Wednesday, October 29, 2008

AAA 01 & 02

Can't breath? Doped up on Benedryl? Sounds like a perfect time to draft! I ran two practice drafts before these with 2nd and 1st place finishes.

(I'm trying out a different video host, as the FileFront solution wasn't cutting it. Viddler seems like an amazing host, as the videos are nearly full screen resolution and they stream quickly. If you are having issues with the videos let me know and I will try to resolve them, and in the meantime I will mirror the .avi files on FileFront.)

AAA 01 - Draft



A bit all over the place here, but we kept a focus on R/B with splashes on the sides for U and G. I'm interested to see where others would have diverged from my draft as there were many directions that we could of gone. We end up with a deck that has to stretch on playables and lacks focus and is creature light. Still we have a lot of removal, so we might be ok.

AAA 01 - Round 1



Blah, Devour and lack of creatures is a pain. Dealing with a Broodmate isn't a picnic either. I make a few mistakes (like not pinging a creature about to die with the Cultist) but ultimately I just ran out of gas in game 3.

AAA 02 - Draft



Things come together pretty well, except in pack 3 we end up a little heavier in red than I would of liked to be with 3x Squires and 2x Nacatl. Maybe I should of put in the Thorn-Trash, but I was a little turned off to it (and Devour) in the last draft. The mana was a bit weird, but with luck we'll be able to get our aggressive starts and use our removal and finishers to end the game.

AAA 02 - Round 1



The tension between mana fixing and early drops is on full display in this draft, fortunately he only gets the 2 Tower Gargoyles in game one and we are able to keep up pressure on him through out games 2 and three.

AAA 02 - Round 2



I make a huge mistake in game one when I didn't tap and ping correctly to ensure he wouldn't have enough damage to kill me on the next turn. I put this mistake behind me and move on to win the match.

AAA 02 - Round 3



Besides a brain freeze that makes me look like I'm slow rolling my opponent, I win this round pretty handily.

So far I'm impressed with Angelic Benediction (even though I was tapping the wrong creature left and right). In a heavy Exalted deck taking out their best blocker gives you a lot of power in the mid-game, forcing them into bad blocks or taking a lot of damage. I've seen some people down this card, but these matches show that they can be a total beating.

Well, thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.

6 comments:

Newbunkle said...

I just started drafting a couple of days ago with the Shards release. I've played four games so far. I haven't done brilliantly, but I've won 4 packs so its not a complete fail.

I had the same problems as you did with Devour. In one draft I had almost nothing but red come my way, and I got really stuck when I played someone with tons of removal. I had nothing to devour and my creatures ended up being overcosted and weak. The ones that didn't get removal cast on them ended up dying to Vithian Stinger.

Angelic Benediction rules. That card had a huge effect on my games when I played it, and it was extremely annoying to play against as well.

Your vids are great, I can't wait to see more. I need all the tips I can get because I seem to suck badly at draft.

I've had the best luck with Bant/Naya so far. I'm not bad with Esper, even though people say its weak. I'm really not sure about Grixis right now. I've seen it kick butt, but I can't seem to play it well myself. Jund is my least favourite - I really stink with it.

PS If it were me I'd let that Titanic Ultimatum go off to see what it can do. That guy sucked!

Scrappy Kid said...

In draft 1, you punted the game at 16:34, right? You played the Obelisk, had a black mana up, and then passed the turn?

You had Bone Splinter mana-- you could have even shot the Broodmate Dragon (card) and then Bone Splinter'd with the Iguanar? Then, next turn, you drop the capsule and use it on the Dragon token, getting you to a 4/4 Blood Cultist that, at a minimum, can trade with the Thoctar?

I mean, maybe he still has gas after the Thoctar, but i think that generally leaves you with a more stable board position-- you have two creatures (three once you draw the Goblins), and he only has one removal spell...

AverageDrafter said...

Yep, that was a major blunder. Blowing two creatures a turn leaves me taking more damage and gives me less chances to put counters on Blood Cultist. I think my thought process was to use the Splinters on a worse creature (like the two devourers I had in hand), but I didn't have that much time. Even then I missed the opportunity to ping with the Cultist.

Infenwe said...

Text is really really hard to read on my laptop (1024x768) seems that the resizing algorithm used by the player is absolutely atrocious because it's much more readable on my desktop (1280x1024).

I always downloaded your movies from FileFront because mplayer has much better scaling than the Flash plugin making the text actually readable. Is there anything you can do to make a download available again such that one can avoid the abomination that is Flash?

AverageDrafter said...

I will continue to post my videos on Filefront for the time being.

http://averagedrafter.filefront.com/

oray said...

I learned a few things about the Alara format from you.

First, agressive decks are great. It seems like most decks spend turns 1-3 mana fixing in some way, so being able to put pressure on is great. If your opponent makes a hiccup in their mana production, then they lose pretty quick.

Second, Angelic Benediction is pretty good. I wondered about it, because I hadn't really had the chance to play it yet, but you really proved its worth.

Third, big, expensive, mana-intensive spells are not as good as a Wild Nacatl. As awesome as the Ultimatum you had was, you won every game off of the other cards in your deck. The ultimatum never made a difference. It almost would have been better to just play a resounding card. At least then you get the big effect if you need it, but you get an ability early as well.