CardShark

Okay everyone, here's the discussion thread for Limited play again. This thread is for discussing all things in Limited Magic. Share your stories, your decks, your amazing draft pulls, or how absolutely terrible your Sealed pool was. Whatever you want to share or ask or discuss, here's where to do it.

Guess I'll start then. I attended the Lorwyn Prerelease, and it was a blast. I ran black-green with a red splash for two burn spells. The deck is long since disassembled, but I remember the key points. I ran mostly Treefolk, with two Rootgrapples, two Thorntooth Witches, two Oakgnarl Warriors, a Bog-Strider Ash, a Cloudcrown Oak, a Dauntless Dourbark, and a Timber Protector. I played a couple Nightshade Stingers and a Spiderwig Boggart and a Hornet Harasser to hold the fort until I could play my fatties. A Briarhorn was included as a kill or as a combat trick, and it did both admirably.

As far as removal, I had two Eyeblight's Ending, and I splashed red for Lash Out and Tarfire. I also had the black and green Vivid lands, which made the red splash absolutely no problem. One of the key cards, however, was Final Revels. It won me three games. Two of them were using the -0/-2 to pick off my opponent's creatures while my fat swung for the win. The other one was using it to give my lone 3/4 Treefolk +2/+0 to kill my opponent, who was at 5. He would have won the next turn with an attack and the burn in his hand.

I ended up going 3-0 and splitting with the last guy to get 11 packs. Beware the Treefolk. Playing a Rootgrapple to destroy a land with Fertile Ground, using the Thorntooth Witch to kill a creature, then drawing a card on top of all that is just wrong.

Ok, I'll start again. At the Lorwyn Release Tournament, I ended up playing a deck that morphed a lot. I started with a RBw deck. Then the white went from a splash to a third color after the first round. Then the various black and red cards wandered around each other, coming in and out of the deck. I had lots of Merfolk, but not enough good ones. I had good Elves, but not enough to play them as most of them cared about number of Elves.

The only real synergy my deck had was the Stinkdrinker Daredevil, who makes Giants cost 2 less, and the 4 Giants in my deck. I had a Deathrender that I never drew, and a Changeling Hero that I also never drew. All in all, it was pretty bunk. The only plus was the Galepowder Mage, a rare Kithkin who is just sick. He Astral Slides something when he attacks, which won me a good 3 games. I ended up going 2-2 and coming in 10th. Out of 15. But at least I got two prize packs and a foil Shriekmaw, right? How'd you guys do at the Release tourney?

At the actual release event (Friday night), I did pretty badly. Though I did beat two of my four opponents, both of them were very new players and got significantly screwed in both games of their respective rounds. I just didn't build my deck correctly. The most memorable moment was a big mistake I made in the first round.

I was on the ropes late into the first game, thanks to my opponent's 2nd turn Dolmen Gate. Thankfully, I had some evasion in Blue, and after bouncing her just-played Vigor out of the way with Whirlpool Whelm, I would be able to rush in for just enough to win if I got lucky with the clash on my Fistful of Force.

At end of turn, I won the clash with the Whelm. She put the land she revealed back on top. I decided to put Vigor on top of her library instead of into her hand, and completely destroyed my own "clash to win" master plan. I lost the next turn, and then the round ended up being a tie.

Luckily, some of the guys there talked the owner into putting on a $10 draft for no prizes the next morning (Saturday), and I decided to get in on it. I sat down at the table with the following plan: Merfolk are pretty crappy, meaning no one will be taking them, meaning I'm going to get me some Merfolk. It worked out so well that I was able to build an extremely consistent 60-card U/W deck that absolutely crushed my first two opponents before losing to a blisteringly fast G/R beatdown in the last round (it still took him a long time to finally break me). Super Bonus: I cracked a Thoughtseize in the second pack that I was able to trade for nice things later, and the Summon the School that I passed up to take it came right back around the table to me.

In the pre-release I did quite well and went 4-1 with treefolks and kithkin. However, in the main release I didn't do quite so well. I ended up going black/red goblins but made some key deckbuilding errors. My creature count was way too low for a Boggart deck (I had only 12 creatures) and I ended up playing way too many creature removal spells. Even worse, I ended up playing 3 champion cards (2 Changeling Beserkers and a Boggart Mob) and 2 Fodder Launches, so all of these cards that depended on me having other creatures were seldom played. After the tournament was over, I went back and modified my deck and upped my creature count to 15 or 16. After doing that, it now plays much better. The Changeling Beserker is an absolute beast, and I think I even prefer him to the goblin champion, Boggart Mob. With Stinkdrinker Daredevil out, the guy only cost 2 to cast for a 5/3 haste! Then what else can you do with that 2 extra mana you suddenly have sitting around, but caste Giant's Ire and draw a card because you have a changeling! I totally undervalued the Stinkdrinker Daredevil before, but now after playing him I realize he is very key in just about any red deck.

Lorwyn Sealed PTQ

My deck was semi-decent and I didn't win anything, but I had some amazing synergy with Elementals. Check this out.

Turns 2 and 3 - play a Fire-Belly Changeling and a Skeletal Changeling.
Turn 4 - Play Ceaseless Searblades
Turn 5 - Attack with all three, pump the Fire-Belly twice and regenerate the Skeletal once. If you do the math, you'll find that's attacking for 9 damage out of nowhere. I won that game.

Later in the rounds I had out a Skeletal, a Smokebraider, and the Searblades. He left the Searblades unblocked, thinking I could only regen the Skeletal guy twice. So I did so, then tapped my Smokebraider to give me two black to regen him again. He ended up taking 6 instead of 4 and dying. Heh. I love limited Lorwyn.

Who is going to the shadowmoor release? I know I am, even thought I have to drive 3 hours to do so.

I got back last night from the Shadowmoor launch party, and I had a great time there. Seeing my sealed pool with all the hybrid was even more confusing than I had expected, but on a hunch I decided to go "monored" and came in 3rd place with a 3-1 record! (my only loss was to the guy who got 1st)

Here's the decklist:

Land(17)
Mountain x17

Artifact (4)
Illuminated Folio
Rattleblaze Scarecrow
Scrapbasket
Scuttlemutt

B/R Hybrid (6)
Scar (x2)
Emberstrike Duo
Grief Tyrant
Murderous Redcap
Sootwalkers

R/G Hybrid (4)
Giantbaiting
Loamdragger Giant
Runes of the Deus
Tattermunge Maniac

White (1)
Spectral Procession (the W monocolor hybrid)

Red (11)
Slinking Giant x2
Blistering Dieflyn
Boggart Arsonists
Burn Trail
Crimson Wisps
Mudbrawler Cohort
Power of Fire
Rustrazor Butcher
Smash to Smithereens
Wild Swing

Blistering Dieflyn does a pretty good Fireball impression, and Scar is a wonderful way to take care of so many problem creatures in this set. Rustrazor Butcher is one of the best Red common creatures that I've seen in a very long time, with the combination of First Strike, Wither, and 2 toughness making all the difference in the world when it comes time for combat. Loamdragger Giant, though large, didn't end up being that useful. Yeah, he's huge and easy to play, and it's not that hard to get up to 7 in this format, but he doesn't do anything special, and his bigness really doesn't matter as much when there's easy access to Wither (probably why they were so confident printing him at common and as a hybrid).

Is anybody gonna try for the devoted druid quillspike combo?

Last week at FNM was my first FNM win (of 14 people, two 7 player draft pods), but also included a crazy moment where on one of my turns I casted Broodmate Dragon, then my oponnent's turn he casts the new Jund Dragon that gains control of all dragons in play and gives them haste. I went from 20 to 5 that turn with my opponent at 7 with a 1/1 left to block either my 2/2 or 5/5. Except next turn I cast Wretched Banquet on his lone untapped creature, then swing for 7 and the win.

Nice there Fineberg. The last draft I did was was up Seattle. My first pack had stoic angel. I took every exalted guy I could find and took every counterspell. Last pack I rip Janura or however u spell it. I made it to the finals but lost to a very fast Naya build.

Oh yea. Stoic Angel in limited can definately make things fun. On your side atleast.

Ya I was wishing for a finest hour in that draft.