Ravnica Allegiance Prerelease Strategy Puzzle

There was one play at the prerelease where I think I should have made better decisions to win the game, but I can't figure out what was the best line.  I've been puzzling on it a lot.

Opponent was Rakdos and I had just allowed him to attack for 9, dropping me to 8, because I was planning to win on my turn.

My hope was that he would play a creature and I would know what to play around on my turn, but he didn't.  So here is what I saw after drawing the Plains:

As you can see, I had enough mana to cast Biogenic Upgrade and also activate the Courier's vigilance ability after playing my land.

What actually happened:

I played Biogenic Upgrade, put 6 counters on Senate Courier, then played the plains, then activated vigilance, then attacked with everything.  He cast Get the Point on the 7/10 Senate Courier, took 4 damage, and won on the backswing.

I had not seen Get the Point in the first two games of the match, so I didn't have any specific reason to think he had it other than that it's a common in his colors.

There were really 2 decision points here.  The first was what to target with Biogenic Upgrade, and the second was how to attack (knowing that he already hadn't cast removal in response to Upgrade).

My thinking included the following:

• I wanted to make a lethal attack and avoid letting him have a next turn.
• I wanted to avoid getting blown out by removal in response to casting Biogenic Upgrade.  For example, Flames of the Raze-Boar would have been a bad 2-for-1 for me.  I don't think I was specifically thinking about Flames of the Raze-Boar in that moment, but I was generally trying to reduce the chances that a 2-3 damage removal spell counters part of my Upgrade.
• I wanted to play around cards I had already seen, which included Scorchmark and Spire Mangler.
• I wanted to be able to block his 6/6, preferably with a lethal block, if he had something like a flash blocker or a lifegain spell.
• His topdecks are mostly better than mine since black-red has aggressive cards including haste and direct damage.

He was smart to hold his Get the Point until my attack without giving away that he had something.  At that point all I knew was that he didn't have a removal spell that only kills the owl when it has 4 toughness (damage-based or -X/-X).

In hindsight, which is 20/20, I would have won if I had spread the counters from Biogenic Upgrade onto the 3 creatures with 1 power and attacked with everything.  This would have given me 3 + 3 + 3 + 2, and with his Get the Point, the best he could have done was get the attack down to 8 damage.  I think this was a pretty good plan overall, because the only spell I can think of that beats it outright is Flames of the Raze-Boar.  If he had that card, he would have been pretty close to winning outright, because I would have had to plan to chump block with the afterlife creature (attacking with the Gateway Sneak if it was clear) for two turns and hope my topdecks were better than his.

Another possibility would be to put 2 counters on the Courier and 4 on Gateway Sneak, which is better against specifically Flames of the Raze-Boar.  That allows for an exact lethal attack without tapping the afterlife creature or the Faerie, and has better implications against removal.  Maybe that's the best way to cast Upgrade in this situation.  Worst case, he kills the Sneak and Faerie with Flames of the Raze-Boar, and I have a 3/6 vigilance flier and a 2/3 afterlife flier, which is maybe enough to chump block and close the game in 3 attacks.

Finally, 4 counters on the owl and 2 on Sneak is also a reasonable choice, because it sets up the owl to block the Ruin without exposing the board to single removal as badly.  Then, I attack the owl and the Sneak, as above.  Having 2 blockers back including the afterlife bird to trade with the Vandal would have been reasonable.

Now, what should I have done differently on my attack, after Upgrading only the owl?  I'm not sure that there is a great plan.  In hindsight, I always want to attack with the owl and he always kills it, which leaves me in mediocre shape regardless of the rest of the choices.  Assuming I leave back the afterlife creature, which is the second best blocker, I am attacking for 2 after the owl dies, then chump blocking and hoping to do 6 more damage off topdecks.  If I leave back the Faerie instead, I'm attacking for 3 after the owl dies and hoping he doesn't have a small removal spell like Scorchmark on his turn.  Granted, the Gateway Sneak draws me extra cards, but none of these attacks is a super plan even with Angel of Grace somewhere in my deck.

My conclusion is that Upgrading only the owl was the point where I should have made a different choice, and I should have spread the counters around in one of the above ways.  In any situation where he isn't holding a single-target removal spell, it would have almost certainly won the game, but so would spreading the counters.  What's the best spread?

After Upgrading only the owl, I think my best attack is everything but the Faerie, which presents 10 damage and draws a card and leaves me with a big blocker and a small blocker if they all live, or a small blocker and 3 damage if the owl gets removed (as it did).  I can't think of any instant speed ways he could have gained life, but there are several ways he can live through the attack (including the Get the Point that he actually had).  It's not great, but  I think it has the most upside.

My downfall, as often happens, was playing toward the fastest win and not analyzing the implications of the possible answers they could have.  Because of the different styles of decks we were playing, I still think I want to reduce the number of turns he gets to draw, but there were safer ways.

What do you think I should have done?

Ravnica Allegiance Prerelease 2019-01-19

Prerelease time!

The guilds this time around are Azorius (white-blue), Orzhov (white-black), Simic (blue-green), Rakdos (black-red), and Gruul (red-green).  I chose Azorius partly because I like blue-white in Limited and partly because it was the least popular guild, along with Orzhov.  The spikes were taking Gruul because it looks like the strongest guild at face value, and the money drafters were taking Simic because apparently Vannifar is the chase prerelease promo this time around.

For once I remembered to take a picture of my seeded pack before mixing it in with everything else.

Every prerelease kit has 5 normal packs and one pack that is only cards from your guild (or guildless cards in your color pair).  In addition to a rare or mythic promo, you are guaranteed to get a Guildgate and a Locket, and it's possible that you always get a Guildmage also but I'm not sure.  I was sad not to see Azorius Knight-Arbiter or Lawmage's Binding, which I consider the best two gold commons in Azorius.  In the end, I only played 7 of these 15 cards, while staying in guild with my deck, so it wasn't a great seed from that standpoint.  For comparison, I played 28 cards that I opened (and 12 basic lands), so the remaining 21 cards I used were from my other 5 packs, for an average of just over 4 cards per pack.  This is still better than my previous prerelease where I switched colors and didn't play my seeded guild at all (although I switched from white-green to black-green, so cards from my seeded pack did still go into my deck).

Usually the rares play a big part in what I build in Sealed, so lets see what rares I got (plus one inconsequential foil common):

I actually had a Breeding Pool and traded it for Godless Shrine after the tournament.  Emergency Powers is flashy but in my opinion not good in Sealed (and other people seconded this).  But the Angel is a big time card and the Lumbering Battlement is strong.

I ended up building a Bant deck with green as the splash.

Not including Tome of the Guildpact, which doesn't come on until turn 5 or later, I had 10 blue sources, 8 white sources, and 5 green sources, which is good enough to reasonably support Azorius and a few Simic cards.  Biogenic Upgrade is such a powerful closer with fliers that I put it in even with the double green cost.  If I had gotten better removal, I probably would have played a more controlling deck, but I felt like I had to splash in the two copies of Applied Biomancy and try to play a more tempo-oriented game instead.  This led to me cutting some really good cards like 2 copies of Impassioned Orator and high drops like Sphinx of the Guildpact and Archway Angel, and keeping cheaper cards with activated abilities instead for late game mana sinks.  I don't think I necessarily built the best deck from this pool, but I do think I identified its strengths well and capitalized on them, as borne out by the gameplay.

High Alert was the one card I don't think was optimal, but I just really wanted to play it, and its activated ability had a chance to make up for the fact that it doesn't boost many of my creatures very much (and hurts the Senate Griffins).

Here are my extra sleeved cards/sideboard:

The top 3 were the main ones I used in games, depending on opposing creature sizes.

Round 1 vs. Gruul (splashing blue).
He had some good Gruul beaters, but he was mostly using riot to give haste instead of a +1/+1 counter, which I think is incorrect most of the time.  I had just enough taps and bounces to beat him at 1 life in game 1.  In game 2 I got off to a better start and won easily after he decided to turn my Senate Guildmage into a 3/3 Frog Lizard token that he didn't have a plan for.  Win 2-0.

Round 2 vs. Rakdos.
This was the round that got away.  Game 1 he had a bunch of little deathtouch creatures and I had a hard time keeping the board clear enough with my minimal removal.  I stayed in the game a long time by drawing extra cards with Tome of the Guildpact, but he answered by drawing 3 cards with Rix Maadi Reveler and I never had a chance to turn the tables.  Game 2 I flashed in Angel of Grace and ate his attacker, then he conceded quickly when he realized he wasn't going to be able to answer the Angel.

Game 3 I got off to a good start with little creatures, and he played a Burning-Tree Vandal with a +1/+1 counter.  On the pivotal turn, I had the 1/3 Gateway Sneak untapped and he had the 3/2 Vandal.  I was holding Applied Biomancy to make the block and win combat.  He cast Rambling Ruin, which meant creatures with 1 power could not block.  I thought I was still ok because I could pump my creature before blocks, so I let it resolve.  He attacked and I cast Applied Biomancy to bounce the Rambling Ruin and pump the Sneak to 2/4.  He said he didn't think I could block, and I immediately called for a judge.  The judge (who I know and trust) looked up some stuff on his phone and said that it wouldn't be able to block because it was too small when the Rambling Ruin resolved.  I accepted it, and didn't block.  Then after we completed the turn cycle and were on my opponent's following turn, the judge came back and said he was wrong, and it worked the way that I thought it did.

Anyhow, despite all that, I was still in position to win with Biogenic Upgrade and 4 creatures.  He swung in with 9 power and I took it down to 8 life, then on my turn he had one or two cards in hand and all his mana up with 8 life himself.  I cast Biogenic Upgrade, thought about my targets a minute, then decided to put all the counters on Senate Courier to minimize the chance that he blew it out with damage based removal, making it 7/10.  My other creatures had 1, 1, and 2 power (and the 2 power one had afterlife).  I gave the owl vigilance with its ability.  I didn't really know what I needed to play around, so I just attacked with all, and he had Get the Point to kill my owl and go down to 4 life, then win on the backswing!  I hadn't seen Get the Point over the course of 3 games, and when he didn't kill the owl in response to the Upgrade, I was pretty confident that he couldn't kill it -- worse case maybe he could flash in Spire Mangler, which I had seen previously, to block it, but it still had vigilance and could stop a lethal attack back.  This loss was on me, and I should have played more conservatively and spread the counters around, or held back at least one more creature to block.  But it was a bitter pill knowing I also would have almost definitely won if my perfectly planned play had been judged correctly several turns earlier.  But that's life and that's Magic, and I'd rather be a gracious loser and learn from my mistakes.  It was a fun and close match.  Loss, 1-2.

Round 3 vs. Rakdos.
This time I was matched up against a kid who was probably 8 - 10 years old.  He knew how to play in a general sense, but he was missing some basics.  He asked me if I wanted to go first, and I nudged us toward rolling dice to decide randomly.  He did a single pile shuffle, and I took his deck and shuffled it a couple times, and then again in the second game, after he told me the top of the deck was random because he hadn't used it and the bottom of the deck was just the cards from the first game ("Why should I shuffle?  Those weren't my good cards so I'd rather not draw them again.").  The gameplay was very lopsided, as I had excellent starts in both games.  First game I got Gateway Sneak and High Alert, and I proceeded to play Guildgates for the next 3 turns and attack for 3 plus a card draw unimpeded.  In the second game I got a 6/7 Lumbering Battlement in play and then put 6 counters on it with Biogenic Upgrade.  Win, 2-0.

Round 4 opponent wanted to split and not play any games because he was going to go do something else, so we rolled the dice and I got the round win and 4 of our 7 prize packs.

So overall it was a good experience.  If I had won Round 2, who knows what I would have faced in Round 3 at 2-0 instead of 1-1, so I'm completely satisfied with the outcome.  I came away with about $33 in card value (promo Emergency Powers ~$10, Angel of Grace ~$15, Godless Shrine ~7, Revival // Revenge ~$1) plus 4 RNA packs, which is good.  The Emergency Powers and Angel could lose value, and Revival // Revenge will eventually be bulk, but Godless Shrine is a card I wanted for Standard and it will hold its value long term.

Thanks for reading!

Ravnica Allegiance -- New Budget Standard Deck Upgrade

So for the last bit, I've been playing my Traxos Historic deck in Standard.  Not a lot, but on occasion.  And it's fun.  But I found something new I want to try.

Here's the Traxos deck in its current form:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1577774#paper

The main idea is to use hand disruption to get rid of anything that would kill your win conditions (Traxos, Doom Whisperer, etc.), and Phyrexian Scriptures to kill everything else (while conveniently not killing most of your own creatures).  It was mostly a budget deck, but I managed to trade for the Treasure Maps and Isolated Chapels, and I was super lucky in drafting Doom Whisperers and a Vraska's Contempt.

Anyway, I was puzzling over the new cards in Ravnica Allegiance, and I came up with another deck that's basically just a really cheap conversion of the deck I already have.  I'm not sure that all the numbers are exactly balanced right, but I'm going to try it out:

WB Life Swap featuring Axis of Mortality, Lich's Mastery, and the new Font of Agonies:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1573929#paper

The deck description is in the link, so I won't go into detail here.  I will say that I think Mortify is a card worth buying early if you want it for Standard.  If it catches on, I would expect it to jump to about the $1 range like good uncommon removal often does.  It has several previous printings, all at uncommon or as part of preconstructed decks, and you can find it for 20 - 30 cents now.  When Grasp of Darkness was printed in Oath of the Gatewatch, it had one previous printing, at common, and it rose as high as $2 before rotating.  I'm not sure if Mortify is quite as good, but it is flexible and enchantments are an important permanent type in Standard right now.

Anyhow, if you have any thoughts about the Life Swap deck, please feel free to comment.

Thanks for reading!

FNM Chaos Draft 2019-01-04

So last week I was out of town and the LGS was going to be doing their end of year special Choose Your Own Chaos Draft, but apparently they didn't get enough people, so they did it this week instead.  Yay!

The general principle of chaos draft is that the table has a randomized mix of boosters, but for this one each player was allowed to choose and buy the boosters from anything available in store (plus a $5 buy-in that would go directly into the prize pool).  Since it's a draft, you still only get your own booster for first and 8th picks, but it allows people to shoot for specific synergies or just add sets they are comfortable with.  Since different tables might have different power levels (like if one table had more Masters sets than another), this was restricted to single elimination pod play.

The store has an impressive selection of sets right now, with Apocalypse ($8) as the oldest and lots of expensive Modern sets like Zendikar ($20) and New Phyrexia ($15), plus everything in Standard or from the last several years, all the Masters sets (including MM13 for $30 a pack) and Battlebond and Conspiracy sets.  The cheapest buy-in was a $3 set for a total of $14.  I spent a bit of time talking to others and thinking about what to play, and I settled on 3x Eldritch Moon ($4.50) because it's a fun set with a number of good cards that I wouldn't mind opening.  So I paid $18.50 and they didn't have change so it was really $18.

A lot of people went with Iconic Masters ($8, or $29 buy-in) because it's a fun set with a lot of bomb rares, and that was fine by me because every Masters pack also improves the card quality across the board.  My table had several 3x IMA drafters, so I saw a lot of those cards.  The only person at my table who paid less than me was a 3x Dominaria drafter (I think it's $3.50 or $4 a pack).

So enough about that.  Here's my draft, from bottom left to top right:

The odd thing about my EMN packs was that they all have at least one double-faced card (DFC), which I am required to reveal as I open the packs.  This meant that everyone who was paying attention (the two people next to me) knew that I first picked Voldaren Pariah, a heavy-black DFC that asks me to have creatures to sacrifice and also likes me to have discard outlets.  A rare DFC means my pack has 2 rares, and the other was the awful Providence.  I followed the signals and found that black and red both seemed fairly open, so the pack was pretty easy to draft.  Bladewing the Risen is a card that can be a bomb with enough other dragons, so I was happy to wheel it after taking the much more versatile Draconic Roar from the pack.  I wasn't sure about Rescue from the Underworld, but it did support a possible sacrifice theme and provide potential bonus value.

My second pack rare was Lupine Prototype, a card that looks a lot better than it actually is.  Thermo-Alchemist seemed like a great pick here because my first pack was full of instants and sorceries.  At this point I figured I was probably going to be a red-black control deck, so I looked for cards that supported my possible sacrifice synergy as well as cards that blocked well.  Doomed Dissenter, Goblin Rally, and Dragon Egg were great to go with my sacrifice cards, and Dragon Egg provides a way to win the game quickly.  Olivia's Dragon gave me a straightforward discard outlet.

Pack 3 had yet another bad (but very cool) rare, Permeating Mass, and I was happy to get another Thermo-Alchemist.  Second pick was a $10 cash grab, since I hadn't seen anything worth anything all draft.  Crackling Doom was in a pack that also had a Mardu Banner, and I probably would have played it if the Banner had come back around.  When the Battlebond pack came to me, I was astonished to see Blaze and Magmatic Force, plus maybe two other playable red cards.  Magmatic Force pretty much wins the game if it gets into play, but at 8 mana it was hard to stomach, so I took the more versatile Blaze, which can also often end the game if you have 8 mana.  When the draft ended, I saw that no one was drafting red except me, so that explained that and all the other great red cards I took.

Building the deck wasn't too hard.  I just added as many removal spells as possible, then played the creatures that had the best synergy with each other.  I was sad to cut Bellowing Saddlebrute, since I didn't have much big stuff, but I felt like I could hold down the fort until I could either win the attrition war with Thermo-Alchemists and Pyromancer or break through with a firebreathing flier.

Here are the best synergy cards with Voldaren Pariah (flipped side shown, Abolisher of Bloodlines) and Rescue from the Underworld:

And here's my sleeved sideboard.  I could get a little more aggressive if needed, or add Galvanic Bombardment for small creatures.  Cheering Fanatic (from Battlebond, which I've never played) is an interesting card, and when I sided it in I liked it pretty well.  It's possible I should have played Tormenting Voice.  I'm never sure whether it's actually good in Limited, and I usually cut it, but it does have synergy with Thermo-Alchemist and with Voldaren Pariah's madness cost.

Round 1 vs. White-Blue Weenie Aggro.
This was the person drafting to my right, and he notably had my Lupine Prototype.  In game 1 he got it going along with a bunch of 2/2s, but I was able to hold him off with removal and then win with a dragon token after a pretty good Rescue from the Underworld where I forgot to make a zombie token but otherwise blew him out.  In the second game, I had a full-scale blow-out when he attacked into Olivia's Dragoon and I discarded and madness cast Voldaren Pariah, set up blocks, and flipped her to wreck his board and take zero damage.  I also got to use Mark of Mutiny as a removal spell on a Dauntless Bodyguard (he sacrificed it in response instead of letting me get an attack and then sacrifice it myself).  Win, 2-0.

Round 2 vs. Blue-Green Monsters
This was the triple Dominaria guy.  He first picked Cold-Water Snapper out of his first two packs, and then lucked into opening Helm of the Host in his third pack for the all out combo.  Someone has also passed him a Courser of Kruphix, which is a massive card advantage engine.  In game 1 he got the combo going, and I managed to block them for a few turns with all my little stuff but eventually gave in when he had 6 Snappers on board (2 real and 4 tokens).  I had almost nothing to fight against hexproof and only one card to kill artifacts, so I tried to make my deck a little more aggressive to race him in the second game.  But he just proceeded to play big things and I couldn't keep up.  Loss, 0-2.

Chaos draft is mostly just a ton of fun, and it's good practice for generally getting better at Magic.  I'd play this version of chaos draft again and I'd definitely go with the cheap packs.  I think Masters packs are better when everyone else has them too (i.e. an actual Masters draft), and the old expensive packs are just lottery plays that have similar or worse general card quality compared to the recent stuff.  I felt good about my deck and still do, and the second deck I played against was so outside my expectations that I just didn't have a good plan for it.

I didn't get a lot of value for my trouble, but the $10 Flusterstorm kept it from being a complete washout.  The other rares are under 50 cents.

It's almost time for Guilds of Ravnica to be replaced by Ravnica Allegiance, so we'll have some fresh drafts soon!  But in the meantime, hooray for Ultimate Masters and chaos draft providing some different experiences.

Thanks for reading!