WC Final and Coldsnap impressions
Well, the World Cup is finally over, and now I can get back to my normal life. I'm bummed that I won't be able to skip work to go watch games at bars, though, ;-). South Africa 2010 seems so far away! The final was good, and despite Zidane unfortunately losing his cool, it was entertaining to watch. I should be happier with Italy's victory, I think (since I recently became an Italian citizen), but I was hoping that Zizou could win another World Cup and retire on top... But since he couldn't: "Forza azzurri!"
I played in the Coldsnap Pre-Release on Saturday at Neutral Ground, playing a grand total of two flights and two drafts. While I don't think the set is particularly good for Constructed play, I think it's very interesting for Limited...
In my first flight I didn't get anything über-busted, and ended up with a solid, if unexciting, U/B/g deck. It's hard to go from the Ravnica mentality of 3, 4 and even 5-color decks back to the regular 2-color mentality, with only occasional 3rd color splashes. I ended up going 3-1, losing to color-screw in round 2. Plus when the game was over my opponent said "Good game. My starting hand was pretty bad, but I just started drawing all my good cards!" I don't believe he was trying to be a dick, but the last thing you want to hear from an opponent after losing to color-screw is "Good game", and to top it all off that his hand was bad but that he started drawing the nuts. Some people just don't know how to be a graceful winner... Ripple proved to be very good, with me having three of "the fixed Moldervine Cloak": an enchantment for 2G with Ripple 4 that gives a guy +2/+2. At any rate, 5 packs for me, :-).
My second flight was unexciting, and I ended up in R/G/w, with my White splash being primarily for Sunscour (the pitch Wrath of God). I lost the first round in extra turns, because I didn't wait one more turn to play my Sunscour: the board was somewhat of a stalemate, and I was on 1 life, but with the ability to block/neutralize all of his creatures. By using the Sunscour when I did (with my opponent having one more of his extra turns), I basically put him at "creature or no". If he had a guy and I didn't, I lost. If he didn't have one, we would've drawn. He played two guys to my one. Sigh... I dropped right there, since I would've only gotten 3 packs for going 2-1, so I just dropped, got my 2 consolation packs, and signed up for a draft.
I was drafting with Mason and Tim McKenna, so there were good people at the table. I ended up with an INSANE U/R deck, featuring 3 of the 2-damage Ripple spells, and 4 of the Blue bounce Ripple spell. I dispatched my Quarterfinal opponent in a quick 2-0, and did the same to my Semifinal opponent (who had just beaten Tim, and who for some reason took a crappy card over a 5/5 flying, hasty, card-drawing Vampire as his first pick in pack one; Tim happily took the Vampire as his second pick, ;-)!). He had 7 copies of the Snow-land Farseek, and 5 copies of the pseudo-Call of the Herd card. Fortunately he just kept making mistake after mistake, and even played a 2cc 5/5 trampler that has the following cumulative upkeep: "Put a +1/+1 counter on a creature an opponent controls". He didn't realize he could choose not to pay the upkeep, so after 3 turns and 6 +1/+1 counters he swung with his 5/5 and I blocked/killed it with a 5/6 dude. It was academic from there on. I split the finals with a nice guy who had a B/W deck with tons of flyers and a Sunscour. He won the one game we played, so he got to officially finish first. 6 more packs for me!
In my final draft I first picked the Green Ophidian, and ended up with a pretty solid G/R aggro deck, featuring 4 of the 2-damage Ripple spells, as well as 3 or 4 other burn spells. Unfortunately I'm playing against Collin, who was feeding me, and ended up with an absolutely insane deck, featuring "Broken Angel" (Adarkar Valkyrie). He wins it in 3 very close games, him winning both games where he managed to play Broken Angel, and me winning the second game where I got stuck on two lands for a while but just burned him out from 14 life, :-).
Conclusions: Ripple is really, really good, and people don't seem to be taking the Ripple spells that highly. I really like Red and Blue, and Green has some really solid beatsticks. No real conclusions on White or Black yet, since I didn't play with them much.
I was also able to get a ton of good Coldsnap cards for the Type 4 deck: Dark Depths (the land that becomes a 20/20 indestructible guy), Commandeer (Force of Will meets Desertion), Vanish Into Memory (remove your 20/20 token, draw 20 cards, don't discard any), a cantrip Naturalize, Garza Zol (the 5/5 hasty, card-drawing, flying Vampire), Phyrexian Etchings (the fixed Necro, whose upkeep can conveniently be paid forever in Type 4), and some other ones. Good times.
Luis
P.S.- Liz and I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2 on Saturday night. Great flick, :-).
I played in the Coldsnap Pre-Release on Saturday at Neutral Ground, playing a grand total of two flights and two drafts. While I don't think the set is particularly good for Constructed play, I think it's very interesting for Limited...
In my first flight I didn't get anything über-busted, and ended up with a solid, if unexciting, U/B/g deck. It's hard to go from the Ravnica mentality of 3, 4 and even 5-color decks back to the regular 2-color mentality, with only occasional 3rd color splashes. I ended up going 3-1, losing to color-screw in round 2. Plus when the game was over my opponent said "Good game. My starting hand was pretty bad, but I just started drawing all my good cards!" I don't believe he was trying to be a dick, but the last thing you want to hear from an opponent after losing to color-screw is "Good game", and to top it all off that his hand was bad but that he started drawing the nuts. Some people just don't know how to be a graceful winner... Ripple proved to be very good, with me having three of "the fixed Moldervine Cloak": an enchantment for 2G with Ripple 4 that gives a guy +2/+2. At any rate, 5 packs for me, :-).
My second flight was unexciting, and I ended up in R/G/w, with my White splash being primarily for Sunscour (the pitch Wrath of God). I lost the first round in extra turns, because I didn't wait one more turn to play my Sunscour: the board was somewhat of a stalemate, and I was on 1 life, but with the ability to block/neutralize all of his creatures. By using the Sunscour when I did (with my opponent having one more of his extra turns), I basically put him at "creature or no". If he had a guy and I didn't, I lost. If he didn't have one, we would've drawn. He played two guys to my one. Sigh... I dropped right there, since I would've only gotten 3 packs for going 2-1, so I just dropped, got my 2 consolation packs, and signed up for a draft.
I was drafting with Mason and Tim McKenna, so there were good people at the table. I ended up with an INSANE U/R deck, featuring 3 of the 2-damage Ripple spells, and 4 of the Blue bounce Ripple spell. I dispatched my Quarterfinal opponent in a quick 2-0, and did the same to my Semifinal opponent (who had just beaten Tim, and who for some reason took a crappy card over a 5/5 flying, hasty, card-drawing Vampire as his first pick in pack one; Tim happily took the Vampire as his second pick, ;-)!). He had 7 copies of the Snow-land Farseek, and 5 copies of the pseudo-Call of the Herd card. Fortunately he just kept making mistake after mistake, and even played a 2cc 5/5 trampler that has the following cumulative upkeep: "Put a +1/+1 counter on a creature an opponent controls". He didn't realize he could choose not to pay the upkeep, so after 3 turns and 6 +1/+1 counters he swung with his 5/5 and I blocked/killed it with a 5/6 dude. It was academic from there on. I split the finals with a nice guy who had a B/W deck with tons of flyers and a Sunscour. He won the one game we played, so he got to officially finish first. 6 more packs for me!
In my final draft I first picked the Green Ophidian, and ended up with a pretty solid G/R aggro deck, featuring 4 of the 2-damage Ripple spells, as well as 3 or 4 other burn spells. Unfortunately I'm playing against Collin, who was feeding me, and ended up with an absolutely insane deck, featuring "Broken Angel" (Adarkar Valkyrie). He wins it in 3 very close games, him winning both games where he managed to play Broken Angel, and me winning the second game where I got stuck on two lands for a while but just burned him out from 14 life, :-).
Conclusions: Ripple is really, really good, and people don't seem to be taking the Ripple spells that highly. I really like Red and Blue, and Green has some really solid beatsticks. No real conclusions on White or Black yet, since I didn't play with them much.
I was also able to get a ton of good Coldsnap cards for the Type 4 deck: Dark Depths (the land that becomes a 20/20 indestructible guy), Commandeer (Force of Will meets Desertion), Vanish Into Memory (remove your 20/20 token, draw 20 cards, don't discard any), a cantrip Naturalize, Garza Zol (the 5/5 hasty, card-drawing, flying Vampire), Phyrexian Etchings (the fixed Necro, whose upkeep can conveniently be paid forever in Type 4), and some other ones. Good times.
Luis
P.S.- Liz and I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2 on Saturday night. Great flick, :-).