This was my first Innistrad draft, but I felt like I had a pretty good handle on the format. There were a few close picks: Victim of Night vs. Prey Upon, or Angel of Flight Alabaster vs. Dead Weight vs. Falkenrath Nobles. But I still feel like I definitely had the best deck at the table.
Round one, I faced a deck with a bunch of Crazed Neonates, and not much else. I should have been able to take the game with my pile of Villagers of Estwald, but unfortunately I had some pretty bad mana problems. The first game, I missed my third land drop, which allowed him to get through with a Neonate + Rakish Heir before I could drop one of the two Villagers in my hand. From there, I nearly stabilized and one the game, but I couldn't get more than 4 mana (one of those was a Pilgrim). In game two, I kept a two lander with a bunch of two drops and Liliana, but I got stuck on two lands. I still nearly pulled out that game, but I couldn't quite pull it off.
Matche two was vs. the guy with Heartless Summoning and Intangible Virtue. Wasn't even close.
Match three was against a pretty solid Red/Green deck, but my tempo was just miles better, and Travel Preparations destroyed him.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the draft. But... I've been having a lot of bad luck lately with mana problems. I feel like I'm building my decks correctly, but I have still performed poorer in the past two months than I have in years. Is it just a really bad run of variance? Or is it something I'm doing wrong? Take a look at the deck and tell me what you think.
P1P2: Assuming this was a prerelease draft, I'm a little dubious about raredrafting cards that aren't worth more than like $5, because the difference between 2-1 and 3-0 is two packs rather than one. Plus, isn't the point of prereleasing that you are giving up EV to play with the sweet new set?
ReplyDeleteP1P6: This is a strange pick to me. I haven't played with Travel Preparations, so I'll take your word that it's better than every other green common, but even so, it's putting you into two colours you don't have any other cards for, and you're giving up two very good blue ones (the ones you've already taken, not the two in this pack). There also haven't been any more than mediocre green cards in the previous pack, so there is no reason to think that green is open or that anything good would wheel? I dunno, it's not as if Sensory Deprivation is crazy good, but it just seemed strange to me how willing you seemed to be to jump ship into a radically different archetype. Is the card really THAT good? Like, better than quality removal, which you rate Grasp of Phantoms as?
P1P9: "...it's not as if the black has been particularly flowing" buh? You just got the black kill spell seventh pick! Either the people a couple to your right aren't black or everyone in this draft is crazy and doesn't think removal is good.
P2P3: No question Brimstone Volley is the best card in this pack, but do you really want to be going into a fifth colour when you have very good cards in your other four? If the pack was a little worse this would make sense, but I think I'd just take Smite the Monstrous here (or maybe just a durdle in your colours?).
P2P4: At this point I might take the Rebuke and maybe move away from green (considering I took Smite the pick before), but I don't think the viper is that much worse.
P2P5: Greater than more removal (the Viper)? This question is not rhetorical; my instinct would be to go with the snake, but a 3/3 on turn 3 or 4 seems decent too, and what do I know.
@Penix:
ReplyDeleteP1P2 - Nope, just a regular release draft. But in the prerelease drafts, these things were going for like 6.
p1p6 - Now hold on, I didn't say it was the best green common. I said one of the best. Prey Upon is the best :) But it's definitely the best in the pack.
Also, if you head over to Channel Fireball and watch LSV's sealed, see what he says about Grasp of Phantoms.
P1P9 - Not as if it's been flowing as in "I've only seen two decent black cards." I guess three if you count the Moan which I passed. I don't call that flowing, but it's not like it was getting cut either. And Victim of Night is much worse than a lot of people are giving it credit for being. It's still late at pick nine, but it's not like that's an uber signal or anything.
P2P3 - I don't really want to go into another color, but if red gets passed to me like crazy, and everything else is cut off, then I'll be glad I took this over a Spidery Grasp that will end up wheeling anyways.
P2P4 - Rebuke is much better than Viper, actually, since it can hit evasive guys. But the Viper goes well with the green I already have. At some point you have to commit to a color, and I think that's what I did here.
P2P5 - Viper isn't really removal. It sometimes acts like it, but I just think of it as a pretty awesome creature. Just so happens that the Shepherd is an even more awesome creature. Also, he's really good with Travel Preparations.
P1P5: I think I would've stayed open and taken the Pitchfork, which is just inane on the Scholar, but Walking Corpse is a decent durdle, too.
ReplyDeleteP1P6: I actually think I take the Boar here - Preperations is in two colours you haven'y got anything in (although the Chapel allows you to just play it in BG and get a splash now and then).
P2P1: Eugh, tough choice! I think your pick is completely justifiable since you were cut somewhat in Black. As long as you know you're basically abandoning Black right here.
P2P2: After passing the Noble, I think I'd actually take the Boar or perhaps the Villagers. Claustrophobia is good but too Blue.
P2P12: Both black creatures are really good, but I think I prefer Patrician here. You've seen 0 Geistflames so far, as far as I can tell.
P3P1: What, non-foil? Sheesh.
Congratulations on opening Liliana :)
P3P2: I like Villagers a lot but they wheeled before so Scavenger is probably the pick here.
P3P3: Ghoul is pretty sick with TP too...
P3P9: I think Moonmist is the right pick here, not that any of them is likely to make the cut...
P3P10: See? Wheeled. Correct pick.
I too have had trouble with mana, but some of it might have been from being too greedy with colours or including amulets instead of actual lands. Your mana looks absolutely solid here, but I think this is a format where playing 18 lands or 17 lands plus amulets might be worth trying?
@Lobster667-
ReplyDeleteP1P5 - Yeah, I seriously considered the Pitchfork as well, but I forgot to put that in the notes. Taking the Pitchfork might have been the right pick as well, since I had so many Werewolves.
P1P6 - I think that Travel Preparations is better than the Boar, but this is actually a pretty close pick. But, I figured that with the Chapel, I would be able to splash white pretty easily. This is sort of a high risk / high reward pick, but I think it was worth it.
P2P1 - I don't think I am abandoning black here. Angel is super splashable, and Demon is soooo much better. I was thinking I was abandoning green, but since the white just didn't come around this pack, I stayed GB. If angel was 3WW I wouldn't have picked it here.
P2P2 - See, I don't give up on black here just because of one pick. I'm the kind of drafter who knows that one pick doesn't make a draft, so something like the last pick isn't going to destroy me. Boar might have been the pick here though, since I'm going to end up with a huge pile of 2 drops. But this guy wears Travel Preparations pretty well.
P2P12 - The thing is, I had so many playables that I knew neither of these cards was going to make the deck, so I don't lose anything by taking the Rats. Patrician is better against some decks, but Rats is better against others, and whichever I play will just be coming out of the board...
P3P1 - :)
P3P2 - Again, my curve was so low that I kind of needed a few more expensive guys. I had 7 two drops and a bunch of threes, so I thought having something for the late game would be good.
P3P3 - I don't get why people love the Ghoul so much. Yes, he is pretty good, but a big part of that is because he is in black, and black's creatures suck. I'm in green, and green's creatures rock. I think the problem is that Ghoul does "cool stuff" so people overvalue him.
P3P9 - Lumberknot is good. I mean, I like it a little less than most people, but it is still a very solid creature that goes well with my deck. Moonmist is fine, and if I had one more werewolf I would have taken it, but I only have five.
P3P10 - There is absolutely no reason why Travel Preparations should have gone this late, btw. Someone took Lumberknot over it, which just shows that they don't really know what they are doing.
As regards the mana, I've been playing some more games with other clan members, and haven't really had mana problems. I've just had the worst luck with mana in drafts lately.
P1P2 - It weirds me out that Skaab Goliath is better than a Moan of the Unhallowed or Blazing Torch. But mostly because I don't know how many of them you play and they seem (in my limited experience) to come later. Maybe that will stop but it seems like even if it is a "dragon" you can't play more than two.
ReplyDeleteP1P12 - I don't think the pick between spidery grasp and sleuth is close at all.
P2P1 - I take the Noble because that guy is awesome, but I also tend to look for reasons to not take rares because I know that my tendency is to want to take the rares. I'm always trying to find the balance.
P2P3 - I don't love this pick, but you can always side into it, which makes it better, I suppose.
P2P15 - this is really weird. Spidery Grasp should not be going 15th pick. FPS.
P3P2 - this pick is weird to me because I can't see how many 5 drops you have at this point. But I guess you probably knew better than I.
P3P3 - The Ghoul excites me more and I would pick it, but it also depends on your curve. I also am willing to admit that it's the wrong pick. The Spirit has been nothing but solid against me (and the fact that geistcatchers rig doesn't kill it is non-negligable)
P3P6 - I definitely think the wolf is the pick here. I think that guy is really good. But I guess you have a ton of two drops already.
P3P9 - I take the moonmist here. So much utility.
P3P12-15 - Why are people taking lands here? I just do not get it.
Congrats on Lilliana, due.