top of page

Blue/Green? Madness! - Monday Draft Report - 26 June, 2017


Greetings, Internetlings!

If you’ve listened to The Knowledge Pool this week, you’ll have heard that I’ve been feeling a little burnt out on Magic in general. Thankfully, that feeling completely leaves me when I sit down at a drafting table, and one of the best places for me to refresh myself, is with a cube draft.

I was going to write this week’s article about a cube I did just the other day, but as I went mono red, there wasn’t much to say other than it’s really fun to 3-0 against people who are trying to play things like Emrakul and Simic Sky Swallower.

Instead, let me tell you about something a little more relevant to our current draft format. I want to start you off with a picture of my Friday night draft deck.

The deck wasn’t exactly how I’d pictured it when I started. I wanted to be more aggressive, but I just didn’t see many two drops. I picked up a couple of late counterspells to try to compensate, but they’re never really high on my list. Still, 3 cartouches and 3 trials made for a lot of value, and between that, Mouth to Feed, and all of the cycling in my deck, I was almost in danger of milling myself out on many occasions. Let’s check out the draft.

The draft started with a Cartouche of Strength, followed by a Hooded Brawler, both of which I took while passing at least one high pick green card, so I wasn’t sure how the pack coming back to me was going to go. I did take a trial of Strength over a Bitterblade Warrior, partially because I think it’s a better card, and partially because I had the Cartouche already. After that though, green dryed right up. I spent the rest of the pack sliding between white, blue, and even red, basically picking up the best card in the pack.

In pack two I was greeted by value, which I was glad to take, as the rest of the pack wasn’t very good. I decided that since I’d already taken some good blue, I’d continue in that direction, as the green didn’t seem to be flowing from the other direction, either. I was a little concerned, to be honest. If I’d passed early green, and not seen it coming my way, it was going to be difficult to play it as a main colour, and when an Enigma drake came my way, I thought about just taking it, but I think that’s when I took Bounty of the Luxa, which I mostly took because I hadn’t gotten a good chance to play with it. On to pack 3.

I honestly can’t remember what was in my third pack, and that bothers me, because I know I had a good reason for taking the Naga Vitalist, other than that she was my first two drop creature. Perhaps I knew I had the Lay Claim, and an Evolving Wilds, and was hoping to pick up more top end to ramp into. If that was my reasoning, I don’t think it was correct. Either way, the rest of the pack rewarded me nicely for my colours. I was passed yet another Trial, a Mouth to Feed, and even a late Sandwurm, which I was happy to have.

The deck, so far as I could tell, looked strong. I knew I had powerful and evasive threats, I knew I had strong removal, and I knew I was going to refill my hand often, so why, then, was my final record 1-2? Let’s go through it.

Round 1 I played against black/red, and my opponent didn’t really draw all that well, so I was able to get out some threats and basically draw my way to victory with little opposition. I felt pretty good about the state of my deck, but I think I put a little too much emphasis on my drawing well, and not enough on the fact that my opponent didn’t.

Round 2 was a little more even. I took some early damage in game 1 before quickly dominating through card draw, but in games two and three we ended up in a board stall, until my opponent managed to get ahead and finish the game, piecemeal in one game, and all at once in the final.

Round 3 went much the same, with me winning the first game, and then losing two. One to attrition, and the other to superior numbers.

So how is it that a deck that looks like this one can lose, even with phenomenal card advantage, and good threats and removal?

Well, for one, the deck lacks two drops, but even though I came up against two red/white decks, neither of them were aggressive. On the other hand, I spent a lot of mana on simply drawing cards. Third, and I think this can just be put down to variance, I never drew my counter spells until they were too late, so they basically just said “draw a card”. It’s a common complaint I have about counter spells. They have all the marks of a bad card. Situational, often conditional, and easy to play around. In comparison to removal, which can be used on any turn of the game, counter spells require specific timing to be effective.

I’ve talked to other people who’ve played blue/green in this format, and the consensus seems to be that it looks powerful, and loses. We’re coming up on the end of Amonkhet draft, so I probably won’t get a chance to try it again, but I’d be curious to hear if anyone else out there has had similar experiences.

Thanks for reading,

-Step.


Check out our Podcast!
Recommanded Reading
Search By Tags
No tags yet.
Follow "THIS JUST IN"
  • Black YouTube Icon
  • Facebook Basic Black
  • Twitter Basic Black
  • Black Google+ Icon
bottom of page