Draft Run-Through!

Hi everyone!!! I'm here with a new kind of article! A report of a draft (from cockatrice), with all the pics and the most important choice explanations. Of course, the goal is to discuss about picks in the comments, tell me what you think of my choices and what you've had done. Keep in mind that i make mistakes often, and the goal is to learn to evaluate cards and signals better. Feel free to criticise me in the comments!

Ok, let's start!

Pack 1:

My choice: Rage of Purphoros.
The right choice here is Heliod's Emissary. Rage is a good removal spell, but emissary is an awesome card, both as an aggro card and as a finisher on a flying creature. My best drafting advice: when you draft, don't listen to rock music. Triad of Fates is a pretty mediocre card, it doesn't do much and it forces you to go two colors from the first pick. Anyway, i had good luck later in the draft, and Rage ended being very useful.

My choice: Cavern Lampad.

This is one of the worst packs I've seen in a lot of time. Colossus of Akros is too slow in most decks, there's no good removal, and all the creatures are vanilla or directly bad. Lampad isn't awesome, but it's good as a finisher with big creatures.

My choice: Pharika's Mender.

There were a lot of good red cards here, but Mender is a great card for any deck that can splash it, providing card advantage on a huge body. This pick could bring me to RGx Monsters, or 5 color green, but Mender is definitelly worth a try.

My choice: Time to Feed.

It was this, or Ill-Tempered Cyclops. In the last pack, i passed a lot of good red cards, and i prefered to pick the green removal and wait to see if they wheeled back (spoiler: They did!).

My choice: Artisan's Sorrow.

Sorrow is a versatile card, and you always want to have one in your side. Two-Headed Cerberus is a good card for aggro decks, but the double red cost is a bit too restrictive, and I still was unsure if i was gonna have to fight for red in the second pack.

My choice: Polis Crusher.

When i recieved this pack, i couldn't believe what i was seeing. Crusher is p1p1-worthy, and seeing him in Pick 6 is the clearest signal you can get that nobody else is playing RG.

My choice: Pheres-Band Centaurs.

It's not an awesome card, but they are solid blockers, and they are a good side card against aggro decks.

My choice: Two-Headed Cerberus.

My choice: Wild Celebrants.

The card is mediocre, but getting it now is still a good signal.

My choice: Titan's Strength.

My choice: Borderland Minotaur.

This pack was the definitive clue that Red was totally open. Three playable red commons! I picked Borderland because at that point I seemed to have a slow curve, and it's better than Skullcleaver against aggro.

   

         



Pack 2:

My choice: Vulpine Goliath

A plain and big beater, from a pack that didn't have much. Titan of Eternal Fire, while being rare, is a vanilla creature, and the trample from the fox makes it better. Blue has some good cards too, and it's something to keep an eye at.

My choice: Polis Crusher.

TWO!!! Not only one, but TWO!!! This guy is one of the greatest cards in Theros limited, it skips a lot of blockers, is a big beater, and monstrified it's just insane. Definitelly, RG is our best option.

My choice: Purphoros's Emissary.

A good evasive creature, and also an awesome finisher. There were other good options like Feral Invocation, but the Emissary is simply the best one.

My choice: Burnished Hart.

I had a dilemma here. Nemesis is a rare-worthy card, and i should have probably picked it, but i had a very high curve with expensive drops, and Hart is the best Ramp/Fixing card in the format. This is one of those picks that i'd like to discuss in the comments.

My choice: Karametra's Acolyte.

I was tempted to pick Griptide here, and either cut a very good card from an opponent's deck or have a splashable option. Acolyte lets you have 6 or 7 mana on turn 5, which isn't bad, and i'm not a fan of having random Heroic creatures that are bad on their own (and at that moment I only had one possible enabler).

My choice: Minotaur Skullcleaver.

A good early drop for our curve, which is very slow right now. When you already have a lot of high-impact 4-drops, you need cards that put pressure earlier, so you can finish quick, or ramp, to get to play the monsters before. I'm not getting passed any ramp, so I guess I'll have to go for a more midrange-ish strategy.

My choice: Opaline Unicorn.

This looks like a mistake, and it might be a mistake, but I already had a lot of 4-drops, and I wasn't sure if i would want to splash Black. 

 My choice: Pheres-Band Centaurs.

My choice: Titan of Eternal Fire. 

Red is totally open, from both sides.

My choice: Arena Athlete.

 My choice: Boulderfall.

 My choice: Breaching Hippocamp.

Pack 3:

My choice: Reaper of the Wilds.

A great rare, it's a 4/5 on turn 4 (or 3), that's resilient to removal, trades with giant bombs, and gives card advantage. This and Mender are definitelly worth a splash for black in any deck.

My choice: Rage of Purphoros.

Decent removal, out of a mediocre pack on our colors. There weren't many other options, and I didn't want to go heavily on the black splash, or splash another color (blue).

My choice: Deathbellow Raider.

There were different choices in this pack. I still needed early drops, and Minotaur puts a lot of early pressure. Spearpoint is a decent choice too, and I didn't want another 4-drop. Getting passed two Thassa's Emissarys is a signal too, and it's a perfectly splahable card, but the deck needs more cheap creatures.

My choice: Voyaging Satyr.

Satyr is an awesome creature. It filters mana, and it jumps from turn 2 to turn 4. It's specially good when our 3 best cards cost 4, and they have higher impact on the early game.

My choice: Satyr Hedonist.

There were many options here. Leafcrown Dryad is a very solid creature, and the Scorpion is great in the early game, but Hedonist offers a lot of ramp, which is really necessary when looking at the deck's curve, and I wanted to have at least one copy of it. I'm still not sure of this one.

My choice: Nemesis of Mortals.

Another awesome card getting passed late. Playing this turn 3 thanks to Satyr Hedonist is one of the strongest plays in the format. This is a rare-quality bomb.

My choice: Read the Bones.

The best option in the pack in my opinion, having random heroes without enablers is usually bad, and I prefer the utility and card advantage from Read the Bones than Mogis's Marauder, which would just be a bear with the possibility to give fear to one creature.

My choice: Ill-Tempered Cyclops.

Oh my god. The whole pack was playable! And there were 4 good cards! Cyclops is the most solid of them, but Fanatic of Mogis is a very nice surprise finisher. I don't think we have enough Minotaurs to make Warcaller good.

My choice: Satyr Hedonist.

My choice: Spark Jolt.

My choice: Borderland Minotaur.

My choice: Spearpoint Ordead.

My choice: Titan's Strength.

THE DECK:

And the side:

For the final deck, I decided to keep the black splash only for Mender and Reaper. I had a bunch of playable cards that were left in the side. The think I like from the deck is that the curve got very midrange-ish, and during the tournament it was easy to open with some cheap guys, and finish putting a lot of pressure during turns 4-6 (well, i like that and the 3 awesome rares). I think this draft was an obvious example where you can see perfectly which colors are open, and get those cards. The first pick was probably a mistake, and I'd like to hear your oppinions about the article and my choices.

I hope you enjoyed it!
Have fun drafting!

-Beusapu

My Draft Deck: Hard Naya

Hi all, today I'll be discussing a draft I did today, and the deck won two rounds, and would probably have lost to Beu's supernatural UB deck in the final round if I didn't have to go somewhere.

1 Voyaging Satyr
2 Lightning Strike
2 Ill-Tempered Cyclops
1 Divine Verdict
1 Vulpine Goliath
1 Heliod's Emissary
1 Traveler's Amulet
3 Borderland Minotaur
2 Setessan Griffin
1 Centaur Battlemaster
1 Sylvan Caryatid
1 Leafcrown Dryad
1 Burnished Hart
1 Purphoros's Emissary
1 Stoneshock Giant
1 Last Breath
2 Rage of Purphoros
1 Magma Jet
6 Forest
6 Mountain
5 Plains
SB: 1 Guardians of Meletis
SB: 3 Pheres-Band Centaurs
SB: 1 Artisan's Sorrow
SB: 1 Ray of Dissolution
SB: 1 Portent of Betrayal
SB: 1 Chronicler of Heroes
SB: 1 Karametra's Acolyte
SB: 1 Last Breath
SB: 1 Hopeful Eidolon
SB: 1 Spearpoint Oread

This deck is pretty heavy in all the colors, but it gets around it's mana-hunger with Sylvan Caryatid, Voyaging Satyr, and Burnished Hart. If anything, I wish I had more fixing, or that I adjusted the mana base a little better. It's slightly heavier in Red than it's other two colors, by a little bit. The deck is VERY removal which I'm particularly happy about. Removal is hard to come by, and apparently was very populous this draft. I ended up cutting a Last Breath as even though it's very potent in this draft format, I don't want a dead card in my hand late in the game. It's still there in my side however, so against quick decks I can always bring it in. Karametra's Acolyte, while making a lot of mana given another green permanent, really doesn't cut it in terms of ramp. At the very worst scenario, it provides a single green mana, too late, honestly. Voyaging Satyr was my P1P1, because it really is the best ramp card in Theros, even better than Burnished Hart, in green. Burnished Hart does provide another function other than ramp, which Voyaging Satyr doesn't do, which is fixing. Apart from that, the deck is a lot of general goodstuff and good beats. Fairly easy to play, but different from other decks in that it really has a lot of sideboard options.

 It could be argued that Ray of Dissolution could be mainboarded easily in Theros, but I felt that I really had too few creatures and needed to supplement the creature base. Ray and Artisan's Sorrow got cut despite my adherence to playing at least one enchantment hate card in the mainboard, simply because I wanted to bring in the beats rather than disrupt their strategies. In hindsight, mainboarding Ray could have been a strategy, because the deck was stopped outright by Baleful Eidolon, and the lifegain would have definitely helped.

Sideboarding, I brought in Guardians of Meletis, 1 copy of Pheres-Band Centaurs and all the enchantment hate I could find against UW Heroic, and left in all the removal. Then I played against BW, where I again boarded in enchantment hate, (probably should have mained it anyway). Against BW I also brought in my other copy of Last Breath because of the very very annoying Phalanx Leader it had which really did a lot of work in game 1. The games generally lasted long with this deck, but were really very fun.

I always welcome feedback, and you can always drop comments or find me on Cockatrice. As always, have fun drafting!

Cheers,
Brick

UB Shipwreck

Hi guys! After a day of inactivity (because there was the Pro Tour), we're back with another article by our most active guest! Remember that you can send your articles or decklists to us!

PhEnOm here once again, with another sample drafted list. This Archetype like Brick and Beu said, another "Fringe" deck. The "Shipwreck" deck. For those who miss the reference this is about blue/black. The reference is to Shipwreck Singer:

The deck I find is very mana intensive, but it can be hard for an opponent to deal with. This color combo makes use of a very powerful common. Returned Phalanx stops allot of the early game aggro that most decks count on. And late game gets up and dishes out some damage of its own. Here is the deck list that I had for this archtype recently.

Played cards:

Creatures:

2 Returned Phalanx

1 Omenspeaker
2 Blood-Toll Harpy

1 Mogis's Marauder

2 Tormented Hero

2 Shipwreck Singer
1 Keepsake Gorgon
1 Shipbreaker Kraken
1 Wavecrash triton

2 Disciple of Phenax

Other Spells:
1 Fate Foretold

2 Triton Tactics

2 Griptide

1 Ordeal of Thassa

1 Sip of Hemlock

1 Lash of the Whip

Lands:

1 Temple of Deceit

8 Swamp

8 Island

Notable cards that did not make deck:

1 Stymied Hopes

2 Viper's Kiss

1 Scourgemark

1 Annul

1 Triton Fortune Hunter (last card to be cut)

The main issue here is that Returned Phalanx and Shipwreck Singer require mana on a turn basis to be effective. The idea is to use siren to force unfavorable attacks that you opponents cannot enjoy. Not only does it force certain guys to swing, but it can weaken them as well. Making them easy prey for your blockers. There is also a nice combo in this deck that I found while playing. Tormented Hero and Triton Tactics are very nice together. You get the heroic from Tormented Hero and you get to block with a now 2/4, who frostbreaths a creature for a turn. This was my first experience with the siren, and I do like her ability. 

The weaknesses this deck has are the "Big guy" tactics of green decks. Nessian Asp, for example, wrecks this deck. The other creatures that those decks can produce, they just outrank our guys very quickly. Most of the creatures in blue/black are small and they need combat advantages to win.

Drafting this deck is sometimes hard as Shipwreck Singers are seen as already good and at uncommon they go fast. You need very good blue cards that people are already taking, like Voyage's End, Griptide, Sea God's Revenge. Triton Tactics is better here than in most decks because you can force certain creatures to be tapped for a combat phase. 

Black offers you one early removal card, one midrange, and one late removal card. Pharika's Cure kills most small dudes but is sometimes hard to cast. Lash of the Whip can hit some of those troublesome "Dinosaurs". Also very powerful when used in conjunction with shipwreck siren. Sip of Hemlock kills anything (the only card at common range to do this) and they lose 2 life. Sadly black's ideal role in this set is the Devotion deck. I feel that you really have to lean on blue, which in my book is the best draft color in Theros (agruements can be made for White and Red also). 

May all your opponents be mana-screwed when you need to win big. 

PhEnOm out.