okay so I go 2-1 in my next swiss but I have a vengefire to soak up the damage .

This is my latest... the 0/2 was my p1p1, so I decided to stick with it. Is it just me or is this deck absolutely incredible?

Nest invader is a 2/2 for 2 that ramps. Please play both.

Looks fun. Spiritdancer isn't what I'm looking to first pick, but if the pack is uninteresting enough, sure. That said, looks like an mvp in your deck now.

I'd go
-2 Sporecap spider
-1 Bramblesnap
+2 Nest invader
+1 Overgrown battlement

That makes your curve look so much better and helps get to your 4-5 drops sooner while doing away with three uninteresting cards. Your plan is clearly pure aggro, and the accel helps you get there much better than anything Sporecap spider will ever do. Two drop creatures can be very key too since if he's got no blockers, just drop your snake umbra on your nest invader and let it cantrip. Then you can play a 5 drop on turn 4. Or turn 3 bear umbra + second main 3-drop.

Lots of exciting things will happen with the changes I'd make while you give up basically nothing. You aren't at all worried about being outraced by flyers.

***

Just played my first release event. Running good in rise so far, 8-0 playing sealed. Building up my collection of packs via sealed queues and then I'll jump into the 64-player drafts once they start running. They look like a pretty good deal.

Considered throwing the rest of my green creatures in (then Khalni Hydra becomes playable), but I really liked what my red had to offer. Pathrazer was probably a bit greedy and should have been spawning breath (which I boarded into a lot). Also considered Lust for War. Unsure about that card's strength. Doesn't look like what I want to be doing on turn 3 most of the time. I might also be undervaluing Fireboar.

There was a lot in blue that was enticing, but I couldn't turn down this aggro build.



edit: to add, I noticed I had the tools to live the turn 3 Hand of Emrakul dream, but I don't think that's worth sacrificing my consistency for.

I'm inclined to think the Khanli hydra is better than the 11mana eldrazi, it might be better to just run a lavafume invoker over either though

Yup. That was definitely the 22nd card.

Just did another sealed. Worse card pool. Bombs split up throughout colours I didn't even end up playing. UB might have been better, but with no actual leveler support in my deck, I prefered the early drops that could activate my champ drakes faster.

I think I should have started Soul Warden though. With all the spawn generators around, that thing can gain 10+ life if dropped on turn one + do some damage + chump later.

Echo mage was just silly and that came out nearly every game and then I usually took out Frostwind Invoker for an answer (my deck already all flies, so this card doesn't do all that much for me).



Ended up in a top-deck war in game 3 of the finals (and had to block with Dawnglare Invoker to survive as I sat on 7 lands!). Didn't work out so well, but I'll come to terms with my 11-1 sealed record in RoE so far.

I prefer B over R splash in this deck 2 Induce Despair and a Vendetta, I also definitely play Deprive in this deck as it allows you to counter their bombs, and you have a low enough curve to be able to take the land back.

I agree. Deprive is just awesome mid-late game in this format and Induce Despair can take out bigger threats then the red splashed cards . I'm not a big fan of Vendetta. I would play it though, but a lot of people seem to play black and it's only really good early game from my experience.

The other good thing about induce despair is that it's one of the only ways to kill something w/ totem armor for good. The only downside to the induce despairs in this deck is that he has a low creature curve.

my live 2v2 group is finding that limited games are generally pretty tough to play well in this format...

Wizards support refunded my last draft within 12 hours so awesome job by them. Just did another draft and went 3-1 with a B/U deck. Lost the first match 2-1 to my opponents double Deprive.

I felt my card pool was pretty diverse and that i could have gone a few different ways. Was thinking of splashing white at first and could have splashed red too i guess. Green wasn't totally unplayable either.

At the last moment i took out Insight for Crusher as i felt i lacked finishers, but Insight is a nice card too. In the end i feel playing 2x Regress is a bit risky as it is a good card if you have board control, but when you're behind it doesn't do anything for you basically. So mixed feelings about that.

Here's the pool what do you think about it?

This format still seems really fast (at least from my draft experience).

I had the beginnings of a sick UW leveller deck last night, but got cut off pack 2 which really hurt.

4 caravan escort
1 hedron field purists
2 makindi griffin
1 skywatcher adept
1 venerated teacher
2 champions drake
1 time of heroes
1 guard duty
1 regress
1 mammoth umbra
+other ****

I thought I had the nuts draw with 2 escorts and time of heroes, my opponent went t1 zulaport enforcer, t2 null champion, t3 venerated teacher, t4 venerated teacher. ****.

I think I might start taking Venerated teacher like 2ndish pick, the guy seems to make so many blowouts.

I realize that a couple two drops would have been nice with my curve, but bears basically suck in this format. Just so, so bad. For an umbra deck I have a sneaking suspicion the 1/5 spiders might be godly because suddenly they're 4/8 reach or vigilant and I can stall indefinitely until I draw the dawnglares. I might be "wrong" but that was actually the strategy I was going for so it was purposeful even if it was secretly bad.

I lost in the finals with it, btw, to the Kalistria vamp singlehandedly. That bitch breaks drafts way too easily on her own.

Went 2-2, 2-2, 3-1 in my swiss' so far, GOIN INFINITE!

Heres my current pool. It seems to me like this is pretty solid, if anyone sees any mistakes I've made please let me know. Thanks.

Can anybody recommend a deck for playing dailys constructed standard and maybe 8 player constructed for the current block that I wouldn't have to buy a brand new one right away?

Managed to register for 2 sealed swiss events at the same time. Playing 2 of those at the same time sucks so bad. Lost many close end-games, because i needed to swap windows all the time. So i went 0-3 at one and dropped out there so i can focus on the other one where I'm 1-2 at the moment. So i at least get something in return. Pretty pissed with myself though lol.

Easy 4-0 with that redic sealed deck. Only match that gave me trouble was rd2 when my opp got out the indestructible angel in two games. Every other game was over at around turn 5.

I think a big problem I have is that I don't have very good game vision. When I open a pool with fairly balanced colors, I never had a good idea of what to play (and why). It's kind of frustrating since I've been playing this game for 15 damn years and still can't really put optimal decks together.

I ended up bring deprive in a few times, but with all the levelers in my deck, it just seems so glaringly obvious when I leave UU up, though sometimes that's what I need to win. Might have lost the finals by leaving UU up rather than leveling my caravan escort a few times to play around eldrazi conscription. He didn't draw it that game and I lost a fair bit of tempo because of it (though I did counter a kozilek's preditor)

I opted for red over black exactly because my despairs would just end up too small. Optimistically thought I could live the flame slash + echo mage kill a crusher dream, but echo mage is pretty bad.

They're not just bears though, they're so much more. Also, having 2-drop creatures among your 3-drop auras is very good. 4/8 reach vigilant? Not much more relevant than 5/5 vigilant really. And you get there a turn or two faster. You can bring in the spiders vs a flying deck, but you'll so rarely see those (and almost certainly outrace those anyway) and your deck just beats so fast (with the nest invaders that is) that you don't need to be worried about stalling the board but rather just get in there. Turn 2 creature + turn 3 snake umbra into an empty board is huge. Then you can play a 5-drop on turn 4. If your opponent has anything but an explosive start, you're gonna take this one hard. 3 turn-2 ramp creatures just open up so many possibilities while bramblesnap looks nearly entirely useless and sporecap spider has no synergy with your deck.

I would cut eland umbra and ikiral outrider for emerge unscated and halimar wavewatch.

That deck is ****ing ridiccc tho.

trading 106 tix for 100 on stars.

Ill take it but won't be at home on a comp for at least a few hours

Sounds like you played Brian Kibler, was pretty funny reading this in his latest Premium article:
With my most recent U/B deck, I had a draw in which I played Zuraport Enforcer on turn 1, Null Champion on turn 2, and Venerable Teachers on turns 3 and 4. I attacked for 7 on turn 3 and forced my opponent to chump block on turn 4!

Yeah I just saw that too, my opp was obv not kibler though.

zomg tilt!

Long standstill where I milled myself (rather fast as I drew 16 cards throughout the course of the game).



The bottom of my deck was stacked

--
Kazandu Tuskcaller
Gideon Jura
Keening Stone
--

Pretty much the three cards that would allow me to win the game at some point if any one of them was anywhere else. Heck, put keening stone third or fourth last and I got it.

Then game 2 I mull to 5 and face:
T1: leveler
T2: leveler
T3: Purists
T4: domestication my leveler
T5: teacher
T6: teacher
... not the standstill with inevitability I was expecting.

2-2
But Gideon puts me up on the whole deal.

Weird pool with all colours somewhat playable but not stand out. Gideon was among like 7 total white cards. With 2 prisms, an evolving wilds, growth spasm, and ondu giant, I felt okay with 3 colours (and even splashed red ontop when I needed an answer to dawnglare invoker).

Hmm a lot of people seem to play red/green in the sealed drafts I'm in. All 4 matches were against r/g/x decks and other people in the sealed seemed to play it too. Green ramp up is just insane. One match my opponent got 3 Eldrazi out and the +10/+10 Eldrazi aura thingy. Couldn't remove all of that off course.

So i started swapping out red from my b/r/w for green so i could keep up with their ramp. And it seemed to work a bit in the end as i went 2-2.

But what are the opinions on those r/g decks and what is a good way to combat them? I usually try to pack a good deal of removal, but they seem to have to many good creatures and they get them out really fast for me to keep board control. And i don't want to start playing mirror all the time.

I am sooo gonna regret being in the premier sealed swiss w/ top 8 soon. Gonna be very sleepy long before it's over. Anyone else playing it? I'm piloting a decent aggro boros deck. 1-0 so far.