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i-am-nickelbolt · 2 years ago

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Bronze to Mythic, Dominaria United premiere draft #3, new dad style!

Pack 1, pick 1 Squee, Dubious Monarch. Nothing dubious here, I’m snapping off the Goblin Rabblemaster with escape. Pick 2 Lightning Strike over Urborg Lhurgoyf. Lightning Strike is a nice aggressive on-color card, and Urborg Lhurgoyf, while powerful, is a bit of a non-bo with Squee. Pick 3 Balduvian Atrocity over Rulik Mons, Warren Chief. I’ve been really impressed with Balduvian Atrocity when my opponents have played it, and now I’m hoping to get a bunch of Phyrexian Ragers. Pick 4 Knight of Dusk’s Shadow over Extinguish the Light. I’m feeling pretty dialed in to red/black. Pick 5 Phyrexian Rager over Hurler Cyclops and Flowstone Infusion. Passing the Cyclops hurts, but I really value keeping my curve low. Pick 6 I took a random rare over Urborg Repossession which is definitely wrong, but I don’t really want to be splashing in my focused, low to the ground aggro deck. Pick 7 Eerie Soulmender over Uurg, spawn of Turg. I don’t want to be tempted to splash. Pick 8 Cult Conscript, which is a *fantastic* card for my deck. Pick 9 Gibbering Barricade over Braids’ Frightful Return. The Return is a card that I don’t really know how to evaluate, I think it’s a high ceiling, low floor kind of card. Pick 10 Splatter Goblin, nice. Pick 11 Phyrexian Vivisector, pick 12 In Thrall to the Pit. So pack 1 went really well, my curve basically stops at 3, black is wide open, and my red cards are busted.

Pack 2, Pick 1 Braids, Arisen Nightmare, and after playing with it, it’s now one of my favorite cards in the set. Hoping a Cult Conscript wheels since I got mine 8th pick. Pick 2 Lightning Strike. Pick 3 Phyrexian Rager. Pick 4 was a dud pack, I picked Keldon Flamesage because it was rare over an off-color dual. Pick 5 another dud pack, taking a rare over Gibbering Barricade and Keldon Strike Team. Pick 6 Geothermal Bog over Yavimaya Steelcrusher. Pick 7 second Phyrexian Vivisector over second Bog and second Eerie Soultender. Pick 8 Extinguish the Light, and then I wheeled two Goblin Picker, a card that I think people need on their radar, especially in low-curve aggro decks like this one.

Pack 3, Pick 1 Splatter Goblin in yet another dud pack. Pick 2 Garna, Bloodfist of Keld really got me pumping the fist though. Red/black chump attack!

The deck was exactly what I had hoped for in terms of mana curve, but my average card quality was maybe a little lacking? I didn’t feel like I got cut off, there were plenty of red and black cards available, but this is maybe something worth remembering about red/black: A lot of the better red and black cards have kickers in other colors, and are not particularly good in red/black if you can’t kick them.

My first loss was after going 4-0 very easily (I drew Braids a lot.) They were Aggro red/white on the play, they had cheap interaction and fliers, and I got stuck on a clunky hand with only 3 lands and couldn’t really make any headway.

My second loss was to Domain, and I feel like this one got away. The order in which they drew their cards matched up really well with what I was doing. The turning point of the game was when they had Destroy Evil for my Knight of Dusk’s Shadow that I pumped twice (even though they didn’t cast it in combat.) The funny part is I was thinking about that card, but they hadn’t played any white cards at all up until this point, and it seems like a funny card to splash to me, so I figured I was safe. If I didn’t pump a second time, I would have won this game. Even then though, they still had to topdeck something (a Meria’s Outrider) to kill me, or Squee and Phoenix Chick would have been enough.

My third loss was to Esper Tokens, and it’s another game that I think might have gotten away. I maybe got too aggressive in the early game, but at the same time tokens can be pretty hard for me to deal with, as they kind of blank my menace creatures. That being said, patience would have let me chump-attack with Splatter Goblins for better value. But even so, I was basically empty-handed, and they resolved a Silver Scrutiny for 5, and it still ended up being close, which makes me think I missed it. They used to say that if you play a red deck and your opponent wins at 1 life, you missed lethal somewhere, and that’s how I felt.

A couple observations:

Rakdos has a surprising amount of card draw and selection. Goblin Picker, Phyrexian Vivisector, and Phyrexian Rager are all common, and a bunch of other cards have incidental virtual card advantage of some kind. I felt like I was able to filter away lands incredibly easily or dig to important spells. Goblin Picker in particular is a card that is easy to pick up and should make the cut in most low-curve red decks.

Braids is *disgusting.* Probably second favorite card in this set after Ertai. But Splatter Goblin doesn’t combo as well with Braids as you might hope. If they only have one creature with 1 toughness, they can sacrifice that creature to Braids before the Splatter Goblin’s death trigger resolves, so it’s rarely a 2-for-1.

In Thrall to the Pit has felt surprisingly decent. It reminds me of how Threaten effects used to be reasonable maindeck cards in aggressive decks 20 years ago. I had a second one that I maybe should have played.

#dominaria united #premiere draft #rakdos #red black chump attack #braids arisen nightmare is busted #goblin rabblemaster with escape #magic arena #bronze to mythic #magic the gathering

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