Joined: Oct 04, 2015 Posts: 4649 Location: Alchemist's Refuge
Identity: Male
Preferred Pronoun Set: he/him/his/his/himself
First, I just want to say that I did horrible tonight. But I had a lot of fun, which is all that really matters to me. I got to do some nifty stuff with Raptor Hatchling (managed to get three tokens off of one!) which has me thinking of doing something with it in Constructed, but I kind of want to see what everybody else would have built if you had had my pool.
I should mention I almost always build two decks at any given prerelease. If one doesn't do particularly well, I switch out for the other. I usually try to avoid using the same cards in both decks, but sometimes there's a card that just screams "Must Have In All Decks" at me. Usually only for the duration of an event.
I should mention that I only put the Primal Amulet in the deck because of Repeating Barrage. I never saw both of them in the same game, and I never got to transform the Amulet. I did get to transform a Treasure Map by Hijacking it during my second main phase after my opponent gave it a second counter in response to me attacking with a Sky Terror that had Prying Blade on it. It was fun taking three Treasures from him. He got game three, though.
I only ran this twice. The biggest Spell Swindle was for 5 treasures. The smallest was 1 (but if I hadn't the opponent would have beat me three turns sooner with a Jungle Delver). In retrospect, I probably should have splashed red for more creatures.
I feel like you made the same mistake as I did initially... convinced yourself to play all 3 parts of a 3-color tribe when it would have been more consistent to cut one (in your case, white; in mine, I started tricolor pirates but cut the blue before too long).
My pool screamed pirates at me. First 6 rares I saw went redpirate, redpirate, blackpirate, boat, compass, blackpirate. I really couldn't play any other tribe when all my bombs were pirates. Unfortunately mana issues (both flavors!) and a lack of big-game removal did me in. My deck SO could have used some of them there Contract Killings.
Joined: Oct 04, 2015 Posts: 4649 Location: Alchemist's Refuge
Identity: Male
Preferred Pronoun Set: he/him/his/his/himself
Actually, red and white were the best colors in the first deck. Green cards had a bad habit of sitting in my hand, and if it wasn't green cards sitting in hand it was Forests showing up when I needed Mountains. The Prying Blade was not as useful as I hoped it would be in facilitating three-color play. Although if I had run Commune with Dinosaurs I might not have had that problem.
Before the last round started, I reexamined my Merfolk because three of the people who beat me were running a lot of Merfolk (though one never touched blue) so I thought I'd just build one and see how it ran for the last round. And then I got the bye, cause there was an odd number of people at the event. So I just unsleeved everything, put my cards away, and went around watching some of the other games.
Demistify Duskborne Skymarcher Encampment Keeper Glorifier of Dusk Inspiring Cleric Kinjalli's Caller Legion Conquistador Legion's Judgment Pious Interdiction Pterodon Knight Raptor Companion Skyblade of the Legion Slash of Talons Sunrise Seeker Tocatli Honor Guard
Cancel Deadeye Quartermaster U Deeproot Waters U Depths of Desire Dive Down Dreamcaller Siren R Entrancing Melody U Headwater Sentries Jace, Cunning Castaway MR One With the Wind Perilous Voyage U Run Aground Sailor of Means Shaper Apprentice Shipwreck Looter 2x Shore Keeper Siren's Ruse Tempest Caller U
Anointed Deacon Deadeye Tormentor Fathom Fleet Cutthroat Heartless Pillage U Lurking Chupacabra U Mark of the Vampire Queen's Agent Raiders' Wake U Seekers' Squire U 2xSkymarch Bloodletter Vanquish the Weak
Angrath's Marauders R Brazen Buccaneers Charging Monstrosaur U Fire Shrine Keeper Firecannon Blast Frenzied Raptor 2xHeadstrong Brute 2xHijack Otepec Huntmaster U Rile Storm Fleet Pyromancer Sure Strike Swashbuckling Unfriendly Fire
Ancient Brontodon Commune with Dinosaurs Crushing Canopy Emergent Growth U Ixalli's Keeper Jade Guardian River Heralds' Boon Snapping Sailback U 2xSpike-Tailed Ceratops 2xTishana's Wayfinder Vineshaper Mystic U
Belligerent Brontodon U Deadeye Plunderers U
Gilded Sentinel Hierophant's Chalice 2xPirate's Cutlass Primal Amulet R Treasure Map R FOIL
Glacial Fortress R Unknown Shores
deck n.1
9xisland 8xswamp
Cancel Depths of Desire Dreamcaller Siren Entrancing Melody Jace, Cunning Castaway Perilous Voyage Run Aground Sailor of Means Shaper Apprentice Shipwreck Looter Shore Keeper Tempest Caller
Blue was an obvious keep. I felt that my low cost white wasn't impactful enough, and red had a bunch of aggro 3-4 drops while providing nearly no 2 drops, so these were out. Tried UB for a match since UG felt weak to flyers and somewhat suffering of having bad hard removal, but I found myself too much on the backfoot due to a high curve and lowish stats. (lost agains GR dinos). Switched to UG to benefit from a better curve and the deck performed surprisingly well: 3 wins in the loser bracket, with a draw between the second and third one due to my opponent going away after I lost the first game thanks to his RB deck with 13 pirates, atreasure map and that banner that pumped his pirates and let him draw an extra card each time he casted one,plus 2 of the pirate raise dead and removal just to be sure. Cheap stuff+instant speed interaction meant that I was able to keep the pressure up when I curved out, and decently sized bodies+ draw and tempest caller with cancel back-up in the deck made for a decent plan b. Always managed to race the varous flyers.
Was tempted to run the quartermaster with two cuirasses, but I feared it was too cloggy and with only one the fail case of having both looked a lot worse that the best case to me. Shore keepers was to have more early drops, it never blocked and got cracked in multiple games. Didn't feel I wanted one with the wind due to a lack of removal magnets, but it might have been a mistake, keeping mana up for cancel was pretty easy in merforks. Deeproot waters just looked bad, so I didn't test it. Jace was ok, not really exciting obviously, but still decent, found myself dropping it and plussing more than I expected, but in one case it might have been a mistake.
I don't have the list for my pool, sadly, but I had a very solid one. Legion's Landing, Conqueror's Galleon, Hiuatli, and 5 or so removal spells. Went undefeated.
The transform cards did a lot of work when I got them online, and the boat was easy to turn on. Only got to play the PW once. Format seems like one of the better sealed formats.
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