The LiquidLegends Lounge - Page 1389

I again focus too much of a colour, thinking I'm in it, only to notice I've got only 2 cards from my first 14 in it...
This time it's red. I pass Alchemist's Greetings for a white card pick 2, then Sigardian Priest to pick Savage Alliance. I also get the Lurker, Pray Upon, I pass a Survivalist for a Sigardian Priest... G looks more open than R but I've got 9 or 10 W cards. Despite this there was so much W in the early packs that my neighbour went W too, astonished that I "pushed" him in it ('cause of Savage Alliance over Priest basically).
I pick some more W in pack 2 but want to focus on choosing my 2nd colour. There's less G, it's kinda good, but dries fast, and I get a Ride Down, so I choose to go RW. I get passed Ulrich 4th pick or something so I know I'll be splashing anyway... although I have a double W on Thalia's Lancers.

Pack 3 has almost nothing for me, and even less R than G... Obsessive Skinner's interesting, but I receive 3rd pick Breakneck Rider despite knowing at least one of my 2 neighbours is in red (spoiler: they're both, but the guy who opened it picked Nahiri). I pass the UW rare land despite picking Apothecary Geist + Spectral Shepherd... even with the G splash, that's a land in my colours and you never know.

My deck's basically almost 2/3rd CMC 3.
Couple of 2-drops (inc. Priest), then almost half my creatures + tricks at 3 mana, couple 4-drops for the curve, then Outcast/Lancers/Ulrich.
Removal is Ride Down, Bound by Moonsilver, Faith Unbroken, Blessed Alliance, Savage Alliance. So impressive. Situational, yeah. Gotta hope with 10 people noone was able to draft Emerge.

Oh, about pack 2. My left neighbour's picks 3-4-5 were 3x Choking Restraints, and a couple picks later his second Sigardian Priest. Don't just fucking ask me how I put you in W when my first pack is almost mono-W and you get all that fucking shit handed to yourself. He'll also play RG wolves and GW humans, so he'll dodge the 2 (potentially 3) decks equipped to deal with enchants at the table.

But basically I should have went on GW picking stuff like both Priests, the Survivalists, etc. splash R for Ulrich, and hopefully get more G pack 2. I think. Overestimating how much I'm in a colour because of a couple picks even if I end up not picking that colour more later (and picking decent W over good G because I believe I'm in RW) is a recurring mistake I didn't have in early SOI and I need to fix.

Match 1 vs UB zombies
Hey it's the UB guy from last friday. At least he doesn't have double mythics this time. He also refuses to believe me when I amicably say I checked Ruthless Disposal on Gatherer, so they aren't mistaken if it happens again (he'll ask the usual judge after the match, who'll correct him).
So. You know what UB runs? Bounce and hard removal to 2/3-for-1 my auras, and recursion to get the long run. As the judge/usual winner tells me, yeah it's a shit match-up for Boros in EMN.
Game 1 I only win because he misplays, has 4 creatures out to my 2 and tries to transform Pariah. I've been spending 4 turns doing nothing because I don't have the mana for a spell + escalated Savage Alliance to kill it so of course I'm glad he did it.
Game 2 I keep a 5-lander on the draw, get 3 lands in 4 draws, then emerged Distended Mindbender removes the only non-land card in my hand. 2 land draws later I scoop.
Still finish 2-1 because I get a curve out with turn 6 Lancer's into Ulrich the next turn hurts.
1-0

Match 2 vs UB zombies
Oh hey you remember variance? Yeah? I've got 6 possibles opponents ('cause of a draw), one is prob loss since it's the usual winner and his "pack 2 W" deck, other 4 are decent to great odds for me, but I've got to get paired with my 2nd worst match-up, and worst match-up actually drafted tonight, twice in a row.
Yeah. Fuck variance.
He's got the actual zombie deck, with Dark Salvation, a couple mill ghouls/crows, Deterrence and Unsubstantiate, Liliana's Elite which becomes good in such a deck, Graf Harvest, Spontaneous Mutations, and 2 emerge creatures including the Flash crab.
I lose one game to the crab basically, with my auras bounced, my creatures blown out, etc.
I win the next game thanks to Lancers sticking (even though I couldn't play Ulrich) and Borrowed Grace when he doesn't block everything.
Game 3 he gets a slow start but because I don't hit many lands I basically can't both tap his Feaster and play my 5-drops which slows me down a fuckton (can't play cultist staff + equip too). Maybe I should have. My issue there is that I'm ahead, but if I try to push the enveloppe (like tapping out for Lancers or playing Lunarch Mantle to go in) and he's got an answer I'm blown out, and if I take it slowly he may have time to draw answers if he didn't have them.
Result: he had the answers anyway (Unsubstantiate, and Dark Salvation has been there for awhile). I play Ulrich to buff Lancers and go in for Lethal (though I think I didn't need to 'cause I finally had Lunarch on it), he bounces Lancers, next turn uses his shitty ghouls to kill Ulrich with Dark Salvation and play Graf Harvest. The next turn he reanimates Ulrich.
I may have won that match with one more mana, or if I'd been more willing to take damage from the Feaster by tapping out to do more stuff. But tl;dr it's still just a fucking shit match-up if I don't either get the perfect split of lands to play around bounces, or the Slayer in hand to get my auras back (he's on the bottom of the deck). I was also lucky that he milled his crab or I'd have had to worry about that too.
1-1, fuck that match-up which is miserable to play and unwinnable if my opponents has his bounce in hand early, and fuck variance which submits me to it twice in a row.

Match 3 vs RGb wolves
He's the guy splashing Nahiri. Now, for the penultimate "fuck variance", I had 4 potential opponents and all good match-ups 'cept a standard one (he's UG but no bounce or emerge so my removal/auras are on).
At the end of construction I asked him if he splashed Grim Flayer too, he said no but showed me Inner Struggle, Lightning Axe and Prey Upon, wondering if he should put them in the deck. I tell him they're all decent to super good and depend on his creatures/madness cards basically. Then I notice he's got shit like Distemper of the Blood in his build, so I make him shove it out and put the 3 good cards in.

Game 1 he removes my first bigger size creature with the Axe. Then he'll kill my flipped Outcast with a combo of flipped Smoldering attack trigger + Inner Struggle.
I did misplay there, because I played and equipped cultist staff on Outcast on 6 mana, while he had Smoldering out. I only realised later that I should have attacked, waited for him to untap and transform Smoldering, to cast Savage Alliance in response and blow him out. I can't kill the 6/4, and it's hitting me for 8 so now I can't race anymore (I'm on 8 after that).
'cept he mulled to 6 on the play, discarded a card to the Axe, and still got more gas than me. Thanks, mana flood.

Game 2 I keep a 2-lander (RG) with 3 W cards and 2 R ones. I have 3 turns to pick a 3rd land, ideally one of my 7 plains.
Let's cut it short: I'll get a mountain, 2-3 more creatures, then 3 other W cards, cultist staff, Ulrich. I scoop because he actually draws stuff and despite my more aggressive deck even gets to attack with Blood Mist, and check. First plains is the 20th card. Not only did I not play at all, the game was decided as soon as I didn't mulligan.
FUCK.
VARIANCE.

1-2. Slogged through two fucking miserable matches, one of which was almost entirely out of my control (had a bunch of choices, cool, but in the end they didn't matter to the outcome), of the only 2 decks of a bad match-up for me amongst 9 people, and then didn't play a third match.
What an evening! What an interesting bit of Magic!

Let's get this down.
Had I won the 2nd match I'd be 2nd (I'd have lost to my neighbour in the finals (sure shot because of the draws), it was still kinda close in the end.
Had I won the 3rd match I'd be 4th (and considering his deck and our curves I start out much faster than him and my high end is also stronger, he's got hard removal but nothing to deal with my auras so I could basically challenge him with my bigger creatures to draw his removal then play mine, or move Bound around; game 1 was mostly flood (without my mistake we'd have went in topdeck mode with me on more lands so not making the mistake wouldn't have won me the game), there was no game 2).

I'm 7th instead.
We've got Nahiri, Grim Flayer, Port Town, Rattlechains, Distended Mindbender, 2x Elder Deep-Fiend, Collective Defiance, etc.
So I end up with foil Voldaren Pariah (Euro prices are pretty low, Pariah's actually worth nothing but I didn't know, and Mindbender/EDF are cheap here, like ~3.5€ post-spike), To the Slaughter, Sigarda's Aid and a foil Plains.
Thanks variance.