Hi guys, sorry to report a loss against Wodar. We went 1-2, winning first round, and losing the following two rounds. Some things I might have played differently. I kinda think we could have won. Feel free to watch the replay on Caley's stream and give me your feedback.

Damn Garys!!

Saw the first game on Caley's stream; didn't think you'd be streaming it. Sorry to hear about the other two, but at least we went down fighting!

Yeah, The last game was ridiciluous dude. He showed me 3 back-to-back Garys. The second game was really close. If he didn't have Gary, he would be dead. It was the other way round though.

He had 4 outs game 2. 3 Gary's and a Sip of Hemlock. All of them hit for 2.

Game 3 was over before it started. He had Garys for days in his opener. Nothing you can do against it.

Just watched the replay. Never thought that misplaying a LAND would cause someone to go 1-2 instead of 2-0.

In game 2 it was 100% a minor misplay to drop that scry land over the unknown shores. It was just a minor misplay that ended up costing you the game.

Without using hindsight: There's little statistical difference between scrying that turn or on the next turn. You had a play available for the next turn regardless of what you did (monstering the cyclops), and you still had enough of a clock that delaying the scry a turn wouldn't have been a big deal so the only factor in deciding whether to scry - shore or shore - scry was which one game you the better play and dropping both the cyclops and the leonin on that turn with a board state like that was a MUCH better play then only droping the cyclops.

Now using hindsight. How the play worked out using scry - shores. You scry and see minotaur, you kept minotaur (not sure if that was the best choice). You draw island. You draw SGR with 2 life and your opponent drops gary for game.

Now how that would have worked with shores - scry. You draw minotaur. You scry the island to the bottom of your deck. You topdeck SGR with 4 life. Your opponent draws gary and you alpha strike him down with 2 life left.

Also, can I see a copy of the deck you are currently using now? IIRC I saw Phalanx Leader in the sideboard and only 4 islands in the deck. With Phalanx Leader our of the deck you should be able to sub some of those plains out for islands or mountains and I think swap the shores for an island as well.

I've edited the deck so that it reflects the version I was using this morning. I could do a few things differently in game two, true. And the error that Supersun points out certainly wasn't the only one. Nevertheless, that land thing... I never would have thought of that. I'm not and never was great friends with math, so statistics and number-crunching is something I can't really do. That's for what I need guys like you.:-)

Without running any numbers running 7/5/5 and cutting the unknown shores might not be a bad idea. I mean there's a reason you were overflooding with mountains in your matches. The only reason I had 7 in my list in the first place was because of Borderland Minotaur. Don't think raising the chance of a T4 borderland drop is nearly worth as much as increasing the chance of getting your island earlier.

That sound pretty reasonable. I'll make appropriate adjustments.

I'm not sure I would cut the shores. I'd rather cut a plains to go 7 mountains, 5 islands, 4 plains and 1 shores. Neither the snarecasters nor god's willing need to be cast on turn so I think it's much better than removing an island.

By the way, I'm going to Italy for a few days from Dec 12th to 17th. I've informed Caley and proposed two possible courses of action. We'll either wait until I get back to play round 3 (or 4 depending on whether we manage to squeeze another round in there before I leave), or I'll have one of you guys play in my stead during that period. That depends on what Caley thinks will be better.

Also, this is just my presumption, but I expect a break in DDD matches around Christmas. I think that many people, including the spectators, will be busy with family visits and such business. But that's yet to be confirmed.

Well, then, it seems that discussion has arised here. I'll wait with the adjustments until we reach a consensus.

The ONLY reason we were really running Unknown Shores in the first place was that it could function as either an island or a second plains.

With Phalanx Leader removed we no longer really need a second plains which means that it's almost better to replace it with an island.

I mean even in your example with 5 plains (including the scry land) the deck already has a 70% chance to have a plains by turn 2.

The only scenario where Shores would benefit us over a basic land is if we need to cast 2 cheap blue or 2 cheap white cards in the same turn.

Everything else a basic land would be better as it means that we will statistically get the land earlier and not be completely screwed out of a color if we need to mulligan.

What, I said we should remove a plains, not an island.
-> 7 mountains, 5 islands, 4 plains and 1 shores

Still think 7/5/5 is better myself.

Sure, our white pump spells and Snarecasters don't need to be cast on the curve, but our Heliod's Emissary would certainly be nice to drop on curve if necessary and that 5th plain jumps our chance of having one by turn 4 from 70% to 78%.

Not to mention that while we don't HAVE to play Leonin Snarecaster on turn 2. If we don't have any other 2 drops it's generally a good idea to drop him then if we can anyway, and adding that extra plains increases our chances of playing him from 60% to 70%

I mean all that running shores over another Plains does is increase the ability to play TT and Griptide while dropping your ability to play 2x Leonin Snarecaster, Dauntless Assault, God's Willing, and Heliod's Emissary.

It's not like Shores really helps SGR since we ideally want to cast that on curve anyway and with 5 Islands we are already running an 85% chance of having one by turn 6.

Something else for discussion. With 5 Islands now we have a 78% chance of having one by turn 4. What do you think of running the Breaching Hippocamp we have in our sideboard instead of the Akroan Crusader. Adding a 6th 4 drop increases our chances of having one by turn 4 from 78% to 84%, but even more importantly it increases our chances of having multiple 4-5 drops by turn 5 from 63% to 72%.

He can also function as a 4th defensive combat trick in our deck since in a race he can untap one of our 4 drops and potentially help us kill 2 creatures the opponent controls.

I like that. I think he's underrated anyway.

I actually have very good experience with the Hippocamp. It's even capable of 2 for 1ing, or in rare cases 2 for 0 our oppunents. Crusader doesn't do anything in our deck. We can't abuse him with Ordeals.

I'm in favor of dropping Crusader for Hippocamp.

I'm also in favor of keeping the Unknown Shores.

It's absolutely necessary to have access to all of your colors in a 3-color deck. We almost lost game 1 because we didn't see blue. If we don't need to to tap for colored mana it's just another land. When we do need it to tap for colored mana it will be saving our ass, even if it does cost 1 more. Sure, there are fringe situations where an Island would be better, but I believe the ability to make any of our 3 colors is invaluable.

I completely agree with NobodyPicksBulbasaur. Hippocamp over Crusader just means we're a bit swollen on 4 drop spells (which I think Absinthman brought up when we were debating about adding Portent of Betrayal), but it has a nice SURPRISE! ability. Unknown Shores has saved me personally a couple games early in drafts when I needed to colorfix. Even if we have a game that goes through a lot of turns so we draw all the colored mana we need, Shores still provides early colorfixing that we could need.

Honestly being a bit swollen on 4 drops is sorta the point.

When you have a 50% of getting an SGR by turn 6 alone your most important drops are turn 4 and turn 5.

I was actually looking to draft one more good 6 drop in our deck actually. Looks like we did draft it a long time ago lol.

I can see the merit in running unknown shores. I just thing you are overratting it.

Only running 4 plains will make it very difficult to cast a turn 2-3 Leonin Snarecaster if we are forced to mulligan. If we mulligan to 6 we only have a 60% chance of having a usable white source by turn 2 with only 4 plains, and I'm not sure about you but I'm not exactly comfortable with only having 4 reliable 2-3 cmc drops.

If we mulligan our chances of not making a 2-3 drop are a lot higher then I'd prefer them to be.

Yes, I understand that color screw sucks. I understand that we almost got color screwed in game 1 (we didn't though, the island came like it should of). I understand that we will get color screwed occasionally. It's no reason to overreact and ignore the statistics, and imo make our chance of getting color screwed for white worse.

Running Shores over another Plains only really increases our odds for an island. That "island" is pretty much unusable to cast SGR which only leaves 2 (now 3) cards that actually benefit from it. We already have a 78% chance of having an island by turn 4, and even if we mulligan to 6 that chance still remains at 74%. Adding an extra "island" does increase our chances of getting one to 84% (80% if we mull to 6).

The Shores really makes me nervous when mulliganing. I don't think increasing our chances of having an island by turn 4 from 74% to 80% is worth decreasing our chance of having a plains by turn 2 from ~70% to ~63%. Just because we almost got color screwed out of casting a grip tide doesn't mean we should color screw ourselves out of casting our 2 Leonin Snarecasters on curve. They are nice that they don't HAVE to be cast on curve, but not being able to cast them on curve makes the card significantly worse.

Hi, guys, no new info regarding the DDD. I just thought I would share with you a drafted deck that I played at the latest FNM in my local store. I wish every one of my decks looked like this. No kidding, this is what I really had: 13-12-8 - FNM Draft

While only really relevant in fringe-cases, the shores also enable us to regenerate Deathbellow Raider for 4 :P

Hello from Italy. It seems that Goody and DeckBuilder haven't concluded their match yet, so I'll try and schedule our match on when I come back home (Wednesday or something like that). It might be difficult though because preliminary inquiries have shown that Goody can't play later than 7:30pm Pacific which is waaay too early for me (4:30). I'll try and arrange a more reasonable time, but if that turns out impossible, I'll just have to go by it I guess.

Hello guys, I've come back from my trip to Italy. Latest news on our third match: It will most likely start on Thursday somewhere around 5 or 5:30pm Pacific (1, 1:30am GMT). I'm not sure yet because I don't know what Caley will have to say about it. The problem is that Goody start a match at 7:30pm at the latest which is like a middle of night for me. 5:30 works for us, but it may not work for Caley. I'll keep you posted with further development.

Reporting that round 3 has been a 2-0 win for us. The current version of the deck is the one I played.