I opened Kheru, Lich Lord thought it was a good enough reason to try out sultai.. I got passed crater's claws thought perhaps I'd splash it or the lord. I took a villianous wealth and thought about playing ramp and again abandoned that. First pack I took a lot of spells and really felt I lacked creatures. Opened thousand winds, got a lot more black from this side.. but I really didn't have any good creatures there just wasn't really any. Many of the sultai non creature spells were making it to me like curise, rakshasa's secrets, distainful stroke but I really didn't need multiple of them. Third pack.. villianous wealth.. dammit shouldn't of pick it up earlier.. passed it on took the scavenger I then got past all jeskai.. I took the blue spells.
First match was a non match opponent was a first time drafter and didn't built his deck correctly. I beat him with him only casting 2 spells the whole time. (I helped him after, didn't realise you only needed 40 for starters). He had ended up with bant of all colour combinations but had a sorin (but not the lands to splash him) and a master of the pearls.
Next match against a good player.. who had opened trail of mystery and secret plans and played five colour morphs (sucking all the creatures from the draft). First game he got mana screwed and I just killed him with my jeskai windscouts + incremental growth for massive damage. Game two I turbo ramped into thousand winds using 2 embodiments of spring. he had a chance to kill it but chose to develop his board with another morph the ramp advantage allowed me to morph into unmorph the next turn the thousand winds. we played a causal third game and then he got his engine online a easily killed me.. but I did get stuck without green mana.
The final. Against a good player on Mardu (with butcher). First game he mulls to 5. Then plays bloodfire expert I got into a race with my Jeskai windscouts. mardu was able to kill my other threats. The game comes down to him at 2 with my two windscounts and me at 6 with him with bloodfire expert. He killed me with Rush of battle for exacties :S Game two was a stomp his threats greatly outpaced my ability to get creatures into play and use removal spells. I could only ever use one removal spell a turn. he killed my morphed thousand winds I whille I used Khreu lich lord to reanimate it.. that 5 damage didn't mean much. In the grand scheme of things. he again used Rush of battle in conjuction with ponyback brigade to completely overwhelm my defences. I never found a free turn to use my incremental growth on my windscouts agian.
Things that didn't work so well
Delve, I never cast a delve spell. scout the boarders was ok for finding one of my threats. but building a delve deck isn't a thing.
Sultai vs going wide. I did not handle mardu going wide at all removal was so high mana cost and I couldn't really apply enough blockers to the problem.
There was a lot of draws in my pod, although I didn't have any. so in theroy it is possible to stonewall mardu but my deck couldn't.
First pack I took a lot of spells and really felt I lacked creatures.
Yeah, I think that taking heavily gold cards early is going to be a mistake in this format, because it locks you in before the manafixing comes that can support it. Taking morphs and fixers early seems like a much safer strategy.
100% agree. In fact, with enough fixing you can 'splash' 2 or even 3 colours in your base two colour deck. JUst make sure that most of your splash cards are morphs, since you don't just die in a fire if your splash colour turns up.
I went 3-0 with RUG. I prioritised the gold cards too highly, for example, I took Bear's Companion over Snowhorn Rider, which I now think was a mistake, both because the Rider is a slightly more flexible/powerful card, but also because committing to a wedge too early in the draft is a mistake (and while powerful, the Bear isn't a bomb to dictate my colours like that). I ended up with a classic big morph deck, which I would say ideally has this composition:
4 2-drops (that all trade with morphs)
8 3-drops (mostly morphs)
4 4-drops (that all outclass morphs)
8 spells (removal with other things like draw or bombs)
18 land
You don't need 5-drops since you can unmorph a 'big' morph on the turn, even though a card like Armament Corps is great, it's not mandatory to have the high end of your curve be stuff that you can't cast with 4 mana. Just makes you more consistent and gives you stuff to do with excess mana. You want 18 land and to be on the play both to play the first morph and to be the first to attack with 5 mana up.
I went 1-1 drop since I ran out of time. I went pure Mardu, with red being my splash. Temur seemed slow and durdly, Mardu was the best, I lost to a second mardu deck. Oh, and Ponyback brigade is insane, I drafted 2 of them over rares and never regretted it. Raid was really easy to trigger for free value.
Ended up going 1-2 in that draft. I think I could have won game 1 of match 3 if I didn't make a mistake with attacks the last turn, and leave myself DOB. I was just super tired after playing for 7 hours in a row.
I like this deck, the with only real stinker being Dutiful Return. I think I'd take a 3 or 4 mana Hooting Mandrills over it pretty much every time. And I like a morph even more than that.
First pack I opened Wooded Foothill for value.
Ended up going 1-2 in that draft. I think I could have won game 1 of match 3 if I didn't make a mistake with attacks the last turn, and leave myself DOB. I was just super tired after playing for 7 hours in a row.
Your manabase is solidly in BW, with red reduced to a mere splash. This is very good.
However, I would question the value of Highspire Mantis in a deck where red is the merest splash. A 3/3 flyer is great on turn 4. It's average on turn 5, and underwhelming every turn after that. Rotting Mastodon is also a very weak card. You have 3 solidly playable morphs in your sideboard that I would consider it a slam dunk to play (in this order: Ponyback Brigade, Sidisi's Pet and Witness of the Ages). I would run all of them to upgrade that previously mentioned cards, as well as lower the curve by cutting either Swarm of Bloodflies or the 3rd Rite of the Serpent.
I like this deck, the with only real stinker being Dutiful Return. I think I'd take a 3 or 4 mana Hooting Mandrills over it pretty much every time. And I like a morph even more than that.
First pack I opened Wooded Foothill for value.
Ended up going 1-2 in that draft. I think I could have won game 1 of match 3 if I didn't make a mistake with attacks the last turn, and leave myself DOB. I was just super tired after playing for 7 hours in a row.
Your manabase is solidly in BW, with red reduced to a mere splash. This is very good.
However, I would question the value of Highspire Mantis in a deck where red is the merest splash. A 3/3 flyer is great on turn 4. It's average on turn 5, and underwhelming every turn after that. Rotting Mastodon is also a very weak card. You have 3 solidly playable morphs in your sideboard that I would consider it a slam dunk to play (in this order: Ponyback Brigade, Sidisi's Pet and Witness of the Ages). I would run all of them to upgrade that previously mentioned cards, as well as lower the curve by cutting either Swarm of Bloodflies or the 3rd Rite of the Serpent.
Thanks for the feedback!
In the first draft I agree I should not have have played the Dutiful Return. I didn't have enough self-mill to get value from it.
I think my problem is not valuing Morph cards highly enough. I look at things like Krumar Bond-Kin and War Behemoth and go "ugh". In my mind I feel like I need to draft at least 3-4 two drops (like Jeskai Student) to not get overrun by morphs.
I think my problem is not valuing Morph cards highly enough. I look at things like Krumar Bond-Kin and War Behemoth and go "ugh". In my mind I feel like I need to draft at least 3-4 two drops (like Jeskai Student) to not get overrun by morphs.
1. They are great because they *could* be better morphs, and makes your opponents face a hard choice on turn 5 when you attack with a 2/2 facedown. Do they block? (hint: the answer is no).
2. Sure. So cut a redundant 6-drop then.
3. Yeah, it's fine just as 5 power worth of creatures for 6 mana (or the 3+5 plan).
Went undefeated with this Mardu deck, won every game fairly easily, mulliganed to six almost every game, think If I went 18 lands it would of been much better. Had great removal and good top-end with mardu roughrider. No bomb rares or anything.
p2p1 took mardu charm over herald of anafenza, still not sure on that but charm was very good all draft. P2P2 had to hate-draft Sagu Mauler as that card is unbeatable. Overall I felt very good, prioritzed staying in one color early(white), and taking mana fixing in both Mardu and Abzan. First 8 picks I think I had 3 lands and 5 white cards, then took what was open.
I went 3-1, losing tight games in the finals to an aggressive mardu deck and stumbling on mana, which is not unreasonable; 4 color is somewhat greedy even with getting that many duals. I probably needed 1 or 2 more to have a solid 4 color mana base, but against all of the slower decks it had time to find its colors. It was a huge amount of fun to play, it was very strong and just oozed 2 for 1s all over the place, and had decent early game interaction if it hit its mana.
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I opened Kheru, Lich Lord thought it was a good enough reason to try out sultai.. I got passed crater's claws thought perhaps I'd splash it or the lord. I took a villianous wealth and thought about playing ramp and again abandoned that. First pack I took a lot of spells and really felt I lacked creatures. Opened thousand winds, got a lot more black from this side.. but I really didn't have any good creatures there just wasn't really any. Many of the sultai non creature spells were making it to me like curise, rakshasa's secrets, distainful stroke but I really didn't need multiple of them. Third pack.. villianous wealth.. dammit shouldn't of pick it up earlier.. passed it on took the scavenger I then got past all jeskai.. I took the blue spells.
2 Embodiment of spring
1 Kin tree warden
1 Smoke teller
2 Jeskai windscout
1 Alpine grizzly
1 Longshot squad
1 Sagu archer
1 Kheu lich lord
1 Thousand winds
1 Sultai scavenger
1 Riverwheel aerialists
1 Abomination of Gudul
spells
1 Force away
1 Cripling chill
2 Scout the boarders
1 Throttle
1 Incremental growth
1 Rite of the serpent
2 Treasure cruise
2 Jungle hollow
1 Opulent palace
1 Frontier bivouac
1 Dismal backwater
6 Island
5 Forest
3 swamp
1 Kin tree invocation
1 Scaldkin
2 Distainful stroke
1 Monastary flock
1 Kheru bloodsucker
2 Rakashasa's Secret
1 Natrualise
1 villinous wealth
I am UG splash black version of sultai.
First match was a non match opponent was a first time drafter and didn't built his deck correctly. I beat him with him only casting 2 spells the whole time. (I helped him after, didn't realise you only needed 40 for starters). He had ended up with bant of all colour combinations but had a sorin (but not the lands to splash him) and a master of the pearls.
Next match against a good player.. who had opened trail of mystery and secret plans and played five colour morphs (sucking all the creatures from the draft). First game he got mana screwed and I just killed him with my jeskai windscouts + incremental growth for massive damage. Game two I turbo ramped into thousand winds using 2 embodiments of spring. he had a chance to kill it but chose to develop his board with another morph the ramp advantage allowed me to morph into unmorph the next turn the thousand winds. we played a causal third game and then he got his engine online a easily killed me.. but I did get stuck without green mana.
The final. Against a good player on Mardu (with butcher). First game he mulls to 5. Then plays bloodfire expert I got into a race with my Jeskai windscouts. mardu was able to kill my other threats. The game comes down to him at 2 with my two windscounts and me at 6 with him with bloodfire expert. He killed me with Rush of battle for exacties :S Game two was a stomp his threats greatly outpaced my ability to get creatures into play and use removal spells. I could only ever use one removal spell a turn. he killed my morphed thousand winds I whille I used Khreu lich lord to reanimate it.. that 5 damage didn't mean much. In the grand scheme of things. he again used Rush of battle in conjuction with ponyback brigade to completely overwhelm my defences. I never found a free turn to use my incremental growth on my windscouts agian.
Things that worked well
Embodiment of spring
incremental growth
jeskai windscout
supprisingly my mana base.. i think 2 colours with a splash is the way to go.
Things that didn't work so well
Delve, I never cast a delve spell. scout the boarders was ok for finding one of my threats. but building a delve deck isn't a thing.
Sultai vs going wide. I did not handle mardu going wide at all removal was so high mana cost and I couldn't really apply enough blockers to the problem.
There was a lot of draws in my pod, although I didn't have any. so in theroy it is possible to stonewall mardu but my deck couldn't.
how did your first KTK draft go?
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
I think it's a good card, but not quite powerful enough to set you into Sultai right off the bat. I think the gold common morphs are better.
Yeah, I think that taking heavily gold cards early is going to be a mistake in this format, because it locks you in before the manafixing comes that can support it. Taking morphs and fixers early seems like a much safer strategy.
100% agree. In fact, with enough fixing you can 'splash' 2 or even 3 colours in your base two colour deck. JUst make sure that most of your splash cards are morphs, since you don't just die in a fire if your splash colour turns up.
I went 3-0 with RUG. I prioritised the gold cards too highly, for example, I took Bear's Companion over Snowhorn Rider, which I now think was a mistake, both because the Rider is a slightly more flexible/powerful card, but also because committing to a wedge too early in the draft is a mistake (and while powerful, the Bear isn't a bomb to dictate my colours like that). I ended up with a classic big morph deck, which I would say ideally has this composition:
4 2-drops (that all trade with morphs)
8 3-drops (mostly morphs)
4 4-drops (that all outclass morphs)
8 spells (removal with other things like draw or bombs)
18 land
You don't need 5-drops since you can unmorph a 'big' morph on the turn, even though a card like Armament Corps is great, it's not mandatory to have the high end of your curve be stuff that you can't cast with 4 mana. Just makes you more consistent and gives you stuff to do with excess mana. You want 18 land and to be on the play both to play the first morph and to be the first to attack with 5 mana up.
This is what I drafted:
1 Disowned Ancestor
1 Unyielding Krumar
1 Bitter Revelation
1 Dutiful Return
1 Murderous Cut
1 Rite of the Serpent
White: 8
1 Jeskai Student
1 Seeker of the Way
1 Mardu Hordechief
1 Alabaster Kirin
1 Abzan Battle Priest
1 Feat of Resistance
1 Suspension Field
1 Smite the Monstrous
Green: 3
1 Tuskguard Captain
1 Longbow Squad
1 Pine Walker
White/Black/Green: 4
1 Anafenza, the Foremost
1 Armament Corps
2 Abzan Guide
1 Witness of the Ages
Lands: 18
7 Plains
5 Swamp
2 Forest
2 Jungle Hollow
1 Blossoming Sands
1 Nomad Outpost
Blue: 3
2 Scion of Glaciers
1 Mystic of the Hidden Way
Black: 4
1 Rakshasa's Secret
1 Shambling Attendants
2 Krumar Bond-Kin
Green: 1
1 Hooting Mandrills
Black/green: 1
1 Death Frenzy
White: 1
1 War Behemoth
Blue/red/white: 1
1 Warden of the Eye
Black/green/blue: 1
1 Sultai Soothsayer
Artifact: 1
1 Abzan Banner
LANDS: 3
1 Rugged Highland
1 Mystic Monastery
1 Bloodstained Mire
I first picked Anafenza, the Foremost over Abzan Falconer and Incremental Growth.
Second pack I opened Bloodstained Mire for value.
Ended up going 2-2 with it. In retrospect I should have been playing the War Behemoth over the Witness of the Ages.
I then drafted at a different store on Saturday, and got this:
2 Disowned Ancestor
1 Grim Haruspex
1 Mer-Ek Nightblade
1 Rotting Mastodon
1 Swarm of Bloodflies
1 Sultai Scavenger
1 Necropolis Fiend
1 Bitter Revelation
1 Throttle
3 Rite of the Serpent
White: 7
2 Ainok Bond-Kin
1 Watcher of the Roost
2 Salt Road Patrol
1 Feat of Resistance
1 Smite the Monstrous
Red/white: 1
1 Highspire Mantis
Red/white/black: 1
1 Mardu Charm
2 Bloodfell Caves
1 Wind-Scarred Crag
8 Swamp
7 Plains
White: 2
1 Jeskai Student
1 Erase
Blue: 3
1 Wetland Sambar
1 Jeskai Elder
1 Scion of Glaciers
Red: 4
2 Bloodfire Mentor
1 Barrage of Boulders
1 Swift Kick
Black: 2
1 Sidisi's Pet
1 Kheru Dreadmaw
Red/White/Blue: 1
1 Ponyback Brigade
Green/Blue/Red: 1
1 Bear's Companion
Artifact: 1
1 Witness of the Ages
1 Dismal Backwater
1 Tranquil Cove
1 Wooded Foothill
First pack I opened Wooded Foothill for value.
Ended up going 1-2 in that draft. I think I could have won game 1 of match 3 if I didn't make a mistake with attacks the last turn, and leave myself DOB. I was just super tired after playing for 7 hours in a row.
I like this deck, the with only real stinker being Dutiful Return. I think I'd take a 3 or 4 mana Hooting Mandrills over it pretty much every time. And I like a morph even more than that.
So I'd have run 2 Krumar Bond-Kin, 1 War Behemoth instead of 1 Disowned Ancestor, 1 Dutiful Return, 1 Jeskai Student.
Your manabase is solidly in BW, with red reduced to a mere splash. This is very good.
However, I would question the value of Highspire Mantis in a deck where red is the merest splash. A 3/3 flyer is great on turn 4. It's average on turn 5, and underwhelming every turn after that. Rotting Mastodon is also a very weak card. You have 3 solidly playable morphs in your sideboard that I would consider it a slam dunk to play (in this order: Ponyback Brigade, Sidisi's Pet and Witness of the Ages). I would run all of them to upgrade that previously mentioned cards, as well as lower the curve by cutting either Swarm of Bloodflies or the 3rd Rite of the Serpent.
Thanks for the feedback!
In the first draft I agree I should not have have played the Dutiful Return. I didn't have enough self-mill to get value from it.
I think my problem is not valuing Morph cards highly enough. I look at things like Krumar Bond-Kin and War Behemoth and go "ugh". In my mind I feel like I need to draft at least 3-4 two drops (like Jeskai Student) to not get overrun by morphs.
In the second draft, I really liked Swarm of Bloodflies with my outlast lords, especially Ainok Bond-kin and Mer-Ek Nightblade.
Is Ponyback Brigade strong in a grindy deck with no Rush of Battle or Trumpet Blast?
1. They are great because they *could* be better morphs, and makes your opponents face a hard choice on turn 5 when you attack with a 2/2 facedown. Do they block? (hint: the answer is no).
2. Sure. So cut a redundant 6-drop then.
3. Yeah, it's fine just as 5 power worth of creatures for 6 mana (or the 3+5 plan).
1 sandsteppe citadel
2 wind-scarred crag
2 bloodfell caves
1 scoured barren
4 plains
3 swamp
3 mountains
1 salt road patrol
1 canyon lurkers
1 ponyback brigade
2 mardu roughrider
1 ainok bond-kin
1 war behemoth
1 sultai scavenger
1 mardu hateblade
2 unyielding krumar
1 mardu hordechief
1 bellowing saddlebrute
1 sage-eye harrier
2 alabaster kirin
1 summit prowler
1 feat of resistance
1 smite the monstrous
1 mardu charm
1 burn away
1 murderous cut
Went undefeated with this Mardu deck, won every game fairly easily, mulliganed to six almost every game, think If I went 18 lands it would of been much better. Had great removal and good top-end with mardu roughrider. No bomb rares or anything.
p2p1 took mardu charm over herald of anafenza, still not sure on that but charm was very good all draft. P2P2 had to hate-draft Sagu Mauler as that card is unbeatable. Overall I felt very good, prioritzed staying in one color early(white), and taking mana fixing in both Mardu and Abzan. First 8 picks I think I had 3 lands and 5 white cards, then took what was open.
1 Weave Fate
1 Dig Through Time
2 Master the Way
1 Crackling Doom
1 Mardu Charm
1 Jeskai Charm
1 Suspension Field
1 Kill Shot
2 Debilitating Injury
2 Winterflame
1 Arc Lightning
1 Goblinslide
1 Sultai Scavenger
1 Glacial Stalker
1 Disowned Ancestor
1 Warden of the Eye
1 Mystic Monastery
1 Bloodfell Caves
1 Polluted Delta
2 Swiftwater Cliffs
2 Tranquil Cove
1 Wind-Scarred Crag
2 Plains
5 Swamp
1 Island
2 Mountain
I went 3-1, losing tight games in the finals to an aggressive mardu deck and stumbling on mana, which is not unreasonable; 4 color is somewhat greedy even with getting that many duals. I probably needed 1 or 2 more to have a solid 4 color mana base, but against all of the slower decks it had time to find its colors. It was a huge amount of fun to play, it was very strong and just oozed 2 for 1s all over the place, and had decent early game interaction if it hit its mana.