The LiquidLegends Lounge - Page 1714

I feel like I was a few misses from getting horribly wrecked by the last little gimmick at the end. Sweet lawd. Wasn't expecting that after everything prior had been so easy.

P1P1 Ambuscade over Abandoned Sarcophagus. Frankly I hesitated a lot since it's one of the things I want to build around, but with last week's UB eternalize draft and being the left neighbour of the guy who goes to the country soon and said he'd like to draft sweet (read jank like Gifts or 5c control) stuff for his last drafts, I ended up deciding to take Ambuscade.
Then I see a pick 4 Ominous Sphinx so I know U is open, and Hour of Promise right before or after. UG ramp it is!
I take stuff dutifully but mid-pack there's one with 0 green at all and I wonder if someone moved in and may cut me, but I keep receiving cards. I see a bunch of B and R cycling deserts too and I hesitate to pick them as fixing/deserts for Promise if I move from ramp into UGx good stuff. First mistake. I also hesitate in picking Bloodwater Entity, which I should prob have if I wanted to go 4-5c since it recurs the good spells I can pick up (and Hour and Ambuscade are good too).
I don't take note during the draft but Beneath the Sands didn't wheel (I do note for the Hope Tender but considering 2-drops are at a premium and it's decent, that's normal).

Pack 2 is full of good things, and pick 3 is absurd with Hour of Eternity (which I pick), Ifnir Deadlands, Ominous Sphinx, Oasis Ritualist, and at least 2 other good U cards I forgot. That's more or less the story of pack 2, with me passing this Ritualist and later a Manalith, but getting p2 Struggle // Survive, p3 Hour of Eternity, p4 Grind // Dust, p5 Fervent Paincaster, etc. Second mistake I guess, not taking the fixing over the bombs? I still pass a 2nd Bloodwater Entity.
I figure I should focus on deserts and fixing after that but nothing comes anymore after all the deserts I saw mid-pack 1. I wheel 3 Striped Riverwinders in a row and since I didn't take note of how many I saw I get one over a more interesting creatures had I remembered I was likely to get one anyway. Third mistake not taking note of likely wheels enough (especially when there are multiples).

Pack 3 is where I went to get the fixing and the final deserts, I take note of a Scattered Groves (that I easily wheel despite there being a GW drafter 2 sits down), pick up a B cartouche to stave off aggression, some 2-drops... I pass 2 Evolving Wilds fourth mistake, they may not be deserts but I still need colour fixing (esp. with Hour of Eternity's triple U) and I already have enough playables tho the 2- and 3- drop slots could easily be upgraded. I wheel a wilds but still don't take it (don't see the other). I end up taking Cascading Cataracts to help myself fix, over Approach of the Second Sun (not enough draw/cycling). Despite U being ridiculously open from the right none of the Hieroglyphic Illuminations wheel.

Now, I'm UGrbw. Both my right neighbours are in RG. What. Turns out the rightmost one got passed Samut P1P2, but he's inexperienced and passed a lot of stuff (he's got 3x Beneath the Sands from pack 1 but isn't ramping at all, rather aggro; he also got Glorybringer P3P2).
My right neighbour started as RG aggro, but seeing more G and bigger R stuff come around it moved into ramp late in pack 1, which is why I saw a bit less, and wheeled less things. So in pack 3 he first picked Bounty of the Luxa out of his weak pack (FUUU-), Naga Vitalist, and cut the Illuminations on the wheel. He even picked up Oashra Cultivator, which thinking back on I should have picked up myself since I was so low on fixing. His sideboard has 2x Khenra Scrapper, 2x Hazoret's Dying Fury, Ret-Crop Entangler... weird. So yeah obviously I should have picked up all of the fixing in pack 2 but I couldn't really expect these colours to my right, especially after how the packs started.

Round 1 is against BW (he's got a worse deck than his left neighbour who's BW zombies, partially because he moved back into B late pack 1, partly because Unraveling Mummy was only opened pack 2).
I mull to 6 for the first game, 5 the second one, on the play each time, and he gets both Dauntless Aven and Plague Belcher in his starting hand or a couple turns later. Not much to say, he just has to punch me with things bigger than 1/3s or in the air or combine menace with a Fan-Bearer or a removal spell and I die before I even have a chance to draw lands + stuff to ramp into.
I replace Struggle with Cartouche of Ambition and the one mountain with a swamp after Winds of Rebuke mills my Traveler's Amulet game 1 and Struggle rots into my hand the whole game. Lifegain would have been better than trying to stabilise against his 2-for-1 rare (for my deck when I can't ramp quickly) and he can go in the air or remove my blockers anyway.

Round 2 is against one of the newish drafters in UW, he was my left neighbour so his U has to be pretty poor (at least he's got Aven Wind Guide, I didn't dare splash that for the tokens from my Hours).
First game he mulls to 5 and floods so once I play a couple big flyers and he exhausts Sand Blast and Impeccable Timing he just loses.
Second game we both keep, him with 3 plains, me with desert of the mindful, swamp, Weaver of Current and Hour of Promise so any G source is gonna catapult me in a decent position. We play these lands then punch each other, his Dauntless Aven vs both my Seekers of Insight, until turn 7 or 8 when I find my first G source (Amulet) and his first Island.
At that point I've got a Ritualist then find another desert, so I just take damage from the flyers he starts spamming, then cast Hour of Eternity for 9 mana, bringing back creatures I looted away while digging for lands, including flyers and sharpshooters. Next turn is Hour of Promise with 3 deserts already in play + Grind // Dust on the Aven Wind Guide and an eternalized creature, and he loses. It was sweet casting big spells and all but we didn't really have a match at first.
Turns out his P3P1 was Sandwurm Convergence. I wouldn't have had it since being pack 3, it'd have gone to my neighbour splashing Bounty of the Luxa (fuuu-²), but c'mon guys I'm trying to be rampy and not trash y'all with Bats and Inciters today, don't keep these from me~!

Round 3 against another of the newish guys, more experienced but... he went UR, and was 3 sits down from me, with another U drafter in-between. RIP his U card quality (already dubious for my neighbour who only ran 11 creatures including Proven Combattants and Slither Blades).
Game 1 he's stuck on 3 lands, RIP. Game 2 I have Ritualist so Ominous Sphinx and Rampaging Hippo come down on time and that's too big for him so he ends up losing.

As 4th place I still end up with Samut, because people took Solemnity and Scattered Groves (whyyyy D: ) and Nimble Obstructionist over it. $-wise Glorybringer is still above but I've got 2 or 3 of them already and for the sake of collection I pick mythics earlier since we should see them less, so...
I'm lucky to have went 2-1 with that deck though, had I faced my neighbour in the last round instead I'd probably have went 1-2 since he had more ramp, hard removal, was playing card advantage with Bounty + 2x Sunset Pyramid, and my top end was 5/5 hexproof or 5/6 trample when he had Chaos Maw and Greater Sandwurm. I definitely only had the 4th or 5th best deck, and that's with 3 new-ish players at the pod.

P1P1 hesitate between Struggle and Burning-Fist Minotaur, go with the creature 'cause it takes over games, punished when I see Hoopoe pick 2 and Locust God pick 3 (both people to my right were inexperimented/coming back from Lorwyn standard).
So I go 5c nonsense again, and apparently the power level of cards across the table is huge. No fucks to give, they won't come to me. I basically cut G super hard pack 1, letting almost nothing go and picking up 4 deserts (2 commons, 2 uncommons).

Pack 2 starts to reward me with pick 2 Hour of Eternity, pick 3 Hour of Promise, so I'm basically drafting the same deck as yesterday.
'cept after 2 super loaded packs that have multiple good stuff for me (pick 2 had Open Fire, Ambuscade, Thirst, what the fuck), there's nothing. Turns out pack 2 had super shit green on my half, 'cause the next G drafter is 3 sits to my left, and the next one 3 sits to his left but I literally get nothing decent after cutting so hard (I don't even know what made the 3rd seat go G 'cause he saw nothing pack 1, he did open a Ramunap Hydra which would have been great in mine). I'm also super short on creatures, especially early ones.

Pack 3 I pass Colossapedes and stuff to pick up 2-drops, including Naga Vitalist, then Angler Drake, and a pack with literally no green nor blue aside from that mill common and stinging shot makes me take Deem Worthy over Electrify.

I have plenty of ramp so all I need is 3 lands (or 2 and vitalist) to get started basically, though my payoffs are 2x hippo, Locust God, the hours and Angler Drake (Sharpshooters isn't really a payoff).

Round 1 is against the guy who's having his last draft here and announced he'd just try to draft nonsense to have fun. The others passed him great G and R, but he dodged the R on purpose 'cause he didn't want to play the same deck as yesterday too, and still had a "real" deck in his own word. Then he got passed bombs pack 2 and moved to 5c too.
Game 1 has me flooding hard and my non-land cards are ramp creatures/spells. Meanwhile he's drawing a decent amount of lands, his 2 Ambuscades, and a Sunscourge Champion so he can at least trade his lands for a 4/4. When I stop flooding I just draw the rest of my fixing/ramp so I just lose without playing. Game featured Appeal // Authority over 2 turns to push 10+ damage, a topdecked Adorned Pouncer that I cast Desert Hold on just for him to topdeck Cartouche of Ambition and kill the cat anyway. Yay.
Game 2 he goes Vitalist -> Tenacious Hunter -> BG Scarab. The fuck am I supposed to do about that? My hand was shit and I topdeck the Locust God, playing it t5, but I double block the Hunter to play around Ambuscade, which he doesn't have, but he's got 2x 3-drops on turn 5. I can't even replay the God since the Scarab will just shrink it and he'll trade with a 3/2. Oh he's also got a pinging Wall to clock my already removal-light deck. Non-game, even though he's somehow persuaded I'd be in a dominant position if I untapped with the God, a Vitalist, Spring (no mana for both sides obv.) and a cycling Desert, against 5 creatures including the BG Scarab and a deck that can topdeck Overcome, a Sifter Wurm, 2x Ambuscade or some other shit to deal with the God.
But the God is unbeatable guys!!!§§

Meanwhile besides us there's a UR mirror with the guy having several removal, curve stopping at 4 and 4x Thirst stuck on mana or colour screwed, after I mentioned that's the only thing I fear with a good tempo deck. He whines a lot, very vocally, and loses.
He's also my round 2 opponent.
Game 1 he keeps a 2-lander with a colourless desert, misses his 3rd land drop twice on the play and starts whining. Just shut the fuck up. He still wins because I'm mana screwed, but gift of paradise/manalith keep me in, and I make the mistake of blocking his Eternal of Harsh Truths (don't want him to draw and find a land) with a Ritualist who takes a removal to the face. After that I start drawing every single 6-drop in my deck or mana ramp, but no lands, and no removal or anything costing less than 5 to let me play 2 spells in a turn. He draws his lands 4-6 in a row and empties his hand, killing Sharpshooters with Electrify then playing Bloodwater Entity so whatever I play will die too.
But he keeps whining as if he was the one who'd gotten mana issues this game. Shut. The fuck. Up. He's massiely advantaged in that tempo vs ramp match-up and he still believes he's behind when I can't even deploy my ramp stuff.
Game 2 he curves out while I'm flooding this time, and draw one after the other Hour of Promise (with none of my 4 deserts despite the flood) and Hour of Eternity with no creatures in the yard since I didn't draw shit to play. And he's using Pathfinder on the Eternal of Harsh Truth to draw like crazy. But y'know, when my high-value draft last week consistently got its Eternalize creatures with a Vizier of the Anointed in the deck it was me being unbelievably lucky.

Just fuck this goddamn turd. He manages to whine harder than I do consistently, and it's never his fault when his greedy 2-lander keep doesn't pan out.

Round 3 I'm against the guy who came back from Lorwyn, he drafted UG but took a bunch of counters, some removal (splashing W for it and Fanbearer) and his only wincon was Archfiend of Ifnir. Countervailing Winds, Consign // Oblivion were good cards in his deck but you could count them on one hand, and this time my deck decides to come out decently.
But I just goldfish since he plays almost nothing game 1 (a wall, bounce, a counter, discard but I played around Oblivion by keeping creatures in hand since I had Hour of Eternity too), and game 2 I get to play Rampaging Hippo turn 4 into Gift of Paradise and Colossapede.

TL;DR of the night: I ended up not playing a single actual game. Flood, flood vs the nuts start from my opponent (he deservedly won the draft), screw then draw only most expensive against a tempo deck, flood, then goldfish twice against a no-wincon cycling deck.

What a fucking waste of time and money. Fuck that shit. Even the draft wasn't interesting because of how fucking garbage pack 2 was, variance again since G was open on my sit we just opened very few G cards.
Yes I'm mad, and salty, and grumpy. I don't mind the 1-2 I just want to fucking play the game, and not have some whiny dumbass crying about not having a perfect start in what's already a free match-up while his opponent is bricking.