The LiquidLegends Lounge - Page 1473

Game 1, he's on the play:
t3 Glint-sleeve Artisan, t4 Fairgrounds Warden exiling my Contraband Kingpin, swing
t5 swing, trick to kill my Daredevil and live, Peema Outrider
t6 swing, trick to kill my Maulfist and live, Wild Wanderer
t7 lose a Peema during my turn, Wanderer trades, plays another Peema and I have no removal, lose.
His hand is empty at the end of the game. I got stuck at 6 mana, eg. the right amount to prevent me from playing 2 cards a turn (one more and I could, one less meant I had gas).

Game 2:
1-lander, mull
0-lander, mull
2 mountains, don't wanna mull to 4, scry bottom. I need an island, or 2 lands including a swamp to play stuff.
I draw a swamp turn 4. Then an island but surprisingly, I'm dead the next turn regardless.

What a match. I had so many interesting decisions to make, avenues of play to explore, challenging my poor intellect. Such stimulation. Wow.
Also such difficult plays for my opponent, much complexity.

Game 1:
1- lander with Gearhulk, Serpent, Ambitious Aetherborn, etc.
0-lander with almost the exact same cards
Don't wanna go down to 4, scry bottom, hope I hit a swamp.

Swamp was my 8th card or something, I played one non-land card that game. Next.

Game 2 I have to mull once, then my hand has a Thriving Turtle and Glassblower Puzzleknot and 2 islands so might as well try.
Scry bottom. Forced to scry a screecher bottom turn 2 playing the Puzzleknot, keep an island top, crack the puzzleknot t3, see a swamp, keep it top.
Basically I played my little shits and abused my opponent's mistakes that game (had to trade Maulfist to Embraal Bruiser 'cause menace; he attacked without using a removal or playing another artifact so I forced him to choose between his Syndicate Trafficker or his 3/4 Skiff for my 1/2 Rats, then used Malfunction on the Trafficker).
But I only drew 2 of my 4-drops, none of my actual hard removal, and my main threat was a 4/7 Turtle, since Multiform Wonder can help double block my Peafowl.
I keep pumping the Turtle knowing once he hit 5 mana he's got 2x Tidy Conclusion in his deck and I'd be naked, because I don't have a choice.
Then he plays his one big thing: Mastodon. I topdeck Dhund Operative and think to myself "He's got 5 mana, he's gonna attack so I block with the Operative and he kills the Peafowl at instant-speed, blowing me out or something." I was wrong. He used Fragmentise instead of instant-speed stuff.

All in all I simply lost because I didn't draw anything big nor my removal while he was sitting at 5 life, and he sent stuff flying to finish me off while drawing removal on top of that.
At least until I noticed I was starting to flood (not quite yet, because some of the scried-bottom-stuff early on was non-lands) and I hadn't drawn any of my mid-high curve cards, I got to play a real game. The only one of the evening.

No idea what he splashed for.
He basically played energy sources, bounce spells, flyers, and Panharmonicon.
Game 1 I had a decent curve and could overpower his early drops, but I stopped playing stuff when the issue of GG costs cropped up: no Tiger on turn 5 because I only had a single forest. I finally got that forest on turn 7 but by then he had available blocks and I couldn't simply punch for 6 (or 4 and keep it alive anyway).
It was still a very close game as he survived my swan alpha strike with only one life, killed by Whale + Dukhara Peafowl.

Game 2 was pretty much me playing aggressively again, but with the correct lands and a t3 Freighter to tell him "hi." Freighter turns any deck it's drawn early in into the beatdown. The game lasted a bit more after he stabilised, and I lost a lot of cards to his Ministry milling me (both Traffickers, Bruiser, Wanderer, Blossoming Defense...), also I'd started to flood before that (as in 9 lands and 6 spells).
Elegant Edgecrafters with counters on finished the job after forcing his bigger creatures to chump (even knowing he had so much bounce, the counters to punch through his 4/4s was the correct play I believe).

Game 3 was close again, but I think I made the mistake of replaying the Trafficker, hoping to set up value sacrifices/prevent him from attacking, rather than play something like a Peema Outrider and try to be aggro again.
Another mistake was trying to block his Peema with Trafficker+Ornamental Courage rather than Wanderer+Ornamental Courage: he'd attacked the previous turn and I got blown out by Select for Inspection, taking 4 damage and not killing his Peema.
In the end the same plan of "chump/defend then send the flyers in" worked for him.
It was definitely a game I could have won with sounder decision-making, esp. wrt what attacks to make and how. Observers said we could both have won at some point with smart attacks.

I jokingly gave him shit for picking that Take Down in pack 2, since my sideboard clearly needed it more than his.

The guy sitted to my left and who as such was the "4th" Black drafter.
He also happens to be the guy who always forced emerge (or UB if G was taken too much) in EMN, from what I've seen forced BW in CN2 too, and pestered me by not believing the rulings I got off gatherer.

Game 1 I get blown out by a lot of removal, Subtle Strike on Pillar-Bug to trade with Outrider, Make Obsolete to make his Operative survive to my Servant of the Conduit and kill the Trafficker who wasn't even blocking... while having a Skiff and Propeller in play. Too much flying pressure.
Before he used that Make Obsolete tho, he tried to say that since I blocked with Servant then tapped it (mana for Tidy Conclusion) it wouldn't deal damage to the blocked creature, and wouldn't believe me when I said tapping for an ability doesn't remove you from combat. He had to call the judge and be told it indeed isn't the case to accept it. That's the fucking third time he does something like this to me. Forcing and nitpicking rules he's wrong about, he really doesn't want me to like him.

Game 2 he stumbles a couple turns on his mana (I go Eager Construct, Screecher, he taps out for Caravan and I Appetite it, then t4 Freighter), I put a lot of pressure and because I was ahead on board could afford to save my removal, and reached the stage where I could play something and keep 1 mana open to keep my trafficker alive. He couldn't handle the pressure anyway.
He shows an Aerial Responder and a couple W tricks, so clearly he could have built something more aggressive around W, like UW (he was right of the UGr guy so he had priority on flyers) or RW, no idea why he forced B when he only had the mediocre stuff.

Game 3 went similarly to the second one, with me dealing a lot of damage to him and him not drawing his 2-drops to be able to go trick+creature on turn 4+ to get a lead. Freighter doing work, and I kept my screecher alive so it finished him off after I forced chumps/removed his stuff.

To be entirely honest, him staying stuck on 4 mana games 2 and 3 didn't help his station, but in our match alone he got to play more than me the full draft yesterday.

Master of Marionettes, Noxious Gearhulk, Gearseeker Serpent, Midnight Oil, splashed Unlicensed Disintegration, and the module to provide him with tons of energy and bounce his black rares. Welp, I clearly wouldn't win that in the late game.

Game 1 I get a strong start, my opponent makes mistakes (blocks Freighter with a 2/5 turtle, tries to Unlicensed Disintegration the Freighter, Blossoming Defense blows him out while he didn't need to wait for combat to cast it). I end up winning because I can deal a lot of damage early, and I went wide enough later on that he couldn't block everything even with bigger creatures.
Mention to "Appetite for the Unnatural" on the Master of Marionettes' goggles to allow my Peema to kill it.

Game 2 I get a heavy start again, but he's got Essence Extraction too, and I notice I didn't keep mana open for Blossoming Defense so instead of dealing 7 damage (18 to 11 on turn 5) he heals for 3 and my Wanderer hits for 3... welp.
I still get to save my Tiger from Shrewd Negociations with the Blossoming Defense, but the following turn it gets eaten by Noxious Gearhulk.
The only thing that stopped my opponent from bouncing and replaying with his module was that Midnight Oil was out and he didn't want to have to discard his Gearseeker Serpent. So instead of bouncing the Master to have a 4/6 with 3 servos, he just waited a couple turns to bounce his Gearhulk. I had to concede at some point, right?

Game 3 was... weird.
I dealt a lot of damage, got him low, but also did random dumb mistakes (he blocks Bruiser for 4 damage, and I want to kill his Aether Theorist, so I... cast Ornamental Courage which doesn't change a single thing).
He also made some small mistakes, but getting the Master out (with goggles again) and a big rat with his energy, I get him down to 6 life with Screecher representing a 2-turns clock when Noxious Gearhulk hits (gotta admit he got damn lucky in consistently drawing mana+bombs, tho in the other games he scried a bunch with Theorist), kills Ripparian Tiger and puts him up to 10.
I chump a bit and don't attack with Screecher (I'm not even sure if it was to defend or because I'd decided the game was over when the Gearhulk hit), Appetite the Gearhulk off the Familiar draw, which means I can't chump the Caravan with servo+sac hit to Trafficker I just played.
After that I concede, look up the top, and somebody points out that had I attacked with the Screecher twice, my opponent'd be at 2, and the 6th land off the top would have let me play the Edgecrafters (making 2 servos), then let the enemy servos through (less damage than blocking 'cause of Master anyway) and block Rat+Caravan+Master to live, and finish off my opponent.

TL;DR: I just fucked up and lost because I didn't count nor plan ahead enough (my opponent could have pretty much alpha striked earlier, wouldn't have killed me but not let me chump later, and he had a Malfunction he used on Maulfist Squad to attack with Gearhulk, instead of the Screecher, which'd have secured him the win too).
I really need to consider my clock when racing/chumping (playing to my outs), but also pay closer attention to my build because there are often cards I don't consider topdecking (I pay attention to stuff like removal but not a Familiar's lifegain+chump draw for example).

I know these mistakes, but the hard part's gonna be to learn from there and put that into application the next times. At least I can't complain, I had the potential to win the two matches I lost, putting me at 2-1 (wouldn't have 3-0'd obviously) for 3rd place.