Sample drafted deck: UG tempo

Hi! For today, we've brought an article about a deck, made by a guest writer. If you want to send us your articles or decklists, feel free to contact us and ask to be a guest writer!

PhEnOm here. I had the pleasure this week of drafting a very different deck that what i'm used to: UG.
The deck did a lot of tricks and had tempo card, and it usually had great board position. I've included the relevant cards in the side, too.

Creatures:

1 Boon Satyr

1 Arbor Colossus

1 Prognostic Sphinx

1 Mistcutter Hydra

1 Nessian Asp

2 Nessian Courser

1 Staunch-Hearted Warrior

1 Horizon Scholar

1 Nylea's Emissary

1 Leafcrown Dryad

1 Omenspeaker

1 Horizon Chimera

1 Triton Fortune Hunter

Spells:

2 Savage Surge

1 Ordeal of Nylea

1 Feral Invocation

1 Triton Tactics

2 Voyage's End

1 Stymied Hopes

1 Aqueous Form

Lands: 

9 Forest

8 Island

Side:

2 Breaching Hippocamp

1 Nessian Courser

1 Horizon Scholar

2 Shredding Winds

There are 4 bomb rares in the deck, 3 of which I opened. Mistcutter Hydra was passed to me pick 3 of pack 3. The guy to my right was black red. I had fed him a Magma and Strike in pack 2. So I knew he was there. Afterwards, he told me he took a red ordeal over the hydra.

Another interesting thing is that there is a Stymied Hopes in the maindeck. While building I noticed an alarming number of attacking surprise cards. Instant speed dudes, and the fact that I had instant hidden blockers all over the place.

After the draft, I found out that I was the lone green drafter in the 8 man pod. I took green and gave no one near me any reason to even think of pursing green (card shipped pick 2 was shredding vines, it tabled). Also i noticed that the blue I was shipping to my left was not very impressive. So, when I saw a 5th pick Horizon Scholar, I started to move in, then a Voyage's End made me definitelly go into blue.

About playing the deck, Savage Surge was an all star. It was a green doom blade in every way. I drop guy on 2 or 3, swing and pass turn. They swing and... Whoops! Instant blocker! The same went for Triton Tactics. The card is very powerful. Also note the high amount of early scry the deck has. I literaly was just saying cheat instead of scry each time, since I scryed a ton. I was literaly stacking my deck most games.There were no bad cards in this deck, and I would like to point out what it showed me.

Triton Fortune Hunter helped me a lot. While not pumping or helping the board state, drawing for every trick is awesome. For Stymied Hopes, this is the 3rd time I have played this card now. It is not as horrible as I had thought. It literay kills a curve and allows me to scry into my turn. That seems like so little but just an idea on what it did for me, it saved my guys from divine verdicts, it stoped a t5 elspeth, and it countered a very scary Rescue from the Underworld that would have killed me. Nessian Courser is simple but good. He stops early attackers, doesn't die to Magma Jet or Pharika's Cure, and helps a lot to the boardstate. 

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

(edited by Beusapu)

UG Tempo

UG Tempo plays similarly to the deck I spoke of as the Time Ebb archetype in M14. However, there are a few crucial differences. Theros usually is slower, but it is possible to get in quick with a blisteringly fast aggro deck centering on Heroic. UG Tempo in Theros definitely tries to grind things out, and win with good tempo swings, usually on the ground, as the fliers are lacking the punch they had in M14, and Theros is pretty Voltron-esque. A card you want to see a lot of in this decktype is Voyage's End. This card makes combat against aggro strategies a lot more favorable, and pushes you up into the mid to late game, where you really want to be.

Voyage's End also has a scry 1 tacked on, which makes it a lot better, giving you perhaps one of the most powerful deck-manipulation mechanic ever created. Of course Scry 1 is pretty weak, but it does a lot when you want to topdeck what you want to topdeck.

Next, the creatures. The creatures you want in this deck need to do work all on their lonesome. They should not need any external support that lends itself to an all-in nature of the deck. Of course I'm talking about Heroic here, and you can pretty much avoid those cards if you can, however it still hinges on how many targeting spells you do run in the main. Centaur Battlemaster could be the exception to that rule, since even one activation makes it quite the finisher, as well as the high number of bestow creatures in this format. The common you really want to chase in this decktype is Agent of Horizons, the Simic-colored creature from the off-color cycle. As discussed earlier, it's a 3 power creature for 3, and it's a pretty efficient swing, especially if it can't be blocked until end of turn. It's also a brilliant mana sink, and every swing of this card is profitable.

Another useful card in this deck is Griptide, if a little slow in the format. Four mana is a little bit high, but you can definitely make a couple copies work. Not only does it remove a creature from combat, which is immensely good in Theros, it also "steals" a draw from your opponent, and they have to tap out once more. Especially good when an opponent has all his proverbial eggs in one basket, you can unattach all his bestow creatures, and remove all auras from the creature. A decent trade for a temporary removal spell I think.

Another very important card in this deck, an uncommon usually passed up as it is in two very specific colors, is Horizon Chimera, a massive, massive play. Spoken about earlier, the card is just massive tempo, and flying is quite desired in Theros draft. The problem with this card, however, is that even though it is swing-positive, it isn't very defensive, and it's flash isn't extremely relevant as there are no good counterspells in Theros, as opposed to Essence Scatter, Negate, and Cancel in M14. What Theros gets is Dissolve, at uncommon, and Stymied Hopes, which is not very good at all. Chances are you will run a deck with no counterspells at all. In all, there is worryingly less creature control in Theros, which UG tempo is based around. Tempo wants to get in early, and keep getting in while winning by board attrition. This is quite possible with the next few cards.

In Theros UG tempo, you want to achieve a critical mass of lethal on the board, playing your Nessian Asps as finishers and cards like Nessian Courser, to fill in the gaps to bring about this critical mass. Cards you want to look for include Leafcrown Dryad, a brilliant bestow card, and Vaporkin, quite effective in this archetype. In fact, Vaporkin is highly desired here, a 2 power flyer for 2 somehow very underrated in Theros draft. I've seen them wheel quite often, but I wouldn't bank on that occurring. Near late pack, Vaporkin is a blessing for this deck. It's semi-drawback doesn't even really matter here because if you're playing Vaporkin, you aren't really trying to block.

Nimbus Naiad is also another card which is cheap and efficient, and does a lot more work into the late game, and it's bestow can clearly close out games if on a Nessian Asp or another such green finisher. The only pumps that are actually good in this decktype are Feral Invocation, Ordeal of Thassa, and Ordeal of Nylea. Ordeal of Thassa is generally highly desired here, as it's immensely tempo-positive. Needless to say, it leaves a permanent Giant Growth behind and draws you cards. Feral Invocation however, it a lot more than just a pump. It is also a combat trick you can use to your advantage, and it doesn't fall off once you beat your opponent in combat. It's also a tempo card you can use, and bluff to your advantage.

Another card I wanted to talk about in this decktype, is Mnemonic Wall. Now playing this card comes down to your number of instants and sorceries. Honestly, this deck wouldn't really play a high number of instants and sorceries apart from Voyage's End and Griptide. A good number of those could justify playing a couple of walls, as they really do stonewall some attacks, while providing card advantage. This deck could go up to a couple of Mnemonic Wall for some advantage.

Another good filler card is Prescient Chimera, Flying being a brilliant mechanic to have on your side of the board, and it turns your instants and sorceries into a little dig as well, helping you find those game-ending or tempo cards. Three power for five cards are usually desired in drafts, as we saw with Messenger Drake in M14, and add to that it has an extra toughness, which means it can hang back safely to block as well. Definitely worth a spot in a UG Tempo deck.

Drafting the Deck

Initially, picking game-ending green cards is a good strategy, and picking up decent tempo blue cards should indicate you're in this deck. When you see an early Centaur Battlemaster, it's not a bad idea to turn to GW Heroic, but if you end up establishing blue as your secondary color, you want to pick up a decent number of Agent of Horizons and one or two Horizon Chimera, those cards generally left untouched in the mid pack due to their mana requirements. Usually, green creatures end up being generally better than other creatures, so it's never hard to know what to pick early in the pack. The deck aims to have a critical mass of evasive creatures to end you the game, so be sure to prioritize flying, over tricks, and pick the tempo cards in the mid pack. This deck also leans a little more on blue, Vaporkins and the like are desirable as well. Since this is a goodstuff deck, you can definitely bully your way into it, quite easily in fact, as some of the cheaper commons are hardly desired by other decks. Time to Feed is also great Heroic trigger, as well as life, and board advantage. Definitely a good pick mid to late pack. As always, splash Pharika's Mender, for immense card advantage and pure, unadulterated awesome. Splashing Red for Ill-Tempered Cyclops and Lightning Strikes also help out rather well, and a decent GUr or an GRu deck can be built easily. Lightning Strikes and Rage of Purphoros also make Mnemonic Wall that much more playable, so it is worth a thought.

Playing the Deck

Playing the deck is easier still than drafting it. Your tempo cards like Voyage's End and Griptide are used usually to punish the enchantments put on a creature, and to reset it to it's original state, especially against Heroic strategies. Running a decent number of these cards usually lets you get into the late game against such decks. The main idea is to drop Vaporkins or Nessian Coursers or Agent of Horizons to give you a board state that is nigh unmatchable, bolstered by your later cards like Nessian Asp and Prescient Chimera. Build a sweet board presence, make combat unfavorable, and potentially win.

That's all folks, and as always, have fun drafting!

Cheers,

Brick

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

Greedy Green

In Theros drafting, it's always hard to stick with two colors, and splashing a third happens often. This archetype however, tries to play ALL THE CARDS. (which is why it's so close to my heart)

Green is perhaps one of the strongest bases to build a many-colored deck on. It holds key cards which help you splash effectively, those being Nylea's Presence, and Voyaging Satyr. They are very key cards in playing Greedy Green as Nylea's fixes your mana in a brilliant maner, a la Prismatic Omen, while cantripping for you, and Voyaging Satyr helps when you want to hit those double mana costed symbols.

Satyr is especially important in that it is a 2-drop, rather than the seemingly far more effective Opaline Unicorn at 3. The reason is that Satyr lets you get to 4 mana on turn three, while the Opaline Unicorn lets you hit 5 mana turn 4. This seems to be very minimal, but it works on a far larger scale than just being a turn too slow. In Theros draft, from my experience, Satyr seems so much quicker out of the gate, while Unicorn is clunky, while also being susceptible to the many naturalize effects in Theros. These cards, Nylea's Presence and Voyaging Satyr, Traveler's Amulet and Opaline Unicorn, form the base of your mana fixing. Another rather nice synergy is when Satyr untaps a land enchanted by Nylea's Presence, giving you two mana of any color.

A powerhouse of your deck, and mana fixing of the highest quality, is the uncommon Burnished Hart. Hart holds a special place in my (pun SO intended) in my heart, as it fetches lands, and not just one, but TWO! It alleviates all the mana hunger of Greedy Green in one go, and that makes it far too good to pass up.

 It's Dawntreader Elk on drugs. Seriously, get this card.

Now, I do realize that this, Traveler's Amulet, and Opaline Unicorn are all easy way to splash colors without really affixing you to a certain color, but green is the only color to offer you lategame beats in Nessian Asp at common and the ever-amazing, should-be-a-rare Nemesis of Mortals.

This deck does love running towards the late-game, having as many colors as possible on the field. So it needs to have semi-decent removal or at the very least, tempo. Removal is far from great in this set, but Lash of the Whip is quite good and Rage of Purphoros does work as well. I don't recommend Sip of Hemlock because, even though it's a good card, you likely won't easily have access to double black. This deck can bestow and make monstrous creatures with ease, with it's massive number of card slots devoted to ramping.

Drafting the deck

Drafting this deck is actually far easier than it seems at first glance. It simply involves picking the best cards out of each pack passed. Initially however, you might want to stick to green and pick accordingly. Pack 1 usually entails picking strong, game-ending green cards, and possibly red or blue cards depending on their quality. In all honesty, apart from green, the rest of the deck is up in the air. It could be solidly any color at all aside from the base of green. Your card evaluation needs to be of quality, rather than the color of the cards. That makes it far simpler, as green cards (usually) outclass most of the other creatures in Theros. It's important to include as few of the Heroic cards as possible, because in a goodstuff deck, you're not looking for a specific mechanic to do work for you. Centaur Battlemaster is an obvious exception to that rule, but that's only because even a single trigger will make him a game-ender, which is pretty amazing. Look for ramp only when you've run out of cards, or are seeming to be in more than two colors. Burnished Hart can be picked up P2P1 onwards, and other cards will probably fall into your lap, as they aren't highly desired. All inclusive, apart from Traveler's Amulet, you should end up with a decent suite of ramp.

Playing the deck

Playing the deck is even easier than drafting it. Simply spend the first few turns fixing, and midgame in tempo/removal, get to a solid 6 mana or more, and start closing out the game. Now, it's important that this deck gets outclassed by the quicker heroic decks, so I suggest that you get at least a couple of Guardians of Meletis in your sideboard, rather than Yoked Ox. Even though Yoked Ox is amazing, it's probably going to be in a minor color, while Guardians offers a near impenetrable wall of toughness. Another amazing, yet slow card is Pheres-Band Centaurs to play in the sideboard. It's SEVEN toughness makes it rather brilliant, and it lies in your main color. I still think of Guardians of Meletis to be your best bet against the aggro matchup, to hold the fort until you get your removal mana up. It should be fairly easy from there on out.

Until next time, take care and have fun drafting!

Cheers,

Brick

Sample drafted deck: GW Heroic

Hi guys! For my first article as official writer for the blog, i'm gonna talk about a deck i drafted, so we can discuss it later in the comments. This article is gonna be the first of a series of articles with sample lists of the archetypes we've discussed before. This following days, we'll be talking about 4/5 color Green, UG heroic-tempo, and RG monstrosity, and we'll post decklists for them too.

Alright, so here's the list (the side only includes cards you might side in, off-color or bulk was a waste of space):

Heros:
1 Anthousa, Setessan Hero
3 Wingsteed Rider

1 Staunch-Hearted Warrior

Auras/tricks:

1 Chosen by Heliod

1 Leafcrown Dryad

1 Gods Willing

1 Boon Satyr

2 Observant Alseid

Removal:
1 Divine Verdict
1 Last Breath

Ramp/mana fix:
1 Opaline Unicorn

1 Nylea's Presence

1 Voyaging Satyr

Other creatures:
2 Nessian Asp

1 Nessian Courser

1 Lagonna-Band Elder
1 Setessan Griffin
1 Evangel of Heliod
1 Mistcutter Hydra

Lands:
8 Forest
9 Plains

Side:
1 Setessan Battle Priest
1 Ephara's Warden
1 Setessan Griffin
1 Shredding Winds
1 Yoked Ox

Well, this deck has two things to mention: On one side, we have 3 Wingsteed Riders. They are the best creature you can get in this deck, and they work very well. But we only have 5 heroic creatures. What makes the deck good is the support: 2 Nessian Asp, Mistcutter Hydra, and other common beaters like Nessian Courser.

This deck is more of an hybrid between heroic and plain aggro. There are three "bomb" cards, very efficient commons, and the Riders work amazingly. Also, there's good ramp/fixing, which ensures to get those turn 3 riders, and monstrosity on the asps.

The deck lacks a bit of removal. There's one Divine Verdict, which is good, and Last Breath, which is decent (though some people seem to hate it to death).

The idea now, is to talk about the deck in the comments, say what you like/dislike, or give us your own lists. I hope this helped you somehow.

Have fun drafting!

w00t.

Since we finally figured how blogs work (was about time, methinks), I've successfully used my now less than actual poop skills at using a blog to make Beu a co-author of this thingy with me! E-cupcakes and juice boxes for all!

UW Heroic

Hey readers, PhEnOm here. I'm going to discuss my favorite archetype of theros drafting. Heroic. In my opinion, only 3 colors have good heroic cards to make a whole archetype about heroic, and that's red/white/green. Black has some good heros, but it has no good targeting spells. Red has good tricks but not good heros. Green has the centaurs and the mini centaurs. But i am going to focus on my favorite Heroic deck: u/w. 

The heroic guys here are amazing and blue has some great targeting spells to help white. The only problem is that we don't have many other creatures, but we have better removal than in green. Lets look at some of these spells:

HEROIC ENABLERS:

Aqueous form is very good. Heros grow big easily, and scrying 1 every turn is very useful.

Fate Fortold is a 2 mana cantrip and you get your heroic trigger. And if they eventually kill your guy you get another cantrip. I can see running 1-2 of these. Chosen by Heliod is good because it draws, and it makes heros tougher.

Nimbus naiad costs 5, which is the best spot in the heoric deck especially white/blue you have this and the white one, i like this for my hoplites. Observant Alesid is very effective on the defense, and it makes both a good attacker and blocker.

Dauntless Onslaught is OP, it can be 2 giant growths in one package so thats 3 mana for +6 power. God's willing works well here also since they are going to try their darndest to kill these huge creatures you are pumping.

There are also some fillers like Hopeful Eidolon, and the Ordeals.

HEROS:

WINGSTEED RIDER: (all caps to show importance). This is our House. 2/2 flyer for 3 mana and it grows each time we buff it. This is our trump card. 2-4 are perfectly fine, you get more run them, up to 6 (Editor's note: if someone gets 6 of those, please tell us!). He will bring home the freshly cooked bacon.

Battlewise Hoplite: not as good as the rider cause he is on the ground but his scry ability is very good also. He's uncommon, so don't expect to get a lot of them.

Favored Hoplite: not as good on offense but he is very nice on the D. since his ability makes him live forever. Phalanx Leader is only good when you have more creatures, but heroic decks are usually low on them.

Wavecrash Triton: This guy is very good, his ability is HUGE tempo. He clears blockers, nullifies threats and stops bombs.

SUPPORT TO THE DECK:

There are more but those are the heavy hitters from blue. Another reason why i like pairing with blue here is the removal blue has perfectly placed: Voyage's End, Griptide, and Sea God's Revenge. They are all playable in this deck. White has Divine Verdict and Last Breath.

Mnemonic Wall is good if you have instant enablers.

DRAFTING AND PLAYING:

A lot of your heroic enabler spells will be late picks as most of them get overlooked unless other people want heroics. Our guys are harder to find at times but since our House is a common we should have no trouble getting at least 2 of him. When playing this deck 17 land is perfectly fine at times since our early game is very important. Try to not keep any hands with less then 3 mana in it and no less then 2 plains. this deck wants to be on the play. The ideal hand is 3 lands 2 heroic dudes and 2 targeting spells.

I hope my words have helped you in some way. May all your opponents be mana screwed when you need to win big. PhEnOm out.

-PhEnOm (Fixed by Beusapu)