Stop Hurting Me!
Round 5:
Opponent times out for inactivity. I'm sure he had a Dragon in his deck though.
Round 6:
I get a turn 3 Call of the Herd and then miss three straight land drops. I still hold my own until turn 7 when Numot the Dragon comes into play. He's the one that destroys lands. I play my fourth land and think, "at least I don't mind using Rough to clear the board, because I'll never get to six mana to play Tumble!"
Final tally: 12 spells, 4 lands.
Game 2 sees me not Shocking a morphed Shaper Parasite on turn four becaues I have Rough and Grapeshot in my hand and figure I can do better with a 4/2 to trade with his Spider. I didn't know it was a Parasite, but there was certainly a good possibility that in his four-colour deck he wasn't playing Fathom Seer, Brine Elemental or Aquamorph. And Shapeshifter is still a good target.
I then face a series of complicated decisions involving the three aforementioned red spells. I almost always get into trouble when my kill spells aren't straightforward. I actually dislike having mass kill - it's just not my style and it only messes me up (except, of course, in those rare instances when it owns your opponent after a fast start). Despite massive card disadvantage, he seems to draw nothing but dudes and make some dubious choices to give me the win.
Of course, it doesn't matter because in game three I mulligan this hand:
Stonewood Invocation, Fury Sliver, 3 Mountains, 2 Forests
into this one:
Mire Boa, Sporesower Thallid, Stuffy Doll, Pyrohemia, Forest, Forest
What can I do? I have to hope for a Mountain.
Guess how many lands I had on turn 7 when I conceded? That's right, three Forests. The fourth land was 16 cards into the deck at which point I would have drawn 12 spells and 3 lands.
Of course, this game he opens with a 2/1 and a 4/1 that I would love to Rough up a bit. But no, his Grapeshot kills the Boa and Call of the Herd eventually just chump blocks the Halberdier as his Dryad and other creatures run me over.
My deck, which wiredaces thought was amazing, went 2-3-bye. Granted, Geordie probably figured it would be played properly, and wouldn't face four Dragons. Note that there's 5 Dragons in 55 rares, and each person only gets two, so if my rudimentary math skills are at all up to par, I should only see 1-2 dragons in six rounds. Of course, I probably should see a 4th mana source with 19 in the deck, but that didn't happen too frequently either. Aren't I lucky?
Thus it comes down to:
Inferior Deck Construction?
or
Inferior Play Skills?
If only I had a paid account and could do polls!