Tuesday, March 18, 2014

The challenge

Last Sunday I took the Chromanticore challenge. I feel it’s something people should try at least once and with 3 average picks before it a 4th pick Chromanticore was slammed down. At least one of each basic land was going to be in my final list.
It didn’t just stop with Chromanticore though, in total I drafted 8 rares with 6 of them making the cut. In a vacuum Spear of Heliod and Silent Sentinel were the most powerful rares I drafted; obviously those were the two I did not play. The combined value of those 8 rares was probably about $7.

My deck featured Chromanticore and Plea for Guidance (serving as Chromanticore number two). Perplexing Chimera for both it’s ability to protect Chromanitcore and create ridiculous rules interactions.
A Scourge of Skola Vale came late which to me signalled that green was open and that people just were not in a reading mood that day since they had already passed on the walls of text that are Chromanticore and Perplexing Chimera. With Chromanticore in my pile I wanted to be base green and with a decent early defence. Scourge of Skola Vale ticked both those boxes.
While I then tried to collect as many mana fixers and early blockers as possible the story would be a little lame if the trolling finished there.
In the Theros packs I added Akroan Horse and Colossus of Akros for an Akroanian theme. They were both artifacts and defensive. The horse could bog up the ground and in a deck built to go late the Colossus could serve as ridiculous finisher number 2. I had a couple of Pharika’s Menders in the deck to serve as insurance in case my Satyr Wayfinders binned all my win conditions.
So the deck had a plan but without the two Nessian Asps I managed to get my hands on there would have been significant holes. I am comfortable with a deck that trades in the early game and then slams a Nessian Asp on the table. Adding Chromanticore to that plan was just gravy.
I won 5 games and only lost 2 finishing second with Chromanticore being bestowed quite a lot.


Clearly a work of a special type of genius, the same type of genius that went home forgetting to ask for his prize packs.