I've also been playing some of the closed Arena beta. The worst part of Arena is that it's Ixalan. Gawd I dislike that set. Bleh.
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First the auction. I was super pumped to get the cards in. The box actually showed up earlier than expected, a Christmas miracle!
I opened the deck boxes first, and they were all full of land. I was smacked. Shafted.
As it turned out, there were no rares or mythics. Sigh
After going through the cards, I wound up with over $120 in value. Mostly trade stock.
Lesson to self, what you see is not always what you get in the positive sense.
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| I'll likely never own the duals or City of Traitors. |
Round 1 vs Grixis, not Delver: Honestly I am not entirely sure what the guy was trying to do. I didn't see much of his deck at work. I know he had Snappy, and some lite removal. I was a bit nervous to be honest. First game I dropped a Omni, then Sneak Attack, then a Griselbrand. He scooped.
Second game I found myself screwed in terms of threats, he had all the answers to things I could produce. He took me down. I did show the Leyline of the Void, because I thought he had more graveyard materials. Between Snappy and such... I removed the Leylines, and put in Blood Moons instead for game three. I dropped a turn two Emrakul, and that was match. Nice.
Round 2 vs Miracles: I mulled to 5 because of complete land hose. I popped a Probe, he showed a ton of control and I scooped before I embarrassed myself. I brought in Blood Moons hoping to keep him off fetches and duals. Also two red blasts, which is about all I had in terms of Miracles answers.
Game 2 I went first, popped a Probe, saw no FoW, and first turned an Emrakul. Scoop to game three.
Game 3 was tedious. I had a VERY small window to produce an threat and I swung and missed. I dropped a Blood Moon, and instead of cracking his fetch he Brainstormed... which allowed me to hold on for about 5 turns. I got an Omniscience down, but I could not draw a threat before he blew it up and he took control after that. I proceeded to have all three of my sideboard Blood Moons as well. (seriously?) Live by the combo, die by the combo. I had the pieces in place, but I could not find the answers. Oh well.
Round 3 vs Dredge: Once again, I mulled to 5 with no land... He proceeded to do what Dredge does. I had no answers and I scooped fairly easily.
In comes the Leylines of the Void. Oh boy oh boy oh boy... I seriously thought about putting Blood Moons in, but decided against it.
Game 2, I draw the nuts... I popped out a first turn Emurkal again. I knew he had no counter magic, so I felt safe there. He scooped after that. The funny thing was, his top card was an Ashen Rider. If I had waited one turn I likely would have lost. Ouch. Double ouch. Whew.
Game 3, I drew one the Leylines. He said keep, I said keep and dropped the Leyline. His face went slack. He should have scooped, but played a bit and I knew without his graveyard his entire deck was pointless... I gave him props for playing it out a bit.
Paid $8, won $12. Not the worst, not the greatest. But glad I played.... I still love combo. Doing broken things with broken cards.
Impressions:
- Probe is awesome.
- My sideboard build was pretty darn on par, no dancing around... blunt force.
- The current meta at the LGS was tilted towards fancy Grixis
- My first games in round 2/3 was just obnoxious. Seriously... 6 draws and 1 land in all of those. WTF deck?!
- No long drawn out games for Combo, either you got it or you don't. Its not honest thinking man's magic, but for the most part that's a part of Magic you need to figure out.
- If I go back, I would likely run change some of the build. I love broken things, but I realized a couple things.
- Need a 4th Griselbrand
- Need something to deal with Miracles... hmmm
- I played ONE Sneak Attack, but pretty much with the game in hand
- Never played a City of Traitors
Hoping to play some more Thursday and draft some more Unstable on Friday evening. Good Holiday Magic to me.
