Innistrad Launch Party

So my group of friends had our MTG:Innistrad Launch party last night; it was the five of us; playing 2headed giant and free for all formats. My ending record was.. 1-4...eeek.

I'm a very aggressive player.. I play on the edge, relying on brute force, rather than trickery and deception. I'll easy give up life to get the power I need. This obviously sounds like a red/black type of deck.. though I don't really have a good enough deck to do so. Or more to the point, I think my decks are more made towards 1on1 (even Emperor) combats, rather than FFA matches.

My friends got some amazing mythic rare cards which I'm extremely jealous of.. equipped in their decks now.. whereas I don't have even 1 mythic in any deck, my ginger friend has 3. Am I making excuses to the number of loses? Kinda. But those that have played MTG, when playing with a non-mythic rare deck, versus one with them, it is a game changer when they are played.

On a FFA match between Red, Hunter and I, my usual aggressiveness with my vampire deck was the cause of my downfall. Instead of just waiting it out to let my trump creature just make all my opponents sacrifice their creatures, I attacked when Hunter has no defenders. It was a perfect time to make him lose half his health....
               
But then he played Rebuke... And the next turn, I was out of the game.
It looked like Hunter was going to win that round with his 6-7 werewolves on the field and Red struggling to stay alive with her weak 2/2 zombies, when on her last and most important turn, she pulled this: 

And what was a sure win, ended up as a loss for Hunter and a win for Red. When I had come to their house, Hunter was already on the losing end of a 1on1 match due to the exact same card too.

Winning against people with mythics when you're not using any is a tough situation, but it doesn't bother me too much; the game is balanced and there are always ways around it. 

Another of Red's card and what was used against it the next turn before she could turn anything into a controllable vampire.
               
I must say, Hunter is very much a strategist; always waiting to pounce at the RIGHT time with backup contingencies.... unlike me..


Lastly, I find that FFA is a very different type of game, requiring a different strategy. You need to:
- appear very weak and insignificant but at the same time be able to defend yourself to cause your opponent to think it is a waste to attack you
- at the same time, be able to do spike damage to an opponent and take them out quickly before they can retaliate
- Vigilance is perfect for an aggressive deck or a person that likes to attack and not worry about holding back creatures to defend
- aggressive strategies should be concentrating on a 1 turn punch out and shouldn't last more than 2 turns otherwise the other people will attack you, to save the losing person UNLESS they have a vendetta against them too
- don't p!ss off people; people will continue to attack you, even to their own detriment in FFA games 
- deathtouch is a good ability to keep people from attacking

Every single round, I drew the ire of a player and we would beat each other up causing us to both to be eliminated shortly.

A balanced deck is also pretty important. On the second turn my ginger nemesis, Red, cast this curse on me

Which basically ended up slowly killing me. Though no creatures ever got through thanks to my good (maybe see: cheap) Wall of Denial, I didn't have any Naturalize spells to destroy that enchantment. Nothing is worse than being plinked to death.
Except maybe redirecting a killing blow spell back at my attacker which kills them instead.


All in all, it was a fun night despite the losses. I got some good cards and a booster box waiting to be opened with the gf. I saw the power of werewolves. Glad that Red and Hunter have different decks, albeit very powerful.