Just got back from my LGS where I drafted for the first time. I'd played some sealed before tonight, but never had the chance to draft. I was in a six man pod, and went 2-1. This was my pool (didn't have the ability to keep track of my picks):
Round 1: vs. GU Something-or-other-i-forget
Game one went very well; he stabilized his board and pelted me pretty hard, but Mark of the Vampire on a Blood Bairn and Dark Favor on an Accursed Spirit put him in range of Corrupt. Game two, I got land flooded and then I got pulped. He got colour screwed in game three, but put up a good fight regardless. Round one: Victory!
Round Two: vs. Green Stompy
There are many things I can say about Kalonian Tusker, Advocate of the Beast and Sporemound tonight, most of which would get me banned from this forum. Game one, he stabilized his side of the board so fast that I couldn't push any damage through. Once he ultimated Garruk, Caller of Beasts, I was done. Game two went quicker; I got land flooded again, and didn't really put up much of a fight. Round two: *sniff* I'd rather not talk about it.
Round Three: vs. Wu Control
This is where the problems became apparent. Game one reminded me to never underestiimate white's combat tricks (Curse you Celestial Flare!!!). Being slowly pinged to death by a pair of Soulmenders, then finally falling to your own Dark Prophesy is a little embarrassing. Mana flood was more than a little bad in that one too. Game two, I managed to navigate some early game flooding, but thanks to my opponents reliance on protecting his early game attackers instead of playing larger late game threats, I managed to eek out a win. Before game three, I sideboarded out a Swamp and a Vampire Warlord in favour of a Quag Sickness and a second Liturgy of Blood. Both came in handy, as the mana flowed more smothly and I was able to remove his guys outside of combat so his tricks became mostly useless. That and the poor guy never found the third land that his deck needed to function. Round three: Delicious Victory over Control!!! (sorry, I'm not a big fan of playing against non-interactive decks and control decks in particular)
Anywho, 2-1 was enough to get me second place in the pod (the highest I've ever placed in anything Magic related at my LGS). Good times. I'll have to try it again sometime when I can scrape up the cash (which is sometime other than soon ^_^;).
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A polite player might call my card choices "interesting." At my budget, "interesting" is the only option.
I am not one to give an analysis over the whole draft or anything , but I would like to inquire about Elixir of Immortality. How anyone thinks that there is any situation, ever, when it is even remotely playable is beyond me. What do people expect it to do when they pick or run it, I don't understand. Immortality is the last thing it grants.
I am not one to give an analysis over the whole draft or anything , but I would like to inquire about Elixir of Immortality. How anyone thinks that there is any situation, ever, when it is even remotely playable is beyond me. What do people expect it to do when they pick or run it, I don't understand. Immortality is the last thing it grants.
This isn't the deck for it, but it's actually a very good card and the best win condition in the format below rare.
Lol, sorry if my terminology was off. After he Celestial Flared my only creature, he had about four turns of swinging into an open board before I could do anything. I had a Mark of the Vampire in hand and drew nothing but swamps.
Not running those two removal spells is a glaring mistake. You can afford to go to 16 land since EVERY land if going to provide black for you.
Like I said, my first draft. It's also the first time I build a mono coloured limited deck. I always ran 17 lands in RTR block sealed, but you're completely right here. It took me seven games to figure it out though (yes I'm an idiot).
I am not one to give an analysis over the whole draft or anything , but I would like to inquire about Elixir of Immortality. How anyone thinks that there is any situation, ever, when it is even remotely playable is beyond me. What do people expect it to do when they pick or run it, I don't understand. Immortality is the last thing it grants.
I can only comment on my own experience (one draft lol), but the Elixir was quite the workhorse for me last night. In cases where games were close (aka: all of my wins except one and a couple of my losses) the humble little Elixir bought me at least one turn, sometimes two to stabilize. It's basically 3, Gain 5 life. The fact that it puts stuff back in your library was hardly relevant, I almost never used it when I had more than four cards in my graveyard. I would usually use it when my opponent was going to do 4-6 damage and I was headed south of 10 life. Not too shabby then.
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A polite player might call my card choices "interesting." At my budget, "interesting" is the only option.
\[Elixir was\] basically 3, Gain 5 life. The fact that it puts stuff back in your library was hardly relevant
It is actually bad to play for the lifegain. Limited rule #31 spells that only gain you life (or prevent you from losing life) are "never" worth a card slot.
Elixir is decent in the format ONLY because of the shuffle mechanism. It is supposed to be used to keep your card draw heavy deck(s) from decking themselves and to let them replay their spells too.
It is actually bad to play for the lifegain. Limited rule #31 spells that only gain you life (or prevent you from losing life) are "never" worth a card slot.
Elixir is decent in the format ONLY because of the shuffle mechanism. It is supposed to be used to keep your card draw heavy deck(s) from decking themselves and to let them replay their spells too.
It is actually bad to play for the lifegain. Limited rule #31 spells that only gain you life (or prevent you from losing life) are "never" worth a card slot.
Elixir is decent in the format ONLY because of the shuffle mechanism. It is supposed to be used to keep your card draw heavy deck(s) from decking themselves and to let them replay their spells too.
I think people misunderstand me. I'm not saying that the Elixir's an all star or anything like that, just that I found myself myself in more than a couple situations where the life gain effect was useful in giving me time to stabilize my board and rebound from a relatively poor start. Is this a typical situation? Probably not. I'm guessing that if I mention something about Corpse Hauler or Minotaur Abomination doing good work for me last night and Deathgaze Cockatrice being mostly a dead card, more than one person will think I'm saying they're better in general. Deathgaze was great the one time in eight games I drew it. The Hauler and the Abomination cropped up in almost every game and almost always made themselves useful. In most cases, the Minotaur was better than the Vampire Warlord, because I didn't seem to have enough creatures to sack to make his regeneration relevant, and 4 points of toughness went a long way. Tenacious Dead would have been awesome with Blood Bairn, but the only time I even drew the skeleton was in one game on the turn that I swung for lethal with no Bairn in sight. The Deathgaze and the Tenacious D are probably way better in general, but I never really got to use them, so they might have just as well been Chimney Imps last night for the effect they had on my games (an exaggeration I know).
So yeah, I used the Elixir for life gain. And you know what? It worked. I got at least one more win than I would have had without it. Good idea in general? No. Best play in the given circumstances? I don't know, but the one guy who beat me Bramblecrushed my Elixir when I only had one mana up so that he could finish me off before I got the chance to draw that Corrupt with ten swamps out and turn the game on it's head. Was I playing with Pro Tour grinders? No, we were mostly casual Magic dudes out for a fun draft. I'm sure 75% of the users here could have beat me last night (I'm being generous with myself, in reality it's probably closer to 95%; I'm a novice at best). But I actually placed above dead last at an event, which is a rare occurrence.
So, I'll enjoy my victory with my sub-par deck against other (most likely) sub-par decks. It's probably the only chance I'll have to draft for months, so I'd rather it be this way than getting totally creamed by a bunch of players way out of my league.
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A polite player might call my card choices "interesting." At my budget, "interesting" is the only option.
You guys are probably right, but the only other options that I could see was running Shadowborn Apostle for sack fodder or splashing another colour for one or two creatures, neither of which seemed like a good idea at the time. In hindsight, the Apostles may have been the best option, because a couple times I found myself with useful sack effects on the board, but nothing to sack.
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A polite player might call my card choices "interesting." At my budget, "interesting" is the only option.
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1 Frost Breath
2 Glimpse the Future
1 Illusionary Armor
1 Merfolk Spy
1 Opportunity
1 Scroll Thief
1 Wall of Frost
1 Accursed Spirit
1 Altar's Reap
2 Blood Bairn
1 Child of Night
1 Corpse Hauler
1 Corrupt
1 Dark Favor
1 Dark Prophesy
1 Deathgaze Cockatrice
1 Duress
1 Festering Newt
2 Liturgy of Blood
1 Mark of the Vampire
1 Mind Rot
2 Minotaur Abomination
1 Quag Sickness
2 Shadowborn Apostle
1 Tenacious Dead
2 Vampire Warlord
2 Vile Rebirth
1 Wring Flesh
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Fleshpulper Giant
1 Wild Guess
1 Accorder's Shield
1 Bubbling Cauldron
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Staff of the Wild Magus
As you can see, black was pretty open. So I decided to go mono black to avoid getting colour screwed. This is what I built:
1 Accursed Spirit
2 Blood Bairn
1 Child of Night
1 Corpse Hauler
1 Deathgaze Cockatrice
1 Festering Newt
2 Minotaur Abomination
1 Tenacious Dead
2 Vampire Warlord
1 Dark Favor
1 Dark Prophesy
1 Mark of the Vampire
Sorceries (2):
1 Corrupt
1 Liturgy of Blood
Instants (4):
1 Altar's Reap
2 Vile Rebirth
1 Wring Flesh
1 Bubbling Cauldron
1 Elixir of Immortality
Lands (17):
17 Swamp
Round 1: vs. GU Something-or-other-i-forget
Game one went very well; he stabilized his board and pelted me pretty hard, but Mark of the Vampire on a Blood Bairn and Dark Favor on an Accursed Spirit put him in range of Corrupt. Game two, I got land flooded and then I got pulped. He got colour screwed in game three, but put up a good fight regardless. Round one: Victory!
Round Two: vs. Green Stompy
There are many things I can say about Kalonian Tusker, Advocate of the Beast and Sporemound tonight, most of which would get me banned from this forum. Game one, he stabilized his side of the board so fast that I couldn't push any damage through. Once he ultimated Garruk, Caller of Beasts, I was done. Game two went quicker; I got land flooded again, and didn't really put up much of a fight. Round two: *sniff* I'd rather not talk about it.
Round Three: vs. Wu Control
This is where the problems became apparent. Game one reminded me to never underestiimate white's combat tricks (Curse you Celestial Flare!!!). Being slowly pinged to death by a pair of Soulmenders, then finally falling to your own Dark Prophesy is a little embarrassing. Mana flood was more than a little bad in that one too. Game two, I managed to navigate some early game flooding, but thanks to my opponents reliance on protecting his early game attackers instead of playing larger late game threats, I managed to eek out a win. Before game three, I sideboarded out a Swamp and a Vampire Warlord in favour of a Quag Sickness and a second Liturgy of Blood. Both came in handy, as the mana flowed more smothly and I was able to remove his guys outside of combat so his tricks became mostly useless. That and the poor guy never found the third land that his deck needed to function. Round three: Delicious Victory over Control!!! (sorry, I'm not a big fan of playing against non-interactive decks and control decks in particular)
Anywho, 2-1 was enough to get me second place in the pod (the highest I've ever placed in anything Magic related at my LGS). Good times. I'll have to try it again sometime when I can scrape up the cash (which is sometime other than soon ^_^;).
I agree on monoB to maximise mana consistency, Corrupt, Quag Sickness and Dark Prophecy. Looking hard at Chandra and Opportunity though.
1 Festering Newt
1 Child of Night
1 Corpse Hauler
2 Blood Bairn
1 Accursed Spirit
1 Deathgaze Cockatrice
2 Vampire Warlord
2 Minotaur Abomination
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Wring Flesh
1 Dark Favor
1 Bubbling Cauldron
1 Mind Rot
1 Quag Sickness
1 Dark Prophecy
1 Mark of the Vampire
2 Liturgy of Blood
1 Corrupt
And now, the differences
1 Liturgy of Blood
1 Quag Sickness
1 Mind Rot
1 Accorder's Shield
2 Vile Rebirth
1 Altar's Reap
1 Swamp
Not running those two removal spells is a glaring mistake. You can afford to go to 16 land since EVERY land if going to provide black for you.
Ummmm, wut?
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I hope he means they were attacking lol.
Well, that or his opponent was playing Sanguine Bond.
This isn't the deck for it, but it's actually a very good card and the best win condition in the format below rare.
Like I said, my first draft. It's also the first time I build a mono coloured limited deck. I always ran 17 lands in RTR block sealed, but you're completely right here. It took me seven games to figure it out though (yes I'm an idiot).
I can only comment on my own experience (one draft lol), but the Elixir was quite the workhorse for me last night. In cases where games were close (aka: all of my wins except one and a couple of my losses) the humble little Elixir bought me at least one turn, sometimes two to stabilize. It's basically 3, Gain 5 life. The fact that it puts stuff back in your library was hardly relevant, I almost never used it when I had more than four cards in my graveyard. I would usually use it when my opponent was going to do 4-6 damage and I was headed south of 10 life. Not too shabby then.
It is actually bad to play for the lifegain. Limited rule #31 spells that only gain you life (or prevent you from losing life) are "never" worth a card slot.
Elixir is decent in the format ONLY because of the shuffle mechanism. It is supposed to be used to keep your card draw heavy deck(s) from decking themselves and to let them replay their spells too.
Yup. Only blue or black decks want it in M14.
Oh really, the *best* win condition?
It's likely the worst win condition (though that it is a win condition is already saying something).
Yeah, I'd have to give that award to Air Servant.
I think people misunderstand me. I'm not saying that the Elixir's an all star or anything like that, just that I found myself myself in more than a couple situations where the life gain effect was useful in giving me time to stabilize my board and rebound from a relatively poor start. Is this a typical situation? Probably not. I'm guessing that if I mention something about Corpse Hauler or Minotaur Abomination doing good work for me last night and Deathgaze Cockatrice being mostly a dead card, more than one person will think I'm saying they're better in general. Deathgaze was great the one time in eight games I drew it. The Hauler and the Abomination cropped up in almost every game and almost always made themselves useful. In most cases, the Minotaur was better than the Vampire Warlord, because I didn't seem to have enough creatures to sack to make his regeneration relevant, and 4 points of toughness went a long way. Tenacious Dead would have been awesome with Blood Bairn, but the only time I even drew the skeleton was in one game on the turn that I swung for lethal with no Bairn in sight. The Deathgaze and the Tenacious D are probably way better in general, but I never really got to use them, so they might have just as well been Chimney Imps last night for the effect they had on my games (an exaggeration I know).
So yeah, I used the Elixir for life gain. And you know what? It worked. I got at least one more win than I would have had without it. Good idea in general? No. Best play in the given circumstances? I don't know, but the one guy who beat me Bramblecrushed my Elixir when I only had one mana up so that he could finish me off before I got the chance to draw that Corrupt with ten swamps out and turn the game on it's head. Was I playing with Pro Tour grinders? No, we were mostly casual Magic dudes out for a fun draft. I'm sure 75% of the users here could have beat me last night (I'm being generous with myself, in reality it's probably closer to 95%; I'm a novice at best). But I actually placed above dead last at an event, which is a rare occurrence.
So, I'll enjoy my victory with my sub-par deck against other (most likely) sub-par decks. It's probably the only chance I'll have to draft for months, so I'd rather it be this way than getting totally creamed by a bunch of players way out of my league.
I am saying that any old creature would do a better job for you than playing elixir exclusively for lifegain. Just like fog is bad.
+1