The LiquidLegends Lounge - Page 1783

P1P1 Tempest Caller over Savage Stomp, Tilonalli's Skinshifter and I don't remember the other card I passed. P1P2 Lightning-Rig Crew over Fiery Cannonade (since it's good in all match-ups if I end up running it), passing a bunch of W including a Bishop (missing common, I figure my neighbour took a foil). Pick 3 there's Heartless Pillage and Freebooter, I could move toward Black but... not sure. People picked the rare and a common there, and there's plenty of decent W so I decide to pass it and hope people will fight after the Bishop and now an Interdiction.

I figured late into pack 1 that Merfolk may be tried in my seat, but I'm firmly UR by then, so jumping to UG seems like a stretch. After mid-pack was devoid of White, it comes back full force at the end and I even have a choice pick 10 between cutting Raptor Companion or Skyblade.

Pack 2 I get a lot of blue, also a bit of black, and G/W seem super dry... till pick 6 randomly has Shapers of Nature, Deep Warrior and another decent G card. They end up the last 3 cards in the pack too when somebody on my left erupts about them.
At that point and a late Dire Fleet Captain it looks like I could have been BR. Oh well.

Pack 3 has a fuckton of black and I end up cutting some. There's slightly less Red, especially removal or tricks, I still pick up a couple things. My first pick is between Storm Fleet Arsonist and a 3rd One with the Wind. Because I didn't have a lot of creatures wearing the pants well I went with Arsonist but I think that was the wrong pick. A triple OwtW deck is just an even more busted double OwtW deck after all.

The deck ends up very consistent but with clear holes:
- Stormtamer, Shipwreck Looter, FFF, 2x Shaper Apprentice, 3x LRC, 2x Watertrap Weaver, Captain Lannery Storm, 2x Buccaneers, 2x OwtW, 2x Depths of Desires, 2x Run Aground (running one of each), Firecannon Blast, Dowing Dagger as a poor man's cutlass, choice of 5-drops and some other stuff
- no cutlass tho ("cut" pack 3 by the vampire drafter slightly to my right, he didn't do it with tokens in mind apparently, only one opened), a Marauding Looter was cut to my left by the UB drafter, and I know there are a lot of auras around (passed a Mark, and the OwtW pack 3)
- if I had to draft again, maybe I'd have taken the freebooter and tried BR (it was open and it turns out I was cut a lot of good U by UB 2 seats to my left despite cutting as I could pack 1 and giving them all the B and W in the world), but mostly I'd have picked up Sailor of Means over Storm Fleet Spy for easier splashing, and the aura over the arsonist. Cutting auras and being able to splash Mark myself would have given me a big leg up on the rest of the pod.

I was mostly wondering about how to play the game, since 3x LRC can take them over and end fast if I have a single bear getting through each turn, or playing pirates often (had 9+), but they don't wear pants well because of that. Pants > LRC in this format since they represent 3-4 damage a turn at least, and Arsonist doesn't go well with the slower plan of Crew anyway.

Seat to my right forced dinos, picking a bit of Red from me (Unfriendly Fire), and to his right was Vampires. He simply drafted very badly (he opened Call to the Feast pack 3, wheeled it (reasonable if there was something good as it likely won't get picked up so the main risk is hate drafting) and still didn't pick it, passed several queen's commission and late Zeals and Contract Killings too).
UR or UG is likely the correct call if the pod was more experienced (2x Kumena's Speaker, 2x Watertrap Weaver, 2x Tishana's Wayfinder, Tempest Caller, 2-3x Jade Guardian with 3x Winds would have been a killer basis for a deck).

Round 1 was pretty one-sided, opp mulled twice and didn't have a 2-drop and I had LRC every time so I just had to attack every turn and bounce/tap his bigger blockers.

Round 2 was against the guy who forced dinos, game 1 he went t3 New Horizons t4 Ceratops and I had a bounce so I just attacked through every turn, forcing removal on Lannery Storm.
Game 2 I drew 3 creatures and he could race the Stormtamer any day, had Ixalan's Binding for another, and Dual Shot from the side meant he'd kill a lot of them, so I end up losing my big blocker and with all lands in hand it's RIP.
Game 3 looks like a bit of the same as getting stuck on 3 lands makes things hard for me, but Lannery Storm comes through, Tempest Caller pushes some damage, and I get absurdly lucky with a leftover treasure when my opponent targets LRC with Ixalan's Bindin, that I sac Stormtamer for. I had another LRC in hand, and since I transformed Dagger to get over 3 mana + treasures my flying clock would have been too slow. With another pirate in hand it's over quickly.

Round 3 was the interesting one, against the UB player who's the other experienced one at the pod.
Last week I beat him after a ridiculous UB mirror and my air force + tempo vs his bomb rares and banner, so a t1 Stormtamer could be a PTSD if he thinks I'll t3 cutlass.
Game 1 he's on the play and the difference is big as instead of smacking him with Lannery I have to discard twice to Deadeye Tormentor (he's running 2x Siren's Ruse) and getting Firecannon Blast exiled with Freebooter on turn 2. I keep drawing action tho and even having to play OwtW on Stormtamer, that + Dowsing Dagger is enough to force him to chump after awhile. In the end, after several decent topdecks from me he topdecks something to kill me rather than die to LRC triggers / unopposed flyer the following turn.
Game 2 I have a slowish start but after I Run Aground his Tormentor back on top of his library... dumping Mark + One with the Wind in the yard, I get to beat him down despite the massive 20 points life swing (I wanted to double block the Tormentor after Mark, but he untapped and played OwtW on it, welp).
Game 3 I have no play before turn 3 and he sees my whole hand with another t2 Freebooter, so... I also stay stuck on 2 lands and he makes me discard again, RIP. It ends up close because I have 2x Shaper Apprentice and a Shipwreck Looter with pants so he's hard-pressed. Freebooter has a Mark of the Vampire which I can race, but then his Hoarder gets a OwtW. It comes close but when I have to keep a flyer back to chump and go to 1, he casts Vraka's Contempt on it so I'm dead.

I didn't want to keep Lannery and trade her with Hoarder, same with Brazen Buccaneer, but since I had identified his game plan as "win with auras" (or get counters on his Siren Lookouts but since I have my own auras/dagger for my flyers I actually go bigger than him) I should have offered the trade regardless.
His creatures are small, so either he trades which forces him to replay creatures before he can suit them up, or he takes the damage which puts me ahead in the race but indicates that either he's got auras, or no replacement creatures in hand (his creature curve was lower than non-creature one so unlikely). In that case I'd be setting up for a big tempo win if I have removal or bounce in hand to tempo him out (especially if he plays OwtW since it's "only" 2 more damage in exchange for setting him back one turn and a half).
I don't know if that'd have won me game 3, but it makes no sense to keep creatures back since his deck doesn't look to interact at all and at worst I'd trade.

His deck looked like it'd have the most issues with midrange, interestingly.
An aggro deck would need at least 2 removal to handle the Mark and be able to race, and a control one wouldn't be able to deal with all the flyers and discard before it died. Midrange on the other hand, especially playing red dinos, would be big enough and have trample to just outrace him, so as long as it can save a single removal for the Mark, it'd go way over him.
He complained about not drawing his removal but finding 2+ of his 3 auras, the Freebooter, and at least one of his 2 Tormentors in each of the 3 games served him just as well as the Dreamcaller Siren or Skulduggery would have. On my end, having sided into 4 ways to bounce his creatures it should have been expected that I'd draw at least one per game.
On the play, maybe I should have sided Cancel in and simply held it up as much as possible to prevent discard or auras... or Swashbuckling to make my creatures bigger and keep racing (it's basically a OwtW considering the match-up unless I play Dowsing Dagger). I wonder if I gave too much credit to his Tormentors and ability to put me in topdeck mode early on—it's variance that he drew them so much but with 2x Tormentor and 2x Siren's Ruse he's likely to make me discard.

My drafting choices clearly came to light in that match since Freebooter let him not play around anything, while I basically lost both games (and almost the one I won) to the auras I actually passed him.