I would have gone with white-red. P1P1 you not only have Day of Judgement, but also it's the only white card, which starts the ball rolling for effectively cutting off that color. P1P5 still has an Infantry Veteran, so it seems relatively open. P2P1 gives you a sweet Pacifism.
My worry with your pick one is that you don't cut the colour off, making it possible your pack 2s will have slimmer black pickings.
I'd:
Pack 1: Day of Judgment, Pyroclasm, Ember Hauler, Canyon Minotaur, Infantry Veteran, Excommunicate or Chandra's Spitfire, Reassembling Skeleton (nothing good in our colours, so counter-draft), Berserker, Canyon Minotaur . . . and the rest is jank.
Still, that's 5 playable creatures, two board sweepers, and then the potential Excommunicate. Then Pack 2 Pacifism... not a bad start. Beyond that we can't guess what would be passed to you had the first pack picks been different. Then again, I suck too. XD
I would've picked Liliana's Specter over Water Servant sticking with my first pick Assassinate (I agree with you on this pick) which would've significantly changed the draft, imo. Specter, no doubt, forced someone to your left to move into black whereas passing the underwhelming Water Servants may have brought more good black around the table to you. I would probably have ended up with a pretty good GB build b/c passing Packleader and Giant Spiders isn't my thing. lol.. better luck in the future.
After missing season 2 because of getting married (after the wedding on Friday I'll finally have time to play Magic again) I'm looking forward to season 3. Season 1 was a blast. Plus I'm glad I'll be able to use the packs from the Community Cup!
Yeah, it really is full of mistakes. I need to calm down and really assess the situation better. Regarding the movies, I'm actually writing up a detailed how-to guide for recording, narrating, encoding and uploading movies! Also, next time I'll upload the actual draft for reference, I may have forgot to turn on the draft recorder -.-!
My first try at this, and I got a very good pool, or did I?
Inferno Titan
Magma Phoenix
Ancient Hellkite wtf? 3 red bomb creatures?
Fire servant...
chandra's outrage
Obstiante Baloth?
2 x yavimaya wurm?
acidic slime?
hmm, I see a pattern here.. about everything costs 5+
Lucky me, a pyroclasm... let's find some low curve creatures.... hmm I have none,, except goblin ballon brigade and a sylvan ranger.
Let's check other colors.. white has nothing, really nothing... 2 playable cards and 3 safe passages, no removal. Blue has fine cards, but they are jace inguinity, sleep, azure draje, harbor serpent, more fatties. Black has 2 gravediggers and more 5+ drops, and 2 black knights. No cheap removal though.
Green - Red it will be.
maindeck plummet and naturalize and random grey ogres to try simulate somewhat of a curve. And 14 lands + cultivate.
It works so far, I am only afraid of a deck with like 2 doom blades and 2x mind rot...
It's true that mind control is just dumb but I don't think that with all your white flyers that the blue ones are an overwhelming argument, with sign in blood there as a cheaper draw spell its not a perfect replacement but blunts that trade a bit.
My wife is about four weeks away from having our kid herself. When looking for the house make sure you check everything really well, check for termites, check the plumbing, electrical, structure, air conditioning and heating system, water heater, what are they leaving, what are they taking, mold, water damage, fire damage, asbestos, fleas, cockroaches, neighbors, neighborhood, school district, property tax rates, parking, insulation, local construction projects/businesses(eg highway construction/hazardous polluters nearby) and of course get a fixed rate on your mortgage and don't let anyone rush you.
Anyhow, good luck with all these things, you'll need it =P
I think if I'm wanting to go aggro I'm just not playing three colors unless the third is to splash a bomb like fireball or something. There have been few times when I've thought piker was good enough for a particular build and those occasions for me have only been with the goblin lord in the deck and running almost mono red. In three color decks I'm looking for cards that can advance my position whether I'm on defense or offense and both lava axe and piker mostly only serve offense. When you think of how many creatures piker trades well with vs trades badly with that people put in their decks it just seems like bad odds of advancing your chances of winning when you drop him. (land fetchers, augury owl, gravedigger, any 3 toughness guy, pinging, ect vs like a couple of decent trades like barony vamp and garruk's companion)
I'd have used Acidic Slime in all sorts of ways he didn't! Two games Westy could have completely locked his opponent out of their second color (in one case with gravedigger recursion backup). Not killing the Juggy is a common misread of the card, since we just assume it says "noncreature permanent".
It is certianly too slow and inconsistent. Probably too cute, maybe it needs more counterspells with some GY removal in the board to stop dredge, though I've only really seen the dredge deck a couple of times at events.
Nice article!!! Even though I saw your card list on the league card pool post I didn't realize how similar our decks were. We both had the BSA, a Serra and the Stormtide Leviathan (which I never sided in because I thought it was too slow but maybe I was wrong) among other things. Too bad I was so flooded in game 2, I think I could have put up quite a fight.
That Armored Ascension was a powerhouse, I don't think I could have won anyway; I didn't discourage though after my first loss and came in 4th in the end.
I had lots of fun as well, see you in the Coalition League Season 3 :)
Good work! I'm glad somebody had fun with this league. I opened 7 packs and netted a Johnny's dream of bad rares and not a single Mythic. The only games I won were where I could pull off a Traumatize/Rise from the Grave on some other guys bomb.
I only played 3 matches the first week and won them all, the main reason was because I drew BSA in almost all the games and cloaked it a couple times. My white was bad except for BSA and I kind of forced it in, I actually ended up ditching white in week 4 becuase it was so shallow. Glad to see that I actually beat the winner, although you did have a stronger deck.
I had a lot of fun in the league even though I did not get to play all the matches. I have only been playing Magic for about 8 months now and I learned a lot about limited gameplay and hopefully will be able to use that knowledge with the scars prerelease. I plan on doing season 3 and will doubtlessly run all scars packs.
I encourage everyone to join even if you are a noob becuase you never know, you might beat bliven731 :)
I was also going to say that you undervalued the Giant Spiders. You also seem to undervalue the Nightwing Shade although it isn't that great in a 3-color deck. I'm kinda with you on Wrath of God. I have never passed one, but then again, I have yet to get one to go off let alone win me a game. That being said, it has to be the card to take in P1P1 because it is legit and it leaves the player downfield with no white.
It is difficult in the video format, for me to be more specific without taking notes. Nobody has made a comment that the Acidic Slime kills Juggernaut. That was your play instead of trade the Water Servant and assassinate the Clound Elemental.
What did you use to capture the video? I'd like to try it myself.
"It seems like the overall power level of the creatures in Scars is down from M2011, Zendikar block, and Alara block. "
I would agree with you about that. Anyway, I observed that almost all biggest creatures in the set were released as the last part of the block (ie bloodbraid => reborn, zen => RoE), and it was also almost the same logic in mirrodin 1.0 (as creatures from darksteel were mostly > to mirrodin). So I would wait for next releases before concluding that this tendance is verified.
Well I'm glad you liked it :D. Yes, I'll actually be posting more and more of these, at least until I get a decent constructed deck together again. This is the kind of criticism I'm looking for, and the reason I'll keep making these videos.
I'm very happy to see some draft that wasn't just a perfect one. I think you can learn much more from this kind of drafts. Let's begin with the technical issue - joining the draft and deck building from 4 videos to 2 would make it easier to watch. You also seem to almost totally not use the sort by converted mana cost. Is it because you don't look at mana curve, or you just see it in color sorted columns?
As for the draft you seem to totally ignore the green is soooo open signal. Giant Spiders are like third or fourth best common in green probably (if not higher). The other thing you should watch out (like you said during some game) is the goal of the deck. You seem to randomly pick the best card for your colour without considering things like aggro/control or mana curve (or at least you don't talk about it).
The deck looked like totally trash, but it actually could do something. For sure you had some lucky draws always getting your lands on time. Also the way you played the second game of second match was really terrible. Not attacking with boars, and forgetting to resurrect the skeleton could cost you a match there.
I hope you have some time to make another one, as I really enjoyed having some different view than from all the "pros" in limited.
Some picks as I would play this draft:
P1P1 - Day of judgment. What's up with you people it's a f*** wrath of god, and its second video I see it passed away (though the last one was more controversial to be truth).
P2P1 - If you taken a Day of Judgment, you just have to take the pyroclasm. If not - why don't you take Lilliana's Specter? It's in your colour and water servant although surely solid isn't a bomb.
P3P1 - Canyon Minotaur if you went my way. Rise for the grave is for sure the best option here for you.
P4P1 - Nothing good here - Spined Wurm would be probably my pick too.
P5P1 - My way - Infrantry Veteran, really solid pick. Your way I would take Spined Wurm, coz you have nothing blue worth of playing, and black isn't looking to be main really.
P6P1 - My way - Giant growth, and I would start to think my dack as WG with red splash. For you - Giant Growth is really a good card. Zombies are not.
P7P1 - Me - probably Safe Passage for cutting more white. Reasembling Skeleton is what should start to move you in to Sac deck.
Than there was nothing really interesting afterwards. In pack 2 I would find some great White/Green with 8 pick second pacifism and with cutting all the white I would be probably only white guy on table. If playing your way I would surely drop the blue for the green as it was clearly more open, and you didn't get anything blue worth playing in first pack except Water Servant
P1P2 - Still throwing away green - Pack leader is really good card. Maybe should take Barony Vampire and try going mono? For sure they are better than zombies and boars. Also the Cloud Elemental or Azure Drake would be much more safer than picking double UU Water Servant when you are not sure what you will be splashing.
P3P2 - Reasembling skeleton is so good. Take it and make sac deck and you win. Assasinate is removal but not good one.
P5P2 - Giant Spider is one of top commons, green is screaming to be picked. Stabbing Pain is just weak sideboard card for UW weenie.
P1P3 - At first I thought - how good is Necrotic Plauge with 11 creatures that are most big guys? If you would take 2 skeletons it would be really nice to combo, without them not so, but it appears I was wrong. Sign in Blood and Rise from the Grave are both really reasonable picks here.
P6P3 - You know you have to splash green. You have really no fly defence. Giant Spider is really better than some crappy Ice Cage they blow with every target.
Yea, I agree. I wish I could have played in the first league. The 3rd league should be interesting, as it is Mirrodin block and scars of mirrodin only.
I would have gone with white-red. P1P1 you not only have Day of Judgement, but also it's the only white card, which starts the ball rolling for effectively cutting off that color. P1P5 still has an Infantry Veteran, so it seems relatively open. P2P1 gives you a sweet Pacifism.
My worry with your pick one is that you don't cut the colour off, making it possible your pack 2s will have slimmer black pickings.
I'd:
Pack 1: Day of Judgment, Pyroclasm, Ember Hauler, Canyon Minotaur, Infantry Veteran, Excommunicate or Chandra's Spitfire, Reassembling Skeleton (nothing good in our colours, so counter-draft), Berserker, Canyon Minotaur . . . and the rest is jank.
Still, that's 5 playable creatures, two board sweepers, and then the potential Excommunicate. Then Pack 2 Pacifism... not a bad start. Beyond that we can't guess what would be passed to you had the first pack picks been different. Then again, I suck too. XD
Just wanted to point out that you can't remove counters from a Sphinx of Jwar Isle with a Hexmage. Shroud all day.
I would've picked Liliana's Specter over Water Servant sticking with my first pick Assassinate (I agree with you on this pick) which would've significantly changed the draft, imo. Specter, no doubt, forced someone to your left to move into black whereas passing the underwhelming Water Servants may have brought more good black around the table to you. I would probably have ended up with a pretty good GB build b/c passing Packleader and Giant Spiders isn't my thing. lol.. better luck in the future.
Congrats on the nuptials!
After missing season 2 because of getting married (after the wedding on Friday I'll finally have time to play Magic again) I'm looking forward to season 3. Season 1 was a blast. Plus I'm glad I'll be able to use the packs from the Community Cup!
Yeah, it really is full of mistakes. I need to calm down and really assess the situation better. Regarding the movies, I'm actually writing up a detailed how-to guide for recording, narrating, encoding and uploading movies! Also, next time I'll upload the actual draft for reference, I may have forgot to turn on the draft recorder -.-!
My first try at this, and I got a very good pool, or did I?
Inferno Titan
Magma Phoenix
Ancient Hellkite wtf? 3 red bomb creatures?
Fire servant...
chandra's outrage
Obstiante Baloth?
2 x yavimaya wurm?
acidic slime?
hmm, I see a pattern here.. about everything costs 5+
Lucky me, a pyroclasm... let's find some low curve creatures.... hmm I have none,, except goblin ballon brigade and a sylvan ranger.
Let's check other colors.. white has nothing, really nothing... 2 playable cards and 3 safe passages, no removal. Blue has fine cards, but they are jace inguinity, sleep, azure draje, harbor serpent, more fatties. Black has 2 gravediggers and more 5+ drops, and 2 black knights. No cheap removal though.
Green - Red it will be.
maindeck plummet and naturalize and random grey ogres to try simulate somewhat of a curve. And 14 lands + cultivate.
It works so far, I am only afraid of a deck with like 2 doom blades and 2x mind rot...
If theyre running pacifism as an answer you can always pull in viscera seer =P
It's true that mind control is just dumb but I don't think that with all your white flyers that the blue ones are an overwhelming argument, with sign in blood there as a cheaper draw spell its not a perfect replacement but blunts that trade a bit.
Xaoslegend-
Congratulation man,
My wife is about four weeks away from having our kid herself. When looking for the house make sure you check everything really well, check for termites, check the plumbing, electrical, structure, air conditioning and heating system, water heater, what are they leaving, what are they taking, mold, water damage, fire damage, asbestos, fleas, cockroaches, neighbors, neighborhood, school district, property tax rates, parking, insulation, local construction projects/businesses(eg highway construction/hazardous polluters nearby) and of course get a fixed rate on your mortgage and don't let anyone rush you.
Anyhow, good luck with all these things, you'll need it =P
Xaoslegend-
Hey phe0bus,
I think if I'm wanting to go aggro I'm just not playing three colors unless the third is to splash a bomb like fireball or something. There have been few times when I've thought piker was good enough for a particular build and those occasions for me have only been with the goblin lord in the deck and running almost mono red. In three color decks I'm looking for cards that can advance my position whether I'm on defense or offense and both lava axe and piker mostly only serve offense. When you think of how many creatures piker trades well with vs trades badly with that people put in their decks it just seems like bad odds of advancing your chances of winning when you drop him. (land fetchers, augury owl, gravedigger, any 3 toughness guy, pinging, ect vs like a couple of decent trades like barony vamp and garruk's companion)
Xaoslegend-
the kithkin precon could add two together and get something that could win...
I'd have used Acidic Slime in all sorts of ways he didn't! Two games Westy could have completely locked his opponent out of their second color (in one case with gravedigger recursion backup). Not killing the Juggy is a common misread of the card, since we just assume it says "noncreature permanent".
Hey Splendid,
It is certianly too slow and inconsistent. Probably too cute, maybe it needs more counterspells with some GY removal in the board to stop dredge, though I've only really seen the dredge deck a couple of times at events.
Xaoslegend-
Nice article!!! Even though I saw your card list on the league card pool post I didn't realize how similar our decks were. We both had the BSA, a Serra and the Stormtide Leviathan (which I never sided in because I thought it was too slow but maybe I was wrong) among other things. Too bad I was so flooded in game 2, I think I could have put up quite a fight.
That Armored Ascension was a powerhouse, I don't think I could have won anyway; I didn't discourage though after my first loss and came in 4th in the end.
I had lots of fun as well, see you in the Coalition League Season 3 :)
God, I love Bruiser decks!
Good work! I'm glad somebody had fun with this league. I opened 7 packs and netted a Johnny's dream of bad rares and not a single Mythic. The only games I won were where I could pull off a Traumatize/Rise from the Grave on some other guys bomb.
Scars/Mirrodin block sounds kool!
I only played 3 matches the first week and won them all, the main reason was because I drew BSA in almost all the games and cloaked it a couple times. My white was bad except for BSA and I kind of forced it in, I actually ended up ditching white in week 4 becuase it was so shallow. Glad to see that I actually beat the winner, although you did have a stronger deck.
I had a lot of fun in the league even though I did not get to play all the matches. I have only been playing Magic for about 8 months now and I learned a lot about limited gameplay and hopefully will be able to use that knowledge with the scars prerelease. I plan on doing season 3 and will doubtlessly run all scars packs.
I encourage everyone to join even if you are a noob becuase you never know, you might beat bliven731 :)
I was also going to say that you undervalued the Giant Spiders. You also seem to undervalue the Nightwing Shade although it isn't that great in a 3-color deck. I'm kinda with you on Wrath of God. I have never passed one, but then again, I have yet to get one to go off let alone win me a game. That being said, it has to be the card to take in P1P1 because it is legit and it leaves the player downfield with no white.
It is difficult in the video format, for me to be more specific without taking notes. Nobody has made a comment that the Acidic Slime kills Juggernaut. That was your play instead of trade the Water Servant and assassinate the Clound Elemental.
What did you use to capture the video? I'd like to try it myself.
"It seems like the overall power level of the creatures in Scars is down from M2011, Zendikar block, and Alara block. "
I would agree with you about that. Anyway, I observed that almost all biggest creatures in the set were released as the last part of the block (ie bloodbraid => reborn, zen => RoE), and it was also almost the same logic in mirrodin 1.0 (as creatures from darksteel were mostly > to mirrodin). So I would wait for next releases before concluding that this tendance is verified.
Well I'm glad you liked it :D. Yes, I'll actually be posting more and more of these, at least until I get a decent constructed deck together again. This is the kind of criticism I'm looking for, and the reason I'll keep making these videos.
For those that are interested the third season starts on the 1st of November, all posts are up in the Wizards player run events forum.
I'm very happy to see some draft that wasn't just a perfect one. I think you can learn much more from this kind of drafts. Let's begin with the technical issue - joining the draft and deck building from 4 videos to 2 would make it easier to watch. You also seem to almost totally not use the sort by converted mana cost. Is it because you don't look at mana curve, or you just see it in color sorted columns?
As for the draft you seem to totally ignore the green is soooo open signal. Giant Spiders are like third or fourth best common in green probably (if not higher). The other thing you should watch out (like you said during some game) is the goal of the deck. You seem to randomly pick the best card for your colour without considering things like aggro/control or mana curve (or at least you don't talk about it).
The deck looked like totally trash, but it actually could do something. For sure you had some lucky draws always getting your lands on time. Also the way you played the second game of second match was really terrible. Not attacking with boars, and forgetting to resurrect the skeleton could cost you a match there.
I hope you have some time to make another one, as I really enjoyed having some different view than from all the "pros" in limited.
Some picks as I would play this draft:
P1P1 - Day of judgment. What's up with you people it's a f*** wrath of god, and its second video I see it passed away (though the last one was more controversial to be truth).
P2P1 - If you taken a Day of Judgment, you just have to take the pyroclasm. If not - why don't you take Lilliana's Specter? It's in your colour and water servant although surely solid isn't a bomb.
P3P1 - Canyon Minotaur if you went my way. Rise for the grave is for sure the best option here for you.
P4P1 - Nothing good here - Spined Wurm would be probably my pick too.
P5P1 - My way - Infrantry Veteran, really solid pick. Your way I would take Spined Wurm, coz you have nothing blue worth of playing, and black isn't looking to be main really.
P6P1 - My way - Giant growth, and I would start to think my dack as WG with red splash. For you - Giant Growth is really a good card. Zombies are not.
P7P1 - Me - probably Safe Passage for cutting more white. Reasembling Skeleton is what should start to move you in to Sac deck.
Than there was nothing really interesting afterwards. In pack 2 I would find some great White/Green with 8 pick second pacifism and with cutting all the white I would be probably only white guy on table. If playing your way I would surely drop the blue for the green as it was clearly more open, and you didn't get anything blue worth playing in first pack except Water Servant
P1P2 - Still throwing away green - Pack leader is really good card. Maybe should take Barony Vampire and try going mono? For sure they are better than zombies and boars. Also the Cloud Elemental or Azure Drake would be much more safer than picking double UU Water Servant when you are not sure what you will be splashing.
P3P2 - Reasembling skeleton is so good. Take it and make sac deck and you win. Assasinate is removal but not good one.
P5P2 - Giant Spider is one of top commons, green is screaming to be picked. Stabbing Pain is just weak sideboard card for UW weenie.
P1P3 - At first I thought - how good is Necrotic Plauge with 11 creatures that are most big guys? If you would take 2 skeletons it would be really nice to combo, without them not so, but it appears I was wrong. Sign in Blood and Rise from the Grave are both really reasonable picks here.
P6P3 - You know you have to splash green. You have really no fly defence. Giant Spider is really better than some crappy Ice Cage they blow with every target.
Thanks for the comment Flippers, and thanks for running the league!
Yea, I agree. I wish I could have played in the first league. The 3rd league should be interesting, as it is Mirrodin block and scars of mirrodin only.