Tough draft, cobbled together what I could, but not enough pieces of either. Often sided out Ghost #2 for Eyeblight, which should have been main anyways.
Round 1
2-1 vs U/W Fliers Game 1 was mine thanks to Havoc Demon. They killed it to wipe the board including my Wonder, then I cast Wakedancer and Animated Havoc Demon next turn. Game 2 was them, I made a few ill advised trades thinking I was way ahead, but they had removal and Honden of Cleansing Fire kept Inkwell from killing faster than the fliers the dropped. Game 3 An early Blood Artist and Efreet crushed.
Round 2
0-2 vs B/G elves...just way too fast and efficient.
Round 3
2-1 vs R/G Aggro Game 1: Keldon Champion is scary! They curved out well and could avoid my blockers. Game 2: I switch to U/B/g to take advantage of Shaman and drop Field. It was really close. They had me at 3 and had Honden of infinite Rage. Thankfully I was able to Victimize back Nekraatal and Skulking Ghost to threaten enough and buy me time. Then Eyeblight removed their only blocker and sealed it for my win. Game 3: They concede after I play Artist and Efreet.
Second, SUPER LUCKY! 3-0 Mono-Green Elves (mostly)
Elves were, obviously, super open, as was green. I literally couldn't screw up. I did pass on a Symbiote though because I didn't fully understand how powerful it was.
Round 1
2-1 vs U/G/b fliers. Game 1: They win. Two Harmonizes gave them lots of fuel. I got the to 5, but couldnt seal it. Game 2: Civic Wayfinder got suited up with Rancor and Elephant and stomped to the win. Game 3: They get a Sentinel Spider riding their very own Elephant, but my Vanguard gets huge enough to stall, then huge enough to attack. Shaman weakens their resolve and they concede.
Round 2
2-0 vs R/W aggro. Game 1: We race, and it was close. Pacifism locks down all my attackers except an Archer and a Wayfinder. They have a Whitemane Lion and an Elite Vanguard. They are ahead in the race since they attacked first. I get my crocodile and win though. Game 2: I draw the nut hand and they mulligan. Symbiote into Vanguard into Archer into Lys and they concede, I had Shaman in hand too, was finally gonna get that engine going.
Round 3
2-1 vs U/W fliers Game 1: They start ahead but I win with Lys and two Vanguards Game 2: I stare dumbfounded at a Coalition Honor Guard thinking: why would I ever want to pump them? And concede since I can't find a way to force the Honor Guard into my deathtoucher and they control the skies. Game 3: No Honor Guard! I race like my life depends on it (cause it does lol). Thankfully turn 2 and 3 were Vanguards and I have enough pressure to win.
Draft: P1P1 Imperious and pack 1 was an amazing all green elves (mostly forced). Pack two mostly dried up on elves, but I got some solid red picks. Pack 3 picked Elves back up.
Round 1
2-1 vs U/B/g fliers. Game 1; They dominate in the air and I can't race. Game 2: I switch to a real deck and Vanguard into Perfect into Lys seals it. Game 3: Kird Ape into Vanguard into Perfect into Lys seals it. They held me off for a bit with Baleful Strix but I Firebolt it...twice.
Round 2
2-1 vs B/R/u reanimator (I think). Game 1: They play a mountain, then Firebolt, then concede? Game 2: A turn 2 Plague Witch is slightly annoying. I lost because I didn't kill it the turn it came down. I decided to play Boar on turn 2 instead of Firebolt. They discard Phyrexian Ingester and Firebolt my boar then proceed to rez the Ingester stealing a 2/2. I almost comeback, but they manage to avoid Llanowar Elves and doubled Sylvan might to kill Ingester then play a 4/4 while I'm at 5 and I just can't get there. Game 3: Kird Ape into Vanguard into Perfect and they concede.
Round 3
1-2 vs G/W Enchantments Game 1: So close to dominating. Symbiote is bouncing Vanguard every turn with another Vanguard and a Lys in play. Just as I get Vanguard big enough to assault, they play Rancor. They game was actually pretty well stalled for a bit, too bad I had 0 cards in the yard for Centaur. They had an early start and I was chump bouncing my second Vanguard for a long time. Just as I get my token engine they play Honden of Life's Web so swarming took a few more turns. Plus they had a 6/8 Mesa Enchantress and a 9/9 Yavimaya Enchantress. Game 2: I side in my Nature's Claims and a speculative Seismic Stomp. I get a Sybiote/Lys/Llanowar engine going with Perfect in play and have to problem swarming. Game 3: They had a real quick win with Rancor on an early Flier. Nearly won it, planned and prepped perfectly. Get them to 16, have 16 power on the board and a Seismic Stomp in hand. They put me to 4 with a 4 power flier. They cast fog .
So when i say I made a real deck, I swapped 1x Forest, 1x Commune and 2x Centaur for Firebolt, Kird Ape, the third Lys, and a mountain in every game (sometimes I left a Centaur depending on what I was playing against. I had too many options in my pool. I started thinking I could Commune to get threshold and use centaur to boost a swarm for a win...Roar might some out early if I could Commune it into the yard too. I figured if I lost a game I could move into Aggro with the Mauraders, Reckless, and finish with the Champions, but I never ended up doing it, the Elves engine was just too good and I figured I'd have to sacrifice to much to move full aggro. The only really different sideboarding was in the final game were I swapped in 2x Claim, 1x Kird Ape, 1x Firebolt, and 1x Siesmic siding out 2x Commune, 2 x Centaur, and 1 x Seal.
Things: Elves is serious. They crushed me and I did very well with two totally different decks. Plague Witch is actually pretty useful. Does a good job stalling out aggro decks and there is enough recursion/rez in black to make it a bit of a threat. Be wary, there is so much flying! The format seems somewhat fast but probably more mid-rangey right now. It wouldn't surprise me if it gets faster as things go on. Green seems to have strong game and Black seems to be the weakest.
Bad Draft. I'm not 100% on signals for the flashback deck besides Young Pyromancer and Burning Vengeance so I had no idea it was open until Vengeance came rolling through late pack 3 . I started looking at W/B tokens because I wasn't seeing any ETB creatures. White dried up quick and it looked more like Black Sac. Pack 2 was Visara followed by Guide so I thought rez might be possible. Nothing came up though so I focused on Black and tried to get some good red. The only red I saw were the Cathars and the Firebolt. Not enough to move into aggro so late, no white, and no support for true rez. By late pack 2 I decided U/B control with some top end monsters and focused on snagging anything to slow down the board and my opponent. Pack 3 gave me 3 counterspells and I thought I had a solid deck.
Round 1
0-2 vs G/R Elves/Aggro Game 1: Might have had a chance it Shaman wasn't an Elf. Unfortunately they got turn 3 Timberwatch Elf and I could not keep up. No counterspells drawn, Winter Orb didn't slow them down enough. Game 2: Oh, they have two Timberwatches. Still no counterspells.
Round 2
1-2 vs B/R/g Sacrifice Game 1: Phantom Monster and Counterspells carry me to an inch of the win. Playing around Honden of Night's Reach was a bit difficult but I manage to bring them to 2 and have an Island and Counterspell in hand to ensure I can get to the next attack. They have two cards in hand a Deathrite Shaman and a Carrion Feeder on the board. They play Skulking Ghost. I decide to counterspell it because they could draw into anything and I'm at the mercy of Honden next turn. They sac Shaman and Tragic Slip my Monster and win. Game 2: I side in Blood Artist and it gives me the exact edge I need to win with two Monsters in the air. Game 3: Things are once again looking good with Blood Artist in play. They remove it just in time and Havoc Demon can't pull it off for me. They had sided in a bunch Duress and were able to play around my counters. One more turn and Visara would have come down and probably given me the win.
Things: I suck at control. It didn't make sense why Counterspell was common in the set until now...it's just hard to get good mana efficiency out of it. There are too many fast plays out there. Winter Orb blew big fat chunks. Too many non-land mana sources and too many cheap plays. I sided it out every match.
P1P1 was 8 tails over nothing really...Glimmerpoint Stag and Flinthoof Boar were the only other choices. Decided to try for U/W fliers. P1P2 may have been my first mistake. I took Soulcatcher over Goblin Trenches and Warden of Evos Isle...there was also Shaman of the Pack, Timberwatch Elf, and 2 x Innocent Blood. I wanted to do something different than elves and wasn't sure if I could pull together a good trenches deck vs an easy in-color flier supporter. Fliers dried up pretty quick and green came my way but elves dried up by then so I was just hoping for an efficient G/W deck. P2P1 Zenith solidified that. Two Elephant Guides popped into my lap when there were no better options and I forced Enchantments in pack 3.
Round 1
2-0 vs R/W Aggro. Game 1: It was close, I probably would have won anyways playing my Sylvan Might right, but I ended up drawing Ancestral with 2 of my own enchantments on board and they had Sulfuric Vortex and Orcish Oriflamme. May my Soulcatcher 12/12 and I just won. Game 2: Once again close, but Zenith pulled Croc out for me and next turn I popped Ancestral on it and Sylvan Mighted the Croc making it 12/12, they weren't expecting trample and had chumped...
Round 2
0-2 vs R/W/U...um...awesomeness?...probably fliers. They drew very well I drew nothing. They also won the tourney. Game 1: I draw none of my Enchantment but manage to pull ahead...into a Wrath of God, two Pacifism hold me back and Goblin Trenches pops 8 gobbos out on my EoT making it exceedingly unlikely to catch up in the two turns I need. Game 2: Warden of Evos Isle into Serra Angel puts me on my back foot. War Priest of Thune and Pyrokinesis wipe my board and they win. The only enchantment I drew was Seal. Well, I drew the second Seal on my losing turn .
Round 3
2-1 vs G/R/u/w Flashback Game 1: The deck finally works close to how its supposed to...Seal into Charger into Ancestral into Crocodile and it was a sweep. Game 2: They seem to have switched into G/R/u Flashback...I hold a hand with one Plains because its perfect if I draw a forest. three turns later I do (although a second plain let me cast my Charger) and thats ok...then no lands for a while. Silent Departure and Chain Lightning and Phyrexian Ingester keep me down for a bit They get Honden of Infinite Rage and Honden of Life's Web in play and wiin with four cards left in the deck. Their flashback game was pretty fun to watch though. I wasn't worried about game 3 since I stumbled so much and it took almost every card in their deck to survive my onslaught (I would have won the next turn even if they hadn't drawn out...still had 20 cards in deck too lol. Game 3: Another game where the deck works like it should. Charger into Elephant Guide into Syvlan Enchantress is too fast.
Things: Goblin Trenches was pretty nuts...I don't think I'll be passing that up again soon. Enchantments is real strong when it goes, but there was so much bounce and Roots type removal that made Elephant Guide's greatest strength a real nothing it was a bit annoying. You need a quick game for it. Green Sun's Zenith is insane, but that's not new. Emperor Crocodile continues to be beastly for me. It was also nice that enchantment based removal made it sticking around so much more likely.
This deck utilized Looting extremely well to smooth out draws and set up threshold. Werebear is such an underrated card in this format and I don't know why. I regularly see them tabling and regularly turn them into 4/4s by turn 3 or 4. Charbelcher I thought would be a nice late game for this deck; I never found it. Probably would have served better out of the board against potentially strong control decks.
Another tirade of Werebears. Even though blue is the other threshold color, I don't think it's where you wanna be if your plan is to draft Werebears. But as a supporting color, it still has some gems. This deck was explosive to the point that removal didn't feel very necessary.
Reanimator is much less of a deck in this format than it seems. All of the reanimation spells are uncommon, so you have to get lucky to get more than one. Setting your deck to work around that is just awkward. This is the one attempt I've tried that I didn't abandon for something better, mostly because of when I got the reanimation spells. (Middle pack one after the Eyeblights.)
Future Sight is the second best card draw spell ever printed. It's insane how much advantage you get from it. And this set is primed to take advantage of it: Brainstorm, Sensei's Divining Top, tons of shuffle effects. It's one of the best reasons to go into control in this format. I had this cute play during the game where I had Man-o'-War on top of my deck but nothing I wanted to bounce, so I cast it and bounced itself in order to get deeper into my deck. Blessing was there because I had the free fixing, I was worried about not having enough kill conditions, it shuffled for Sight, and I could draw my whole deck anyway. Turned out to be a great card for control matchups.
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