Saturday, December 17, 2016
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.
Thursday, December 15, 2016
MODO Draft 12-12-16
Online draft in the draft leagues! Let's leap right in.
Draft Link
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
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:
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| Click to embiggen |
Saturday, December 10, 2016
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.
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 |
Friday, December 9, 2016
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, December 8, 2016
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:
J'accuse!
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.
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| Can't intercept, obv |
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