http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=3co5u
... There are several interesting decisions in this draft, and I'd be glad to hear comments on any of the picks, but I am particularly interested in your opinions on the following...
P1P1: Is the Crusader the right card to kick off with?
P1P2: ... And how do you follow up that pick here?
P1P6: Servant or Duty-Bound?
P3P1: Is the Ring the right pick here? It feels powerful, but perhaps I am being a bit ROTty.
P3P2: Do I just take the Guardians and forget the Gorgon? Or it is powerful enough to pick up here?
I ended up building the deck as follows:
A few cards I would like to touch upon; The second Crippling Blight feels like it should be in the maindeck, but I ended up cutting it for creature count concerns. The Healer should probably be in there, but I felt like she was too far along the curve and that she would be unexciting as a 4-mana 2/3. In the games where she was boarded in, though, she did a ton of work.
I probably should have cut the Vampire, even if she is good with triple Rats, and I am actually considering whether keeping in the Sign in Blood - which was one of the only ways I could gain card advantage - was right. I boarded it out a few games.
The cards that impressed me the most were the Bats and the Ring - I never got to play the Gorgon - and to a lesser extent, the Crusader and the Blight(s). On the other hand, Bloodthrone Vampire underperformed and was cut in boarding in some matches.
My first match was against an aggressive W/R deck; In game 1, he went to 4 cards to my 6, going first, but actually managed to pressure me after playing a Bladetusk Boar I could not remove and then eating two creatures with a single Flames of the Firebrand. I kept up with him by playing a couple of Bloodhunter Bats, which got him low enough to be Essence Drained out later. He went first again in game two, where we both kept our starting seven - I had boarded out my Bloodthrone Vampire for a second Blight since he played a lot of weenie creatures and token generators. Despite that, I had no answer for his Goblin Looter which he got a ton of value out of, but I managed to win with my Ring of Xathrid. He played the Mindclaw Shaman I saw in the draft when I was holding one card - Pacifism, which I had been holding on to and finally got to use on a Serra Angel that would otherwise have spelled trouble.
In my second match, I faced a B/R deck that seemed pretty aggressive. In the first game, he started out with a Duty-Bound Dead and played a pumped Crimson Muckwader which put a lot of pressure on me, attacking for 4 on turn 3. We both played out a Liliana's Shade, and I managed to turn the game by casting Crippling Blight on his Shade, which he erroneously (since it cannot block) pumped once, bringing him below regen mana for his Muckwader which I had saved an Essence Drain I only just had mana to play for. After that, I overwhelmed him. In game two, he mulled to six and put down Fervor on turn three, so I had a few cards more than him, and I had the Pacifism for his Turn 2 Muckwader this time. On turn 4 (after I had put down a Servant of Nefarox to pressure him instead of a Scorpion since he had no creatures), he played a Knight of Infamy and a Walking Corpse and attacked in only with the knight, which I happily traded with (I don't think he had considered I would block even though Servant is a great blocker) since it had protection from some of my deck and I was ahead on cards. I got to deploy my Ring of Xathrid and ground him out in a game he could not turn around.
The third match started out really bad; I mulled to a four-card hand of three lands (two Swamps and a Plains) and an Aven Squire, but my opponent played a Talrand's Invocation and followed it up with a Griffin Protector, and though I could stymie the bleed a bit with a Cower in Fear, I really did not have a chance in that game. He showed me Intrepid Hero, so I boarded in a second Blight - but misboarded by bringing out Sign in Blood (which I'd need against his blue CA) instead of the Vampire by accident. I still won game two by racing two Welkin Terns with my boarded-in Healer of the Pride and a couple of Bats. Game three was super-tight, again a race against two Terns but this time with a blue Ring they could use. I had an Essence Drain that I could have killed one of them with (it was 4/3), but he moved the ring from it and onto the other one, and I talked myself into saving it and doing something else with my mana, leaving up the option to try and burn him out. His Intrepid Hero made my Bloodthrone Vampire and my Pump spell a lot worse, but I declined to burn it, too, and ended up losing my Essence Drain to a really well-played Clone that he made ETB as a copy of my Rats to take my only card which would have otherwise let me burn him out after my next attack. I topdecked a Battleflight Eagle and went into the tank, but had no winning attack as far as I could see. I still tried, but an Intrepid Hero stopped my attack short by killing a "jumped" Healer of the Pride and he chumped my Vampire, surviving at something like 4 life and swinging back for the win. It was an exilerating game and I congratulated him on the victory and his great play - not a bad start for this format!
I'm looking forward to your feedback, guys! Cheers, Lobster667.
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