Mono Red Aggro SSS Draft (3-0)

Speed Kills. Red Deck Wins (both games in 6 turns!)

4 packs and my shiny new Reaper King avatar would attest to that. So would two finals I lost to mono red aggro. It's been a long week, I lost nearly 50 points to crappy sealed deck opens (I won't whine, but opening 4 out of 5 rares as rare enchantments is not my idea of fun, Greater Auramancy, Runed Halo and Thought Reflection aren't going to win many games.)

I won both my finals games in 6 turns, I lost one to a painter's servant and long game beatdown. I ended up sideboarding into black to get my rite of consumption for anything he prison termed.

Game 2:
Mulligan to 5. Pili-pala, Power of Fire, Runes of the Deus, 2 Mountains.

Turn 2. Pili-pala
Turn 3. Power of fire on Pili-pala
Turn 4. Boggart Ram-gang (which he sticks prison term on.... your mistake is my win?)
Turn 5. drop more land and burn to his face while burning an Augury Adept out of the way.
Turn 6. Power of fire to his face, and Rite of Consumption my Ram-Gang to his face. I win on more than 20 life. Go red go. I'm holding Jaws of Stone as he dies too.

Game 3.

Mulligan to 6. Holding 2 mountains, Sootstoke Kindler, Gouger, Burn Trail and Ram-Gang.

Turn 2. Sootstoke kindler. Bash.
Turn 3. Hasted Ashenmoor Gouger. Bash. His Augury adept draws a swamp, err. great gain your 0 life.
Turn 4. Boggart Ram-Gang. Bash.
Turn 5. Boggart Ram-Gang #2. Bash. He's on 1 health. He has a 7/7 flier out with his painter's servant.
Turn 6. I don't even bash. I just Burn Trail to his face.

CrazyPants.Dek Loses

Every single opponent I faced had fancy pants enchants, fancy pants combos and fancy pants triple colour decks. Sure they beat me in the one game they assembled their crazy fancy pants tricks... In fact here is a list of crazy things that I had to beat:

1. Swans of Bryn Argoll
2. Swans of Brynn Argoll with double Steel of Godhead. 8/6 unblockable double lifelink. 24 life swing per turn.
4. Painter's Servant, Faerie Swarm, Spell Syphon (ever have to pay 4 more mana to cast a spell on turn 3? Or see a 7/7 flying critter on turn 6, in limited?)
5. Leechbonder, Cinderbones, Oona's Gatewarden, Mistmeadow Skulk and Kulrath Knight. None great by themselves, but together they equal = You can't attack. Or block. Who runs a deck wth all 5 of these cards ANYWAY?

Learnings (Nathan was right):

1. Focus on the good cards. I argued with my friend that Steel of Godhead and Shield of the Oversoul are first pickable. I actually got pretty annoyed. I realise I was wrong. I passed a whole bunch of them. I even passed Barkshell Blessings this time. You're right Nathan, I suck.

2. The first pack doesn't matter. I was in Red. and White. Yeh... Enemy Colours suck. But I had quality picks. I think playability over colour is important.

3. Pick for your sideboard. For me, I really high picked Gloomwidow's feast and Gleeful sabotage as I was light on removal and enchantment destruction is just necessary. I also picked up a rite of consumption and a spiteflame witch as ways of ending stalemates, as aggro decks can really suffer once you get into these situations.

I actually lost a number of first games, but instead of moaning, I would splash black or green. Green if they were flier, enchant heavy (i.e. vs. double lifelink swans) or black if they were stalled or had wither based decks.

4. Don't table power of fire. Thanks guys. Also, you never let someone 4th pick Jaws of Stone, not unless your first 3 cards were Foil Reflecting Pool, Reflecting Pool, Firespout. That I can understand, maybe.

5. Power of fire goes on anything, either you beat him to the face for 1, or beat his toughness 1 creatures to death, or he blows his removal on it. Double bonus points if you get it on your Pili-Pala.

6. Kill Leechbonder on sight.

Tough Picks.

Okay. I want to go through some of my really tough picks. I've bolded what I took.

1. Pack 1 Pick 7. Last Breath vs. Bloodmark Mentor vs. Gloom Widow's Feast. I take the Bloodmark, as its a definite in for any red deck, the others may table.

2. Pack 2 Pick 1. Witherscale Wurm vs. Kitchen Finks. I take the finks, GG is not something I'm willing to deal with at this stage. Not sure if this was a mistake. I figure finks is useable if I go white splashing red, or I go RG but in no way am I even remotely in mono green.

3. Pack 2 Pick 6. Wicker Warcrawler vs. Cultbrand Cinder. I take the cinder here because of it's removal capability and it turns on my two Tattermunge Duos... but Wicker Warcrawler is surely a scary turn 5 card. Mistake? Possibly, I also realise I will probably have lots of artifact destruction in RG and can deal with it (which turns out to be true).

4. Pack 3 Pick 1. Sunken Ruins vs. Ashenmoor Gouger. At this stage I only had 1 Gouger and Ram-Gang. So it would have made a lot of sense in mono red to take the gouger. but look I'm not arguing with 6 tix okay?

5. Pack 3 Pick 2. Silkbind Faeries vs. Murderous Redcap. Just kidding.

6. Pack 3 pick 3. Runes of Deus vs. Gnarled Effigy vs. Farhaven Elf. The elf helps me fix colour, helps me ramp. The Gnarled Effigy slowly but surely gets me out of stalemates (and has killed me before). Runes of Deus I can throw on just about anything in my deck. I haven't seen one passed yet, so assume someone else is hating or taking them. I take the Runes and start thinking about going mono red.

7. Pack 3 Pick 4. I'm pretty much mono red splashing for black or green for removal (which I'm low on). Deep Slumber Titan (I have two power of fires) vs. Crabapple Cohort vs. Torture. I like torture, its slow, but effective, and its a 3 mana way of getting rid of witches. I go for the fatty.

8. Pack 3 Pick 6. Illuminated Folio vs. Mudbrawler Cohort vs. Farhaven Elf vs. Shield of Oversoul. Mudbrawler bashes for 2 from turn 3. Farhaven is just sick. I take the folio, the reason being that in a stalled situation I can start drawing into answers. its 5 to cast, but only 1 to activate.

Out of all the colours, red is the colour where you probably don't mind showing your hand to the opponent... it's not exactly a subtle colour. Also with speed based aggro, you run out of cards in your hand really quickly.

9. Pack 3. Pick 9. Boggart Arsonists vs. Flourishing Defenses vs. Gloomwidow's Feast. Gloomwidow's feast is just sick. Pretty much every flier you throw this at will give you a 1/2 reaching spider. I already had one, and wanted to be mono red. So many scarecrows, so little time. Arsonist kills a warcrawler along the way.

By drafting what my neighbours weren't and reading the right signals, picking quality over weird combo bombs, I finally won my first SHM draft after a week of being smashed.

Just in case you were wondering:

Round 1. vs. UW
Round 2. vs. UWb
round 3. vs. UBw

Hrmm.