The LiquidLegends Lounge - Page 1774

My deck tonight ran: Vraska, Fathom Fleet Captain, Dreamcaller Siren... no 4th rare I think, I remember giving back more cards but I had foil commons too.

10 people, I'm bringing my own packs, an 11th came at the last second so our usual winner, seat to my right, got up and gave him his spot.
P1P1 Vraska, read "I wanna be B or G and splash the other colour, probably." Looks way easier if I can be black and use treasures, so I'm already biased toward a pirate deck if I can (3/7 drafts were BW). Pack also has Hammerskull, Aerialist, several other good cards... it's a really solid pack.
P1P2 Seekers' Squire, then from there it looks like BR, with Firebrand, 2x Brutes, Swashbuckling in pack 1... solid. White seems open for dinos but I really don't want it, and I pick up a couple late U cards like One with the Winds and Depths of Desire.
At that point it looks like I could be UB or BR because I have about as many cards of each, and none are bombs although the R curve is already looking great.

Pack 2 is weird, with nothing really for me, and I end up first picking a foil Hoarder (neighbour is confused when he receives the pack), next pick is a monoR pack with mostly dinos...
Pack 2 doesn't necessarily lack Black but it's so goddamn full of great U and R cards that I'm almost tempted to pivot to that and ditch Black. However that'd mean no Vraska, and building with an almost empty 2-drop slot from mid-pack 2 and only 10 or so playables.
I pass a Firebrand #2, pick a quartermaster after a Cutlass, decide to pass a good B card (maybe Vanquish the Weak? I remember passing one) for Dreamcaller Siren (reminder that cost has UU) which is basically when I decide to relegate red to a "maybe splash"... reducing my 3-drop slot to nothing. Then there's a Tempest Caller (UU cost too) pick 10, wtf.

Pack 3 starts nice with Fathom Fleet Captain (my box has been really decent so far) but gets hard, as I really want 3-drops, and while some Black comes to me it appears that red isn't being passed at all. I smile at a pack with RG land to help the splash and Sailor of Means, and pick the mandatory 3-drop. There's One with the Wind too, then people start reacting strongly a couple seats ahead. Apparently the pack is absurd.
I get a pick 9 choice between Marauding Looter or Shipwreck Looter. What?! 2nd marauding and definite R splash, and I get another Sailor of Means next pick.

The deck ends up running 1 forest and 2 mountains, with 7 treasure makers (3x hoarder, 2x sailor, 2x depths of desire), has the cutlass + quartermaster combo, 2x one with the wind, siren's ruse to better enable simple attacks or blink Dreamcaller Siren, Vraska, and 2x Marauding Looter to find my stuff.
It looks strong, but with a definite lack of flyers (literally 0 lookouts offered to me, maybe one bloodletter, and only the aerialist I opened) and top-end (looters are a decent body, but then it's Vraska/queen's agent and that's all).

The guy to my right is abzan. He probably picked a bit of green early pack 1 then moved into black, because he's running like 3x Vanquish, 2x Contract Killing, 2x Interdiction... 16 creatures too. Part of why I got more stuff pack 3 is that he took the removal pack 1 and gave me the creatures, then had to take whatever creatures he could get his hands on pack 3, and being 3c some black slipped through the cracks.
To his right is Grixis Pirates courtesy of Beckett Brass (P1P2 apparently?), he's a newer guy so he probably didn't think of solidifying in 2 colours and I didn't see too much of his deck.
To his right is monoR (sent signals with Beckett then... not sure why he stayed monoR). 2x Bonded Horncrest, 2x Unfriendly Fire, Dinosaur Stampede, 2+ Tilonalli's Knight, a Pyromancer or two, the pseudo-Outpost Siege... he's actually got a decent deck!

To my left is GW dinos. I really really thought I'd put him in U, especially since he's very biased toward that and slower decks (he can play aggro, he just hates it), but he took Hammerskull over Aerialist in my pack and after that all the W dino cards I didn't want I guess.

Match 1 vs Grixis Beckett
Game 1 goes t2 Fathom Fleet Captain, t3 Cutlass, t4 don't attack then Dreamcaller Siren to remove blockers on his turn, t5 no 4th land but make a token and hold Siren's Ruse to blink the Dreamcaller on his beginning of combat step again.
That was just gross, and I even had a Storm Caller to end it. All that went through him playing 2x Deadeye Tormentor to force discards.
Game 2 was a lot slower and I had to play One with the Wind on Sailor of Means just so he wouldn't swing the Brazen Buccaneers into it after playing Beckett (thanksfully they explored lands), then quartermaster finding Cutlass and sacrificing itself to a Skittering Heartstopper + Swashbuckling. I drew a bunch of lands, playing Storm Caller for a blocker and keeping Depths of Desire to bounce Beckett and eat stuff if he went wide (he kept conservative attacks), then Dark Nourishment.
In the end an exploration revealed Tormentor, so I had to use my cards before his next turn, and I couldn't Nourishment Beckett then bounce something as I needed the bounce mana first. So I blocked, bounced her to eat, then hoped he'd replay her first (which he did, we showed to him why sending the "expendable" (and discard on a stick) card first was the correct play afterwards), so I killed her in response to the discard trigger for Tormentor.
After he lost so much I'd stabilied and won in a couple swings in the air.

Match 2 vs abzan stuff
I was really scared of the match-up: I'm running 14 creatures, rely on auras and cutlass to make them actually big, and don't really have the curve to reliably kill/tempo people before the stabilise and his big dinos + removal take over.
Game 1 I could run out Vraska on turn 5 but he's got Pterodon Knight and Emissary of Sunrise with a counter, and mana up. + Show Spoiler +
He saw my Dreamcaller Siren from an exploration so I might as well run it there to buy a turn of his attacks. He casts Vanquish on it, great as I'm not in position to race and he doesn't have a flyer so far (no dino for Knight). I sandbag Vraska a couple more turns playing a Marauding Looter and moving the Cutlass around for better block, then she enters the fray. Thanks to that I can remove something, let her go down to 1 then keep plussing and either play creatures or leave mana up to make attack harder for my opponent. After a couple turns my opponent scoops, I assume he wouldn't be able to stick 2 flyers (to prevent a minus on the first one) and with an X/4 to stop Emissary attacks and force the tokens to chump, he didn't think he'd be able to do something before the ult.
Game 2 is a mulligan but he only plays Ixalli's Keeper. I end up bouncing it just to be able to t5 Marauding Looter off the treasure, a risky play but he seemed to do nothing either. I take a Ceratops hit because looting is way too important, and I have Siren's Ruse in case of blockers... none (well just the Keeper), so I get to play a hoarder, loot, play Siren's Ruse to untap and eat the Keeper when it attacks (and take the Ceratops again). I loot again, and on his turn I chump Ceratops with Hoarder, then finish with Dark Nourishment in the end step, using the hoarder's treasure to cast the other Marauder I looted into.
Being able to double loot each turn to get rid of lands is as ridiculously good as it sound and my opponent concedes after I do it twice and replace the 3-4 lands on top of my deck with too many creatures even when he goes Contract Killing + use the treasures for Vanquish. He shows me his hand, with the expected contents: white creatures and interdictions, and another Vanquish. I was planning on racing the Ceratops if need be, as I wanted to keep one of my few creatures immune to Vanquish (that even came above the loots) since I wanted to fight and end the game before he got his 3rd colour.
I think the match-up isn't good for me and I was lucky he burned his removal so eagerly on the Siren game 1, and didn't punish me not doing anything until the t4 eot bounce in game 2.

Match 3 vs UBr pirates
I know he has River's Rebuke as I saw the end of his match, he knows I have Vraska.
Game 1 he goes Siren Stormtamer, play Opt t3 to find 3rd land drop, Bloodletter... we're kinda racing since I have Sailor of Means with Cutlass, but then I drop Vraska. + Show Spoiler +
I have a Marauding looter in play from turn 5, but I can't attack easily quite yet because of Watertrap Weavers one after the other, but my opponent doesn't find his 6th land. I could dramatically hasten my clock by playing One with the Wind but I'm thinking I may need it as 2 "hasty" damage if he ends up playing the Rebuke, and I don't want to lose it if I play it, attack once then he topdecks a land. At that point I actually have the game won but I make a big mistake. + Show Spoiler +
Thanksfully for me he doesn't topdeck a land the following turn and I win.
Game 2 is tempo stuff. I go 2/3 Squire, his Weaver buys him one attack, then I play Hoarder and he plays Cutlass. He takes the trade with my Hoarder, I follow up with quartermaster fetching my own cutlass.
He plays his own Marauding Looter and I don't find a land, I'm uncomfortable burning all my treasures as I want to play around bounce/counters and I'm terrified of him stalling to 6 lands. Bounce the looter, hit. He replays it and a 2-drop, and I get a land so I cast Dark Nourishment, glad that he didn't equip the looter, then swing again. What he's got left in hand are 2 lands and he doesn't topdeck something to save himself to he scoops.

Well, I'll take the 3-0, and I'll take the mythic from my own boosters, but I definitely was very lucky, and the table was soft. Had the club's president played instead of giving up his seat to the last second guy I'd never have gotten away with such a draft (he'd have taken more creatures and made a streamlined deck, reducing my quality), and the late late blue bombs in pack 2 were ridiculous. Then luck during games too, with my opponent keeping a hand unable to punish my slow start M2G2, or not finding his 6th land M3G1.

Since the club bought a lot of boxes for the drafts, president's got leftover "dino-size showdown packs" from buy-a-box, he's adding them to the picks (as in you can tell him "I'll skip this pick and take the pack instead"). They're pretty high EV just because the Rebecca Guay lands are ~1.50€ each and you may luck out on your rares. Getting a 3rd Vraska seems better (may have been tempted by the Jace, but he's in English and I figure with 3x Vraska I'm set till she rotates).