Hello again, everyone. This is the second of two articles I've written on my Mono-Blue Cube, the first of which can be found here. Whereas that one was a summary of the cards, the archetypes, and the interactions between them, this one details what it's like to actually draft the thing.
For this particular draft, I only managed to get four people. That let me go through each of the decks and most of the games, though, so for a draft report it's not all bad. Firstly, let me introduce you to the three other drafters:
From left to right, they are Tamalei, David and Evan, and we've all been buds for a couple of years now. The three of them were eager to try out my off-the-wall creation, since there are three things they all share a love for: awesome decks, winning with them, and the best colour in Magic.
The draft itself took place on a Friday night in a local game store's basement, with both the stakes and ceilings being fairly low. When we took our seats and "cracked" our packs, the awesomeness practically fell into our laps. These are the decks we ended up drafting:
The Decks
My Deck
ElMikkino's Goodstuff Midrange-Control Type ThingMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | ||
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Creatures (12) 1 Snapcaster Mage 1 Lighthouse Chronologist 1 Cold-Eye Selkie 1 Nightveil Specter 1 Seasinger 1 Glen Elendra Archmage 1 Conundrum Sphinx 1 Master of Waves 1 Mulldrifer 1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir 1 Draining Whelk 1 Spire Golem Spells (11) 1 Spell Pierce 1 Ancestral Vision 1 Sapphire Medallion 1 Mind Stone 1 Vedalken Shackles 1 Forbid 1 Dismiss 1 Fact or Fiction 1 Jace, Architect of Thought 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 1 Time Stretch | Lands (17) 1 Rath's Edge 1 Rishadan Port 1 Shelldock Isle 14 Island | Relevant SB 1 Dewdrop Spy 1 Pact of Negation 1 Temporal Adept 1 Crookclaw Transmuter 1 Inspired Sprite 1 Annul 1 Sand Squid 1 Spiketail Drakeling 1 Condescend 1 Vapor Snag 1 Psionic Blast 1 Devastation Tide 1 Thalakos Deceiver |
I'm sorry to say that I did not draft the best deck out of all of us. I like drafting decks with more coherent strategies as much as the next guy, but David, Evan and Tamalei all first-picked cards that put them into certain decks, while I was left just picking up all the random good cards that didn't fall into their archetypes. Still, a pile of good cards is better than a pile of bad ones. The Time Stretch should not have been in there; it just cost way too much mana.
One advantage that my deck did have over the others was that my lack of focus meant I ran more answers, and could side in a lot of different cards, like the Spiketail Drakeling that I hadn't realized was actually a very good card. I had answers for aggro, combo and control. My maindeck wasn't amazing in game 1 against anything on paper, although cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Master of Waves often just stole games.
Tamalei's Deck
Tamalei's Blue BeatsMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | ||
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Creatures (17) 1 Merfolk Spy 1 Signal Pest 1 Skywatcher Adept 1 Phantasmal Bear 1 Cloudfin Raptor 1 Voidmage Prodigy 1 Lord of Atlantis 1 Silvergill Adept 1 Hammerhead Shark 1 Vendillion Clique 1 Wasp Lancer 1 Serendib Efreet 1 Adaptive Automaton 1 Merfolk Sovereign 1 True-Name Nemesis 1 Dungeon Geists 1 Errant Ephemeron | Spells (7) 1 Ancestral Recall 1 Sleight of Hand 1 Ponder 1 Aether Vial 1 Ankh of Mishra 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Bident of Thassa Lands (16) 1 Strip Mine 1 Mishra's Factory 14 Island | Relevant SB 1 Mortarpod 1 Undo |
To many people who've never drafted this cube, this would be the prime example of why aggro is unplayable in it. After all, while my deck above plays all-stars like Vedalken Shackles and Snapcaster Mage, this one plays such attractive Cube cards as Merfolk Spy and Skywatcher Adept. Now, that's not really a fair comparison, as those two cards are by no means the best cards in the deck, but you get what I'm saying.
But one thing people always overlook when assessing aggro in this cube is the sheer consistency of it. Merfolk Spy into Hammerhead Shark isn't all that impressive a start, but when facing an aggro deck, you'll likely have to face a situation like that almost every game you play against them. If it's not those two cards, it's Phantasmal Bear into Lord of Atlantis, or Skywatcher Adept into Silvergill Adept. If they're on the play, their two creatures versus your one land is already a pretty hard position to battle back from. Answers are expensive, sluggish, and/or just straight up bad against everything that isn't aggro. Stabilizing can be hard, and if your opponent has any islandwalkers in their deck, you never really truly can. The starts I outlined aren't even all that great—every once in a while, you'll have to face down a horde of islandwalking Merfolk, or turn 2 Mox Diamond into Illusionary Angel. When your best answers are Evacuation and Ratchet Bomb, you can at least begin to see why aggro is still good, if not better, in this cube.
One last facet of aggro is it also gets the added ability of using three of the most broken cards in the cube to their full extent—Sword of Fire and Ice, Sword of Body and Mind, and Umezawa's Jitte. Each one of them is usually the best card in any aggro deck, due to the sheer power and card advantage, virtual or otherwise, that it provides. When you play and equip one of them, it makes even a random bear a giant, unblockable, hexproof beater that draws you 1-2 cards a turn. Even if you somehow manage to deal with that dude, another one can just come down—they're playing aggro, the creature train never stops! They're so good that I had to put answers in the cube specifically for them, such as Master Thief and Legerdemain, but if you don't have those sideboard cards in your hand, then you're basically dead once one sticks. They really are that good.
Now that I've gone over why aggro is good as a whole, we can get to discussing why Tamalei's deck specifically is. The list he drafted is much less synergistic than your average dude deck, but it makes up for that with its sheer power. Cards like Vendillion Clique, True-Name Nemesis and Sword of Fire and Ice are all-stars no matter how you look at them, not to mention the glaring Ancestral Recall as an obviously amazing card in any deck. This might've actually been the best deck, and if we had known his list before the matches, we would've all been very scared.
Evan's Deck
Evan's Artifact ComboMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | ||
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Creatures (4) 1 Plumeveil 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 1 Master Transmuter 1 Wurmcoil Engine Spells (20) 1 Black Lotus 1 Mox Diamond 1 Dizzy Spell 1 Flusterstorm 1 Peek 1 Voltaic Key 1 Time Vault 1 Power Artifact 1 Grim Monolith 1 Daze 1 Remand 1 Cyclonic Rift 1 Fabricate 1 Capsize 1 Thran Dynamo 1 Mishra's Helix 1 Gilded Lotus 1 Memory Jar 1 Coalition Relic 1 ? (read below) | Lands (16) 1 Maze of Ith 1 Academy Ruins 14 Island | Relevant SB 1 Boomerang 1 Winter Orb 1 Tangle Wire |
At first glance, this deck is nuts. Two combos, in the form of Voltaic Key + Time Vault and Grim Monolith + Power Artifact, along with great individual cards like Wurmcoil Engine, Phyrexian Metamorph, Mishra's Helix, and freaking Black Lotus. That card enables the deck to win on turn 1, ramp out a quick bomb, and generally sends it to the mental ward for making the deck utterly insane. He also has Capsize, Cyclonic Rift, Memory Jar... my god, what doesn't this deck have?
Well, card draw and selection, as it turns out. He really just had to hope to hit his land drops and find his combo pieces naturally, because his cards weren't doing it for him. He did have alternate routes to victory/excessive stalling, like Wurmcoil Engine and Capsize, but a well-placed counterspell could send his deck down the drain quickly. He may also have had too many ramp cards and too little action. However, his deck could also just have Voltaic Key + Time Vault in his opening hand for six games in a row. That could happen, too. But really, despite the initial awesomeness we all perceived this deck was, it may not have been the greatest. Also, if you're wondering, the question mark is one of those three sideboard cards, but he kept switching between games and matches, and I'm not sure which one he started or ended with.
David's Deck
David's ShownTell-MillMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | ||
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Creatures (4) 1 Cloud of Faeries 1 Spellstutter Sprite 1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn Spells (19) 1 Dispel 1 Dream Twist 1 High Tide 1 Vision Charm 1 Swan Song 1 Tome Scour 1 Mind Sculpt 1 Gainsay 1 Isochron Scepter 1 Telling Time 1 Miscalculation 1 Merchant Scroll 1 Brain Freeze 1 Complicate 1 Sands of Delirium 1 Show and Tell 1 Broken Ambitions 1 Gush 1 Keening Stone | Lands (17) 1 Ancient Tomb 1 Lonely Sandbar 15 Island | Relevant SB 1 Pongify 1 Aetherling 1 Mental Misstep 1 Inkwell Leviathan 1 Psychic Barrier 1 Foil |
Whereas Evan's deck may be the kind of insane that's akin to that skateboard trick or 360 no-scope headshot I totally just did, David's deck is more Charles-Manson-or-Ken-Ham's-argument insane, the kind you wouldn't want to touch with a ten-foot pole. For David, it was necessity, not wanting, that led him to reach out and reluctantly grasp this unholy amalgamation of decks. First-picking High Tide and forcing it just doesn't really work out in four player. It was only by sheer luck that David's deck even had a way to win, when he snapped up Ulamog and Emrakul in the last pack to pair with an early pick Show and Tell. I don't really know why he gravitated to mill in the middle, though...
Anyways, this deck was still capable of winning, as any deck with good Show and Tell cards is, but it had a lot of chaff that muddled that mixture. Sands of Delirium and Keening Stone also both cards that can win on their own if your opponent's not doing enough. I think we can all agree, though, that this deck is nowhere near as promising as the others.
The Games
Match 1
As we came into our matches, our knowledge of our opponents' decklists was limited. We each knew approximately what everyone else had drafted, but we knew only a few specific cards. My opponent in the first round ended up being Evan, and I only knew about the Voltaic Key + Time Vault combo, along with Black Lotus. From those, I surmised that I was screwed.
But in the first game, he got off to an extremely slow start. He only played a bunch of mana rocks, and I was able to land Conundrum Sphinx and get in three hits, putting him down to eight, before he killed it with a flashed-in Plumeveil. He then slammed down one of the most feared late-game cards: Mishra's Helix. If you haven't faced this card before, you can't truly understand the misery of it—drawing card after card just hoping to at some point get a flash creature that isn't somehow invalidated by all the cards your opponent has drawn. But I knew I would have to go for it. I untapped, got my lands tapped on my upkeep, and then proceeded to draw step.
I topdecked Spire Golem.
I slammed down the free 2/4, and the crowd that had grown around us grew more and more disbelieving as Evan failed to topdeck anything but more mana turn after turn, allowing my free 2/4 flier to eventually swing in for the win. I was smiling and Evan was sorrowful and no doubt extremely tilted.
The next game started out a bit more auspiciously for him. A turn 3 Tangle Wire was slammed down, followed by a turn 5 Phyrexian Metamorph to copy it. I could only untap and tap my lands for the first eight or so turns of the game, but despite all that time, Evan still couldn't find anything. Imagine my surprise when I played the first business spell, a Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and with Forbid backup to boot. With me fatesealing Evan's hopes away, he just couldn't break through my wall of countermagic, and I eventually killed him. I was amazed—I won a match I hadn't even hoped to win a single game in! Evan definitely got unlucky, but hey, I'll take it.
Match 2
Tamalei was my next opponent, after he smashed David in two games. Their first game had featured an Ulamog being Show and Telled in, but Tamalei had the clutch Dungeon Geists to tap it down. The second featured Emrakul being Show and Telled in, but it was on turn six or seven, which was way too late for David to pull out a victory against Tamalei's extremely relevant large horde, and his extremely not relevant Show and Telled in Island. I had glanced over at their match a few times, and Tamalei's deck certainly looked scary.
Game one of the match started alright, with me countering a few creatures, but things quickly went awry when Tamalei slammed down his Sword of Fire and Ice. After sitting stunned for a couple turns, I woke up from my stupor, only to find out I was dead.
Match 3
David was 0-2 after being beat by Evan, who was now 1-1 like I was. Tamalei was 2-0 and confident as he sat down to face Evan, ready to smash and splash with his merfolk. I was fairly confident, too, as I sat down across from David. If I could beat Evan, I could beat him.
Game one didn't go too well, though, due to a Show and Telled in Ulamog that I just couldn't deal with. Game two was kind of a wash, as my Temporal Adept ensured he never played a fourth land. In the decider, he Show and Telled in Ulamog again, but this time, I had the Evacuation, bouncing his one creature and around five of mine. He had nothing else, though, and I was able to replay them all and swing in for the win, finishing the day at a respectable 2-1.
In the other match, Evan's deck finally worked the way it was supposed to, getting out his Voltaic Key + Time Vault lock early both games. Tamalei angrily picked up his cards after only a few minutes of playing time, annoyed that he now had to share the top of the podium with two other people. All in all, though, it was a pretty fun draft that we all enjoyed, even poor 0-3 David. The results confirmed the rock-paper-scissors hierarchy I'd expected when I built the cube: aggro beat control, control beat combo, combo beat aggro, and bad deck lost.
The Cube
That draft happened over a month and a half ago, in the middle of December, the list we're drafting with now is fairly different to what it was back then. There were just a bunch of cards that I didn't realize should definitely be in, and a few that I didn't initially realize should immediately get cut. These are the differences between the list in my article and the list we were drafting with on that day:
ChangesMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | |
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Cards That Were In 1 Scion of Oona 1 Mistbind Clique 1 Drowner of Secrets 1 Faerie Swarm 1 Amoeboid Changeling 1 Encrust 1 Merfolk Seastalkers 1 Latchkey Faerie 1 Serendib Sorcerer 1 Crookclaw Transmuter 1 Traumatize | Cards That Were Out 1 Timetwister 1 Mishra's Workshop 1 Shape Anew 1 Legerdemain 1 Misdirection 1 Commandeer 1 Master Thief 1 Take Possession 1 Platinum Angel 1 Aeon Chronicler 1 Knowledge Pool |
The fact that I didn't initially include Mishra's Workshop and Timetwister baffles me now, but we'll just have to accept that. As you can see, the pipe dream of tribal Faeries unfortunately did not work out.
That concludes my two-part article on my Mono-Blue Cube. If you want to see the current list, you can find it here. I still update it fairly often, and that list will reflect any changes I make. I recently put in Mind's Desire, and I look forward to trying (and probably failing) to draft storm in the near future. I hope you walk away from this thinking of this as a fun format, and not some form of torture devised by that guy who always knocks you out of top 8 contention at PTQs. Maybe I'll do another article on my cube at some point if enough people enjoyed this one. For now, though, I bid you adieu.
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