![]() This was my first time playing blue to a winning record in limited since the Battle for Zendikar prerelease. I might finally be figuring out how to play blue With how many artifacts are in this format, it’s useful for artifact destruction (it’s how I got rid of the Tezzeret’s Touch), and sometimes it just wins the game. I was excited about this card when it was first spoiled (you might remember I was eyeing it for my standard deck), and I loved getting the chance to play with it. This was a subpar version of the archetype–again, I could have used two more payoffs and a couple more enablers–but even cut on blue as I was, all of the blue cards in my deck felt good, and this may have still been a better deck than the hypothetical red-white deck I may have built. ![]() This was my neighbor who got all the rhinos.) I was helped by his decision to commit to the race rather than leaving blockers back, and I was able to surprise him by killing him from 7 life thanks to Built to Smash and Shock.īlue/Red Improvise is as good as advertised (I had the Tampering in my starting hand, but it took a long time for me to build a critical mass of damage–he stabilized and got a Walking Ballista and a flyer into play, so I had to get to seven mana so I could Leave in the Dust his flyer, and I had to get enough power on-board to survive him blowing up his Ballista.) I beat him to death with a Brazen Scourge in game two, dealing enough damage with that creature (backed up by removal and tempo plays like Leave in the Dust and Take Into Custody) to outrace three Thriving Rhinos! (Remember how I said green was open during the draft? Yeah. I managed to win the first by dealing early damage with Aether Chaser and Sweatworks Brawler, and then finishing him off with a Destructive Tampering. My third match was a couple of races with green-black. I was able to punish his deck’s durdling in games two (mostly thanks to Renegade Freighter) and three (a turn-six win where I improvised out both Sweatworks Brawler and Wind-Kin Raiders). He had a lot of artifact card-draw synergies, but not a lot of scary creatures eventually he got an Efficient Construction into play and made enough thopters to finish me off. During game one, we both started very slowly, and he drew probably eight to ten extra cards over the course of the game. My second match was against a young player with a highly synergistic (but threat-light) Grixis deck. In game two, I once again failed to find an explosive start and got smashed. While I was eventually able to stabilize, my top end wasn’t big enough to hold off his. In game one he started bashing me with Tezzeret’s Touch on an Implement of Malice, while I kept a six with three red cards and three Islands (which wasn’t completely crazy–I was on the draw and had the scry plus two turns to draw one of ten ways to make red mana–but instead it took me four turns). He had a Tezzeret he never drew it against me, and he never needed it. My first match brought me up against a blue-black improvise deck, splashing white for activated abilities on cards like Cogworker’s Puzzleknot. The cards are strong but not really bombs, and with a poor top end, my deck needed to be fast complicating my mana base would have increased the risk of losing tempo early in games. On the whole, my 2-1 finish was probably a touch above expectation.ĭuring deck-building, I thought long and hard about splashing for the Spire Patrol and the Renegade Wheelsmith, but in the end I felt like I couldn’t justify them. If I didn’t get a quick start, though, I was in trouble. Even so, I don’t think it’s a terrible draft deck it could get a pretty good pop from the aggro synergies of blue-red improvise and it had a couple of solid ways of finishing the game. So, I ended up short 1-2 improvise payoffs/top-end beaters, which the deck sorely missed. Green also eventually became quite open, and I had to grit my teeth as I passed three Thriving Rhinos in pack three. I was seduced in by the early Wind-Kin Raiders and the Skyship Plunderer, which I got in the second-to-fourth-pick range in pack one, and I also got the Leave in the Dusts late, but it slowly became clear that white was crazy open, and I probably should have pivoted. The players on my right were blue-black and blue-red-black (and the player on my left ended up in green-black). I also should probably not have been in blue. After a few games I determined that Siege Modification felt really bad, and once I got rid of it things started to go better for me. ![]() I was a very naughty limited player and started with 41 cards in my deck. ![]() I’ve finally found the time to finish the write-up on my draft from nearly a month ago! I’m just going to dive in with my deck list, and then I’ll tell you how the draft went.
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