Pack 1 pick 1:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 2:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 3:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 4:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 5:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 6:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 7:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 8:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 9:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 10:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 11:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 12:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 13:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 14:
My Pick:
Pack 1 pick 15:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 1:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 2:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 3:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 4:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 5:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 6:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 7:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 8:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 9:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 10:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 11:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 12:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 13:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 14:
My Pick:
Pack 2 pick 15:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 1:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 2:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 3:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 4:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 5:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 6:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 7:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 8:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 9:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 10:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 11:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 12:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 13:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 14:
My Pick:
Pack 3 pick 15:
My Pick:
This draft converter created by Benjamin Peebles-Mundy.
Visit the draft converter today!
This deck doesn't look like much. I actually felt like it was horrendous. John thought it was an instant 3-0 though.
We all agreed that Geistcatcher's Rig was an easy first pick overall. Second pick, there was one card in each color that stood out to me: victim, gatstaf shepherd, volley, stitched drake and voiceless spirit. Realistically, I'd only consider the shepherd and the volley. I liked that the shepherd was the only green card, but volley has a higher power level, so that's what we agreed to take.
Then, the 3rd pick is the pick that I think sent us in the direction we went. Here you can either take Geistflame since it's strong and on-color, you can take Dagger because it's neutral, or you can take Civilized Scholar, which is (imo anyway) the best card in the pack. I think if I were by myself, the me of drafts #1 through 25 or so would have taken Civilized Scholar, and the me of drafts 26+ would have taken Geistflame. We all sort of agreed that it was better to take Geistflame than anything else, and then the Desperate Ravings 4th pick kind of cemented us.
5th pick was our first major disagreement. I think Village Ironsmith is really bad, and I didn't want to take it 5th overall over Avacyn's Pilgrim. I wanted the pilgrim, because that card is excellent, and almost a reason to go into green when you see it that late. John and Justin both wanted the ironsmith though, because we were pretty likely to play it but not as likely to play pilgrim. In the end I went with ironsmith because, well, I can make my own bad decisions when I'm all by myself and I'd rather use this opportunity to get a fresh perspective.
A few other picks I remember not being unanimous:
P2 P1, Justin wanted Silver-Inlaid Dagger where John and I both wanted the Kessig Wolf. I took the wolf and then felt kinda stupid when we got an Invisible Stalker the very next pick that ended up sitting in the board.
P2 P3, John wanted to take Vampiric Fury since there's a tiny chance we'd play it. I thought that was ridiculous because that card is really bad and almost certain to table if we actually wanted it. I took the Bonds because if worse came to worst we could splash it, but for the most part it was a chop. John says he never cuts in 8 mans, and I cut in them all the time (especially in packs like this where there's just nothing going on for me), so I guess that's just a style difference between John and I.
P2 P4, since we had just taken Bonds, I wanted to take Priest and move into R/W here, since our blue wasn't compelling and it wasn't looking like we'd get a very good U/R deck. I got talked off that cliff when both John and Justin pointed out to me that by taking Priest and moving to R/W, a lot of our existing cards that we were drafting around would be made a lot worse (like burning vengeance and desperate ravings).
P2 P11, the Vampiric Fury that I said would table tabled, and it was very clear that we weren't going to play it, but John wanted it anyway. Justin wanted Ghoulcaller's Bell since we'd be more likely to play that although still unlikely, and I wanted to cut Spare from Evil since it could actually be useful against us and I really doubted that we'd play either of those other cards. We spent so much time arguing about a pick that probably didn't matter at all that it autopicked Vampiric Fury for us.
P3 P6, I wanted the Fortress Crab since our deck was turning into a defensive burning vengeance deck and the drake would be hard to use. Both John and Justin wanted the drake though, so I took it. I'm kind of glad the drake was in our deck because we ended up being light on win conditions.
Anyhow, this deck didn't lose a single game. I went 2-0 twice into a finals split. None of my opponents had any power cards that I couldn't deal with, and they weren't fast enough to beat me before I set up a solid crab defense and vengeanced/murdered them out.
This format keeps throwing me off. To me this deck looks like garbage, but it played way better than it looked. I guess it's a function of not being rushed by darkthicket wolves, since the way my hands usually were, my first few turns were spent playing lands, shaping the grip with alchemy, and then finally start mounting my defense with expensive drops.
I suppose that's the nature of the not-necessarily-obvious strategies like this. If you can escape the curveout rush, or build a deck that can somehow live past it (maybe a deck like this but with multiple silent departures or something), then the power of these cards will eventually take over and you'll win the longer games.
No comments:
Post a Comment