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2v2 x2
Posted On 05/31/2008 20:36:36
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Memorial Day wiped out the usual Monday draft I would do which left me with a hunger for a Shadowmoor draft. This was filled later in the week when some of the local pros around here also had a hunger for Shadowmoor drafting. I met Cheeks, Scheel, and Nick Crumpton for some 2v2 drafting at the local store -- random teams, winner keeps the cards. For the first draft I was paired with Cheeks with Scheel to my left and Crumpton to my right. I must admit that my very first pick was incorrect. I took Ashenmoor Liege over Biting Tether. I was thinking the Liege would give me some good options in some red or black deck. It may have worked, but I wasn't quite able to commit to the Red-Black Fists deck. Some of it was me not taking that leap and some was the cards were not available. I grabbed a second pick Cragginwick Cremator, third pick Wicker Warcrawler, and then saw a fourth pick Spawnwrithe. At that point I thought that meant green would be open since everyone had had a chance at that pack and I could build a nice green/red deck. Turns out that two of the other three drafters had taken green cards out of that pack as well. I'll come back to that thought later, in the meanwhile think a bit over what mono-green cards one would take over Spawnwrithe. I began noticing that blue-black was open while red and green had completely dried up and I really began kicking myself for passing that Biting Tether. The black at least meant that the Ashenmoor Liege would help out partially. I drifted further and further into Blue-Black and actually reached a point where I was pretty happy with my deck. I did have one last interesting pick. Pack 3, pick 7 had wheeled a Faerie Swarm and a Flow of Ideas. I had just previously picked up a Painter's Servant in anticipation of the Faerie Swarm making it back plus as a way to power up my Liege. I had also just grabbed an Elsewhere Flask to power up my Corrupt. I decided that I liked the Faerie Swarm more here. I think I may be overrating Faerie Swarm. Deck
Briarberry Cohort Sickle Ripper Painter's Servant 3x Gravelgill Duo Silkbind Faerie Wingrattle Scarecrow Ashenmoor Liege Faerie Swarm Wanderbrine Rootcutters Wicker Warcrawler 2x Gravelgill Axeshark Cultbrand Cinder Grief Tyrant Torture Cerulean Wisps Fate Transfer Elsewhere Flask Gnarled Effigy Gloomlance Corrupt 11 Swamps 6 Islands SB Whimwader Cerulean and Aphotic Wisps On the whole, a decent, but not amazing deck. That is the nature of drafting in an 4 man environment however. I certainly could have had a better deck if I had more aggressively pounced on blue and hadn't wasted so much time thinking I might be red. It's weird, no one ended up playing red, so I don't know where all the red cards disappeared to. Match 1: I faced Scheel first. When I faced him he was playing a Blue/green/white deck. Frankly it was something of a mess, and he later rebuilt it by cutting out the green. Game 1 I just played my various fat guys while Scheel tried to win with evasion and tricks. My deck wore his out and then gave me a couple extra creatures. Game 2 Scheel kept a slow hand while I dropped Gravelgill Duos on turns 2 and 3. He stabilized for a bit with a pair of Barrenton Medics, but that only prolonged him from dying, it never actually took control of the game. I eventually punched through those to win the game and match. Match 2: We switched opponents and I was across from Crumpton. The teams were tied at 1-1 since Crumpton had defeated Cheeks. Game 1 I assembled the awesome combo of Faerie Swarm and Painter's Servant and swung with the 8/8 flyer. That gave me lethal on table when Crumpton put a Steel of the Godhead on a Kithkin Rabble and gained 6 life. I needed to draw either my Gloomlance to kill the Rabble or a Swamp so I could Corrupt to bring him back into lethal range. I drew something entirely irrelevant and lost. Game 2 he mulled twice and kept a 1-lander. He never drew another land. Game 3 I mulled once and then kept a slow hand. I was doing well using a Silkbind Faerie to keep an Armored Ascensioned creature under control until a Seedcradle Witch let him take a huge chunk out of my life anyway. I dealt with the Witch only to see it replaced by a Windbrisk Raptor. Again, I had a 1-outer to Gloomlance, but failed to draw it. Scheel had rebuilt his deck and defeated Cheeks giving the opposition the 3-1 match record and the win. The draft hunger had been sated only long enough for actual hunger to seep in. We broke for food and discussed some of the decks and picks. Remember that pack with Spawnwrithe I mentioned earlier? Cheeks had taken a second pick Howl of the Nightpack out of it. He and I had earlier discussed what commons one would take over Spawnwrithe and Howl (and we knew it wasn't a foil because one of those was present) and I guess Silkbind Faerie while Cheeks guess Burn Trail. We finally got to ask Scheel, he didn't know for certain but thought that it was Devoted Druid. His reasoning was that Devoted Druid into Crabapple Cohort is an amazingly powerful play in a format dominated by Hill Giants. He liked Devoted Druid so much that he said he would take it over basically any green card. Both Scheel and Cheeks agreed that Spawnwrithe was overrated and too hard to connect with. The only times I've seen it in play it has immediately been killed. It's not quite resilient enough to be a bomb, but still something very scary to face. After that break, and moving to a new place to play due to the weather looking a little scary for playing in a building without a basement, we sat down for a second 2v2 draft and repaired teams. This time I was on Scheel's team with Cheeks to my left and Crumpton to my right. I started with a Faerie Swarm with the intention of going aggressive blue aggro. I did draft an aggressive blue aggro deck, but it wasn't nearly as streamlined as it needed to be. I ended up with 2 Steel of the Godhead, but only 3 hybrid creatures. Pack 2, pick 2 I had to choose between a Prison Term and a Silkbind Faerie. I chose the Prison Term believing it to be the overall better card. I now believe the Faerie would have been a better fit for my team, especially after it beat me game 1. Pack 3 pick 1 I had to choose between Godhead of Awe and Biting Tether. I chose the Godhead and I believe that was the correct pick. The Godhead really does qualify as a bomb, unlike the RB Liege. It just hurt having to pass that Biting Tether though. Deck 2 Briarberry Cohort Somnomancer Gravelgill Duo Prismwake Merrow Cemetary Puca 2x Parapet Watchers Wingrattle Scarecrow Faerie Swarm Barrenton Cragtreads Kinscaer Harpoonist Runed-Cervin Rider Watchwing Scarecrow Godhead of Awe Pale Wayfarer
Cerulean Wisps
Turn to Mist Prison Term Mercy Killing Consign to Dreams 2x Steel of the Godhead Repel Intruders
10 Islands
7 Plains
SB
Wasp Lancer Gravelgill Axeshark Advice from the Fae Put Away Whimwader I felt really good throughout the draft until I sat down to build the deck and saw the terrible curve and utter lack of UW creatures. My heart sank in my stomach looking over it. It's something I've noticed happening in a few other drafts -- getting the god enchantment but insufficient targets for it. I would have loved to have that Silkbind Faerie as even just one more good target. Even though this is a primarily blue deck, there are far more double white cards than double blue cards, which shifted the land base to the closer split. I considered going monoblue, but was just so unimpressed by the remaining blue cards versus the cards I'd have to remove. Match 1: I played Crumpus first. I thought I was doing pretty well with a Harpoonist and Godhead plus the Steel, but Silkbind Faerie plus Presence of Gond utterly annihilated me. The game went many turns, but most of it was extremely boring while Nick built up his elf tokens. Game 2 I kept a 2-land hand because I had three 3-drops plus a 4-drop. I missed lands on turns 3 and 5 and was just too far behind by the time my little guys came on line. Scheel lost to Cheeks putting us in a 0-2 hole, meaning Scheel and I would both need to win our matches to remain in contention for this pool Match 2: Against Cheeks. On the play, Cheeks had to triple mulligan game 1. One would think this would be an easy victory, but my deck decided to land flood me. I had Cheeks on a clock from a Parapet Watchers, what a might clock. He missed 3 out of his first 5 land drops. Not proud of this victory, but it was something we needed. Game 2 I had one of my hybrids, the Barrenton Cragtreads plus 2x Steel of the Godhead, but I knew that Cheeks had 2x Consign to Dreams plus Biting Tether somewhere in his deck and I wanted to draw some of those out before running out one of the Steels. I held out as long as I could and got him to use his Biting Tether on my Watchwing Scarecrow which also tapped him out. We were in a race and I decided it was time to go for one of the Steels. That bought me breathing room, especially once I used Turn to Mist on the scarecrow. Sure enough there was a Consign to Dreams next turn on my Cragtreads. Cheeks thought he was in a good position with a Whimwader, but playing the second Steel of the Godhead sealed the victory. Meanwhile on the other table, Scheel and Crumpton had gone to game 3. Scheel had a large pool of playables and had two options with his deck, a hyper aggressive deck including 2x Tattermunge Maniac or a slower controllish deck with 3x Cultbrand Cinder. Scheel switched over to the more controllish deck for game 3. I don't recall Scheel's method of victory in game 3, but he pulled it off and the teams had to pick their champions for the decisive match 5. At first both teams tried whispering back and forth, before we all ultimately realized that none of us were being quiet enough. The other team retired to another room to discuss, but from those whispers I had the feeling that Crumpton would be their champion. Scheel and I discussed which of us had better match ups and I did want to avenge my loss to Crumpton, thinking I had better ways of dealing with his auras and never real happy with Scheel's deck. The aggression would require a hope and a prayer to finish off opponents. However I felt that Scheel with his deck was at least as good as me with mine against Crumpton, after all Scheel did beat Crumpton once already, so it was going to be a coin flip. So we rolled and Scheel was our champion. While Scheel and Crumpton were playing for all the cards, Cheeks and I played one more game just for fun. I got stomped and that hammered home just how mopey my deck was. After we played the one, we decided that watching the other match would be more interesting. Scheel won the first one quickly and they had gone on to game 2 when we tuned in. Crumpton had done some speculative sideboarding with Cheeks' advisement hoping to counter some of Scheel's stronger plays. He had brought in Raking Canopy to deal with Scheel's Demigod of Revenge and Flourishing Defenses to deal with Scheel's wither guys. Crumpton complained about both after both were in play, saying they did nothing. Turns out that Scheel actually did have the Demigod in hand and hit his fifth mana right after the Raking Canopy came down. It worked, but I'm pretty sure that is one where it worked despite it being the wrong move. The Flourishing Defenses were a bit better. Scheel had a Corrosive Mentor which make most of the black creatures into absolutely terrible creatures with the Flourishing Defenses in play. That one might actually have been acceptable, especially if Crumpton could have managed to draw more creatures so he could have been swinging. That is ultimately what gave the win to Scheel, he drew far more creatures than Crumpton did. Victory us. I got a Fulminator Mage, Demigod of Revenge, Dusk Urchins, and others out of the deal while Scheel took home the Sunken Ruins, foil Godhead of Awe, Grim Poppet, and others. Not my best night of drafting, but I did go 2-2 on the whole against some very good players. On one I managed to read the signals, albeit belatedly, whereas the other I attempted to force and that didn't work so well. Both losses were pretty much to GW, that is an archtype I need to pay closer attention to in the future. I especially liked listening to the discussion about Devoted Druid being a top pick common. See you Friday, Zachary
Tags: Magic Shadowmoor Draft
Every Shadowmoor draft I go into I am looking to draft UW. I am very pleased by the evasion and tricks available in those colors. Unfortunately I think the players in my area have caught on to the fact that UW is probably the best color combination available. I feel that GR is also a fine color combo though. Let's take a look at my first 5 picks to see what was going down in this last draft. 1. Tattermunge Duo 2. Safehold Elite 3. Curse of Chains 4. Safehold Elite 5. Somnomancer The Tattermunge Duo was over Gloomwidow and Puresight Merrow. I like the Puresight Merrow just fine, especially if you can get a Power of Fire for it, but I just had this gut instinct that UW was not going to be available. At this point in the draft I am starting to feel that blue is probably not available, white may be available, and green probably is available. I start making those adjustments in my next 5 picks. 6. Raven's Run Dragoon 7. Juvenile Gloomwidow 8. Wildslayer Elves 9. Gloomwidow (tabled) 10. Barkshell Blessing My instincts were correct, blue was not available, white was maybe available, green was flowing. Pack 2 however sent me in a new direction. I was handed amazing red including pick 2 Flame Javelin, pick 3 Boartusk Liege, pick 4 Boggart Ram-Gang, pick 6 and pick 8 Murderous Redcap. That second Redcap I had to pass a Burn Trail. I started with the nice red-green hybrids and that eased my transition into red with some of the best red cards coming my way. Pack 3 gave me a few more red and red-green goodies and building gave me some tough choices as I was way over the 23 cards I needed. Getting out of the UW fight was definitely the right choice for me this week. When we separated to build our decks I heard that there were 4 UW drafters, although I only spotted 3 of them in round 1. Possibly the fourth would be the 5-color GW which started with 3x Aethertow. Deck: 2x Safehold Elite Devoted Druid Juvenile Gloomwidow Tattermunge Duo Spawnwrithe Gloomwidow Boggart Ram-Gang Raven's Run Dragoon Wildslayer Elves Boartusk Liege 3x Murderous Redcap 2x Scuzzback Marauders Mossbridge Troll
Gleeful Sabotage
Puncture Bolt Shield of the Oversoul Burn Trail Flame Javelin Runes of the Deus
Sapseed Forest
8 Forests 8 Mountains SB/Unused: Smash to Smithereens
Gloomwidow's Feast
Barkshell Blessing Hungry Spriggan Raven's Run Dragoon Safehold Duo 2x Loamdragger Giant 2x Flourishing Defenses Viridescent Wisps
So too many 4-drops and not quite enough 2- and 3-drops, but if I can get to that 4-drop spot, a Murderous Redcap can certainly turn things around. I built slightly defensively anticipating that I would enjoy a better long game than most decks. Either of the god-auras would be wonderful on things like the Scuzzback Marauders. Okay, confession time. This was not the most competitive of tables, although I suppose you already know that when I mentioned having the pack 2, pick 8 choice of Murderous Redcap versus Burn Trail. Three of the drafters admitted to either being new to Shadowmoor or new to drafting in general, like my round 1 opponent. I quickly won round 1 by a count of 2-0. After the match my opponent let me look at his main and sideboard. His largest two creatures in the main were Wasp Lancer and Sickleripper in a RB deck. In his SB he had left 3x Sootwalkers and a Cultbrand Cinder. I told him that he'd want to take out things like Poison the Well for those creatures. He had said he didn't know if draft games would last long enough to play 4- and 5-drop creatures. Round 2 I faced one of the UW decks. He wasn't very certain of his deck because of the number of players in that color. Although he did get 2x Spectral Procession, 2x Repel Intruders, Rhys, 2x Watching Scarecrow, and a Plumeveil. Game 1 I forced him onto the defensive while my 3-power creatures smashed his 1-power tokens. Game 2 we got into a bit of a race with his flyers versus my Scuzzback Marauders. I was able to make that a race because I was able to use two Murderous Redcaps to annihilate his early drops. Round 3 was going to be against the 5-color GW deck which featured Prismatic Omen, 2x Elsewhere Flask, and all the best spells he could grab, but we took an ID because that would secure 1st/2nd for us. We played for fun anyway. Game 1 he kept a business light hand. Last Breath plus 2x Aethertow did slow me down, but after that he could only muster a Gloomwidow while I was swinging with Boggart Ram-Gang and Scuzzback Marauders. Game 2 he made a critical mistake of using Curse of Chains on a Scuzzback Marauders before combat. I traded the enchanted Marauders out for one of his attackers while shuffling off the Curse of Chains. Not that it mattered since this was just for fun, but that mistake let me blow him out in the race. Overall, I was pleased with this deck, and 8 packs for my draft fund certainly doesn't hurt either. Of course that partly is because no one at the table was interested in taking the good red cards. However if the red wasn't there, I think I could still have made a fine monogreen deck. It would have changed my picks, there were a couple Howl of the Night Pack that I passed because it had become clear that I would be heavily in red and wouldn't be getting any Elsewhere Flasks. I'd like to close with a lesson learned from this draft, but I'm not sure I learned anything beyond being able to get trips Murderous Redcap is good, which is something I already knew. Perhaps this then: I was consistently able to get to 5 mana, but I never got to 7 mana in any game on the night. See you Friday, Zachary
Tags: Magic Shadowmoor Draft
Tonight the Monday night draft only had 8 people show up, but it was still going to be a fairly competitive event. There are times when it is clear what you should be drafting and how to build your deck. This is not one of those times. I am not convinced I built it correctly. Draft Pool Armored Ascension
Apothecary Initiate
Ballynock Cohort
2x Kithkin Shielddare
2x Last Breath
Niveous Wisps
Strip Bare
Advice from the Fae
Biting Tether
Briarberry Cohort
2x Consign to Dream
Flow of Ideas
Ghastly Discovery
Isleback Spawn
Merrow Wavebreakers
Ashenmoor Cohort
Hollowsage
Flourishing Defenses
Prescence of Gond
Flame Javelin
Barkshell Blessing
Elvish Hexhunter
Medicine Runner
Raven's Run Dragoon
Rhys the Redeemed
Safehold Duo
Aethertow
2x Puresight Merrow
Silkbind Faerie
2x Steel of the Godhead
2x Thistledown Duo
2x Fate Transfer
Gravelgill Duo
2x Helm of the Ghastlord
Tattermunge Duo
Trip Noose
Watchwing Scarecrow
Here's your chance to build a deck. Clearly we are building a UW deck here. Clearly that is what I was drafting too. However the signals coming from my right were very muddy. I'd see good green cards and then good white cards and then good blue cards and I was never certain what the guy to my right was drafting. Turns out he was drafting a GWU deck. That explains why I was getting such weird signals. The guy to his right was drafting Bu. I don't know if there was someone drafting red nearby. The red I saw wasn't amazing. The Deck Rhys the Redeemed
Kithkin Shielddare
Medicine Runner
Briarberry Cohort
2x Puresight Merrow
Ballynock Cohort
Silkbind Faerie
2x Thistledown Duo
Raven's Run Dragoon
Safehold Duo
Watchwing Scarecrow
Merrow Wavebreakers
Niveous Wisps
Trip Noose
2x Steel of the Godhead
Consign to Dream
Aethertow
Armored Ascension
Biting Tether
Flame Javelin
12 Plains
5 Islands
SB:
2x Last Breath
Elvish Hexhunter
Consign to Dream
2x Fate Transfer
I've listed only the most relevant sideboard cards. I really wanted to get down to monowhite, but there were no more playable white creatures in the pool and Biting Tether is a really strong card. I would also like to add the Last Breath and Consign to Dream, but I feel the other non-creature cards are better and I can't afford to drop my creature count further. Aethertow is usually obvious, but untapping a Puresight Merrow into 2 untapped creatures gave me hope that I would manage to conspire it. With eight drafters and prizes to the top 2, the draft would function largely as a single elimination draft. I won round 1 by count of 2-0 due to having a superior deck against a Bu deck full of 1-power guys. I won round 3 by count of 2-1 due to having a superious deck against a Gr deck by casting Steel of the Godhead on a UW hybrid guy. So what about round 2? Round 2 I encountered Cheeks and his deck was practically made to beat mine. Game 1 I put an Armored Ascension on a Puresight Merrow, but then it died to a turn 4 Gloomlance. If he doesn't hit that Gloomlance, he probably dies, but instead my hand is exhausted and Cheeks still has guys on the field. Cheek's deck had 3 Gloomlance and 3 Murderous Redcap, plus Curse of Chains, River's Grasp, and a few other pieces of removal I did not see. So, what do you sideboard in that kind of match-up? Knowing that your opponent has so many opportunities to 2for1, do you remove the auras or do you keep them in because they are so powerful if they stick around? I chose to keep them in because so much of my deck is built around drawing those auras. I lost game 2 to the crushing card advantage again. From building the deck, a Last Breath over Consign to Dream would probably have been correct. Niveous Wisps maybe should have been a Last Breath as well. Other than that, I think I built the best deck I could have out of the pool I drafted. Did I draft the best deck I could though, that is another question entirely. I'm still very annoyed about the GWU deck to my right. I would be interested in hearing your opinions of the best deck to build out of the pool and if you would sideboard out the auras against the guy with triple Gloomlance. See you Friday, Zachary
Tags: Magic Shadowmoor Draft
In part 1 of my release weekend report I focussed on the events of Saturday. This blog entry will focus on two other drafts I did over the weekend. The first is the midnight draft Friday morning just as soon as the cards were legal. The other is the usual Monday night draft held here. Going into the Midnight draft, I was thinking UW was where I wanted to be. I really like UW and I thought that maybe it would be underdrafted at the midnight draft. With that in mind, I first pick a Fulminator Mage. $$. Yeah, expected prizes don't beat the currently most valuable card in the set. 2x Inkfathom Infiltrator
3x Briarberry Cohort
Puresight Merrow
Pili-Pala
Mistmeadow Witch
Parapet Watchers
Silkbind Faerie
Scuttlemutt
Wingrattle Scarecrow
Kinscaer Harpoonist
Barrenton Cragtreads
3x Curse of Chains
Power of Fire
Ghastly Discovery
Consign to Dreams
Helm of the Ghastlord
Elemental Mastery
Biting Tether
12 Islands
3 Mountains
2 Plains
SB:
Helm of the Ghastlord
Chainbreaker
Torpor Dust
Cerulean Wisps
2x Whimwader
Parapet Watchers The one thing I'm not sure of with this deck is if Mistmeadow Witch actually belongs. It's the only card which requires white and the deck would be marginally more consistent if I didn't have those Plains. Either the Wisps or the second Helm of the Ghastlord would be what I add in its place. Overall, I was very pleasd with the drafting of this deck. As I suspected, blue was somewhat underdrafted at our table of 10. Round 1: Michael with GB. Game 1 he kept a 1-lander on the draw and missed his turn 2 land drop. Meanwhile I dropped creatures on turns 2, 3, and 4 and then an Elemental Mastery on my Puresight Merrow leading to a turn 6 kill. Game 2 Michael decided to draw and then didn't drop any guys until turn 4. Meanwhile I stuck a Helm of the Ghastlord on my Wingrattle Scarecrow and then used Scuttlemutt to make the Wingrattle both blue and black. 1-0 (2-0) Round 2: David with RGB. I started on the play with a Briarberry Cohort, Silkbind Faerie, Wingrattle Scarecrow, and Inkfathom Infiltrators into a wonderfully evasive kill. Game 2 we both had a little bit of a mana flood and a Barrenton Cragtreads dealt most of the damage. I had Mistmeadow Witch but no white source. 2-0 (4-0) Round 3: Eric with RGB. Game 1 I finally drew a Curse of Chains and slapped it on a menacing Boggar-Rang Gang. I plinked away with Inkfathom Infiltrator and Pili-Pala. My notes indicate that Eric should have had more creatures so I'm not sure how I won the race. Game 2 was a longer game as I had a dearth of creatures because of a terrible mana flood and Eric's creatures were simply small. A Polluted Bonds made all those extra lands useless. Eventually I found a Power of Fire and stuck it on my Puresight Merrow and immediately killed all three guys Eric had. 3-0 (6-0) Round 4ish: Ten players should be four rounds, but we were down to two undefeateds so we agreed to an Intentional Draw so as to not require a round 4. Since some others were still playing their Round 3, we played for fun. I won 2-0 again and we finished prior to at least one of the Round 3 matches.
As I said at the start, a very good deck. I know I did make one mistake, taking a third pick Corrosive Mentor thinking I would be more heavily black. On the whole, i think I made the correct picks for this draft. It'll be a long time before I draft another deck that beats this one. Draft 2
The Monday night Mayhem draft has now switched over to Shadowmoor as well. We had a perfect 16 for this draft. This one is of course a little more competitive than the Midnight draft was. I first picked a Boggart-Ram Gang and then got a second pick Kulrath Knight. This put me solidly into RG. Pack 2 brought me Demigod of Revenge and then a second pick Knollspine Invocation. I'm pretty sure that the person to my right was also in RG, but she passed enough good cards to me that this deck turned out okay. Manaforge Cinder
Bloodmark Mentor
2x Mudbrawler Cohort
Spiteflame Witch
Boggart Ram-Gang
2x Gloomwidow
Hungry Spriggan
Tattermunge Duo
Mudbrawler Raiders
Kulrath Knight
Demigod of Revenge
Crabapple Cohort
2 Viridescent Wisps
Cerulean Wisps
2x Scar
Power of Fire
Puncture Bolt
Knollspine Invocation
Flame Javelin
Runes of the Deus
Sapseed Forest
4 Forests
12 Mountains
SB:
2x Crabapple Cohort
2x Pili-Pala
Presence of Gond
Cerulean Wisps
Viridescent Wisps
Smash to Smithereens
Blight Sickle
This deck I'm far less certain is built right. First of all, it's 41 cards. One of the things I noticed from reading Grand Prix: Brussels decklists is how many Wisps were played. I decided that I wanted to load up on Wisps in this deck and see how it played. I chose to take a very aggressive route, and Pili-Pala's 1/1 body for 2 just didn't fit into that vision. Figuring out how much priority is to be given to attempting to pair Pili-Pala with Power of Fire is something I'm still working on. Round 1: Matt with UB. I'm on the play and get a bunch of hits in with a red Cohort which isn't receiving any back-up. Fortunately Matt isn't playing anything either. Eventually I play my Knollspine Invocation and then start throwing everything at Matt's face, including a Flame Javelin. Flame Javelin does 6 in this way. Game 2 I get blown out by an Incremental Blight and draw 2:1 lands to non-lands (including all three of my Wisps). Game 3 I play turn 1 Manaforge Cinder and game 2 Spiteflame Witch. On turn 4 I throw a red Cohort on the table too. I get very nervous when Matt makes his fifth land drop, but there's no Incremental Blight and I breathe a sigh of relief. I kill on turn 6 with the Spiteflame Witch having done 7 loss of life to each of us. Round 1 and I've already hit two of my minicombos -- Knollspine Invocation + Flame Javelin and Manaforge Cinder + Spiteflame Witch. 1-0 (2-1) Round 2: Scott with UW. Game 1 I have a turn 3 Gloomwidow, turn 4 Mudbrawler Raiders, and turn 5 Runes of the Deus. Sadly Scott had a Niveous Wisps to tap the Mudbrawler Raiders then he uses a Turn to Mist to get rid of the Runes. I was very sad. Fortunately I had Knollspine Invocation and again enough burn to kill Scott. Game 2 Scott played turn 3 Thistledown Duo, turn 4 Silkbind Faerie, turn 5 Steel of the Godhead on the Duo. I did make a mistake of not saving a Power of Fire for Kulrath Knight. That's assuming Scott didn't have a Turn to Mist. It was a painful beating. Game 3 I made a couple big errors. The first was playing a Scar when I probably didn't need to in order to save a Bloodmark Mentor, which probably wasn't worth saving. I assembled the Mudbrawler Raiders with Runes of the Deus again and it met Niveous Wisps and Turn to Mist again. Ooh, I hate UW. I walked into a conspired Aethertow the turn after Scott played a Flow of Ideas for 3. I'm not entirely sure if I could have avoided the conspire since one of the conspiring creatures was summoning sick and the other was an Elvish Hexhunter. The Aethertow was back breaking and allowed Scott to win the race. Oh, and a Steel of the Godhead on Thistledown Duo. 1-1 (3-3) Round 3: Dan with WG. Game 1 I land a late Knollspine Invocation and shoot things like Wilt-Leaf Liege and Kitchen Finks, but I just run out of cards and lose to the bigger creatures. Game 2 Dan makes it up to 35 life off Kitchen Finks and Windbrisk Raptor before I manage to get to five mana so I can shoot down the Raptor off of Knollspine Invocation plus a Gloomwidow. I then wear Dan down with more creatures then he has. Looks like game 3 I get out both Gloomwidows and a green Cohort and beat with larger creatures. 2-1 (5-4) Round 4: Andrew with RG. Game 1 Andrew keeps 3 lands plus Devoted Druid. He powers out a turn 4 Scuzzback Marauders. I then Puncture Bolt the Marauders and Scar the Druid and Andrew misses the next two land drops. Just when Andrew thought he had stabilized, I played Demigod of Revenge and he couldn't answer that. Game 2 Andrew can't answer a Gloomwidow plus Crabapple Cohort. 3-1 (7-4) That places me in the top 4 and worth prizes. I don't know if I built the deck right, I could have played more fat or more combo, but it got there. My one match loss came to a very good UW deck, but the other matches were way too close. I won by being aggressive and getting some good draws with Knollspine Invocation. This is an archetype that I'm not yet comfortable with playing. It's got some good plays, but I think I'd rather stick with blue for the most part. So what have we learned? Knollspine Invocation is good. So is Silkbind Faerie. And so is Steel of the Godhead on Thistledown Duo. The green and red Wisps need more testing, but I can absolutely see the value of the white and blue Wisps. Aggro works in Draft, although that might be partially my opponents not being great. I can't wait to play some more Shadowmoor draft and see what else is a viable strategy.
See you Friday,
Zachary
Tags: Magic Shadowmoor Draft
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. W
2x Apothecary Initiate Ballynock Cohort Goldenglow Moth Inquisitor's Snare 2x Last Breath Mistmeadow Skulk Niveous Wisps Resplendent Mentor Rune-Cervin Rider Safehold Sentry WU Curse of Chains Mistmeadow Witch Repel Intruders Thistledown Duo Thoughtweft Gambit Zealous Guardian U Advice from the Fae Drowner Initiate Kinscaer Harpoonist Parapet Watchers UB Helm of the Ghastlord Gravelgill Duo Fate Transfer 2x Wanderbrine Rootcutters B 2x Cinderbones Cinderhaze Wretch Crowd of Cinders Dusk Urchins Faerie Macabre Incremental Blight Loch Korrigan Rite of Consumption Torture BR 2x Cultbrand Cinder Fists of the Demigod Manaforge Cinder 2x Murderous Redcap Poison the Well Sootstoke Kindler 2x Sootwalkers Torrent of Souls Traitor's Roar R Burn Trail Crimson Wisps Ember Gale 2x MudBrawler Cohort Power of Fire Puncture Bolt 2x Wild Swing GR Fossil Find Loamdragger Giant 2x Scuzzback Scrapper G 3x Farhaven Elf Flourishing Defenses 2x Foxfire Oak Gloomwidow's Feast 2x Juvenile Gloomwidow Toil to Renown Tower Above GW Barkshell Blessing Elvish Hexhunter Old Ghastbark 2x Wheel of Sun and Moon Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers Artifacts Heap Doll 3x Pili-Pala Scrapbasket Scuttlemutt Land Graven Cairns Mystic Gate 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 Faerie Macabre Scuttlemutt Dusk Urchins 2x Murderous Redcap 2x Sootwalkers Crowd of Cinders Wanderbrine Rootcutters Cultbrand Cinders Cinderhaze Wretch Torture Puncture Bolt Fate Transfer Fists of the Demigod Burn Trail Torrent of Souls Incremental Blight 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 Scuttlemutt 3x Farhaven Elf Dusk Urchins Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers 2x Murderous Redcap 2x Sootwalkers Cultbrand Cinder Puncture Bolt Fate Transfer Tower Above Burn Trail Torrent of Souls Incremental Blight Flourishing Defenses 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 Inkfathom Witch 2x Sickleripper Briarberry Cohort Somnomancer Leechbonder Silkbind Faerie Gravelgill Duo Tatterkite Scuttlemutt Merrow Grimeblotters 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
I have had a fun weekend of Magic with two drafts plus one just for fun tournament. Before I go further with this blog, has it seemed like the Blog Contest hasn't been updated in about a month? I do write partly for myself, put I did also appreciate seeing those results.
The local store likes running a free tournament with a fun ruleset and for this week it was Creature Feature, a close cousin of Tribal. Our rules for Creature Feature is that every card of yours which mentions a creature type must include your creature type, and the usual 20 creatures of the appropriate type. Sometimes it is Standard, sometimes it is Legacy; this one was to be on the Legacy base. Let's start with the Creature Feature because it is the more unique event. We'll get to the boring, but function, format later. In making my Creature Feature deck I had a few goals I wanted to meet. I obviously wanted to make a good deck, but I also wanted to feature some of the older cards I collected but don't get much chance to use. I ended up on Slivers. I chose Slivers because they are one of my favorite tribes plus I could put to use my original duals, fetchlands, and Force of Wills. 4 Crystalline 4 Muscle 4 Sinew 3 Winged 2 Talon 3 Plated 4 FoW 4 Brainstorm 4 Aether Vial 4 StP 3 Counterspell 1 Armageddon 2 Ponder 3 Mutavault 6 Fetches (all U)
4 Tundra 2 Tropical Island 1 Savannah 1 Island 1 Plains Okay, I was expecting someone to at least try running some non-basic hate. If I had known that no one would I would have removed those basics for something else. I don't know if it would have been more fetches or more duals. Mutavault won me a game, but also greatly frustrated me on some games. We only had 6 players, but that's okay since it wasn't sanctioned. Round 1 I was matched against Burt with Elfball. Game 1 I won turn 5 with FoW backup when he tried to Fireball my guys dead. Game 2 he went crazy with Heritage Druid and other 1 drops and eventually Elvish Promenade. I made a play mistake and he made a play mistake, so I won. Round 2 I was matched against Mini with Elves. It was like his 1000-Year Elixir Elves from Standard enchanced with Wirewood Symbiote and Opposition. Game 1 I overran him turn 5 again while he was messing around with Coiling Oracle. (Did you realize Coiling Oracle is an Elf? How dumb.) Game 2 I mull twice and never get rolling while Mini lands an Imperious Perfect. Game 3 I take a little longer to win, but I land multiple p/t pumping slivers and force Mini onto his back foot before I win. Round 3 I was matched against Mike with Shamans. Shamans are one of those tribes which has surprising members. Kiki Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Eternal Witness are both shamans. Mike also was running Thornbite Staff and Goblin Bombardment (find the infinite combo). Game 1 I FoW his first Leaf-Crowned Elder, but he has a second plus a Sensei's Diving Top, I pack this one in early. Game 2 Crystalline plus Winged plus Muscle creates an offense Mike can't touch or block; not bad for mulling twice on the play. Game 3 I keep a double Mutavault hand with Aether Vial and then get my Aether Vial hit by Viridian Shaman before I can deploy any slivers, stranding 2x Muscle, Crystalline, and Sinew Sliver in hand. It takes him a while to kill, but my mana base hates me this game. Mike wins the tournament and gets first choice of prizes. We then do a play-off for second between the two 2-1 players. Round 3.5 against Brady with Zombies. Brady keeps a land heavy hand which he thinks is okay against my turn 4 Armageddon, but I have an Aether Vial and more and bigger guys afterwards. Game 2 I have another turn 1 Vial and then pump out 3 slivers including two p/t modifiers for an easy win. I walk away with a foil Tidal Courier. Drafts
Okay, back to seroius business. First draft of the weekend was for FNM. We attracted 19 players putting us on two tables, one with 10 and one with 9. The guy to my right was a very new player to LLM draft, he had to read every card and passed a Pack 1, Pick 1 Mirror Entity. Thank you. I wasted several of my early picks on treefolk after I first picked a Timber Protector (and was not averse to splashing Mirror Entity into such a deck.) A fifth pick Wizened Cenn and second pack fourth pick Wizened Cenn cemented me in Kithkin.
Deck: Mosquito Guard 2x Wizened Cenn 2x Kinsbaile Skirmisher Cenn's Heir 3x Ballyrush Banneret Mirror Entity 2x Springjack Knight Burrenton Bombadier Preeminent Captain Kithkin Zephyrnaut Kinsbaile Balloonist Veteran of the Depths Hillcomber Giant Cloudgoat Ranger Coordinated Barrage Triclopean Sight Weight of Conscience Neck Snap Swell of Courage 16 Plains
SB: 2x Timber Protector Changeling Titan 2x Lignify I hated having to play Hillcomber Giant, and it did come back to bite me a few times since the stupid creature is a Scout. My only non-played white card was Lairwatch Giant. I considered doing a green splash, but it was all high costing stuff and I was just happier to go down to 16 lands and never get color screwed. Round 1 William with monoblue Merfolk. Game 1 he delays me some with Stonybrook Angler and Cryptic Command but a relentless Veteran of the Depths plus Cloudgoat Ranger eventually push through. Game 2 he is able to tie up my guys just enough with a Silvergill Douser and Ego Erasure that a Pestermite and Fencer Clique are able to win the race. I actually make a mistake this game by not attacking aggressively enough. I should have been trading my guys for his life. Game 3 he has Silvergill Douser and Stonybrook Angler while I'm stuck on 2 land, but with 2 Ballyrush Banneret, a Wizened Cenn, and Preeminent Captain, I'm okay. I can push enough guys into the red zone. Round 2 Burt with Elves. Burt gets too few guys while I use Preeminent Captain to bring out a Kinsbaile Balloonist and then use the Balloonist to help the Captain fly in for the win. Game 2 Burt makes the ground a mess with Immaculate Magistrate and Prowess of the Fair. I had pushed enough guys through before the Magistrate that a Cloudgoat Ranger can finish Burt off. Round 3 Brady with GW. Game 1 Brady plays two spells in 6 turns before dieing. I also make 6 land drops but also make a guy every turn. Game 2 is a little better, except I have a turn 3 Zephyrnaut and manage to hit my kinship every turn and kill on turn 5. Brady had a Daily Regimen on a Kinsbaile Skirmisher plus a Seedguide Ash before I overran him.
Round 4 Nick with Faeries. Game 1 I kept a slow hand where my first drop was a Springjack Knight. Spellstutter Sprite x2 grants him further tempo an a late Profane Command is somewhat back breaking. I think I made an error in being overly protective of a Wizened Cenn and should have sent it in with my other guys on the second to last turn. Game 2 I start well although a Whirlpool Whelm slows me down. My guys are just a little better at every point in this game and I grind him down. Game 3 Nick lands a turn 4 Earwig Squad. My notes aren't so good on this game, but I remember it going long with lots of trades happening before flyers do better than ground pounders. Nick had a previous loss so I had been paired down and now my tie breakers were really terrible. Round 5 Louis with RG Elves. Game 1 I deployed a Wizened Cenn and both Springjack Knights. I win a surprising number of clashes and the double strikers do mean things to Loius. He could never Lash Out my Wizened Cenn because he knew I had a reinforce guy. Game 2 we both kept 2 landers, but I had triple Banneret plus Zephyrnaut and Skirmisher and Heir; that's a little more offense than a single Elvish Warrior can hold back. I ended in fourth off my terrible tiebreaks even though all of the top 5 were 4-1. Draft 2 I don't feel like giving a full report on this one. It was a Monday night draft at Mayhem with 13 players. Ugh, table of 6 and table of 7. I first pick an Imperious Perfect over Mad Auntie and draft a GB Elves deck. It was a pretty good deck, except a little heavy on 5 drops -- Changeling Titan, Warren Pilferers, Hunter of Eyeblights, Nath's Elite, Game-Trail Changeling. I went 3-1 losing to Giants/Kithkin in round 3. Hunter of Eyeblights annoyed me in a couple games where it put a counter on the enemy guy and then got toasted before I could untap with it. The deck was definitely kind of slow, but had some fine removal and could just roll the opposing deck if I could get it going, especially when I could keep an Imperious Perfect on the table. I had a surprising amount of mana floods on the night. I ended up 4th, but 4th at the Monday draft is much nicer than 4th at FNM, you get actual prizes for this one. Seven packs of prizes, I open my fourth Murmuring Bosk and Mutavault, so I was happy with that. I have this bad habit of only drafting Elves and Kithkin right now for LLM. I do think they are two of the best tribes, so I don't feel too bad about that. I'll have to look into Giants again, they did well in both drafts. I think that is partly about both of those having Thundercloud Shaman. See you Friday, Zachary Team FNM #40
Tags: Magic FNM Draft Creature Feature Tribal
Today we made it to the end of the local City Champs season and held the store level championships. The top 8 of the season would compete in 3 rounds of Swiss before passing the top 2 to the state City Championships; or in other words, 2 rounds of single elimination. But first, FNM. I've been switching up decks every week, but for this week I brought the deck I intended to play at the City Champs, UB Faeries. It is rather remarkable how the upcoming tournament can focus one on acquisition of certain cards. I've been hoping to get ahold of a couple Cryptic Commands for some time, but on Friday I managed to trade for 3 from 3 different sources all in one evening. FNM R1: Nick Crumpton with 5-color block Elementals. Game 1 I keep a two lander and die horribly when I don't draw any further lands. Game 2 has the opposite problem as I make 12 land drops out of 14 turns but have basically no business spells. The 1-for-1 trades are generally fine, I'm not falling behind any, until a Cloudthresher makes it through unhindered. FNM R2: Mini Drew with Thousand-Year Elixir Elves. Game 1 everything goes pretty much perfect. An early Imperious Perfect meets Nameless Inversion. A Loxodon Warhammer is eliminated by Spellsputter Sprite and a Vendilion Clique stops any worrisome cards. Game 2 Mini has one of his better draws. I Nameless Invert his turn 2 Imperious Perfect, but have nothing for the turn 3 Immaculate Magistrate or turn 4 Thousand-Year Elixir. That's the biggest Boreal Druid you're ever going to find. Game 3 a Loxodon Warhammer hits and Faeries are no longer able to race Elves. Ending at 0-2 on the night for FNM was very dissappointing. Consulting with Cheeks about the deck, he recommending finding room for Rune Snag and cutting down on the Cryptic Command and Mistbind Clique. I had chosen full sets of Mistbind, Cryptic, Pestermite, and Nameless. I had mentioned that I felt the deck had a very awkward curve, lacking in two drops. That is what prompted finding room for the Rune Snags and cutting back on the 4-drops and Pestermites. Once home, I pulled up MWS and modified the deck list I was using. One of the insights I had, I was bringing Remove Soul in for every match-up, so let's actually put some of those in the main. I practiced a few more games of Faeries versus Reveillark and then switched to some Merfolk versus Elves. Cheeks was playing a Merfolk deck for practing Friday night and I was very impressed with its performance against both Faeries and Reveillark -- the two decks I expected to see the most of in the City Champs. I pulled out the Merfolk cards and had them ready in case I wanted to make that last minute audible. City Champs I arrived at the store still unsure if I wanted Faeries or Merfolk. I had practiced more with Faeries and had the sideboard complete whereas my Merfolk testing was still incomplete and the sideboard wasn't even complete. With the call to get the decklists registered made, I simply defaulted to what I had prepared -- Faeries. My Deck
4 Spellstutter Sprite 4 Scion of Oona 3 Pestermite 2 Vendilion Clique 2 Sower of Temptation 3 Mistbind Clique 4 Ancestral Vision 4 Bitterblossom 4 Rune Snag 2 Remove Soul 3 Cryptic Command 4 Underground River 4 Secluded Glenn 4 River of Tears 4 Faerie Conclave 3 Mutavault 5 Snow-Covered Island 1 Pendelhaven Sideboard 4 Thoughtseize 3 Fleshfreeze 3 Deathmark 1 Sower of Temptation 2 Remove Soul 2 Nameless Inversion There would have been +1 Mutavault, -1 Island or Faerie Conclave, except the store sold out of Mutavaults. Snow-Covered Islands? Sure, why not. I know some in my area are cutting Pestermite down to 2, but I'm worried that that is starting to get too low on the faerie count and make Bitterblossom even more vital. The SB could use a little more work still. One important point, I was not expecting any of the monored burn decks to be showing up. If you're playing on MTGO, that would be a bad assumption. Champs R1: Louis Yang with Merfolk. This was basically the deck Cheeks had built and I had practiced against some the previous night. I was not looking forward to playing either Louis or Merfolk. These were both things I thought could prove difficult. For game 1, I won the die roll. This would prove vital. I opened with Island into Ancestral Visions and then Underground River with Rune Snag mana open. Louis's turn 2 Stonybrook Banneret ran into the Rune Snag. Turn 3 I made another land drop and then played a Vendilion Clique to take a peek at Loius's hand. He had a Silvergill Adept, 2x Sage's Dousing, and 4x lands. I was happy with that and let him keep those. Turn 4 I ran out an EoT Pestermite which got caught to a Sage's Dousing. Louis had Mutavault so this may have been a mistake on my part on the timing, but it did tap down Louis so I could definitely resolve the Ancestral Visions and a Scion of Oona. Louis's turn 5 tapped him out playing Lord of Atlantis and Silvergill Adept. For turn 6, I could put lethal on the table, or hold back mana for some purpose. I chose to play a main phase Pestermite and Louis was unable to stop the airforce turn 7. Sideboarding was bringing in the other 2 Remove Soul and the 2 Nameless Inversion and taking out the 3 Pestermite and 1 Mistbind Clique. Game 2 was a disaster. I mulled twice; the first hand could have drawn into good stuff but was too risky. I kept a 2-land hand with Nameless Inversions but only Faerie Conclave and Mutavault. Louis had a turn 1 Ancestral Vision then turn 2 Lord of Atlantis then turn 3 Merrow Reejerey. Game 3, back on the play, and Louis did take a mulligan in this game. Between games I had bantered that it was his turn to take one after I had taken mulls in each of the first two. I kept another 2-lander, but I had tons of 2-mana disruptions. My turn 2 Rune Snag took Louis's turn 2 Banneret. Turn 3 I did not draw a land, but the Bitterblossom was just fine. Louis did manage to get out a Merrow Reejerey and Silvergill Adept but his Lord of Atlantis met a Spellstutter Sprite. I main phased a Nameless Inversion on the Merrow Reejerey just to be sure it was dieing. After that Loius tried back to back Sower of Temptations, but both failed to land, the first to Remove Soul and the second to Spellstutter Sprite. I also still had Rune Snag and Nameless Inversion in hand. I didn't hit my third land until very nearly the end of the game and had a Cryptic Command and Mistbind Clique stranded in hand, but the Bitterblossom had done it's job of creating an army. Champs R2: Robb Boros with Faeries. I had heard that he was packing Faeries, although I was slightly surprised since I know him for his innovative rogue decks. Turns out that basically everyone knew what everyone was playing since we pretty much all asked Cheeks for assistance in building and testing. Game 1 Robb won the die roll and proceeded to land the turn 2 Bitterblossom. I tried to play a turn 3 Bitterblossom so as to not fall too far behind, but Robb had a Spellstutter Sprite for mine. Had I waited until turn 4, Robb would miss his fourth land drop and I would have been able to Rune Snag the Sprite. The correct play was thus to wait, but I do not know if that would be correct in the majority of cases. I was unable to answer the Bitterblossom and died horribly. I brought in the Remove Souls and Nameless Inversions and Sower of Temptation while taking out the Vendilion Cliques and Pestermites -- 1 toughness guys aren't so hot in the mirror match. Game 2 we both had the turn 2 Bitterblossom. Robb had suspended Ancestral Visions turn 1 while I had to wait until turn 3 because my turn 1 land was River of Tears, but I then got to suspend a turn 5 Visions as well. I was slightly ahead in life since Robb was operating with painlands and I wasn't. We both let faerie tokens through unblocked about half the time. I figured I was winning the race and wanted to race as much as possible, I don't know what Robb's reasoning was. Robb had a turn 6 alpha strike which reduced me to 4. My counterattack was going to be lethal except Robb had Sudden Spoiling to ruin that. Fortunately I had one last Cryptic Command to fog back which allowed victory. After the match Robb decided that his alpha strike was incorrect and he had missed a chance to kill much of my team if he had instead kept faeries back. Being on the draw for game 3, my only option for stopping a turn 2 Bitterblossom would be to bring in Thoughtseize. I don't recall what I took out, it was either Mistbind Cliques or Rune Snags. On the draw, my needs are slightly different than on the play. Game 3 was then a long drawn out game of draw-go. Robb led turn 1 with Thoughseize and took my Ancestral Visions. I had to Thoughtseize back and was shocked to see 2 more Thoughtseizes and 4 land. Robb used the remaining Thoughtseize to take my first Scion of Oona. Robb made the next move at the end of my turn 4 playing a Scion of Oona, but I used Cryptic on it to counter and bounce a Faerie Conclave. At end of Robb's turn 6, I ran out my next Scion of Oona with mana open to pay Rune Snag. I played a Sower of Temptation, without targets, to begin attacking. That got two attacks in before Robb played another Scion. He knew I had another Sower and I played that to grab the Scion. Robb attempted to protect it with Mistbind Clique, but Remove Soul stopped that and I had myself two Scions of Oona and two Sower of Temptations to take the game and match. Champs R3: Scott Bielick with Reveillark. Two undefeateds with a cut to the top 2, this is why it's been referred to as single elimination. We took the intentional draw so we would be assured the two slots for attending the statewide City Champs. After the poor FNM performance, vindication of the Faeries deck. For reference, our little metagame was 3 Faeries, 2 Reveillark, 1 Merfolk, 1 Elves, and 1 UB Mill-Control deck. I put in more testing for this event than I have for any other, so it is nice to see that pay off. We played a draft afterwards for fun. I played a weird mash of Goblins and Elves and Shamans and a little bit of Treefolk and Warriors too. I won round 1 against RB Giants but then got smashed by Kithkin in round 2. However I opened a Mutavault so that draft turned out okay. See you Friday, Zachary Team FNM #39
Tags: Magic City Champs Faeries FNM
Life is getting busy again. I did make it to FNM, but couldn't make it to the Creature Feature tournament being held at our store nor to the Monday draft. Three part blog.
Part 1: FNM What did I learn from FNM this week? Reveillark crushes GWu Big Mana. My fault for bringing that deck to the meta I know is filled with Reveillark decks. My first two rounds were both against Reveillark and I brought in 9 cards for them: 4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, 2 Trickbind, 2 Remove Soul, and 1 more Cloudthresher. I took out 2 Garruk, Crovax, 2 Austere Command, 3 Wrath of God, and one other card I don't recall. From my experiences, I am wondering if Mwonvuli Acid-Moss is actually a worthwhile card to bring in. I am so threat light that destroying one of their lands isn't swinging enough tempo my way. These games go so long that they don't miss one land either. Yes, fortunately it is a mana accelerant as well, but I'm not all that impressed. The other card that underperformed for me was Primal Command. One would think that this would be good to hamstring the Reveillark reliance on the graveyard, but it really never managed that. If I drew it early, the Reveillark decks didn't have enough or often even anything in the graveyard. If I drew it late, Venser or some countermagic would foil my spell. Part 2: Draft that wasn't I've counted up how many drafts I expect to do before triple Shadowmoor becomes the draft of choice and have stockpiled enough packs to cover that many drafts. Now whenever I don't go to a draft that I was expecting to go to, I just go ahead and open those packs. This week, it was a Guile (I have enough already), Windbrisk Heights (very meh, but my first one), and a Taurean Mauler (a great disappointment so far, and I have enough). Part 3: City Champs upcoming So this Saturday will be our store's City Champs. I worry about it. I will be disappointed if I don't win, but we have enough skilled enough players that a little luck or a little poor metagaming could doom me. At one point it was looking like there would be up to 4 Reveillark decks, but two of those have talked about moving to other decks. I think I've settled on my deck, now just got to collect the cards for it and do some testing. I can tell you what it won't be: it won't be GWu Big Mana. We've chased away some Reveillark decks, but that deck still looks more fun than competitive for my expected metagame. This could be the event I am most prepared for ever. We'll see. Not much else to say about the upcoming tournament at this point. See you Friday Zachary Team FNM #38
Tags: Magic FNM City Champs
Here we are near the end of the PTQ season for Pro Tour: Hollywood. Technically there are still two more weeks to go, but the closest PTQ for this week is Indianapolis and for next week it is Columbus. Those are farther than I'm willing to travel for just a PTQ, so my season is done. I made it to three PTQs this season: Lincoln, Des Moines, and Witchita. Actually, we'll need to change that about Des Moines, but we'll get to that story soon enough. I wasn't ready for Kansas City and Madison, so I missed out on those, and I ended up being too busy with other work the weekend for Minneapolis. However considering that I had only previously attending one PTQ (a Sealed), this is still a step up to the next level of competition. For this Extended season I selected Dredge. It is definitely a powerful deck and was pretty inexpensive to build. Really, the first thing I looked for when selecting decks was which decks don't run Tarmogoyf. I always titled my deck, "This Deck is Dumb", because the deck is dumb. Once I knew my archetype, it was time to refine and polish the deck. Dredge is a surprisingly tight decklist. You'd think that since you're just intending to dump your deck into your graveyard that what you have in the deck doesn't matter too much, but once you've put in your various dredgers and spells which give additional draws and various discard outlets and various other staples, you only have a few slots left. Your decisions are mainly how many Ichorid, Dread Return, and Cabal Therapy do you want? Some people like cutting each down to 2. I maintained 3 on each because they are all very useful and I'm quite happy to see 2 and even 3 of each of those. I always had my Leyline of the Voids ready to jump into the main if scouting told me that it would be worthwhile; none of my events would have it worthwhile and it stayed SB. Going to Lincoln is nice for me since I have extended family there. Its a place to stay and dinner plus visiting family. I got some testing in with Dredge and was intending to rely some on my experience with Dredge from Standard, but I really needed more practice yet. Round 1 I lose to a glacially slow Heartbeat Desire because in part game 1 I kept a 5 card hand without any dredgers; should have gone to 4. I was knocked out in round 5 of 7 but played round 6 for fun (won it too). The elimination was to a mirror match. I think I was better than the other guy, but he had a better draw on games 2 and 3. Game 2 he had a turn 2 kill plus Leyline. Game 3 we both had Leylines but he found his Chain of Vapor first. Dredge is an extremely difficult deck to write a tournament report for. Turn 1, play land and Putrid Imp. Turn 2, discard Golgari-Grave Troll and dredge. Turn 3, the same. Turn 4, the same. Somewhere in there I put Narcomoebas into play, used some Cabal Therapy, and then used Dread Return for either Akroma or Flamekin Zealot. So I didn't have enough practice under my belt for Lincoln. Going into Des Moines would be better because I now had some experience with the deck. When I arrived at the tournament hall for Des Moines, I asked the head judge Brian Woerth if we had hit 128 yet, pushing us to 8 rounds. Yes, we had, and that was more than had been anticipated. He joked that maybe they'd have to bar me from playing and make me judge the event instead. I said that that was fine by me. After Brian considered for a few minutes, he called me to the judge station and said that they would like my help. I switched shirts and because a judge. The reason I was quite fine with judging is because I'm a decent to good player, but to get to the Pro Tour (consistently at least), one needs to be a bit more than decent. I think that if I am going to be involved with high level Magic, it will probably be through judging. I wanted to get this experience. At the end of Des Moines, there was a very good chance to chat with the Brian about what to do to further the judge path. One final try then, Wichita. This time it would be travelling with Matt "Cheeks" Hansen and Clayton Mooney. The furthest I've travelled, but we'd be staying with Brett, someone Cheeks knew and whose last name I didn't catch. For me, Witchita didn't go all that well. Out after round 3 of 7. I mulliganed into oblivion against an Affinity deck and then didn't flip up enough creatures against a burn deck. I played out all 7 rounds chasing the prizes offered down to 20th place, but came up short at 4-3. I had the worst tie breaks I have ever seen for a large tournament -- 42.67% going into round 7. The good thing to come from this tournament was that Cheeks won it all, so congratulations to Cheeks. Had I gone to Minneapolis, it would not have been with Dredge. Too much variance in the deck for my taste. If you win on turn 2, you're high as a kite, but that doesn't happen quite often enough and the deck likes to self destruct. I was very impressed with the Tallowisp list that Cheeks had played and would have tried to assemble that deck. I didn't reach the goal of Q'ing for Hollywood or even coming close, but I'll be back next season again. I'm catching that PTQ fever. Starting to develop those networks that enable travelling multiple hours to go to a Magic tournament. I'm just on the verge of a breakthrough, so I'll keep on trying. See you Friday, Zachary Team FNM #37
Tags: Magic Hollywood PTQ Extended
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