The LiquidLegends Lounge - Page 1481

Draft starts with garbage 6 first packs (as in my right neighbour's first pick, as the guy who won the draft, were Tidy Conclusion, the energy-making module, Concealed Courtyard, Restoration Gearsmith, Aether Hub. He forced one of his colours as hard as he could pack 2 to try and force his right neighbour off it so he could get a full deck by the end of pack 3), save for my own opening (Captured by the Consulate, Essence Extraction or Barge as choices for my first pick tho, I'm not as high on the Captured and can't hope to get in B so went with Barge).

BW is clearly not open and I've got a couple decent G commons so I try staying there, with R as the 2nd colour (U appears slightly open by the end but card quality's so low, plus after seeing my payoffs stolen by a braindead "2.5 CMC build" strat yesterday, I don't want to go into that again).
Turns out passing stuff like Wayward Giant makes people believe R's open, so both my right neighbours are taking R out of the packs. On top of that my opening is garbage (it's a UB pack with Hijack, Take Down (I already have one) and the fog in my colours, basically), and G is super poor in that second pack (doesn't help that my neighbour, after going UR, opens Verdurous Gearhulk), so I only get mid-level cards and several combat tricks because there simply isn't anything else.
After tentatively picking a couple B cards, pack 3 curates my curve (as in Grubs over Brazen Scourge because 3x Sage of Shalia's Claim is fucking shit for an aggro deck) and a potential splash that doesn't pan out (Aetherborn Marauder off of a BG land pick 5).

My deck is fucking shit. It's basically Salivating Gremlins when I have 2 artifacts, 3x Sage when my payouts are Grubs, Rhino and Tiger, and my tricks are Ornamental Courage and 2x Built to Smash (only one artifact creature), and in the board 2x Larger than Life.
So I have almost no reach, my 2-drops are so shit I don't even know if they're worth saving with my tricks which only work on the offense. Plan is basically "curve out till turn 5 then don't lose my tramplers and hope my opponent stumbles so I got in a big life lead and the offensive."

Match 1 vs GW counters
Yay, what a smart and subtle match-up.
Game 1 is won because I manage to get on the offensive and he doesn't draw Durable Handicraft early. I'm high on lands, only bright spot is because I get to alpha strike first (despite a Cobra on his side) his blocks are worse (Tiger yay) and he doesn't topdeck the additional creature to block all mine the following turn.
Game 2 he curves out and I make a repeat of yesterday's "I've got 9 2-3 cmc plays and 3 draw steps to find one but I still start playing turn 4." Had Armorcraft Judge and 3 creatures with Fabricate but obviously since he curves out (including t2 Servant so fuck me) I'm forced to sack them one by one, or not since he's got trample anyway, but I'm dead before I can do anything. Oh, I proceeded to draw my 2-3 drops of course... on turn 5+.
Game 3 I'm on the play but again I don't get a single 2-drop so not only does he curve out with a better board, I also miss my 5th land drop so he's actually the first with a tiger on board. Mine comes turn 6 but it's too late.
Hey, guess what? You automatically lose the game to the tiniest stumble if your opponent doesn't reciprocate in this fucking format!

Match 2 s UW flyers
Game 1 has me stuck on 3 mana because hey why fucking not. Wouldn't matter since I can play shit for once and it's bigger than my opponent's (since his flies, mostly) but he's got bounce spells that let him get ahead in the race and play bigger stuff while my lands only let me replay the same shit. I lose after he curves out (as in "perfect mana usage each turn even accounting for Select for Inspection").
I mention getting fucked by lands and drops today, variance hears me and does the usual "Oh you talked about me? Well here, fuck you for your trouble" and I mull after looking at a 5-lander with only Grubs. I proceed to flood (as in "6 spells 11 lands") while my opponent curves out.
Read: Eddytrail Hawk -> Freighter -> Snare Thopter -> Harrier -> Propeller + Theorist, and only then does he stop because he only plays another Harrier when hitting his 7th land in 7 turns.
I go for the alpha at that point (7 spells 12 lands) because I'll lose in the air otherwise, and I'm holding 3 of these lands in hand. My opponent's obviously kinda stressed by the situation and hesitates a lot. He could guarantee lethal on next turn but only if I don't have a trick, so I buy myself a turn while putting him low.
Next turn he plays Aethersquall Ancient because fuck me, and I topdeck a land. But no Wave, I'm exaggerating when I talk about flooding.

Match 3 vs BWr
His deck is a trainwreck because there's 3 people on BW and he's two sits to my left so his only business with R is splashing that Unlicensed Disintegration but he picked some more. Also it's half aggro, half "Gonti+blink+recursion and 2x Kambal" with no curve toppers.
I proceed to win 2-0 to a double mana death on his part, never drawing his swamps.
He didn't get to play tonight, and in a sense I didn't either because my one win was goldfishing.

Of course the day I get my worse result and finish 7th is the day we have 6 nice rares with G Hulk, Saheeli, and 4 fastlands (2x GB, BW, UG).

The biggest takeaway from tonight is that I got a Ceremonious Rejection 11th pick for my standard deck.

My left neighbour's deck was Metallurgic Summonings and Whirler Virtuoso powered by 3 Thriving Turtles and a couple Hermits. He didn't really have creatures. He was 1-1 'cause he beat my round 3 opponent (basically had nothing of worth to steal with Gonti and he used Shrewd Negociations on Kambal boh times he was played).

His 3rd game on match 3 vs my round 2 opponent was this way:
- Thriving Turtle #1
- swing, Thriving Turtle #2
- swing with #1, play the energy -> counter module (opponent plays the 4/3 whale that can't block)
- make energy to grow #1, swing with it (opponent plays Harrier)
- plays Hightide Hermit, grow #1, swing with it (opponent swings back and plays Malfunction on #1, 5/8 at that point)
- plays Experimental Aviator, passes, then chumps the air force while his opponent plays a Peafowl
- topdecks Turtle #3, casts Aether Tradewinds to bounce #1 and the Peafowl, plays both turtles to grow Hermit, pay for it, swing with Hermit and #2 (grown) for exact lethal

They were the last match so we watched the Turtle beatdowns and laughed our asses off at the ridiculousness of it and his opponent losing his shit, unable to block because the Whale can't and the Harrier was out-grown by the point it came down.
Fucking turtles man.

I don't think I've called this format "low to the ground"? I've said that you need to be able to match your opponent's curve on a turn-per-turn basis (if you want to stall/stabilise; if you intend to play the beatdown you want that anyway), not that you have to make a "full 2-3 cmc creature suite" like that one guy I mentioned.
I haven't lost games because I didn't play low to the ground, when I stumbled, I did because my opponents either played the curve on 2-3 then started playing tricks/removal + small drops and missing a creature meant I always lacked blockers, or played the curve 2-3-4-sometimes 5, and I couldn't match that, either in numbers, or quality, just once, and it decided the game.

I mentioned curve in another format about Emerge in EMN, which was a dumb archetype because it could play the curve decently (didn't need a Primal Druid or Foul Emissary to work out), without much drawback, while still having the best or second best late game of all archetypes (only better was RG, but once you were able to skip a turn to flip your wolves, eg. waiting for a blowout from UG's tempo spells).
EMN wasn't low to the ground at all, and the one cave-at of SOI (have a turn 2 spell, not even creature, because werewolves can be explosive) was even less present. I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion that it's a "low to the ground" format according to me—at the start of SOI I talked about several things, amongst which BR being "that #1 archetype that can only support one drafter so it'll self-correct" was only one, and not representative of the format at all.

it only works if you get to play your nonsense, which is still tied to random variance kills, and forcing you to account for it in how you draft your curve (and sometimes having 9 early plays still draws you none).
Energy's like madness in that you have to balance enablers and pay-offs and it's very easy to be disrupted and end up with nothing conclusive.
Artifacts restrains the quality of your first pack because aside from W (due to fabricate) getting into the colours early means the good artifacts will be taken, and vice-versa. When the good "coloured" artifacts (mainly fabricate creatures) get picked super early, you have a dichotomy between artifacts, and coloured cards caring about artifacts, with the later rarely being good w/o artifacts (Serpent is an exception). You get incentives to take the good artifacts early in the packs since they're usually good for most drafters, but in that case you miss out on the good cards in your colours so you have to hope that the specific pay-offs get opened so that you can get them mid-pack or on the wheel.

Even CFB drafters, when I watched them, sometimes it pans out, but sometimes they stumble and randomly die, or they face cookie-cutter "big stats" decks and if they picked for synergy over still having the classic midrange shell they'll generally lose or be pressured big time.