The LiquidLegends Lounge - Page 1794

Pretty nuts and bolts UB deck. P1P1 was Entrancing Melody over Walk the Plank and as I feared that shoved my neighbour in B solidly. Actually 2 people to my right were U (I think my neighbour moved in from a Green dino deck when he opened Hostage Taker and saw 0 black pack 2) and 2 to my left were black.
I could have drafted 5x Shipwreck Looter and 5x Desperate Casteways if I really wanted to. Because of that I had to pick Cutlass over Lookout's Dispersal P3P2. P3P3 was Vona over Kitesail Freebooter and Duskborne Skymarcher.

Basically I was running 6+ 2-drops, 5 3-drops, then Vona and Deathless Ancient, and 1x OwtW 2x Mark of the Vampire, Depths, Interdiction, Vanquish the Weak, Entrancing Melody as interaction, 16 lands but included UB and UW duals and 5 treasure makers to ease the splash. So weak early creatures and hope to suit them up and let them or the flyers do the job due to lack of bounce/tricks.

Match 2 was against my right neighbour, UG guy, who wasn't really merfolk (he passed great stuff like Vineshaper Mystic for the Watertrap one since he thought it was "more controlling", he passed a Shapers of Nature pack 3 too, and some other suboptimal picks since he's only really started playing this year). I knew he had Pounce, Savage Stomp, Grazing Whiptail from what I passed pack 2, but not much about his U.

On the draw, neither has a 2-drop, he goes Dryad and I play Siren Lookout revealing Mark of the Vampire. He plays a land and passes turn 4.
I know I've passed a Run Aground pack 2, and he may have picked bounce effects otherwise. I don't have a 5th land, and my hand is: Sailor of Means, Skymarch Bloodletter, Vona, Mark of the Vampire, Depths of Desire, and an irrelevant card I can't remember.
I hesitated between dropping the Sailor to make sure I have a turn 5 Vona, dropping the Mark of the Vampire and going off to the races with a 4/5 flying lifelinker, or just develop my board with the Bloodletter for more flying damage.
But I didn't know what his deck had and although people would almost never mainboard Crushing Canopy here and Pounce does nothing, I was afraid of getting blown out, especially since if I don't hit a land for Vona next turn I'm basically forced to play a 3-drop turn 5 while he's got the Dryad and potentially explosive merfolk stuff in that pair to force me to act fast.

In the end I swung and played the Bloodletter. End of turn he flashed in Snapping Sailback, then used the Dryad to play another Dryad + Tishana's Wayfinder (finding a land) on turn 5 and hit for 4.
I didn't find a 5th land for Vona so I had the same issue, especially since playing the Mark meant hitting for 6 and healing for 4, which would put him at 11 life and myself at 21 (thanks to Bloodletter effect), but with him untapping with 6 mana and 10 power. Any interaction on his part or just playing additional creatures would turn the race in his favour, so I play the Sailor instead to be able to play Vona next turn, and give me a blocker.
He untapped, with up to 8 mana thanks to the Dryads, played Shaper of Nature, swung for 4 and passed. That turn when I attacked in the air he flashed in Wind Strider which I had to bounce to keep my creatures alive, but that removed my plan of bouncing whatever bear he'd try to load with counters to kill my blocking Sailor of Means and almost timewalking him.
At that point in the game there was nothing I could do, it took a couple more turns but I was dead to him untapping with Shapers.

Basically because of not finding more lands to play 2 cards a turn or my more expensive ones, I was denied any occasion of playing Vona or the aura and the better quality of his cards (Strider, Shaper) killed me.
I could have casted the Sailor to play it safe and casted Vona on turn 5 anyway, then on turn 6 I could cast the Mark on the Lookout and attack with a 4/5 flying lifelinker and Vona, ready to blow up whatever would need blowing up without losing life (worst case Vona gets a 3-for-1 by killing a big creature then 2 of his blockers.
Alternatively, I could have jammed the Mark on Lookout, then played Sailor to prepare for a turn 6 Vona. She may have been too late at that point because Shapers would have been online and she'd have been unable to block anything (so he wouldn't have to use the mana anyway and hit for free) but making the Strider irrelevant thanks to the Mark and gaining 8+ life could have bought me some time to stabilise, or it could have simply went the distance considering I could have saved Depths to bounce whatever was actually threatening.

In short, it looks like despite me having all these options, and the ability to play around stuff or try to develop my board, the best decision seemed to be "jam your voltron and bet that he doesn't have something to answer it rather than play around it", with the back-up one being "run the mythic bomb in an all-in if his removal-light pair saved something for it."
I'm thinking that it kinda summarizes the format's level 1 (and maybe even 2, once you had in bounce and cards like Dive Down). It's nice that it's pretty representative, but at the same time it's sad that you can sum up the format's main heuristic that way (and the other play was dropping a bomb anyway).