Budget Mythic Spotlight 2017-03-27

Mythic rares are a weird breed -- some are the strongest cards you can play in Standard, and others appear to be designed as sort of a "we'll throw this out there and see what happens."  Let's look at a seemingly strong budget mythic from each color, see why they are cheap, and whether you should play with any of them in Standard.

Cataclysmic Gearhulk - about 70 cents
This might be the biggest surprise of the Gearhulks.  They've all slipped a bit, but I think the white one was actually expected to have some play value.  One of the problems is that unlike the others, you can't get bonus value out of it with Panharmonicon or blink effects, but that isn't the real issue.  I think the biggest problem is that decks playing white would prefer Archangel Avacyn for their 5-drop.  If they're playing control, maybe Fumigate is what they want.  But this looks like a pretty good Commander card since it kills a lot of stuff and leaves behind a creature, and for that reason alone I was shocked that it's so cheap.

I would definitely play this card.  It is a useful effect in many decks (as long as you don't hurt yourself with it more than you hurt your opponent), it dodges Fatal Push, Grasp of Darkness, and Spell Queller, and I think it's potentially very strong.  The downside of its effect is that against popular decks right now, you might leave them with good board -- this effect really thrives against decks that are all in on one permanent type, and there is too much variety in most decks.  The big advantage the original Catacylsm had over the Gearhulk is that Cataclysm destroys lands.  If this reduced everyone to 1 land, it would be the best Gearhulk and players would love/hate it depending which end they are on.  Instead we get a partial wrath effect that punishes people for playing too many creatures or artifacts, or, more rarely, enchantments or planeswalkers.  But the creature body itself is probably worth about 2WW in Standard play, so the bonus is real if you're only paying 1 more for it.  It's possible that it will see a price and play bump either when Avacyn rotates in the fall or if decks start winning with too many redundant permanent types.

Geralf's Masterpiece - about 50 cents
This unfortunate zombie horror lives in a space where it just isn't ever the best choice.  It does avoid the same removal as the Gearhulk, and it has recursion with its ability, but it's in this weird space where the recursion isn't cheap enough to beat out weaker creatures like Haunted Dead and Stitchwing Skaab who come back for only 2 mana and 2 cards rather than 4 and 3.  The Masterpiece also requires some odd deckbuilding to be at full power on the battlefield.  A 7/7 with a built in downsizing ability is a trap -- It will be 6/6 on attack at best unless you plan to play all your cards before/during combat.

The only place where I see this working at close to 100% is a madness deck with other payoffs for having no cards in hand.  There are other cards around that also fit that theme, but they probably aren't reliable enough.  And if you want a big blue flying creature that helps facilitate graveyard strategies, you are better off with various Stitchwings.  If you just want a big blue flier, there are a ton of cheap choices at similar cost that don't get hosed by your hand size (for example Guardian of Tazeem).  In summary, I just don't think this card is good enough.

Demon of Dark Schemes - about 55 cents
A 6-mana card is pretty fringe in Standard unless it has a cost reduction ability (like this Demon's more popular and less lazily named friend, Herald of Anguish).  I'm sure there are plenty of demon decks in Commander and other casual formats, but there are also plenty of good demons to choose from.  For Standard, if you want a -2/-2 effect, you have cheaper options in the sometimes sideboardable Flaying Tendrils and its less playable 4-drop variants.  This demon gives you a lot more than just the -2/-2 effect, but it also comes out too late to stop most of the decks that will come at you with creatures that small.  Its last effect is very strong, and even though it's energy based, Demon also provides its own energy (the implied "story" of its abilities is that it makes a lot of energy for itself when it comes into play).

So is this card good?  I think it's very powerful and there are ways to build around it.  But it's also a 6-drop, which means you either play one or two copies as a finisher in e.g. an energy-based control deck, or you have some trickery to get it in play.  Unfortunately, decks that use trickery (like Aetherworks Marvel) would rather play even bigger payoffs like Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger.

I wouldn't say don't play it; it's still a great top-end black creature if you are playing on a budget, and people will be surprised the first time they see you play it.  But since we're done with new energy cards, there isn't much chance that cards from future sets will make it better than it is now.

Lightning Runner - about 50 cents
This card builds on a lot of the same themes as above -- beautiful art, a CMC of 5 so that it can't be hit by Fatal Push, and a lot of crazy text.  The difference here is that it is only a 2/2, so it dies to almost anything else, including Shock (How many 5-drops die to Shock?  Not many good ones).  One interesting aspect of Lightning Runner is that it is the only creature in all of Magic to naturally have both haste and double strike.  Wizards must be pretty wary of that pairing if they will only print it on a 2/2 for 5 mana -- perhaps they are testing the combination for future consideration.  It does make this card possibly interesting for decks using things like Soulflayer, Cairn Wanderer, or Odric, Lunarch Marshall to borrow its abilities.

I think the biggest problem with this card, which promises a Relentless Assault if you have enough energy when you cast it, is that it has to go in an energy deck, and most red energy decks are trying to win with Electrostatic Pummeler and other aggressive monsters before they can even cast this thing.

Let's compare it to Aurelia, the Warleader and Hellkite Charger, two very similar cards.  Like Aurelia, it isn't too hard for Lightning Runner to give you extra combats the same turn you play her, although Aurelia is far better in that she requires no resources to trigger and tends to survive the combat, not dying to any random 2/3 blocker.  But the strange advantage Lightning Runner has is that, like Hellkite Charger, if you have enough resources to spend (in this case energy instead of mana), you can just keep attacking over and over.  For every 6 energy you already have, you get one additional combat phase, if Lightning Charger survives.  Or, if you somehow have 4 Lightning Runners, they generate enough energy on their own to keep attacking.

Long story short, with its unique effects, this card is correctly placed at mythic rarity. But it is also extremely fragile for its cost.  It sure seems cool, but I don't know if there is a deck you can build where this is your best choice for a red 5-drop.  And like the Demon, this relies on energy, so it probably won't get better with new set releases.  The only thing I can see making it more competitive in the future is a way to cheat it into play -- for example a card that can only reanimate low-power creatures from the graveyard.

Decimator of the Provinces - about $1.25
Emerge is in a pretty good spot as an ability, as it naturally dodges Fatal Push and Spell Queller and triggers Sanctum of Ugin, all while also being castable at a discount.  Unlike most of the emerge creatures, which can easily be cast on Turn 4 by sacrificing a 3-drop (emerge CMC 7), this ball of pigs naturally casts on Turn 5 by sacrificing a 4-drop (emerge 6GGG).  That's not a complete disadvantage, because you ideally want some other creatures on the board when you play it.  The triple green mana does mean you need to be heavily in green.  I don't think this card has been a complete failure, as it still holds some value and I've seen it suggested in some deck builds.  It just doesn't fit in the most popular decks right now.

I think this is a very strong finisher for a certain kind of deck, and I would completely advocate playing it on a budget.  What I think you want is creatures that give you value, spread out wide, and help you survive while you wait to make your big attack.  Eyeless Watcher cries out as a perfect emerge sacrifice for Decimator, and Eldrazi Scions in general fit in with the Decimator plan.  Creatures with deathtouch are also good because they provide defense and because deathtouch synergizes nicely with trample (Wizards generally considers it too strong or un-intuitive to print both abilities on the same card, even though each ability frequently appears in green).  I don't really think this card is likely to become much more popular before it leaves Standard, but you might be able to roll over some people with it on the cheap.

Oblivion Sower - about $1.00
Unlike the other creatures in this list, this one is cheap not because it isn't played, but because it got a bonus high-run printing in the Battle for Zendikar preview Duel Decks.  Both the regular version and the Duel Deck foil version are about the same price, so you have your choice of art.  Strategies using Oblivion Sower have been less mainstream since we got out of the heavy Eldrazi days of BFZ and OGW standard, and its price has fallen off accordingly.  But it remains one of the strongest -- and weirdest -- ways to ramp your mana up to cast your expensive game-enders.  With the right mix of mana producers, this can come out on turn 4 or 5 pretty regularly, and it both gives you a big blocker to help stabilize and gives you 1 or 2 free lands from your opponent's deck on average, assuming you aren't doing anything else to exile their cards (bonus points if you cast Oblivion Sower after using Crumble to Dust to pull a set of 4 fancy nonbasics into exile).

As you can see, I think this is still a great card.  There are a number of angles you can take, but they all require you to want to cast something even bigger than a 6-drop 5/8.  Most of the best bigger targets are also not cheap, like Ulamog, but that doesn't mean you can't find something else good to do with 10 mana.  Heck, you could even hard-cast Decimator of the Provinces.

Mirrorpool - about $1.20
Ok, so "land" isn't a color (literally), but I wanted to look at this one.  BFZ block gave us a ton of rare lands, and just one mythic land.  It isn't legendary, and it also isn't weak.  But it falls into the trap of being a colorless mana producer that comes into play tapped and requires colorless mana for its abilities.  Remove any of those three restrictive elements, and this card might have found consistent use or even a powerful combo.  Even with those restrictions, it still holds that potential.  Copying a spell for virtually (since you have to tap Mirrorpool) 4 mana or copying a creature for virtually 6 mana is probably about the right cost since this can go into a deck of any color and work at instant speed.  Add to that the fact that as a land ability, this effect is extremely hard to counter.

If I had a copy of Mirrorpool, I'd consider tossing it into a mono-color deck along with some Blighted lands just on the off-chance that it occasionally does something exciting.  But I don't know if there's a particular thing that you're supposed to do with it.  My expectation is that this was a card that Wizards R&D tried to make as an open-ended quest for players (much like the more recent Planar Bridge and Paradox Engine), but in the end took a more cautious route just in case players figured out how to break it open.  I still think you should try 1 copy in any deck that has enough colorless mana support and see what happens.


So that's what I think, and I hope some of the discussion is useful in evaluating other cards.  Let me know what you think in the comments.  Are there other budget mythics that people should be playing?

Budget Metagame Picks 2017-03-20

Since I can't seem to complete longer posts, lets do something a little easier today.  Here are a few of my favorite budget Standard cards right now for certain situations.  Today we'll focus on underutilized creatures that punish popular removal.


Mirrorwing Dragon (about 75 cents) - This card is very cool conceptually, very nice art, and most importantly, it is tailor made to avoid a large number of popular removal spells.  It completely avoids Fatal Push, it survives Grasp of Darkness (and similarly matches up well against things like Heart of Kiran and Avacyn), and it punishes the opponent for using Unlicensed Disintegration.  If your opponent is playing red or black, they have very few profitable ways to deal with this creature.  Blue and white are a bit better against it.  Oh, and it's a bulk mythic rare -- I love this card right now.  It asks to be surrounded by creatures and buffs, but it could also be useful as a control finisher against the right opponents (maybe from sideboard).


Eternal Scourge (about 25 cents) - With the printing of Walking Ballista, this card definitely got worse.  I loved it before Aether Revolt was released.  It has even been part of a Grand Prix winning Modern deck (Skred Red).  There are a lot of cute things you can do with this card:

• Removal with extra effects is countered by the game rules when it goes to exile, meaning for example Unlicensed Disintegration doesn't do damage to you.
• Lost Legacy can go in your main deck as a way to "draw" all your copies of Eternal Scourge.
• It forms a repeatable loop with Scrapheap Scrounger if both are in the graveyard.
• If countered by Spell Queller, it can be cast from "underneath."

Eternal Scourge punishes targeted removal in general, but it suffers against targeted non-removal effects.  Repeatable effects like Pia Nalaar, Tamiyo, and Liliana can make Eternal Scourge a lot less exciting, and if it ends up dead in combat or from non-targeted effects, you get stuck with it in the graveyard.


Scrap Trawler (about 25 cents) - I'm going to try out Trawlers in place of my Eternal Scourges in my black/artifact deck.  They aren't particularly resilient against removal, but they will draw you a card back if your deck is doing the right things.  I can see this being a card that someone breaks in a combo deck, but I'm happy to just draw an extra card (or more if I am lucky or able to sacrifice artifacts).  Note also that multiple copies on the battlefield are cumulative!  Compare Scrap Trawler to Matter Reshaper -- they are similar in all ways, but Matter Reshaper will cost you $2 and requires colorless mana.  Matter Reshaper is generally superior outside of those two downsides, but I have high hopes for the Trawler.


Treasure Keeper (practically free) - Here's another card that you can compare with Matter Reshaper.  4 mana is normally more than you want to pay for a 3/3 in Constructed, but you can imagine doing some fun things with the effect.  The foil version is over $1.50, so someone obviously wants these -- perhaps Commander players, or a small number of Modern players who may want to use it as a budget Bloodbraid Elf for a cascade effect.  I like it as a companion to Scrap Trawler, which effectively lets it draw 2 cards if you can set it up.


Thanks for reading, and have fun!

FNM Draft Report 2017-03-10

Well, I haven't been posting much else, but I can do draft reports!

Friday was AER-AER-KLD.  I was hoping for a quieter night with fewer people, and there were just few enough that we only had to play 4 rounds instead of 5 (I think the cutoff is 24 people and we had something like 22 or 23), but still plenty that top 8 got prizes instead of top 4.  In terms of mathematical odds of making the cut, this was about as good as it gets.

I was in Pod 1 so we had a full 8 people drafting.  There was a little table talk before the draft between people who were joking about taking each other's colors, so if I knew these guys' tendencies a little better I might have been able to use this information to my advantage.

Here is my draft, starting bottom left and moving upward through each pack.  The Ajani Unyielding at the edge of the screen was the first pick of the guy sitting across from me (Seat 2 vs. my Seat 7, so 3 slots to my left).

So lets analyze!  Pack 1 Pick 1 I saw Baral's Expertise and immediately knew it was my pick.  There were some other good cards, but this card is high impact and can blow your tempo open.  The other best card was Hungry Flames, so I felt like I was setting someone to the left up in red.  Pick 2 was really tough, because I saw a Winding Constrictor but didn't want to immediately put myself in the situation of having to cut one of my first two picks.  I may have also overlooked something good in red because I had already passed red and was willing to concede red to a neighbor.  Leave in the Dust was probably not correct, but it fit with what Baral's is trying to do.  I felt pretty good about being in blue for the rest of the top of the pack, taking a Chandra's Revolution even though I felt like it was destined to be no better than a splash.  Aeronaut Admiral at Pick 7 seemed unusually strong for almost everyone to have passed, so I suddenly felt like white was my likely second color.  The rest of Pack 1 was a mix of mediocre red and white cards, with Welder Automaton again suggesting that maybe red was underdrafted, and I didn't see anything else remotely playable in blue.

Pack 2 Pick 1 was the stone cold lock of the week.  Walking Ballista in this set feels like Smuggler's Copter in triple KLD -- a rare that you pick both because of the dollar value and because it is high-impact in Limited.  The other card I really wanted was Wind-Kin Raiders, but there's no way I don't pick Ballista.  Then came a shocker.  Even though I had continuously passed high quality red cards to my left in Pack 1, 5 of my next 6 picks coming from my left were very powerful red cards.  Meanwhile, blue was completely absent from the cards I was passed.  In fact, Shielded Aether Thief (which was also from the pack I opened, so definitely made the full wheel with the help of the Wind-Kin Raiders from that same pack) was the only blue card that felt good at all in this pack.  I did pass a couple counterspells and maybe some other low-end playables.  The bottom half of Pack 2 was again not great, with another Welder being the best pick in my colors.  Oddly, someone took a land and let me have a Lathnu Sailback, which fit my colors even if it was borderline to make my deck.

Pack 3 gave me the best and worst Pick 1 possible -- I opened a Masterpiece series Painter's Servant, which is great money value but bad draft value.  Luckily, the rare in this pack was horrible (Dubious Challenge). I did feel a little sad passing a Renegade Freighter, but not sad enough to pass a card that pays for several drafts on its own.  Pack 2 I don't remember what was the competition, but Fabrication Module felt good enough (it's the one that adds +1/+1 counters when you gain energy, and I thought I could make it snowball between my energy generators, bounce, and Skyship Plunderer).  As you can guess from the next few packs, there wasn't a lot to excite me in blue or red.  Kaladesh is often the "strong pack" in AER-AER-KLD draft, and this is illustrated well by Wayward Giant, which I feel is way better than the Lathnu Sailback from Pack 2 at the same rarity and casting cost.  I can kid myself that I drafted Inspiring Vantage in case I had enough white to splash, but the truth is I want it for constructed and I would have taken any fastland at almost any pick in Pack 3 because I think they have long-term value.  Bomat Courier was kind of a stretch, as it's small and not an expensive rare.  The bottom half of the pack delivered a Chandra's Pyrohelix and two more energy producers in Spontaneous Artist and Janjeet Sentry.

Overall, I feel pretty good about this draft, but I wonder if I should have taken the good red cards in Pack 1 (I passed Hungry Flames, Aether Chaser, Chandra's Revolution, Sweatworks Brawler, and who knows what else) instead of locking in blue.  I don't think I really made a mistake taking blue; I just got punished because other players were also taking blue or because the blue in Packs 2 and 3 was just weak.  As it was, I had almost enough red and colorless playables to go mono-red (maybe splashing Aeronaut Admiral and Skyswirl Harrier), and with some of the cards I passed, it might have become a reality.  Another notable oddity was my complete absence of vehicles.  Aside from the Freighter in my KLD pack with Painter's Servant, the only vehicles I even remember seeing were a Mobile Garrison (almost picked in the middle of an Aether Revolt pack) and Aradara Express (did not consider).

My rares almost look like a sealed pool -- 6 rares (including the Masterpiece) is double what you would expect in 3 packs.  The rares I opened were good, and Release the Gremlins was a very strong card to be passed.  That said, 3 of the 6 didn't make my deck.

I drafted 8 uncommons (including a foil), which is 1 fewer than the 9 you would normally see in 3 packs.  None were super exciting (although Hungry Flames is a premium draft card), and 3 didn't even make my deck.

So here is the deck I played.  That's 8 Mountains and 8 Islands.  Partway through, I replaced Leave in the Dust with Precise Strike and didn't switch back, but I never drew either card, so I effectively stayed with the same deck all night.  I also didn't sideboard any, as 16 lands felt about right on the play or draw, and I never really faced a deck that had obvious answers to bring in.

I considered Walking Ballista to be basically a 4-drop that can also be played at 2 or 6+ mana.  Combined with all the Chandra's Revolutions at 4 mana, this made for a pretty consistent curve that plays creatures early and removal late.  I did make sure to take plenty of 2-drops in the draft, and I ended up with a mix of aggressive and defensive ones.

Round 1 vs. S.
S. was playing white/blue fliers.  I think he was sitting one or two seats over to my right for the draft, so he was at least part of the black hole my blue cards were falling into.  And he wasn't the cleanest player (he usually played creatures before combat, and he used Shipwreck Moray's pump ability at sorcery speed before combat once), but he did set up bad situations for me without always realizing it.  He had two Ghirapur Ospreys and three Convictions in his deck, and at either 2/2 and 3/5 an Osprey was always a pain and never a great target for Chandra's Revolution.  In Game 1, I raced his fliers and played a timely Consulate Skygate to block him out and get the win.  Games 2 and 3 he got his Spire Patrol and Dawnfeather Eagle online, and we played fairly competitive games that he won.  This also happened to be the only round that I never drew Walking Ballista, and I also had Release the Gremlins in my hand with no targets once or twice.  Loss, 1 - 2.

Round 2 vs. M.
M. was another player with some softer play habits.  Before Game 1, he finished shuffling and I didn't remember even seeing him shuffle, but I cut and just noted it.  Turns out he has the worst shuffling habits I've ever seen -- Game 2 I paid close attention as he held his cards sideways and slightly face up, and idly pulled chunk after chunk of cards from the middle and dropped them in the front to "shuffle."  When he set his deck down for a cut, I riffled it twice, cut, and let it be.  I don't think he was trying to cheat, he just didn't really get shuffling or something.  He also played extremely slowly.  As for the matchup, he was playing white-red with a bunch of vehicles.  He said he had 3 copies of Irontread Crusher.  I was never in great danger of losing either game, but I did have to waste multiple resources to kill the tank once.  Another time he just had too many tanks and I was able to kill all the crew.  I got my best action out of Baral's Expertise in one of these games, casting it on two of his creatures and one of mine while he was tapped out to send his 2 Convictions (yes, another player with a bunch of Convictions) and 1 Revoke Privileges to the graveyard.  Win, 2 - 0.

Round 3 vs. W.
W. is one of the more experienced regulars, and he had a pretty sleek black-red deck.  Game 1 he put out Mobile Garrison followed by Weldfast Engineer, which makes a nice combo where he can attack for 5 and then have the Engineer untapped on my turn.  I took the hit and burned the Engineer down with Revolution.  A couple turns later he did it again with another Engineer!  On my side, I had mulliganed and kept a hand with Ballista and saw Sweatworks Brawler with my scry, so I made the calculated risk of playing Ballista as a 2-drop 1/1 so that I could improvise out the Brawler on turn 3.  As it worked out, I kept both creatures the entire game and ended up with a board that looked kind of like this at the end of the game (he had a Sweatworks Brawler instead of the Artist, and some other 2/3 instead of the Embraal Gear-Smasher, but the math works out the same.  He had 4 life.  Do you see the winning attack?  I actually missed it for a turn (I forgot about my Gremlin), and W. commented on it after the game.

Game 2 was a very hard-fought scrapfest, with even more Servo and Gremlin tokens.  I was down to 1 life, and I was only going to be able to attack for 2 of his 4 remaining life on my turn (although I might have been able to stall for as long as he didn't draw anything good), but I drew my Ballista, attacked to drop him to 2, and then cast the Ballista as a 3/3 for the instant kill.  That card is so good.  I got the sense he was a little sore about me winning the first game even though I missed a lethal attack for a turn and then winning the second game on a top-decked Ballista, and he asked me if that was the only card in my deck that would have won it -- no, I had at least 3 other cards that would have done the extra 2 damage and several other removal spells that would have let me attack through.  Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed this win, 2 - 0, and I was at 2 - 1 in matches and ready to fight for a top 8 spot.

Round 4 vs. P.
P. was playing blue-red.  I kept getting Aether Swooper out against him, and that is a very slow card to try to win with.  He had at least 2 Chandra's Revolution of his own, so anything bigger that I played would die.  Game 1 was good, but I got a little behind and then lost.  Game 2 I kept a hand with 2 Islands on the draw and didn't draw another land until Turn 4 or 5, at which point I was deeply behind.  I did have the good fortune to draw all of my blue 2-drops, so I was able to hang in for a bit, but by the time I played my 4th land to start casting Revolutions, I was just so far behind I couldn't catch up.  Loss, 0 - 2.

Match Record 2 - 2.  I asked the scorekeeper if 2 - 2 was likely to make the top 8, and he said maybe, so I stuck around to find out.  It was probably good enough for someone, but it wasn't good enough for me on this particular night.

As for my gameplay, I'm only aware of a few minor mistakes and the one major mistake (missing the lethal attack) that didn't actually cost me.  I think I missed a chance to activate a Welder Automaton once, and I might have had poor sequencing or missed a chance to use something else that I didn't even realize.

Individual card MVPs:
Walking Ballista -- This card is just super.  When it's on the battlefield, it severely limits what your opponent can do, even with only 1 or 2 counters.  The fact that it doubles as a direct damage sorcery makes it even more unfair (almost like a Rolling Thunder that you can play in any color).
Release the Gremlins -- As long as I had a target, this card was always good.  It was usually a 4-for-1 (2 targets, 2 Gremlins) when I cast it, even if the targets were sometimes not worth a full card (like Servos).
Wayward Giant and Sweatworks Brawler -- These both combine size with menace in a way that makes them hard to block well at their respective points on the curve.  The Giant is truly giant against most Aether Revolt creatures.
Chandra's Revolution -- I was afraid that 3 copies would be too many, but it kills almost anything, and the land-tapping is a real bonus.

Baral's Expertise was kind of an oddball.  Sometimes it did something amazing, and other times it just made the game longer.  The worst case was when both players had small creatures and it felt like it wasn't worth casting.

Cards that underwhelmed:
Embraal Gear-Smasher and Janjeet Sentry -- 2/3 for 3 is so-so unless the ability is good.  My other 2 cards with the same stats (Hinterland Drake, Salivating Gremlins) did better, but these two barely used their abilities.  I needed the creature count though, and Watchful Automaton is far worse at 2/2.
Skyship Plunderer and Fabrication Module -- I never got either of these into full combo mode, but I also didn't draw them very often.  In my very last game where I got stuck on 2 mana, I had energy and the Plunderer, and Module would have had a chance to shine if I could have cast it on curve.  Don't get me wrong, I will always play Plunderer.  It just didn't do as much as I hoped.
Universal Solvent -- This one just never got to 7 mana.  I did get it to pump Salivating Gremlins once by bouncing it with Baral's Expertise, but I think my less experienced opponents were more scared of this card than they needed to be  (M: "Oh!  That one kills anything!"  Um, yeah, sure it does.).

Maybeboard?
There are some tricky things I never even tried.  Ravenous Intruder (aka Atog) might have been a serious beater in this deck.  With it and Embraal Gear-Smasher, Wrangle becomes a pseudo-removal spell.  Splashing or sideboarding for my two white fliers might have been worth it, especially in Round 1 when I kept running into fliers that they matched up well against.  Bomat Courier was a difficult one for me to evaluate because I wasn't trying to be fully aggro, but it would certainly have been a better 1-drop than Universal Solvent.  What do you think I should have done differently in building the deck?

Thanks for reading.  As always, I had fun, and I hope to draft AER-AER-KLD at least one more time (unless I end up in a Modern Masters draft instead...).