I find it interesting that almost every one of you commented on the timing and targeting of my final Vendetta. It is very possible that casting it on the Crusher earlier would have been better, but despite so many comments I haven’t seen anybody that got what I was trying to accomplish. My play might have been a strategic mistake, but it certainly wasn’t simply an oversight.

If I Vendetta precombat, the board is him at 14 with Pelakka Wurm, me at 5 Life with a 4/4 Magmaw and the 4/5 Giant. Prophetic Prism fuels Magmaw, and so does Narcolepsy, albeit at a cost. Depending on my opponent’s hand, he has the option of trading Magmaw and Wurm, drawing a card and potentially dropping something else. He only makes this play if he has one or more powerful low toughness creature (which I then likely can’t beat) or another fatty in hand which dominates or creates parity with my 4/5. These are two bad scenarios for me, which put me at a severe disadvantage. At this stage I basically have to hope my opponent is out of gas.

If my opponent is truly out of gas (best case scenario), the correct play for him is to keep back Pelakka Wurm, as it holds back both of my creatures when on defense rather than trading with one of them on offense. The game develops into a topdeck war with me at a significant life total disadvantage and a board state that is favoring him: additional creatures help him out more than me, and he has the option to attack at any point, which I do not.

The only way to improve the board state and grim future described above is to lure my opponent into attacking with his Pelakka Wurm, which is certainly correct on his part as long as the Crusher is alive. The cost I have to pay for it is sacrificing a Prophetic Prism and either Land #8 or Narcolepsy. The fact that two of these cards are Magmaw fuel is irrelevant as my opponent can force me to give up Magmaw in combat in either scenario.

The line I am taking leaves me with a 4/5 and 7 lands against his locked down Treespeaker and the unknown card he draws from the wurm. Except for Eldrazi Conscription (for which I need 1 land), I can cast every card in my deck, including Hartebeest plus a Narcolepsy in the same turn. Sacrificing Narcolepsy to the Annihilate trigger allows me to topdeck into the Conscription, which has a very good chance to win me the game (not against Wurm #2, but that’s another story, just as results-oriented as considering the Conscription topdeck). However, the Treespeaker is a 2/2 on its own that at the least can chump block any of my creatures twice, thus turning the 14-6 race into more of an 22-6 race (or worse).

I played to win and I was confident that I had a better shot of winning from the board position created by a post-attack Vendetta and sacrificing a land rather than by giving my opponent the chance to outdraw me on a board that slightly favored him rather than me. Like I said, I don’t know if it was correct, but the comments I’ve read so far have all focused on the loss of two permanents only, rather than on the strategic trade-off offered by casting Vendetta sooner rather than later.

-Simon

Pretty simple for me in that I think it just comes down to the fact that I was drafting Rise a lot when it was current. Also was listening to Limited Resources and watching LSV draft videos, which you can always go back and look at.

And I’d imagine ROE is just a tough format for someone who wasn’t drafting it when it was current because it’s just a bit different than most formats. For example, take cards like Glory Seeker, a perfectly reasonable 2/2 for 2, or Lagac Lizard, a 3/3 for 3. We play bears and even hill giants all the time, but in ROE those cards are pretty much unplayable. There just aren’t enough creatures like that and as a consequence you’re not going to be able to curve out and just tempo out your opponent with 2/2′s and 3/3′s. It’s a slow format and the power level of cards is really skewed towards the late game, so if you have cards that don’t do much in the late game or that don’t get you to your late game quicker (ramp) you’re going to be in trouble. So your starting point for what makes a good deck in this format is just a bit different than most formats. Another example of this would be that you generally will want 18 lands, and drawing is very often correct (unless you are playing or playing against UW levelers, basically the only aggro deck in the format).

It really is a fun format though. My final recommendation would be to take sweet, powerful cards – even if they cost 8-10 mana – and then figure out how to cast them. It’s a blast and really it’s usually correct.

Thanks for your comments, some great insight that makes me want to jump back on the horse, so-to-speak. If you’re up for one more question, how did you come by this knowledge? Hard-earned by experience or just watching tons of drafts? I’m trying to soak up as much as I can (por ejemplo I watched Marshall’s drafts of ROE and read the primer before going into the draft) but I feel like there are prolly more knowledge sources out there that I’m not aware of.

It’s also important to understand that archetypes are guidelines and never set in stone. Sure RG Eldrazi tokens, Grixis Spells and WU levelers are sweet when it comes together, but forcing an archetype that the people around you are drafting is miserable. While Sphinx goes well in just about any UX deck, it’s activated ability is probably at its worst in a levelers deck that is hungry for mana with little ramp. It is best in a green deck that can accelerate it out by turn four and guarantee that you hit your islands or in a control deck as a finisher whose ability you can use with counterspells and bounce protection.

Read Simon’s draft primer from last week if you haven’t already. This isn’t a format where you can just take the best card in your color and have a good deck. If you’re blue/white, you really need to be an aggressive leveler deck, because going control in those colors just isn’t very good. (Note that this is partly because white is the weakest color in Rise- I’d stay away from it in general.)

In the scenario described above you should probably have taken Dawnglare. It’s very good early and late and is one of the few non-leveler cards that UW wants. Guard duty is fine but it’s power level is going to vary with the amount of evasion in your deck. And Teacher is just not a card you can take over a good card like Dawnglare unless you just have a ton of levelers. You want to be getting that card late because no one else should want it.

All that said about UW levelers, it’s not even that great of an archetype unless you’re the only drafter in it, mostly because white is so bad. I’d much rather be green-based ramp, where you’re looking to get a good balance of fatties and accelerators, or grixis control where you take tons of removal and value cards.