Contemplating at Failure

You know, I have been in this type of situation many many times before. Had a bad day, drafting bad deck, making bad plays, losing badly over and over again. Only difference is that before I always ignore it and just strife to get another pod which in the end get me more loses. As a result, I'm only get depressed with myself and instead of getting better, I'm only getting worse. This time, I'll take a different approach. I'll contemplate about my failure today by pointing out the mistakes I made and make sure to never repeat it again. So here goes:

It was afternoon after work, going to Stompas, finding out the draft has been started, but players has only picked one card. So Mark offered me to take his place but in a condition that he has first picked a Sigil of Empty Thrones. Now being so eager to draft, I take his offer without a second thought, ignoring the fact that Mark has made a really bad first pick. Build around me-card like Sigil should never be first picked because it forces to commit into one specific archetype.

But then I got a Celestial Flare on my second pick so I thought well, it is a good start. Then I picked an Eyeblight Massacre so I thought, well Black and White is probably open, allowing possibility to really make B/W Enchantment deck. However I didn't find any good Black and White card in the next pile. Then I look at Claustrophobia and I thought probably I can make a Blue and White tempo deck and filling in with Enchantments such as Bonded Supression.

But after that I got a lot of Black removals in Cruel Revival and Unholy Hunger and I even got some Fetid Imps and Deadbridge Shaman. So I decided to focus on Black and decided to commit into some color later if I found some good card to splash beside Black. My mistake at this point was that I only thinking of White and Blue as the other color I will play along Black for no reason at all. While I did that, I dismissed a lot of great Green cards, such as Skysnare Spider and Rhox Mauler. Then I found Knightly Valor and decided to settle on B/W combination.

Things should have been smooth unless that I found a lot of awesome Blue cards yet again in Soulblade Djinn, Whirler Rogue, and Separatist Voidmage. Things becoming ugly once again. At this point I have lost in what I really want to draft. I ended up in U/B combination, which seems pretty solid except that I have way too many 4-5 mana spell which makes the curve really really ugly. I realized that color commitment early is really important and after this, I'll make sure that I will have a color commitment before the second pack is opened.

There goes a bad draft but people said good play and good luck can complement bad draft so I relied on that. That plan didn't work in the end because I got mana flooded in the first match and I completely outplayed by my opponent. I did my best to pay back in the second match and barely did it. Did a missplay a lot such as not noticing Rhox Mauler's renown counter and forgot to activate the Spell Mastery trigger on Unholy Hunger. Luckily (or shamefully) my opponent allowed me to take back on my decision which enables me to target his Rhox Mauler with my Unholy Hunger. Winning by taking back a decision is just ugly, you know.

Then on the third game, I got a pretty strong board in Soulblade Djinn and Ringwarden Owl, backed up by a removal and a counter. Should have been able to win because my opponent will not be able to block easily. Then I got tricked into countering his Disperse with 7-mana Clash of Will, thinking he had no more spell, only to get blown up by Harbinger of Tide on flash. Things getting uglier because as soon as I dropped my Soulblade Djinn again, my opponent tapped it and Ringwarden Owl with Send to Sleep on Spell Mastery and killing me 2 turns later.

I should not counter that Disperse tho, like really shouldn't. But then again, I should have draft G/U and I think I could make a better deck. There are way too many factors to take into account but in the end what matters is I have pointed it out so it will be burned in my memory. What I need to do after this trying to get better. Try to read the signal better. Try to play better. And basically try to not being too reckless or ignorant. Well I guess I'm done preaching to myself.