Back again with another release sealed. Didn't have much opportunity to record since my trip last week, although i did get some play in. I'll hopefully be blogging a bit more consistently now. Also, hopefully you can endure my periodic sniffling, definitely wasn't aware while recording it. My apologies and I'll have to be more careful in the future. Interesting pool, enjoy!
Looking back:
-Definitely a dissapointing result, especially after the 2-0 start, but not much I could've done there. There may be some line of play that could have let me eek out an extra win in one of those matches, but I think this is one of those cases where you just look back and think "You win some, you lose some".
-In terms of the build, I'm pretty happy with my choices here. The one thing I may have done differently is find a way to make the mana better. I have now accepted that i like vivisection more than I should and its possible the right play here was to cut vivisection and plague myr for an extra swamp and something like dross ripper.
-I sideboarded into crush pretty recklessly a few times, I definitely shouldve at least considered the implication on the mana base.
-Holy crap was treasure mage insane in this pool.....
-It's worth noting that I may have won the games in the last round if I had been on the play. I don't think this immediately changes my stance on drawing first in the format, just something to keep in mind if this happens again.
-A side note on slasher + spine. I think that combos like this should almost always be included in sealed as long as both cards are reasonable on their own, much like arbalest+soliton+islands. Even though slasher doesnt have much synergy with the deck in general and would often be weaker than dross ripper in most "spineless" situations, its not weaker by enough to make up for the power of slasher with spine in games that go long enough to draw them both. Especially since I have treasure mage to fetch half the combo. I guess I may cut it if I don't have so few myrs or spellbombs or whatever to the extent that slasher becomes significantly worse than a similar 4 drop, but I can't see that happening in very many pools.
You'll hate me for this, but I actually think Vivisection was fine in this pool. =) It's not hurting your mana base as its in your primary color and you have some nice ways to abuse it. Plague Myr is also good... I don't know if I see anything in particular I'd change in your deck... I'd probably consider Peace Strider over Lumengrid Drake, though you have a ton of artifacts in your deck so Drake should get turned on an fair amount of times, though he's sort of underwhelming when he's not (and based on the games you played here, it sort of looks like he was only marginally helpful when he was turned on as you were already way ahead on the board anyway.) Peace Strider also works pretty well with Mimic Vat all of the time while Lumengrid Drake works really well only some of the time.
ReplyDeleteOther considerations:
1) Throne of Geth just to have an extra sacrifice outlet for Spine of Ish Sah... though you're probably right in that it doesn't do enough with your deck to include. Still, it was pretty awesome to see the combo working and another way to get it online seems worth considering.
2) I think Myr Reservoir is actually a reasonable include with 4 Myr, including a Sire.
Of course, outside of maybe Lumengrid drake, I have no idea what else is potentially cuttable... pretty deep pool, as you mentioned. It'd probably go something like Oculus, then Golem Artisan, and I'm not sure that's correct. Golem Artisan is good, but isn't fetchable with your Treasure Mage, and you already have 3 other fetchable Treasure Mage targets that are better than it.
As for the last game, it's possible (though likely impossible to see during a game) that you could've stabilized if you'd Scrapmelted the Spine of Ish Sah. His next turn would've probably been Piston Sledging his bird to get in for 6 (putting you at 3), you can then Spine his bird, and at that point he still has a Volition Reins in hand and you have your Hellkite. Maybe he'd reins your Scrapmelter in an attempt to kill you (which would be good for you), but even if not you drew your Spread the Sickness by then, so you could've dealt with a volition reined hellkite as well. No guarantees it'd work, but I something I noticed after the game. =)