Post by SwartDawgMillionaire on Aug 8, 2014 12:47:07 GMT -6
I spent a good deal of time in last week’s tournament report reflecting on why it’s important to read reports. One of the takeaways for me has always been that reading about pressure situations from someone else’s perspective helps you grow as a player. You get to go through their thinking and processing, understand why they made the choices they did, and hopefully reflect a little bit on how that can affect or influence your own play in the future. Would you make a similar choice in the same situation? Most importantly, WHY do you agree or disagree with the writer’s play?
Today, I’ll bring up another side of writing reports: growth from the writer. A long time ago, I read an article on education theories that found when a student has to engage in an argument (discourse) with another student, the simple act of articulating an idea increases proficiency with the concept. To take that out of educational parlance, the more you have to tell someone about your concepts, the less conceptual they become. You make rather ethereal options (“What would happen if…”) and make them concrete (“I did… and … happened”).
As I was writing last week, I realized that I played pretty badly in some games. I threw away cards when I didn’t need to, I took damage that I didn’t need to, and I won anyway. Does that make me a good player or a good deckbuilder?
Really, it has no bearing on my abilities as a deckbuilder. All sorts of things can happen to make me win a game of Magical Cards. It doesn’t make my opponents bad players, and it doesn’t necessarily make me a good player. When you account for variance over time, if I keep winning, that might indicate that I’m a good player, but I can be a mediocre player and make mistakes that I shouldn’t, and still win matches.
Mike Flores wrote that mistakes that don’t cost you games are the worst kinds of mistakes because you won’t learn from them. I hope that’s not the case, because I’ve been thinking about some of them and how I can play better in the future, but there has to be a degree of truth there. It doesn’t take a graduate degree in Psychology to know that if you don’t have negative consequences (a game or match loss, for example) for making a bad play, you’re less likely to learn from it (or even notice it, probably). It’s part of the nature of being human.
This week wound up being a learning experience for me.
I was very excited to draft this week, which is usually not a good sign for me. I tend to play my best when I’m relaxed, and don’t even know that I want to play Magic until I sit down. When I spend time thinking about how great of a draft I want to have, I’m inevitably disappointed and wind up putting myself on tilt before I even start playing.
Nevertheless, there I was, excited for the draft, and wanting to force Red. After playing my Red/Blue tempo deck last week, I’d decided that Red was really strong, and I wanted to find myself in that color again somehow. I decided that if I could, I would be Red and Blue again, because Blue gives access to good fliers and tempo cards like Void Snare, which people don’t seem to value very much. I didn’t want to be Red/Green, but would be open to it if it came around.
What strikes me as strong about Red in M15 draft is that it can function without its premier common: Lightning Strike. This is the second week in a row that I’ve played a Red deck without that card and finished well anyway. The same can’t be said for White decks without Triplicate Spirits, Green decks without Elvish Mystic, Blue decks without Welkin Tern, or Black decks without… whatever commons make black good.
The Draft
I started out by opening a very underwhelming pack. This seems to be the story of my drafting career at Mead Hall. There wasn’t anything that grabbed me, so I took the rare, a Perilous Vault. I figured it was an artifact, so that would keep my options open, and if I ended up with the aggressive deck that I wanted, at least I wouldn’t have to play against it.
My second pick showed me some lackluster commons and uncommons, the best of which was a Flesh to Dust. As a note: I don’t really like M15 Black cards. As I mentioned above, part of the reason for that is there is no really strong black common that can make a deck is you get 3 or so of them. Flesh to Dust is probably the best black common, but it costs 5. Sure, it can take down just about anything in the format, but it’s still a 1-for-1 removal spell that costs 5. You’re going to feel really bad when you have to point that at a Welkin Tern to stop the bleeding from flyers.
I took it anyhow.
At this point, I’m thinking a Blue/Black control deck might be in the works. If I see some Jorubai Murk-Lurkers, that would push me in that direction.
Pick three shows me… Kird Chieftain. I really like the allied-color uncommon guys that get buffed when you have their second color (as you might remember from my report last week). I might place too high a value on them, but seeing one here was a strong signal to me that Red was open for this pack. I knew that I hadn’t seen any good Red yet, so the drafters on my left weren’t getting any Red signals. I happily took the Kird Chieftan.
The rest of the pack filled out with strong red cards, and I saw some late Elvish Mystics, which told me that Green might be a decent secondary color, given that I think Elvish Mystic is worth a early-mid pick (in the 4-6 range, and these were around 10-11).
I opened pack two to find the best thing I could ask for: an on-color Planeswalker. There was Chandra, staring me right in my smiling mug. I didn’t windmill slam her, but I did whistle a little bit as I slowly slid her into my picks stack.
My second pick was a tough one, and I agonized over it for a while. I was faced with the choice between the Red paragon, which would make all the janky weenie Red guys I was picking up pretty incredible, or a Nightfire Giant. To me, Nightfire Giant is probably the best Black uncommon in the set (and he isn’t even really black). I already had the Flesh to Dust, so I could shift into Black and Red instead of Green and Red. I could also keep a slight splash for both Green and Black (getting value on the Kird Chieftain and also Nightfire Giant, but I didn’t have any Evolving Wilds yet, so I was skeptical of the manabase questions that would present.
I took the Red paragon, which I’m still unsure of, considering that the next pick I took was an Evolving Wilds.
I did not see a Cone of Flame or Stoke the Flames in this pack at all, which was sad. After thinking about what I’d seen in pack one, I (correctly) put the guy on my right in Blue, so I sent him a bunch of good Blue stuff. I mentioned to him that I would put his pick second from the top for a few picks in a row, and after two or three he just shrugged at me.
“Good reads,” is all he said.
Pack Three didn’t give me a Planeswalker, but I did get to flesh out my deck a bit more. I got a lot of solid Red attackers, but didn’t get a single Krenko’s Enforcer (which I’ve fantasized about pairing with an Inferno Fist and going to town). This is roughly the list I played:
2 Foundry Street Denizen
2 Forge Devil
1 Hammerhand
1 Crowd’s Favor
1 Frenzied Goblin
1 Bronze Sable
2 Borderland Marauder
1 Inferno Fist
2 Generator Servant
1 Sacred Armory
1 Gargoyle Sentinel
2 Goblin Roughriders
1 Chandra, Pyromancer
1 Kird Chieftain
1 Paragon of Fierce Defiance
2 Scrapyard Mongrel
1 Lava Axe
1 Evolving Wilds
3 Forest
12 Mountains
Yes, Virginia. That’s a mono-red beatdown deck. Dave Price would be so proud. You’ll also notice that the deck would have had very little trouble supporting the Nightfire Giant, but there’s also something to be said for valuing consistency instead of unknowns. Meh, you tell me if it was good or not.
Round 1
Melvin with Jund Midrange
Melvin, who was sitting like 4 spots away from me, got the Nightfire Giant. That should tell you about how interested in Black the table was. I’m leery of his manabase, but he’s got strong creatures as long as he can execute his initial plan (which is NOT die to a consistent beatdown strategy).
He fails. There’s very little to say about these games other than he stumbles on mana a few times, missing a third color when it matters, or not having a fifth land. I, on the other hand, don’t really have any other colors, so I just keep showing guys at him, not letting him block with Hammerhands and Frenzied Goblin, and then Lava Axeing him to death for the last 4 point on turn 5.
The second game went very similarly to the first, except there was no Lava Axe, so I had to kill him on turn 6 instead. Sigh.
We play a few more games for fun and he cobbles together his mana base in time to start nuking my guys with Nightfire Giant and I lose. In my defense, I had played half the lands in my deck by turn 8.
Round 2
Tamir with Necromancer’s Stockpile Reanimator Crap
This is where the wheels somewhat came off. From the beginning of the match, this guy was a bit of a rules lawyer, working around triggers from Frenzied Goblin using Necromancer’s Stockpile. Now, this is fine, but he would talk a bunch, and then do something against the rules, like using the Stockpile when he was tapped out.
He pitched a bunch of creatures to Necromancer’s Stockpile, one of which was a Resolute Archangel. Cue foreshadowing.
I very comfortably beat him down to 3 life, and on his next turn he convoked out a Endless Obedience on the Resolute Archangel, resetting his life to 20. I killed it with a good Crowd’s Favor on Scrapyard Mongrel and kept attacking, though I was pretty annoyed at this point. How the hell much damage am I going to have to do?
The beats go on, and I have a Gargoyle Sentinel, Frenzied Goblin, and a Forge Devil around. I’m tapping 4 each turn to activate the Gargoyle and use Frenzied Goblin’s ability to get my guys through. It’s not pretty, but he hasn’t started seriously racing me so it’s working.
“Attackers,” I say, going to activate the Gargoyle. He says that I can’t do that. I give him my best “What are you talking about, Willis?” look, but he says that I’ve already gone into my declare attackers step and can’t activate the Gargoyle. I stare.
“Judge!” I call. I figure this will be sorted out quickly. The judge comes over and tells Tamir that it sounds like I was going to activate the Gargoyle and there was just a miscommunication. Tamir keeps up protesting, saying that if the attack goes through he loses. Personally, I think this is fine, because the pile of cards he’s put together hasn’t been able to damage me in about twenty turns, and it would be okay if he just lost this game and went on to sideboarding. Additionally,I’ve dealt him nearly 40 damage this game with relative ease. This apparently has little to do with the judge’s decision. He says I can’t attack with the Gargoyle, so I just hit Tamir for 2, knocking him to 1.
He untaps and uses Blood Host to gain some life, going up to 5. We attack back and forth for a bit with him gaining just enough life from Zombie tokens (off of the Stockpile, which are now 4/4’s due to Obelisk of Urd) being sacrificed to the Blood Host and Tireless Missionaries gaining life. I draw 4 Mountains in a row, but continue beating, pretending to think about plays I could make while holding the lands in my hand.
I knock him to 1 when I’m at 5, and go to play the Goblin Roughrider that I finally drew. This can block his last creature (a 5/5 Blood Host), and then I can attack for the win the next turn. Instead, I look at the 4 lands in my hand, and the 5 in play, 4 of which are tapped to use the Gargoyle’s ability along with Frenzied Goblin. I can’t play 2 lands in a turn, so the Roughrider sticks in my hand, and I lose the next turn.
If I’d been paying better attention, I could have known that I needed lands to draw out of this predicament, for either a blocker, a Lava Axe, or a Chandra. I could have been playing lands instead of bluffing action I didn’t have. Tamir had already shown me that he would play into a combat trick when he used his Resolute Archangel to block my Scrapyard Mongrel, so having a “bluff” combat trick wasn’t going to influence his play much at all.
Additionally, I could have not attacked with my Forge Devil. Since an attack from the Gargoyle the next turn could have been enough to kill Tamir, I didn’t need the extra damage, and if I’d thought through my turn a bit better, I would have know I couldn’t cast the Roughrider.
Instead, I lost the game. I could have won with any of three different actions (not failing to activate the Gargoyle on my main phase, not playing the lands, not leaving a blocker back to alpha strike for the win the next turn), but because I let myself get on tilt from the first mistake, I allowed them to compound.
The next game I won on turn 4. Really.
Game three was my opportunity for redemption. I opened a hand with two mountains, a Borderland Marauder, and an Inferno Fist. I also had a Kird Chieftain and a Chandra in there, along with something else that cost more than 2. It seemed like an easy keep.
By turn 5, I had my two mountains in play, along with my Borderland Marauder and an Inferno Fist enchanting it (along with Tamir’s Crippling Blight). I had knocked Tamir to 10, but he was able to beat my down with a Carrion Crow and Typhoid Rats. I had to blow the Inferno Fist on an Accursed Spirit to buy a turn of not dying.
That was a really rough match. I feel like I had a better deck than my opponent, and outplayed him game one, which was really the only game that was a game at all. I dealt him over 40 damage and still managed to lose, which is saying something. What’s worse, is I knew I’d lost it for myself as soon as I made the mistakes. Live and learn, I hope.
Match 3
Matt with R/W Auras
Matt has been (very audibly) complaining about how he either gets manascrewed or manaflooded. I’ve watched some of his games, and he seems to do okay on lands, but always wants to have double colored for some red spell when all he has is one mountain and four plains or something like that. My instinct is to play fewer spells with double color requirements in their casting cost, but I can tell that he isn’t looking for constructive criticism, just wants to bitch a bit. That was fine with me.
Game one isn’t a game. It’s the first time that I see Chandra in play all night, and she goes the distance, forcing attackers through. Matt complains about not getting enough lands. We both have 5 in play by the end. Not saying, just saying.
Game two Chandra makes an encore appearance, but dies to a Sungrace Pegasus with Inferno Fist attack. Matt has a crap load of auras, and I’m able to get some good trades by bolting his aura targets. Finally, he is at 11, and I can crackback for just lethal with Paragon giving a Roughriders haste and a Frenzied Goblin invalidating a blocker.
Matt shows me the Stoke the Flames in his hand, for which he only has the single mountain in play. I can’t help but agree with him, but inside I’m thinking that my deck could have cast that, if he wanted to not play it.
In all, I got two free packs of Theros, which gave me a free Planeswalker in addition to the Chandra I had already opened.
Something I relearned this week is that matches are rarely decided by what your opponent is playing when you are the Red mage. You only want to beat your opponent’s mediocre draws. You should be fast enough to beat their bad draws, and you can lose to a god draw. It happens. But if you’re consistent, which aggro decks need to be, you should be able to beat them when they take an extra turn to cobble together a manabase. Red decks can get away with playing shit like Foundry Street Denizen because it’s fast enough to punish an opponent for playing with too many colors. And, as I told my brother: “Who blocks Foundry Street Denizen?” If I think about it, that one drop probably dealt like 5-6 damage over the course of a game. That’s pretty good, given the investment into it.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you got something out of it. See you all tonight at Dale’s.
Today, I’ll bring up another side of writing reports: growth from the writer. A long time ago, I read an article on education theories that found when a student has to engage in an argument (discourse) with another student, the simple act of articulating an idea increases proficiency with the concept. To take that out of educational parlance, the more you have to tell someone about your concepts, the less conceptual they become. You make rather ethereal options (“What would happen if…”) and make them concrete (“I did… and … happened”).
As I was writing last week, I realized that I played pretty badly in some games. I threw away cards when I didn’t need to, I took damage that I didn’t need to, and I won anyway. Does that make me a good player or a good deckbuilder?
Really, it has no bearing on my abilities as a deckbuilder. All sorts of things can happen to make me win a game of Magical Cards. It doesn’t make my opponents bad players, and it doesn’t necessarily make me a good player. When you account for variance over time, if I keep winning, that might indicate that I’m a good player, but I can be a mediocre player and make mistakes that I shouldn’t, and still win matches.
Mike Flores wrote that mistakes that don’t cost you games are the worst kinds of mistakes because you won’t learn from them. I hope that’s not the case, because I’ve been thinking about some of them and how I can play better in the future, but there has to be a degree of truth there. It doesn’t take a graduate degree in Psychology to know that if you don’t have negative consequences (a game or match loss, for example) for making a bad play, you’re less likely to learn from it (or even notice it, probably). It’s part of the nature of being human.
This week wound up being a learning experience for me.
I was very excited to draft this week, which is usually not a good sign for me. I tend to play my best when I’m relaxed, and don’t even know that I want to play Magic until I sit down. When I spend time thinking about how great of a draft I want to have, I’m inevitably disappointed and wind up putting myself on tilt before I even start playing.
Nevertheless, there I was, excited for the draft, and wanting to force Red. After playing my Red/Blue tempo deck last week, I’d decided that Red was really strong, and I wanted to find myself in that color again somehow. I decided that if I could, I would be Red and Blue again, because Blue gives access to good fliers and tempo cards like Void Snare, which people don’t seem to value very much. I didn’t want to be Red/Green, but would be open to it if it came around.
What strikes me as strong about Red in M15 draft is that it can function without its premier common: Lightning Strike. This is the second week in a row that I’ve played a Red deck without that card and finished well anyway. The same can’t be said for White decks without Triplicate Spirits, Green decks without Elvish Mystic, Blue decks without Welkin Tern, or Black decks without… whatever commons make black good.
The Draft
I started out by opening a very underwhelming pack. This seems to be the story of my drafting career at Mead Hall. There wasn’t anything that grabbed me, so I took the rare, a Perilous Vault. I figured it was an artifact, so that would keep my options open, and if I ended up with the aggressive deck that I wanted, at least I wouldn’t have to play against it.
My second pick showed me some lackluster commons and uncommons, the best of which was a Flesh to Dust. As a note: I don’t really like M15 Black cards. As I mentioned above, part of the reason for that is there is no really strong black common that can make a deck is you get 3 or so of them. Flesh to Dust is probably the best black common, but it costs 5. Sure, it can take down just about anything in the format, but it’s still a 1-for-1 removal spell that costs 5. You’re going to feel really bad when you have to point that at a Welkin Tern to stop the bleeding from flyers.
I took it anyhow.
At this point, I’m thinking a Blue/Black control deck might be in the works. If I see some Jorubai Murk-Lurkers, that would push me in that direction.
Pick three shows me… Kird Chieftain. I really like the allied-color uncommon guys that get buffed when you have their second color (as you might remember from my report last week). I might place too high a value on them, but seeing one here was a strong signal to me that Red was open for this pack. I knew that I hadn’t seen any good Red yet, so the drafters on my left weren’t getting any Red signals. I happily took the Kird Chieftan.
The rest of the pack filled out with strong red cards, and I saw some late Elvish Mystics, which told me that Green might be a decent secondary color, given that I think Elvish Mystic is worth a early-mid pick (in the 4-6 range, and these were around 10-11).
I opened pack two to find the best thing I could ask for: an on-color Planeswalker. There was Chandra, staring me right in my smiling mug. I didn’t windmill slam her, but I did whistle a little bit as I slowly slid her into my picks stack.
My second pick was a tough one, and I agonized over it for a while. I was faced with the choice between the Red paragon, which would make all the janky weenie Red guys I was picking up pretty incredible, or a Nightfire Giant. To me, Nightfire Giant is probably the best Black uncommon in the set (and he isn’t even really black). I already had the Flesh to Dust, so I could shift into Black and Red instead of Green and Red. I could also keep a slight splash for both Green and Black (getting value on the Kird Chieftain and also Nightfire Giant, but I didn’t have any Evolving Wilds yet, so I was skeptical of the manabase questions that would present.
I took the Red paragon, which I’m still unsure of, considering that the next pick I took was an Evolving Wilds.
I did not see a Cone of Flame or Stoke the Flames in this pack at all, which was sad. After thinking about what I’d seen in pack one, I (correctly) put the guy on my right in Blue, so I sent him a bunch of good Blue stuff. I mentioned to him that I would put his pick second from the top for a few picks in a row, and after two or three he just shrugged at me.
“Good reads,” is all he said.
Pack Three didn’t give me a Planeswalker, but I did get to flesh out my deck a bit more. I got a lot of solid Red attackers, but didn’t get a single Krenko’s Enforcer (which I’ve fantasized about pairing with an Inferno Fist and going to town). This is roughly the list I played:
2 Foundry Street Denizen
2 Forge Devil
1 Hammerhand
1 Crowd’s Favor
1 Frenzied Goblin
1 Bronze Sable
2 Borderland Marauder
1 Inferno Fist
2 Generator Servant
1 Sacred Armory
1 Gargoyle Sentinel
2 Goblin Roughriders
1 Chandra, Pyromancer
1 Kird Chieftain
1 Paragon of Fierce Defiance
2 Scrapyard Mongrel
1 Lava Axe
1 Evolving Wilds
3 Forest
12 Mountains
Yes, Virginia. That’s a mono-red beatdown deck. Dave Price would be so proud. You’ll also notice that the deck would have had very little trouble supporting the Nightfire Giant, but there’s also something to be said for valuing consistency instead of unknowns. Meh, you tell me if it was good or not.
Round 1
Melvin with Jund Midrange
Melvin, who was sitting like 4 spots away from me, got the Nightfire Giant. That should tell you about how interested in Black the table was. I’m leery of his manabase, but he’s got strong creatures as long as he can execute his initial plan (which is NOT die to a consistent beatdown strategy).
He fails. There’s very little to say about these games other than he stumbles on mana a few times, missing a third color when it matters, or not having a fifth land. I, on the other hand, don’t really have any other colors, so I just keep showing guys at him, not letting him block with Hammerhands and Frenzied Goblin, and then Lava Axeing him to death for the last 4 point on turn 5.
The second game went very similarly to the first, except there was no Lava Axe, so I had to kill him on turn 6 instead. Sigh.
We play a few more games for fun and he cobbles together his mana base in time to start nuking my guys with Nightfire Giant and I lose. In my defense, I had played half the lands in my deck by turn 8.
Round 2
Tamir with Necromancer’s Stockpile Reanimator Crap
This is where the wheels somewhat came off. From the beginning of the match, this guy was a bit of a rules lawyer, working around triggers from Frenzied Goblin using Necromancer’s Stockpile. Now, this is fine, but he would talk a bunch, and then do something against the rules, like using the Stockpile when he was tapped out.
He pitched a bunch of creatures to Necromancer’s Stockpile, one of which was a Resolute Archangel. Cue foreshadowing.
I very comfortably beat him down to 3 life, and on his next turn he convoked out a Endless Obedience on the Resolute Archangel, resetting his life to 20. I killed it with a good Crowd’s Favor on Scrapyard Mongrel and kept attacking, though I was pretty annoyed at this point. How the hell much damage am I going to have to do?
The beats go on, and I have a Gargoyle Sentinel, Frenzied Goblin, and a Forge Devil around. I’m tapping 4 each turn to activate the Gargoyle and use Frenzied Goblin’s ability to get my guys through. It’s not pretty, but he hasn’t started seriously racing me so it’s working.
“Attackers,” I say, going to activate the Gargoyle. He says that I can’t do that. I give him my best “What are you talking about, Willis?” look, but he says that I’ve already gone into my declare attackers step and can’t activate the Gargoyle. I stare.
“Judge!” I call. I figure this will be sorted out quickly. The judge comes over and tells Tamir that it sounds like I was going to activate the Gargoyle and there was just a miscommunication. Tamir keeps up protesting, saying that if the attack goes through he loses. Personally, I think this is fine, because the pile of cards he’s put together hasn’t been able to damage me in about twenty turns, and it would be okay if he just lost this game and went on to sideboarding. Additionally,I’ve dealt him nearly 40 damage this game with relative ease. This apparently has little to do with the judge’s decision. He says I can’t attack with the Gargoyle, so I just hit Tamir for 2, knocking him to 1.
He untaps and uses Blood Host to gain some life, going up to 5. We attack back and forth for a bit with him gaining just enough life from Zombie tokens (off of the Stockpile, which are now 4/4’s due to Obelisk of Urd) being sacrificed to the Blood Host and Tireless Missionaries gaining life. I draw 4 Mountains in a row, but continue beating, pretending to think about plays I could make while holding the lands in my hand.
I knock him to 1 when I’m at 5, and go to play the Goblin Roughrider that I finally drew. This can block his last creature (a 5/5 Blood Host), and then I can attack for the win the next turn. Instead, I look at the 4 lands in my hand, and the 5 in play, 4 of which are tapped to use the Gargoyle’s ability along with Frenzied Goblin. I can’t play 2 lands in a turn, so the Roughrider sticks in my hand, and I lose the next turn.
If I’d been paying better attention, I could have known that I needed lands to draw out of this predicament, for either a blocker, a Lava Axe, or a Chandra. I could have been playing lands instead of bluffing action I didn’t have. Tamir had already shown me that he would play into a combat trick when he used his Resolute Archangel to block my Scrapyard Mongrel, so having a “bluff” combat trick wasn’t going to influence his play much at all.
Additionally, I could have not attacked with my Forge Devil. Since an attack from the Gargoyle the next turn could have been enough to kill Tamir, I didn’t need the extra damage, and if I’d thought through my turn a bit better, I would have know I couldn’t cast the Roughrider.
Instead, I lost the game. I could have won with any of three different actions (not failing to activate the Gargoyle on my main phase, not playing the lands, not leaving a blocker back to alpha strike for the win the next turn), but because I let myself get on tilt from the first mistake, I allowed them to compound.
The next game I won on turn 4. Really.
Game three was my opportunity for redemption. I opened a hand with two mountains, a Borderland Marauder, and an Inferno Fist. I also had a Kird Chieftain and a Chandra in there, along with something else that cost more than 2. It seemed like an easy keep.
By turn 5, I had my two mountains in play, along with my Borderland Marauder and an Inferno Fist enchanting it (along with Tamir’s Crippling Blight). I had knocked Tamir to 10, but he was able to beat my down with a Carrion Crow and Typhoid Rats. I had to blow the Inferno Fist on an Accursed Spirit to buy a turn of not dying.
That was a really rough match. I feel like I had a better deck than my opponent, and outplayed him game one, which was really the only game that was a game at all. I dealt him over 40 damage and still managed to lose, which is saying something. What’s worse, is I knew I’d lost it for myself as soon as I made the mistakes. Live and learn, I hope.
Match 3
Matt with R/W Auras
Matt has been (very audibly) complaining about how he either gets manascrewed or manaflooded. I’ve watched some of his games, and he seems to do okay on lands, but always wants to have double colored for some red spell when all he has is one mountain and four plains or something like that. My instinct is to play fewer spells with double color requirements in their casting cost, but I can tell that he isn’t looking for constructive criticism, just wants to bitch a bit. That was fine with me.
Game one isn’t a game. It’s the first time that I see Chandra in play all night, and she goes the distance, forcing attackers through. Matt complains about not getting enough lands. We both have 5 in play by the end. Not saying, just saying.
Game two Chandra makes an encore appearance, but dies to a Sungrace Pegasus with Inferno Fist attack. Matt has a crap load of auras, and I’m able to get some good trades by bolting his aura targets. Finally, he is at 11, and I can crackback for just lethal with Paragon giving a Roughriders haste and a Frenzied Goblin invalidating a blocker.
Matt shows me the Stoke the Flames in his hand, for which he only has the single mountain in play. I can’t help but agree with him, but inside I’m thinking that my deck could have cast that, if he wanted to not play it.
In all, I got two free packs of Theros, which gave me a free Planeswalker in addition to the Chandra I had already opened.
Something I relearned this week is that matches are rarely decided by what your opponent is playing when you are the Red mage. You only want to beat your opponent’s mediocre draws. You should be fast enough to beat their bad draws, and you can lose to a god draw. It happens. But if you’re consistent, which aggro decks need to be, you should be able to beat them when they take an extra turn to cobble together a manabase. Red decks can get away with playing shit like Foundry Street Denizen because it’s fast enough to punish an opponent for playing with too many colors. And, as I told my brother: “Who blocks Foundry Street Denizen?” If I think about it, that one drop probably dealt like 5-6 damage over the course of a game. That’s pretty good, given the investment into it.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you got something out of it. See you all tonight at Dale’s.