Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Can't Find No Heaven

Or, the aggro deck that wasn't aggro enough.

Aggro decks want to get their damage going on turn two: what I learned from these tests were that: 1) I don't have enough aggressive one drops (three) and 2) I need something other than the standard form of evasion this deck has.

Hard Time... is at it's best as when I tested against Fuz: turn 1 creature, turn 2 Curiosity on that creature, swing, draw a card. I did this in 2 of 3 games against him and it was huge.

On the other hand, despite getting a good start against stonethorn's Rise deck, I found myself stymied when his flyers were bigger than mine and I couldn't get anything through.

Finally, against Rider's W/R human's deck, there were only two games. In game one, I lost, because I didn't use Echoing Truth on the rush of human tokens (five) coming at me, but instead went for two Doomed Travelers. My logic was: three of the five tokens will die, the Travelers will have to be re-cast and will give me a bit more time.

But no: Avoiding 5 of 7 points of damage is a much bigger deal and that cost me the game.

I pulled out game two, having a strong rush of cards-Spindrift Drake is a big deal-flowing into a Wormfang Drake, which freed up more mana later and attacking for 7 then 7 again to put it away.

So what needs to happen?

First: different kinds of unblockable dudes. Unfortunately, the current champion of Blue aggro guys would be Delver of Secrets, a card that has no place in this deck. After that, there is only one option: Drifter il-Dal. This should probably replace a situational card like Briarberry Cohort: a guaranteed attack for 2 is going to be a stronger play than an attack for 1, despite how much I like what the Cohort does in this deck.

Unfortunately, what this means is that I eat up a lot of mana trying to ensure two damage every turn. Which means a spell like Dissipate doesn't make any sense at all. I'll be looking for the obvious replacement, Force of Will but almost any 'free' counterspell is worth consideration here, notably Daze as it's cheap and matters in the early game when some other deck might try to outrace me. In the late game, if I haven't won, it's over anyway. 

2 comments:

  1. don't forget the cheap beef that blue has like spectral flight +2+2 and Flying for a mere 1U and the classic Unstable Mutation...

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    1. I'd given some thought to Unstable Mutation and it still may be worth running. My concern is the 2 for 1 effect. The creatures are fragile and easy to eliminate so if I put all my eggs in one basket, that could do more harm than good.

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