Sunday, April 10, 2011

Besieged Scars Scars Draft

This was a BSS draft in the 8-4 queue that I thought featured some interesting choices.
Pack 1 pick 1:




My Pick:



Seems fine.



Pack 1 pick 2:




My Pick:






Pack 1 pick 3:




My Pick:



Vivisection or Raker would be fine, but I figured I can splash either the Marauder or Offering.



Pack 1 pick 4:




My Pick:



I want to be Black and I like Ghoul better than Plunder, plus we may see another Plunder at common.



Pack 1 pick 5:




My Pick:



I don't know about this one, but I think the idea was I'd be able to splash something, instead of going Black White.



Pack 1 pick 6:




My Pick:



So Blue is open, not that I can do much about it now.



Pack 1 pick 7:




My Pick:



I probably should have bit the bullet and taken Oculus.



Pack 1 pick 8:




My Pick:






Pack 1 pick 9:




My Pick:



FINE. I'll grab some Blue.



Pack 1 pick 10:




My Pick:






Pack 1 pick 11:




My Pick:






Pack 1 pick 12:




My Pick:



Seems late for a Vivisection. I probably won't play 2, but what else would I play here?



Pack 1 pick 13:




My Pick:






Pack 1 pick 14:




My Pick:






Pack 1 pick 15:




My Pick:






Pack 2 pick 1:




My Pick:



Uh huh.



Pack 2 pick 2:




My Pick:


We're playing Black again.



Pack 2 pick 3:




My Pick:



Disappointing. But a splash for Marauder is fine. Molder Beast may table.



Pack 2 pick 4:




My Pick:






Pack 2 pick 5:




My Pick:



There's some amount of synergy with Wurmcoil or Skinrender under here, plus Black Sun's Zenith is easier to cast if you know you'll get some bomb from underneath the Clone Shell.



Pack 2 pick 6:




My Pick:



We want to be Black.



Pack 2 pick 7:




My Pick:



An argument could be made for Drake here. I think the reasoning was the easier casting cost on the artifact, and the fact that it would help me get to the late game just a little better, which was looking pretty decent.



Pack 2 pick 8:




My Pick:



Maybe Rebuttal is better than an off color Myr. I figure casting my big guys will be better overall.



Pack 2 pick 9:




My Pick:



??? I guess Invisomancer isn't great in my controlling deck? But making your 5/5s and 6/6s unblockable seem good.I don't know...



Pack 2 pick 10:




My Pick:






Pack 2 pick 11:




My Pick:



There's our Molder Beast!



Pack 2 pick 12:




My Pick:






Pack 2 pick 13:




My Pick:






Pack 2 pick 14:




My Pick:






Pack 2 pick 15:




My Pick:






Pack 3 pick 1:




My Pick:



Sure. Skinrender, Clone Shell, Neurok Replica, Wurmcoil, even Bleakcoven seems fine with this.



Pack 3 pick 2:




My Pick:



Better than Riddlesmith.



Pack 3 pick 3:




My Pick:



I don't know about this. Prototype Portal seems to invite blowouts, especially exiling a bomb like Wurmcoil. We already have a Mimic Vat, and Night's Whispering every turn isn't bad anyway.



Pack 3 pick 4:




My Pick:



Should I have taken the Drake? Myrsmith seems like one of the few ways we lose.



Pack 3 pick 5:




My Pick:



Sending fatties to the air beats out having a counterspell. Also it cantrips us faster to our bombs.



Pack 3 pick 6:




My Pick:



So now we have 2 mana myr. I think a case could be made for the Perilous myr, but again, casting bombs faster is good.



Pack 3 pick 7:




My Pick:



Don't want to run my guys into that.



Pack 3 pick 8:




My Pick:






Pack 3 pick 9:




My Pick:



We will play this.



Pack 3 pick 10:




My Pick:






Pack 3 pick 11:




My Pick:






Pack 3 pick 12:




My Pick:






Pack 3 pick 13:




My Pick:






Pack 3 pick 14:




My Pick:






Pack 3 pick 15:




My Pick:






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So this was the deck I ended up with

Qty,Card Name,
1,Black Sun's Zenith
1,Bleak Coven Vampires
1,Clone Shell
1,Copper Myr
1,Disperse
1,Fangren Marauder
1,Flight Spellbomb
5,Forest
2,Gust-Skimmer
1,Hexplate Golem
1,Iron Myr
2,Island
1,Mimic Vat
1,Molder Beast
1,Moriok Replica
1,Necrogen Scudder
1,Nested Ghoul
1,Neurok Replica
1,Nihil Spellbomb
1,Silver Myr
1,Skinrender
1,Snapsail Glider
10,Swamp
1,Viridian Emissary
1,Wurmcoil Engine

Sorry for the terrible formatting I am lazy. I played against a controlling infect deck round 1, where I eventually timed out in 3 matches. As I'm sure you guessed, I made multiple misplays, the biggest of which was during game one, F6ing (because I'm a slow player!) through an opponent's turn after I tapped out, but when I had Nihil Spellbomb up. After he passed through combat he realized I had F6ed and Morbid Plundered back two infect guys. I lost that game, and would have gotten game three if I had two more turns, of swinging unopposed, but alas, I am SO SLOW at Magic. The deck, I think turned out fairly well. Thoughts?

5 comments:

Matt said...

Sheesh. Daddy, I wanna open like you when I grow up.

Pack 1 Pick 2, why not Decimator Web?

Pack 1 Pick 3, I don't like the Divine Offering, even if the pack was weak. Treasure Mage has a high upside, and I'd be happy to take a Raker there as well, as UB is solid.

Pack 1 Pick 5, consider Rusted Slasher over Emissary. Turns out free artifact sac outlets are like, really good sometimes.

Pack 3 Pick 4, I think you should have taken Ichorclaw Myr over the Myrsmith. It's a sideboard card, and you are never unhappy to see the 'smith on the other side either.

Pack 3 Pick 6, I'm pretty sure Perilous Myr is the right choice there. I'd be pretty sad to pass the mana myr but you miscounted. This was your 3rd.

Other than that, I can't really quibble with how the deck turned out. Now play faster.

TooSarcastic said...

Yeah, the late Gore Vassal and Priests of Norn could have easily put me into White instead of Blue. I just dislike W/B. Decimator Web is fine in a grinding control deck or a poison deck,but 8 mana is a lot before you get an effect. I will take it 4-8 happily with a first pick like BSZ, but not 2nd. I love Marauder for its ability to keep me in games I should lose. The only other card I would have taken over Marauder was Crush, because I would be likely to play it in any deck (like the Marauder). You are probably right about Slasher over Emissary, with the 2nd Offering obviously being the best card if I wasn't afraid of B/W. Ichorclaw Myr was likely the pick Pack 3 pick 4. Pack 3 Pick 6 I did miscount in the write up, but I still pick a mana myr there. I ended up playing 4 five drops, 2 six drops, a seven drop, and an x-spell. I played all 3 myr and was happy to cheat my fatties into play early.

higherbrow said...

This was an interesting draft, and if I was drafting it, I would've been in blue a bit earlier than you were. First up, Decimator Web is a really shaky pick early on. It's only good in a control on control matchup, as it's way to slow for any aggro deck to play, and if it would beat an aggro deck, any finisher likely would have. Also, Vivisection is not in the same league as Serum Raker, which is not as strong as Divine Offering. However, I still take the Raker here because, as you point out, W/B is super awkward in this format, and you are going to almost want to force black as a main color from here. I can also get behind Treasure Mage, as a speculative pick. We know it would have been awesome with a certain bomb you picked up, but even at the time of the pick it's a splashable card, and blue looks open, so we might move in on it.

Looking at Marauder/Divine Offering/BSZ, however, a second Divine Offering is way stronger than the Emissary. He's fine, but splashing white for double Offering as well as any Arrests/Revokes you pick up is great. It's important NOT to look at Emissary as fixing, but as a 2/1 with a strong graveyard trigger. I don't like Slasher here at all; you're not playing red unless you open a Hoard Smelter, which is where you really want the sac effect, and you're four picks into pack 1 with no Wellsprings or any artifacts at all. Plus, with a BSZ, Offering, and Marauder, you don't know much, but you know you're probably going to be control or dinos, and not interested in 4/1s that interact with very few of the powerful control cards in not-red.

Pack 4 you have a very clear signal that you should be blue, and you need to move in on it. You've seen a lot of blue cards already, so it's clearly open at this point, goes well with black, and has a lot of playables pack one to shore up your off color picks. Master's Call is awesome, but when you see an Ichor Wellspring alongside an Oculus and a MC, with where you are in the draft, the non-committal Wellspring is probably the pick here.

Pack 1 Pick 4: Snaps is going to be bad in your deck. It's going to be bad on turn 3 as a gray ogre, it's going to be bad on turn 6 as a wind drake, it's just not going to do anything for you. I would take (as much as I hate the card) the Sentinel here as a sideboard card. the DsS will likely be better for your main than Snaps, and if you don't play it, it'll be strong out of your sideboard against dinos.

higherbrow said...

Pick 5: Preference, but I think you underestimate what Neurok Replica does in a deck with BSZ and Wurmcoil. This format is very easy to make ground stalls, which favors whoever has the best bombs. And you have some big bombs. Clone Shell digs, but is very inconsistent in this deck. Too often you're going to have a Mana Myr or something under it.

Pick 7: And here I argue against Neurok Replica because Darkslick Drake is so good. Stops Glint Hawks, whether Idol or not, Sky Eel Schools, Oxidda Scrapmelters, and everything else that you are scared of.

Also yes, Rebuttal > off color myrs unless it's a splash color.

Pack 3 pick 2: If you'd taken the second Offering over the Emissary, then Arrest is a snap-pick windmill slam here. Since you didn't, Scudder seems fine. But, I'm just using this to point back to where I was coming from with that comment. You knew you'd want to splash something, and weren't sure what, but moved into a color instead of taking more cards you'd have an easy time splashing or playing.

Hating the smith is fine, in my opinion. Drake might be a 23rd card, but you aren't that hard up for playables, so.

Pack 3 Pick 6: I think this is a Perilous Myr and I don't think it's close. Both are bad topdecks in ground stalls. Both are good on 2. One of them stalls the game, the other accelerates you one turn if you have fatties. Stalling is more important than accelerating unless your opponent is a Wafo-Tapa deck (IE super control), which you lose to anyways.

That Dispense you picked up could be a cute sideboard option if you were U/B/w. Not to harp, but this could have been a fantastic control deck, rather than a somewhat awkward control deck with partial aggro draws.

Stephen King has nothing on this.

TooSarcastic said...

Thank you for the comments, Higherbrow. Well reasoned and communicated.