Draft Report: When Mono isn't good, 12-17-16

Drafting at the Gamma Ray! Sadly, my phone froze up and I couldn't take picture of the draft order so we'll leap straight into the deck.

MODO Draft 12-12-16

Online draft in the draft leagues! Let's leap right in.

Draft Link

Pack 1

   

Pretty easy pick 1: animation module goes almost anywhere with any deck (fabrication, Thriving, etc.) Hunt the Weak is perfectly acceptable removal, though a bit conditional, and Embraal Bruiser needs the aggressive black deck. The Prism is fine fixing, but definitely not what I want to be doing with P1P1.

What's the play? JV Edition

Okay, not the ROUGHEST Magic Puzzler out there, but I was a little bit proud of the following line. I'm playing an aggressive black/red aggro deck facing against a green/blue durdler. I get off to a hot start, and then the board looks like this:

Click to embiggen

Draft Report: Kingpins lacking contraband 12-10-16

Drafting at the Gamma Ray! Sitting in a six man pod with many of the usual suspects (Chris, Joe, Omar, Nicholas, and Scott) so let's get ready to draft!

My pack 1 was pretty uninspiring. No removal, no generic powerful cards. So I decided to speculate on Deepala.

a 1/1 Dwarf token can pilot a 6/5 freighter, just to be clear

Nird Drafting: Aggro Keeps Them Honest 12-8-16

A little weekday shenanigans with some Gamma Ray expats at Nird Supercool Web design. Unfortunately, Patrick apparently had some difficulty counting to eight, as nine enthusiastic drafters showed up. Best solution was that we had a Chris/Jed braintrust (CJed; as the portmanteau 'Ched' would be too close to Chad, already taken at the table).

Actually turned out to be a shockingly fun way to draft, constantly discussing and analyzing picks.

Pack 1

  

Very interesting slate of first picks! Pretty good removal, though not great with the density of flicker and main-decking of Fragmentize/Appetite for Unnatural. Whirler Virtuoso is a powerhouse in the right deck but it's not just a gold card, it's a gold card that requires green. Finally the Syndicate Trafficker is a moderately powerful 2 drop. I talk Chris into going with the two drop and we're off.

The rest of the pack is kind of a mess. We score a pick 3 Midnight Oil, which makes it sound like black is open. But then we randomly come across a Kujar Seedsculptor at p4 and p5 Attune with Aether, both premium green commons. Then red flows a little. Very weird.

The good news is that we end pack 1 with 5-7 two-drops (depending on color combinations, can't exactly splash a two drop). So the aggro train is on the tracks!

Pack2

I'm not proud, but I caved and we rare-drafted a Torrential Gearhulk. Can't remember what we passed up for it. But we rapidly feel better when we get passed two Renegade freighters, filling out our curve nightly. We keep bouncing around some combination of R/G/B (Hunt the Weak! Doorbuster! Rip Tiger!)  with, uh, no fixing to speak of. That's probably something we should address soon. Card quality feels high, deck cohesion feels low.

Somehow reversed, P2P1 is lower left this time

Pack3

We get bailed out big time in pack 3. Some decent playables (Snare Thopter and Chief of the Foundry will do solid work) but we also get clutch fixing with another Attune and Wild Wanderer. The game plan is on.

Also backwards. My bad.

The Deck
(playlist here)

Deck construction was pretty entertaining as I try to talk Chris into trying 15 lands only to hilariously mull several times with practice hands. Small n! Small n! After our first match we agreed to swap out a swamp for a Narnam Cobra and it ended up playing very smoothly. The fact is playing Dhund Operative to a Renegade Freighter to a Chief of the Foundry and smashing in with 9 points of damage on turn 4 is going to win a LOT of magic games in a hurry. We generally curved out nicely and put relentless pressure on our opponents. The deck definitely had some clunky moments: my favorite was when we were milking a Midnight Oil on a stalled board state with a red card trapped in our hand and no mountain. Final draw before we have to discard our hand: another two red cards. It was pretty spectacular.

In short, I think Paolo was quite correct: Kaladesh can be quite aggressive. The vehicles and lack of mana-sinks rewards early aggressive play. Sure it's hilarious to try to dink around with Whirler Virtuoso but that provides no defense to a 2-3-4 curve out.

MVP


Yeah, it just wins games especially when you have a two-drop ready to hop in.

MIA

Pretty sure we never saw you. COULD HAVE USED THE MOUNTAIN JERK.

Record 3-0.

MtG Art I-R-L!

I was sorting through some photos recently when I realized that artist Janine Johnson is a time-traveling wizard. I present my evidence:

Jungle Lion, as printed in the 1997 Portal set, is CLEARLY stolen through time from a picture I took at the St. Louis zoo in 2015.

Can't intercept, obv

J'accuse!

Magical Christmasland draft! 11-12-16

Looking to escape from the election news cycle, the Gamma Ray was pretty crowded this Saturday. Ended up being three pods, an eight and two sixes. Fortunately I was at one of the sixes instead of the big kids' table. Ended up being hilarious.

Flample! 10-29-16 Draft Report

Greetings loyal reader. Your intrepid hero drafted yesterday at a very goofy (though fun) 10 person pod at the Gamma Ray. 10 person pods are always kind of a mess but at least you don't have to worry about the wheel since nothing ever will.

Current Distraction: quick start guide to Civ 6

I’m just going to go ahead and assume that you have sunk 300+ hours into Civ5. The good news is Civ6 seems to add some interesting layers of strategy to that glorious Civ gameplay. The bad news is that a lot of your tactical habits are going to actively undermine you.

Let's do the time warp again: 10-15-16 Draft

Risking the elements for some hot drafting action at the Gamma Ray. A lot of the regulars, so it promises to be... well something I'm sure.

Pack 1

My opening rare was... uninspiring.

Quoth Marshall, "Sure."

It might be better than that, but a kinda weird "sort of damage, sort of card draw" wasn't really what I wanted. I ended up taking the Seedsculptor as I like having a guaranteed two drop. The pack felt very unsettled with picks 6-8 being three high quality commons (Dragster, Gearseeker, and Malfunction) I end the pack feeling very, very open. Definitely not red or white though, I can confidently rule that out.

Pack 2

Suddenly the green and the black just start flowing for real. The pick 6 thriving rhino & pick 10 (!) Fairgrounds Trumpeter felt great.

Pack 3

Not really any substitute for opening a solid rare in your color, so Gonti is in! I vaguely recall blue opening up again in this pack, but I felt pretty pot-committed on the green so I take some borderline playables. I ask if there's an achievement for having a deck with Wily Bandar in it. Margo said no.

Deck

Tapped Out Link

Once again, I'm kind of straddling "artifact matters" with "+1/+1 tokens matter". Oh, and a splash in white for the Consul (seemed pretty painless with a mana bear, Prism, and a (more questionable) Attune with Aether). My high end isn't great, my removal is mediocre, and I completely forgot to grab any artifact hate. Still, it feels like the baseline card quality is high.

Did I find my lane?

Orlando:
Nicolas:
Scott:
Your Hero, Jed:
Margo:
Cameron:
Taylor: 4 color mishmash I think
Nick:
(down = right, so Scott passed to me for pack 1)

It's a bit surprising that I didn't see more black in pack 1, though the Ovalchase Daredevil in pick 8 makes more sense here. In the abstract, maybe blue/black artifact-matters makes more sense, but I just didn't see the pieces.

Results

Unfortuately, it felt like I underperformed a little. First match was against Scott's Red/White aggro. Except he also had the following:

 

When those come down on curve, about the only legible part of my notes is "FUUUUUUUU". Yup!

I moved on to some humorous games against Margo's R/U energy deck that had ALL THE ENERGY... just no finishers. Two games where we raced to draw more land and she won. And by "won" I mean that she didn't draw land.

Met up with my B/G mirror in the final where suddenly my deck decided to curve out in an aggro-killing machine. On curve Maulfists, Rhinos, stealing his removal with my Gonti. it felt slick. It just didn't do that against anyone else.

MTGO Draft 10-13-16

It's draft time suckers! God I love this league where I can draft and then take a break. Let's take this from the top:

Draft Log

Pack 1

Pick 1
  

Two half synergies do not add up to synergy, Draft Report 10-8-16

Not going to sugarcoat, it was a bit of a disaster at the Gamma Ray.

Tapped Out deck

Kaladesh Pre-Release Report 9-24-16

Ahhh, time for some day-drinking and pre-release magic cards. The two go well together as higher variance play when under the influence doesn't matter as much when not one not two but THREE people crack Chandra.

Need cards, mana, or to make something dead? Chandra has a solution

Amusingly, for a set with a bunch of cool moving pieces and tons of fun build-around cards, I had the world's most boring, LR-approved deck. 17 lands, 7 spells, 16 creatures. Some removal, some tricks, some fixing. basically it was designed to be thoroughly average but be spectacularly consistent at doing so. Is that enough to bring home victory to my long suffering wife?!

G/W Games. Never give up and never surrender!

Once again I'm less than stellar at capturing screenshots but I don't really think anyone cares. I mean, cares less than the rest of this blog. So I'll recap.

Game 1
I'm facing a deck that is CLEARLY vastly superior to mine. U/G emerge, and it has ALL the pieces.

      

Game 1 I had a mediocre hand with several four drops and three mana. I kept.. but without an early lead I rapidly fell behind to his vastly superior value plays. Game 2 I have a slick little opening hand.
   

That's a fast 1-2-3 with a solid combat trick to knock down their first blocker. I dump my hand, handle his two blockers and win with a topdecked Lunarch Mantle to go over the top.

Game 3.
Basically a word for word repeat of game 1 where he stabilized with his bevy of emerge creatures. I'm able to enchant a Solitary Hunter and swing in for some big hits but he gets down to 7 with a Gryff, Drownyard Explorer, and a flipped Solitary Hunter facing down my one or two blockers. I buy some time with a Heron's Grace Champion (lifelink!!).

Facing a dead board I attack with my little 2/2 flying. For whatever reason, he does not block.
 

Hey, that's seven damage! Whew! Sometimes you steal one.

(2-1)

Game 2
G/W Mirror, except one of us has good cards and one of us doesn't.
     

Yeah... those are his cards. He had enough to slow me down and then I didn't really have an answer for his transformed Ulvenwald Captive. One game he had both of his captives down (one transformed). I attack with an equipped Solitary Hunter and he double-blocked using the mana from his transformed to transform the other one. Mistake by team Jed.

(0-2)

Game 3
Facing R/G aggression. Some good aggression.

    

In the first match, we stall out facing against each other but he's transforming his werewolves into 5/7 monsters and I'm... well not doing that. However, I do have an ace up my sleeve:

  

I equip the Rider with the staff, which demands a whole lot of blocking on his part. I then drop the Woodcutter's Grit for a pretty massive blowout (wiping out three blockers) and gain a lot of life. I eventually, barely manage to win the race. Amusingly, I actually activate Delirium with my only artifact creature in the graveyard which proved to be rather important, making my Paranoid Parish Blade 4 points of first strike damage.

Match two we both mull a bit and I stay on the front foot even when he gets out his Mirrorwing Dragon. I'm able to attack into it with a developed board and my trusty Selfless spirit

 

Amusingly, when I cast the selfless spirit, I thought I had the Guardian of Pilgrims (which I feel is SOMEWHAT justified, given the identical art). Talk about a pleasant surprise!

(2-0)

In conclusion, I think my deck overperformed to eke out a 2-1. It was pretty fun and I really enjoyed being able to schedule magic on my own terms and not have to block out a 3 hours period.