The LiquidLegends Lounge - Page 1356

The pool, missing Stensia Inkeeper and Emrakul's Influence.

Soul Separator was my promo and my first rare, bit underwhelming. Blue quickly struck me as weak again, and Green didn't seem exceptional or anything, neither did White at first glance.
I mentioned my tendencies yesterday, and again Black got my attention with multiple removal pieces, the Dark Salvation bomb, and decent creatures with the Foulbloods, the Crusader, Feaster, Ghoulsteed and Unhallowed.
My first thoughts were to combine it with red for mono-removal (7 direct removal and 3 tricks between them), but red lacked bombs and its creatures were only serviceable.

Considered GB looking for Delirium, but I didn't have that many ways of triggering it, the pay-off was good but not nuts, and again lack of bombs.
After reviewing W and considering BW for a bit (I'm really attached to my removal), I looked at my humans and flipped creatures, all the equipments including the Heirloom, and started building GW+artefacts.
Going double-splash yesterday would have been pushing it quite far, but since I opened Dark Salvation again and had a tapland I felt like going for it, double-symbol in both main colours be damned.*
The deck

* doesn't extend as far as Harmless Offering or Soul Separator, though.

Match 1 vs WB
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1-0

Match 2 vs GB
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2-0

Match 3 vs UR wolves/spirits/burn
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2-1

Match 4 vs GB stuff
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2-2

At that point Extricator of Sin doesn't feel like a 3-drop but rather a late game creature, and it's been counterproductive to me, so I switch it for Desperate Sentry (which I'll never draw so whatever).

Match 5 vs GW delirium/sac
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3-2

Match 6 vs RB vampires
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4-2

I end up 6th of the event because of all the draws going on, not gonna complain at all. It's actually better than yesterday too (better breakers I guess, losing later and to the eventual winner). So now I have 6 EMN and 6 SOI packs, I guess I'll crack the SOI remainder and draft the rest.

So, yeah. Heron's Grace champion is retardedly strong, even though people will learn to play around it and adapted rather well, it's still a rare so the game 1 factor would be huge.
10/10 would first pick and build around.

In the same deck, crossroads consecrator ended up a lot stronger than I expected. Since it's only a 1-drop it's easy to sneak in or just drop turn 1 without losing initiative because of the stats, and then it's an on-board combat trick that complicates life. Against a couple 2/2s attacking with two 3/3 was super hard because consecrator held back meant I'd trade 2-for-1 and get damage in anyway.

Lunarch Mantle isn't a trick so obvioussly it's not that good, however I could definitely see picking one up on the wheel in draft and playing it in any GW humans deck, just because in the later stages once the first pieces of removal are expended and you've got all the mana you need, it can turn delirium on for you but most importantly can give you the evasiveness needed to close out a game.

Extricator of Sin is a bad turn-3 drop. It's amazing once flipped, but without much investigate, it's hard to get a 3/2 out of it. I saw it do some work once flipped but since my pool was bad for it I'll have to try it myself in drafts I think.

Lone Rider is actually damn good. I expected that in a curved-out game, you wouldn't be able to hold tricks or stuff to make it scarier or flip it, and it'd risk having to chump.
However, as long as your curve is low enough that you can save some mana (or your other drops are good enough to delay till you have spare lands), first strike makes it very scary when you may be holding a trick that'd let you kill an attacker and flip it.
As a result it's often a 1/1 that baits removal and I'm totally fine with it.

Werewolves are scarier than I thought, but it's mainly because they aren't many things bigger than them, and their huge butts make them very hard to deal with, so the sheer threat of them flipping (and the fact that preventing it is harder than casting a spell) puts the pressure on you as your opponent hits land drops.
Special mention to the unassuming Kessig Prowler, who flips the earliest at 5 mana for a 4/4 that can't be double-blocked.
4/4 looks like the threshold for big creatures: the format is full of 3/2s and 2/2s, so 4/4 eats most creatures in the format while trading 2-for-1 against a double block.

GW aggro looks very strong, and I understand better the reviews hailing it, after having to play with it twice. There's almost no relevant removal in these colours (well Clear Shot is amazing obviously) with auras being meh, but if you curve out you can have very aggressive midrange starts, not as explosive or surprising as madness but with decent body that become too big to handle with pumps, on top of the equipments.