FNM Draft 2017-05-26

I got to go draft Amonkhet again on Friday.  I think there were 27 drafters, so that meant 3 draft pods of 9 and 5 rounds of Swiss.  Let's break it down!

As usual, the draft runs from bottom left to upper right.

My Pack 1 rare was the weird 5-color land, Cascading Cataracts, and nothing at uncommon seemed right, so I took the unexciting removal to start.  Pick 2 had a great rare in Cut to Ribbons, so that seemed the direction I wanted to go (unfortunately, one of the cards I passed on Pick 1 was a foil of the black-red uncommon minotaur).  Edifice of Authority was a great find at Pick 3.  I tried to find something to draft in red, but I kept coming up empty.  After pack 1, my draft looked like a mess, but I had seeds to go strong in black, white, or red.

My Pack 2 rare was Anointed Procession, which didn't fit with anything I had drafted yet, so I went with the Cartouche instead.  Then I met a string of excellent black cards, including the Trial to go with my two Cartouches.  Black continued to deliver, and I was still wide open for my second color (or near-mono black) going into the third pack.

Pack 3 I finally opened a good rare, Oketra the True.  Along with the two Binding Mummies, this pushed me into WB zombies.  I snagged the WB Wayward Servant, another Cartouche, Trial, and Binding Mummy, and a really late Fan Bearer.  7 picks in, I took a foil Anointed Procession, which looks to be a good enough Commander card that I expect the foil copy to retain some long-term value.

This was a tough draft, and I was worried I'd be stuck with a pile of mildly synergistic 3-drops, but Pack 3 really bailed me out.  Several cards I remember seeing that I wish I had drafted were Blighted Bat, Tah-Crop Elite, Horror of the Broken Lands, Wander in Death, and Gravedigger.  I don't remember now what I took instead, but some were casualties of my attempt to go lower on curve.

Here are my starting main deck and sleeved sideboard.

I felt pretty good about the main deck, and although my creature count was low, I had a ton of removal to make up for it.  I went with the low-curve 16-land build, thinking I could use mummy synergies and removal to break through combat enough to win games.

As I played more games, I realized two problems with the main deck.  First, Compulsory Rest is a nonbo with Trial of Ambition.  Second, my games were dragging out and I didn't have a good finisher, which led to me getting overrun by larger creatures.  I improved the first problem by eventually adding Splendid Agony and then Final Reward in place of Rest.  This was definitely the correct choice.  For the second problem, Ribbons would have been a huge boon to my deck as a finisher, but I couldn't make a good enough case for splashing Cut without going up lands, and I only had Miasmic Mummy and (horribly) Unburden as discard enablers.  In Oketra's Name probably belonged in as well, maybe in place of Pitiless Vizier, who did very little for me.  I also realized after dissecting the deck that my Supply Caravan would have been a good addition as a late-game blocker, but I didn't even have it sleeved so I forgot about it.

Round 1 was against A, a store employee and strong player, who was also in white-black, but more of an embalm deck with Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun splashed.  In Game 1, I drew no swamps and put up a little bit of a fight before fizzling out.  In Game 2, I had a lot of my better cards, and I got up to 29 life with him at 3, but he built up a barricade that I couldn't get through, and he slowly whittled me down with tokens that were unblockable thanks to Temmet.  I made a tactical error when I cast my Miasmic mummy with 2 cards left in hand, knowing that he had a Miasmic Mummy also because he had returned it to his hand.  I discarded a land and held Oketra, and he cast his Mummy the next turn and made me discard Oketra.  Loss, 0-2.

Round 2 was against J, who had a wild black-red deck that was playing a drain plan of having 5 copies of Trespasser's Curse and at least one Bontu's Monument.  In Game 1, it worked out very well, and he curved Bontu's Monument on Turn 3 into two Lords of the Accursed on Turn 4.  In Games 2 and 3, my deck worked much better, and I won fairly smooth if somewhat drawn out games, barely finishing before time was called. Win, 2-1.

Round 3 was against M, an experienced but also free-spirited player, who was in white-blue with a bunch of Slither Blades and Cartouche of Solidarity.  He had been next to me in the draft, and he passed me Cut // Ribbons in order to first pick Aven Wind Guide (the WU uncommon) just to try something different.  In Game 1, he got his snake/Cartouche plan going, and I found out just how bad Trial of Ambition can be when your opponent is making a lot of 1/1 token creatures.  Game 2 I flooded the board with Binding Mummies and made it impossible for him to block.  Game 3, I got up to 29 life and put him into single digits, but he mounted a slow comeback with a series of big serpents and 3/3 fliers.  We went to turns, and he had the definite advantage but I was able to stave off his horde long enough to get the draw.  Draw, 1-1-1.

Round 4 was against C, a very good player who is also a judge.  I can't always tell how much he's playing mind games and how much he's just a little bit obsessive -- he does odd things like not look at his own cards on the draw until I've decided whether to keep, and he always calls his own decks "bad."  He also makes bold statements about what I'm about to do based on my actions and facial expression, and he's often right.  This time he had white-green good stuff with no obvious theme.  In Game 1, I rode my lifelinkers up to 42 life and knocked him down to 3 as he was stuck on lands and had to discard several times, and then, with a lot of help from Oketra's Monument making 1/1s that made my Trials bad and bogged down my attackers, he slowly worked me down and won the game.  In game 2 he mulliganed down to 5 and I punished him with Unburden and matched his creatures with removal, and I was able to win easily.  Game 3 was intense, and I got off to a good start before he dropped a Crocodile of the Crossing next to Hooded Brawler and attacked me for 10.  We reached a stalemate situation where each of us had a Fan Bearer, and I put out Oketra with a Cartouche as well as Edifice of Authority to get what looked like a good advantage, but he held me back and kept throwing good shots my way.  I was stuck on 5 lands and never out of things to spend it on between cards in hand, Oketra, and my two tappers.  On a night of great marathon games this was the most mentally taxing game of all, and in the end I lost while a couple of other regulars watched us play.  Loss, 1-2.

After the game, C and the other two regulars gave me some thoughts about things I could have done differently.  As an aside, one of the hardest things to do as a human is to try your best, fail, and then openly accept criticism.  I often see players in that situation rebut the things that the observers say, and come up with justifications for making the wrong play.  But as much as I was tempted to do that, I did my best to listen and learn instead.  One person noted that I missed an opportunity to attack with a 4/7 lifelinked Oketra (not hitting the opponent but killing something and gaining 8 life), and while I don't exactly remember it, I do think it's plausible because with a Fan Bearer on each side I was having a hard time keeping track of when Oketra could make a move.

The other observer mentioned that I shouldn't have blocked a 2/2 with Wayward Servant and Sacred Cat (trading the 2/2s and keeping the Cat, which I was using as In Oketra's Name insurance and to gain 1 life).  Instead, I should have chump blocked with just the Cat, then embalmed it the next turn to get the ETB effect from Wayward Servant.  He was completely right.  I hate giving away something for nothing, but I think I make a mistake of trading (especially 2 for 1, although that didn't come up here) sometimes when it would be actually better to lose 1 creature for nothing.  Identifying when a chump block is better than a disadvantageous trade is something I need to work on.  In this particular case, the fact that Oketra is only useful with 3 other creatures in play made it even more complicated.

I think this is the case that shows where Limited can be more difficult than Constructed play.  In Constructed, you become familiar with your deck, your best play patterns, and common opposing play patterns for your particular format.  But in Limited, every set release and even every individual event brings new challenges, and practice is necessary to learn just the basic patterns of a set so that you can focus on the more unusual interactions that come up.

In any case, I dropped at 1-2-1 after the fourth round, with a game record of 4-6-1.  I also had four separate games that would have been the most amazing marathon game on a normal night, finishing in three losses and a tie.  I feel like my draft was very good, but my deck building could have been better and my in-game mistakes cost me a chance at a much better finish.

So, aside from a lot of lessons, what else did we walk away with?  Foil Anointed Procession is about $8, with potential to be a Commander and casual staple, so I expect long term value of at least a few dollars.  Cut // Ribbons and Lord of the Accursed are in the $1 range for Standard play, and the Lord should remain popular for casual formats but probably without retaining much value.  Oketra the True has gradually slid down under $3 as it becomes apparent that it doesn't have a competitive Standard deck, but it is again a good EDH/casual card.  This copy was immediately added to my Soulflayer sideboard.

All in all, another great night of Amonkhet draft, and I am happy to go even when I don't get everything right.

Thanks for reading, and I appreciate any comments.

Nate

Budget Modern - Soulflayer

I've been working on this concept for a couple months on MTGVault, and I've mentally played out tons of sample hands.  Last week I finally got it solid enough that I bought the rest of the cards I needed.  The basic idea is to make a very strong and resilient Soulflayer as fast as possible.

I put a detailed description of the deck on MTGVault here.

On Saturday, I went to the LGS to play Standard Showdown, and it turned out that SS was canceled because it was Game Day at 6 PM instead.  But I found a few people willing to play some Modern and try out my deck, and I was very glad I came!  I went 1-0 against a Rakdos (black-red) burn deck, and I went 2 - 4 against an aggressive Izzet (blue-red) prowess deck.  They were both pretty low-budget builds, but it was a lot of fun and I think this deck at least can play a game.

I look forward to trying it out more.

Feel free to comment on the build.  What do you think?

Thanks!

FNM Draft 2017-05-12

After considering the Sealed PPTQ on Saturday, I decided to just do the normal FNM draft instead.  And it was probably a good choice, because I still need practice in AKH Limited!  With the big event the following day, there were fewer drafters than usual, and we had two pods with 15 total players.  This meant 4 rounds with a cut to top 4.

Here's the draft, from bottom left to top right:

I had done a number of practice drafts on tappedout, but none of them prepared me for the difficult Pack 1 that I opened.  No removal, no bomb rare or uncommon creatures, but good filler creatures for a number of different decks (including 2x Binding Mummy, one foil).  I didn't really know what to do so I grabbed New Perspectives without really having any plan for it other than lucking into a cycling reward like Drake Haven.  The next few picks gave me good cards to push into red-green, so I abandoned the blue idea pretty quickly.

I was still open to switching colors in Pack 2, but the Scaled Behemoth was the big monster I wanted for RG.  Harsh Mentor was probably not the best card in the next pack, but it was a playable money pick and a signal, and that was good enough for me.  After that, I was able to pick up a lot of red and green, but most of it was just borderline rather than excellent.  The Forest I took at 10th pick was a full-art in a pack with nothing I could use.

Pack 3 gave me some very good cards for my deck for the first several picks and then fizzled out on the wheel.  My guess is that a couple other people were also drafting my colors, and there just wasn't enough good stuff to go around.  One note -- Evolving Wilds (good) in this set looks a lot like some of the deserts (nearly unplayable), so be careful not to overlook it when you see it.

I don't remember exactly what the rares were in Packs 2 and 3, but I think they were both fairy unplayable.  Maybe Dispossess and Harvest Season?  In any case, I was disappointed that my most exciting cards were 6-drop creatures.

Here is the deck I built:

My deck has a pretty good "normal" curve, although I am seeing from Pro Tour coverage that a lot of people are building very low-curve decks for this Draft format (even high-picking cards like Nef-Crop Entangler, which I was not particularly excited about in the second half of Pack 1).  My most glaring weakness is that my removal is relatively small, so once a big creature comes down, I am mostly relying on combat tricks to have any chance of killing it.

Here is my sideboard and cards that almost made main deck:

Giant Spider was ready to come in if I faced any difficult fliers.  Dissenter's Deliverance was for strong artifacts (I forgot that Violent Impact also kills artifacts, or it would have been included too).  It's possible that I should have had Gift of Paradise in main deck to help ramp up to the big creatures.  I don't know what would have made me play Consuming Fervor, maybe a matchup against a slow controlly deck with a strong late game.  It is a combo with Exemplar of Strength, but it really needs him to get all his counters off first, at which point you're probably winning anyway.  Hyena Pack looks solid, but as often happens in Draft, there are so many better 4-drops running around that the solid commons don't make the cut.  I had 3 copies and played zero.

How did the games go?

Round 1 vs. P.
P was playing Jund (black-red-green), and he had some big bombs in Glorybringer (which I never saw) and Archfiend of Ifnir.  Game 1 was my dream game, and it probably set up unrealistic expectations for the rest of the night.  I put down Rhonas's Monument on Turn 3, then after being stuck on Forests on Turn 5, I played Scaled Behemoth on Turn 6, pumping something else, and then another Scaled Behemoth on Turn 7, pumping the first Behemoth.  Easy win.  Game 2 P got Archfiend out, and I had a chance to kill it with Cartouche of Strength, but I thought I would be able to race it.  Then next turn he put Cartouche of Ambition (which adds lifelink) on it and made it impossible to race.  I tried to use Magma Spray plus Cartouche to kill it, but he blew me out with Hapatra's Mark (hexproof) and I lost.  Game 3 we ran out of time and ended up in turns, and I had a very good series of plays that managed to win exactly on Turn 5, most notably adding Spidery Grasp to a full-size Defiant Greatmaw with Khenra Charioteer in play to run over a big blocker and ruin his board.  Win, 2-1.

Round 2 vs. T1.
T was in white-black zombies.  His big threat was Glory-Bound Initiate, and in Game 1 it broke the game in his favor after a pretty equal start.  In Game 2, he had a slow draw and I had my good attackers, and I won easily.  In Game 3, we played even for a bit, then he got the Initiate out again and blew up combat with In Oketra's Name (he shook his head, realizing he could have cast a second one to win that turn, but it didn't matter because there was no path back for me).  Loss, 1-2.

Round 3 vs. T2.
T had a red-green deck of his own, but with some very different things.  First off, he got an Edifice of Authority, which is pretty miserable to play against.  I hadn't realized when I first read it, but it can actually keep a creature from attacking or blocking for an entire turn cycle, not just until end of turn.  In Game 1, I didn't draw any forests, and I put up a good fight but eventually folded to his better board and Edifice.  I sideboarded in Dissenter's Deliverance.  Game 2 I had to mulligan to 6 on the play, but it actually worked out really well and I ran him over with Defiant Greatmaw and friends.  I saw Hazoret the Fervent this game, but my Harsh Mentor actually prevented her from being able to use her ability.  Game 3 was the most competitive of the match, but he put out Edifice again and locked down my Exemplar of Strength.  Then he played Oketra's Monument (off color but still great for the secondary effect) and started building an army, captained by Hazoret for the win.  Loss, 1-2.

For Round 4 I was the lowest player still in, and I drew a bye, so that was the end of my night.

As far as draft winnings, it was pretty sparse.  New Perspectives and Harsh Mentor are both a few dollars, although New Perspectives might just be a passing fad and Harsh Mentor has been dropping steadily.  Gideon's Intervention is interesting but not valuable.

I finished 1-2 in matches and 4-5 in games, which really isn't too bad.  I had a couple of mulligans, bad draws, and misplays, so I do think this deck could be competitive in this environment.  I also never drew Bloodlust Inciter on Turn 1 (I think I only had him once all night), and giving everything haste would have made this deck much scarier.

My most obvious misplay was in Game 3 of Match 3, when I forgot to play my Pouncing Cheetah on opponent's turn after holding up mana for it.

From the draft itself, I learned a bit about card quality in this format.  Pouncing Cheetah was ok as another removal spell in a removal-light deck, but I am going to avoid cards like Hyena Pack in the future unless I'm desperate for a 4-drop.  I would never first-pick New Perspectives again.

I'm pretty sure I was in the wrong colors and missed signals, but the average-quality red-green stuff I was receiving was enough to make me feel like I was doing ok.  I never saw any real bomb rares or high end uncommons that I could splash in.  I had shots at an Oketra's Attendant and an Aven Wind Guide that were so far off-color I didn't even consider them.

Defiant Greatmaw felt like a great creature, even though it had to sacrifice another creature to be 4/5.  Hooded Brawler is great to play on curve also.  The Scaled Behemoth just crushes games when you're even or ahead later in the game, but it feels bad in your hand when you're dying with 5 mana.  Khenra Charioteer was a nice fit with the big creatures, and the trample granted by it or Rhonas's Monument definitely helped in some of my wins.  Trueheart Twins seemed weak, but in slightly different circumstances (like if I had Bloodlust Inciter or one of my other exert creatures out) they might have been really strong.

Anyway, it was a good learning experience and I'd love to hear any thoughts about what I could have done better with this card pool.

Budget Standard - Altered Ego Ramp

So I've had this blog up for a while now.  Time to post an actual deck, right?

So here's a card I've loved ever since I first saw it.

I saw some deck lists with Altered Ego when it first arrived, but I think most people have forgotten about it.  I dug it back out to try to build something new with the new ramp from Amonkhet, particularly Weaver of Currents, who taps for two colorless mana like Hedron Archive but only costs 3 to cast.  MTGGoldfish recently had videos of a UG Ramp Control deck that did well at the SCG tournament the first week of Amonkhet Standard, and that was my inspiration for using the same ramp strategy to push out big, hard-to-kill creatures.

The deck list for Altered Ego Ramp is here, and I have included a description (I would have done it here, but it's easier when the pictures are in the same place as the text, and the pictures are conveniently already there on MTGVault).

I think how competitive this deck can be really depends on whether people are relying on countermagic control decks or decks full of 2/1s or whether they can midrange you out of the game.

I slotted in two mythics -- Aetherwind Basker (currently under $1) and Sphinx of the Final Word (now in the $2 range and possibly rising due to popularity of blue control heading into the Pro Tour).  Both are very hard to kill and match up well against the respective creatures they may face up against, and both make great Altered Ego targets.

One more thing I might want to add to a deck like this (in sideboard) is enchantment removal.  I feel like enchantment removal is highly underrated right now -- Amonkhet sneakily upped the playable enchantment count quite a bit, and being able to take off a Cast Out at instant speed can be a huge blowout.  Appetite for the Unnatural is probably the best green can do without Naturalize in Standard.

I tried Longtusk Cub instead of Skyship Plunderer for some sample draws, but I found that I usually wanted to cast my mana makers instead of it, and it's a card that is really best on Turn 2.  Plunderer gives you an effect that's good later in the game on a creature with evasion.

Non-budget cards I would urge you to play in this deck if you happen to have them: Nissa, Steward of the Elements; Vizier of the Menagerie; Walking Ballista; Rhonas the Indomitable.  However, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Kozilek, the Great Distortion are slightly higher cost than this deck is designed for.  It wants to power out 4 - 7 drops.

What do you think?  How would you do this deck differently?  Please comment!

Winchester Draft 2017-04-29

Something a little different this time.  I rarely open packs without playing some kind of game, because it's usually a waste to just open them (so often at the store I see people tear open all their prize packs and get just nothing they want out of them).  So I have a bunch of unopened packs from various sets.

My friend Mike and I did a Winchester Draft with 6 packs, half from Oath of the Gatewatch and half from Aether Revolt (mainly because I was hoping for Grasp of Darkness and Fatal Push for my constructed decks).

Follow the link to learn more about Winchester.  It's a hybrid of Winston and Rochester, and the basic idea is that it's a quick and relatively fair draft you can do with two players.  Since it's two players and 6 packs, the card quality is very bad -- imagine a Sealed pool where you semi-randomly get to keep half the cards you open to be your card pool.

Here are the decks we ended up with.  We played 4 games and made some changes as we went, but this is the final version.

Nate's Deck - 4-and-a-Half Color Artifact Synergy

The colors are so bad in this format that I always go for a control strategy.  I had an awesome mana curve with most of my creatures as 5-drops (Never do this in any other format or you will always lose!).  Both my rares were pure value cards.  Lifecrafter's Bestiary is awesome in a slow game, and after starting with a Wastes in my deck for Walker of the Wastes, I realized that having a Forest to activate the second ability of Bestiary was probably better.  Ruins of Oran-Rief was great in this deck, although the downside is that my expensive creatures all became even more expensive when I started adding the little bonuses from Bestiary and Ruins.  The 5-drop creatures were all just plain bigger than Mike's creatures.  And Efficient Construction was a legitimate way to pull ahead (although it's yet another mana to spend when you cast something).

The secret to making this mana base work is that most of my low drops are colorless, so I usually had plenty of time to find whatever colors I was missing.

Mike's Deck - Temur Revolt Surge

Mike played a much more straightforward deck full of good 2- and 3-drops and powerful removal.  Again, both of his rares were basically value cards.  Jori En, Ruin Diver did good work every time she was played (usually that same turn).  Aid from the Cowl is kind of bad, but it occasionally gives you free stuff.  The Void Grafter actually beat my spells once or twice with its ETB effect, and Shock and Brute Strength let Zada's Commando outright defeat my big creatures in combat.

In the end, we played 4 games, and we each won twice.  Playing formats with bad cards can be fun because it lets you enjoy interactions that you wouldn't even play in Sealed or Draft.  And since all of our rares were value cards rather than beatdowns, the commons were able to shine even more than normal.  The other two rares that we didn't play were Whir of Invention and Hedron Alignment, both of which are about as unplayable as it gets in any Limited format.

The value inside these packs was horrid, although I did get a Fatal Push I wanted, and this foil Hidden Herbalists is kind of pretty.

Have fun with your packs, don't just open them for nothing!

Nate