The LiquidLegends Lounge - Page 1617

L died

Opened another foil Goblin Electromancer! ... also Sphinx's Rev, Cackling Counterpart, Arid Mesa and foil Blood Moon. No rights to complain, I've been incredibly lucky so far.

Started RG, it was obvious B was cut hard so I moved toward Naya. Actually skipped a bit of fixing. Pack 2 I picked up some Simic Sky Swallower, and I had a Teleportal from pack 1, so my fixing took into account splashing U.
But then after thinking I look fine in the long term I start skipping Dragon Fodder, Dynacharge, etc. for Aethertow, Gideon's Lawkeeper, and other stuff that can make the games longer (and a pack 3 Stoic Angel).
In the end like last draft I've got some decent individual cards but they don't fit a single coherent theme. FWIW 2 sits to my right was GW tokens and P1P1'd Intangible Virtue, then later the G anthem, so I wasn't gonna see many payoffs.

Sunhome Guildmage, Tattermunge Witch, Pyrewild Shaman, Hungry Spriggan all get significantly worse if I can't freely attack because I didn't gear the rest of my deck to do so. Fists of Ironwood and Strength in Numbers picked up relatively early end up cut, etc.

Round 1 I'm half-screwed with 16 lands and 2 signets while my Jund mono-aggro opponent draws 8, 7 and 9 lands out of 14 over our first 3 games (I won 2-0 quickly).
Round 2 despite moving lands around to better account for symbols and curve I'm screwed game 1 against BR sac, and game 2 I play badly. I try to get an early advantage off of Call of the Conclave -> Gift of Orzhova knowing he's got traitorous instinct in his deck, and he even manages to have Aristocrat in play before he does it. I got greedy. Then I lose Wooly Thoctar in a 2-for-1 that ends up costing me more life than him because of the Aristocrat, and I draw enough lands that them+signets outnumber my spells while my opponent has a couple Mogg Flunkies and Skirsdagg Cultist sitting on board.

Round 3 has my opponent go Augur of Bolas -> find Magma Jet for my Lawkeeper and scry something to the top, then Chandra's Outrage for the turn 3 Thoctar, and it keeps going this way. I die quickly. Game 2 he's stuck on 3 lands while I go t2 signet, t3 Thoctar, t4 Harmonize. Game 3 I'm flooding again and he goes double goblin electromancer so his removal is basically free (and he's always holding some with his low curve). I'm not drawing shit and his Augur of Bolas reveals Cyclonic Rift, so even if I drew something... even Aethertow didn't buy me a turn because he had 3 different pump spells over 2 turns to kill me from 16.

The format's fun but you get really punished if you don't stick tightly to your archetype I feel like.
Also Call of the Conclave isn't even enough to deter aggro it turns out (maybe Naya tokens, but BRx is big enough and there's removal aplenty). I really need to stick to my guns even when it looks to me that most of my stuff is mediocre and so or so card is sweet, because synergy is key and you die way too fast if you stumble to fast decks playing red for pump or removing a couple things.
Finding your fixing is hard on the other hand, or rather balancing it, then determining how to accomodate your plan and curve wrt amount of each basic land.

And there were a bunch of cards I'd have liked to get a feeling for that either I never drew, or drew in the games decided by mana (eg. 4 of the 7, either for or against me).
Then again I passed 3 Deputies of Acquittals, Crippling Chill, 2+ Momentary Blinks, etc. and the only UWx guy at the table was the sit to my very right, and he was Esper. Weird.
I dunno how reliable my impressions from round 3 are, 'cause somebody with Cyclonic Rift, Bonfire of the Damned, 4 Goblin Electromancers, 3+ Dynacharges and a curve basically stopping at 4 can't be representative of Izzet.

Really not feeling Naya tho. I'd rather play Esper or Jund, the archetypes look more interesting.