I tried desperately to be like Brent and record each pack as it went around but even scribbling at max speed I was slowing the draft down far too much. And I can't even read what I wrote down. In hindsight I'll snap pictures with my phone for post-game analysis but alas, alack, not this time.
Drafting was pretty straight-forward. Didn't take anything too committal in the early packs and then I kept seeing red and green handed to me so I guess I went as GENERIC AS POSSIBLE. A red/green creature thumper deck with combat tricks? Oh the creativity!
Final draft
Deadly Recluse
Predatory Sliver x3
Voracious Wurm
Advocate of the Beast x2
Rootwalla
Giant Spider
Rumbling Baloth x4 (!)
Sporemound
Lay of the Land x2
Giant Growth
Plummet
Trollhide
Verdant Haven x2
Hunt the Weak x2
Howl of the Night Pack
Dragon Egg
Regathan Firecat
Canyon Minotaur
Pitchburn Devils
Shock x2
Thunder Strike x2
Chandra's Outrage x2
Lava Axe x2
(and some random crap)
First some notes. Let's hear it for taking ZERO rares! I opened these two and can't remember the third.
Delightful cards, and maybe I should have taken the Prophecy, but I just wasn't inspired. I took a Baloth instead of the DP. Eh.
The deck plan seems clear: get a 4/4 out on turn four and start pounding away with it. That put me on green as a primary and red for tricks and support. Also, I wasn't feeling the need for either manafixing or going lean. Aiming for a vanilla mix of 17 land, 18 creatures, and 5 spells. Whaddya got?
Red/Green Creativity is Overrated
Two Drop
Deadly Recluse
Predatory Sliver x3
Voracious Wurm
Three Drop
Advocate of the Beast x2
Rootwalla
Dragon Egg
Regathan Firecat
Four Drop
Giant Spider
Rumbling Baloth x4
Canyon Minotaur
Five Drop
Pitchburn Devils
Spells
Giant Growth, Shock x2, Thunder Strike x2, Hunt the Weak
Ending up with 6 spells and 17 creatures. I stared at Sporemound good and hard but ultimately I decided that in any event I would rather cast Hunt the Weak, so I cut it. Cutting the Chandra's Outrage (two!) also hurt, but I just didn't like the mana. This deck was going to do one thing: get up in your face and force you to draw your best removal.
Game 1:
Facing against an overwhelming black deck with a splash of white. Did someone say removal?
But the real problem was the
He just had a bunch of powerful synergies, clearing my table and occasionally digging in with a 2:1 with the Blightcaster. I would race to a slight lead and then be overwhelmed and lose to the Auramancer plinking me. Spoiler alert: this guy went 3-0 without dropping a match it seems.
Match #2
Pete was telling me that if you deck simply functions, it will win half the games. This was definitely one of those games. I got a little saucy keeping a five lander with two of my four drops and we trade some board development. I start overrunning him and he gets out
This is kind of an interesting fellow. 4/2 regenerating sounds awful to face against but he still has to sac his creatures to do so. What it ends up being is him trading a 2/2 or 2/1 for my 2/3 or 3/3 creatures. Which isn't BAD per se, but he really needs some sort of creature generation backing him up. My solution was an elegant and delicate maneuver, like a swiss watch.
Oh red. So subtle. Never change. 2-0 with ease. Fourth turn Baloths exert a lot of pressure.
Set III
Third game was against the goofiest mono blue deck. Super friendly guy, he was practicing moving from online magic to in-person, so we fumbled through a lot of mechanics together. His deck relied on three things
Not a typo: he actually had two of the damn things. The first game I raced him down to 3 life and he starts getting out these ridiculous heavy hitters. Here I make a colossal error and misuse a Shock to kill one of his other fliers. I should have counted my outs and realized that my only hope for killing him was getting both of my shocks and praying that he doesn't have Negates or the like. He swings for a few times with his fliers (keeping the sphinxes back for necessary defense against my Baloths) dealing 5 damage and drawing four cards. Except this is sealed. He does this three times and realize that his entire deck is down to ONE card. He starts dropping merfolk and using his whale to kill me via land but he only gets me down to four before he is unable to draw. We were both laughing pretty hard and decided that you only need one Sphinx out at a time.
The second game was similar to an earlier game where I kept a 5 lander with two shocks. Fortunately I drew creatures and by the time the Fail Whale landed I was able to keep it at bay long enough with my Recluse and the threat of shocks/thunder strikes that he promptly went 16-7-dead.
In conclusion it was a really fun game and draft. I felt like my deck was nothing special but pretty much operated as it was supposed to every time. Not having to mulligan is really nice. Also Raygun Lounge does three rounds, not four. Perfection itself.
-Jed
I like the deck. Seems solid. The 3x predatory sliver is saucy! I'm curious as to what you saw for slivers. I would expect if you saw 3 of them they were pretty open.
ReplyDeleteAlso DP only means one thing.
Double play?
DeleteDirector of Photograpy
DeleteBrent wins this round.
Deletethere is no way you're ever going to be able to efficiently record an IRL draft while drafting. my phone camera was a facetious suggestion that i was hoping loreto might bite on.
ReplyDeleteon to the deck:
i think canyon minotaur and the thunder strikes are the weakest cards here and i would suggest cutting them for the burn spells and sporemound. If i am recalling all the casting costs correctly, your only double color spells are baloths, so i think a 10-7 split would be entirely reasonable and still support all the outrage. You want the 4/4 on turn 4 but the outrage is still very good a little later.
I might keep one thunder strike as a combat trick, but once you show that to someone once, they will be much less likely to play into it in the next game, so having two is more than I would want if i have other playables. I might cut the wurm, since you have 4 other better 2-drops and it has no chance of being bigger (unless i am forgetting something Villain might do to cause you life gain)
sporemound provides some good reach in the long game, where you can overwhelm a potentially stalled out board state.
If the spells are strong enough, you can certainly go a little lower on creatures. I play a more controlling style, but i often find my decks with 13-15 creatures because having strong spells is awesome. Chandra's outrage counts as awesome in my book.
The vanilla canyon and voracious wurm probably can be cut. There was at least one game where a little extra direct damage would have been really, really nice.
DeleteThe Sporemound I still remain a little unsure about, I should probably try it some game. But I still have difficulty seeing how a unsteady flow of 1/1 creatures will break a stalemate. If I had something that used them (Barrage of Expendables, Vampire Warlord, etc.) then I would be a lot more enthusiastic. Or to rephrase slightly: if sporemound is my ONLY option in the long game, I say screw the long game and aim to win earlier than that by hitting them in the face.
What's the case against Thunder Strike? I personally view it as a slightly more expensive giant growth and I was short on really good combat tricks.
DeleteIf it is thunder strike vs chandra's outrage, the case is crystal clear for me.
First, Outrage is premium removal. Thunder strike you need to hope you get into combat with a creature you want to kill.
thunder strike is a decent combat trick, but only good for combat (it doesn't save a creature from shock like giant growth will)
Second, when you use thunder strike, you're upside is pretty much only to get a one-for-one trade in cards. You will trade your thunder strike for their creature that blocked/was blocked by yours. It's ceiling is a chance at a two-for-one if your guy is double blocked at an opportune moment. Its floor is that it opens you up to be two-for-oned by a shock or doom blade.
Meanwhile, outrage costs double the mana, but its floor is to be really good one-for-one removal for things like baloth, Sengir and Serra. And its ceiling is to two-for-one your opponent, which will happen pretty regularly if you look for it. If they double block, you can burn one of the blockers here it would be just like the thunder strike. But, it also seems like there are plenty of playable enchantments, between mark of the vampire, shiv's embrace, trollhide, dark favor where you can two-for-one in response. If you have the board position (and you should with all the baloths) hold outrage mana open and see what good things happen.
In core set especially, you need to look for card advantage and outrage will regularly give it to you. I think thunder strike will regularly cost you cards.
Sporemound is like card advantage but each 1/1 counts as like half a card.
That's a really good point. I didn't think of it in the sense of Chandra's Outrage vs. Thunder Strike, which in hindsight is quite silly.
Deletei'm with brent, the Sporemound is way better than you think. Remember Bitterblossom? (obviously not in the same region but still reminiscent)
ReplyDelete-- i really liked the cell phone camera recording joke. --