This deck was a failure compounded by misplays and, I think, some bad luck.
Results: 0-2, 1-2, 0-2
But since luck is always a factor in this game, I will focus solely on what went right and what went wrong with respect to what was actually in my control.
What went right:
- I had drafted the right amount of spells and creatures...but failed to construct my deck.
- There were several games where I got my opponents down to sub-five life, which is awesome. I even won a game.
But then they defeated me because they were able to keep bringing out great stuff.
- I effectively used a good combo...card:Gobblin Smuggler to make
Unchained Berserker
unblockable. Bringing out
Boreal Elemental
and playing
Winged Words
the following turn to gain early card advantage.
What went wrong:
- I did not develop any kind of sideboard strategy. I could practice having more sideboarding in arena and playing more traditional games.
- I do not have enough experience playing Magic face to face. It is quite different than online.
- I drafted two extremely risky two color drops in Rakdos that I should have built my deck around (
Ogre Siegebreaker
). I had drafted some black cards that would have outperformed my blues cards.
- I did not draft enough solid removal. Shock is weak removal even though it's always solid.
- I mulliganed to 5 in one game which immediately cost me it. I could have shuffled more.
- I could not get out my one seven drop. It was extremely risky and I should have stopped at five drops. I had a
Drakuseth, Maw of Flames
in my hand for three games that would have surely ended things quickly. Had I been able to play it.
- In no fewer than three games did I have my
Renowned Weaponsmith
out for many turns without using him to his full abilities. In particular I could have immediately brought out a
Heart-Piercer Bow
to destroy my opponent's
Cloudkin Seer
, but instead played
Shock
, which was a huge misplay. I wasted a valuable extra damage that could have been used to remove a 2-toughness creature. In this I learned: use what you have and don't waste your available resources.
- In a few cases I should have held onto my (already pretty weak) removal instead of using it on crappy two-drop creatures.
- I tried to be aggressive but in doing so I hurt my chances of winning by not waiting for something better. My "aggression" was more impatience. (Am I talking about a magic game anymore or RL?) Specifically, I used my
Salvager of Ruin
to bring back a
Scorch Spitter
when I could have much more carefully used it later to bring back
Boreal Elemental
.
So while I had the right balance of lands, creatures, and non-creature spells, I made many misplays that cost me games. In one chance where I had to mulligan down to five, I really screwed myself and lost very quickly.
While I had good evasion, lack of removal also hurt me.
Given what I had, here is what I would have been able to do differently with regards to deck construction:
3 5+. I had 5 5+ drops and that was game over. 3 5 drops and 2 7 drops was not good.
It's better to have cards you can play than lots of cards that you can't.
Honestly, I should have paid attention to signals much closer. Izzet is weak in M20. I should have forced one of the following: B/U, U/W (which won the event), B/R, B/G, R/G. In this set black tends to be picked frequently because of solid removal.
