Once in a Blue Moon
Lately I've been drawn to blue when I'm drafting. Not my fault, though. Who would not draft blue after first picking Torrent Elemental and Pearl Lake Ancient later? But another reason is Patrick Chapin's suggestion in Next Level Magic to always force pick a color that you think is the best among all color in the pool.
By force picking color, you'll be playing, most of the time, with a similar kind of deck, over and over again. You began to understand its playstyle, you know what piece of card that is missing that you'll find out later. Most importantly, you will almost guaranteed to get all card that you wanted because you'll be passing good card in another color to the player beside you, which in turn, will give a better chance for them to pass the card in your color that you want.
Yesterday, it was perhaps once in a blue moon, but I was drafting, arguably, the most beautiful deck I've ever had.
I said beautiful, but not necessarily the best, because I've drafted a deck with two mythics on the same color. But I said beautiful, because this is the kind of deck I always want to draft. It has everything I want. A bomb, in form of Sage Eye Avenger, many removal, in form of Whisk Away and Disdainful Stroke, many tempo cards, in form of 4 freakin Aven Surveyor, Will of Naga, and Supplant Form, then fillers that are decent and having evasion with a really beautiful mana curves. Most importantly, it's mono-colored, so I don't have to worry about mana screw (although I still manage to draw a one land hand which I mulliganed).
Aven Surveyor is my number one favorite card in Fate Reforged, no doubt. Getting four of them and backed up with 3 Whisk Away is like a dream. However, those card doesn't necessarily win the game by itself. Let's talk about the match I had with mas Malik yesterday. It was a final match, both of us are 2-0, and mas Malik are taking me seriously, unlike the other time.
He played a Red-White aggro deck with 3 War Flare and splashing black for Harsh Sustenance. This kind of deck has always been my bad matchup, for some reason. In the first 5 turns, mas Malik managed to drop me into 6 life, and gaining himself to 25 life with gainlands and Harsh Sustenance.
But then I managed to put the board under control with Aven Surveyor, backed up with Supplant Form. Suddenly, his aggresion stopped and my fliers was counterattacking, putting his life to 9. My board is 3 Aven Surveyor (two of them tapped), 1 tapped Lotus Path Djinn, and 1 Dragon Eye Savant. Mas Malik's field was only the red efreet who burns 2 damage to the controller upon dying and 1 other creature which I don't remember. My plan was to deal 9 damage in next turn, so I keeping my will of Naga to be activated in the next turn for triggering the Path Djinn's prowess.
So when Mas Malik is attacking with his creatures, I didn't activated my Will of Naga and just block it with Aven Surveyor and Dragon Eye Savant. Turned out that he casted a War Flare and Temur Battle Charger, targetting the Efreet making him a 4/4 Double Strike Trampler which then gave me 6 trample damage, enough to kill me.
This is the problem of playing control against a Red aggro deck. They just don't want to be controlled and they always manage to find a way to give a sudden surprise to the control player. And I was fool enough to be surprised.
The same thing is also happened in the game 3. We're tied in 1-1 now and we are very determined to take this third game. Again, the same thing is happened with him aggro-ing me and me taking the board under control later. Again, I managed to be surprised by a Harsh Sustenance just when I'm about to target my Aven Surveyor with Supplant Form and about to win the game in the next turn.
You see, there are more than just generating card advantage when you're playing control against aggresive decks. I was targetting my Aven Surveyor with Supplant Form because it is the best way to gain advantage, but I really should think deeper than that. If only I thought for a second that he might have a removal for my creature than I would've thought to act differently. Deeper and deeper thinking. Always putting yourself ahead of your opponent, is a very important aspect to play control deck and I still don't have that. But no worry though, it just show that I still have enough room to improve and I bet I will.
Talking about Yu-Gi-Oh!, I've finally found a deck that I can confidently bring to the Shadow Tournament. But I'm still missing some pieces. 2 Qli Monolith and 2 Qli Stealth, really, why are those cards really hard to be find? Is there only small number of people who open the new set? Well, I hope I can found them on time or maybe I'll pass this year's SH and just betting for NATS. Either way, it's still fine :)
By force picking color, you'll be playing, most of the time, with a similar kind of deck, over and over again. You began to understand its playstyle, you know what piece of card that is missing that you'll find out later. Most importantly, you will almost guaranteed to get all card that you wanted because you'll be passing good card in another color to the player beside you, which in turn, will give a better chance for them to pass the card in your color that you want.
Yesterday, it was perhaps once in a blue moon, but I was drafting, arguably, the most beautiful deck I've ever had.
 |
| (Note that we used 2 FRF booster and 1 KTK booster in Two Stompas and not the other way around) |
Aven Surveyor is my number one favorite card in Fate Reforged, no doubt. Getting four of them and backed up with 3 Whisk Away is like a dream. However, those card doesn't necessarily win the game by itself. Let's talk about the match I had with mas Malik yesterday. It was a final match, both of us are 2-0, and mas Malik are taking me seriously, unlike the other time.
He played a Red-White aggro deck with 3 War Flare and splashing black for Harsh Sustenance. This kind of deck has always been my bad matchup, for some reason. In the first 5 turns, mas Malik managed to drop me into 6 life, and gaining himself to 25 life with gainlands and Harsh Sustenance.
But then I managed to put the board under control with Aven Surveyor, backed up with Supplant Form. Suddenly, his aggresion stopped and my fliers was counterattacking, putting his life to 9. My board is 3 Aven Surveyor (two of them tapped), 1 tapped Lotus Path Djinn, and 1 Dragon Eye Savant. Mas Malik's field was only the red efreet who burns 2 damage to the controller upon dying and 1 other creature which I don't remember. My plan was to deal 9 damage in next turn, so I keeping my will of Naga to be activated in the next turn for triggering the Path Djinn's prowess.
So when Mas Malik is attacking with his creatures, I didn't activated my Will of Naga and just block it with Aven Surveyor and Dragon Eye Savant. Turned out that he casted a War Flare and Temur Battle Charger, targetting the Efreet making him a 4/4 Double Strike Trampler which then gave me 6 trample damage, enough to kill me.
This is the problem of playing control against a Red aggro deck. They just don't want to be controlled and they always manage to find a way to give a sudden surprise to the control player. And I was fool enough to be surprised.
The same thing is also happened in the game 3. We're tied in 1-1 now and we are very determined to take this third game. Again, the same thing is happened with him aggro-ing me and me taking the board under control later. Again, I managed to be surprised by a Harsh Sustenance just when I'm about to target my Aven Surveyor with Supplant Form and about to win the game in the next turn.
You see, there are more than just generating card advantage when you're playing control against aggresive decks. I was targetting my Aven Surveyor with Supplant Form because it is the best way to gain advantage, but I really should think deeper than that. If only I thought for a second that he might have a removal for my creature than I would've thought to act differently. Deeper and deeper thinking. Always putting yourself ahead of your opponent, is a very important aspect to play control deck and I still don't have that. But no worry though, it just show that I still have enough room to improve and I bet I will.
Talking about Yu-Gi-Oh!, I've finally found a deck that I can confidently bring to the Shadow Tournament. But I'm still missing some pieces. 2 Qli Monolith and 2 Qli Stealth, really, why are those cards really hard to be find? Is there only small number of people who open the new set? Well, I hope I can found them on time or maybe I'll pass this year's SH and just betting for NATS. Either way, it's still fine :)
Comments
Post a Comment