Green Devotion

 I know it's been a long time coming, but here it is. Today I'll be talking about devotion to Green, splashing Red. Here's the list I've been using and one that won the SCGO: Seattle.

9 Forest
4 Stomping Ground
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
2 Mountain
4 Voyaging Satyr
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
3 Scavenging Ooze
3 Polukranos, World Eater
3 Arbor Colossus
2 Nylea, God of the Hunt
1 Mistcutter Hydra
4 Garruk, Caller of Beasts
3 Domri Rade
2 Xenagos, the Reveler
SB: 1 Domri Rade
SB: 3 Mistcutter Hydra
SB: 1 Chandra, Pyromaster
SB: 3 Burning Earth
SB: 2 Wasteland Viper
SB: 2 Nylea's Disciple
SB: 3 Mizzium Mortars

 The deck works as a synergistic/combo strategy by having massive devotion to green and activating Nykthos to essentially cast everything in the deck. We have four outlets for the large amount of mana from Nykthos, those being Polukranos, World Eater's Monstrosity, and Mistcutter Hydra. The singleton in the mainboard is for that reason alone, being a highly efficient mana sink. Arbor Colossus is also included in the main to increase our devotion by 3, while being a massive beater.

 

 The deck has resilience to a lot of removal by running Domri Rade, and the very powerful Garruk, Caller of Beasts. Lead the Stampede every turn is quite hated and feared by control, or even removal-heavy midrange decks. Another card that gives reach post-wrath is Scavenging Ooze, eating up your own graveyard for life and value in the form of +1/+1 counters.

 Another quirk with this deck is Xenagos, the Reveler. His main role is to provide mana through his Gaea's Cradle-esque +1 ability, making massive mana, and allowing you to put out your hand in a single turn or two.  Xenagos also helps out against aggro strats by putting out 2/2 blockers, and their haste does work when trying to alpha strike an opponent. Some versions of this deck use Reverent Hunter, but it has been excluded from this list as it's a little too clunky, and doesn't do quite enough on it's own. In fact, it's an overkill card in the situations where it is useful, and when you topdeck it post-wrath, you have a rare Grey Ogre. Not really the best, and beaters and monsters are preferred more.

 The rest of the deck is quite straightforward, as is playing the deck. Voyaging Satyr untaps Nykthos, and ramps into your best creatures, all the while adding more dorks and threats to the board. It's a very aggressive midrange strategy with quick wins, and has some degenerate board positions at times.

 The sideboard is a little more interesting, and helps against a lot of matchups. Domri, Mistcutters, and Chandra help out against control, as Chandra's 0 is card advantage in red, quite useful, while Domri fills your hand while still increasing in loyalty, and Mistcutter's "cannot be countered" clause is quite strong in those matchups. Chandra also helps against RDW decks, killing their Firedrinker Satyrs. Mizzium Mortars helps out against Blood Baron of Vizkopa, who has become a veritable bane of the standard format as it stands now. Nylea's Disciple works wonders against RDW and quicker midrange decks, netting you a lot of life occasionally.

 Overall, what you have here is a big mana, resilient, card-advantage based midrange, and sideboarding gives you a lot of range against most of the other top decks in standard right now.

Well, that's it for today, and as always, have fun playing Magic!

Cheers,

Brick

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

RG Monsters

Hi guys! I'm Beusapu, and i'm gonna talk you about one of my favourite archetypes in theros draft: RG Monsters. This deck is really simple. All it tries to do is: make mana, drop monsters, make them monstrous, and attack!

So, first of all, we need a lot of mana. The best mana dork in theros draft is Voyaging Satyr. As Brick already said in his article about Greedy Green, this guy lets you play turn 4 on turn 3, and turn 5 on turn 4. And when you're dropping Ill-Tempered Cyclops into Nessian Asp, that difference is huge. Another good common mana dork is Opaline Unicorn. He's much slower than Satyr, and he gets killed by cards like Artisan's Sorrow or Wild Celebrants. We don't need to have many mana colors (though splashing is a good option), so we don't want more than two copies of him. Burnished Hart is obviously good here, too.

This cards are quite similar to Greedy Green's mana fixing. But there are two other cards that make the difference for us. Satyr Hedonist is the main one. This guy is a Dark Ritual on legs, and playing him on turn 2 will usually mean a Nessian Asp or Nemesis of Mortals is coming on turn 3. The other one is Karametra's Acolyte. While being uncommon, one or two copies of this girl will mean we'll be hitting 8 or 9 mana reliably, which allows us to monstrify all our creatures, and use cards like Boulderfall, which would be rather bad.

So, now we have a lot of mana. What do we do with it? Basically, stomp our opponents with big monsters. Two of the best monsters are common: Ill-Tempered Cyclops and Nessian Asp. Those creatures are both efficienty costed bodies, but the monstrosity just makes them a real nightmare for the opponent. Removal is kinda slow and overcosted in this set, and most of the time, our guys will chunk our opponent's life total before dying. Vulpine Goliath might not have Monstrosity, but it's a great beater, and it's amazing with bestow.

At uncommon, we get the amazing BOMB Nemesis of Mortals. A turn 3 nemesis thanks to Satyr Hedonist is a huge tempo swing, and it puts us to a very favorable position. Stoneshock Giant isn't as good as the rest of the monster team, but he's a big creature, and the monstrosity effect, while easy to play around, usually means we'll be getting a lot of damage.

Another good thing from this archetype, is that we have good removal. Rage of Purphoros and Lightning Strike are both excellent commons, and Time to Feed is awesome with all the huge creatures we have. Shredding Winds is a card you should bet for the side, to stop WX heroic decks.
But a card that's worth a second look here is Boulderfall. Thanks to all the mana ramp, we'll be hitting 8 mana easily, and having 1 or 2 copies to top our curve is excellent. At instant speed, this card clears two or three creatures, or it can finish an opponent. And it's a card that always wheels, so it's really easy to get some copies.

Drafting the Deck:

Most of our best monsters are common. That means it's not difficult to get some copies of them. But they are high valued cards, so they should be your first picks. The most important picks are Ill-Tempered Cyclops and Nessian Asp, and all the other bombs we've talked about before. Removal is also high-pickable. Don't forget that the value of the deck depends on how many good creatures we have, and ramping to nowhere isn't a good plan.
Our second priority should be ramp. Voyaging Satyr isn't as valued as the Asp, but it's a card you should try to get. It's really important to make the deck work, and you shouldn't pass them unless there's a card that's really good or really important. Satyr Hedonist is much easier to get. Unlike Voyaging, it's only good in RG-colored decks, and if you don't see then wheeling, that means there's someone else going for the same deck as you.

Playing the Deck:

This deck's gameplan is really simple, which makes it really easy to play. One of our best matchups is aggro. Some decks try to stomp you with little creatures in the early game, and they'll be finding a turn 3 or 4 Asp that will just hold the onslaught unless it's met with removal. Pheres-Band Centaurs are very good in some copies for the side.
Against slower decks, curving out is the best we can do. It's not easy to stop creatures when a big monster is coming every turn. Time to Feed shines against other creature based decks, which could be stopping us with two medium-sized creatures.
Blue is the color that gives us more problems. Cards like Wavecrash Triton, Voyage's End and Griptide make it really difficult for us, specially when we're being attacked by tempo creatures.

Until next time, play well and have fun drafting!

-Beusapu

Theros Primer #5: Red

Hi, i'm Beusapu and i'm gonna talk you about drafting the best color ever: RED.

Actually, i don't think it is the best color for Theros draft, which is tied between blue and green, but it has the bees removal and some good creatures.

The red emissary is a very good card. As a creature, he's a great target for auras.

As a bestow, he'll make one of the biggest threats in the table, and it requires too blockers every turn, which is a very high cost if the opponent doesn't want to take a bunch of damage.

The cost is a bit high (7 mana), but we're being able to give evasion to an already big creature (and with all the monstrosities, we should have some).

The ordeal is also very good. While we don't have a lot of heroic creatures, but this card offers a Lightnig Bolt stapled to a Giant Growth. It also works well with monstrosity.

But what makes red a really good choice is the removal. This set doesn't have a lot of removal, and most of it is slow and expensive. We have Lightning Strike and Magma Jet, two cheap and effective options. And we also have Rage of Purphoros, to deal with bigger creatures.

We also have really good commons. Ill-Tempered Cyclops has solid stats on its own (a 3/3 trampler for 4), but the monstrosity gives it the possibility to impact the board at any time of the game.

Portent of Betrayal is also a good common. This format is full of huge creatures such as monstrosities, and being able to steal them is much better than usual.

One of the things i like from red in this format is that red is a very splashable color. It works really well paired with blue or green, as it gives you something those colors lack: good removal.

 And finally, for those who want to go to the prerelease, our promo:

- Beusapu