Ugh, I have already noticed a problem with my transcription. Turn 8, Game 2, P.T. cast Ripscale Predator after combat.

Tiebreaking scenarios for next round:

If Elaine beats T/O and Grim wins, Elaine is 1st, Grim is 2nd, and T/O is 3rd

If Elaine beats T/O and Grim loses, Elaine is 1st, T/O is 2nd, and Grim is 3rd

If T/O beats Elaine, then....

Grim finishes in 3rd. If T/O beats Elaine 2-0, then it is 1st and Elaine is 2nd. If T/O beats Elaine 2-1, then there is an exact tie and there will be a single sudden-death playoff game, with sideboarding allowed.

I was going to question when the Predator was cast, good to know.

Personally, I reeeeeaaaally liked the old commentary from both players ;)

Good job piloting the deck so far, I really think I would enjoy playing it too, evolving sharks squad, combat tricks everywhere and the beastly Frontline Medic we are happy to unleash nearly every game! Only Orzhov seems to be able to deal with it right now, as it needs quite a big bunch of removals to get rid of our army.

very much looking forward to the last match and very good matches thus far. keep up the great piloting of the deck. that being said I have feared facing elaine's deck from the start and it shows with her going undefeated but she hasn't faced us so there is still that. personally I think our decks are very even against each other it just depends on the draws.

I agree with CyRRdaR, having commentary from both sides is great!

I really miss the old commentary, that was part of what made it so much fun to read!

Having commentary from both sides is really nice. And the old transcriptions were more fun to read (with all the shark puns, etc.)

Good games. Let's 2-0 Elaine and take this.

I think we'll be capable of beating Elaine's deck. And guys Caley can't do everything at once, if you want the commentary back then perhaps suggesting another option is in order.

I'd say just have each player record their own draws and views of the game, adding commentaries in a shorthand way and clarifying them later for the complete transcription.

I'm okay with any level of commentary, as long as you keep the frog lizard shenanigans coming. At the same time, the more commentary, the better.

Great job, KC! Good luck in the final round!

About all the three color decks we've seen; it looks like we are the only ones playing any kind of mana fixing, and we're only splashing. Makes sense why everyone else seems to have suffered. Did everyone else really ignore fixing?

Oh, I spoke to soon. I noticed that at least P.T. was running a single Prophetic Prism.

I'll chime in that I miss hearing the opponent's commentary. It was interesting, and actually usually educational, like reading Grim's deliberation about what to think when you attacked with Realmwright last match. This was fine, but there was a bit more color the other way.

Ultimately, just do whatever works best for you. We need you playing in top form, especially to beat Elaine, haha. Just do what you need to, and as long as you keep the FROG LIZARD comments coming we'll be happy.

In my experience the lion's share of Gatecrash decks (as well as RtR decks) are going to be [Guild]+splash color, and that system seems to work really well as long as you keep that splash color to a smallish-sized splash. Some of the guilds lend themselves better to splashing than others (Boros, for instance, splashes Gruul and Orzhov commons/uncommons very well, which is another one of the reasons the guild makes such strong decks).

I really like the opponent commentaries! Good game, sorry PT's time was unfun =[

Yeah so many opponents went heavy tri color and then were surprised when they choked on the mana requirements. Tri color can definitely work you just have to have an appropriate level of fixing to make it happen. That usually involves around 4-6 guildgates and or a prism or two, or some green fixing options. But with the way these opponents have run things they have just gone straight 3 color with almost equal numbers of lands and almost no fixing at all. this leads to them choking on mana and dying to the more consistent decks. Notice that the top 3 players are all solidly 2 color and we are the only one with a small off color splash. We played it right not including those other white cards.

As to the format of the comments, i like the old comment system better. These comments however were fine, but i didn't feel like your commenting on the wisdom of the other sides plays in retrospect was necessary or even helpful to the article, but some of the comments you did insert about your own thinking were still great. I do appreciate the info about him being on a tilt however and disgusted with his deck.

I think 3 color can work very well. I see great results with RUG in drafts and sealed.

@cartwheelnurd - True, but still, I do think a lot of fixing is required. We have two Naya decks, a WBR deck, and ourselves. The two Nayas and the WBR have four wins between them right now, and I suspect that it is due in large part to the lack of fixing. The best of these decks, I think, was Bernard's; WBR makes a lot of sense in this format to me. But they all needed to adjust their proportions, I think. Sectoid and P.T.'s performance is perhaps to be expected; they are very inexperienced in drafting compared to the rest of the field (except perhaps Grim and Lee). They're both primarily constructed players. Muton is a Modern constructed player, and while he has draft experience, he admits that it's not a strength of his.

Bernard should have known better, I think. Bernard has been drafting a lot recently, more than any other player. Perhaps he's had the good sense to avoid a three-color strategy before and was trying something new. I'll talk with him about it in the post-draft interview.

I suspect P.T. just got caught in a bad spot with this draft. The deck has a pile of very nice gold cards. It would be hard to drop any one of them. It would be hard to go RG or BR and give up the third color because the mono-colored cards in his pool were not terribly strong.

Great match. FROG LIZARD SHOUT-OUTS WILL NEVER GET OLD.

I didn't manage to work in a link to the jaws theme in this one, but I mostly used the Shamblesharks as cannon fodder rather than serious threats this time around.

I'd also like to toss in my support for the previous commentary: this was fine, but I really enjoyed reading the previous articles. The reason you changed the format is because of transcription errors, right? It doesn't seem like this method really solves that problem. I think the best solution is something that SupremeAlliesCommander suggested on the previous article vs grim: record the games with video. If you're playing the games on a computer, you could use some sort of screen-capture software (fraps/camstudio?). If you're playing them in person, I think even just setting up a phone's camera to record the games would work well.

@mossflower - Some of the games are played in person, some are not. Even when we do play in person, we use proxies, which is, I suspect, part of where the errors are coming from. Hard to remember that something has flying when it's written on a scrap of paper, etc.

Screen-recording software for online stuff is something I'm working on, but not ready to deploy yet, and I already ask a lot of our fellow drafters without imposing a burden like that on 'em. For now I think I'm going to stick to text. I'll get the commentary back in there; we'll just have to allocate more time for the match so that we can go through it all very slowly and carefully.

Either way you choose is awesome. I would say the commentary in-game is what I would prefer.

But awesome job KC! Keep it goin'.

@KrazyCaley: I think the reason that the Naya / WBR decks are suffering is because the color was overdrafted. I would think that at least one other person would have gone Dimir because of their evasive creatures which would have freed up Gruul and Orzohv a little bit. Overall, it would have been best for all involved for the weakest or middle positioned W/R drafter to have gone U/B. This is one of the reasons our deck works so well. We were the only people going after Simic. Elaine was the only person going Dimir. I think that there's no coincidence in our records being close to the same.

I hope we didn't just give away too much about the upcoming matchup... Dun Dun Dun.

Anyone else notice we have beaten only 3color decks? And that 60% of the top three is 2 color? The exception being us? Elaine will be our toughest opponent yet...

Dude jkarnes I hope you didn't spoil anything...

It's all right, I finished playing Elaine and came on the site to add the last update, which I'm working on now.

I will definitely chime in that the previous recording method seems preferable to this one, and if it could be reverted I would certainly vote to go that route.

Good games again, a pity P.T. isn't having a good time of things, hopefully he can wring out a last round win to cheer up.

Now to go see if Elaine was replaced with a FROG LIZARD.