A pretty awesome UB deck I drafted last monday. Since it's a new format and people are trying to figure stuff out still, people seemed to heavily undervalue the UB artifact synergies, so I got a prime example of how UB artifacts works in this set.
Some takeaways from this particular deck were:
1. You need to try pretty hard to get enough artifacts to support more than 1 serpent. I tried the extreme case of running 3 with 9 artifacts. One game I managed to get 4 artifacts out and cast two serpents on turn 6 for 6 mana which was brutal, other games I only had one or two out and had two serpents be clunky in hand. One other thing to realize in blue especially is that it's insanely hard to get artifact count in blue since there are no fabricate creatures in the color. I was relying on puzzleknots and filler artifact 3 drop creatures in order to get the count up to support it, and this deck had just enough artifacts to get there.
2. Metalspinner's Puzzleknot is way better than it looks in UB. The card was essentially for this deck to function and way better than the Glassblower's Puzzleknot which I had in the board, and is both an enabler for your artifacts matters cards, and a late game cycle in a format where you don't have much to do with your mana. If I was in UB, I would prioritize these at around midpick as they were integral for setting up my draws and upping the artifact count.
3. Win conditions are hard to come by, so take them early. Blue only really has the serpent at common that can reliably close a game: otherwise you're looking at hoping that your random fliers get there. I luckily had the whale and flagship, but imagine that games would have been much harder if I did not have reliable win conditions.
That being said, I think this particular deck will be pretty hard to get as the format matures. Gearseeker Serpent seems integral to blue decks as a win condition, and I don't see the UB deck being very good without either these or uncommon/rare bombs. Blue in particular seems pretty shallow, as most of the power in blue for this deck came at uncommon and above aside from the serpents. Some combination of Foundry Screecher and Wind Drake might get there, but I'm not too hopeful.
Padeem sit in the sideboard and came in against slower decks with more removal, as a way to both protect my threats and bury them in card advantage.
Overall, the deck was rock-solid with a lot of evasive creatures, enough removal and two of the best below-rare vehicles in the set. Double Chief also pulled it's weight a lot inflating the tokens, and Dukhara Peafowl was a super serviceable creature overall, playing nice with half of the creature base: medium cost for Padeem, cheaper with Foundry Inspector, could crew Freighter by itself, received buffs from the Chiefs, reduced Serpent's cost, could be pickeable with Crane, scried with Kingpins, was a great curve play after Screecher, and had a massive butt to hold flying offenses.
I only lost Round 1 G1 against a Simic Energy deck with a Dynavolt Tower and a bazillion counters wiping my board, but Padeem and Malfunction rendered it useless G2 and G3 respectively. Round 2 and 3 were both 2-0.
The deck was a blast to play. It was highly efficient and synergistic, and had a lot of evasion to break through stalled boards and tokens in the form of 3 creatures with Menace, 7 with Flying and one with Trample, and one with a straight-out unblockable mana sink (counting vehicles). Gearhulk and Multiform Wonder were massive bombs, and overall I only missed some space for a mainboard Ambitious Aetherborn and perhaps the second Screecher.
Mostly this deck won because of the freighters, no surprises there. I picked those over anything except high quality removal and bombs. Took one over a second Unlicensed Disintegration in the second pack when I was still open for red/black instead of red/blue. Not sorry that I did because although my blue was mediocre, the early drops combined with freighters just put opponents on their back heel immediately. Freighter is a format defining card, and I think that's unfortunate because what it defines is a format that has too many non interactive games where one player doesn't even have a chance.
The Skyship Stalker is nice but I only drew it twice, and once it was at the very end of the game where my opponent conceded next turn with no way to stop a flyer and no way to not die to it, and the other game it was removed immediately. The deck won mostly on the back of early-ish beats combined with well timed removal, the freighter, and some flying over the top.
For those who haven't seen it, the combo of Fretwork Colony and Fairgrounds Trumpeter (which I got to curve T2 and then T3 twice) puts a +1/+1 counter on both each turn starting as early as turn 3. They quickly grow out of control.
Thriving Rats, Maulfist Squad, and Subtle Strike can also add +1/+1 counters, triggering Trumpeter to grow without Colony, even if the creature died before you play Trumpeter post-combat. Lifegain from 3 removal spells, Arborback and 2 lifelink creatures helped buff my life total so Fretwork wasn't too suicidal.
The 2nd Appetite came in a lot. They did a ton of work managing vehicles.
Padeem sit in the sideboard and came in against slower decks with more removal, as a way to both protect my threats and bury them in card advantage.
Wait, why would you not play Padeem main? You have 2 4cc artifact creatures, Multiform Wanderer and Noxious Gearhulk. You're going to be drawing cards for days, nevermind the times you blank removal.
Padeem sit in the sideboard and came in against slower decks with more removal, as a way to both protect my threats and bury them in card advantage.
Wait, why would you not play Padeem main? You have 2 4cc artifact creatures, Multiform Wanderer and Noxious Gearhulk. You're going to be drawing cards for days, nevermind the times you blank removal.
Because of misreading her ability. I never paid attention to the card before as I'm not a Commander folk, so I thought that the card draw applied to whoever had the highest CMC artifact and was afraid it could backfire.
Had a blast playing this. Decoction module is filthy in this deck. Never casted the gearhulk but had it casted against me, didn't do much as I had tons of artifact creatures.
Yeah there are alot of do-nothings in that deck. I am fairly certain that if I put together that exact deck I'd be completely thrashed by my opponents. But I'm glad that you had fun with it and that you went 3-0!
This set sucks and I don't enjoy it, so I decided to do *one last* Kaladesh event. 6-2-2-2 league draft. I cannot think of a more appropriate deck to have drafted as my last Kaladesh deck. This deck features everything that is wrong with Kaladesh. Here it is:
Picked Renegade Freighter FIRST 3 PICKS. Saw two more Renegade Freighters in pack 2 but only took 1. After I got the Renegade Freighters picks 1 - 3, I was just focusing on cheap creatures of power 2 or more, and removal.
You can imagine how this deck played. Aside from a land stumble once or twice, this deck never had any problems steamrolling the competition. I seemed to always have a Rush of Vitality whenever my opponent tried to double-block a freighter out of desperation, leading to, of course, an absolute blowout. At one time I had 3x freighters on board with 3x thriving grubs and another freighter + creature in hand. Sick.
Goodbye Kaladesh. I'd like to say you were good while you lasted but ... you weren't.
This was basically a go wide Servo spam deck with 3 lords, which is huge in Limited. First picked Angel of Invention and second pick was Chief of the Foundry, so I started picking Black and White cards since Green was almost nonexistant. White was wide open as you can see, since I managed to draft a good amount of super solid commons and uncommons, Propeller Pioneer even tabling in first pack. Mainboard Fragmentize over the second Revoke Privileges is a concession to Renegade Freighter, which I can't even chumpblock with servos, and the second Visionary Augmenter was relegated to the sideboard because I needed some early 2 and 3 drops and my 4-spot was cluttered. It came in against slower matchups though. I opted for mainboard Maulfist Squad instead of Augmenter because only Chief and Trinketeer made Augmenter's Fabricate 2 outvalue the Squad's natural 3 power and evasion, and I preferred the consistency of being able to force through points of damage or trade with two servos rather than a puny 1 toughness creature that puts the same power on the board if I don't have Servo lords out.
Haven't had much luck with Kaladesh in the past, but today I got my first Kaladesh 3-0 followed quickly by my second Kaladesh 3-0. The first one was just a pretty standard WR aggressive deck that had a couple of late game ways to push through damage, while the second deck was just obscene (and paid for several more drafts in addition to the 6 packs)
Apparently it doesn't save your decklists anymore aside from the last one, so here's consistency + bombs.dek:
I'm not loving Kaladesh all that much, but luckily triple Innistrad is back this week!
Kind of a trainwreck draft as I realized red was open a little too late to make it work and ended up playing all 23 of the remotely playable cards in my colors, but it worked, especially thanks to the fact that this deck could suddenly go from stalling to killing you with fliers very quickly with the help of the two power-boosting equipment.
Faced GW aggro round 1 with 4x Travel Preparations, WB midrange round 2, and UGB Spider Spawning in the finals.
Deck #2 is a pretty solid UB Zombies deck with a lot of ways to get value from recurring creatures, fliers to evade, and then Liliana for 64 tickets worth of value.
Attune with the Aether Animation Module Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter Decoction Module Die Young Servant of the Conduit Subtle Strike Thriving Rats Foundry Screecher Thriving Rhino Architect of the Untamed Lawless Broker Prakhata Pillar-Bug Aetherborn Marauder Midnight Oil 2 Hunt the Weak
Continuing the flashback decks, here's an Azorius deck that both had the early game defense to survive Rakdos and multiple ways to grind out a long game or kill with fliers while Voidwielders block on the ground.
Gruul deck from this week's Gatecrash flashbacks - it could kill a slow deck extremely quickly with the +5 power Bloodrush creatures, but it had enough dumb blockers and removal to stall against a more aggressive deck. Clan Defiance was obviously an absurd MVP.
The aggro deck I'm probably most proud of out of all of my years playing this game. The format was EMA sealed, and I was staring down a sealed pool with a mediocre Esper deck, a bunch of crappy threshold green creatures, and Winter Orb. Rather than playing the mediocre control deck, I decided to have some fun and build the RG winter orb aggro deck. However, given that 4 of my early plays all had threshold on them and I had no other options, I figured well, might as well splash blue for the quiet speculation and deep analysis since I sort of had the manabase to make it work. By some miracle, this deck just completely destroyed the meta, and ended up crushing the league 6-0. It turns out that everyone else just ran a durdly control deck, and this deck either completely destroys them with a Winter Orb (gamble makes it as if there are 1.75 winter orbs in the deck), a threshold draw (how do you deal with a 3/3 hexproof in EMA sealed?), or a random nuts aggro draw. I've never had an aggro deck where I was so happy to splash for a Quiet Speculation. Winter Orb also really teaches you about mana efficiency, as my creatures were just so much more efficient than most of the creatures in other decks: gravedigger doesn't seem as good when you can only untap 1 land a turn.
After I went second in a GPT Sealed with a strong GW deck I was lucky to open Sword of Fire and Ice and draft a pretty neat RB aggro deck. Had no problem against any opponent, whenever I drew the Sword it was just win more. Key to the City did a pretty good job making my creatures unblockable. One game I had turn 1 Inventor's Apprentice into turn 2 Speedway Fanatic into turn 3 Renegade Freigher into turn 4 Key to the City. Was really awesome. I just had some "problems" against Authority of the Consuls but even this deck eventually struggled vs. the power of Key to the City discarding lands and giving my creatures evasion.
Favourite Deck: Elves (Modern & Legacy)
Standard: New Perspectives Combo
Modern: GW Hatebears | Death and Taxes | Eldrazi and Taxes | Abzan Liege | Abzan Company
Commander: The Gitrog Monster (Combo) | Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper (Control) | RIP Leovold Sultai (Elvestorm, no unfair locks) | Mono G (Yisan or Titania)
Tiny Leaders: Too many decks to keep track of
Pauper: RIP UR Drake | Mono B | GBx Goodstuff | Jund "Melira"
As you can see I have 18 lands and 24 non-lands cards, but the deck played out very nice. The 2 Seal of Cleansing are to prevent me from milling myself with my blue Honden. I did not play vs. any super aggro deck luckily so I could build up my board, drop Hondens and win the game with red Honden and/or Call the Skybreaker. Most of the time I ended up drawing 4 cards a turn and discarding my lands to the CtS to retrace it to finally give my creatures pro white with 8,5-Tails and win. I was the only Enchantress-Drafter at the table, so I was lucky to get all the good stuff.
Our booster box was nuts tho, we had a Force of Will, Wasteland and foil Baleful Strix and some other 5$ rares (Deathrite Shaman, Wrath, foil Pyroblast,...)
Favourite Deck: Elves (Modern & Legacy)
Standard: New Perspectives Combo
Modern: GW Hatebears | Death and Taxes | Eldrazi and Taxes | Abzan Liege | Abzan Company
Commander: The Gitrog Monster (Combo) | Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper (Control) | RIP Leovold Sultai (Elvestorm, no unfair locks) | Mono G (Yisan or Titania)
Tiny Leaders: Too many decks to keep track of
Pauper: RIP UR Drake | Mono B | GBx Goodstuff | Jund "Melira"
So next event after the one that I complained about in the venting thread, I ended up going 3-0. But it doesn't change the fact that I still want more play time with my decks. I'd prefer to play 10 rounds even if it meant that I didn't win the event.
Blue is almost always open, so much so that I will start out trying to get a different color but pretty quickly fall back to a base blue deck. This deck was pretty good at gumming up the ground, stabilizing, using lifelink to get back to a comfortable position, and then winning with inevitability, usually with card advantage via Padeem. Also Shrewd Negotiation was an all-star.
By the way, my greed is evident, and I never even played Cloudblazer one time in the entire event.
How is it possible that the attached deck went 3-0?
I considered the draft a train wreck. First pick Renegade Freighter from a very weak pack. Second pick Revoke Privileges from another weak pack. White didn't flow. Everything was going wrong. About midway through pack 1 I decided to just give up, take Metallurgic Summonings and go crazy trying to build around it. Even then I didn't feel like I was getting any good instants/sorceries. I felt like the deck was so bad, with 11 weak creatures, no really good removal, and only a second pack Aethersquall Ancient as a legitimate bomb, and a very expensive and slow one at that.
And yet, I cruised right through. I always seemed to have a relevant instant in my hand. Metallurgic Summonings to Tezzeret's Ambition happened in several games and it's brutal. Even Captured by the Consulate did its bit, and that's a pretty bad card; but it's amazing how many players don't understand it and end up playing unnecessary removal against their own guy (for example, one player with a captured Bastion Mastodon that was gumming up my ground attack quite well tried to play Revoke Privileges on my Skyswirl Harrier that was holding his two 3/1 Foundry Screechers at bay, all that did was make his Bastion unable to block as well as unable to attack and allow my ground crew through).
Oh yeah even Insidious Will was a star, several times redirecting removal back to their own problem creature/vehicle, sometimes countering a creature at just the right moment and giving me a 4/4 at the same time. Insidious Will for cripes sake!
This deck shouldn't have 3-0, but it did. Oh well sometimes you're lucky I guess.
How is it possible that the attached deck went 3-0?
I considered the draft a train wreck. First pick Renegade Freighter from a very weak pack. Second pick Revoke Privileges from another weak pack. White didn't flow. Everything was going wrong. About midway through pack 1 I decided to just give up, take Metallurgic Summonings and go crazy trying to build around it. Even then I didn't feel like I was getting any good instants/sorceries. I felt like the deck was so bad, with 11 weak creatures, no really good removal, and only a second pack Aethersquall Ancient as a legitimate bomb, and a very expensive and slow one at that.
And yet, I cruised right through. I always seemed to have a relevant instant in my hand. Metallurgic Summonings to Tezzeret's Ambition happened in several games and it's brutal. Even Captured by the Consulate did its bit, and that's a pretty bad card; but it's amazing how many players don't understand it and end up playing unnecessary removal against their own guy (for example, one player with a captured Bastion Mastodon that was gumming up my ground attack quite well tried to play Revoke Privileges on my Skyswirl Harrier that was holding his two 3/1 Foundry Screechers at bay, all that did was make his Bastion unable to block as well as unable to attack and allow my ground crew through).
Oh yeah even Insidious Will was a star, several times redirecting removal back to their own problem creature/vehicle, sometimes countering a creature at just the right moment and giving me a 4/4 at the same time. Insidious Will for cripes sake!
This deck shouldn't have 3-0, but it did. Oh well sometimes you're lucky I guess.
Insidious Will is a great card, I don't know what you're talking about :P. Anyways, I think what makes this deck tick is that you have an incredibly strong late game, and solid defensive plays to get you there. While Captured by the Consulate isn't a great card in most decks, it's at it's best (close to bomb tier) in a deck where you have inevitability, and Metallurgic Summonings and Aethersquall Ancient have got you covered there. The vehicles are a bit iffy, but the deck as a whole has a lot of synergy, and has the potential to just grind the opponent out. I'm not entirely surprised this 3-0ed, but 2-1 or 1-2 is probably the expected average for this deck, so I agree that either you are extremely lucky, or a master at playing.
Well seeing as how Renegade Freighter is usually good for at least one win per event, when it is played out on turn three and opponent can't answer it, I kept it in, and sure enough, it won a game or two. The other vehicle is good with the bounce/flicker effects for value as well as being at least a threat from a deck that doesn't have many. Also I think it's good to have a couple of creatures that can kill the opponent in the midgame, even if they are vehicles, to act as removal bait at least until the real bombs can come out.
Hooray! Won my first Aether Revolt draft. Unsurprisingly, Ajani Unyielding wins games. My last game I even got to ultimate him and attack for 59 damage! Other than sick mythic brags, this draft really gave me more respect for cheap revolt enablers like Unbridled Growth and Implement of Improvement. I kinda wanted to get the second Implement in there but I couldn't figure out what to cut for it.
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Three of the rares are from the NPH pack... No idea how he managed that.
1x Aether Theorist
1x Weldfast Monitor
2x Prakhata Pillar-Bug
1x Cultivator's Caravan
1x Long-Finned Skywhale
1x Ambitious Aetherborn
1x Skysoverign, Consul Flagship
3x Gearseeker Serpent
1x Die Young
1x Essence Extraction
1x Insidious Will
1x Glimmer of Genius
1x Malfunction
1x Tidy Conclusion
Some takeaways from this particular deck were:
1. You need to try pretty hard to get enough artifacts to support more than 1 serpent. I tried the extreme case of running 3 with 9 artifacts. One game I managed to get 4 artifacts out and cast two serpents on turn 6 for 6 mana which was brutal, other games I only had one or two out and had two serpents be clunky in hand. One other thing to realize in blue especially is that it's insanely hard to get artifact count in blue since there are no fabricate creatures in the color. I was relying on puzzleknots and filler artifact 3 drop creatures in order to get the count up to support it, and this deck had just enough artifacts to get there.
2. Metalspinner's Puzzleknot is way better than it looks in UB. The card was essentially for this deck to function and way better than the Glassblower's Puzzleknot which I had in the board, and is both an enabler for your artifacts matters cards, and a late game cycle in a format where you don't have much to do with your mana. If I was in UB, I would prioritize these at around midpick as they were integral for setting up my draws and upping the artifact count.
3. Win conditions are hard to come by, so take them early. Blue only really has the serpent at common that can reliably close a game: otherwise you're looking at hoping that your random fliers get there. I luckily had the whale and flagship, but imagine that games would have been much harder if I did not have reliable win conditions.
That being said, I think this particular deck will be pretty hard to get as the format matures. Gearseeker Serpent seems integral to blue decks as a win condition, and I don't see the UB deck being very good without either these or uncommon/rare bombs. Blue in particular seems pretty shallow, as most of the power in blue for this deck came at uncommon and above aside from the serpents. Some combination of Foundry Screecher and Wind Drake might get there, but I'm not too hopeful.
1 Syndicate Trafficker
1 Glint-nest Crane
2 Contraband Kingpin
1 Foundry Inspector
1 Foundry Screecher
1 Weaponcraft Enthusiast
2 Chief of the Foundry
1 Dukhara Peafowl
1 Iron League Steed
2 Maulfist Squad
1 Experimental Aviator
1 Multiform Wonder
1 Noxious Gearhulk
1 Gearseeker Serpent
1 Inventor's Goggles
1 Renegade Freighter
1 Sky Skiff
Other spells (4)
1 Shrewd Negotiation
1 Malfunction
2 Tidy Conclusion
Land (16)
7 Island
9 Swamp
1 Foundry Screecher
1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
2 Ambitious Aetherborn
2 Self-Assembler
2 Fortuitous Find
P1P1: Noxious Gearhulk
P1P2: Chief of the Foundry
P1P3: Chief of the Foundry
Okay, so after this start I was clear that I wanted a Black-based Artifact deck, so I prioritized Black Fabricate cards and Artifacts overall. I was first into Red, due to two consecutive Welding Sparks in the midpack, but it dried up quite fast. In the mid-late picks I happened to pick a Gearseeker Serpent, a Dukhara Peafowl and a Contraband Kingpin. Second pack first pick was Syndicate Trafficker, after which I got passed a Padeem, Consul of Innovation and a Glint-Nest Crane which firmly set me in Dimir.
Padeem sit in the sideboard and came in against slower decks with more removal, as a way to both protect my threats and bury them in card advantage.
Overall, the deck was rock-solid with a lot of evasive creatures, enough removal and two of the best below-rare vehicles in the set. Double Chief also pulled it's weight a lot inflating the tokens, and Dukhara Peafowl was a super serviceable creature overall, playing nice with half of the creature base: medium cost for Padeem, cheaper with Foundry Inspector, could crew Freighter by itself, received buffs from the Chiefs, reduced Serpent's cost, could be pickeable with Crane, scried with Kingpins, was a great curve play after Screecher, and had a massive butt to hold flying offenses.
I only lost Round 1 G1 against a Simic Energy deck with a Dynavolt Tower and a bazillion counters wiping my board, but Padeem and Malfunction rendered it useless G2 and G3 respectively. Round 2 and 3 were both 2-0.
The deck was a blast to play. It was highly efficient and synergistic, and had a lot of evasion to break through stalled boards and tokens in the form of 3 creatures with Menace, 7 with Flying and one with Trample, and one with a straight-out unblockable mana sink (counting vehicles). Gearhulk and Multiform Wonder were massive bombs, and overall I only missed some space for a mainboard Ambitious Aetherborn and perhaps the second Screecher.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
1 Aether Theorist
1 Thriving Grubs
1 Eager Construct
1 Vedalken Blademaster
1 Wind Drake
1 Salivating Gremlins
2 Spireside Infiltrator
1 Whirler Virtuoso
1 Nimble Innovator
1 Maulfist Doorbuster
1 Skyship Stalker
2 Dukhara Peafowl
1 Gearseeker Serpent
1 Glassblower's Puzzleknot
2 Renegade Freighter
1 Ballista Charger
Other Spells (5)
1 Select for Inspection
1 Built to Smash
1 Harnessed Lightning
2 Welding Sparks
Land (16)
7 Island
9 Mountain
1 Minister of Inquiries
1 Night Market Lookout
1 Renegade Tactics
1 Spark of Creativity
1 Pressure Point
1 Revolutionary Rebuff
1 Giant Spectacle
1 Contraband Kingpin
1 Fireforger's Puzzleknot
1 Aether Tradewinds
1 Unlicensed Disintegration
1 Inspired Charge
1 Weldfast Wingsmith
1 Insidious Will
1 Demolish
1 Hightide Hermit
1 Tidy Conclusion
1 Dukhara Scavenger
Mostly this deck won because of the freighters, no surprises there. I picked those over anything except high quality removal and bombs. Took one over a second Unlicensed Disintegration in the second pack when I was still open for red/black instead of red/blue. Not sorry that I did because although my blue was mediocre, the early drops combined with freighters just put opponents on their back heel immediately. Freighter is a format defining card, and I think that's unfortunate because what it defines is a format that has too many non interactive games where one player doesn't even have a chance.
The Skyship Stalker is nice but I only drew it twice, and once it was at the very end of the game where my opponent conceded next turn with no way to stop a flyer and no way to not die to it, and the other game it was removed immediately. The deck won mostly on the back of early-ish beats combined with well timed removal, the freighter, and some flying over the top.
1 Sage of Shaila's Claim
2 Thriving Rats
2 Fretwork Colony
2 Fairgrounds Trumpeter
2 Prakhata Pillar-Bug
1 Foundry Screecher
1 Lawless Broker
1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
2 Maulfist Squad
1 Arborback Stomper
1 Riparian Tiger
1 Attune with Aether
1 Blossoming Defense
1 Die Young
2 Subtle Strike
1 Essence Extraction
1 Appetite for the Unnatural
1 Tidy Conclusion
//Lands: 16
8 Forest
8 Swamp
1 Appetite for the Unnatural
1 Creeping Corrosion
1 Fortuitous Find
1 Torch Gauntlet
For those who haven't seen it, the combo of Fretwork Colony and Fairgrounds Trumpeter (which I got to curve T2 and then T3 twice) puts a +1/+1 counter on both each turn starting as early as turn 3. They quickly grow out of control.
Thriving Rats, Maulfist Squad, and Subtle Strike can also add +1/+1 counters, triggering Trumpeter to grow without Colony, even if the creature died before you play Trumpeter post-combat. Lifegain from 3 removal spells, Arborback and 2 lifelink creatures helped buff my life total so Fretwork wasn't too suicidal.
The 2nd Appetite came in a lot. They did a ton of work managing vehicles.
Wait, why would you not play Padeem main? You have 2 4cc artifact creatures, Multiform Wanderer and Noxious Gearhulk. You're going to be drawing cards for days, nevermind the times you blank removal.
Because of misreading her ability. I never paid attention to the card before as I'm not a Commander folk, so I thought that the card draw applied to whoever had the highest CMC artifact and was afraid it could backfire.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
Yeah there are alot of do-nothings in that deck. I am fairly certain that if I put together that exact deck I'd be completely thrashed by my opponents. But I'm glad that you had fun with it and that you went 3-0!
Renegade_Freighter.dec
1 Night Market Lookout
2 Dhund Operative
3 Thriving Grubs
1 Lawless Broker
2 Lathnu Hellion
1 Spireside Infiltrator
1 Weldfast Monitor
1 Maulfist Squad
1 Maulfist Doorbuster
1 Wayward Giant
1 Metalspinner's Puzzleknot
4 Renegade Freighter
Enchantments (1)
1 Underhanded Designs
Others (5)
3 Rush of Vitality
1 Fortuitous Find
1 Essence Extraction
9 Swamp
6 Mountain
Picked Renegade Freighter FIRST 3 PICKS. Saw two more Renegade Freighters in pack 2 but only took 1. After I got the Renegade Freighters picks 1 - 3, I was just focusing on cheap creatures of power 2 or more, and removal.
You can imagine how this deck played. Aside from a land stumble once or twice, this deck never had any problems steamrolling the competition. I seemed to always have a Rush of Vitality whenever my opponent tried to double-block a freighter out of desperation, leading to, of course, an absolute blowout. At one time I had 3x freighters on board with 3x thriving grubs and another freighter + creature in hand. Sick.
Goodbye Kaladesh. I'd like to say you were good while you lasted but ... you weren't.
1 Trusty Companion
2 Dhund Operative
1 Chief of the Foundry
1 Master Trinketeer
1 Fairgrounds Warden
1 Aerial Responder
2 Glint-Sleeve Artisan
1 Visionary Augmenter
2 Maulfist Squad
3 Propeller Pioneer
1 Angel of Invention
2 Inspired Charge
1 Skywhaler's Shot
Sorcery (2)
1 Eliminate the Competition
1 Fragmentize
Enchantment (1)
1 Revoke Privileges
Artifact (2)
1 Renegade Freighter
1 Sky Skiff
Land (16)
9 Plains
7 Swamp
1 Inspired Charge
1 Fragmentize
1 Impeccable Timing
1 Tidy Conclusion
1 Revoke Privileges
1 Visionary Augmenter
2 Foundry Screecher
This was basically a go wide Servo spam deck with 3 lords, which is huge in Limited. First picked Angel of Invention and second pick was Chief of the Foundry, so I started picking Black and White cards since Green was almost nonexistant. White was wide open as you can see, since I managed to draft a good amount of super solid commons and uncommons, Propeller Pioneer even tabling in first pack. Mainboard Fragmentize over the second Revoke Privileges is a concession to Renegade Freighter, which I can't even chumpblock with servos, and the second Visionary Augmenter was relegated to the sideboard because I needed some early 2 and 3 drops and my 4-spot was cluttered. It came in against slower matchups though. I opted for mainboard Maulfist Squad instead of Augmenter because only Chief and Trinketeer made Augmenter's Fabricate 2 outvalue the Squad's natural 3 power and evasion, and I preferred the consistency of being able to force through points of damage or trade with two servos rather than a puny 1 toughness creature that puts the same power on the board if I don't have Servo lords out.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
Apparently it doesn't save your decklists anymore aside from the last one, so here's consistency + bombs.dek:
Kind of a trainwreck draft as I realized red was open a little too late to make it work and ended up playing all 23 of the remotely playable cards in my colors, but it worked, especially thanks to the fact that this deck could suddenly go from stalling to killing you with fliers very quickly with the help of the two power-boosting equipment.
Faced GW aggro round 1 with 4x Travel Preparations, WB midrange round 2, and UGB Spider Spawning in the finals.
Deck #2 is a pretty solid UB Zombies deck with a lot of ways to get value from recurring creatures, fliers to evade, and then Liliana for 64 tickets worth of value.
Animation Module
Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter
Decoction Module
Die Young
Servant of the Conduit
Subtle Strike
Thriving Rats
Foundry Screecher
Thriving Rhino
Architect of the Untamed
Lawless Broker
Prakhata Pillar-Bug
Aetherborn Marauder
Midnight Oil
2 Hunt the Weak
7 Swamp
Pauper: Burn
Modern: Burn
Legacy: Burn
EDH: Marath, Will of the Wild - Ramp/Combo | Anafenza the Foremost - French | Uril, the Miststalker - Voltron | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury - Goodstuff
Ghost Council of Orzhov - Tokens | Lazav, Dimir Mastermind - Control | Isamaru, Hound of Konda - Tiny Leaders
1x Kird Ape
2x Werebear
2x Thornweald Archer
1x Fervent Cathar
1x Civic Wayfinder
1x Emperor Crocodile
1x Bloodbraid Elf
1x Juggernaut
2x Stingscourger
2x Faithless Looting
1x Gamble
1x Deep Analysis
1x Quiet Speculation
1x Winter Orb
1x Firebolt
1x Invigorate
1x Island
2x Swiftwater Cliffs
7x Forest
6x Mountain
The aggro deck I'm probably most proud of out of all of my years playing this game. The format was EMA sealed, and I was staring down a sealed pool with a mediocre Esper deck, a bunch of crappy threshold green creatures, and Winter Orb. Rather than playing the mediocre control deck, I decided to have some fun and build the RG winter orb aggro deck. However, given that 4 of my early plays all had threshold on them and I had no other options, I figured well, might as well splash blue for the quiet speculation and deep analysis since I sort of had the manabase to make it work. By some miracle, this deck just completely destroyed the meta, and ended up crushing the league 6-0. It turns out that everyone else just ran a durdly control deck, and this deck either completely destroys them with a Winter Orb (gamble makes it as if there are 1.75 winter orbs in the deck), a threshold draw (how do you deal with a 3/3 hexproof in EMA sealed?), or a random nuts aggro draw. I've never had an aggro deck where I was so happy to splash for a Quiet Speculation. Winter Orb also really teaches you about mana efficiency, as my creatures were just so much more efficient than most of the creatures in other decks: gravedigger doesn't seem as good when you can only untap 1 land a turn.
1 Speedway Fanatic
2 Reckless Fireweaver
1 Fretwork Colony
1 Thriving Rats
1 Spireside Infiltrator
1 Salivating Gremlins
1 Prakhata Pillar-Bug
1 Maulfist Doorbuster
1 Iron League Steed
1 Renegade Tactics
1 Built to Smash
1 Key to the City
1 Sky Skiff
1 Fireforger's Puzzleknot
2 Unlicensed Disintegration
1 Renegade Freighter
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Tidy Conclusion
7 Swamp
After I went second in a GPT Sealed with a strong GW deck I was lucky to open Sword of Fire and Ice and draft a pretty neat RB aggro deck. Had no problem against any opponent, whenever I drew the Sword it was just win more. Key to the City did a pretty good job making my creatures unblockable. One game I had turn 1 Inventor's Apprentice into turn 2 Speedway Fanatic into turn 3 Renegade Freigher into turn 4 Key to the City. Was really awesome. I just had some "problems" against Authority of the Consuls but even this deck eventually struggled vs. the power of Key to the City discarding lands and giving my creatures evasion.
Favourite Deck: Elves (Modern & Legacy)
Standard: New Perspectives Combo
Modern: GW Hatebears | Death and Taxes | Eldrazi and Taxes | Abzan Liege | Abzan Company
Commander: The Gitrog Monster (Combo) | Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper (Control) | RIP Leovold Sultai (Elvestorm, no unfair locks) | Mono G (Yisan or Titania)
Tiny Leaders: Too many decks to keep track of
Pauper: RIP UR Drake | Mono B | GBx Goodstuff | Jund "Melira"
1 Yavimaya Enchantress
1 Monk Idealist
1 Mesa Enchantress
1 Man-o'-War
1 Pilgrim's Eye
2 Civic Wayfinder
2 Coalition Honor Guard
2 Abundant Growth
1 Prismatic Lens
2 Seal of Cleansing
2 Gaseous Form
1 Roots
1 Wrath of God
1 Call the Skybreaker
1 Honden of Night's Reach
2 Honden of Life's Web
1 Honden of Seeing Winds
1 Tranquil Cove
1 Wind-Scarred Crag
1 Blossoming Sands
2 Thornwood Falls
5 Forest
5 Plains
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
As you can see I have 18 lands and 24 non-lands cards, but the deck played out very nice. The 2 Seal of Cleansing are to prevent me from milling myself with my blue Honden. I did not play vs. any super aggro deck luckily so I could build up my board, drop Hondens and win the game with red Honden and/or Call the Skybreaker. Most of the time I ended up drawing 4 cards a turn and discarding my lands to the CtS to retrace it to finally give my creatures pro white with 8,5-Tails and win. I was the only Enchantress-Drafter at the table, so I was lucky to get all the good stuff.
Our booster box was nuts tho, we had a Force of Will, Wasteland and foil Baleful Strix and some other 5$ rares (Deathrite Shaman, Wrath, foil Pyroblast,...)
Favourite Deck: Elves (Modern & Legacy)
Standard: New Perspectives Combo
Modern: GW Hatebears | Death and Taxes | Eldrazi and Taxes | Abzan Liege | Abzan Company
Commander: The Gitrog Monster (Combo) | Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper (Control) | RIP Leovold Sultai (Elvestorm, no unfair locks) | Mono G (Yisan or Titania)
Tiny Leaders: Too many decks to keep track of
Pauper: RIP UR Drake | Mono B | GBx Goodstuff | Jund "Melira"
Blue is almost always open, so much so that I will start out trying to get a different color but pretty quickly fall back to a base blue deck. This deck was pretty good at gumming up the ground, stabilizing, using lifelink to get back to a comfortable position, and then winning with inevitability, usually with card advantage via Padeem. Also Shrewd Negotiation was an all-star.
By the way, my greed is evident, and I never even played Cloudblazer one time in the entire event.
I considered the draft a train wreck. First pick Renegade Freighter from a very weak pack. Second pick Revoke Privileges from another weak pack. White didn't flow. Everything was going wrong. About midway through pack 1 I decided to just give up, take Metallurgic Summonings and go crazy trying to build around it. Even then I didn't feel like I was getting any good instants/sorceries. I felt like the deck was so bad, with 11 weak creatures, no really good removal, and only a second pack Aethersquall Ancient as a legitimate bomb, and a very expensive and slow one at that.
And yet, I cruised right through. I always seemed to have a relevant instant in my hand. Metallurgic Summonings to Tezzeret's Ambition happened in several games and it's brutal. Even Captured by the Consulate did its bit, and that's a pretty bad card; but it's amazing how many players don't understand it and end up playing unnecessary removal against their own guy (for example, one player with a captured Bastion Mastodon that was gumming up my ground attack quite well tried to play Revoke Privileges on my Skyswirl Harrier that was holding his two 3/1 Foundry Screechers at bay, all that did was make his Bastion unable to block as well as unable to attack and allow my ground crew through).
Oh yeah even Insidious Will was a star, several times redirecting removal back to their own problem creature/vehicle, sometimes countering a creature at just the right moment and giving me a 4/4 at the same time. Insidious Will for cripes sake!
This deck shouldn't have 3-0, but it did. Oh well sometimes you're lucky I guess.
Insidious Will is a great card, I don't know what you're talking about :P. Anyways, I think what makes this deck tick is that you have an incredibly strong late game, and solid defensive plays to get you there. While Captured by the Consulate isn't a great card in most decks, it's at it's best (close to bomb tier) in a deck where you have inevitability, and Metallurgic Summonings and Aethersquall Ancient have got you covered there. The vehicles are a bit iffy, but the deck as a whole has a lot of synergy, and has the potential to just grind the opponent out. I'm not entirely surprised this 3-0ed, but 2-1 or 1-2 is probably the expected average for this deck, so I agree that either you are extremely lucky, or a master at playing.
Well seeing as how Renegade Freighter is usually good for at least one win per event, when it is played out on turn three and opponent can't answer it, I kept it in, and sure enough, it won a game or two. The other vehicle is good with the bounce/flicker effects for value as well as being at least a threat from a deck that doesn't have many. Also I think it's good to have a couple of creatures that can kill the opponent in the midgame, even if they are vehicles, to act as removal bait at least until the real bombs can come out.