Draft and Deckbuilding
Click the arrow to download the above video in .mp4 format.Innistrad Draft, Round 1
Click the arrow to download the above video in .mp4 format.Show Innistrad Draft, Round 2 »
Click the arrow to download the above video in .mp4 format.Show Innistrad Draft, Round 3 »
Click the arrow to download the above video in .mp4 format.
M1G1 – You can memory’s journey the lab maniac, forbidden alchemy to get it in hand, and then think twice for the win that turn
Hey Marshall,
Video 2 is from an older draft. Not sure if that’s on your end or MTGO academy, but just letting you know!
Happy drafting!
Round two is wrong deck?
Round 2 is the wrong deck. Awesome draft lots of fun.
In M3G2 you did the think twice trick wrong, what you’re supposed to do is play lab maniac and just say go. If he tries to kill it with the harvest pyre, you then can think twice in response and win. If he is just waiting for you to cast the think twice to harvest pyre, then you never cast think twice and just go to your next draw step and win. If you only think twice in response to a burn spell, it forces him to have two burn spells, one to force the think twice, and another in response to the think twice. Also, in general I don’t like having curse of the bloody tomb in my UG self mill decks because when you do get the runic repetition/memory’s journey loop going, you want to draw every single card you put back, and not randomly mill it away, because you do have to put runic repetition back with your memory’s journey.
Lolled at calling Marshall a noob.
m1g1 you could mem journey your stuff early and then flashback and return his brimstone volley to his deck
Cutting creatures for Curse of the Bloody Tome seems wrong. You have like 8 self mill cards already, why play a card with basically zero synergy to the archetype?
@Jack – just went back and saw it too
Turns out learning a new and fairly complex archetype on the fly is difficult lol. Tip of the iceberg I’m sure.
@hellZaDo, Jesse, Tom – Thanks guys. I have alerted the authorities
@Jesse – I haven’t had a chance to rewatch it but everything you are saying makes sense. I’m not one for excuses, but it was about 3:30AM by the time R3 got going and I was not running at 100%. I had a lot of fun with the deck of course, but I expect a fair amount of mistakes. Thanks for helping me see the light with this one
@Woody – FBT
@cj – I could get his Volley? That would be awesome.
@cody – You don’t think that Curse has synergy with a self mill deck? o_o I don’t know the proper creature to spell ratio in a deck like this but I figured I had it pretty close and wanted to aggressively mill myself out. Maybe that was the wrong approach but I have no reason to think it was incorrect at this point.
You missing the MemJourn play against the ‘infinite brimstones’ got me yelling to the computerscreen.
Nice to see you out of your comfortzone though and expose your learningproces
damn… i was hoping this archtype would stay secret for a little while longer. it is SOOOOO good, and such a fun deck to play.
building it for block constructed.
and you can wheel mulch’s early. should’ve taken the harbor.
M1G1… at the end of the game you have two cards in library after drawing forbidden alchemy. think twice, lab maniac in GY, and memory’s journey in hand, 13 mana on board
why cant you:
play memory’s journey targeting JUST the lab maniac (1U)
play forbidden alchemy, keeping the lab maniac (2U… 5 mana total)
play the maniac (2U, 8 mana total)
flahback think twice (2U, 11 mana total)
WIN
oh man memory jorney is a graveyard hate as well as it turns out -.- no fun to watch that!
M2G2 you could have responded to him trying to remove lab maniac from the game by memory’s journeying it back into your deck instead of playing the 3 drop werewolves… (others have mentioned everything else I noticed)
“Nice win noob.” Classic. Still laughing at that.
Can’t believe you passed the Runic Repetition for a Villagers, I was pulling my hair out. RR was the only blue card in that pack and I didn’t think it would wheel. I feel like you immediately assumed “RR usually wheels, I’m sure I’ll get it back, end of discussion,” when if you paused to examine the pack, there was a very real chance it doesn’t wheel. When you NEED a card, take it. The reward of an extra 3 drop of average quality is not worth the risk of missing out on something crucial to your deck.
I understand you’re making a vid and want to keep things moving, but in my experience I draft the worst when I draft too quickly. Many times I see you make a pick reflexively without even considering other options, some of which have serious merit. These picks seem to be you going on autopilot and letting your considerable ISD experience immediately decide the pick, whereas if you were looking at the picks through the eyes of someone unfamiliar with the format, you would be more likely to consider these options and perhaps notice a synergy you miss while on autopilot. You mentioned on the podcast how you’re trying to expand your brewing horizons, and you certainly seem to be on your way with this kind of draft (which was awesome to watch), but if you’re trying to “brew” more, slow down and leave yourself time to brew instead of defaulting to the ISD brain calculator immediately.
Don’t mean to sound preachy if I do, I just think a bit more analysis of every aspect of the draft could help. I think of it like gaining free information, the more you think about a pack and what already was taken and what will be taken, the more information you are getting. If you’re just clicking reflexively and moving on, you’re sacrificing that information. I had a pretty big breakthrough a while back when I forced myself to right click every pick and let the clock run down to around 5 seconds left each time. It was unnerving how many more details I’d notice that I would’ve otherwise missed by clicking as soon as I decided the best pick.
the curse has synergy with the self mill deck… but NOT with the spider spawning deck. granted you were missing the key piece in the 3 card combo… but it’s still much too awkward.
unfortunately you didn’t get any deranged assistant, as they can do exactly what the curse does, but you can control it.
it seems like this was a case where you transformed from a spider spawning deck to a lab maniac-self mill deck after pack2. both work, and both have synergy with each other, but man you really needed that ruinic repitition to wheel (and personally, i would’ve snapped up that 2nd gnaw to the bone… its soooooo good as a defensive staller)
would love to see the second round video since your tone sounded pretty deflated after an apparent close win.
rules question:
if you resolve a think twice with no cards in library, do you lose? or is just when drawing during your draw step?
if so… then M3G3, you should’ve just done the whole memory’s journey thing like the turn before, like you said. so yea, if you dont auto-lose from a resolved think twice, then why not just run the gamut again.
yet another example of why the curse was a questionable choice. i do not like that card sam i am.
Sorry about that, everyone. I inserted a typeo in the html that conveniently changed Round 2 to last week’s deck (unless you were watching it in HD). Should be fixed now.
@KC – Ya I expect there will be a lot of screen yelling for this video lol. I am really happy I went for it though and the deck was insane and super fun as well.
@dasMetzger Ya when BDM came on LR to talk about it, I figured I had better go for it before it’s gone forever
Also re: your line of play, this was brought up a few comments ago. Yes, just winning would have been better lol 
@Pemmin – Lots of new interactions were revealed to me during the course of this draft it turns out.
@Sean – I will put this on the list of things I realized later or too late in the draft. I did learn a lot about this archeytpe thankfully, but clearly I am far from optimal at it.
@steve – I try really hard to be as clear about my picks as possible. I fully planned on wheeling the Runic Repetition as it’s essentially an unplayable. It didn’t work out this time and I wish I had taken it, but the fact is you need solid defensive bodies to make this strat work, and Villagers don’t ever wheel.
@dasMetzer again – I thought the curse was good in the spider spawning deck too as it set up a situation where you could get your combo pieces out quickly. It clearly has synergy with the Lab Maniac deck, that is obvious. I did wish I had an extra Gnaw to the Bone as well, but being my first time drafting this archeytype there were a lot of moving parts and I had to make the decisions on the fly. If I had played a 2nd Gnaw, what would I cut? The deck was very needy in terms of build and I can see why BDM goes to 41 or 42 cards sometimes.
re: rules question: Yes you lose if you resolve Think Twice with no cards in Library. The game doesn’t care about if it’s your draw step or not, only that you are drawing a card with no cards in library.
@AJ/PlanetWalls – Thanks for the quick response, you guys do a great job!
M3 why don’t you just wait for your draw step? Then when he tries to kill your lab maniac you can cast think twice?
@Marshall The Curse has no synergy in your deck for perhaps non-obvious reasons. You want to be playing as many creatures as you can afford to slow them down early and maximize your spawning, but you also want self mill cards right? So you have cards like Selhoff Occultist and Armored Skaab which do both. You also have Mulch which is just plain better because it happens a turn earlier and allows you to hit your much needed land drops. A similar sort of argument can be made for Forbidden Alchemy.
In a deck in which every single slot was in competition, in my opinion the Curse just wasn’t good enough. Just look at the games where you didn’t draw it, you milled yourself fast enough each time — then you would have rather had it just be any creature or another Gnaw or whatever.
Noooo, you had it. Game 3 of the final round, the very last turn. Instead of using Memory for 3 cards during his turn, use it targeting ONLY the lab maniac on your upkeep, after the curse trigger resolves. It attempts to mill 2 with none there, you put back maniac and draw it. Play maniac and flashback think twice ftwwwwww
I can definitely see the temptation to play a deck of this archetype of more than 40 cards. When you think about it, the deck in its ideal form doesn’t have a lot of flexibility.
I feel like four spots in the deck are locked:
Runic Repetition
Memory’s Journey
Spider Spawning
Gnaw to the Bone
The deck also wants to run as many Mulches and Forbidden Alchemies it can, within reason. Given that it needs to run a critical mass of creatures (>= 11?) to fuel the Spider Spawning and Gnaw to the Bone, that leaves approx. 5 spots left for other spells.
Last night I won a draft with a UG deck. I wound up cutting a Think Twice, 2 Claustrophobias, and even a land because I wanted room for some flashback spells (Cackling Counterpart, Silent Departure, Grasp of Phantoms) and 2 Prey Upons.
The deck is both throught-intensive and time-intensive, but is also very fun and effective. There’s just so much joy to using Prey Upon to have a Grave Bramble hunt humans for sport, summoning 2047294837502439752 spiders, then attacking with those spiders with an Elder of Spid…er…Laurels in play.
This deck is definitely gaining in popularity I see it much more frequently on MTGO. It’s the new WG deck!
@Ari Not sure which game you mean, can you clarify?
@Cody I see it more as a balance. I need some amount of creatures (11 sounds about right) and some amount of enablers to get my Lab Maniac situation set up as quickly as possible. What you saw in my final build was my best on-the-fly guess as to the correct ratio. I will ask BDM to build this for me and see where I went wrong.
@Numot – Not sure how you mean. I had a Think Twice on the stack, if that resolved I lost the game. That’s why I went for the full 3 cards from Memory’s Journey. I however forgot that the Think Twice would lessen my library count by 1 etc. But if I do it your way, the Think Twice resolves and I lose on the spot. Am I missing something here?
@fairgr – I agree with everything you said and felt the same way when building the deck. I can actually see the upside to playing a few more cards here to make sure that you hit your critical mass of spells needed. I of course don’t like the fact that it can make it harder to assemble the loop combo, but it seems like it might be a necessary evil.
@Marshall You’re definitely right about it being a balance between mill enablers, creatures, and graveyard abuse. We’ve just got two slightly different ideas about where it actually becomes balanced. I would definitely be interested to see what BDM has to say about it if you do ask him.
@cody – Well to be fair my idea is “I don’t know”
I will post here if I get what he says in writing or try to transcribe if it’s verbal.
@cody – also I think that it’s notable here to say that this ended up very much being a Lab Maniac deck and not a Spider Spawning/combo deck as much. Has to change some of the views on the card inclusions right?
Ari is talking about r3g2. After you get the maniac in play you have 2 choices, think twice immediately or wait till your draw step. If you use it immediately, any kill spell for the maniac loses you the game, but if you wait till your draw step he would need to have 2 removal spells to get you. If he tries to kill it before you draw, you can instant speed draw. You weren’t in any immediate danger from combat damage, and you really had no other outs to the game besides the maniac, so it was probably the better play.
But overall, the deck was hilarious and the games were hilarious. Great job finishing in the money with a forced draft!
that’s a lot of responses
Fun deck! That curse really hosed you at the end though. You should ignore all these people who point out passing the runic repetition and just call BDM a liar. =D
@mannequin Ah ya, that was mentioned earlier too, and I agree. Thanks for the comment too
@jason – I like this plan
Nice draft, did you forget your Dead Weight? It seems to be a significant upgrade over, say, sensory deprivation, you’re splashins black anyway so. Looking forward to see the matches
The GY decks are very fun but this type of deck lives a little too much on the edge for my taste and it’s just unforgiving if you miss a seemingly “small” thing early that costs you dearly late. Call me old fasioned but I like turning creatures sideway!
Still, I drafted a mill/self mill deck last week at my shop and I feel that against an experienced player, it loses a lot of steam after G1 because all they seem to have to do is take out most of their removal and add in dudes. For example, 5/1 snake is a beating against low creature mill decks.
All that said, yours was a great deck and a lot of fun to watch.
M3G2 – I think you punted the win. Lab maniac hits the table and then you just pass. You think twice in response to removal, and that wins you the game with the burn spell on the stack. He’d need two spells, at least one at instant speed.
@DjMira – I think that I just wanted to keep it as castable as possible, and as you saw I ran out of slots for cards pretty darn quick. The matches are interesting
@omaalex – I agree, this was really fun and I learned a lot, but I won’t be workign this into my staple archetypes any time soon. It’s difficult to build, and to play.
Glad you liked the videos, thanks for watching!
@GuyIncorporated – Yes this was covered a couple times in previous comments
This was so frustrating to watch! You had the finals in game 2 and then you shoudl have been able to win the last game by casting the Mulch when you were at 7 cards. The obsession with making the game go longer lived long past it’s usefullness when you had your win con set to go.
The Curse of the Bloody Tome seems bad because it takes away your ability to control your deck maipulation with the Memory’s Journey. The other self mill cards are fair superior as the synergize better and can be controlled. That said, it would have worked fine here if you had just stayed focused on the way you were trying to win.
@PlanetWalls
The typo is still there for the download links in match 1 and match 2.
The .mp4 link for the first match is still pointing to an old BG draft.
Please pause the recording when your opponent is having connection issues.
good job noob
Yea that was the one I meant. As to the whole curse dilemma, you clearly saw the downside to running it here. I really think you only run it in this deck if you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. With enough other self mill you have so much inevability that sacrificing control for speed isn’t worth it. Gnaw to the bone and spawning are what ensures you don’t die before decking, especially if you pick up a runic repetition.
All in all it’s one of the more fun decks to play. Great video.
Good god it was like watching an old man trying to fumble around with a new cell phone contraption for the first time haha
dont know why you would try to think twice right after you cast lab maniac- all you have to do is say go
if he tries to kill it then you think twice and he needs 2 burn spells-
M3 G3 he was obviously attacking in the end so he could get 2 cards into his graveyard for a harvest pyre- then you make it easier on him and mill him haha
Maybe a rangers guile would be good for sideboard against a deck with lots of removal
@Kevin – I did, look at the time stamps.
@Pedro – thanks?
@Ari – Thanks for the feedback, I still don’t know the ratio to run of self mill to not and all that.
@kaos – ya well it was my first time drafting and resolves a complicated deck so I’m not surprised
Thanks for watching anyway.
I would have taken the Runic Repetition because it’s just so powerful in this deck. Also, I would play the bells over the Curses, since the bells are actually more powerful in the deck, especially since you can control when they mill. But… they do have the downside of giving your opponent cards.
Also, you keep playing out the swamp when you don’t need it, even though you know he has Into the Maw of Hell. You should just hold onto it so he doesn’t kill your splash color.
Good job ya fuckin noooooooooooob
I have to say this has definitely been one of the most fun and entertaining draft videos I have seen in a LONG time! I have to say I’ve been liking that curse more and more, though in this deck I’m not sure if the bells would have been better as posted above since it’s controllable. Last night I had a TERRIBLE sealed pool and ended up with a UBw zombie deck featuring 3 of the curses and Undead Alchemist, mainly splashing white for removal (who would have thought? lol) which actually ended up being pretty good. Great draft, <3 LR!
I enjoyed watching this deck very much! Sure, maybe there was some yelling and slapping of my monitor, but it was very fun.
Good luck in today’s PTQ.
m2g2 was just pathetic, you punted soooo much
in m2g2, you could have played Curse on him immidiatly to mill him out in 7 turns. With spider spawning, memorys joyney and gnaw to the bone, seems like it would have been a very likely route to victory.
And i don’t know if you considered this, but in m1g1 you had the option to use mermorys journey on you opponents brimstone volley to stop his charmbreaker devil from recurring it.
Good games though, G/U is my farvorite archetype!
m1g1 was possibly the most painful draft video I’ve ever watched.
So I’m only a few minutes into watching and see you pass “Parallel Lives” when you want to be the spider spawning deck….seems like that would have been the pick…
M1G1 you could have memory’s journey’d your maniac and then forbidden alchemy’d into him, play him, then flash back think twice to win on that turn when your opponent had 2 red mana up instead of passing the turn and letting him untap to potentially wreck your plan.
Woops didn’t see that there were 55 other responses.
@thingmabooby:
I have changed the setting as to display all the comments on one page.
Ya some of the worst magic ive ever seen
M1G1: You gave your opp an extra turn. Instead of playing forbidden alch first you should have journied the maniac into ur library. You then alchemy to pick him up, and flash back think twice for the win, rather than giving your opponent the chance to kill you =). I’m really liking the graveyard themed deck in isd draft. I’ve had very good luck with UB, UG, and UR graveyard decks. Tons of fun. We’ll have to get you in on a Cube so you can record it. that’s always fun.
Your drafts are informative and entertaining, that being said, m1g1 you just needed to use Memory’s Journey on your Maniac before using Alchemy, you keep Maniac out of the cards left and play it and then flashback think twice.
Also, for all the people saying you should have Memory’s Journeyed his Brimstone Volley, I say that they just don’t understand the deck.
Brimstone Volley was never really a threat. Eventually you were going to gain enough life off of Gnaw to the Bone to make the Volley irrelevant, so why worry about it? Just get through your deck, and hold onto that Journey!!! You need it so that you can pull off the Maniac shenanigans, especially if your opponent happens to have removal.
Obviously you should have done the Maniac/Alchemy thing, but oh well. You still pulled off that match. The only real mistake that cost you winning the draft was not taking the Runic Repetition. Everything else was just play experience.
Also, stupid trolls. “Some of the worst magic i’ve ever seen”…. ?!!! Apparently Mike doesn’t watch himself play too much.
Ghoulcaller’s bell should have been maindeck over Curse. It helps the curve and if you were to play it on turn 1 and Curse on turn 3 then they break even on milling on turn 6. This way you can mill them as a alternate win and have a waaaaaay smoother curve. It also prevents you from screwing up and milling your win condition which almost happened in M3G1.
M1G1, you could have won as soon as you drew forbidden alchemy by shuffling only lab maniac in then playing forbidden alchemy to tutor for it followed by think twice FTW. The only card that could have stopped you would have been harvest pyre, and once you let him untap he could have anything.
M2G2, You could have shuffled lab maniac back in the deck when he plays purify the grave.
M3G2, You don’t play think twice right away….wait til your next draw step and probably win unless he has 2 removal spells, which he had in game 3.
Whoops, didn’t see all the comments! Apparently your misplays have been covered in depth! This must be really cool for you Marsh, crowd sourced magic lessons! Glad you enjoyed this fun archtype. Always good to push the comfort zone…come cube with us on thursday!
I laughed when I saw what deck you were drafting, due to the fact I was actually drafting the same thing while I watched the video and had started before I started the video XD Ended up all the key pieces, too (Memory-Repetition-Gnaw-Spawning)
If you are concerned your opponent has instant speed removal for the Laboratory Maniac you should just wait it out if you can. Either he plays the removal before your next draw step or you get a chance to respond with your Think Twice.
Gawd… there were so many play mistakes it was almost painful to watch…
@oraymw – Good points all around, I obviously regretted not taking the Runic but I really thought it would wheel
I didn’t realize how important it was to the deck I was drafting until after I built it either.
@dragon7284 – Thanks, appreciate the comment. I had a really fun time drafting and figuring out how to play the deck
@ChrisKool – Thanks dude, that’s what I get for starting the draft at 1:30AM
Also I just am generally slow when it comes to figuring out cards I haven’t played before. I have to really play with them a lot before I get super comfortable usually.
@anonymous – That is a good point, about pointing the curses at my opponent then just stalling. I kind of wanted to get big and do the whole Lab Maniac thing though
About the Memory’s Journey on him, that doesn’t work. It targets the player and he has the option to shuffle in up to 3 cards from his graveyard to library. So he simply declines the option and burns me
@Chippi The point of the deck is to make a lot of Spiders (this was before I got the Maniac right?). It accomplishes this through the loop and has very few spots in the deck for anything other than enablers and creatures. Even removal takes the back seat sometimes. A win-more card like Parallel Lives would be fun, but not effective in this strategy.
@thingmabobby
“asked and answered your honor”
@theJgits and anonymous: See above
Thanks for taking the time to comment too though.
@oraymw – Ya I mentioned it above, but you can’t “Memory’s Journey” stuff in your opponents yard anyway. It targets the opponent, then they pick how many cards to shuffle back. Thanks for the support, I am not particularly bothered by people that make 1 sentence comments about my game play. The people that watch my videos and listen to the podcast know where I stand on this topic, and that’s who I care about anyway.
@Chippi – When I was in deckbuild I assumed that getting myself milled out as fast as possible was a big goal. I guess having some level of control over it would be beneficial as well, especially since I was able to mill myself out fairly quickly regardleass of Curse or not. All the other suggestions have been well covered if you have read the comments at all
@nacatlfleetfoot – Awesome lol. I hope you piloted it more deftly than I
I sure wish I had picked up that Runic Repetition in that one pack.. didn’t run good enough to wheel it. Who takes that anyway? 
@JC – This has been well covered, and is true
“About the Memory’s Journey on him, that doesn’t work. It targets the player and he has the option to shuffle in up to 3 cards from his graveyard to library. So he simply declines the option and burns me :)”
This is wrong — it targets the player but it also targets the cards, and you choose all targets unless a spell says otherwise (and this one doesn’t). The opponent doesn’t get a choice. Find a quality judge and ask them if you don’t believe me but I will put a whole lot of money behind this stance
@shdwcat: You are correct. You target the opponent, then target the cards, so you could shuffle the Volley back in.
But it is still the wrong play strategically.
Because no one else has said it (?!), Ghoulcaller’s Bell is much, much better than Curse of the Bloody Tome for this deck. M3G3 is exactly the reason — you mention that you wish you had boarded in Naturalizes to kill your own Curses, but with Bell you can just stop activating when it becomes problematic. Curse makes so many problems for you when you have to Journey on your upkeep and risk dying to numerous cards. Bell is slightly weaker but so much more risk-free. Maybe you’d actually have been able to win with Spiders in a game or two, if you didn’t have that Curse clocking you?
@oraymw: Yes, I never said he should have, simply that he could have
If you want to see a good video of this archetype you should check out Solebush1′s. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAV4fR9K2JA
Best part about this archetype is seeing the ridiculous trash talk from your opponents.
I drafted this last week and got my round 1 opponent so mad he was trash talking the whole time, and my round opponent disconnected on me when I started beating down with 2x Fortress Crab, 2x Armored Skaab to his nothing.
@shdwcat: Yeah, I know. I was just pointing out to Marshall that even though the play was possible, it was still incorrect.
geeze match 2 game 2 you made me facepalm so hard that I broke my glasses. you should read the cards my friend. first off evil twin kills EVERYTHING with the same name so bye bye all your spider tokens. secondly you had memories journey up BOTH times he played purify the grave. all you do is shuffle the targeted card back into your library herp derp. third he didn’t bring in occultist against you. it was in his main deck as he played it against you game 1. paying attention to your opponents deck is pretty important. also curse of the bloody tome over gnaw to the bone number 2? c’monnnnnn mannnnn. and then game 3 you play gnaw to the bone then memories journey not the other way around. extra 2 life plus an extra use of gnaw
i have questions about 3 things:
in the first gameat 9:55, you speak of flashbacking gnaw and then gettting the gnaw back in the library with memorize journey – how can that work if the gnaw is exiled? i guess, if you flashback your gnaw, its gone then.
at some part, you then speak of getting an “infinite” loop, if i remember it right. what exactly did u mean by that? i thought u need runic repetition for something infinite in this.
in the final game, you have only one card in your library. your draw step is coming, before that you have to draw 2 for the curse, which makes 3 cards to draw. now you only memorize journeyed the lab maniac – which adds one card to your library. why dont you die then? you have to draw 3 cards but only have 2 in there..
in game 2 at 21 mins why not memorys journey your lab guy in response to his grave yard removal since its also instant speed
To start off, i think you are a good limited player, and talking through all of your decision making makes playing the game more difficult. I probably sound harsh, but i don’t mean to, i hold you in very high respect.
In r1 g1, why didn’t you memory’s journey the lab maniac back before forbidden alchemy and then fb think twice for the win all in the same turn?
in r2, g2, you had memories journey IN HAND to at least null the purify the grave, you should have tried to save it since the rest of that game was a punt. Also once you let lab maniac get exiled and he let you go to your main phase, you should be snap flashbacking spider spawning. >>
How do you not win races with gnaw to the bone in your deck?
One problem that you run is that you get caught up on the clever strat, and stop trying to play limited normally, in a 20 to 0 fashion.
*agrees with relmz32*
especially playing this deck, which uses cards that interact in less linear ways, it’s important to get the order of operations right. r1 g1 is a pretty big oversight.
Dude, it may not have been perfectly played, but it was a ton of fun seeing it. I also heard BDM going all crazy about it and it just is sooo much fun seeing a deck get played just because it is fun instead of just good. So, thanks for that!
Match 2 game 2 you could have cast memories journey to get your lab maniac back.
i cant remember… did BDM’s interview include saying that curse was a benefit to this deck? i cant imagine that uncontrolled mill is at all good. you already ahve two occultists, two mulch, two alchemy and an armored skaab. that should be PLENTY of mill.
would have not run the bell or the curses, play the amulet, pilgrim, and one grave bramble. you really want creatures in the self mill deck as a big enough gnaw can get you to your end game. but only if it’s for like 20 life on each casting.
dam why did you rely on the labratory maniac to win the games :S and casting the curse was so risky, not liking the play at all :I very entertaining tho
M3G3 you could have just waited till next turn… then if he tries to use his instant speed removal, you think twice in response and win. Or if he waits then you win on your next draw step.
er M3G2*
Agree with comments on curse. Seems good at first but has always ended up putting me in a bad spots. The curses are good sideboard plan to stall and mill opponent, opponents don’t expect the strat change sometimes. Bells are better bcs you can put on the breaks, and back door a mill win with the runic/mem combo (to go infinite on library size).
Dream twists and runics should be higher priorities… They seem to get picked earlier than you would think even if they never seem to make anyones final 40. Would not bet on them tabling, surprisingly. ditto on spider spawning and gnaw and journey.
Lab maniac is fun but if opponents already know to hold removal its takes luck to get there. The key to engine is runic rep, memory journey, and spider spawning, gnaw is pretty vital. And then just make 1000s of spiders until you can alpha. Not that i have won a ton of games, but i sure got my $$$ value out of a draft if you look at entertainment dollars per minute!
I think you should have taken the second gnaw to the bone instead of curse number two, because you already had so much mill. Good draft.