The LiquidLegends Lounge - Page 1688

The lesser points are how I flooded super hard against it, drawing about double lands than spells, and milling one of my wincons with winds of rebuke. A couple times I was missing lethal by one life because he'd play another thing that'd blank what I'd been holding were I to commit. Of course Drake Haven turn 3 didn't help.
Then game 3 it goes with an early Sniper and when I get rid of it it's just t4 Rags, then a sniper, cycles to kill 2 x/1s and I don't see a 5th creature while drawing more than half lands again.

Round 2 has the deck grinding with unblockable creatures and my opponent mulliganing to 5 game 1.

Round 3 my opponent plays Sultai ramp, I push damage but again I'm drawing over half lands. He plays Oracle's Vault and flips 5 permanents in a row, including Wrappings to shrink my Thresher Lizard the turn I'd finally play my last land in hand and be able to use its bonus.
Then Lay Claim on my Ahn-Crop Crasher to prevent lethal the following turn. He's at 6, I have lethal on board from Slitherblade and the Minotaur Sureshot+Pathmaker Initiate (that I just played). So he casts Memory to redraw a hand, and he gets the Cartouche of Ambition from his yard that I dodged by bouncing its target earlier on. Goes on flying Shefet Monitor, heal for 8. Fucked over by random shit and topdecks and stuff like that all game long.
Game 2 he's lacking in creatures so Ahn-Crop Crasher + cartouches + removal gets there.
Game 3 he slams an Archfiend of Ifnir when my board is Crasher + Bloodlust Inciter and some 2/2 I just played. Only reason I win is because his following turn, lacking gas he tries to play Shefet Monitor instead of cycling it and I'd been holding a counter. Even then, he clocks me and I win with exact lethal when I drop a creature I'd been holding and exert the Crasher to remove his other blocker.

Otherwise I'd have lost that game no matter what I'd done or how I'd played from the second he kept his hand.

So basically over 8 games there were 4 where I did never mattered at all (maybe I would have had a better chance in round 1 had I attacked into the UW uncommon, Drake Haven and 4-5 open mana, but I had no way to know he didn't have a cycler in his big hand), then there was also the "mull to 5" game (which was closer than it looked because I was basically racing him with small unblocable stuff and trying to remove his Aven Initiates as he casted/embalmed them).

I've been super salty tonight. I shouldn't have been, but after flooding (as in drawing between 55% and 65% lands in a 16-lands deck, considered over 7+ turns each time) in so many of my games and basically not played in a couple of them, combined with yesterday's draft and the final match that was literally me watching my opponent goldfish, I was frustrated to spend so much time just... sitting around in the end.
I'll apologise to my opponents if I see them by the end of the week.


Deck was basically steering R with Ahn-Crop Crasher and Entangler first 2 picks, knowing I picked the Entangler over Fanbearer / Unwavering Initiate / another good W common (binding mummy?) so going RW would be hard. G was evidently cut hard after a couple picks (turns out 3 sits to my right were BG, GRb, BG), and seeing U not exceptional but seemingly open I decided to try and go for a tempo deck, or spells if the archetype was available. And obviously still grumpy/salty from "U cartouche(s) always in starting hand and I draw no anti-fly tech at all" from yesterday.
It turns out my neighbour thought himself almost mono-R despite me not passing much (early electrify, maybe an entangler, a late bloodlust inciter when a pack had 4 of its 6 cards in R), and his pack 2 was absurd, opening Dusk // Dawn, Honored Crop-Captain and Gust Walker. He picked the rare and I decided to speculate on W taking the Gust Walker and seeing if the RW would wheel, as even a single pack of W would be stronger than my current U (Hiero Illuminations, a U cartouche, a couple 3-drops and Decision Paralysis) if I could get other cards like this. Obviously he kept cutting W, as well as his own neighbour being the one my first pack put in W, so I stayed on UR, but I ended up passing another Honored Crop-Captain opened to my right pack 3, and cutting a Gust Walker mid-pack as it had nothing for me and I knew someone would use it to my left.

The deck ended with Bloodlust Inciter, 2x Slitherblade (would have gotten a 3rd but that pack didn't come back to me), 2x Ahn-Crop Crasher, Electrify, 1x R Cartouche, 2x U Cartouche... in the end I cut all 5-drops to go for 16 lands, and only 14 creatures including 4 2-drops (really tight there, and a big issue of my deck).
I could also tech with Pursue Glory, 2x Winds of Rebuke, 2x Brute Strength depending on what I expected, but whenever I sided stuff I either flooded lost without seeing the cards, or won in 5 turns off a Slitherblade / 2-drop -> Crasher dumb start, holding removal or another Crasher.

I'd have won these games without the flood thanks to more pressure to apply (I was slow to close if I didn't get a U cartouche or several turns to send unblockable bears in, so one single additional turn of attacks early on or another creature for these turns I could swing in would save 3-4 turns down the line), but my opponents didn't have very stable decks either. The one with B trial and 2x B cartouches would have crushed me; I think I'd have beaten RW assuming decent starts from us both because I had more reach with the cartouches.
Table only opened one magma spray so aside from getting that and the R trial (or ending up BR for the second part of Cut // Ribbons which would have ended any of the games I flooded in, or the 2 Merciless Javelineers I saw) I'm not sure my deck could have gotten much better though... maybe wheeling that Cryptic Serpent I opened pack 2, it'd cost 4-5 mana easily in my deck and just end games with a cartouche or a couple other creatures to make triple-blocking it impossible.