Dark confession time: COVID-19 has lured me into getting into K-pop. A good overview article lured me, and let’s be honest, I’ve always been K-pop-curious. There’s also a decent chance that the Benalish Momma made an ill-thought out desire, “I wish he would stop listening to that stupid orchestrated video game music.”
(finger closes on the monkey’s fist)
Well *super* embarrassing that I just stone-cold overlooked an Enthralling Hold in P2p5. But green was quite open and I just build a fairly straightforward ramp deck with a blue splash for some removal.
This deck’s plan: ramp into bigger creatures and reasonable removal. It does that too!
Lost to a very good RW deck in round 1 that also combo’d with some unfortunate mulligan & land luck. The next two games I won in pretty rousing fashion. I particularly liked my final match where I got out both Shrines. It’s true that the green shrine is pretty underwhelming, especially without a splash. But when you have the blue shrine turboing you cards, they do work well together.
At first I thought this was a for-sure mull, with no action for way too long. Then I noticed that my oppo, with a slow-ish RB deck, put me only the play. And that ticked me over to keeping. If I knew I was facing RW aggro, I probably still mull with no action until turn 4. But I kept, drew a nice 2-drop, and never really looked back.
Terror of the Peaks is a pretty easy P1p1, a stone-cold bomb that’s worth fighting for. Interestingly, that choice came up with a quasi-empty pack a few picks later (see below). Some light green signals late in pack 1 gave me the fortitude to jump aggressively into green in pack 2. That proved to be the Right Decision.
Fun deck to play. Lost a heartbreaker when I completely misread Soul Sear and took far far far too much damage from a Seasoned Hallowblade. Almost came back to win it, but fell short by one life. The rest of the games I stomped in pretty straightforward fashion.
Doesn’t feel great to have red be THAT empty in this pack. Still, Thrill of Possibility is perfectly playable and Terror of the Peaks is sufficiently bomb-y that there is going to be mountains in my deck no matter what.
Okay, a tough choice facing Leafkin Avenger, a very powerful gold card or the Llanowar Visionary. Do I dare to wheel? I DARE BABY. This is a low-splash format and I’m pretty sure red and green are both reasonably open at the table. Result: it worked and I snapped up the Avenger P2p13. Felt. Amazing.
One delightful thing about really carving out your lane is an abundance of riches when it comes to playables. At first I had some higher curve with a Cultivate, but Raiderray on the LoL discord talked me into adding Sure Strike and going a little more lower curve. I eventually cut a 6-drop and went lower to the ground.
Should have been a 3-0; felt like I let the Terror of the Peaks down a little. Even though it only deigned to show up ONCE.
Since Magic victories are increasingly rare, let’s switch to parenting wins. On the way to daycare, Lil Chandra requested The Chocobo Song. Midway through, then she broke out into HER version of the Chocobo Song which went roughly like, “CHOOOO-COBO Chocobo-chocobo. CHOOOOO-COBO, Chocobo-chocobo”. See, this parenting thing isn’t really that hard. Easier than M21 at least…
Not the P1p1 of dreams. Siege Striker, Capture Sphere or Spellgorger Weird. Stayed in lane for filler-ish white cards, though P1p3 Angelic Ascension is a touch late so that was enough reason for me to fill up on C/C+ white cards for a strong base.
Ended up in a perfectly fine GW shell.
Looks like a fine GW shell. Some mini synergies, with the Feats & the Canopy Stalker and some +1/+1s to toss around. Round one went quite smoothly. Casting Angelic Ascension on a 1-drop and then be protected by Feat is a very warm safe feeling. I ran over a lot of decks with this thing.
Which 1-drop to take? The Selfless Savior is probably the more powerful card, but I have been impressed by the Chorister. Having a mana-sink in this format is incredibly nice, but without any lifegain synergies the vanilla test power of the Good Boy is too high.
I’m back baby!
If this slide in performance continues unabated, I feel like I should start adding my recent cooking successes. Significantly less of a failure in that arena!
Strange draft. Green was clearly my color in pack 1 with some good blue (though nothing showstopping) sprinkled in. Then white “opened” up in pack 3 and blue disappeared leaving me somewhat awkwardly straddling three colors. But I have a deck packing three Drowsy Ts and ways to wake them up, so I don’t feel too bad.
Not the ideal UG deck, as it’s a little aggressive and lacking card advantage. But there’s a plan, some decent removal, and some drowsy-Ts. WILL IT GET TO TWO WINS?!?!
Lost game 1 to stumbling on mana but won the round with SO MANY 3/3 dinos. Round 2 was against another similar UG tempo deck. We traded games. I almost pulled out game 3 agggainst a 9/9 Coatl and drove oppo to 1 life, but I stalled out and they reloaded with Rain of Revelation. Just a matter of time at that point. I lost the third round to a vicious little UW deck with aggression and Breath of Frost at Bad Times.
White bizarrely opened up for me in pack 3, with a second Conclave Mentor and Daybreak Charger just sitting there. However, upon putting it together, there wasn’t any “there” there. My only source of +1/+1 counters was a Pridemalkin and Hunter’s Edge, so the Mentors were really just glorified Bears that would give me two life.
This feels like a classic “bad keep”. 5 lands is never ideal, but there’s early action and cantriping into another card. Result: 5 out of the next 6 cards were lands. I didn’t win this game you guys.
It’s official: 1-2 is the new 2-1.
Once more into the fray! I remain a bit baffled why/how a Core Set is kicking my ass. the last 0-2 dropped my win-rate this set to 39%. That’s a yikes. Hopefully Double Masters lured some of the Spikes away so I can grind some wins in peace. Of course, it appears to be taking 8+ minutes to fill a draft pod. I NEED REDEMPTION FASTER PEOPLE
Okay starting out with a pretty clear Garruk. P1p3 was tighter: keep cutting green with a decent Setessan Training or the more powerful Basri’s Acoylte?
Eventually my lane was clear in UG, but Missed out on two Lorescale Coatls hurts but I think both picks were correct. Maybe I should have taken the Rousing Read P2p1 over a 6-drop. There was a very late Kraken and I was flirting with blue at that point.
At this deck had a plan: stall out, reload with card draw and win with Garruk and/or bigger creatures. Had a great first round: I actually won! Second round I faced a superior UG deck and lost in three. Round three against UB reanimator which was pretty good! Any time you have to face double Goremand across the table, it’s going to be a rough go.
I played this deck on the draw and was never punished by a fast WR deck or any curve-out. So in a sample size of three, it worked out!
So I’m pretty locked into green with opening Garruk (not a bomb, but Very Good) and a solid Brontodon. Then I get passed a Basri’s Acolyte vs. Setessan Training. ST will make every green deck (high floor, low ceiling kind of card) but Basri’s Acolyte is the nuts in the best deck: GW +1/+1 counters. I went for the Acolyte (white was subsequently quite cut) but I think it’s the right choice. The deck’s performance was not going to be wildly different with another Training.
I kept and opponent stumbled on mana and Burlfist oaks with a Rain of Revelation was hilarious. For me.
Back spasms or 2-8 over my last 10 games? Both don’t feel great! I can blame the former on both turning 40 and feeling so healthy I became cavalier about my nightly stretching. There’s no such clear causal chain for the latter. And while technically not the worst part (the chronic pain is the definite, actual “worst part”), being unable to game of any kind while flat on my back was pretty frustrating. I did plow through a frightening number of books though.
Dragonfire vs. Subirais an interesting P1p1. I think Dragonfire is just better, but I thought about it. Waffled through Mardu colors and thought I’d make a go of BW lifegain only for both white AND black being cut in pack 2 (which didn’t feel great). Limped into a decidedly mediocre RW aggro deck.
Not a great deck!
Tough round one, mulling into keeping a 1-land hand both times (see below). Came closer than I deserved to, though I definitely had no idea Elder Gargorth had reach. Mental note: always re-read mythics. Round two I started with some truly heroic flood followed by not drawing any red mana. Somewhat ironically, I did draw the plains I put instead of the dual land.
Already mulled a 1-lander. Do I go down to 5 cards? This only needed one mana of any color in two draw steps to be decent. Not a great feel-good keep, but I kept. And didn’t draw land for three draw steps and lost.
I did have a RW tap land. Do I play it to improve my mana-base? Or, since my only game plan is pure speed and hope opponent hiccups, is it too costly to lose a turn? I opted for speed which I think was the right plan: variance is the friend of bad decks. But it did directly bite me in one game.
Well it turns out you can burn a lot of gems/coins/bitcoin/doubloons if you carve out a streak of 1-2s & 0-2s. Still strange how poorly I’m performing in this set as it’s not THAT complicated. Last draft (not recorded, a bad UR draft that I don’t want to dwell over) I think I found my lane alright, it was just congested.
P1p1 was a clear Dragonfire over medium cards, Both blue and red were distressingly dry in P1p4 with a lot of–sigh–black cards headlined by a Deathspore Thallid. So I ooched into UB but once again ended up in the unenviable position of drafting black cards without a single Grasp of Darkness to be seen. Which means someone else was drafting it… and you really don’t want to be fighting over black.
Well the deck SORT OF has a plan. A light reanimator theme with the Stichers with some control elements. Two Rousing Reads does a good Divination + win condition impression and my 4-drops were pretty good stabilizers. I beat a bad mono-red deck but lost in three to two pretty good decks.
On the draw, do I keep a 2-lander? I need two running lands of any color in the next four turns. But this is a pretty good hand and it turns out that the odds of getting the lands is 86%.
Okay, it’s the napping hour. Delicious pastry from Fuji Bakery in hand (something something taro I think?) and a lot of try-hards have left M21 to go back to Eldraine event. There is nothing that can possibly go wrong with this draft!
Well, a lot went wrong. I think I ended up in the unenviable of fighting for black at a table of M21. This… is not where you want to be with black. If you’re not getting late Grasp of Darkness, you’re not wherre you want to be. White seemed dry but then I got P3p2 and P3p3 Seasoned Hallowblade, which is ridiculous. So I guess BW was my seat but it sure didn’t feel great.
The deck is not without power: Demonic Embrace, Seasoned Hallowblade x2, Goremand x2, these are all cards that can win games of magic. I had some bad luck and didn’t draw my power but I’m also missing key cards. My removal is weak, no Feat of Resistance, etc. 0-2 was disappointing, but not surprising.
Scorching Dragonfire or Liliana’s Devotee? I think dragonfire is the better card in the vacuum, only because trying to be aggressive in black is a rough go in this set. However, with the very good (and aggressive) Demonic Embrace in P1p1, I probably should have tried to carve out a lane in black.
Tough draft. It seemed like my seat was Green Black, except without any rewards for going either green or black. I got some good feedback on the Lords of Limited discord that A) confirmed that this was a tough seat and B) definitely didn’t think green was open. I probably should have taken the Silversmote Ghoul. I got scared away from it because white was cut so thoroughly, but you CAN still make it work with Trufflesnouts and black lifelink cards.
Ugly deck! Doesn’t really have a “win condition” per se. I emerged victorious in round one when my oppo made a misplay and then walked away for 20 minutes. Game two was losing in very short order to Baneslayer Angel. Game three was losing to a deck that actually “did things” and “had removal”. 1-2 felt like a definite overperformance. Also never even saw Radha, my only semi-powerful card š¦
That’s right! Got passed a Sublime Epiphany! Definitely a real “feelsbadman” moment.
Benalish Dad 