The LiquidLegends Lounge - Page 1376

I start with Ride Down and Thermo-Alchemist staring at me, and I don't want to commit to an aggro deck with RW not having much built-in synergy, plus UR appeals to me so Alchemist it is. I don't see much good U though and a foil Bruna was opened upstream so I know W won't be open. G gives me Foul Emissary (and Clear Shot that I take over Savage Alliance) while U has almost nothing.

Pack 2 I get passed Liliana pick 2. But she's double-B and I'm not in the colour at all, that'd be gambling that I get passed a lot of Black in the rest of the pack.
Then I get a pack with Assembled Alphas, Alchemist's Greeting, Spreading Flames, and Smoldering Werewolf, ugh... I decide to try for the Alphas because of Spreading Flames' cost and a lack of discard effects for Greeting, hoping maybe one of these will wheel (none will, with my right neighbour picking Greeting even though he'll end up abzan).
I'm still not too sure whether I'm RG or UR, but my R so far seems to work better with UR and let's be honest, it's the archetype I'd force any chance I'm given, so... but my pool at that point is almost mono-R.

Pack 3 is nuts and gives me Geistblast x2, Uncaged Fury, Jace's Scrutiny, Niblis of Dusk, Stitched Mangler, and Nagging Thoughts, all of which make it into the deck.
I also opened Descend Upon the Sinful, so hey there was a mythic left in that half-box!

I end up with some kind of midrange deck with a couple early defenses (Thermo-Alchemist, Archive Geist), a bunch of wolves for beats (Outcast x2, Smoldering, Conduit of Storms, Brazen Wolves, Assembled Alphas), and a mix of burn and tricks for trades/reach (Borrowed Hostility x2, Geistblast x2, Uncaged Fury, Skin Invasion, Scrutiny, Spontaneous Mutation) and even a bit of prowess (Niblis and Skaab).
I end up with a leftover sleeve... and I'm thinking I forgot to pick my card, since for my 23rd I was hesitating between Skin Invasion, 2nd Hostility and Outburst. So I find the 2nd Hostility and put it in. But you'll notice I already had Skin Invasion—I shoved 2 mountains in the same sleeve by mistake so I ended up playing the whole draft on only 16 lands, welp.

Also my right neighbour was Abzan, left neighbour Emerge, and both ended up with several good R cards, eg. both had Incendiary Flow, left had Savage Alliance and right had Alchemist's Greeting + Spreading Flames. Guys pls.

Match 1 vs UGb the guy isn't new at MTG but he apparently hasn't played in awhile and isn't a standard player
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I hadn't even noticed my deck had it in itself... then again that's only the second time I exiled Geistblast ever. 1-0

Match 2 vs RW aggro and the guy who wins all the draft so you know the result
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1-1

Interesting match besides us, very slow: UGb with 2x Archive Geist, Ongoing Investigations, the Grafwidow, and recursion in the form of Haunted Dead, vs a very wide W board with Sanctifier of Souls, Nearheath Chaplain, Thraben Standard-Bearer etc. for tokens, Borrowed Grace and Inspiring Captain for pump, a censer, Subjugator Angel...
Basically very large boards but Ishkana's token hold the fort (and a Sigardian Priest holds her) and a couple flyers chipped the other player too. Sultai guy has escaped death twice by Ongoing Investigation already.
Go-wide W guy is tired and they're about to be on time, he's up 1-0, so thinking he may win it he goes for the alpha strike with Borrowed Grace.
His opponent exiles enough stuff with Ongoing Investigation to stay alive, finds the land he needs off of Archive Geist, swings with all his non-defender survivors, activates Ishkana for a couple more damage, and a Borrowed Malevolence off a cracked clue and the scried swamp gives him the last point of damage he needs.
Draw. Welp.

Match 3 vs UW humans tokens (not sure against which I'd have had the best odds)
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Geistblast hitting face is pretty handy uh (I lost a draft's finals to it despite knowing he had it in his deck during SOI). 2-1.

Because the other draw guy lost to the winner, I end up with a 2-1 record, losing to the winner, above both 1-1-1 guys, and I'm second. Uh-huh. Wouldn't have believed it.
One guy didn't like his deck at all and didn't think much about EMN because there's a Modern GP coming up so he dropped after getting smashed by the winner match 1. The "comeback" guy I played match 1 got the bye, so he also skipped match 3 iirc to just watch us.

Because of the draw and losing to the winner in round 2, I ended up 2nd. I was thinking I'd get the Spell Queller but people kept talking about how it was above Liliana, already at 15€ and stuff... I have no idea where they found their prices as MagicCardMarket had it at 9€ this afternoon and Liliana at above 15.
In the end the winner already owned a foil playset of Quellers as he expected them to explode in price, so he picked Liliana anyway, and I got my first Queller, woo~ As the 3rd or 4th most expensive card in the set I doubt I'll be able to get others though, I'll prob buy them and selfless spirits too.

There was a Selfless Spirit but it got picked 4th or 5th, I got my 3rd Thalia's Lieutenant as my second pick so I'm closer to a basic white weenies deck.

Thermo-Alchemist does a lot more work than I'd have thought. I imagined UR would play more aggro, using the alchemist for reach and riding creatures such as Ingenuous Skaab and Brazen Wolves to play a more aggro style, but in several games I got 7+ damage out of him, it's insane. Maybe I should have picked the 2nd one higher.
Having actual player burn in my deck helped a lot too (Assembled Alphas, indirectly, but very importantly Geistblast). Geistblast becomes better with all the burn/removal that becomes available too.

Geist of the Archives did work for me, but I think it'd have died much earlier had my opponents played tricks when I blocked with it, so it's pretty good but I shouldn't overvalue it because of tonight.

Assembled Alphas let me get 2nd place... but it was still a topdeck war in the end, it costs 6 in a deck that tends to want good tempo and to keep the pressure on, and it also sat in my hand a couple times when I needed more stuff early. It's not bad, and maybe it ended up doing more for me than Alchemist's Greeting would have for example (though in that game a Greeting 3 turns earlier on the Paladin would have more or less yielded the same life delta in the end), but I'd really want to focus on my early stuff next time.

Identify Thief is situationally good... but in general I feel like it's just too slow because it blocks nothing whenever it comes down, and it needs something to hit, that will usually attack anyway. You can flip wolves back I guess, it'll cost mana to flip them again but late in the game it won't stop it.
I tried it, I think I won't pick it again.

I like Borrowed Hostility. For 4 mana it's an excellent trick (also better at keeping your creature alive when for example Aim High and Strength of Arms cancel each other), and even for R it can push damage, trade up/with a double block, or just make sure you survive with First Strike. I'd easily keep playing one or two in my creature-based decks just because of the versatility.

I only drafted twice, and a couple more times on xmage so far, but it looks like EMN is kinda poor for some archetypes/colours, then all of a sudden SOI shores you up nicely (unless you wanted to play madness) because all the situational cards that'd usually get picked early are ignored in that last pack.
Of course it's also probably tied to how bad I am at evaluating cards and the set so the first pack is always a fuckery for me.