 2-cost, two 3-cost, two 4-cost, and three 5-cost characters, along with one character each in the 6- and 7-slots. That meant that going into the final booster, he needed to beef up on 3-drops and 4-drops, with a couple more blues and greens a good option.

 

While Matt's card pool was loaded with strong plot twists to this point, he was definitely lacking that one bomb that could win him a game on his own, but that all changed when he opened his final booster. Two-Face, Split Personality might as well read, “If you have the initiative on turn 7, you win the game,” so when Matt found Harvey Dent's ugly mug staring back at him, he had to be pleased. Agonizing over Sweeping Up, one of the best plot twists in the set, he resigned himself to the fact that winning is good and dropped Dent in the pile.

 

Two copies of No Man Escapes the Manhunters came next, with Boodikka number two soon to follow. Tatar now just needed some mid-level characters to round his deck out, but that would prove to be harder than it sounds. The table had obviously been drafting 3-, 4-, and 5-drops with authority. Matt was forced to pick Thunderous Onslaught, and then, with nothing larger to choose, Scarab got drafted into service.

 

Another 2-drop, Gnaxos, was Tatar's next pick, and things started getting desperate in the 4-cost slot. Matt's next pick, Jackhammer, was followed by Xallarap, an interesting pick because he took it over Pest Control. The Washington, DC native explained that he isn't a fan of the plot twist: “Cards that boost defense are good because they steal the initiative. Pest Control gives it right back.” He also pointed out that if one is desperate enough for 6-drops, playing two sixth turn Xallaraps can do the trick.

 

The draft ended with Matt picking Harlequin, Manhunter Protector, Death of Superman, Plans Within Plans and Underground Complex. The extra 4-drop never came, and Matt blamed himself for his deck's lack. In the end, Matt felt that his matches would come down to whether or not he could find one of those two 4-drops by turn 4. The math says it'll happen twice. I'm predicting a 2-1 finish.