Innistrad Sealed (6 Packs), 30/10/2011

I got a Garruk, so that was nice. Given I had Garruk, Kessig Cagebreakers, Ulvenwald Mystics, Spider Spawning, and some other solid dudes, I was definitely green, but I was torn between playing red or playing white. Red had the benefit of a far more powerful top-end, but apart from Harvest Pyre I would have no removal. White had a more consistent start, and also gave me Bonds of Faith, Avacynian Priest, Chapel Geist and Rebuke. Plus the human count was a bit higher, which made running Silver-Inlaid Dagger a bit better, and Travel Preparations gets way better when you can reliably flash it back.

I actually originally submitted a green/red deck, but then in the last minute of deck building I had a change of heart and switched to green/white. Unfortunately I didn’t realise that my deck had 41 cards until it was too late to change. I generally took Silverchase Fox out for game two. 

I played a bunch of red and white decks, and went 6-1 in games for the first three rounds, before splitting the finals. The Dagger did an incredible amount of work, along with my flyers, Spider Spawning, and Kessig Cagebreakers. The Cagebreakers won quite a number of my games, and another few games game down to a race where I was able to play Spider Spawning on the penultimate turn to chump with in order to make things in my favour. The deck played pretty interestingly in that I was generally able to play a dude or two and/or a Dagger in the early game and get in for some damage, and then after they played things to stop my attacks (or killed my flyers), I played things like Ulvenwald Mystics to block up the ground, and then I had Manor Gargoyle or Kessig Cagebreakers to finish them off after the board stalled.

Unfortunately I never drew Garruk, so I have no idea how he would have gone. The main disappointment was Woodland Sleuth, where in the few games I drew it I just never got any value out of it. If it was a 3/2 at least it would be so much better. I never even ended up boarding into red, mostly because I was scared of my opponents taking over the game while I had no removal. 

There were a number of really good games in this sealed, including my first match, where I won with 2 minutes left on the clock (I went 2-0; if my opponent had have won that second game I probably would have timed out in the third), and another game where my opponent went turn 3 Daybreak Ranger turn 4 flip and then kill your dude, which I managed to win but not before he killed two other dudes and then I used a sideboarded Rally the Peasants to finally get rid of it.

Now I’ve got a million packs, so hopefully I will be drafting a bit more!

Innistrad Draft (8-4), 29/10/2011

Ugh this deck. It really really needed some solid 1-3 drop creatures, but unfortunately they never really came. Everything five-drop and up seemed very good though. In the first round I was paired up with a blue/white flyer deck. Game one he blew me out with a pump spell after I had to double-Blazing Torch his threat, and then he had the white tapping spell to kill me after I stabilised. Game two I had severe mana problems (I drew like three mountains over 20 or so turns in the first and second games combined) and was doing okay until he played Back from the Brink and just replayed all of his threats again. No fun :(

Innistrad Draft (8-4), 29/10/2011

I had a bunch of decent black here, but didn’t get as much red as what I was hoping. Some of the aggro red vampires or red removal spells would have put this deck over the top, I think. As it was all of my red spells were pretty sweet, but the mana base couldn’t really support a turn one Reckless Waif or turn three Kruin Outlaw.  

I won game one of the first match fairly comfortably, narrowly lost game two (I got the opponent to five and got down Rage Thrower with a couple of other dudes, but he drew Smite the Monstrous for it and then attacked for the win), and then got mana screwed in game three and lost. I think I kind of punted game three. I had two Bumps in the Night in my hand so I decided to be kind of aggressive and try to get in some early damage, but I traded away too many early creatures and then never drew land to cast my bigger drops. Given I had Reaper from the Abyss in my hand, I may should have just stayed back and tried for the long game. I may have still lost, but it would have given me another couple of turns.

Innistrad Draft (8-4), 28/10/2011

I pretty much forced green/white humans after picking an Angelic Overseer P1P1 and Ulvenwald Mystics P1P2. White seemed open enough to get some decent dudes and removal, but I’m pretty sure the guy to my right was in green/red werewolves, because I didn’t see a whole lot of double-faced cards come around in packs one and three. This deck seemed pretty good. I had only one very good game finisher, but the curve is good enough that I figured I might just be able to aggro some people out.

And aggro them out I did! I went 3-0 (my final opponent refusing to split). The Dagger was absurdly good and won me about half the games, with Angelic Overseer winning most of the other half. The one game I drew Sever the Bloodline, I didn’t have the swamp to cast it, but luckily the compromised mana base from having swamps didn’t hurt me in any game. I only lost one game in the draft, which was due to flooding out. I don’t know if this is just running good or if a consistent curve really is this important in Innistrad - for a lot of games my opponents didn’t do too much in the first three turns, while I tended to curve out on them.

Innistrad Draft (8-4), 24/10/2011

I first-picked a Balefire Dragon, then I think second-picked a Grasp of Phantoms? And the draft pretty much went from there. There were a few shaky moments where I thought I might be getting cut (most of the packs were filled with mediocre green and black cards), and I think p2p1 and p2p2 had literally no cards in my colours, but I managed to scrape something together. 

I ended up suuuuper happy with this deck. From watching the replays, it didn’t have quite as much power as some of the other decks, but it was one of the only 2-colour decks in the whole draft, and it was pretty consistent. Although it lacked much removal (hence me having to play things like Sensory Deprivation), once I got to four or five mana and above the quality of my cards were pretty great. I didn’t have many insane bombs, but I had a lot of cards that could pretty happily win the game on their own. Standout performers were the Watchkeep, Grasp of Phantoms, and all of my five-drops. Unfortunately I don’t think I ever even drew the Dragon? So I have no idea how that would have gone, although I found myself getting to 6-8 mana pretty regularly.

I went 2-0 with this, and then split the finals.

Innistrad Draft (Swiss), 23/10/2011

It’s possibly not surprising after only having done two drafts and no sealeds, but I am feeling like I have a terrible grasp of this format. I regularly find myself confronted with packs containing six or so cards that could all be the best pick, and just not being able to evaluate cards properly. It is making it quite hard to determine what colours are open and which I should stay out of. For example, there are a tonne of white creatures that work really well together and with heaps of other cards, but don’t seem all that great on their own, so if I see them fairly late, I’m not all that sure what to make of it. In this case I picked Brimstone Volley and Geistflame early, and then got a bunch of white things. Red seemed to be cut fairly early, but I had a hard time seeing cards in other colours that I was all that interested in. In the end no one cut me off too much from white, and I got some werewolves and the Cultist in pack two to have enough red playables that I didn’t have to splash for green (although I would have, for Spider Spawning and Travel Preparations, if I was able to pick up a Shimmering Grotto or two). I wasn’t sure that my deck was all that good (when the highest power creature in your deck is Night Revelers, things do not bode well), so I decided to draft as aggressive a deck as possible. For this reason I took both my Geistflames over Pitchburn Devils, which probably isn’t right. 

This deck ended up playing really well, as it had just the right mix of small disposable dudes I could sacrifice, things that got bigger when other creatures died, and removal and evasion to allow my guys to get through. Despite playing what I feel like is a reasonable number of mountains, I did get stuck on all plains in at least three games in my matches. I ended up winning two of those anyway, though. All-stars in this deck were the Hanweir Watchkeep, Geist-Honored Monk, and Demonmail Hauberk. A large amount of my games involved playing Geist-Honored Monk, then next turn playing the Hauberk, saccing one of the flyers to equip the other one, and in the process growing one of my other dudes that cares about things dying. Midnight Haunting was also totally sweet, and I feel like Unruly Mob was a lot better than I originally gave it credit for (I was thinking of dropping it from the deck in favour of Crossway Vampire, but didn’t because of mana considerations). The Village Ironsmiths and Night Revelers were pretty much the only cards that didn’t work out terribly well, but I kind of knew that would be the case going in, and only picked them because of a lack of other stuff in those packs. I went 3-0 with this, which certainly makes me feel a little better about the format.

Innistrad Draft (Swiss), 20/10/2011

Urgh, this draft was kind of a trainwreck. I opened the Murder of Crows, and then got a bunch of decent white in pack one, and then got a little bit of green, so I was definitely white and wavering between blue and green. Unfortunately in packs two and three I seemed to get fairly cut on blue, green and white, which meant that I had to go into red in order to fill things out (and a Kessig Wolf Run didn’t hurt). I think this was partly because other drafters weren’t totally sure what colours they were and jumped around a bit, and because this was my second draft of the format I wasn’t sure what to consider as a signal and what not to consider. My deck turned out to be not terrible, but it definitely would have benefited from having to splash red for anything other than the Wolf Run, and maybe some more creatures to make things like the equipment, pump spells, and Prey Upon.

I ended up going 1-2, with one match loss being narrow and the other one being pretty decisive. My deck worked pretty well when the mana went okay, but in too many games I ended up with two colours of land and a hand full of the third colour. I can’t justifiably complain since you have to expect that sort of thing when you’re playing three colours with minimal fixing. I played really horribly, totally punting one game and making sure I died a few turns earlier than I should have in a couple of others. Please note that Prey Upon is not an instant!

Innistrad Draft (Swiss), 16/10/2011

I made a couple of mispicks in this draft, but not a whole lot, I think. Blue was pretty open from the beginning, with a reasonable amount of black and white coming around, but black just had the better cards. I first picked Cackling Counterpart over Murder of Crows, which has to be wrong, but I wanted to try out the rare (edit: actually now that I realise it has flashback, there’s no way Murder of Crows is better than that). I wasn’t sure how many things like Moon Heron (which don’t play into the themes of the deck, but are solid cards) versus things like Think Twice (which are pretty good if they get milled, but don’t have a whole heap of impact) I should play, and I think I might have erred too much on the side of synergy. Maybe having solid creatures like Moon Heron or Markov Patrician is just better? You will notice that the manabase for this deck does not include any plains despite the fact that the mana requirements aren’t that onerous (aside from Reaper), and Unburial Rites is great when you can flash it back. That is because I am a moron and forgot to add plains when I was adding land. I switched two plains for two islands after the first game of every match.

Match one was against a pretty aggressive red/green deck. In game one he hit me down to 1 life, but then I played my demon and a bunch of zombie dudes and stabilised. Game two I F6ed through my first turn because I’m a moron, and then lost. Game three I played my demon which he killed, and I then got it back with Unburial Rites, and then played Cackling Counterpart on it, with a plains in play to Unburial Rites it a third time if he killed it again. I won that game.

Match two was against blue/green werewolves and zombies. I got pretty badly manascrewed both games (in game one I was on three land while he was on 7-8), and in game two I finally managed to get out the Reaper (with the help of two Deranged Assistants), but he played two Grasp of Phantoms (sorcery that puts a creature on the top of its owner library) on successive turns, and then played that red Devil that gets back sorceries at random, and replayed his Grasp of Phantoms, and then the newt turn got to eight mana which let him flashback Grasp of Phantoms. It is very hard to win when you get time walked four times, and so I didn’t.

Match three was against red/white humans. Game one my deck did exactly what is was supposed to do. I had Deranged Assistant, Armored Skaab and Forbidden Alchemy to get a bunch of stuff in my graveyard, zombies to cast and to exile from my graveyard, and a bunch of flashback cards to get value. I also had a Reaper of the Abyss and Cackling Counterpart to copy it. He Fiend Huntered my Reaper, but it didn’t really matter. I won before I was able to flash back Cackling Counterpart in order to have three demons on the battlefield :( Game two I mulliganned to six and then got stuck on three land. I played Armored Skaab and milled four land, which made me very sad. I ended up having to Forbidden Alchemy for a land. I eventually drew another couple of land, but all his stuff got bigger when I killed something (like Thanben Sentry and whathaveyou), which prevented me from stabilising. Game three I had a turn one Delver into turn two Vampire Interloper. The Delver flipped on turn four or so, so I was beating down pretty hard. He eventually got Markov Vampire and Silver Inlaid Dagger, so was able to gain a bunch of life. I killed his vampire… somehow, and then he ended up with a 5/5 Juggernaut and a 5/2 equipped human that dies and gives +1/+1 counters. I was on five, but luckily had a Markov Patrician to chump with, leaving me at three. I swung in for the win the next turn.

I feel like this was a really good deck, but I played a lot of pretty aggressive decks, and found myself winning at pretty low life a lot of the time. I’m not sure if I built this wrong, if the quality of archetypes are really close in Innistrad, or just if everyone in the draft opened very well. I think maybe the fact that I picked up a lot of synergistic cards led me to play too many do-nothing cards like Think Twice, whereas if there had have been less graveyard-centric cards, I maybe would have been happy with playing more solid creatures.

M12 Summary - Colours

I also had a quick look through the colours of the decks I made. I played red the most often, with blue and white almost as common, and black and green my least played colours.

I did a quick regression to compare the colours of my decks (and whether they used one, two, or three colours) to how well I did in the draft that I used them. I did significantly better in drafts where I played blue or red, and significantly worse in drafts where I played three colour decks (as is expected). The strength of the colours seemed to go blue > red > black and white > green, although there wasn’t enough sample size to really distinguish between many of those colours. Assuming these numbers are accurate, though, green is so bad that running it actively makes you lose. It appears that you’d be better off running a shitty mono-x deck than playing x/g.

Variable       Net Wins (Wins - Losses)

Blue                1.1* 
Red                 0.8*
Black               0.7
White              0.7
Green            -0.1
—————————
Monocolour  -0.04
3-colour       -1.9*

*significant at 10% 

This is more or less consistent with my experience: received wisdom is that red is the best colour in M12 and green is the worst, and I found a lot of success with black and blue in drafts where red seemed to be very over-drafted. Despite what people say about the aggressive format, Mind Control still wins games. 

I also looked at the correlation between the different two-colour combinations and net wins. This is even dodgier than the previous analysis, since the number of observations for any given colour combination is very low. For what it’s worth, though, here is the ranking of the colour combinations in the decks I made:

Blue/White
Blue/Black
Red/White
Blue/Red
Black/Red
Red/Green
Blue/Green
Green/White
White/Black
[I never played Black/Green]

This also seems pretty consistent with popular opinion about the format, with blue/white being sweet and green/white and black/white being much tougher.

M12 Summary - Results

I just went through my entries for all of M12. Altogether I played in 42 events (mostly drafts, and mostly swiss). In swiss I went 0-3 once, 1-2 four times, 2-1 sixteen times, and 3-0 twelve times. In 4-3-2-2 I lost in the first round once, the second round once, and won the draft once. In 8-4 I lost in the first round once and split the finals once. 

In total, I played 118 matches, with 84 wins (71%) and 34 losses. 

The above graph shows my net pack investment (including the 2-ticket entry fee). I won 90 packs over the events I played, but since I mostly play in swiss events, even if I won every single match I would still expect to lose half a pack per draft (due to the entry fee). The grey line shows my overall trend for M12. I lost about 1.3 packs per draft, for a total investment in M12 of 58 packs.

However, this doesn’t include any winnings from selling cards (which I haven’t done yet), or the benefit of being able to redeem a set of M12 (which I was able to do after spending 10-15 tix on the rares I didn’t pick up through drafts). Overall, not too bad, although I hope to flatten that line a little in the future. I think as I get better and more confident at playing I will play in swiss events less and 8-4s more, and that has the potential to minimise my losses if I run well.