Dom Harvey
Contributor
Him beating Leffen earlier was awesome
Uh, one time we had five and we did "forced shards" drafting, where we sat in a color and you had to play a deck of your assigned shard. You could draft whatever you wanted, but only tap lands for your assigned colors. It was not the worst.
Him beating Leffen earlier was awesome
voluntarily playing Brawl over Melee is grounds for excommunication in my book
So a dear family member sponsored me to play in the M14 prerelease and I had a pretty solid pool. Went 3-1, though I believe I was slightly unlucky and could have gone 4-0 in another universe.
Testing out this totally sweet deck tag:
Rakdos Sacrifice Theater
Highlights:
Round 1, my slow draw of Blood Bairn into Pitchburn Devils looked pretty weak on board against my opponent's nut lifegain + Angelic Wall deck. He pulled the trigger on his lifegain spells and dropped a 10/10 Voracious Wurm. My next play was Act of Treason, taking the Wurm, forcing him to chump, and sacrificing it. Later I'm able to use the extra mana from Liturgy of Blood to also cast Chandra's Outrage in the same turn thanks to Shimmering Grotto. Shivan Dragon got there.
Round 2, I curve out Child of Night into Lightning Talons and proceed to completely run over my opponent's white green aggro plan, despite his Ajani, Caller of the Pride. He switched decks into a green black deck with removal, fliers, and intimidate, but eventually had to chump my Nightwing Shade with his Sengir Vampire after a long removal slugfest. Pitchburn Devils was MVP, repeatedly making his removal bad and forcing bad blocks.
Round 3, I play Gnawing Zombie into Dragon Egg, stall on three lands, and get there with Chandra's Phoenix being recurred by Flames of the Firebrand. I then lose the next two games by not hitting four lands against his actual game, which is slivers and Rootwalla into Archangel of Thune. He also had Ratchet Bomb for my two drop heavy hand.
Round 4, my opponent badly floods out, but I play cautiously around what looks to me like a grip full of Nephalia Seakite and Celestial Flare, only to see him drop an enormous Vastwood Hydra. It turns into a fairly close game, but I topdeck the newt for my cauldron to close out the last few points. Game two Deathgaze Cockatrice clears out a Giant Spider so that he can't use his Vial of Poison against my followup Shivan Dragon, but the joke's on me when he has Plummet. Neither of us can do anything to get through on board until I finally draw Devout Invocation which, true to form, conquers the final game.
Individual cards:
Festering Newt is an awesome card in this format. A huge number of the aggressive beaters and utility creatures are 1 toughness, which means the newt either blocks extremely favorably or gets in for free damage before being sacrificed to kill something important. I would have played a second and possibly a third one, over Deathgaze Cockatrice and maybe Lightning Talons against anyone actually playing removal. (Against the black and green deck I was planning to board the talons out for another creature, probably Syphon Sliver.)
Goblin Shortcutter continues to be better than Goblin Piker and a serviceable curve point. It's fairly strong as a topdeck lategame because so many games end up in fragile board stalls, where disabling their best creature lets you force uncomfortable blocks.
Child of Night is an absolute house in this format and maybe the best common 2 drop, at least when you encounter zero copies of Shrivel and Wring Flesh in an entire tournament. Getting ahead on life is significant and helps you win the very long race that the defensive lifegain decks propose. Even when I didn't get to suit them up with talons they gained me 16 or more life by repeatedly attacking into Angelic Walls, allowing me time to draw to the removal for Charging Griffin.
Gnawing Zombie is a wonderful sacrifice outlet, and 1/3 for 2 is sweet with so many playable 2/1s in the format. I love that it can eat itself. It might be too slow for cube because of the activation cost, but it was my favorite outlet in sealed because I tended to have open extra mana anyway and it gives you so much extra value from the sacrifice compared to a card like
Bubbling Cauldron, which I think isn't particularly playable without at least one, preferably two, newts. I did get to use it to hatch a Dragon Egg though, a play both powerful and dripping with flavor. It helped out against Vastwood Hydra because I could get farther ahead on life while chumping, but if I'd had Gnawing Zombie instead, I could have just killed him by eating my whole team.
Dragon Egg is completely awesome. The firebreathing and evasion on the token are often extremely powerful in limited, which means the low-toughness egg discourages attacks reasonably well. Of course I usually cracked it open myself, in which case it's approximately a three mana Dragon Whelp which is bonkers.
Chandra's Phoenix needs no explanation, the card is sweet. I did get to have Gnawing Zombie eat it twice in one game though, for the last two points.
Blood Bairn is surprisingly strong for not being Bloodthrone Vampire. My deck got a lot of value out of a free sacrifice outlet, and being base 2/2 means you get to melee much better with one sacrifice than bloodthrone does.
Lightning Talons is like Madcap Skills. Auras are still fragile but now they get to be hyper swingy as compensation. Whenever I actually played this on turn 3 it won the game, and drawing it late let my regular beasties stand up to bombs. I wanted to play it on Deathgaze Cockatrice but the world was not yet ready.
Act of Treason is pretty good with sacrifice effects, which obviously comes as a surprise to everyone here, especially Jason. Brb, putting eight more threatens in my cube.
If your pool has two Flames of the Firebrand you probably don't need to get this cute to win prizes. This card is even better than usual in this format, with so many X/1s and Predatory Sliver.
Marauding Maulhorn is Juggernaut. Juggernaut is still a really good card in limited. I didn't get to attack with it ever because my opponent either killed it or conceded to lethal on board.
Deathgaze Cockatrice is no Stinkweed Imp but it's very very evasive which can be a big deal in this format (the walls deck is very strong.) It's also one of the few answers to stuff like Archangel of Thune that can also win the game by attacking.
Chandra's Outrage is a premium removal spell because all the big beasties have 4 toughness, and Doom Blade is uncommon. I got to finish off an Ajani with the player damage, which was sweet.
Haunted Plate Mail is basically good because creature size is a big deal and +4/+4 is a lot. I never got to attack or block with it but I imagine that option makes it a much better topdeck. Mostly Chandra's Phoenix put it on and went to town, showing off all its blazing bling to all the crying walls that couldn't block it effectively ever again.
Pitchburn Devils never stopped being awesome. It still discourages attacks and blocks as if it was a 6/3 with options and pairs up with sacrifice outlets to close out games or deal with problems.
Nightwing Shade might not have been my first choice of evasive finisher before I played but it consistently impressed me. Regardless, it may have been better to play a cheaper card for the sake of the curve.
Liturgy of Blood is a fine removal spell. As a longtime fan of Brainspoil and Fissure, I'm pretty happy with a five mana unconditional removal spell with marginal upside. Obviously would have played Doom Blade instead, and would have lost a game because Doom Blade can't kill Liliana's Reaver.
Shivan Dragon was one of my first playable Magic rares. (The first rare I ever opened was a Lifelace.) I have a deep history of symbiotic ass-kicking alongside my favorite dragon. He's still in form for this format, though I wish quite deeply that it could have had the original art by Melissa Benson. Also, my strategy for this format was to open good red rares. It worked out alright.
Devout Invocation wins the game when you cast it as long as you have two or more things in play. With no Wrath of God short of Planar Cleansing, that's pretty likely, even with my relatively low creature count. A+++ would splash again.
Oh, and my other two rares were both Silence. (the rest is silence)
Great post, Miasmir. Eric, we need mouseovers on those cards because apparently I don't know what a lot of cards do by the top third.
were you guys aware that "polluted delta naya" was a thing? neither was i, until cube last night. (it can fetch steam vents or godless shrine!)