Oraymw's AVR Draft #2

http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=3a6nv

I ended up in UG again, no surprises there, but it's definitely where I want to be. The draft portion went really well. I could have picked up some strong Red and White cards in pack 2, but passing them on seemed pretty good, since I really got hooked up in pack three.

My questions are as follows:

1. P1P9 seems like it shouldn't matter much, but I'm interested in what people think about taking the sideboard card over the distraction.
2. Should I have jumped into Red or White in pack two, or was I right to keep passing it down the line?
3. This is the big one. P3P3... do you take Mist Raven or Soul of the Harvest?

As for deckbuilding, I decided to cut the Deathwind / Abundant Growth package. Keeping it would have meant cutting both Spectral Prisons, which just doesn't seem right. However, there are plenty of matchups where Spectral Prison sucks, and in those matchups, I'd be perfectly happy to cut the Prisons for the Death Wind package. I also decided to leave out the Pathbreaker Wurm in favor of a second Nettle Swine.

So, my questions for this one are:

1. Do you put in the Deathwind package, or keep the two Prisons?
2. Do you put in the Wurm over the Nettle Swine?

As for the games:

M1G1 – I go up against BR. He gets down an early Scalding devil, but I rip two Islands in a row, and get down Fettergeist, and then Mist Raven on a Hanweir Lancer. Tandem Lookout + Mist Raven was a pretty severe beating. He managed to get a really big Havengul Vampire after playing Thatcher Revolt.  But Crippling Chill + Trusted Forcemage closed out the game.
M1G2 – T3 Fettergeist, T4 Mist Raven, T5 Druid’s Familiar is a pretty severe beating. I accidentally let my Fettergeist die, but filled my board with Borderland Ranger and Scrapskin Drake. Into the Void + Peel from Reality + Crippling Chill finishes him off.

Match 2 – My opponent was WB. The replays didn’t work here, so I can’t recount the games, but he mulled to five in the first, and I crushed him. Game 2, I got Fettergeist into Trusted Forcemage and crushed him again.

M3 was against clanmate Duerstine. His deck was a pretty good RG build. In the first game, I got off to a pretty good early start, and had him up against the wall, but then he dropped both Ulvenwald Tracker and Zealous Conscripts in the same game for a huge tempo swing. The next turn, he started picking off my guys. I had him at two life with a Scrapskin Drake, but he killed that. I managed to rip a Mist Raven, bounce the Tracker and survive the backswing. He didn’t have removal, so I won.

Game 2 was over pretty quickly. He drew all lands, I drew all creatures and tempo spells.

 Let me know what you think.

Oraymw's AVR Draft #1

Oraymw brings us our first Avacyn Restored draft!

AVR draft!

When I first took a look at the full spoiler of Avacyn Restored, I knew in my bones that Blue/Green would be the best color combination. It wasn’t hard to figure out; I’ve aggressively drafted UG in every draft format I have ever played, even when it isn’t good. Every constructed deck that I’ve ever taken to a tourney has been UG. Essentially UG : Oraymw :: RW : Paul Rietzl. Avacyn Restored is sort of a mixed blessing. UG is awesome, but it is also a little bit overdrafted. I’m better at putting together a UG deck than most people, but the pieces might not always show up. But, it is with great pleasure that I get to bring you this draft as my first for the blog during the AVR season.

My main questions on the draft:

1. Do you think it was correct to move into Blue with P1P4 Into the Void?

2. Which is the better pick of P1P8 Flowering Lumberknot vs. Nettle Swine?

3. What do you think of Conjurer’s Closet (P3P5)?

For deck-building, I decided not to go with the Flowering Lumberknot package. Playing it would have probably meant cutting Bladed Bracers, Mass Appeal, and Conjurer’s Closet, but I just don’t think the upside was really there. If I put the package in, then I get one Lumberknot, but I have to have two Escorts. Although they seem fine in this deck, it seems like I can get a little more value out of the Bracers, Appeal, Closet package. The other big debate for me was between Abundant Growth, Fleeting Distraction, and Mass Appeal for the 23rd slot. I like all three cards, and I originally had the Growth, but I felt like the Appeal was going to be 2 or 3 cards often enough with 9 humans that it deserved the nudge here.

So, the main questions from deck-building are as follows:

1. Do you think I should have gone after the Lumberknot deck more aggressively, just like I did, or passed it for the Nettle Swine?

2. Do you put in Mass Appeal for the 23rd card? Or something else?

Onto the Matches!

M1G1 – I went T2 Timberland Guide, T3 Timerland Guide + Bracers, T4 Mist Raven, T5 Geist Trappers, T6 Into the Void. He just played a few black creatures that all got bounced to his hand.

M1G2 – T3 Borderland Ranger, T4 Mist Raven, T5 Conjurer’s Closet. Everything after that was just a formality.

M2G1 – This was probably the best game of all. I play some Wandering Wolves early, and he gets down a Demonic Taskmaster, which I take down with Crippling Chill. I get a down a Timberland Guide, pumping up a wolf, and the next turn I lay out a Crippling Chill on his Taskmaster. He’s forced to Death Wind his own guy, but I’m stuck on three. He gets out a Gang of Devils and a Hound of Griselbrand and rips a Lightning Wrath to deal with my 4/3 Wandering Wolf (two guides). I get my fourth land, and get down a Mist Raven, and he’s forced to start holding guys back to block. He then drops an Exquisite Blood with a bunch of large creatures, and I have to start chumping his Hound of Griselbrand, since I can’t race it with my Mist Raven. I get Deadeye Navigator down and paired with Mist Raven without mana to spare, and his attack gets me to 14. I drop a Galvanic Alchemist, and get him to 1, but the Exquisite Blood means that if any creature connects, I’m in trouble. I bounce a bunch of guys, none of his get through, and then he drops a Demonlord of Ashmouth, sacrificing Gang of Devils to get my Navigator to lethal and deal one to me, which puts him at 2. He only has the Demonlord back for blocks, while I’ve got a Mist Crow and a Galvanic Alchemist. I rip a Bladed Bracers, equip it to the Alchemist, and attack for the win.

M2G2 – T3 Borderland Ranger, T4 Trusted Forcemage and Bladed Bracers. He then drops an Undead Executioner. I equip the Ranger and attack with both. He blocks the forcemage, the Executioner dies, and he puts the -2/-2 on the Forcemage, but I respond with Ghostly Flicker, saving my guy and getting a land out of the deal. He drops a Dread Slaver that seems like it should stabilize him, but I rip a Blessings of Nature, and miracle it for 1 mana. I attack, put him to 2, and he draws a card and concedes.

M3G1 – T2 Wandering Wolf, T3 Borderland Ranger. He drops a Searchlight Geist, and I get down a Forcemage paired with the wolf. He trades with the Ranger. He plays a Mist Raven, bouncing my Forcemage. I then get a Forcemage and a Timberland Guide, which gets the Wandering Wolf to 4/3. He puts a Tormentor’s Trident on his Mist Raven, so that it can block. Crippling Chill locks down the raven, followed by an Alchemist. Mass Appeal drawing three the next turn puts him out of the game.

M3G2 – I get stuck at two mana with a bunch of three drops in hand…

M3G3 – T2 Wandering Wolf, T3 Borderland Ranger, T4 Mist Raven, T5 Into the Void, T6 Deadeye Navigator. Everything else is just a formality.

This deck ended up being ridiculously good. There was one close game, and one game that I lost to mana screw. Besides that, they were pretty much all blowouts. This is the exact kind of deck that shows how incredibly good Mist Raven is in this format. It was also a lot of fun to do all the flickering shenanigans with my Ravens and whatnot. UG is really, really good in this format.

Oraymw's DII Draft #1

http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=34fuk

Here's the Raredraft link: http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=34fuk

And, here's a link to the screenshot of the deck: http://twitpic.com/8qut9s/full
This was a great draft. I ended up following every principle that I outlined in my article at http://puremtgo.com/articles/ars-arcanum-dark-ascension-limited-overview. I went with an enemy color deck. I built for the long, grindy game. I picked up extra mana sources. I even first picked a Cobbled Wings in pack 2.



As far as deckbuilding, it seemed pretty straightforward to me. The Cobbled Wings is key with my larger creatures. I don’t include Rotting Fensnake, since it is mediocre. I didn’t go with 18 lands since I have a Pilgrim and a Caravan Vigil, but if I didn’t have them, then this would definitely be an 18 land deck.



On to the matches!



Match one, I face off against a UW deck splashing red for Charmbreaker Devils, some removal, and a couple werewolves. Game 1, he gets a Village Ironsmith flipped early, and I get stuck on three mana. Lucky, I managed to get down an Avacyn’s Pilgrim, and I had all my colors available. A well timed Lingering Souls followed by Travel Preparations meant I could hold off his team. Jar of Eyeballs got some counters on it, which let me find some land, and then I managed to land Slayer of the Wicked and Black Cat in the same turn. From there, I could start applying pressure, and he couldn’t come back. Game 2, I didn’t get any early pressure, and I instead only got down a T2 Cobbled Wings, and T3 Jar of Eyeballs. Luckily, his first play was a turn 3 Voiceless Spirit. Next turn, he played a Drogskol Captain and attacked me for three, but I was able to rip a Strangleroot Geist, play it, cast Deadly Allure on it, forced the Captain to attack, get back a 3/2 Geist, and equip Cobbled Wings. T5 I got down an Ulvenwald Mystics with Cobbled Wings vs. his Voiceless Spirit and Chapel Geist. He tapped out for an Elgaud Inquistitor, and I flashbacked Deadly Allure to eat his Voicless Spirit. Slayer of the Wicked killed my werewolf, but then I dropped Geistcatcher Rig, killed his Chapel Geist, and got in for some damage. The next turn saw my guys die to Burning Oil + Flashback, and then I got down a One-Eyed Scarecrow, but not much else. He played Charmbreaker Devils. Blood Feud came down the next turn, and ate one of my guys, and then I had to chump the Devils. Luckily, Jar of Eyeballs allowed me to draw into Lingering Souls, which I played with Flashback. I was able to get in with a few damage here and there, but he kept eating my guys with Blood Feud, then I would draw two cards (Jar of Eyeballs). Eventually, I managed to force him to hold back the Devils instead of trading with a Geistcatcer’s Rig. I then got Strangleroot Geist and Deadly Allure, played the Geist and the Allure, attacked and forced the Devils to block, and the game was downhill from there.



Match two, I faced another UW deck. Game 1, he got stuck on mana, but landed an early Stitched Drake that I couldn’t attack into. Luckily, he thought we were racing, and kept attacking me, so I got him down low, and was able to alpha strike for exactsies. Game 2, I missed my third land drop against Lingering Souls. I had out a Cobbled Wings, but things were looking Grim. He had me down to where he could attack for lethal with Selfless Cathar, but I got down some creatures, equipped them with Cobbled Wings, and ate a few tokens to keep me at 3 life. Avacyn’s Pilgrim gave me some white mana, and I dropped Lingering Souls with Flashback to stabilize. Casting Deadly Allure three times in one turn, as well as Travel Preparations allowed me to eat most of his team. After that, it was a case of strategically equipping Cobbled Wings to keep back his flyers. Ulvenwald Mystics eventually flipped, making it the biggest creature in the skies. Regenerating Dragons are good. After a few good trades, I just out card advantaged him for the win.



Match three, I face yet another UW deck. This one featured double Divine Reckoning. Game 1, he gets there with Divine Reckoning at exactly the right times, and barely manages to beat me when I have lethal on the crackback. Game 2, I get stuck on three mana, with only a Skirsdag Flayer and a Black Cat on the board. I manage to Travel Preps them up, which is good since he only has a Spectral Rider for racing. I suspect that this means he has Divine Reckoning up, and he doesn’t want to play more guys, so I keep racing him for a few turns. Divine Reckoning eats one of my guys, but I managed to stabilize by playing Travel Preparations twice on a couple of creatures. This forces him to flashback his Divine Reckoning, holding back just his Silverclaw Griffin. He also has a Moorland Haunt, which will allow him to chump until he kills me with the Griffin. However, after Divine Reckoning, I rip Geistcatcher’s Rig, and end up winning the game. Game 3, I kept a one-lander with Avacyn’s Pilgrim and Lingering Souls. I rip lands off the top both times, and my turns go like this. T1 Forest, Avacyn’s Pilgrim, T2 Lingering Souls, T3 Strangleroot Geist, Flashback Lingering Souls, T4 Travel Preparations, Flashback Travel Preparations, Deadly Allure. The game was pretty much over after that.



The key thing about this deck is that while I had plenty of early action in things like Strangleroot Geist and Lingering Souls, I also had plenty of things to leverage the late game, which made my deck able to compete in the new format. The first two decks I faced tried to get tempo their way through, but they just didn’t have the tools to do it. The last deck had the Divine Reckonings, and he probably had an advantage over me, but that last draw was just so awesome that he didn’t have a chance.



Lingering Souls was amazing. Strangleroot Geist was as well. Deadly Allure was key to many of my wins. Jar of Eyeballs was great in the extended game. Cobbled Wings was superb. Overall, I liked this deck a lot.

Oraymw's INN draft #3

Commentary:

To be honest, this draft was pretty ridiculous. I got passed all of the removal, and ended up with eight potential cards for the final slot.

As for the play, it really wasn't difficult to win the games. Basically, I just played a few zombies, and then killed everything that got in the way.

Round 1 was vs. a decent UW aggro deck. One of his biggest problems was relying on Cloistered Youth. Turns out that an Unholy Fiend with Claustrophobia is not an asset. I did this to his creatures in both games, and it just made it too easy for me to race him.

Round 2 was vs. RG aggro, and the games were pretty close. He had Devil's Play, which got me down to 1 life in both games, but I managed to pull squeak out the wins anyways. Of course, in the second game, he had to mull down to four. Against him, my main strategy was to keep chaining Ghoulraisers, which just gave me so much card advantage that he couldn't compete. He was banking on a lot of things like Harvest Pyre and Ambush Vipers which don't do very well against a continuous stream of Ghoulraisers.

Round 3 was vs. WG aggro. Basically, he played large creatures, and I killed them with the greatest of ease.