I finally had a successful Cube draft. I am usually horrible at cubes of all kinds, but I had some time and a handful of phantom points, so I figured what the heck. I got into a swiss queue, took an early Sol Ring and a Gaea's Cradle, then proceeded to take anything that ramped, made tokens, or was big. And yes, I did live the dream by hard casting Emrakul, and my round three opponent ran their reanimation spells into my Containment Priest 2 out of 3 games. It felt good. Now I'm 3-0 in my Khans Sealed DE. It's a good day.
Obviously my opponenet had to make a massive mistake for it to happen but I did it.. then I got murdered in the next two games my opponents deck was way too agressive to be running Ugin.
My opponent was colour screwed early game with only high cmc cards in hand, but my deck was a grindy sultai deck I did however manage to knock him down to 5.. before ugin hit the table and cleaned me up.. including my sultai ascendancy i probably shouldn't of cast when my opponent was 1 land form Ugin.
I had to use my Supplicant form to flip my dragon eye savants so my opponent knew I had it, which is how I knew about Ugin. he could never cast his jeskai eternal witness guy as I'd get vaule off my form.
My opponent was awash with mythics as he also had Pearl Lake Ancient, he slowly ticked up Ugin and I whisk away the PLA. I cast bitter revealation finding Durdle Turtle, whoes real name I have forgotten. I cast it, preventing his ground attack.
my opponent chooses not to tick down Ugin mistake 1... mistake 2 was allowing me to Supplicant form on PLA on my end step and not just bouncing his 1 island and allowing him to block the turtle to live and kill me with Ugin.
His really slow deck game one, got me when I sideboarded in my discard.. but I kept a slow 6... 3 lands and 3 4-5 drops and got crushed but a bunch of morphs. by game 2.. and game three I could not draw one of my 8 swamps.. and when I did only having one was preventing me casting my 4 black cards in hand I was just prevented from mustering a defence by Goblin Heelcutter
I started out a triple Fate draft last night with a foil Ghastly Conscription. Now I love fast Mardu decks, but I decided to go against the grain in order to give the Conscription the best chance to work. So I prioritized ramp, removal, and big expensive things. I fully expected to get screwed over making such an early commitment.
Pack 2, open a Crux of Fate and get passed an Dromoka, the Eternal and a Noxious Dragon.
Pack 3, open an Ugin, the Spirit Dragon!
Talk about the perfect shell for it, with 2 Map the Wastes and 2 Whisperer of the Wilds already. That game I played Ugin on turn 5 was a bit out of hand...
Well since I complained in the bad luck thread, I have to show here in the good luck thread that things aren't always so bad.
I entered a 4-3-2-2 3xFRF queue tonight only because it was only 1 player to go and given my timing I didn't want to wait too long for another queue, and also because I wanted to see what 3xFRF is like.
So I pulled 2x Monastery Mentor (P2P1 and P3P1), which are going for about 12 tickets each, along with some other pretty good stuff, and slaughtered my first round opponent without drawing either of them.
The highlight was when I used my Mastery of the Unseen to manifest a top card and it turned out to be Atarka, World Render - and I had 8 mana on the board already, so I could flip it next turn for a surprise 12 to win the game. I almost never manifest anything good but that's gotta be one of the best manifests possible given the situation I was in.
So luck shined on my doubly tonight. I don't expect it to last, but it's nice to have good luck for a change!
On to round 2. Even if I lose, I've already won. Yee-haw!
The opponent had an aggressive Kithkin draw, but I stabilized on turn 5 with Final Revels. However, my opponent followed up with Forced Fruition, with limited me to three spells for the rest of the game, and I didn't have a board position beyond a single Dreamspoiler Witches, and my opponent was on 20. But with the help of a timely removal spell and discarding Vigor at end of turn to prevent myself from getting decked, Dreamspoiler Witches actually managed to deal the full 20 My opponent bricked on relevant spells for a bit, and played way too conservatively, allowing me to win from what I felt was an unwinnable position. So this one felt good
Why is luck so streaky? Last week I couldn't win anything, with constant mulligans, bad draws, outclassed in the early game, outclassed in the late game, just nothing I did worked for me and everything my opponents did worked for them. I don't often 0-3 but I 0-3'd like three times last week.
Suddenly I'm on fire this week. Having played 5 events, I've gone 3-0, 3-0, 2-1, 3-0, 3-0.
I just don't understand variance. Does it have to be so ... varied?
I play pretty much only phantom sealed, because I have a large supply of phantom points, and I think it's about the most luck based limited format there is, if that means anything in the discussion.
I just got passed a Pick 2.2 Wingmate Roc. In a Swiss queue!
Self-quote because somehow this got topped. Someone just passed me a Pick 3.2 FoilSee the Unwritten. 18 tickets. Thanks pal, I love when people leave straight cash in the booster.
OK, just got a crazy KTK FRF Draft. P1P1 Shaman of the Great Hunt, Followed by a Bloodstained Mire. P2P1 Wingmate Roc, followed by another bloodstained mire. P3P1 Utter end, followed by a Murderous Cut, and a 5th pick Butcher of the Horde (!!). Got an awesome Mardu Midrange deck. Won that 8-4 Draft too
It's so nice to be on a roll instead of on a losing streak. My last events went 3-0, 3-0, 2-1, 3-0, 3-0, 2-1, 2-1, 3-0. That's 21-3 over 8 events, for an 87.5% win percentage. I expect to start losing horribly any minute now though ...
OK, just got a crazy KTK FRF Draft. P1P1 Shaman of the Great Hunt, Followed by a Bloodstained Mire. P2P1 Wingmate Roc, followed by another bloodstained mire. P3P1 Utter end, followed by a Murderous Cut, and a 5th pick Butcher of the Horde (!!). Got an awesome Mardu Midrange deck. Won that 8-4 Draft too
What's the logic behind playing 6 white sources and 10 red sources in that deck?
I was able to cast Write Into Being on turn 3 twice in 3 rounds last night--both times I hit a Hewed Stone Retainers. It's not flashy, but damn if it isn't the best possible scenario with that creature. Bonus, it won me both of those games.
On a side note: Friendly Fire is not a good card, but I needed a 23rd "playable" and this happened...twice (separate games): Opponent has four cards in hand and missed their 5th land drop. Hit an Elite Scaleguard twice to kill their Abzan Falconer.
I had a Dragonlord fight at the prerelease. He cast Dragonlord Silumgar to steal my Summit Prowler and I cast Dragonlord Kolaghan. He used Reduce in Stature on Kolaghan but I then cast Deathbringer Regent, killed verything, and won.
Also, I saw someone else cast Volcanic Vision to bring back another Volcanic Vision to his hand while he had a foil Monastery Mentor and an Outpost Siege in play. I wish I could get that lucky.
I just finished my 4th pre-release this weekend and didn't lose a single round. 15-0-1 plus 5 intentional draws to get top 8 for the 3 normal events and top 2 for 2-headed giant. There wasn't enough time to play out top 8 because even with splitting I got 45 minutes of sleep between the first 2 events.
When Nemesis was the newest set out, my LGS ran triple Nemesis drafts for a few weeks.
I got 7 Accumulated Knowledge in one of them, that was kinda sick. Only game I lost was one where I kept a hand of 2 lands, 2 AKs, 3 other spells, and despite seeing another AK I didn't see another land.
Just made top 16 of a 64 man Dragons of tarkir draft tournament on MTGO after accidentally forgetting to hit submit deck... so my deck before side boarding contained 80 cards and five colors every match. I was flipping out when it happened. Essentially each of my game 1's were autoloses, until I could sideboard out two colors and 40 cards. My rares were Alesha, who smiles at death, Silumgar Assassin, and dromokas command (Didn't play green or white so didn't really matter).
First guy I played against was furious when I won. The funniest part was that he threw four letter words at me, said how bad my deck was, that I played too slow (How do you slow play someone on MTGO? There's a fricking clock!), and how bad I was, but failed to mention the 80 cards in my deck. I'm not even sure Mcbutthurt noticed it, until I told him bahahaha!
I really had no business getting as far as I did, so I'd like to think I did a good job of drafting.
I actually recorded a draft that I was going to post to the draftcap forum (decided to start doing this with all my DTK drafts to get forum feedback). I opened Dragonlord Kolaghan P1P1, Dragonlord Silumgar P2P1, and got past Silumgar, the Drifting Death P2P2 (along with enough fixing to splash Kolghan in a U/B deck with a nice curve). I won a game in which I mulliganed to four on the play (it was a two-lander with Hand of Silumgar and Palace Familiar that drew into Gurmag Drowner and stalled into Dragonlords.
I decided not to post that draftcap and instead just post in this thread instead.
I was tweaking my mana and I ran out of time, so I probably had like 38 or 39 cards at the time. So yea I didn't just forget, I was trying make last minute changes and ran out of time. Either way it was a dumb dumb moment for me.
EDIT: LOL. G1 of the finals, I have a Vaultbreaker in play and Mardu Scout plus two land in hand at 11 life, he has a Woe-Reaper and spirit token in play at 7 with 3 cards. He casts Sandcrafter Mage, bolsters the token and attacks for four. Fair enough. I untap, rip Wild Slash, and burn his Sandcrafter for the win... but he has the Artful Maneuver. I figure I'd better get in there with my two guys anyway and make him trade his Sandcrafter for the Vaultbreaker, so I dash in the Scout, bash with both of my guys, loot with the Vaultbreaker, draw the second Wild Slash (clearly obv lucksack etc) and burn out the Sandcrafter again before blocks for the actual win this time.
4-0'd a draft tonight at my LGS. Opened an Ugin to cap off a strong Bolster style deck. Better still, I was passed a Haven of the Spirit Dragon before opening Ugin, which made it all the sweeter. Here's the list:
Moment of the night happened in the first game of Round 3. The board was stalled. I had gotten my oppenent down to 2 life earlier, but I couldn't get past his blockers now. Thankfully he couldn't profitably attack either, but he then dropped Palace Siege, naming Dragons. Later, in order to break up the stall, he played Deathbringer Regent. With both of us now having empty hands but him having all the board presence, I knew only one thing could save me...
So, off the top, I peel Ugin. I -7 that sucker to clear the board. Now it's all up to who top decks best. Thankfully, my next draw was Enduring Scalelord while he drew land. I soon took the game and later the match.
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Containment Priest
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
1 Troll Ascetic
1 Yavimaya Elder
1 Emeria Angel
1 Cloudgoat Ranger
1 Acidic Slime
1 Avenger of Zendikar
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
1 Journey to Nowhere
1 Orzhov Signet
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Lingering Souls
1 Awakening Zone
1 Search for Tomorrow
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury
1 Garruk, Apex Predator
5 Forest
4 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Brushland
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windbrisk Heights
Obviously my opponenet had to make a massive mistake for it to happen but I did it.. then I got murdered in the next two games my opponents deck was way too agressive to be running Ugin.
My opponent was colour screwed early game with only high cmc cards in hand, but my deck was a grindy sultai deck I did however manage to knock him down to 5.. before ugin hit the table and cleaned me up.. including my sultai ascendancy i probably shouldn't of cast when my opponent was 1 land form Ugin.
I had to use my Supplicant form to flip my dragon eye savants so my opponent knew I had it, which is how I knew about Ugin. he could never cast his jeskai eternal witness guy as I'd get vaule off my form.
My opponent was awash with mythics as he also had Pearl Lake Ancient, he slowly ticked up Ugin and I whisk away the PLA. I cast bitter revealation finding Durdle Turtle, whoes real name I have forgotten. I cast it, preventing his ground attack.
my opponent chooses not to tick down Ugin mistake 1... mistake 2 was allowing me to Supplicant form on PLA on my end step and not just bouncing his 1 island and allowing him to block the turtle to live and kill me with Ugin.
His really slow deck game one, got me when I sideboarded in my discard.. but I kept a slow 6... 3 lands and 3 4-5 drops and got crushed but a bunch of morphs. by game 2.. and game three I could not draw one of my 8 swamps.. and when I did only having one was preventing me casting my 4 black cards in hand I was just prevented from mustering a defence by Goblin Heelcutter
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Pack 2, open a Crux of Fate and get passed an Dromoka, the Eternal and a Noxious Dragon.
Pack 3, open an Ugin, the Spirit Dragon!
Talk about the perfect shell for it, with 2 Map the Wastes and 2 Whisperer of the Wilds already. That game I played Ugin on turn 5 was a bit out of hand...
I entered a 4-3-2-2 3xFRF queue tonight only because it was only 1 player to go and given my timing I didn't want to wait too long for another queue, and also because I wanted to see what 3xFRF is like.
So I pulled 2x Monastery Mentor (P2P1 and P3P1), which are going for about 12 tickets each, along with some other pretty good stuff, and slaughtered my first round opponent without drawing either of them.
The highlight was when I used my Mastery of the Unseen to manifest a top card and it turned out to be Atarka, World Render - and I had 8 mana on the board already, so I could flip it next turn for a surprise 12 to win the game. I almost never manifest anything good but that's gotta be one of the best manifests possible given the situation I was in.
So luck shined on my doubly tonight. I don't expect it to last, but it's nice to have good luck for a change!
On to round 2. Even if I lose, I've already won. Yee-haw!
The opponent had an aggressive Kithkin draw, but I stabilized on turn 5 with Final Revels. However, my opponent followed up with Forced Fruition, with limited me to three spells for the rest of the game, and I didn't have a board position beyond a single Dreamspoiler Witches, and my opponent was on 20. But with the help of a timely removal spell and discarding Vigor at end of turn to prevent myself from getting decked, Dreamspoiler Witches actually managed to deal the full 20 My opponent bricked on relevant spells for a bit, and played way too conservatively, allowing me to win from what I felt was an unwinnable position. So this one felt good
Suddenly I'm on fire this week. Having played 5 events, I've gone 3-0, 3-0, 2-1, 3-0, 3-0.
I just don't understand variance. Does it have to be so ... varied?
I play pretty much only phantom sealed, because I have a large supply of phantom points, and I think it's about the most luck based limited format there is, if that means anything in the discussion.
Self-quote because somehow this got topped. Someone just passed me a Pick 3.2 Foil See the Unwritten. 18 tickets. Thanks pal, I love when people leave straight cash in the booster.
On a side note: Friendly Fire is not a good card, but I needed a 23rd "playable" and this happened...twice (separate games): Opponent has four cards in hand and missed their 5th land drop. Hit an Elite Scaleguard twice to kill their Abzan Falconer.
Signature courtesy of Rivenor and Miraculous Recovery
EDH Altered Cards by Galspanic (Seriously, this guy's awesome.)
My Pauper Cube
Tapped-Out Simulator
My Trade Thread
-Decks-
Commander:
GWR Rith, the Awakener RWG
U Kami of the Crescent Moon U (Flagship Deck)
BW Teysa, Orzhov Scion WB
Under Construction:
UBR Crosis, the Purger RBU
Cube:
WUBRGX Pauper XGRBUW
Level 2 Judge
Token and Playmat Store
Beyond the Guildpact
Also, I saw someone else cast Volcanic Vision to bring back another Volcanic Vision to his hand while he had a foil Monastery Mentor and an Outpost Siege in play. I wish I could get that lucky.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
3 Stampeding Elk Herd
1 Bloodfire Enforcers
3 Sabertooth Outrider
1 Dragon-Scarred Bear
1 Mardu Strike Leader
1 Silumgar Assassin
1 Den Protector
1 Ainok Guide
2 Atarka Beastbreaker
1 Hunt the Weak
1 Epic Confrontation
1 Death Wind
1 Flatten
1 Draconic Roar
1 Sheltered Aerie
6 Mountain
3 Swamp
Didn't lose a single game with this today. Limited is a skill intensive environment, right guys?
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG
When Nemesis was the newest set out, my LGS ran triple Nemesis drafts for a few weeks.
I got 7 Accumulated Knowledge in one of them, that was kinda sick. Only game I lost was one where I kept a hand of 2 lands, 2 AKs, 3 other spells, and despite seeing another AK I didn't see another land.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
First guy I played against was furious when I won. The funniest part was that he threw four letter words at me, said how bad my deck was, that I played too slow (How do you slow play someone on MTGO? There's a fricking clock!), and how bad I was, but failed to mention the 80 cards in my deck. I'm not even sure Mcbutthurt noticed it, until I told him bahahaha!
I really had no business getting as far as I did, so I'd like to think I did a good job of drafting.
Just one more thing I have to mention...
During my game against Mcbutthurt, he dropped a Savage Ventmaw. In hand I held a lose calm and a Rakshasa Gravecaller with 5 lands available. I played lose calm, swung in with Savage Ventmaw and then used the mana produced to exploit the Savage Ventmaw with Rakshasa Gravecaller's ability. I can only imagine the rage that ensued bahahahaha!.
I'm a very nice person, but I can't stand sore loser keyboard warriors.
I decided not to post that draftcap and instead just post in this thread instead.
1 Kolaghan Aspirant
1 Dragon Fodder
2 Mardu Scout
1 Hardened Berserker
1 Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
1 Screamreach Brawler
1 Summit Prowler
1 Vaultbreaker
1 Alesha's Vanguard
1 Warbringer
1 Boltwing Marauder
1 Sprinting Warbrute
1 Stormcrag Elemental
2 Wild Slash
1 Draconic Roar
1 Ultimate Price
1 Tail Slash
1 Sarkhan's Rage
6 Swamp
11 Mountain
EDIT: LOL. G1 of the finals, I have a Vaultbreaker in play and Mardu Scout plus two land in hand at 11 life, he has a Woe-Reaper and spirit token in play at 7 with 3 cards. He casts Sandcrafter Mage, bolsters the token and attacks for four. Fair enough. I untap, rip Wild Slash, and burn his Sandcrafter for the win... but he has the Artful Maneuver. I figure I'd better get in there with my two guys anyway and make him trade his Sandcrafter for the Vaultbreaker, so I dash in the Scout, bash with both of my guys, loot with the Vaultbreaker, draw the second Wild Slash (clearly obv lucksack etc) and burn out the Sandcrafter again before blocks for the actual win this time.
2 Servant of the Scale
1 Ainok Survivalist
1 Avatar of the Resolute
1 Guardian Shield-Bearer
1 Lightwalker
1 Whisperer of the Wilds
1 Ainok Artillerist
2 Dragon Bell Monk
1 Frontier Mastodon
1 Salt Road Ambushers
1 Stampeding Elk Herd
2 Enduring Scalelord
1 Abzan Advantage
1 Epic Confrontation
1 Map the Wastes
1 Sandblast
3 Enduring Victory
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Lands:
1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
9 Forest
7 Plains
Moment of the night happened in the first game of Round 3. The board was stalled. I had gotten my oppenent down to 2 life earlier, but I couldn't get past his blockers now. Thankfully he couldn't profitably attack either, but he then dropped Palace Siege, naming Dragons. Later, in order to break up the stall, he played Deathbringer Regent. With both of us now having empty hands but him having all the board presence, I knew only one thing could save me...
So, off the top, I peel Ugin. I -7 that sucker to clear the board. Now it's all up to who top decks best. Thankfully, my next draw was Enduring Scalelord while he drew land. I soon took the game and later the match.
GGG [Primer] Omnath, Big Green Beatstick Machine GGG