On the eve of the LR clan making it into the Top 5 list, I decided to take some winnings into the 8-4 and roll the dice. Ended up with quite a fun and unique BW deck with good early removal and aggressive creatures that I just threw at them to feed the Reaper later on and turn into 3/3 Deathtouch zombies (and Lifelink if mana was up). First two matches were against very aggressive RW decks (one had 4 Blood Ogres) and I was able to just keep the board clear and then pour on the zombies and end it with Sengir or Serra Angel or a pumped up Shade. Opponent wanted to play out the finals instead of splitting (had Overrun, Jade Mage, Pharoah, and Markov, no wonder) and it went down to the wire in 3 games with both us under 5 HP. Opponent just had the right card at the right time to take it home.
P1P1: I think the picks are between Mage, Wring Flesh and Berserker, and of those, Mage would be my third choice. I'd probably have gone with Berserker, but I'm not sure.
ReplyDeleteP1P4: What a weak pack! Here, I think you should've gone for Ponder if you're serious about Blue.
P2P3: Ouuuggh that's nasty! But you're not in White. Are you moving in now? If not, Tormented Soul is definitely the pick here.
P2P5: What a loaded pack! I think your pick can be justified but I think I'd have taken the Sentinel or the Mage personally.
P2P6: Wring Flesh seems right to me.
Solid picks all around, crazy packs though.
P1P1 - I think the pick is between the Azure Mage and the wring flesh here. I can't fault you for taking the azure mage, but I probably take the wring flesh.
ReplyDeleteP1P5 - I probably take the griffin here, because I tend towards being open and taking the strongest cards in the first pack. This gets problematic if I don't see any good signals OR I don't open a bomb, but it's worked out pretty well for me.
P1P7 - I think tormented soul is better than duskhunter bat.
P2P11 - I think disentomb is better than Pride guardian, especially if you're not tending towards white.
P2P3 - what's going on here? didn't they see the griffins go flying past pack 1?
P2P4 - what's going on here? didn't they see the griffins go flying past pack 1?
P2P5 - I don't mind the spirit mantle pick here. They all have their weaknesses against certain decks/at certain points in the game.
P2P6 - I agree with the wring flesh pick.
P2P9 - With a reaper and an angel in your deck brink might not be a bad sideboard card.
Deckbuilding: I think I play one distress over a duskhunter bat. The upside is higher early game and they are both relatively dead draws late game. (yes, duskhunter bat CAN be the flier that makes the difference, but if you're getting through for bloodthirst late game you are probably winning anyway and the extra 2 power flying is not much of a difference).
Lobster: I think you overvalue Ponder quite a bit. I'm not entirely sure why I feel this way except that LSV has said he doesn't think it's that great in this format.
Thanks guys. This was a good draft for me because one thing I struggle at is making that decision to jump into a color. Think I decided at the right time, but I'm always indecisive about when to jump into another color.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Azure Mage, I still think it was the best card in P1P1. Wring Flesh is good early removal, and Berserk is great early but usually gets removed by mid-game. When Azure is up late-game, usually the removal is used up or saved for the bigger creatures/bombs, so the card just sits there cycling through your deck to get the cards you need. I've both had it do major work for me as well as gotten beaten by it. I'd still prefer the Looter, but the Mage does quite well.
My main strike against the Azure Mage is its speed. It's not nearly as aggressive a creature as the Berserker, and it dies to everything (including the Wring Flesh). Red is also the strongest colour in the set.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Ponder; I don't see why you'd hate playing this - obviously, it's not a creature or a removal, but it's a cycler/fixer for one mana and that is worth so much (I mean, Preordain made Constructed formats!). As long as you can reliably cast it (meaning; Blue is one of your main colours), it's just smoothing out your deck and makes you draw what you want.
For me, the problem with Ponder is the shuffle. What if that bomb card i need is the 4th card and now I just shuffled it down? Preordain is great because you do cycle; no shuffle and cards go to bottom of library. With Ponder, the worst case scenario is you paid a blue to draw a card you can't use and then shuffled your deck.
ReplyDelete