So I went and played some 10E draft tonight and will probably play some more this weekend. Right now the format is pretty fun and a welcome change from TSP block draft (even well designed draft formats get a little stale sometimes, 'cept Rav
) Anyway, here's a basic report of what happened tonight.
The General Draft:
I cracked a Karplusan Forest and got shipped 2nd pick Furnace Whelp, 3rd pick Orcish Artillery followed up with Craw Wurm, Rampant Growth, Pyro Prodigy and Kavu Climber. Nice deck.
Notable grabs: P2, P3: Orcish Artillery , P2, P6: Pyromancer, P2, P8 Earth Elemental, P3, P1 Kamahl, Pit Fighter , P3, P3 Air Elemental, P3, P4 Guerrilla Tactics
The deck:
Commune with Nature <- Wish I had more since it constantly helped me find the fat or removal man I needed.
Grizzly Bears
Canopy Spider
Guerrilla Tactics
Rampant Growth
Spitting Earth
2x Prodigal Pyromancer
2x Orcish Artillery <- MVP
Pincher Beetles
Rootwalla
Flamewave Invoker
Anaba Bodyguard
Uncontrollable Anger <- MVP #2
Furnace Whelp
2x Rock Badger
Earth Elemental
Spined Wurm
Kavu Climber
Craw Wurm
Kamahl, Pit Fighter <- Pretty good, but died a lot.
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Karplusan Forest
Terramorphic Expanse
9 Mountain
6 Forest
Notable board cards:
Grizzly Bears 2&3
Wall of Wood
18 creatures, 1 Mana accelerant, 1 Creature tutor, 2 Removal spells, 1 Combat trick
11 red, 9 green mana sources
Pretty happy with how it turned out, I cut red early and it paid off with plenty of removal dorks and picked up green fat over a couple of closer calls like Shock or hill giants, because ultimately a lot of games still come down to dropping a huge ass on the board first and then maintaining that tempo.
QnD report
RD1, B/R Tempo dorks:
The build he had played a bunch of terrible men like Spineless Thug, Vampire Bats, etc. along with some fine dorks like Knight of Dusk, Nantuko Husk, Phyrexian Rager and Pyromancer. Oh did I mention the trip Shock, Incinierate, Terror, Assassinate and Afflict part of his deck? Basically the concept was to lay men for the first three turns and then just ravage whatever drops the opponent played while getting free damage in figuring eventually a random flyer or Fear would win the game.
G1: Did I mention his deck loses if it can't establish an early tempo game? I play Spider and burn off an early man which let's me smash him with huge men.
G2: I get swarmed to death when my first drop is a turn 4 Kavu
G3: He mulls to 5 from him and he still almost swarms me out, but I stabilize and ruin his shit with khamal and pingers. There's a scary moment when he can theoretically kill me with Husk if his draw includes a 1-drop, 2-drop and Incinerate, but he doesn't have it and I take over.
2-1, 1-0
RD2 vs. Overrun Guy (I say this because he took Overrun over Verdant Force. Nice packs. Nice deck.)
His R/G deck is just worse than mine as it ended up having to play stuff like life gain and Lightning Elemental due to lack of playables. Little too much hate drafting and not enough picking up of crappy red creatures to fill the deck out with.
G1: I play Spined Wurm and Earth Elemental along with Artillery. I kill everything all his 2 and 3 toughness guys and win at 5 life as his deck is made only with fat and combat tricks and has no real burn.
G2: I play my only combat trick in Uncontrollable Anger on my earth elemental to smash his blocking Craw Wurm and take over the game shortly after as he needs to keep blocking to survive after a turn. Nice 6/7.
4-1, 2-0
RD3 vs. Jeffery with too many bombs in his deck. He got Quirion Dryad, Verdant Force, multiple Spined Wurm, flyers and RHOX to boot.
G1: I bum rush him and win as he struggles with mana.
G2: We get stuck in a stalemate and I have to keep using Artillery to take down fliers. I lose to Rhox, because I'm unable to kill him on the last turn (I'm short a point, OBV) I replay the game in my head later and I realize I had forgotten to ping him the turn after I had first laid Pyromancer, because I thought I had just laid him, good solid play there.
G3: I play more big men and kill his two flyers and win the prize. I play Anger yet against to make Earth Elemental very big and kill of a Spined Wurm for free. Even a fresh Rhox cannot compete with 6/7 ANGRY Earth Elemental due to his low life total and other creatures threatening to finish the game anyway.
6-2, 3-0
G/R is a very solid and deep color combination , because you end up having access to a color with tons of removal spread out amonst the rarities and people in the first pack usually aren't 1st picking the green fat unless they've played a ton of 9E. In addition, many times people will pass on less than ginoromous men like Spined Wurm and Earth Elemental for other smaller dorks with abilities. As long as you can pick up 3-4 guys bigger than Hill Giant size, you'll be pretty much set at the position. After that there are plenty of 2/2's to go around for everybody. Basically I'll first pick Orcish Artillery in this format almost all but the biggest men and outright bombs. He either clears the way for your men, takes down annoying flyers you don't have answers too and allows your Hill Giants to trade against those various Wurms green possesses.
Anyway, I'm sleepy now, but if anyone cares I'll go over some of my color thoughts tomorrow.
