So I was suuuper excited at the end of this draft... and I was absolutely certain that I was going to get at least to the finals, if not win it all with a deck this strong. I was able to draft my favorite archetype, BUG spawning.dek... with 3 legit bombs in splinterfright, ghoultree, and murder of crows. plenty of enablers, had thoughtscour, dreamtwist, 2x mulch, tracker's instinct, screeching skaab, and alchemy (potential of 10 dumpers when including flashback). even had excellent mana fixing with a wilds and woodland cemetery.
see the draft for how it all came together. its a fairytale is d-hermit land:
http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=34tq9
now to the match (read: singular)
M1G1: the replay didn't save, but no save was needed to remember this line of play. game started out pretty slow. on the draw i hit a couple of enablers early, opponent drops plains, plains, thraben heretic. so i'm thinking... "perfect" (sarcasm)... here goes my entire strategy, exiled out the window.
we go back and forth without much going on. he's played nothing but 4 plains and missed a land drop. the heretic and a durdle in play. 4 cards left in hand. i play a brainweevil and hold it, hoping to sac it my next turn and play banshee to get rid of the heretic. i miss on my 2nd black source but i sac him anyway to get some cards since he just missed a land drop, i know i can hit spells since he's either hurting on a second color, or has all big 5+ drops. maybe this was a mistake, but there's no way to know that i should've played around what followed:
so i target him and he discards: drogskol reaver and unburial rites. F. M. L.
game ends pretty soon after that. i draw and play a murder of crows. let him get damage thru on his turn in order to copy the crows with a cackling counterpart. i do this main phase, another potential mistake as he EOT feeling of dreads me. attacks again for 6, draws two more cards, and plays requiem angel for the scoop.
M1G2: i figure he's a blue white splashing black, tempo but possibly bordering control since he basically did nothing G1 but play a heretic. so in comes the crushing vines, death's caress, and two chills. dont know what i took out, if anything, but i end up with 46 cards and 19 lands. so perhaps my sideboard strategy wasn't correctly instilled. i'm a bit tilted at this point and just want to try anything to kill that reaver. the chills were to outrace his GY hate, and possibly get his splash colors in the graveyard.
i open with a boneyard wurm, two chills, a death's caress and a mulch, woodland and swamp. pretty much a perfect hand for what i want to do. mulch for land drops. mill 10 consecutive cards, play a huge ass wurm, and kill the major threat he plays.
it plays out pretty much as expected. he goes turn one dagger (threw me a bit), and another turn 2 heretic. so i chill hitting him a spare from evil, fiend hunter, plains, warden of the wall... and a forest. FOREST?? wtf? didn't i see 3 colors already G1? so now i'm losing to a 4 color bomb the f*ck out of me deck? sure, lets see what i milled... alchemy, stranleroot gesit, ghoultree, evil twin, and dream twist. F. M. L.
turn 4 i play a screeching skaab followed by a 5/5 boneyard wurm, against his unequipped heretic, elder cathar, and lifelinking, spirit making inquisitor. turn 5 i start by death caressed his heretic. but what i should've done i think is attacked first all in with dreamtwist backup for potential combat trick. so he removed ghoultree in responsed, making the wurm a 4/4, and i do nothing. could've at least gotten 4-6 damage thru, and killed two potential dudes instead of nothing. next turn he fiend hunter's (2nd in deck) the wurm. trades the inquisitor for the skaab, giving him a token. then he drops dearly departed (3rd bomb flyer for him). play continues, and i have nothing but a makeshift mauler in play and he alpha strikes (wait for it... AFTER travel prepping with flashback and dagger equipped.) the old sawiing for 16 trick with your 3 splash colors. i'm down to 1. i chill looking for a gnaw. to at least drag this out another turn. dont hit it. and scoop.
so there you have it. variance at it's best. i'm really trying to learn from this experience. there were a few questionable (read: desperate) plays on my part, but you have to give credit where credit is due. his consecutive turn 2 heretics COPMLETLEY threw me off my gameplan. and the bad beat G1 admittedly tilted me a bit to the point of questionable sideboard choices. he drew his bombs, and hit his lands he needed even w/o fixing (he said he had plenty of fixing in his deck, didn't need it apparently).
but lets take a look at the end game state. turn 7 i have 7 lands in play, no issues with colors (as predicted). a makeshift mauler on the battlefield with banshee and trackers instinct in hand. 3 spells exiled and 16 cards in graveyard, guess how many were lands.... 3. which means of my remaining 12 cards in library, 9 are lands. not quite the land to spell distribution you would want when milling yourself. spare a creature or removal spell in place of a land and this game... and match... could've gone different.
such is variance. better luck next time i guess.
P1P1: I don't pick Caress here. I probably take Immerwolf or Jar of Eyeballs, both are better out of the gate in my opinion. Jar keeps you open, but Immwerwolf has a higher potential, and you should be able to get something wolfy pack, hopefully.
ReplyDeleteP1P2: With Immerwolf, the pick here is probably Geist or Hunger. But since you took the Caress, I'd actually not fault you for taking the Highborn Ghoul - it's certainly not going to wheel, even if the pack is relatively strong.
P1P3: Journey and Evil are both better than the Skaab, and in black.
P1P5: If you're so set on blue, take the chant. It's the best blue card in here.
P1P7: I think you're trying to force something here that just isn't that open. There are several good cards left for R/G here.
P1P8: Okay that is bonkers, and the right pick.
P1P9: This card is insane and shouldn't go ninth.
P1P12: Why haven't people realized that the Stalker is actually really good?
P2P2: The Shepherd is insane AND a creature. I'd take that here.
P2P4: See if you had taken a great card over Alchemy before, you could have taken Alchemy over a really marginal card here.
P3P1: I am going to be a bit harsh here and ask what your plan is. If it's self-mill, take a card that fits that plan. You've got Skaab, Twist, Mulch and a fine green creature in the Villagers. Why the (otherwise great) double-black spell?
P3P2: It's hard to take a creature over really solid removal. I don't know... But if you need creatures, picking the rat or the boar is probably best.
P3P6: Are you playing that much blue, though? And you have so few creatures, what if it has no target? I think Occultist might be the right pick here.
Deckbuilding: I think you need a bit more green mana. Also, get the Gravepurge out and put in Patrol or perhaps even the Wreath.
with a clear mind... i agree with most of your comments. i think that i naturally try to force BUG spawning at times because of good memories with early triple ISD when that deck was really winning a lot.
ReplyDeletebut i honestly haven't done very well with it lately, which is discouraging because i've spend so much time and effort in drafting it before, i feel that I'm much weaker in evaluating other cards and archetypes.
lately i've done several aggressive BW and GW builds with lingering souls and other tokens... but have lost in R1 due to some bad matchups and lack of removal of key creatures. so that's discouraging as well. i'd rather not go back to the swiss ranks to get more experience and decrease the variance... but i may have to i'm struggling this much with simple decisions in deckbuilding and drafting.
your points are spot on though. i do tend to force things, and with the way this draft went, if i dont get those late ghoultree, spinterfright, or spawning... this deck is pretty much garbage. thanks for the comments... always good to learn!
P1P1 - for me, the picks are caress, pyreheart wolf and jar of eyeballs. I take the jar.
ReplyDeleteP1P3 - Stormbound Geist! He's a solid clock and holds the skies.
P1P4 - I definitely take the Burden of Guilt here.
P1P5 - I probably take the chant over the skaab, but definitely skaab over foreboding. But I also have moved into white and am now taking the heretic or the midnight guard.
P1P7 - Yeah, I like the card OK too, but I don't take it over creatures and there are solid ones in your colors. Survivors or Gravetiller are both good.
P1P11 - I like survivors over crushing vine if it's going in the board.
P1P12 - Take the stalker. With a pyreheart wolf you could move in on red for the right bomb.
P2P3 - I take the sheperd or the stitched drake. Probably the drake.
P3P5 - I take the pilgrim here.