This was the first AVR draft I've done online - and it looks like I wasn't the only newcomer in the draft! I mean, Seclusions wheeling? What gives?
I expected this deck to be a pretty solid one, hopefully going 3-0, but I met a really, breathtakingly fast G/R aggro deck in the "finals". He killed me on turn five in game two!
Woohoo! A draft from Marcus!
ReplyDeleteTo make things clear first, I typically draft very differently from Marcus, so I tend to have a lot of comments of things I would do differently. This isn’t to say that I think he is doing things wrong; it is to say what I would have done in the same situation. Comparing the two of us is a great exercise in seeing that two players can have very different preferences that can still be correct. With that said, on to the draft!
P1P1 – This is a pretty nice card.
P1P7 – Aggravate can be pretty useful, especially against those wild Thatcher’s Revolt starts, but I think there is something to be said for the Bladed Bracers as well. This format sees a lot of mediocre creatures banging into each other over and over, and being able to get a little edge can go a long way.
P1P9 – Yeah… that should not be happening. Red/Black is one of the worst color combinations from what I’ve seen, but this seems like exactly the right situation to move in on it. If you’d take the black earlier (which would have been incorrect, but just trying to see with hindsight) then you would have had a sick mono black deck, in all likelihood.
P2P2 – I would have either taken the Bone Splinters, Malcontents, or Butcher Ghoul. Red/Black actually doesn’t do the aggro route very well, and Fervent Cathar isn’t actually very good as its own attacker. The black cards are absolutely the best. With that said, there is a good chance that one of them will wheel. I think I would have taken the Splinters and hoped to wheel the Ghoul.
P2P4 – Actually, I think Thatcher Revolt is definitely the right pick here. It seems strange, but here is the reason why. Red/Black takes a lot of advantage of creatures that sacrifice themselves. Look at how good this is with Blood Artist, or the Vampire that gets bigger when things die. Also, imagine how good this is with Bone Splinters.
P2P5 – I’ve been really impressed with Soulcage Fiend in the Seclusion deck. He makes races really awkward.
P3P3 – I agree with this pick, though I’m sure a lot of people wouldn’t.
Overall, it seems like you drafted the very best deck that you could have. Just a few things that I would have done differently, but they don’t drastically change the quality of the deck. As for deck building, it seems like you just put in all the playables. I would have cut the Essence Harvest for Mental Agony. That card does more work than you expect.
Good job!
P2P2: I agree that the other choices here a better, now that I've grown to know the format a little better.
ReplyDeleteP2P4: With what I know now, I can see where you're coming from. Ultimately, though, I don't think I yet have the pieces needed to make it work in my pile.
P2P5: I see where you're going - Soulcage has risen quite a bit for me, too, but I think one of the deck's weaknesses is the lack of good blocks before the Seclusion comes down, and I think Soulcage might be a bit of a liability here.
On Harvest vs Agony, I ended up playing the Harvest because of my two Seclusions, but I like the Agony as a card, too, especially in the aggressive Soulcage decks.
Thanks for the feedback, Matthew! :)
P1P5 - At this point G has not been looking very open and I don't take the curve topper I don't really want. Instead I take the Inquistor, Vigilante or Wingcrafter. U seems open-ish but Wingcrafter doesn't go all that great with R.
ReplyDeleteP1P7 - I slam the smuggler here and never look back.
P1P12 - Ghostly flicker or spectral prison are the picks here. I think you still could be U.
P2P2 - I take butcher ghoul here. But what do I know.
P2P3 - Ghoulflesh might be the pick here.