"Getting Greedy with John" - November 28, 2014

This week's draft comes with an extra special guest. Let us introduce you to John from The Mana Leek. John is a friend of ours, and our local judge. This week he joins us for a wild Mardu draft during which we won some games, learned some lessons, and had an all around good time.

The draft was very entertaining for me. I love to hear other people's opinions of cards, especially the ones I don't like all that much. Round one was just plain fun as we warmed up to a deck full of swift hitters.

The trouble began in round two. Both of our losses came after we made very obvious mistakes. We knew it was a mistake to keep the hand with a single swamp, and even though it looked like it was going to pay off, we just couldn't keep momentum once our opponent gained traction, and we were swiftly defeated.

During game two, we should have known to hold back. We could have waited our opponent out and, once he swung in, stolen one of his creatures to block with, thus two for oneing him, instead of allowing him to almost kill us on the crack back.

In both of these situations, had we just kept our heads and played like professionals, we may have come out on top. Just goes to show you that hot heads start fires, and we certainly got burned.

During round three we almost ended up on the same path. Luckily, we were blessed with a couple of good games and ended up coming out on top.

We'd love to have John back. If you have any comments for him, you can find him via his channel, and as always, you can feel free to leave us comments.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.


-Step.

"Return to Theros" - November 21, 2014

This week, Tams and I decided to take a (short) trip back down memory lane, and try our hands at Theros once again. To our delight, we found it just as we'd remembered, full of fun! We hope you enjoy watching as much as we enjoyed drafting it.

After passing a couple of very good red cards early in the pack, it may have been ill advised for us to move into red as our second colour, but whether or not it was wise, it ended up working pretty well. I was sad that we never got King Macar out. I've only ever seen him come down on the other side of the field, and I'd have liked to try playing him.

That said, we ended up almost in minotaurs. If we had taken the early flurry of horns', we could have had a much stronger deck than we ended up with, but we couldn't have known that. As it stands, I liked the deck. It had a strong midrange curve with a fairly low top end and plenty to do. I hope to draft many more decks like it in the future.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time,


-Step.

"Can't Stop the Clock" - KTK, November 14, 2014

So it finally happened. After all this time, even after conceding last week to avoid it, we finally lost a round to the clock. If that doesn't dissuade you from watching, you should be in for a fairly entertaining main event.

As I said, we lost not one, but two rounds to the clock, though one wasn't exactly our fault. A connection issue in round three ate about four minutes of our time.

Despite all that, this draft had a lot going for it. Our deck was strong, and we piloted it fairly well. The one thing that I want to point out about the construction process was the Kheru Lich Lord. I didn't think our deck wanted it, but I wasn't sure. As it turns out, we sided it out in almost every game. Maybe it would have been better to leave him out of the deck to begin with, but I didn't know. If we hadn't run him, we never would have known. I now have a better personal understanding of when that card is good, and when it isn't. To me, that's worth a card.

In round one we made a single bad attack which turned the tide against us. Even then, if we'd played out a creature that turn, rather than waiting until the turn after, we probably would have won the round. Giving our opponent enough of an edge to stall us out was annoying to say the least.

Round two, paradoxically, was both the only round we won, and the round in which I feel we played the worst. If it weren't for our slow playing, I really feel we could have gone 3-0 with this deck, so stay tuned in future while we strive to find a middle ground between "just swinging in" and dragging our feet.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time,


-Step.

"Marzan Warriors" - KTK, November 7, 2014

After last week's haiatus, I wasn't surprised that we didn't win much. What did surprise me was the quality of our deck, and the quality of our play. If you're looking for an engaging experience, this draft should satisfy.

We started off open, and then sort of took a left turn into warriors, but not "The Warrior Deck", which is something I'd like to try at some point. What we end up with is a solid deck with a good curve, and very enjoyable to play.

A few things I noticed upon review were that we still talk a lot. As we've finally lost a round to the clock, I've decided to make a concerted effort to make faster play decisions. The flip side of that is that sometimes I run the client on autopilot, and that has left me unable to play a land or make an attack, simply because I "F2" through the option. I really need to clean up these areas of play. Something to work on.

All in all I think the deck was solid, and I'm looking forward to building the next one.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time,


-Step.