Two packs of Return to Ravnica, two packs of Gatecrash, and two packs of Dragon's Maze. Fittingly this will be a two parter. Part 1 on the deck and part 2 on the tournament. This deck building was pretty tough. I took all the time I had and was not really happy with my decisions.
Short Story: All the power in the packs was in RG. Those colors also had the best removal so I went with it. I was a little short on playables in RG so I had to add a scoche of black.
mana: Stomping Ground (woo), Transguild Promenade, 6 mountain, 6 forest, 3 swamp
dudes: 16 dudes, slow on the curve side b/c the pool was short on 2 drops
1 drop - Legion Loyalist
2 drop - nothing (sometimes played Rakdos Shred-Freak)
3 drop - Crocanura, Ember Beast, Guttersnipe, Dreg Mangler
4 drop - Slum Reaper, Corpsejack Menace, Thrashing Mossdog, Crowned Ceratok, Viashino Shanktail, Deadbridge Goliath
5 drop - Adaptive Snapjaw
6 drop - Scab-Clan Giant, Maze Behemoth, Tenement Crasher, Ruination Wurm
spells:
removal - Ground Assault, Pit Fight, Electrickery, Weapon Surge (combat trick removal)
blowout city - Clan Defiance, Armed & Dangerous
douche city - Frenzied Tilling
Sideboard time: Aerial Predation against flying decks. I would often board out Electrickery if I never saw small creatures. Or a big dude if I needed to speed up.
Dryad Militant, 2x Centaur's Herald, Spire Tracer, Riot Piker (I'm afraid of "attacks each turn if able"), Death's Approach (felt I didn't need more removal), Slate Street Ruffian, Deathcult Rogue. Hit me up in the comments.
Long Story (rambly and incoherent, i have no idea what i'm doing):
I'll go a little more in depth than usual and hopefully someone will set me straight in the comments. I cracked my packs and was immediately excited by.
By far this was the best card I got. I looked through the pool and ... made like one million piles. Man I had no idea what I was doing. Fortunately my removal options helped to cut down the pool. In red/green I also had Ground Assault and Pit Fight
Great for clearing the way and keeping the beats coming. There was also a Weapon Surge (solid combat trick) and Electrickery.
Finally I had one of my favorites from the new set Armed & Dangerous
I love this card. Double strike is huge and the lure effect can be removal or game winning. I felt with this core I was ready to rip the opponents to pieces. But what about the other color options?
The only compelling reasons to play White were Avenging Arrow and Trostani's Judgement. I felt I was already solid on removal and without the creature backup white just wasn't cutting it. Blue was even more boring with Inspiration being the only card of interest aside from a couple flyers. Black just had some low quality removal, Drown in Filth and Death's Approach (and one other we will get to later). Some people think Death's Approach is fine but I just don't like it (to the comment board, I'm willing to turn around on it). I certainly like it less than the stuff I already had in RG. From all of this I decided to try and give red green a go and forget about this three color nonsense everyone had been talking about it.
There wasn't much in way of an aggressive curve for me. I had, 2x Centaur's Herald, but no populate to help it out. I only had two 2 drops on color so I wasn't feeling confident on the aggro plan. The only one drop I did play was Legion Loyalist
And let me tell you that little goblin was a beast, more to come on this guy. At the three slot is where this deck comes alive. I love Crocanura - 1/3 evolve reach. Just a beast, well actually a Crocodile Frog, but you get the point. Along with that were Ember Beast and Guttersnipe. Both highly playable.
For the four slot I had some serious gas. Deadbridge Goliath is huge at 5/5 for four. And I rounded it out with Viashino Shanktail, Crowned Ceratok, and Thrashing Mossdog. I then had 5 big drops. Tenement Crasher, Adaptive Snapjaw, Maze Behemoth, Runination Wurm and Scab-Clan Giant.
However there were some black cards I splashed
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i would have added centaur's herald. the installment plan mana makes it more of a 3-drop than a 4-drop IMO.
ReplyDeleteand for that extra 1, you get a free block out of it the turn you want to pop.
or sometimes your opponents are idiots and can only think about the block and pop procedure. then they attack with a bear not remember you might still block with a 3/3.
i might also consider the dryad militant to lower the curve. its basically a bad two-drop that you can play on turn 1 unless you have any anti-synergies with it's ability.
no gatekeepers/gates of note?
ReplyDeletehear you on the early stuff, i think in my mind the herald's are awkward and only a populate engine makes them worth it. but the way you can extract value from them probably makes them good enough in their own right.
i think i just went with the flow on how slow the set was and ratcheted up my mana curve which provided an additional bias against the cheap dudes
3 guild gates. UR UR WB, could have use dthe UR to splash some blue cards. but i don't like splashing for card draw which was all that was really exciting in blue, there were some creatures but they were WU which i felt was too much of a stretch.
i had the red and the black gate dudes, both of which i rather like. I dont' know whta the correct call is there. I mean a 2/4 for 4 isn't the end of the world if my plan is to extend to the late game, and if i run the gates and get them more bonus for me.
again i'm not really happy with my build, i definitely feel i could have done better.