The LiquidLegends Lounge - Page 1806

Overall we didn't open much green (and even less decent green), especially pack 1 and my sit was supposed to be BW vampires but I failed to identify it correctly, as it only became slightly apparent in the last 4 picks of booster 1 and I only had 2 cards of each colour.

P1P1 was cutlass passing 3 rare+uncommon red cards (including LRC) so I figured R would be out anyway.
By pick 6 I had Shapers of Nature, One with the Wind, Watertrap Weaver, Jade Guardian, passing a couple things like Skymarch Bloodletter or a Depths of Desire (for Jade, since I had aura and it was the only G card left).
But after that it seemingly dried. U still there but not much G and no more merfolk. I took a Contract Killing and noticed some W tricks around.
Then near the very end of the booster I noticed I still had a choice between B and W cards (as in queen bay's soldier vs vampire zeal) despite passing a Deacon somewhat early, so I thought "maybe I'm supposed to be BW" but it's hard to let go of something like 5 U cards, Shapers and Jade considering vampires seemed open but I didn't have anything strong yet and someone to my left may have tried.

Pack 2 has almost no green but passes me decent blue (as in P2P2 OwtW, later a couple Watertrap Weavers, Run Aground), and some scattered vampire cards in both colours. I regret a bit not being in it in the end since I somehow see Duskborne Skymarcher, Bishop's Soldier, etc.
On the other hand I have trouble finding pirates aside from a couple Shipwreck Looters and a Lookout.
Skymarcher wheels and I shake my head: turns out BW vampires is open and I should be in it, it's just that the handful of decent cards for it pack 1were opened in the seats to my left so I saw them super late.

Pack 3 even has a super late Call to the Feast to rub it in. I opened a 2nd Angrath's Marauders and a foil Ferocidon so blegh; also Lookout's Dispersal but I don't have enough pirates to make it work!
U flows again but B is a bit limited (more so than in pack 1) and G doesn't have much after I passed some dinos late-ish pack 2, save for a an absurd pack with Kumena's Speaker, Shaper Apprentice, River Heralds' Boon... wtf.
However I also get a third one with the wind pick 4 or 5. Geez. I pass a quartmaster that doesn't wheel, and in the very first picks another cutlass because I don't have enough pirates to use the tempo for it.

In the end my deck is a pile with 6 2-drops (including Bloostained Paladin, 2x Looter, 2x B bear, Hoarder), 5-or-so 3-drops (including 3x Weaver), an UB uncommon, a cutlass (worse 'cause I'm short on pirates), 3x One With the Wind, a discard package (Raiders' Wake, Heartless Pillage, Duress).
But almost no removal or bounce. Fuck. At least I should statistically see Weaver and OwtW basically every game making my tempo decent.

Then I look to my left...
Left neighbour is UG merfolk. Curious, I ask him what made him move there since I cut U so much. He P1P1'd Shapers of Nature, then the LRC I passed (what? You just first picked a gold card), and he obviously grabbde everything he could pack 2 since he didn't have much at first. Also picked Apprentice over Speaker in that god pack.

To his left? Another UB pirates deck. He P1P1'd River's Rebuke and forced, basically, taking B like the Skymarch Bloodletter I passed (and a Vanquish the Weak in the pack where I got my first OwtW), and then grabbing all the pirates pack 2. He actually fucking passed Lookout's Disperal pack 3.

So let's sum up the draft: I position myself for UG but it seems to dry a bit; it's just that we didn't open much pack 1. My neighbour fucking forces it based on his P1P1 and makes some pretty wrong picks (also taking anything with "merfolk" written on it).
Seeing the dry I hedged toward UB just in case, I'll need to pick actual pirates but colours seemed open. My further neighbour fucking forces it based on his P1P1, making my pack 2 even worse and somehow getting "rewarded" for it pack 3 since we open few pirates and more payoff cards that I can't pick for myself.

Fuck.
These.
Guys.
Hard. Just... fuck 'em. Fuck the goddamn little annoyances that force shit off their early picks and giving little fucks to the signals (the UB guy hates red so I should have expected him not to touch it no matter what I passed anyway).
Fuck these fucking drafters that go all-in on pack 2 either being too bad to realise they're screwing you or not giving a fuck because forcing what they wanna play is obviously their priority. Fuck their goddamn luck when pack 3 somehow helps them because pack 2 was so bad (as in you open good so they "wheel" good cards and they open little so they pick a thing and leave you nothing) or they wrecked your draft so hard you can't pick your intended cards pack 3 and they fall into their lap.
Fuck these guys.
Fuck the reminders of early in the format when people ignored signals because they wanted to play their hypest tribe.
Fuck the reminders of HOU where some dork decides to force something or ignores signals because hurr durr goodstuff and suddenly wreck your pack 2 or 3.

My right neighbour was RW because he opened Huatli and actually ended closer to Grw after all the Whiptails, Dreadmaws and Spineback he got passed pack 2 and he did it correctly although his curve left to be desired and all three first picks were "on-colour" rares he ended up playing, also getting passed P1P3 Conqueror's Banner somehow. He got lucky but he read signals and didn't force.

Anyway.

Match 1 vs the third UB at the table.
Game 1 I keep a 0-creatures hand with cutlass, aura, dive down, lands, I'm on the draw and have 6 2-drops and 5 3-drops so I figure I'll find something and my enhancers + protection can let me win a race.
He goes Blight Keeper -> Wanted Scoundrels -> Dispersal my 3-drop, move on.
Game 2 I keep a hand with Duress, Squire, OwtW, 4 lands. I can try that. See he's only got a 3-drop, Chart a Course, Siren's Ruse, and lands, take Chart, I can punish hard. Explore reveals OwtW, I leave it, he topdecks Freebooter and takes the one in my hand. I suit up and go in.
A couple turns later he wins the race because he topdecked 3 flyers in a row and explored a non-land on his Lookout, so he had a Stormtamer to block my lethal flyer and lethal on board anyway even after swinging into it and sacrificing a creature. I had 5 outs in the deck at that point.
I also drew all 3 OwtW but only one of my 14 creatures in 13 cards. Yay variance.

Match 2 vs UW creatures
Game 1 he just piles situational cards but somehow it works. Turn 2 he cries out about only getting to play a Skymarcher, not realising how good it is for him when Slash of Talons kills a 4/2 Looter with Cutlass.
Then he plays Imperial Aerosaur on curve so his t1 Imperial Lancer hits for 4. I only have 2/2s but I play Deadeye Plunderers; because of the cutlass in play it dies to Legion's Judgement. I'm ready to stabilise after he empties his hand (suited up bear deals with his Wind Strider and I killed the Aerosaur with a removal) but he topdecks another Wind Strider.
Game 2 is another hand with a single creature and pants. I play slower on purpose, always keeping Dive Down up and it pays off when I counter a removal (although it delayed Raiders' Wake). Turns out he doesn't topdeck flyers this time and loses. I never drew a second creature.
Game 3 I keep a 2-lander on the draw because I have B bear, Weaver/Heartless Pillage, so with another 2-drop or getting to 4 lands I can easily setup a t4 discard+2-drop, or t3 discard -> t4 contract killing/plunderers. Once his hand is ripped off and with tempo plays in hand (and 6 more in the deck with the auras/cutlass/remaining Weavers) the payoff is actually really strong, and if he spends a trick/bounce on my attacker on the Pillage turn it makes things even worse for him.
Of course I draw 5 cards before I find my 3rd land and he plays Raptor Companion t2 so I get wrecked without getting to play.

Match 3 vs UG merfolk
Yeah the fucker who forced.
I have to mulligan a 1-creature (that I can't cast) hand again. I pressure him with tempo and a surprise Raiders' Wake that his beefed up Deeproot Warrior can't deal with. I topdeck a couple lands but Plunderer is bigger than anything he has thanks to Contract Killing, and even if he can chump drawing my first aura ends the game.
Game 2 is basically me keeping another 2-creatures hand, watching him play Jungle Delvers and Headwater Sentries, shoving pants on my 2-drop and going 4, 4, 6, 6, won.

So... yeah.
I don't think I played more than 2 half-games tonight, rest was variance fucking me over or uninteractive fiesta where I goldfish (which doesn't count as actually playing a game).
Out of 8 hands, 1 had no creatures, 4 had 1, 2 had 2 and 1 had 3+ but it didn't matter because what is a 3rd land.

Meanwhile the fucker who forced UB off River's Rebuke watched his opponent mull to 5 in rounds 2 and 3 and got a free draft win.
There's no fucking justice.

I just get really frustrated because I'm trying to draft decently and people go "fuck all logic and whatever I'll just look at this card and force no matter what" and suddenly I end up with a pile because I drafted with 2 boosters.
It's also not something I can really learn much from aside from "is there a 3rd colour that was open pack 1 that the forcers aren't touching so I can move into it, and make a deck with 2 packs for a colour, and 1 pack and a half for the other one, with synergy as an afterthought to getting 20+ playables", and since I like the puzzle/adaptation/reading the table aspect of a draft it kind of just takes away from me.

If it happens with one person, well, shit happens, I try to think about what I passed, how our card evaluations differ, etc. so I can learn how to cut a colour better or how to anticipate what people may value differently (it'll get more relevant in the future when they'll be to my right). Or maybe they just misremembered what was passed or something and mistook a colour as open.
When they force, or even worse like here when multiple people do it, I don't get a say in the matter and there's no rhyme nor reason to it for me to study aside from "pray they don't open a bomb 'cause they'll force it / don't draft this colour or archetype unless they're across you 'cause they'll pick it anyway", which is less learning to draft and more learning to dodge trainwrecks in handicap pods.

The guy in Kaladesh who wrecked my draft because he got passed god packs and chose to ignore the signals and draft it off one pack, well, he read from what was passed to him and the fact that he got packs with 1-2 playables for the pair while I got ones with 3+ in pack 3 so his deck ended up better, it was frustrating but the pack content was variance, and as frustrated as I was at least he made a call off what got passed to him, he didn't randomly decide to force the pair.

Like people say, drafting is a semi-cooperative process. Cases like yesterday are when someone throws a tantrum and yells "no, we'll make things like I want!" and you, who came and sat down for that coop thing, are denied it and have to follow the whims of the tantrum-thrower. That's not what you were advertised or could reasonably expect and that's no fun.

Then the way variance and the way XLN works getting together to utterly screw me over from playing (including the wins, as I said it's not about winning it's about playing games with both players participating), and the guy who forced randomly getting gifted the win is just some more oil on the fire of my frustration. The two (drafting and way games went) aren't related but combine both and it's not exactly a fun evening.

Imma just TL;DR the wall of text below (spoiler: I failed again).
As you pointed, you don't get to draft that often. One could say I have the luxury to draft often; and most people here do too although not quite as often as a handful of us.

I approach drafting in... I guess you could say in a "fair" way? Even though some archetypes are funnier/I really like some build-arounds, I'm not looking to jam them asap and force them so I can play them. I'll just patiently wait till it's open, and I'll try to draft whatever's available to me, attempting to steer things but not punching through or forcing from the get-go.
I'll attempt, and if it doesn't work/it isn't available, I'll fall back and try to get a lane.

There's also an aspect of "well, not tonight, but I'll have other opportunities for this before the format ends!" that ties into the fact that I draft more than you.
I don't mind staying open and not forcing stuff because I assume that in the end I'll "get my turn eventually", if we consider open archetypes for a seat part of variance (pack contents and sitting order). Here comes the "fair" part: "we'll all get a shot at all that stuff eventually."
The people I'm talking about who force a single thing or dive so deep they ignore everything around them fundamentally stomp on that "fairness": say someone loves a deck that's open for at most one seat per pod and forces it every time, he arrogates the whole thing to himelf and you'll never get your "turn" to toy with it.
I'm drafting under the assumption that when I see some cool cards but they're obviouly not in my lane, I'll leave them to the seat which "turn" it is (when it comes to finding your lane/switching; if there's nothing for me I'm an advocate of counterpicking obv.).
We all play together: one night somebody gets to do cool stuff X, another night it may not be available or someone else will be in the seat for it. Doing it over and over like some people did in HOU or this set the last month is saying "fuck you all I'm treating myself at your expense."

Obviously you could say I'm not entitled to getting angry because it's not like I made a social contract about it nor talked to everyone and they agreed to not forcing when something's not for them. I still get angry when I see it happen so blatantly and make an effort to stay civil when I mention how I find forcing a frustrating experience (to them, not gonna deny my rants here are ragey).

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