what's the pick?

welcome to a new feature on the blog called, "what's the pick?" Take a look at this screen shot and then say what you would do in the comments.

Successful Paladin Decks - Hearthstone Arena

So I've been fiddling around in the closed Hearthstone beta, which has caused a lack of Magic: the Gathering content. I find that many Magic skills translate over to the Arena (Hearthstone limited), namely card advantage, board control, and mana curve.

I will fight with honor.

I've had particular success with the paladin class, which has a hero power of creating a 1/1. I will share a couple decklists and go over some play decisions.

When I'm drafting, I look for efficient, certain two-for-ones first, then inefficient or potential two-for-ones, then minions with solid stats. When putting together a control deck premium taunt minions and divine shield are usually high picks. Sometimes the Arena throws you a curveball of three terrible choices, but most of the time, there is at least a usable pick to be made.

I call this my divine shield theme deck:

Divine Shield guys/abilities
Argent Protector x2
Scarlet Crusader x3
Argent Commander x4

• My weakest cards were: Murloc Tidehunter, Booty Bay Bodyguard, and Blessing of Kings
• Obvious strong cards include Truesilver Champion, Dark Iron Dwarf, Spellbreaker and Kodo.
• The Argent Protectors and Commanders were amazing (even after the health was nerfed to 2 on the commander)
• Three Shieldmastas locked down the Villain's choices completely.

Check out this board state and try to imagine losing from here:

Boom-booms incoming!

I could care less that Rogue villain has a hand full of cards. I have a hand full of hasty two-for-ones at the least. And it is only my turn 4!

The Divine Shield deck went 9-3, losing to mage, shaman, and the mirror. We bested two shamen, two rogues, druid, priest, hunter, mage and warrior.

A few days later, I went back to the paladin and had quite the draft. I was VERY pleased with this deck. Again there was a theme, but not divine shield. This time, nearly every single card was a straight two-for-one or at least enabled easy two-for-ones in the right situation.

Zero Consecration in two drafts!

All of the one-drop spells outperformed expectations.

• Blessing of Wisdom enchants your guys into Ophidians. This means if they attack once, it cycles for 1. If it lives to attack again <cough, divine shield, cough>, you are in the money.
• Hand of Protection turns a trade boardstate into a one-mana removal spell. 
• Think of Noble Sacrifice as super taunt. Villain cannot remove the secret blocker, so in most cases they are powerless, even if they correctly identify its nature. It can protect lethal on-board damage or a minion or two that only has one or two health remaining. 

Powerful neutral minions:

• Acidic Swamp Ooze
• Faerie Dragon
• Shattered Sun Cleric
• Dark Iron Dwarf
• Gnomish Inventor
• Spellbreaker
• Silver Hand Knight
• Boulderfist Ogre

Hammer of Wrath is great in the late game. Kill a guy, draw a card, profit!
Don't sleep on Boulderfist. He's like a super-sized Chillwind Yeti. It's a natural two-for-one because it will usually take two decent-sized dudes to take him down.
See above for thoughts on Argent Commander.

The only taunt I had in the deck was Sunfury Protector and Noble Sacrifice. I usually don't leave home without Shieldmasta, but it was no problem, since the various Battle Cry effects kept a strong grip on board control.

How did we do?

Arena ends after 3 losses or 12 wins, whichever comes first. Yay!

We beat mage, hunter, druid, then lost to shaman and mage, then rolled off nine straight wins against 2x hunter, 2x mage, 2x paladin, rogue, warrior and warlock.

And now the loot drop (WoW nerds, am I saying that correctly?)

Ka-ching!

All that and a gold Dire Wolf (ah-oooooo!) I am really digging this game. Time to jump back into the arena!

Hearthstone Arena - Paladin Deck 1 win

Well I just had a horrible arena run as a paladin. Here's my deck:

I got rocked. Hard. Lost 2 won 1 lost 1. I don't even know where to start. Please review the deck list and comment.

Hearthstone

Sometimes you just don't have the time to head to the store and crack some packs. Personally I just can't take the plunge pay money for MODO. Well there's a new kid on the block. Hearthstone is a free to play online card game made by Blizzard. It's like magic the gathering without all of the priority passing. Right now the game is in closed beta but invites are pretty easy to come by. Just head over to http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/ and opt in. So far four of us have gotten invites.

We started this blog just to talk about magic but there is a lot of overlap with this newcomer so we are broadening our horizons.

Limited Resources - Draft Cast

In case you missed it the guys at LR posted a video of Brian and Marshall doing a draft on MODO. No Spoilers on the results. Just go watch it.

http://lrcast.com/limited-resources-theros-draft-featuring-brian-wong/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=limited-resources-theros-draft-featuring-brian-wong&utm_reader=feedly

Mana Screw

Last time I talked about Type II mana screw. Now let's move to the tough part, Type I. And as always we are talking limited. Constructed is dumb and mulling properly requires too many inputs.

So let's take a look at that hand Sam Pardee called a screw job. To be fair he could be talking about not drawing the land that he needed as opposed to the opening hand. But for the moment we are just gonna focus on the decision to mull or not to mull. Here is the 7 that pardee had.

His deck mained 25 lands and he drew one in the opener. Certainly this hand is below the expected value of lands for a random 7. I haven't crunched the numbers in like 7 years so I don't quite remember what the EV is.

Here is his analysis of the hand, "This is definitely a very risky keep, but I think that the upside is very high as well. If I draw the first Island on the first turn, I expect to win the game a vast majority of the time, while if I miss and hit on the second turn, I still think I'm probably going to be in good shape. As it turns out, I missed my second land for several turns and died to some random creatures."

Fair enough. He is way better than me. If you click through to the article and scroll down there is a huge nerd who ran the 'odds' and agrees with Sam. Usually I am pretty afraid of something like this because I could simply not draw a land and loose. But this is constructed so he probably doesn't even need that Island, I don't know.

Type I Mana Screws

SnapMull:  Zero or Seven lands or Six lands. Nothing you can do. You simply aren't winning with that. Even if you got a perfect curve in your hand do not play it.

TheTease: Basically the hand that Pardee had. You got some early action and not enough lands. I haven't done the math. I really need to. That's sort of the theme of this article.

ToughCall: Two land or five lands. It's not really a screw. You see this kind of distribution a ton. It depends on what's in your hand.

Sam Pardee. Did you really get mana screwed against Todd Anderson?

So I was reading a tournament report from Sam Pardee and he made the following comment, "I was given a rematch with Todd Anderson, and the games played out similarly to our first match—except with him getting mana-screwed in game 3 instead of me,"

I read this line and immediately I react with the following question, "was he actually mana screwed?" This issue is one that I have been grappling with for a while. You absolutely no doubt 100% can just get screwed, sometimes with your pants on. But sometimes our perception is a bit in accurate, especially in the heat of battle. I like to dissect my losses and figure out why I lost. If I did get a bad mana then it is important to recognize that and not waste time. However as I say, I identifying those instances is tough. The best advice you can get is to realize that your choices are why you lose. But sometimes you just aren't going to win. (enough back and forth? I think you get it?)

First a general comment on luck and skill to set the mood and then I'll move into defining mana screw (and all it's flavours, and kin, oh my!). In magic there is randomness and there is hidden information, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Those features are what make the game exciting year after year (that and a bunch of new rare lands that I just have to acquire). They can be annoying but ultimately without them the game turns into chess, and chess sucks. So how does luck and skill come into it.

In Magic your luck sets the potential. Your skill is what makes the most of it.

Does bad luck suck. Yes, yes it does. Can you control it? Nope. You can stuff your deck with all the best cards but sometimes you shuffle up and draft 7 lands. So don't worry about it. Focus on what you can control.

Concerning the definition of luck: I lump everything I cannot control in to the category of luck. In deckbuilding I get to pick what's in my deck but for these purposes we'll treat the deck as fixed, so something like "the card on top of my deck" is luck.

 So with that "brief" discussion out of the way.

There are two main families of mana screw. The first deals with your opening hand (Type I) and is intrinsically tied to the decision to mull or not to mull. The second deals with drawing poorly throughout the game (Type II). Let's start with the latter.

Type II Mana Screws:

False Start: You kept your hand but it needs some help to get there. For example you stumbled out of the gate by missing land drop #3. Some think this is actually a sneaky Type I mana screw. They are wrong! You take the math into account and you rough out a plan from your initial hand and it just doesn't get there. You made the decision that it was worth taking on the risk of not hitting that 3rd land (btw: if you're playing the right numbers of lands you are going to hit that 3rd land drop on a 2 land opener). Maybe your hand looked great on paper but you never drew what you needed. 

Migitation tactics: Really know the odds for your deck, how important to my deck is the 4th land drop, etc. Know the format. It's Gatecrash, you have to come out with fire. It's M14, I've got all the time in the world. These things help your mull decision and help you game plan for how to survive and bridge to the next part of the game.

Half Deck: This is the kind of screw where you just see the wrong part of your deck. I hate that one. Maybe your hand had great mana and some good early action. But then you just never draw your real gas. You saw half your deck. You weren't gonna mulligan a perfect mana hand with early action. There is also a subset of this guy where you are rocking a two-color deck and only see the lands of the wrong color.

Mitigation tactics: You really gotta get a feel for what your opponent is up to. If you have the early half of your deck make sure not to race, you are running out of gas. If you get the late half of your deck, watch what you opponent does and try to push the game to a stall, you should be strong in the late game. The key is to watch your opponent. But most importantly DO NOT SIDEBOARD. Trust the math. If you see a weakness in your opponent's deck and have a good board card against them, by all means do it. But just because you see one slow draw from your deck don't go busting up your curve. One game means nothing.

Heartbreaker: This is the worst. You are playing a great game and then your turn five draw is a land, and six, and seven, and so on. These are the worst for me. Sometimes it goes on for five turns and you just run out of steam. 

Mitigation tactics: I got nothing for this one. Just learn how to recognize it and don't waste your time trying to find a mistake.



I started to write about Type I mana screws, but that leads directly into a discussion of mulligans and is a full post in its own right. See you next time.

Responding to Rosewater Making Magic #5

This week on Making Magic the topic was life advice.

At the end of the article Maro finishes off with the heading "Play to Win". This gives me a shameless excuse to link to my favorite YouTube clip on the topic of all time.

Also in remix form.

Also he reminds us that "Losing is an opportunity to learn". But sometimes it takes a little while before we are able to get to that point

Responding to Rosewater Making Magic #4

This week on Making Magic the topic was the Devotion mechanic. I'm a limited player so this one really isn't for me. I think where this puppy shines is in constructed (see lists from all the recent tournaments). But for limited there are a few guys that are quite fun which I'll highlight here.

I love this guy. 4/2 for 4 isn't the end of the world and it tacks on at least one to the face. What I think is really cool about this guy is how cheaper ?RR spells go way up in my book. Which is awesome because my favorite mechanic is double strike.

yeah I love this guy.

Another guy that is quite popular is the green devotion common.

Now this the kind of card that is really interesting. From a vanilla test stand point it is a little behind where I want to be in green. But the devotion mechanic makes things stand on end. I'm now super happy about the GG. However after listening to THE BEST PODCAST IN THE HISTORY OF MAGICAL CARDS I really now understand that GG means a solid commitment to green (which in Theros turns out to be a pretty safe place to be). I love holding this guy back and just flipping a race on its head. I have had more than one opponent groan when this bad boy hit the table and I gained 5+ life. That's the beauty. This format tends to be racy and so you can build a board state with a lot of broccoli. Give it a whirl, it won't disappoint.

Responding to Rosewater Making Magic #3

Time for part 2 of Nostalgia series time (a little belated due to my travel schedule). Mark is talking about kissing his wife -- gross. I'm going to talk about how limited got me re-hooked on magic and how I'm going to be playing for life.

At the start of grad school one guy, let's call him Jonathan, brought out some decks of magic cards. We battled, I lost. Every single game. He had some niche combo decks and I had no idea what I was doing. Then he said, "we could go to a local store and draft". I was curious and said let's do it.

welcome to the end!

This is the store where it all began again. They offered drafts every Friday night as part of some weird thing called Friday Night Magic. A program Wizards has set up for nerds who didn't have anything better to do on a Friday Night. Perfect for me! At the store they draft in 8 man pods and then at the end of the night everyone puts their rares back on the table and you draft the rares for keeps with draft order coming from the tournament results. It felt weird but kinda made sense so I didn't think twice about it.

I cam in second in my first ever draft. I went 2-0-1 with the draw coming against a child in the second round. I didn't know about calling a judge for slow play, but even if I did I probably wouldn't' have done so against a 10 year old. I was totally gonna win the match btw. Anyways I had drafted a sweet BG deck with the highlight being a Putrefy:

yes Jed, the one with the good art!

At the end (he he) of the night there were two cards I really had my eye on in the rare draft. My choice was between

 and 

I think we know which one I picked ... I slammed that Hex as hard as I could. I knew dual lands were always valuable and such but c'mon. Hex is a kill spell, which I love. Plus the card is all focused on the theme of the number 6, even the flavor text (which is awesome) is six words long.

Anyways we were attending the place pretty regularly and got to know all of the local characters. The were essentially interchangeable with and of the local characters at all of the stores like this one. I will spare you the details but suffice it to say every store has is Jeremy Crowley and he was the player we enjoyed beating more than anyone else.

The owner was a character who even had enough pro points to appear on the early Hall of Fame ballots. However since I moved away from there the store has come under new ownership and apparently changed for the better. There was also an old story of how Mike Long stole the entire stores inventory one night. I never really did get the full report on that one.

Theros Draft #4 - Match Report

Last time I described the draft of my green blue deck. Here's how it went.

Round 1: My opponent was super quite, he was rocking solid pink sleeves. The whole time it felt like something was wrong. Like his pet just died. Anyway I didn't say anything, perhaps he just has a bizarre game face. Regardless this guy was a total douche. Card flicking, playing quickly and unclean - ly, etc. So I really wanted to crush him.

After the first few turns it was clear we were in the mirror. Every card I saw him play I also had in my deck. I was on the play and attacked in with a Leafcrown Dryad offering a trade. He declined and therefore declared that the race was on. (20-18)

We were trading damage but my turn 5 Nessian Asp brought his plan to screeching halt (14-10). He responded with a bow of Nylea and was able to keep pushing damage through (8-10). I suited up the asp with a bestowed Nylea's Emissary and rumbled into the red zone.

 

gross!

I was regretting not main decking an answer to artifacts but that's a problem to worry about when I get to sideboarding. I swung in with my huge dude and he was forced to block to soak up some damage (8-6). The game was pretty close here. Then I dropped another creature and hoped my opponent didn't have something huge. He didn't. All he could do was crumble under the pressure.

For game 2 he chose to be on the draw and the game played out rather similarly to the previous one except that this time I got my Bow of Nylea. 

I played out a solid stream of beats and used a timely Time to Feed that was absolutely back breaking. The scores went like this.  20-18, 17-18, 17-15, 14-15, 17-14 (time to feed), 17-11. At that point the game was over. I had a great board presence and my opponent could only delay the inevitable 17-5. He managed to suit up a 3/3 with a Nimbus Nyad. And thought he had stabilized.

 

oh that's how you spell naiad!

I had a 6/6 out and rocked a Time to Feed 20-5, then used the bow to remove the Naiad. My 6 power flyer sailed in for the victory. W 2-0 (1-0)

Overall I feel really good about this match. I recognized that the way to go was to race. My opponent did not, his decisions were incoherent. His early actions said "let's race" but then he didn't follow it up, so the early damage forced him into a tough spot late in the games. I'm really not sure what his plan was. But he did leave me with some awesome quotes after the match.

"I could have won game one but I made a mistake." What scintillating insight bro. He said it with such disgust. The vibe I got was ~"I cannot believe I lost to this luck sack." It really made me happy to crush him.

"Are you going to the pro tour?" He said this _ because I was making a couple notes after the game. I responded with a cool, "I just learned how to play draft." Man people who think they are better than you hate to hear that.

Round 2: My opponent this round was a Commander player through and through. So much fun to play against. He was there for a part and to have some great games. Timmy city. His buddies has just talked him into drafting and he was giving it a shot. He clearly didn't value any removal in the draft which is hilarious because he was playing Red/Black. So I curved out and smashed him. 20-18, 18-18, 18-16, 18-7, win. He just couldn't handle the pressure of ever increasingly large beats.

Game two he dropped some early stuff and was laying some beats, but he stalled on 3 lands while I just kept dropping dude after dude. We were in a race situation but I had a Nylea's Disciple in hand, I played it on turn 5 and the life swing from 10 to 15 for me put me ahead on the race and he had no way to dig out. W 2-0 (2-0)

Round 3: My opponent was names Wesley and totally didn't get my Wesley Crusher joke, bummer. Anyways this guy was a super douche. Like when he had no cards in hand he would pick up his graveyard and flick it to pretend like he had cards in hand. Needless to say I wanted to obliterate him.

Game one he got off to a blistering start and crushed me. It was strange because his lands went RW/G/R. Three color and two early missed drops and I still lose. Hmmmmm. So I realize that he is just playing a million small dudes. So I take out the high end of my curve because I don't need it, and I load up on more Nessian Courser and early stuff. 

Game two he mulligans and our mana goes like this. Him: RRR/RG/. Me: GU/GU//. Normally that would be a recipe for a loss but he just didn't have much gas. He got me down to 3 but ran out of steam. My strategy of taking every trade possible played off, but still he was a burn spell or pump spell away from winning.

Game three. I needed this win hard. He's on the play. No mulligans. Mana was perfect for both of us. But he didn't get to attack until turn 3 and I had a 2 drop and it traded with his attacker. Turn 4 for him he drops a dude and says go. I'm still at 20. This feels great. I felt invincible. Eventually we are at 17-10. Then he attacks for 15, blowing his entire load 2-10, uh oh. I respond with a Time to Feed on my turn which he really didn't plan on 5-10. He totally planned on burning me out. Bummer for him. W 2-1 (3-0)

After he lost the guy was bummed. he just kept talking about how sweet his deck was. 14 lands 9 1 drops. Vomit. What a cheese deck.

There were several sweet plays this game but I cannot remember the precise details because I waited too long to write the report. sorry.

Round 4: My opponent this round was my favorite kind of guy to play against. Very good, and polite. Clean player, clear communicator. Sadly this round I played poorly ... and had back luck. I was playing so bad that even average luck wouldn't be enough for me to win. I think I was feeling fatigue. Anyways...

Game one started off clean. No mulligans. Fair mana from both of us. My opponent was on the play and had the front foot. He was playing all the same green dudes as me with some black mixed in. He dropped an Ordeal of Erebos on his Leafcrown Dryad and swung. I had no answer so I took it. 

 

swing on turn 3. Gross.

The next turn he attacked again and I had a choice. Double block and trade with it (a two for two). Or take it and hope to draw an answer on my turn. I chose not to double block and I didn't draw an answer (of which there were only two in my deck). So I had to discard two cards - they were both forests and I still had another in my hand, but still. And then I double blocked because I couldn't handle the 5/5. doh! Total disaster. I had drawn more than my fair share of lands so I didn't actually feel the discard but I still played incorrectly.

Then post combat my opponent dropped Arbor Colossus. I had no answer. I lost in short order.

 

Game two I had a one lander and snap-mulled to 6. I had a two lander with a two drop and was on the play. I kept it. The curve was solid with 2,3,4,5. I just needed to draw lands. It felt better than going back for 5 and hoping for the nut draw. Sadly land 3 never came until my opponents Reaper of the Wilds already hit the table. He then followed it with an Arbor Colossus. I didn't have anything big enough or deathtouchy enough to deal with it. L 0-2 (3-1)

Game one I drew way more lands than spells. Game two I mulled and kept a 2 lander (which I think is right). And didn't get timely lands. It felt like there really wasn't much I could have done. Especially when his bombs came down.

Wrapup: Well the 4-0 eluded me again. I was really happy with my play early and made solid moves. However in the last match I played poorly and had bad luck. My opponent's deck showed up both games. Mine certainly did not in game 2. In game one I could have played smarter and maybe given myself the time needed to draw into my answers. Maybe I could mulled better. Not really sure.

Theros Draft #4 - Deckbuilding

I managed to sneak away and get another draft in at card kingdom. The format is Theros and there were like 60 people there. For those not familiar at CK the drafts are done in pods of as close to 8 people as possible, but then the tournament is just 4 rounds of suisse amongst all attendees. Let's Go!

Pack One Pick One: A bunch of garbage and a Bident of Thassa