Best Laid Plans- Tams Draft Deck
For someone who loves aggressive decks as much as I do, I have found myself in blue more often that not, since Amonkhet dropped. While the experience has been engaging, and it's great to step out of my comfort zone, I've been yearning to return to my agro ways, and a draft with friends seemed to be the place to do it.
Before I'd even sat down at the table I'd made the decision to force Red/White. A good idea? Probably not. Forcing anything is risky at best. Out of the eight of us drafting, I was fairly certain that at least three of the drafters would gravitate towards control decks, at least splashing blue. Another of the drafters isn't the biggest fan of red, so I figured that would most likely leave me with 3-4 players who could possibly be competition for me. I figured the best thing to do was jump into red early and cut it hard.
Then I opened pack one. Not a single playable red or white card and the rare was "Curator of Mysteries"
, a really strong card that you generally just don't pass. So in spite of my aggressive leanings, my practical side won out and I snapped it up. Pack two saw some weak sideboard white cards as well as a Tormenting Voice and Hyena Pack in red. Sigh Looking at the other cards, one stood out- “Bonepicker”,
which is a great black card and works well in blue/black.
And so it went. Ruthless Sniper, double Wasteland Scorpion, Open in to Wonder, Angler Drake, there just didn't seem to be any red or white cards that I was seeing to compete with the black/blue that was coming my way. By the end of pack one I decided that I was just not meant to go Boros and jumped into Dimir with both feet.
Here is how it turned out.
What I did not play.
I would have liked to have picked up more removal, but no less than two other drafters were cutting the black hard. That said, creature based removal like the scorpions and Bonepicker with their Deathtouch and Festering Mummy, Ruthless Sniper and Soulstinger with their -1/-1 abilities, combined with a Cartouche of Ambition, Illusory Wrappings and a little blue bounce helped out a lot. I have to confess that I'm feeling a little less dirty about playing counter spells as of. I'm a monster!
After the deck build I was pretty happy with my deck. A nice curve, strong creatures, ways to interact with my opponents creatures, all things I'm looking for in a successful draft.
My first round opponent wasn't in the control deck I would have thought he would have drafted and instead was in a more aggressive midrange build, but with my ability to make good blocks and deal with his creatures, the games were long and grindy, very much back and forth. I really think that our decks were well matched and the games could have gone either way. In the end, my deck stopped giving me gas and I wound up 1 and 2 against him.
The second person I faced was a friend of mine who hasn't really played magic since RTR block was out. He hadn't seen a single card from Amonkhet and had to read and evaluate on the fly. He wound up crafting a kooky enchantment based deck that required him to cycle or discard to do damage. Unfortunately, the pieces of his deck didn't come together quickly enough and I won in two quickly.
My last round was against Step and by this point I was pretty tired, and sadly, I think my deck was too. I was weak to his creatures without being able to find any useful removal for his crazy, Voltroned up Cartouche monstrosity and he crushed me.
Looking at my deck again now, I still think it turned out really well and didn't perform up to what it could have. While I would like to have built that Boros deck, I don't regret following the path of the best cards available to me, it was the smart move and resulted in a decent deck. I just hope next draft I can finally open some sweet red value.
Thanks for reading,
Tams
