I’m not trying to be critical though, I misevaluated the card at first too, as well as a lot of Mirage cards my first couple drafts. Many of the cards do counter-intuitive things or are worded strangely, making it much harder to understand what a card does right off the bat than it would be today. Just keep in mind if Mirage drafts ever pop up again: Benalish Missionary is one of the best 1-drops in white, 1-drops don’t often come with abilities that completely take over the game.

Also, you skipped right past Debt of Loyalty as an expensive regeneration spell, but my guess is you didn’t finish reading the card because it also acts as a 3-mana control magic that can’t be undone w/enchantment removal. Well, that’s a bit of exaggeration: it’s probably more comparable to Unhallowed Pact from AVR, a narrow sideboard card or 23rd playable at best. However the instant speed is a huge advantage over unhallowed pact, because once an opponents’ creature is enchanted, they will do anything they can to keep it alive. In this case, you can use it when they offer what they think is a reasonable trade (like you triple-blocking their bomb) and you can always use it to blank your opponents’ removal or tricks in a pinch. That all being said… I still probably would have taken the griffin since a flier that can recur a creature on death seems like insane value ;).

In fact, I pulled a lot of pretty good rares and Uncommons at those events now that I think about it. Tutor’s (including a Vampiric Tutor which I sold on the day, because it was actually recognised as good at the time), Wasteland, Firestorm etc. Also pulled more than my fair share of dross of course, but they’re nice to come back to 15 years on and realise than it wasn’t *all* money down a black hole.

Thanks for the pre-foil, post-Revised era draft Simon; looking forward to more.