January 2015 Post Tournament Review

Hey all, I think we had a great day of cubing yesterday, or at the very least an interesting one. First off, Dan was playing Rakdos and Steve was playing Boros, whhaaaa? We made a few changes to the way were are going to run the cube in 2015: 

•  We have introduced PlaidWalker Points
• Moving forward we will be using a points based system and tracking points over time, an award will be given out at the end of the year
• Win: 3 Points
• Draw: 1 Point
• Loss: 0 Points
• So, up to 9 points are given up per round.
• Timed Rounds
• We attempted to start with three 1 hour rounds, but since we have intentionally lowered the power level of the cube, it seems we are likely to increase this to 1.25 or 1.5 hour rounds
• Eliminating the Bracket
• So since we are playing 3 rounds and giving out points, we will no longer have a bracket, or necessarily a definitive winner at the end of any given cube draft.  This round for example we had 3 players with 18 points, because two of them received byes, so none of them actually played each other.  This will correct itself over time, since those who received a by this draft will be immune from a bye next round.
• Deck documentation
• Moving forward, in order to better evaluate cards and strategies, we will be documenting everyone's drafts and decklists in order to see what is (and is not) getting played/doing well.

So there are the changes, so lets dig into what happened this round, starting with..

Andy - 5 Color Blink (Rainbow Shenanigans)

So I started the draft with flametongue-kavu http://tappedout.net/mtg-card/flametongue-kavu/ and man-o-war http://tappedout.net/mtg-card/man-o-war/. So that obviously means that five color blink was way open!  Basically when I draft blink I either draft ETB creatures and then I try and get at least one of the two big Blink enablers Venser, the Sojourner and Parallax Wave.  I then prioritize cards in the following order: Removal, Mana fixing and card draw.  This priority will change based off of the ETB creatures that I have selected already.  IE if I have drafted Nekrataal, removal goes down on in priority.  If I drafted Solemn Simulacrum mana fixing goes slightly down.

Blink Effects:

Restoration Angel

Ghostly Flicker

Venser, the Sojourner

Parallax Wave

Blink Targets:

Blade Splicer

Flametongue Kavu

Man-o'-War

Mulldrifter

Restoration Angel

Riftwing Cloudskate

Snapcaster Mage

Thragtusk

Vendilion Clique

Wall of Blossoms

Quick Note about mana fixing:  Try and decide on two base colors and then draft the dual lands that has one of your main colors and one of your splash colors.  Prioritize the fetches lower than the strait up RTR or original duals.  Fetches are there best only when you have a lot of duals.

Dan: Black/Red Reanimator (Graveburn Musings)
Nothing too complicated here, drop something in the graveyard and cheat it into play

Key strategies:
We have our reanimation enablers in the form of 

Discard Spells
Putrid Imp
Undead Gladiator

This is probably where it was weakest.  Didn't have enough discard spells needed.

Reanimation Spells
Animate Dead
Reanimate
Exhume
Feldon of the Third Path

Reanimation targets
Siege-Gang Commander
Myr Battlesphere
Tombstalker (as a third option/fallback is no Reanimation drawn)

Answers
Doom Blade
Dismember
Fleshbag Marauder
Nekrataal

Combo Pieces
Feldon of the Third Path + Fleshbag Marauder

David: Blue Red Stormish