Draft
Pretty straightforward Orzhov draft. One interesting wrinkle was getting two good pieces of Azorius removal (Deputy & Lawmage’s Binding) and wrestling with whether or not to try and splash it or not. Still, anytime you have three Blade Jugglers, you feel pretty good.
Also of note:
P1p7: I think I should take Grasping Thrull over Summary Judgment here.
P2p7: The splash versus the Grasping Thrull is a hard choice. I took the gate because I felt like the upside of getting two pieces of solid removal is worth it. I don’t think it worked out.
Deck
Results
- Round 1: facing against simic, who lands an early Rendhorn to completely stymie my board. I stubbornly don’t draw removal through half my deck but keep pecking away. A chillbringer stabilizes him and I lose to Simic Ascendancy. Game 2 I board in my blue removal to then draw it and NOT draw blue mana. I lose one turn short of stabilizing.
- Round 2: played against a very pleasant opponent with a mirror-ish Esper, though more controlling. He got caught on three lands while I curved out with Blade Jugglers on the beats.
- Round 3: beat up on a bad Jund deck that kept putting me on the play. Uh, sure.
Learnings
I think I misplayed round 1, game 1, when i didn’t adjust to the board state. Let’s run through the tape quickly.
Okay, I get him to 12 and he nothing. Six turn clock and I have a lot of removal left in my board. He has a board full of fatties that are being held off by a deathtouch panther and my Pitiless Pontiff. I don’t have attacks because of the four (!) Illusions but nor does he have attacks.
The question is should I have killed off my two afterlife creatures to get two more points of air force earlier? In hindsight, the answer is clearly yes.
He lands Chillbringer right after this, which is a serious bummer. I would have done an extra four points of damage which would have allowed me to suicide through his only piece of flying defense. Very fun, very tough game.
Benalish Dad 