Greetings, lovers of all things Limited! It’s time again for me to share a couple of my MTGO adventures; both sad and mildly interesting! How’s that for selling my article? I bet you guys can’t wait to get reading! Today I’m going to show you 2 drafts I did, first one was a 4/3/2/2 and the next was an 8/4. The 8/4 is particularly interesting/amusing/frustrating. But let’s get the sad one out of the way first. Here’s the draft and check out my comments in the viewer and let me know what how you think the draft went in the comments.
And here’s the final build:
Red/Blue ROE!
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I really liked this deck…sadly; me liking my deck and my ability to draw lands are not at all connected. I am on the draw and felt that a hand of 2xMountain, Kiln Fiend, Goblin Tunneler, Enclave Cryptologist, Akoum Boulderfoot, and Crusher was an okay if a bit shaky hand to keep. I felt because I was on the draw, I was okay. I was not. Here’s what Turn 6 looked like.
For those of you playing along at home, yes, that is 5 of my 6 blue spells you see in my hand by Turn 6. Boss man Marin says there’s no such thing as luck, good or bad… Hmm.
Game 2 I keep Mountain, 2xIsland, Tunneler, Hatcher, Flame Slash, Sphinx of Magosi. I choose to play first this game probably because I’m on tilt, but this hand is fine. Like a champ, I draw Cryptologist on Turn 3 and level her. Turn 4 I level her twice and this is what the board looks like on Turn 8:
Magic is so much easier when you draw both your Flame Slashes and get to draw 2 cards a turn. I love this deck.
Game 3 I’m on the draw again and see 2xMountain, Cryptologist, Skywatcher Adept, Hatcher, Splinter Twin, Crusher. I keep because I’m on the draw, but that was definitely a mistake because I have no plays… at all. I’ve yelled at friends for making similar keeps, but I don’t do as I say. I think the possibility of Twin/Hatcher got me a little excited. {Facepalm} However, I did draw an Island and was able to play my Blue spells; the unfortunate part is that I was stuck on 4 lands for a couple of turns and my opponent was not terrible at Magic. There was a key turn where he had a Lavafume Invoker and Dawnglare Invoker. I had up 2 Islands and a Mountain and only a Cryptologist in play. He swung with both and I Staggershock the Dawnglare. He then enchants the Lavafume with Mammoth Umbra. I don’t draw my 5th land and can’t play anything. He swings and as I’m at 11, I chump with my Looter, and loot into a Flame Slash. He then plays a Rapacious One. On my turn I draw a 5th land, but feel like I need to kill the 5/4 or the game will get out of hand. I take 8 from the Lavafume (after he pumps himself) and now I’m at 3. Here’s where it gets really interesting. I draw Regress and I look and see my opponent has 1 card in hand and only has the Mammoth Lavafume in play. I could pass the turn and Regress his critter; pretty safe play, but I and every single person I asked, including Boss man Marin, agreed with my play of running out the Hatcher. I pass and my opponent draws and Flame Slashes my Hatcher and then Wraps my little 0/1′s in Flames… Wow. Nice. Top. Deck. Let’s move on to happier memories.
DRAFT TWO
The 2nd draft is both interesting and frustrating, let’s find out why and don’t forget to check out my comments and find out when I should have jumped ship!
WB Toolbox
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W/B control! If ever there was a deck that played for the long game, it’s this one. 2xGuard Duty, Vendetta, Corpsehatch and 2xSmite is a strong if unorthodox removal package that I think will do a good job to let me set up my win conditions of Trans Master, Crusher, Kozy! or random dude+Mammoth Umbra. The 2xAntelopes really turn this deck into a sort of toolbox and I love a deck that has reach.
Game 1 I keep Plains, Swamp, Antelope, Crusher, Wall of Omens, Cadaver Imp, Mammoth Umbra. Not the strongest opening 7, but fine because of the Wall of Omens. My opponent keeps his 7 as well. Turn 1 I play a Plains and he plays a Mountain. Turn 2 I draw Guard Duty and play a Swamp with my Wall drawing a Plains. My opponent plays another Mountain. Turn 3 I draw Repel the Darkness and put another Plains on to the battlefield. My opponent misses a land drop and has to discard… a Swamp?! Finally, someone else gets burned because they’re not paying attention to the game! Turn 4 I draw my Outrider and play him. My opponent does not play a land, ouch, and Forked Bolt‘s my Outrider. Turn 5 I draw a Plains, play it and pass the turn. My opponent draws and plays a Swamp and then puts a Lavafume Invoker on the battlefield. I draw my Transcendent Master (yea!), play and level him up one time and cross my fingers. I don’t hold out a lot of hope that he’ll live very long against a R/B deck. So far so good, as my opponent only plays a Bloodthrone Vampire. Turn 7 I draw my 2nd Swamp and Mammoth up my Master. Really the game pretty much ended right there, but my opponent didn’t think so. We went on for several turns but the Master with a suit of Iron Man armor is pretty hard to beat.
MODO ate the replay of game 2, but I remember that it ended with a fully leveled Master and my buddy Kozilek in play. The deck played out exactly the way I had hoped. It’s time for Round 2.
I have to throw back my opening 7 of 3xPlains, 3xSwamp, Smite for 3xPlains, Swamp, Antelope, and Dawnglare Invoker. Turn 1 we both play Plains. Turn 2 I draw Vendetta and play my Swamp while my opponent plays an Island and a Knight of Cliffhaven. I kill it at end of turn because I want to play my Dawnglare on my 3rd turn. I draw a Dread Drone and play my Invoker. For his turn, my opponent plays another Knight. I draw Dread Drone #2 and swing with my flyer. My opponent plays an Evolving Wilds and gets an Island with it and then plays Ogres Cleaver and hits me for 2. Opp (18) me (16). Turn 6 I draw a Swamp and play my Antelope. I think for a moment that the obvious choice is the Mammoth Umbra, but I realize that Guard Duty is the right call for my current position. I like this decision even more after my opponent plays a Halimar Wavewatch and an Outrider on his turn. Turn 6 I draw and play a Swamp and Dread Drone after swinging for 2 with my Invoker. Finally, I enchant his Knight with Guard Duty. On his turn, my opponent plays a Venerated Teacher and passes. Turn 7 I draw Repel the Darkness and pass the turn. However, my opponent draws and drops his bomb Deathless Angel. I take the opportunity and tap his 2 flyers with Repel and draw my bomb Transcendent Master. My decision to cast Repel looks brilliant as it got me that much closer to drawing Corpsehatch and casting it to kill the Angel. My opponent scoops in disgust.
Games 2 and 3 were also eaten by the MODO monster, but I remember that Game 2 went very long even though my opponent got out Time of Heroes and several levelers, including Brimstone Mage. I tried my best with a Umbra’d Dawnglare, but I was one turn too slow because I needed my 8th land to tap down his army of Crusher, Skywatcher Adept, and Hatcher. Pretty odd leveler deck… Game 3 was much more mundane as I recall going to 6 cards and keeping a 2 land hand and just not getting there. That was the Achilles Heel of my deck. I had a bunch of 5+ drops and if you draw poorly, it’s much harder to right the ship.
That’s it for this edition of King of the Scrubs and I hope you enjoyed my draft walkthroughs. That 2nd one was pretty wild and I’m sure that if I had gone Green early, I would have ended up with a stronger deck. Maybe not as interesting, but stronger.
Till next month, good luck and have fun!
Old
Man
Alex
Dawnglare is a beast once you get mana going. Great article
I dont get the article title!!!
The deck for draft one is quite color intensive, so a 10/7 split on the lands is not good at all imo. you have 2 blue cards that like to get played on turn 1, 1 blue card that requires 2 blue, and then 1 blue card that requires 3!! blue, while your red cards aren’t as heavy on the color commitment. you don’t have any card draw other than 2 creatures (sphinx and cryptologist) so I think it’s unfeasible to be playing 17 lands, but anyway you saw what happened.
The GWb deck might have turned out a lot better than the black one you had. Most of your removal was in white except for a vendetta and corpsehatch.
well anyway, it was an interesting read and at least you opened some money!
Agreed Aznsilly, I should have gone 18 lands. I feel 8 Islands would have been fine, 7 was a pretty greedy.
The name of the article is a play on 2 for the price of 1. Get it? Free content. It’s not comedy gold but I thought it was clever…
Thanks for the replys guys, my main goal for this series is that the reader is entertained because it’s very likely you won’t learn anything.
The second draft seemed fine to me. Why not play the Evolving Wilds though? Even with two colours it’s possible to get colorscrewed.
And not going green seems ok to me, you often had pretty fine other choices, you never really took nothing over the green card. Of course, in hindsight it would have been better to go green, but it’s pretty hard to get away from those first picks when there’s fine on-color picks.
Too bad you keep getting terrible hands with fine decks =/
C’mon Alex, you know better! I agree with the masses, 17 land in that first deck with no fixing, card draw til late was extremely greedy. 8th Island over pos Tunneler, no questions asked. That deck was a loser from the start. The curve was way too high and you did it no favors with the greedy mana base.
As for the second draft, that was better but you were right about green. Tough switch to make once you committed yourself to black b/c of the third pick Corpsehatch. I never do that with black b/c it seems too shallow in good cards so I’m always looking to go X/G to splash the black. I think you’ve seen me splash Consume the Meek before. But that’s not really your fault. Tough draft to work with once you pass the green once or twice.
Nice drafts. The only thing that really concerned me after a brief look was the mana base. Seven Islands is indeed a bit greedy considering that you have spells like Sphinx of the Magosi and Deprive in your deck. The eight Island would have been a good choice for sure.
Haha, lots of helpful comments about mana base constuction in these comments.
Basically don’t be greedy =)
Yup, I totally whiffed on the 7 islands.
That second draft was pretty solid. I definitely see a few places it could have gone differently, putting you in either G/W, G/W/b or G/W/r, or even W/B/r, but as is so often the case, you draw poorly with good decks and that just is unfortunate
Btw I’ll add that when I read the title I thought you won two drafts (or one 8-4), making them pay for themselves. That that was the ‘two for the price of none’.
I was disappointed when I found out you did…less than great.
^ this is also what I thought after reading the comments, so…I was quite surprised, hence my asking haha!
Also, the deck in draft 2 might have turned out fine, but it would have been much stronger had he been able to get a more aggressive build (with green), his white removal is quite situational in that smite requires blockers/no removal against blockers, and guard duty is bad vs bounce/creatures with effects/when your own creatures arent evasive.