I'm very excited to hear feedback to my (pretty radical) decisions in this draft. The deck ended up winning all three matches of the Swiss draft; The first game was against a really powerful W/U deck that, among other cards, sported the Divine Reckoning I had passed in the draft. I won game one after starting out aggressively and then being reduced to a Vampire Interloper after the Reckoning, but I had him at 4 and was able to kill a defending Moon Heron with a Geistflame+Flashback to win. I actually also got the chance to point a Geistflame at the dome. Seems like an unlikely play, but I still think it was right under the circumstances.
Game two, my opponent stumbled on mana, only playing a Delver of Secrets - I played a Galvanic Juggernaut and untapped it by blowing away any and all defenses he had; He revealed the Wrath to flip his guy but only ever got to three mana, and I killed him very fast (5, 7, 8 damage in three consecutive turns).
In the second match, I played a mirror match against a slightly slower deck. I massacred him game one, but game two I kept a hand with only black mana, three red spells and a Falkenrath Noble (on the draw) and didn't see mountains until quite late, and of course my opponent played a Hanweir Watchkeep on turn three which flipped when I had no 3drop. I stabilized with double nobles plus random dorks when he played the Heretic's Punishment I had passed in favour of a Brimstone Volley in the draft, and he was lucky and blew me out for five before I could force trades to get drains off my Noble. One of the cards the Punishment revealed was Olivia Voldaren, Bomb Royale. So I did a bit of sideboarding and adjusted my play game three - I killed Olivia by ripping my third land after she was cast and Volleyed her, and took the victory after that. It felt good.
In the finals, I knew from replays I was facing a really aggressive White/Red deck with Fiend Hunter, Slayer of the Wicked, Reckless Waif, Moment of Heroism, Brimstone Volley, and a few Bell-Ringers. I was aggroed out game one but managed to take game two despite the opponent opening on an active Reckless Waif. The final game was really exciting and stalled out with an almost empty board and my opponent at 2 (I was at almost 20). After a couple of land draws (I had 14 of my 17 lands at this point) I drew a Ridgewolf that he couldn't answer (15 trample damage is hard to deal with!).
So, I won. And I feel like my deck was pretty good, but that might be ROTty - were my draft decisions right?
Lobster667.
P1P5 - Sometimes you have to stay on color. I don't fully hate this pick. Of course, when you're staying on color it's sometimes to be open and in one color rather than forcing an archetype. I think forcing is a very swingy thing. IF you make it, you're going to have a very strong deck because you don't have any wasted picks, but if those colors are cut from you, you can get in a lot of trouble.
ReplyDeleteP2P7 - or the desperate ravings to help you get through some lands. Especially since you won't have very many high drops you don't wanna discard. You can dump your hand then rave.
P2P5 - yeah, I would hate something, or even take the scarecrow for the board.
P3P8 - I would take the ghoulraiser here.
I mean, I probably make some different picks, but it's hard for me to know since I knew we were B/R beatdown from the beginning. And if you wanted to experiment with forcing it, then I like most of your picks and your reasoning.
On the Ghoulraiser; I had three zombies all of them 2/2s. It didn't seem like enough to justify it.
ReplyDeleteI have no problems with forcing an archetype, particularly an aggressive one. I think aggro strategies do very, very well in Innistrad, with most other decks durdling around with turn six zombies, inefficient draw spells, and trying to get their werewolves to flip. As such I'm mostly going to ignore the possibility of staying open or going into a different archetype. However, you can still play aggressive strategies using a couple of different colours.
ReplyDeleteP1P2: Whoa. Even if you end up in B/R aggro I think I might just take the Heretic's Punishment here - it means all of your other cards only have to do 10 or so damage, rather than 15-17. I haven't played with the Punishment though, so maybe I'm overvaluing it.
P1P6: Note that white seems to be getting cut pretty hard, which is great news for you. But green and blue might be open (and green is also a good aggro colour IMO).
P1P7: 1RR seems significantly harder to achieve than 2RR, especially in a base-black deck. You really don't want to have a 3-drop stuck in your hand for too long, because it gets pretty irrelevant once they have more than one good creature out. I think I'd take the Interloper here (although Crossway Vampire definitely has more upside, so maybe I'm being too cautious).
P1P9: The Travel Preparations would have been p. sweet if you had have gone into B/G!
P2P4: The guy to your right did a great job cutting white!
P2P5: This pick doesn't seem close at all to me. It's not hard for the Rage Thrower to do six with its ability, plus it actually affects the board. Rage Thrower seems like one of the three most important common/uncommon cards for this archetype (with Brimstone Volley and Traitorous Blood or Reckless Waif).
P2P6: lol no one wants blue
P2P8: Agree with dis
P2P9: Poor blue ;__;
P2P13: White is being cut hard from your right, whereas blue seems to be open from both sides. I'd hate the white trick, here (which seems just as bad for you - losing a guy and them gaining 4 life or so would be terrible). However, there's no way I would notice this in a draft situation, where I'm more focused on my own deck.
P3P1: I don't think this is close, this is even better than getting a second Rage Thrower.
P3P3: Geistflame and Pitchburn Devils are in the same print-run, and this pick seems to come up a lot. I recently drafted a white/red aggro deck where I took the Geistflame both times, but I'm wondering if a basically guaranteed 2-for-1 isn't just better. If you get them down to single digits before you cast the Devils, it's just such a great attacker. Then again, five mana is a lot, and there seem to be a lot of good five mana cards in this set. What do people think?
P3P10: Again I would hate the good white card.
P3P11: I'd probably just hate the Prey Upon. As Marshall and Jon note on this week's podcast, the curse seems much more suited to a control deck than an aggro one, where tempo is extremely important, so a do-nothing three-drop is like choosing to go on the draw and then mulliganning.
P1P2- I would have taken the rare to experiment, I can see the volley over it, but this early I think is more valuable to get experience with the elusive rares when you can.
ReplyDeleteP1P4- If your forcing your archetype I can dig it, in which case Id take Corpse Lunge over the bear. You can pick up bears later when you'd like and Corpse Lunge, while inefficient and weak, is still removal so...
P1P5- Your out of yer bloody mind, but I dig it :P
P1P6- Heres where I would take a blue card, likely the occultist and see where it goes, the bears honestly arent THAT valuable and I value flexibility in the next packs over picking up plain dudes this early. Also side note, if your neighbor ends up blue you guys will want the opposite since you shipped him 2 skaabs, in the decision to take enabler vs enabled hell want enabler and you want enabled! Its kind of conveluted thought process but hey, isnt that why where commenting on past drafts? :P
P1P8- Id take the Altar's Reap here, Id rather have 2-1 of these cards than 3-0, know what Im sayin?
P1P9- Somebodies getting the hook up for GW Travel Preps, lucky bastard. Also I dont really like Travel Preps in GX where X does not equal white. I dunno, I just feel the card is MUCH weaker without the flashback.
P2P5- Rage Thrower all the way baby!
P2P7- May be the opposite direction but Id hate the Travel Preps before hating the Bell-Ringer, and the Bell before Furor, but w/e.
P2P8- I havent seen the Bump in its full glory, or even at all yet, but the Clutches has been veeerrrryy good at taking me away from stabilization into having for dear life many a time, so I would pick those up highly.
P2P12- OK, ONE of us is misevaluating the Altar's Reap...I just dont know which of us it is :P
P3P5- Id have taken the Night Terrors for cards you simply CANNOT deal with hoping to mise them away. That or 1 eye scarecrow, but I cant remember how many interlopers/cheap aggro fliers you got.
P3P8- Dear God the hook up. THE MANS GETTING IT, THE TRAVEL PREPS GOOD MAN, THE TRAVEL PREPPPPPPSSSS.
I liked how you decided you wanted BR beatdown early on without being TOO crazy about forcing it, it seemed to have worked out, and Ive noticed similar things, aggro is very good in a format of people valuing Think Twice highly :P
On Heretic's Punishment: I've played with the card already; It's slow and somewhat unreliable but really powerful. I liked the solid option better and Volley is really, really good. If it had been pretty much any other common I would've gone with the Punishment, I think.
ReplyDeleteOn Corpse Lunge Vs Walking Corpse: The Lunge is really bad removal and too slow and clunky for what I want to do here. It's not umplayable but it's pretty bad.
On Geistflame vs Pitchburn Devils: Both are really solid cards, and I like the Devils a lot, but this deck just needed the Geistflames for pinpoint removal more than it needed a somewhat clunky finisher.