Friday again. Just finished up a cube draft with @wmap's online cube! LORDHAVEMERCY.
I drafted this monstrosity (in pick order, *'s did not make the main deck:)
Pack 1 Ajani Vengeant Bloodbraid Elf Slagstorm Duplicant Mox Diamond Ghitu Slinger Treetop Village* Beast Within* Journey to Nowhere Harrow* Molten Rain Crystal Ball* Aftershock Arbor Elf*
Troll Ascetic*
Pack 2 Path to Exile Inferno Titan Wild Nacatl* Volcanic Fallout Joraga Treespeaker* Qasali Pridemage* Incinerate Figure of Destiny Avalanche Riders Kor Skyfisher Karmic Guide Stomping Ground Keldon Marauders Pouncing Jaguar Black Vise Pack 3
Swords to Plowshares Imperious Perfect* Earthquake Chandra Nalaar Wheel of Fortune Harmonize* Comet Storm Forked Bolt* Masked Admirers* Grim Lavamancer Kird Ape* Nantuko Vigilante
Temporal Isolation* Firebolt Carnophage*The deck was a R/W/g mid-range, not a ton of dudes, but lots of removal and lots of burn. My strategy was to land a 2-3 power dude, and bash and remove, hopefully force them to commit into one of my sweepers. I'd then rinse and repeat, ideally landing a Chandra, Ajani or Inferno Titan in a long game, using Land Destruction to attempt to edge ahead. It was mostly successful. This was my first cube match, and I was really uneasy as what to expect. Since so many of the cards in the pool I was unfamiliar with, I was having trouble remembering all the cards I passed. I can see that's crucial. In my first round, I played @mtglegacy. He had a very classic style control deck. A ton of counterspells, and won both games easily off hte back of a puppeter clique. I punted really hard, thinking i was making a sick play, because I had forgotten how the wording on puppeteer clique worked.Drew Puppeteer'd my Keldon Maurauders, i should have killed the clique in response with volcanic fallout, but decided to let mauraders come in, and do it mid combat, so that he couldnt' attack with both of my creatures (assuming he'd clique my karmic guide off a persist trigger), and I kill the maurauder before damage. However, as most of you who have already face palmed by now know, if i kill the creature before puppeteer cliques ability exiles it, it goes back to my graveyard... And he clique's it again. So i got double stone rained there, and was so embarrassed i just scooped. Obv feels great in R1 of your first cube, and have one of the games top players saying, "Hmm... I think i would have played that fallout differently." was the most humbling experience in my time playing Magic. I played fine the 2nd game, almost had it, when i landed a chandra when he tapped out for either a tutor or a draw spell, I can't remember. It looked like CHandra might go the distance, with me picking off any threats he might have to deal with her. Instead, he cryptics a spell to counter it and bounce my chandra. which i never even recast. I saw at least 5 different counterspells in his deck, as well as a thieving magpie, and the puppeteer clique. I think thats all i saw. Also a couple draw spells/tutors. His deck was solid.
After that i played @thebeme. I pretty much got there with figure of destiny game 1, and g2 with a couple dudes while he was mana screwed. Not a very exciting one. :( sorry robert.
Then i played @semisober, if that isn't sweatin it, I also have spectators including @marshallLRcast and @meta_knightmare. I win the first one easily, as Tom moans about misclicks in the chat box. He wins the second one by dumping a mana vault into an upheaval while he's at 4, and I have an inferno titan in play. He plays an oona and passes back. I have a journey in my hand but i need two turns to play lands and cast it. Ultimately thats what happens, en ends up getting a single token off of oona before i can kill it with journey, and he adds more dudes to the board, as i'm struggling to keep up. not much later i was dead. The 3rd game was very similar, except after the upheaval he had 2 life, and i has 17, he had a kira in play (coming off my journey after upheaval) and i had the sorcery speed shock with flashback in my bin, as well as an inferno titan i discarded after upheaval so i could karmic guide it. I also had a keldon mauraders. So i just needed to survive to post upheaval-turn 4 to start ploping down must answer threats to his 2 life total. I topdeck incinerate before that happens, and win the game. Tom says his Elspeth Tirel in his hand would have saved him, but I was "on the play" in the post-upheaval world in terms of lands, so if i play marauder on turn 4, i plow up his land drop, and i can cast 2 5 drops before he can cast an elspeth, so i think he's just whining. :)
So, 2-1, was tons of fun, i played red, which isn't my favorite color. But i really love ajani vengeant, never drew it though. Thanks so much to @wmap for facilitating it. Tappedout.net, the site she normally uses to run the drafting protion was down, but she audibled and it ran very smoothly, despite @meddlingmage whining every 2 minutes about how slow it was. I guess HoF'ers are too busy for that. &sigh&
Release this weekend, #FF to all my cubing pals today. Also in the cube was @jakeantonetz (was on my left in the draft). see ya'll next week.
Oooops! Thea informed me that it was actually Avalanche Riders in the match against Drew Levin. Derp.
ReplyDelete