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Shadowmoor Release Report pt 1

Posted On 05/06/2008 20:51:25 by Losrithtilenma - Read 19248 time(s)

It's been a busy weekend. Shadowmoor officially released Friday which means a lot of Shadowmoor limited. So much so that I'm pretty certain that I'm going to want to split it into two blogs. I think a good division will be the Saturday events in this one -- the Sealed and a side draft -- and then the other drafts in another.

We had a fairly disappointing turn out for the Sealed Release event. For Morningtide we had 37 people show up, but for Shadowmoor we only hit 17, and one of those dropped immediately after getting his foil Vexing SHusher.

We sat without order in order to register our pools. Turns out we were just registering the pools and not even passing the pools. Just from registering the pool I knew that the RB was strong and basically everything else was weak. The double Wheel of Sun and Moon was quite disappointing as well. Let's take a look at the pool, organized by color and then alphabetized.

2x Apothecary Initiate

2x Last Breath

Repel Intruders

Parapet Watchers

Helm of the Ghastlord

Gravelgill Duo

Fate Transfer

2x Wanderbrine Rootcutters

2x Cinderbones

2x Sootwalkers

2x Mud Brawler Cohort

2x Wild Swing

2x Scuzzback Scrapper

3x Farhaven Elf

Flourishing Defenses

2x Foxfire Oak

Gloomwidow's Feast

2x Juvenile Gloomwidow

Elvish Hexhunter

2x Wheel of Sun and Moon

Artifacts

3x Pili-Pala

Land

Sapseed Forest

Look at all that black-red, I know I want to be playing black-red, no questions asked. 2x Murderous Redcap, Incremental Blight, Torrent of Souls, Burn Trail are all amazing. Dusk Urchins, 2x Sootwalker, Power of Fire, and Cinderhaze Wretch are all quite good too and solidfy my deck as black-red.

Let's lay out that deck.

2x Pili-Pala

2x Cinderbones

2x Sootwalkers

Wanderbrine Rootcutters

12 Swamps

4 Mountains

Graven Cairns

As I stared at this deck, organized basically like the above in mana cost and creature/non-creature, something just stood out at me. My mana curve was atrocious. Only 2 Pili-Pala for my two drops and then five three drops including 2 Cinderbones. I also didn't have very many red creatures in order to conspire Burn Trail and all my hybrid creatures were expensive, not exactly where I thought the Fists of the Demigod would fit. This disturbed me so I began looking at what other combinations.

I could easily ignore blue for being way too sHallow. White was maybe, it did have the low costs I needed, but it was sHallow too and would cause terrible mana problems. Green though, that was an interesting thought. It had the 3 Farhaven Elf to do mana fixing. Let's try laying that out.

Manaforge Cinder

2x Pili-Pala

2x Juvenile Gloomwidow

2x Sootwalkers

7 Forests

6 Mountains

2 Swamps

Graven Cairns

I made three rows organized by mana cost. The first row were the cards for Deck B, the second row were the cards shared by A and B, and the third row were the cards for Deck A. I stared at those three rows going back and forth until time was called on deck construction and I decided that Deck B felt like the stronger deck. It gave me an early game and could pull off some fun tricks with Flourishing Defenses while still playing all my bomb cards off of the amazing mana fixing. I did make a small mistake in forgetting about the Sapseed Forest, that should have been included over one of the basic Forests.

I would certainly be interested in hearing feedback on what you would have built. Was the black deck better than the green deck? Should I have included something else instead?

Round 1: Austin playing a WUG deck. Austin's plays went Safehold Elite, Kitchen Finks, Safehold Duo. I wiped out his team with a turn 5 Incremental Blight. He then played a Witherscale Wurm followed by Mossbridge Troll. I had two Farhaven Elves. I lost after playing an Incremental Blight! I thought that was supposed to be impossible.

Game 2 was dull. I chose to draw, Austin missed land drops on turns 3 and 5 while I put Power of Fire on Pili-Pala on turn 3. Wasn't close. I had switched back to the A deck for game 2 so Cinderbones could stand in front of those huge guys. Plus it let me have those Wanderbrine Rootcutters (brought in both, left out the Fists).

Game 3 we got into a bit of a race. I had Wanderbrine Rootcutters and Crowd of Cinders, but he had Safehold Duo enchanted with Shield of the Oversoul. A Kitchen Finks for Austin gave him a nice cushion on the race. I tried to get back in with a Murderous Redcap, but a Biting Tether on the Redcap was a painful tempo swing. I end up losing this match. Austin did go on to win the tournament however.

Round 2: Charlie with Green-Red. Charlie won the die roll and chose to play, but then did land go until he played a turn 6 Boggart Ram-Gang. I meanwhile dropped 3 Forests in a row and the Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers then a Mountain and gave it Power of Fire. I had a Murderous Redcap to kill the Ram-Gang immediately (it stayed back to block rather than swing with its haste). I was then able to finish pinging Charlie out.

Facing a green deck, I again swapped over to Deck A. Charlie had a turn 3 Scuttlemutt into a turn 5 Crapapple Cohort. I meanwhile had my own turn 3 Scuttlemutt followed by two Wanderbrine Rootcutters. Charlie had a Drove of Elves which got a Shield of the Oversoul stuck on it. An Incremental Blight cut his team down to size, but I managed to pull out the win on the race thanks to the two Rootcutters. It was close; I was nearly 0-2 in games with Incremental Blight.

Round 3: Matt with RGB. Matt was 2-0 so I was paired up. I made turn 2 and 3 Juvenile Gloomwidows, one of which died when I double blocked a turn 4 attack by Ashenmoore Gouger. I used a Murderous Redcap to finish that off. Matt made a weird turn 5 play of Tattermunge Maniac, but it became clear when he tried to enchant it with a Runes of the Deus; fortunately I had a Puncture Bolt in hand to stop it. Matt cursed himself a turn later when he managed to get out a Loamdragger Giant. I burned Matt out by drawing Power of Fire and sticking it on a Pili-Pala.

Game 2 was a very long, close game. I kept a 3 Forest hand with Juvenile Gloomwidow, Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers, and Manaforge Cinder. Matt threw out both a Boggart Ram-Gang and Ashenmoor Gouger on turn 4. I found a Farhaven Elf to get a Mountain to play my Manaforge Cinder manafixer. I was about to be Overrun by the Gouger plus a Tattermunge Duo when I hit my Incremental Blight to Annihilate his board, but I was still on low life. I had a Flourishing Defenses in hand, but I couldn't spare the turn to play it before using the Incremental Blight. Down the stretch I drew just slightly more gas, including getting to use Torrent of Souls on Murderous Redcap. Right before Matt was about to take the game over with Rhys the Redeemed, I drew Burn Trail to finish Matt off.

Round 4: Louis with Br with the prizes on the line. We were only playing 4 rounds of straight Swiss. This was a good match. I pushed through some early damage with Dusk Urchins and a well timed Murderous Redcap before we stalled out. Louis was about to take over by putting Power of Fire on Kulrath Knight, but I had a Floushing Defenses and Loius down to 6 while I was still at a comfortable 15. Loius also made a mistake by putting Blightsickle on his only guy without wither which made my 1/1 guys not worth blocking (he'd just create 3 more guys for me.) I stuck a Power of Fire on one of my Juvenile Gloomwidows and overran Louis with elves created off of Flourishing Defenses.

Game 2 I had turn 3 Dusk Urchins followed by Murderous Redcap on both the following turns. I stuck Power of Fire on Dusk Urchins once it had 2 counters on it. The early Urchins/Redcap beats had put Louis down just far enough that the Power of Fire was able to finish Louis off in the late game.

Final result:

The 3-1 result was good for third. I liked the green deck and used it for two of the game 2s while I switched back to the black deck for two of the game 2s. Of note, I didn't lose a game after round 1. A decent result. I had a few bomb uncommons, although my rares were pretty terrible. Incremental Blight and Murderous Redcap are good, but you knew that already, right? The decision to take a second look at the pool and reevaluate the black heavy deck I built first was an important part of placing, I'm certain.

After the Sealed event, we decided to run a draft. I took a Leechbonder first pick and an Inkfathom Witch second pick. I rather like blue in this draft format and I ended up with a decent blue-black deck.

Deck

2x Sickleripper

Leechbonder

2x Wanderbrine Rootcutters

Wingrattle Scarecrow

Watchwing Scarecrow

Cinderhaze Wretch

Glamerspinners

Tripnoose

Scarscale Ritual

Ghastly Discovery

2x Æthertow

2x Gloomlance

SB:

2x Prismwake Merrow

Whimwader

2x Turn to Mist

Wanderbrine Rootcutters

Crowd of Cinders

Loch Korrigan

Glamerspinner

So many playable cards, I had to cut it down and I generally chose the aggressive cards. I like the evasive, aggressive blue decks so I generally cut the higher costing stuff. Again, I would be interested in hearing feedback on which cards from the SB should be in main and just as importantly which cards should then be removed.

Round 1: Cheeks with GRw. Game 1 was dumb. I used a Gloomlance on a Hungry Spriggan because I couldn't afford to keep taking those 4 point hits. Cheeks mulled which card to diScard before realizing his best play -- "diScard" Wilt-Leaf Liege, with a Safehold Elite in play. I managed to Restrain from swearing.

Game 2 Cheeks kept a 3 land hand and missed land drops on turns 4 and 5 while I had a great curve with Somnomancer, Gravelgill Duo, Leechbonder, and Silkbind Faerie. The Gloomwidow that Cheeks managed to play couldn't block most of those very well.

Game 3 was a close game. I had my Tripnoose and Leechbonder but Cheeks managed to land a turn 4 Wilt-Leaf Liege. I hoped he would put the Liege in combat since I intended to untap Leechbonder to move a counter, retap it with the Tripnoose to move another counter and kill the Liege. I'm sure I'd have pulled this off against nearly anyone else, but Cheeks is one of the best players in the state. I did later manage to Gloomlance the Liege. The game stalled out a bit with both of us having Silkbind Faeries. I nearly walked into a trap of thinking Cheeks was out of white/blue mana when he actually had an Elsewhere Flask that would give that to him. Turned out irrelevent because Cheeks had plus one guy on what I needed in order to alpha strike into the error thinking I was going to win. Double Burn Trail gave Cheeks the win anyway, so that was irrelevent.

Round 2: The tournament was 'single elimination', and I had been eliminated, but I decided to keep playing the Swiss for fun. Round 2 was against Andrew with BR. Game 1 was an Attrition as I used Tripnoose to tap down his largest blocker while basically everything else was trading out. I managed to just push through enough damage this way. Game 2 was another trading fest that developed into a race. I'm not sure how I won the race, probably because of the Leechbonder making wither not so good.

After that I dropped so I could go home. Cheeks naturally won the tournament. It does seem like it was a fine deck, and would have probably won round 3, but I was tired and I was ready to go home. I still like the aggressive decks with that disruption in Silkbind Faerie and Leechbonder.

I hope to return tomorrow with two more draft decks to discuss. Each a different archetype from what I have presented today.

See you Friday,

ZaChary

Tags: Shadowmoor Release Limited Magic

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