Stefan House Tournament

Stefan hosted a little tournament a few weekends ago. 6 man draft, go!

Pack 1

Open the first pack and see a Duneblast. Well that was easy. I snag a Chief of the Edge and I'm looking to make abzan happen... it gets really, really dry. I'm not seeing enough lands to go 5 color and I really have very little feel for what's going on. However, midway through the pack there's a Dragon Grip (a pretty solid red) as well as a Snowhorn Rider. From this point I'm thinking Temur.

Pack 2

Sagur Mauler? Temur it is! I actually hate a good deal of the rest of this packbut I land a late fixing and Mardu Blazebringer is surprisingly not-terrible in this deck. About the only tough call was whether or not to hate-draft an Ankle-Shanker over a Become Immense.

Pack 3

I hoovered a lot of Riders here. I got a little greedy and tried to wheel a Temur Ascendancy, uh, twice. I probably should just have grabbed it.

Deck:

Creature: smoke teller, Rattleclaw Mystic, Horde Ambusher, Mardu Blazebringer, Bloodfire Mentor, Sagu Archer x2, Glacial Stalker, Snowhorn Rider x4, Sagu Mauler, Bear's Companion, Sultai Flayer, Scaldkin

Spells: Savage Punch x2, Become Immense, Dragon Grip, Barrage of Boulders, Winterflame

Lands: Swiftwater Cliffs x2, Thornwood Falls, Forest x6, Mountain x5, Island x4

I'm not too unhappy with the deck itself though I'm leery about how few early drops I have. Will I be punished for this?

Teh Gamez

Unfortunately I ate a lot of bad luck and ran into a lot of good decks. The first match was against Stefan and I opened with a double-muligan. I foolishly traded Morphs with him with my 4/5 morph that would have powered some Ferocious bear punching. I also had absolutely no answer for 

 

That's a lot of powerful deathtouching creatures. When a Abzan Guide also hit the field, it was all over. (0-2)

Next match was against Derek and I didn't do a lot better. Another double-mull following by whiffing on land drop on turn 3, 4, and 5 meant that his Ankle Shanker didn't have a lot to do beside deliver the coup de grace. The second round I put up a little more of a fight... but not really. (0-2)

Finally against Zoe my deck actually pretends to function. It helped that I was facing a similarly slow deck, except he didn't really have answers for my relentless barrage of 5/5 tramplers. On game two I had a dominate board state with both a Rider and a Mauler up to his lone morph. He has six mana, stares at his hand, and says "Go". 99% it's our good friend!

But she can't help you if I don't need to cast anything so I just continue to beat down hard. That's the difference between a card that can break parity and one that can help you come back from behind.

Lessons learned: Temur is a funny deck because it feels like it really wants to be a classic control deck: have one big thumpy guy alive (5/5 will tussle with just about anything in the set) and protect him from all threats. I think this is where my deck construction was poor as I had a bunch of bad fits. My spells should be either counterspells or removal, not combat tricks. My creature base should either be fast-ish defenders or big thumpy. Example of useless: 

Perfect decent card, definitely has its place in Abzan and Sultai decks. But if Temur is spending 5 mana to un-morph something, it damn well better be a threat. So, if given a choice, next time I'm cutting the Barrage of Boulders, Winterflame, Become Immense, Sagu Archer and Sultai Flayer.

Cheap defenders: Bloodfire Mentor, Monastery Flock, Dragon Eye Savant, Mardu Blaze Bringer

Control Spells: Bear Punch, Stubborn Denial, Disdainful Stroke, Burn Away, Bring Low

I also probably should have ran Treasure Cruise. I think that was a mistake. I also wish I had at least one Scout the Borders Brent. IT WOULD HAVE GONE IN BRENT. But ultimately, I was happy that I stayed open and found the undrafted clan. That's something I've been trying to work on.