Welcome to the 2nd episode of Eternal Draft Brothers! A very interesting draft overall, with some glaring issues I’m more than happy to analyze. An exciting Draft, some good swingy games! This episode is called:

Airplane Dunk

Here, you can watch us as we go through every portion of an Eternal Draft: Picks > Construction > Games > Analysis.

Navigation – Eternal Draft Brothers:
Draft: Picks | Construction | Matches
Analysis: Pick Improvements? | Construction Improvements? | Meta & Summary

Eternal Draft: Picks Phase

All commentary on the draft picks phase is in the post-draft analysis.

Eternal Draft: Deck Construction Phase

All commentary on the draft deck construction phase is in the post-draft analysis.

Eternal Draft: Match Rundown

Opening the boxes will show you notable moments from each game. It is highly recommended you at least read the contents of each box, as there may be notable plays to learn from.

Game 1

Game X Video (cannot fit inside spoiler boxes…)

A great start from my opponent puts me on the back foot, but there is one play that could have saved me…

Equipping Stalwart Shield vs Playing Towertop Patrol: I think this was a straight misplay on my end. Playing Towertop patrol was the best choice, looking back. The stalwart does potentially stop him cold, but Teleport or Vanquish would have trashed me – and it did.

I threw away a possible comback for 1 attack phase worth of damage.

What do you guys think?

Game Result – LOSS : 0-1

Game 2

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This was a pretty great game, worth watching. I had a crippling misplay here, though.

Swinging Rolants Honor Guard into his airforce: This attack had no purpose. I traded 1 for 1 with the honor guard. It’s true that the Hooru ate the Serpent, but the board is exactly in the same stalled state as it was, with me MINUS a fatass. I literally made my board worse for no gain.

Look how the stall ended: Once I had enough attackers, after a small debate, I ended up swinging. Yes Wasps and Lightning Strike exist, but he still only has 1 HP left – this was the right call, and it paid off. We could have waited for a more decisive board presence, but his chances to botch our plans increase with every turn…

Game Result – WIN : 1-1

Game 3

Game X Video (cannot fit inside spoiler boxes…)

Heh, trash talking doesn’t pay, partner.

I won this game, but I used my interaction loosely. The decay on the grenadin was pretty damn useless, it caused me to sweat a little towards the end.

Game Result – WIN : 2-1

Game 4

Game X Video (cannot fit inside spoiler boxes…)

I used Marshalls here more responsibly. Coming off the previous game, the value of interaction was cemented in my mind.

My opponent conceded – I would have won in the long game, but It’s a bit surprising.

Game Result – WIN : 3-1

Game 5

Game X Video (cannot fit inside spoiler boxes…)

Opponent AFK’ed or gave up? But this shows the power of an opening with Awakened Student. He was on Combrei, so if you know you didn’t draft any Vanquish or Wasps – you’re dead to rights with a T2 Student.

Game Result – WIN LOSS : 4-1

Game 6

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Awakened Student on turn 2 is brutal. Notice how each time he progressed his board, my Student grew along with his defenses, never making him able to profitably block. Combrei Healer and Awakened Student, well, ends games.

Game Result – WIN : 5-1

Game 7

Game X Video (cannot fit inside spoiler boxes…)

A pretty good game. You can see the stalling power of Combrei here. To be fair, like I said in game, “even constructed decks would fold to Honor Guard into Sky King”.

Game Result – WIN : 6-1

Game 8

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THIS GAME WAS A CLUSTERFCK. Stall on stall violence!

However, small choices lead ultimately to my loss. Analyzing this, there were many things that could have prevented my death.

In one basket – double equip on Brightmace ended up costing me too much.

Combrei Healer targets – were most definitely wrong. In retrospect, they should have gone to the students or the Honor Guard.

Finest Hour should have been on False Prince – this would at most be worth +3 life on a lifesteal unit. Casting it on the False Prince that flies, it would save me 4 power in the air, which is all that mattered. I’ll have to thank Marco for that stupidity!! hahaha.

Ultimately, my opponent played to his outs and was amazing. I can truly say however, that me NOT DRAWING MY SWORD OF THE SKY KING with FOUR (?) CARDS LEFT was pretty unlucky.

Game Result – LOSS : 6-2

Game 9

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He had an incredibly EXACT warcry target to win – Opponent lucks out, but we can’t complain about it. Could we have prevented it? Yes.

Playing more aggressively would have gotten us the win here. There were 2 turns where I should have attacked with all, but did not. Absolutely DUMB.

4:07 – had I swung in here, I would have gotten AT LEAST 4 damage in.

7:09 – If I went all in here, I would have gotten ANOTHER 4 damage in.

I mean, who knows, It could have turned the tide and made him force to block with the flyer or something. I might have still lost – but I gave up free damage and pressure.

These kinds of games cements the notion that Combrei’s weakness is interaction. Dispel and Decay, how I miss you.

Game Result – LOSS : 6-3

Navigation – Eternal Draft Brothers:
Draft: Picks | Construction | Matches
Analysis: Pick Improvements? | Construction Improvements? | Meta & Summary

Post Draft Analysis

I know that it’s hard to be critical to oneself when getting a record as good as 6-3, but as I look back into this draft I literally couldn’t bare to accept that I didn’t get the 7th win. This whole draft could have easily sailed us into the 7th win if I fixed any 1 of 3 mistakes (Critical misplays, a few bad picks, and shoddy construction).

Draft picks – What could be improved?

Putting the draft picks video here again, so you can easily navigate.

P1:2 Look at this pile, man. Would you have done the same? I was happy with Amber Acolyte, but what would you have done?

P1:4 Storm Lynx vs Ornamental Daggers. The logic we had was sound, but ultimately greedy. Ornamental Daggers was probably correct since we are most definitely going Time. While Combrei was still up to discussion, Time was a lock in this point, for me.

P1:7 Unlock Potential vs Dispel. This one cost me dearly. Dispel is important. Unlock Potential is “fine”, but I ended up cutting it. I wouldn’t have cut Dispel. Ultimately my mistake was twofold here. I passed on the important Dispel for Unlock Potential – which I SHOULD have played.

P2:3 Order of the Spire v Xenan Guardian. Haha, what an idiot I am. I had 2 powerful picks here that scale into the late game. However, this powerful pack was put to waste by my terrible construction choice of not playing Order of the Spire. This guy is a bomb that heavily benefits from board stalls – why oh why.

P3:3 Finest Hour, Ancient Lore, Amber Monument. Damn. Honestly Finest Hour is correct for me because it helps protect our rare bombs, and gives us an edge early on protecting our “growing” threats. You?

P3:4 Combrei Healer, Ceremonial Mask. Okay, I know that Combrei Healer just totally helped us in many early game scenarios, and I can’t complain. But given how important interaction is in Combrei – was the Mask worth it??? I had so much defense early on!

P3:5 Flight Lieutenant, Minotaur Grunt. Flight Lieutenant isn’t as bad as I made it out to be. I mean, it will help you win stalled board states. The Grunts served me well so I can’t diss them, but this draft opened my eyes to Flight Lieutenant.

With perfect knowledge, I could have had a Combrei deck with triple Plague. That’s a beating.

Draft Deck Construction – what can be improved?

Putting the draft picks video here again, so you can easily navigate.

I actually constructed this deck poorly!!!! 

The 2x Brightmace Paladin were too inconsistent. I barely had any equipment to support them! I actually left out my Order of the Spire which is another growing threat! An equipped Order of the Spire is leagues better than an equipped Brightmace. I get that Brightmace might help me out vs extremely aggressive decks, but losing to those decks seem very unlikely, given my pool! It also increases the value of my Privilege of Rank.

Possible better evolutions:

  • -2 Brightmace Paladin
  • +1 Order of the Spire
  • other possible includes are:
  • Unlock Potential (turns a stalled board into a winning board).
  • Valkyrie Aspirant (flyer, doubles as a pseudo bomb).
  • Excavate (recycle our few threats).

Meta Comments:

Here we discuss the technical and non-game aspects surrounding this “episode”. 

Again, sorry for the poor recording quality. Our equipment can only do so much.

The Youtube Channel currently has other game content, should I make a subchannel?

I want to improve our production quality somehow. Need some feedback guys!

Navigation – Eternal Draft Brothers:
Draft: Picks | Construction | Matches
Analysis: Pick Improvements? | Construction Improvements? | Meta & Summary

Eternal Draft Brothers 002: Summary & Random Thoughts

You’ll get the complete picture by both reading and checking out the vid:

Combrei is all about building board presence. These guys are fat. And thru fat alone you can win some games.

Awakened Student, Order of the Spire are amazing threats. Having these guys early means MANY things for us. 1) Board stalling is OK since we have threats that will outpace their defenses IN TIME. 2) They serve as removal magnets.

Interaction is key. Use them wisely since Combrei isn’t the most interactive of colors. Highly draft Vanquish, Wasps, Silences and combat tricks.

Flyers are a concern no matter what. There are three scenarios – 1) You have flyers, they dont = you win. 2) You both have flyers = board stall = you win. 3) You don’t have flyers = you likely lose. So yes, draft some of the defensive flyers like Towertop Patrol, Karmic Guardian, and even Hooru Fledgling.

Don’t be afraid to edit your deck. I identified the weakness of my deck but didn’t adjust mid draft. Going 6-1 does that to you, but I could have eked out the 7th win.

Don’t get sucked into the Combrei Trap: wherein you purely stall and play fats and just die in a “series of unfortunate events”. Look at the construction phase. I didn’t add Towering Terrazon for this purpose. I didn’t need another ground-based bomb to win. I needed to stabilize, and be happy to chip them down with weak flyers, growing threats or my double BOMBS.

the “Bomb Stall” draft deck composition definitely has some weaknesses. Getting your bombs removed puts you at risk on relying on your secondary win-con, in this case it was “incidental win with flyers”.

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