Thanks SO MUCH for the comment phroggie, that means the most to me. I do these videos not because I am some PT pro (which I am obviously not) but because I feel I can help most drafters get a bit better (hope that doesn't come across as arrogant)
It sounds like everyone wants more raredraft comments, so I will be sure to put those in, to the best of my ability :D
I will try do do an NMS (SOM Block) draft in the next episode, but I recommend checking out my youtube page where I have all the videos from all the DWHs (and some drafts I haven't posted here yet)
youtube.com search for user: bigdogarita
Also has some black ops (old) and some classic matches (current)
No char, just no. Pegasus is fine but if that is your best argument i see like a pick 6 or 7 (wtf?) doom blade in draft #3 when I am SOLID UR. Should I have grabbed it, maybe, but I went the consistency route (and it paid off), but a stormfront pegasus tabling is not the end all be all.
It is a great card, and a solid building block in white, being the third best common (behind pacifism and tapper), but yea not enough to jump ship.
Just my 2cents, and the reason why I did not want to hop into an archetype I dislike (I was def playing blue at that point).
Sometimes you have to pass a good white card in pack 1, it happens, it really doesn't matter. You want to be in what is open pack 1, what you pass matters much less.
You receive twice as many cards from the person passing to you at the start of the draft then the person you pass the Serra Angel to, your first pick is largely irrelevant.
Wheeling awesome cards like Stormfront Pegasus is much better than sending the perfect signal for pack 2, which may or may not matter. You can't control if someone is picking up your signal of what is open, case and point this draft. I'm sure the guy who let Stormfront Pegasus wheel thought for sure you would jump into that color.
I kind of like that tier 1 decks are not the ones being used on this website. However, I would like to see how the deck does against them atleast. When I see,
"Combo / Living End / Infect Shoal: Auto-Concede, I guess?
Splinter Twin: sorry, never played against it yet :("
I feel like that is not the best insight. Those decks make up most of what I have played against in tournament. If this deck is for casual play, that is fine. It does look like a lot of fun to play. From what However, getting it from a 4-0 daily list and talking about being hopeful it can do well in constructed point to it not being casual. I'd just like to see how it does against most of the decks people are actually playing in tournaments.
Thanks once again - I always feel like my tactics get a bit tighter for drafting and gameplay after watching your moves.
I'd like to vote for comments in the raredraft as well, I don't usually get a chance to watch the vids but it's very easy to spend 5 mins clicking through that.
On you 2nd lot, I found I was mostly able to guess what your picks were going to be but then on the 3rd bunch I wasn't. Some great boosters there, my game and picks still really struggle when I don't get a deck/colour direction from those big unc/rare bombs - which has been the case in my past 1/2 dozen drafts, but as I've learnt playing games, luck comes and goes!
I'm looking to start drafting SOM soon - any tips there? Just so many cards to learn!
Your information is based on half-truths, sure uw did well in the or, but it was because everyone fell for the green fallacy ;)
I stress color commitment in almost every vid, but you can't commit to white after passing sa unless you open something like Gideon. Just a personal creedo, because I would be fighting in pack 2.
I don't know why a slightly worse but undercosted clone would be better than Serra Angel in draft, but I would take PI over SA on ticket value alone. I disagree on their power level but clone is splashable, I'm not against the pick and take no issue with it.
As far as playing UW, my issue with your draft wasn't your choice to play blue, I would have gone into blue after opening Djinn in pack 2 even if I had first picked Serra Angel. My issue is your choice to play black instead of white.
You ended up with Rune-scarred demon, doom blade, Sengir in P3, but that was not was was open and being passed pack 1, so while it worked, it was lucky. If it had been Oblivion Ring, Pacifism and Lawkeeper instead, your draft would have been a disaster, and that was far more likely.
Jumping into black early with no signal instead of jumping into an obviously open white is where I feel this draft went wrong. Being in an open color, especially one as strong as white, is extremely important. As long as you are in the open color, the other color you are in hardly matters, just take whatever comes, black or blue would have both been fine.
UW fliers did very well at the PT, and is great when it is open, much like BR bloodthirst. This format really rewards color commitment, unlike Scars block where you could hedge your bets with artifacts and wait to see if a bomb was opened in pack 2. This is a format that really wants you to play with your neighbors in a way that was irrelevant in the previous block.
I was closely comparing Gwyned's List and the Featured RW list from Owain, and I think I'm gonna give the 3c version a shot. You really can't go wrong with seagate :D
Where is the best place to find action ? TP Room for testing? Do I simply advertise 'Standard Pauper'?
Thanks for the feedback man, I appreciate you noticing I'm not blindly lucking into random wins :P
I will say I am always open for feedback, but staying in blue and cutting white was ENTIRELY defensible, and I will make my case as follows:
#1 Serra Angel is not the card it was in m11. The community at large seems to think a 5 mana 4/4 flying with vigilance is just bonkers compared to anythingggg. I vehemently disagree with this logic for several reasons, the primary being the sheer amount of things equal in size or bigger. Hell, in this very draft you can see I ended up with 3 creatures with flying as large or larger, FOUR counting the clone I took over Serra (Rune-Scarred, Djinn of Wishes, Sengir).
#2 Phantasmal Image is simply BoNkeRs. Yea it dies to things like lawkeepers, but it also does some of the most ridiculous things around for the cost of 2 mana. in one game I believe I went rune-scarred for phantasmal, image the demon, get doom blade and win. That's one example, but in a worst case scenario it is an aether adept, it works wonderfully with the 22 flying hexmage (for 2 mana??? deal!), copies said Serra, and all kinds of other wonderfulz.
#3 UW in m12 is just not something I am very interested in, outside of sealed. I am not a fan and I believe the power creep from bloodthirst and B/R removal did the *MOST* damage to uw flyers, which was by far the best archetype in m12. I would rather be Blue/Green if you could believe that... I know this because uw flyers was abolutely my favorite m11 archetype, and I tried forcing it many times to only be sorely disappointed.
I promise I will work on better pick explanation, but I also would like for you to watch the draft vids if you have question with the picks :). If I don't explain it next time feel free to flame me to obvlivion!!
In all seriousness, thanks for the post. I feel I have a rather solid grasp on this format, and appreciate anything I can glean from you guys, so keep the debates coming!
apaulogy thanks for the kind words bro, much appreciated. I will go over the specific pick below (the clone duder), but I did *not* just grab it for $$.
I appreciate the backup on when my packs are not amazing too, man :D
Thank you for the kind words, and for acknowledging my nervous tick :(
It is better than the old "zooming land disco" as ThisisMich called it, but I agree it is rather annoying. I need to keep @ it, apologies, it shall get betta!
Thanks for stopping by man, I appreciate the feedback and the knowledge you are gonna check out the vids.
I like the idea of the raredraft comments, but I also must admit doing 3-4 of those on top of the current content might stress me out a bit. Maybe I will try commenting on the picks I think the general public might disagree/have question with.
I think you should post more explanation of your picks as well. In particular, the draft I just clicked through, the UB M12 draft, was, in my opinion, poorly drafted.
I'm not going to get on someone for rare-drafting phantasmal image over Serra Angel. If you were paying attention to what was open, it was obvious by P1P4 white was completely open. You actually wind up with a late garbage pick stormfront pegasus, which should absolutely send you into white.
It doesn't matter that you passed a good white card early, you get two packs from the guy passing to you first, so get into the color that is open, which in this case was white. You do end up opening a sweet bomb in black even though there was no reason to be in that color, but that's not a successful draft, that's blind luck.
For reference, P1P3 Blood Ogre over Stormfront Pegasus and Alabaster Mage is acceptable, although I personally never hop into red that late (People could be taking any of 3 other red commons over Blood Ogre) since it is overdrafted, but it isn't wrong, you haven't seen white or red. The next pack shows you Griffen Sentinel and Stave Off, and you take a Blood Seeker, going into your third color which hasn't shown to be open and is worse than both of the white cards.
Fake Edit - Just realized you had a draft video, you actually realize white is the most open color, so you aren't missing the signals, you just fail to follow them? I'm not sure why you would do that, passing a Serra Angel and maybe losing a few cards in pack 2 is not a big deal. Black is probably the worst color to jump into late, and you do it for a blood seeker when the color does not appear to be open.
I don't mean to come off overly critical, you obviously have some draft skills, you identify the open color very early, you just don't make the right decisions based off of your own observation.
Standard is actually dirt cheap at the moment, at least compared to Alara-Zen standard and beyond. I can't remember the last time decks have been so cheap to assemble, most of the expensive cards like Lotus Cobra are hardly format staples.
I think people incorrectly assumed Modern would be cheap, which was never going to be the case, at least not initially. With the obvious exception of Pauper, the older the cards, the more expensive, so Block will almost always be cheaper than standard, which will be cheaper than Modern, all the way to Legacy.
Modern isn't really accessible at the moment due to rampant speculation and temporary demand due to the Pro Tour, but I hope once things shake out and a few reprints are made, and some banned cards are shifted around, the format stabilizes and we get a non-rotating format that can support a growing player base.
Apparently, the perception is that because we are writing that we are pros with endless Magic income.
Which explains a lot, in terms of the content on the comment threads here.
I like the content that this site provides. The writers are not part of some cabal of esoteric "pro/elites", yet they have good insight, have fun (most important IMO), AND are good at playing this game. That is why I come/write here. Community.
I like your videos, what I don't like is the way you keep moving your mouse back and forth between the enemy's lands. It makes it hard to watch for an extended period of time. I know in the past you said you were trying to work on stopping that. Did you give it up?
Interesting. I was always of the opinion that people wouldn't be interested in articles about tier 1 decks because:
1. the audience is more casual overall
2. For more popular formats, you can probably find articles written by better players (I could write articles about tier 1 std decks that I have, but wouldn't you rather read one by LSV?)
I agree that the Bloodthirst aggro deck may be a good choice moving forward, but Esper Control is so much fun. It just grinds until your opponent is out of cards and the decision trees are insane...
I would recommend that one, Zach.
and, Dave. What can I say that hasn't been said. I think your articles do a great job at looking like what I should be striving for...
Argh!!! So much content to watch and so few spare time.
I promise this time I will watch all of them.
In any case: Gratz!!!
P.s.: I kinda agree on the "more commentary on the picks" argument and I have a suggestion that won't involve you distracting during the draft itself. Raredraft lets you comment every pick, as long as you post the link to it, have you considered the possibility of adding more in-depth comments there?
Will do, but probably I have to wait until the Ravnica Block queues are over since I plan to do one queue a day and that's about all the spare time (and money) I have right now.
Sorry about that but my Magic time is limited by my job :(
Anyway, as I said in the matchup section I don't think I have outs to Shoal. Depending on the meta, I will probably add more burn to the sideboard (probably taking out the outbursts) in case I will find more and more shoal decks.
As for splinter twin I honestly don't know as I have yet to find someone that played it against me. Anyway I watched my fellow countryman (gogo Italy :) ) pilot it at PT Philly and it didn't seem to be THAT fast, if that's the case I think it's possible to outrace it.
Anyway, I can't speak for other people but as for me is that I don't WANT to build tier 1 decks for multiple reasons:
a) I'm not into constructed and don't plan to jump into it. I am a limited player and the amount of money I dump into it is enough for me; yet sometimes I'd like to have fun with something different but I'm not willing to spend much. If I can make a cheap semi-competitive deck, fine, I'll do it, otherwise I'll spend that money to do a couple more drafts.
b) My family is not rich, nor I would expect them to fund me when I'm well and able to find a job and make a living out of it.
c) after I pay the rent, the bills, the food, the clothes and the quote of the loan I made to pay for university, what's left isn't that much.
d) Magic is great, but it's a GAME; I'm not willing to spend more than I already do on it. If I'd spend more I would regret it the moment I need it because my car broke down or I have to pay for something else that I can't do without. Magic I can do without and did in the past.
I think you're a bit (slightly, alas) too pessimistic about the chances of this deck but I mostly agree on your matchup analysis.
Our only hope against combo is to kill them before they combo out. It is possible under the right circumstance, my match against dragonstorm was about to prove it. I almost made it (as in: if I could attack one more turn) with 2 (TWO) mana on the board.
As for post, with a finely tuned SB/MD hate I thing our chances are higher than you said. 4x Tec Edges and 4x Ruinblasters can be a real beating, that said BreachPost will probably laugh at us.
"Why play this deck over a deck that can win? Because this deck is actually fun!"
I TOTALLY agree on that. This deck is fun as hell to play and even when you lose, most of the times you will feel it was a close match anyway and that's an incentive to play more.
seriously, z? i didnt know we were on a 1 letter basis here on pure.
yer besty
G
Thanks SO MUCH for the comment phroggie, that means the most to me. I do these videos not because I am some PT pro (which I am obviously not) but because I feel I can help most drafters get a bit better (hope that doesn't come across as arrogant)
It sounds like everyone wants more raredraft comments, so I will be sure to put those in, to the best of my ability :D
I will try do do an NMS (SOM Block) draft in the next episode, but I recommend checking out my youtube page where I have all the videos from all the DWHs (and some drafts I haven't posted here yet)
youtube.com search for user: bigdogarita
Also has some black ops (old) and some classic matches (current)
Really glad you like it man!
Zach
No char, just no. Pegasus is fine but if that is your best argument i see like a pick 6 or 7 (wtf?) doom blade in draft #3 when I am SOLID UR. Should I have grabbed it, maybe, but I went the consistency route (and it paid off), but a stormfront pegasus tabling is not the end all be all.
It is a great card, and a solid building block in white, being the third best common (behind pacifism and tapper), but yea not enough to jump ship.
Just my 2cents, and the reason why I did not want to hop into an archetype I dislike (I was def playing blue at that point).
Zach
Sometimes you have to pass a good white card in pack 1, it happens, it really doesn't matter. You want to be in what is open pack 1, what you pass matters much less.
You receive twice as many cards from the person passing to you at the start of the draft then the person you pass the Serra Angel to, your first pick is largely irrelevant.
Wheeling awesome cards like Stormfront Pegasus is much better than sending the perfect signal for pack 2, which may or may not matter. You can't control if someone is picking up your signal of what is open, case and point this draft. I'm sure the guy who let Stormfront Pegasus wheel thought for sure you would jump into that color.
I kind of like that tier 1 decks are not the ones being used on this website. However, I would like to see how the deck does against them atleast. When I see,
"Combo / Living End / Infect Shoal: Auto-Concede, I guess?
Splinter Twin: sorry, never played against it yet :("
I feel like that is not the best insight. Those decks make up most of what I have played against in tournament. If this deck is for casual play, that is fine. It does look like a lot of fun to play. From what However, getting it from a 4-0 daily list and talking about being hopeful it can do well in constructed point to it not being casual. I'd just like to see how it does against most of the decks people are actually playing in tournaments.
Thanks once again - I always feel like my tactics get a bit tighter for drafting and gameplay after watching your moves.
I'd like to vote for comments in the raredraft as well, I don't usually get a chance to watch the vids but it's very easy to spend 5 mins clicking through that.
On you 2nd lot, I found I was mostly able to guess what your picks were going to be but then on the 3rd bunch I wasn't. Some great boosters there, my game and picks still really struggle when I don't get a deck/colour direction from those big unc/rare bombs - which has been the case in my past 1/2 dozen drafts, but as I've learnt playing games, luck comes and goes!
I'm looking to start drafting SOM soon - any tips there? Just so many cards to learn!
Your information is based on half-truths, sure uw did well in the or, but it was because everyone fell for the green fallacy ;)
I stress color commitment in almost every vid, but you can't commit to white after passing sa unless you open something like Gideon. Just a personal creedo, because I would be fighting in pack 2.
I would write mor but I'm on my iPhone hehe
Z
I don't know why a slightly worse but undercosted clone would be better than Serra Angel in draft, but I would take PI over SA on ticket value alone. I disagree on their power level but clone is splashable, I'm not against the pick and take no issue with it.
As far as playing UW, my issue with your draft wasn't your choice to play blue, I would have gone into blue after opening Djinn in pack 2 even if I had first picked Serra Angel. My issue is your choice to play black instead of white.
You ended up with Rune-scarred demon, doom blade, Sengir in P3, but that was not was was open and being passed pack 1, so while it worked, it was lucky. If it had been Oblivion Ring, Pacifism and Lawkeeper instead, your draft would have been a disaster, and that was far more likely.
Jumping into black early with no signal instead of jumping into an obviously open white is where I feel this draft went wrong. Being in an open color, especially one as strong as white, is extremely important. As long as you are in the open color, the other color you are in hardly matters, just take whatever comes, black or blue would have both been fine.
UW fliers did very well at the PT, and is great when it is open, much like BR bloodthirst. This format really rewards color commitment, unlike Scars block where you could hedge your bets with artifacts and wait to see if a bomb was opened in pack 2. This is a format that really wants you to play with your neighbors in a way that was irrelevant in the previous block.
I was closely comparing Gwyned's List and the Featured RW list from Owain, and I think I'm gonna give the 3c version a shot. You really can't go wrong with seagate :D
Where is the best place to find action ? TP Room for testing? Do I simply advertise 'Standard Pauper'?
Thanks for any tips guys!
Zach
@char49d
Thanks for the feedback man, I appreciate you noticing I'm not blindly lucking into random wins :P
I will say I am always open for feedback, but staying in blue and cutting white was ENTIRELY defensible, and I will make my case as follows:
#1 Serra Angel is not the card it was in m11. The community at large seems to think a 5 mana 4/4 flying with vigilance is just bonkers compared to anythingggg. I vehemently disagree with this logic for several reasons, the primary being the sheer amount of things equal in size or bigger. Hell, in this very draft you can see I ended up with 3 creatures with flying as large or larger, FOUR counting the clone I took over Serra (Rune-Scarred, Djinn of Wishes, Sengir).
#2 Phantasmal Image is simply BoNkeRs. Yea it dies to things like lawkeepers, but it also does some of the most ridiculous things around for the cost of 2 mana. in one game I believe I went rune-scarred for phantasmal, image the demon, get doom blade and win. That's one example, but in a worst case scenario it is an aether adept, it works wonderfully with the 22 flying hexmage (for 2 mana??? deal!), copies said Serra, and all kinds of other wonderfulz.
#3 UW in m12 is just not something I am very interested in, outside of sealed. I am not a fan and I believe the power creep from bloodthirst and B/R removal did the *MOST* damage to uw flyers, which was by far the best archetype in m12. I would rather be Blue/Green if you could believe that... I know this because uw flyers was abolutely my favorite m11 archetype, and I tried forcing it many times to only be sorely disappointed.
I promise I will work on better pick explanation, but I also would like for you to watch the draft vids if you have question with the picks :). If I don't explain it next time feel free to flame me to obvlivion!!
In all seriousness, thanks for the post. I feel I have a rather solid grasp on this format, and appreciate anything I can glean from you guys, so keep the debates coming!
Best,
Zach
apaulogy thanks for the kind words bro, much appreciated. I will go over the specific pick below (the clone duder), but I did *not* just grab it for $$.
I appreciate the backup on when my packs are not amazing too, man :D
Zach
Qarlo,
Thank you for the kind words, and for acknowledging my nervous tick :(
It is better than the old "zooming land disco" as ThisisMich called it, but I agree it is rather annoying. I need to keep @ it, apologies, it shall get betta!
Zach
Michhhhh!
Thanks for stopping by man, I appreciate the feedback and the knowledge you are gonna check out the vids.
I like the idea of the raredraft comments, but I also must admit doing 3-4 of those on top of the current content might stress me out a bit. Maybe I will try commenting on the picks I think the general public might disagree/have question with.
Zach
*Edit- forgot i was on clan acct :(
I think you should post more explanation of your picks as well. In particular, the draft I just clicked through, the UB M12 draft, was, in my opinion, poorly drafted.
I'm not going to get on someone for rare-drafting phantasmal image over Serra Angel. If you were paying attention to what was open, it was obvious by P1P4 white was completely open. You actually wind up with a late garbage pick stormfront pegasus, which should absolutely send you into white.
It doesn't matter that you passed a good white card early, you get two packs from the guy passing to you first, so get into the color that is open, which in this case was white. You do end up opening a sweet bomb in black even though there was no reason to be in that color, but that's not a successful draft, that's blind luck.
For reference, P1P3 Blood Ogre over Stormfront Pegasus and Alabaster Mage is acceptable, although I personally never hop into red that late (People could be taking any of 3 other red commons over Blood Ogre) since it is overdrafted, but it isn't wrong, you haven't seen white or red. The next pack shows you Griffen Sentinel and Stave Off, and you take a Blood Seeker, going into your third color which hasn't shown to be open and is worse than both of the white cards.
Fake Edit - Just realized you had a draft video, you actually realize white is the most open color, so you aren't missing the signals, you just fail to follow them? I'm not sure why you would do that, passing a Serra Angel and maybe losing a few cards in pack 2 is not a big deal. Black is probably the worst color to jump into late, and you do it for a blood seeker when the color does not appear to be open.
I don't mean to come off overly critical, you obviously have some draft skills, you identify the open color very early, you just don't make the right decisions based off of your own observation.
Standard is actually dirt cheap at the moment, at least compared to Alara-Zen standard and beyond. I can't remember the last time decks have been so cheap to assemble, most of the expensive cards like Lotus Cobra are hardly format staples.
I think people incorrectly assumed Modern would be cheap, which was never going to be the case, at least not initially. With the obvious exception of Pauper, the older the cards, the more expensive, so Block will almost always be cheaper than standard, which will be cheaper than Modern, all the way to Legacy.
Modern isn't really accessible at the moment due to rampant speculation and temporary demand due to the Pro Tour, but I hope once things shake out and a few reprints are made, and some banned cards are shifted around, the format stabilizes and we get a non-rotating format that can support a growing player base.
Apparently, the perception is that because we are writing that we are pros with endless Magic income.
Which explains a lot, in terms of the content on the comment threads here.
I like the content that this site provides. The writers are not part of some cabal of esoteric "pro/elites", yet they have good insight, have fun (most important IMO), AND are good at playing this game. That is why I come/write here. Community.
I thought you were "cherry picking" too, but I realized that you are good and you are pretty lucky with your opens.
That said, I have seen you also do well when your opens aren't as sick.
Your videos have actually helped me with pick orders and in-game play. You have quite a few tricks up your sleeve and are good at anticipatory plays.
Keep it up.
I like your videos, what I don't like is the way you keep moving your mouse back and forth between the enemy's lands. It makes it hard to watch for an extended period of time. I know in the past you said you were trying to work on stopping that. Did you give it up?
Other than that, keep up the good work.
Interesting. I was always of the opinion that people wouldn't be interested in articles about tier 1 decks because:
1. the audience is more casual overall
2. For more popular formats, you can probably find articles written by better players (I could write articles about tier 1 std decks that I have, but wouldn't you rather read one by LSV?)
I agree that the Bloodthirst aggro deck may be a good choice moving forward, but Esper Control is so much fun. It just grinds until your opponent is out of cards and the decision trees are insane...
I would recommend that one, Zach.
and, Dave. What can I say that hasn't been said. I think your articles do a great job at looking like what I should be striving for...
Good report and good work.
Argh!!! So much content to watch and so few spare time.
I promise this time I will watch all of them.
In any case: Gratz!!!
P.s.: I kinda agree on the "more commentary on the picks" argument and I have a suggestion that won't involve you distracting during the draft itself. Raredraft lets you comment every pick, as long as you post the link to it, have you considered the possibility of adding more in-depth comments there?
Just a thought.
Will do, but probably I have to wait until the Ravnica Block queues are over since I plan to do one queue a day and that's about all the spare time (and money) I have right now.
Sorry about that but my Magic time is limited by my job :(
Anyway, as I said in the matchup section I don't think I have outs to Shoal. Depending on the meta, I will probably add more burn to the sideboard (probably taking out the outbursts) in case I will find more and more shoal decks.
As for splinter twin I honestly don't know as I have yet to find someone that played it against me. Anyway I watched my fellow countryman (gogo Italy :) ) pilot it at PT Philly and it didn't seem to be THAT fast, if that's the case I think it's possible to outrace it.
Just my 2c tho.
What has this comment to do with the article?
Anyway, I can't speak for other people but as for me is that I don't WANT to build tier 1 decks for multiple reasons:
a) I'm not into constructed and don't plan to jump into it. I am a limited player and the amount of money I dump into it is enough for me; yet sometimes I'd like to have fun with something different but I'm not willing to spend much. If I can make a cheap semi-competitive deck, fine, I'll do it, otherwise I'll spend that money to do a couple more drafts.
b) My family is not rich, nor I would expect them to fund me when I'm well and able to find a job and make a living out of it.
c) after I pay the rent, the bills, the food, the clothes and the quote of the loan I made to pay for university, what's left isn't that much.
d) Magic is great, but it's a GAME; I'm not willing to spend more than I already do on it. If I'd spend more I would regret it the moment I need it because my car broke down or I have to pay for something else that I can't do without. Magic I can do without and did in the past.
I think you're a bit (slightly, alas) too pessimistic about the chances of this deck but I mostly agree on your matchup analysis.
Our only hope against combo is to kill them before they combo out. It is possible under the right circumstance, my match against dragonstorm was about to prove it. I almost made it (as in: if I could attack one more turn) with 2 (TWO) mana on the board.
As for post, with a finely tuned SB/MD hate I thing our chances are higher than you said. 4x Tec Edges and 4x Ruinblasters can be a real beating, that said BreachPost will probably laugh at us.
"Why play this deck over a deck that can win? Because this deck is actually fun!"
I TOTALLY agree on that. This deck is fun as hell to play and even when you lose, most of the times you will feel it was a close match anyway and that's an incentive to play more.
Also, don't forget it's CHEAP as hell too ;)
Why is it the majority of writers on this site can't afford to build tier 1 decks?