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Draft
http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=gdhgk
Deck
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zvdGig2.png)
This time I focused on staying open longer, not forcing anything, and sticking with an enemy color pair as long as possible with minimal splash. I'm happy with how my deck turned out. I expected a 2-1 or optimistic 3-0. I made a mistake with not realizing I had 4 Delve cards and only 1 enabler. Become Immense should have been cut from the main deck.
Round 1
Game 1
I'm on the play. Initial hand is 5 lands, Singing Bell Strike and Becoming Immense. I mulligan it knowing this will get me nowhere. Mulligan to a 3 land and 3 spells, but all 3 spells require getting a black source... however at least 2 are morphs. It's fine especially on the draw.
Turn 5 I have the option of playing a morph to get something on board, or Scout the Borders to fuel my grave and grab another creature. I opt for the morph (Abomination of Gudul), but think this was wrong:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/CXOWmja.png)
He unmorphs the 5/2 Canyon Lurker, next turn I play the Elk and Savage Punch the lurker to 2 for 1 myself but get the 5/2 off board at least. (I think this was a mistake - should have just played the Elk and traded). I now have enough in my grave for Become Immense to cast, so I don't attack with my Abomination as I try to stabilize (down to 7 life now):
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/sxmfp5d.png)
I will use Become Immensive against any burn spells. Instead he does Rite of the Serpent so nothing I can do. I lose the game shortly after.
Game 2
Turn 2 he plays Horde Ambusher. I draw Icefeather Aven on turn 3, but also have Glacial Stalker and Wooly as morphs in hand to play. I opt for Icefeather with the idea to bounce his creature next turn. Thinking maybe just play Glacial and offer the trade instead?
He gets turn 3 Mardu Ascendancy and the game just gets out of hand quickly. I now have the option of bouncing his token creature to remove it, or bounce the non-token creature so he can't have a good attack and can't attack for another token. So I bounce the Horde Ambusher. Probably right play?
He continues to play threats, and eventually unmorphs Ponyback for even more tokens. I just can't stabilize against this and lose quickly.
Suddenly I'm questioning what I did wrong with my deck. I'm realizing I need to side out Become Immense at least due to only 1 delve enabler (Scout the Borders).
Round 2
Game 1
Quick game, I go 2/1 elk into Jeskai Windscout, into morphed Icefeather Aven. He only has Smoke Teller and Sultai Ascendancy on board. He eventually trades with the elk, and plays Sidisi's Pet (lol). I bounce it with Icefeather and game is quickly over.
Game 2
I sideboarded out Become Immense and Wooly for Disdainful Stroke and Dragons Eye Savants, thinking I'm against some high mana cost creature deck due to his lack of plays last game and Sultai Ascendancy. He gets a quick 1,2,3 start of Kin-tree Warden, Smoke Teller, Alpine Grizly to my surprise. All I have down is Dragons Eye Savants to stem the bleeding and I Bell Strike his Alpine Grizly.
Turn 5 he plays Incremental Growth, with a Long-shot squad out and I just don't have any answers for it in hand. I know I'm in dire straights. But he's been playing slow all game and is risking losing due to time so I purposely stall out the game.
On my final turn I did a worthless savage punch with my 0/6 vs his 0/3, then attacked with my 0/6 just to waste more of his clock. He ends up winning at the end with 8 seconds remaining. So he auto loses the 3rd game and I'll take the freebie. I have no moral qualms with beating someone on the clock when they play that slowly.
Round 3
Game 1
I get off to a quick start with Highland Elk on turn 2, Scout the borders on 3, and Hooting Mandrils plus Wetland Sandbar on 4. He only has Disowned Ancestor out with two +1+1 counters. I Sultai Charm his only creature as he's tapped out and swing with everything and he's already down to 8 life on his 5th turn. Game ends shortly after.
Game 2
I get the turn 3 Scout Borders into turn 4 Hooting Mandrils start, but he has a quick start himself with Mardu Skullhunter on turn 2 and morphs on 3 and 4. I get blown out by Awaken The Bear. He has too much of a board presence and I never catch up.
Game 3
I'm not sure about my choice on turn 3 with Scout the borders. I end up taking the Monastery over another land or better creature, just hoping to get some defenses down while I get Cruising for cards:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/WuIPxim.png)
The next turn I have barely enough to cast Treasure Cruise, delving my entire graveyard while I have another Treasure Cruise in hand. I opt to play the Monastery Flock to make sure I have my defenses up first. Not sure if this was the right play or not. I could have played a Glacial Stalker morph or Highland game and I'm not under much pressure. Next turn I play a creature and miscalculate my Treasure Cruise, I am 1 mana/delve away from playing it with my 2 drop. I really wanted the cards here.
In the end it doesn't matter as I keep filling up my hand and grave and cruise again. I have dominating board presence and a full wad of cards and stomp him.
Final record 2-1. Got 9 tix for the fetch. I'm happy with my performance this draft minus a couple misplays and not taking into consideration I originally had 4 Delve Cards in my main deck and only 1 enabler, so that was a bad oversight on my part.
Level-ups
* 2 drops are more important than I originally imagined. Getting them out while your opponent is waiting on a morph is excellent. They also trade well against morphs or force them to use their mana on the turn to unmorph to save their creature.
* I'm very bad in the morph vs morph battles. I'm never sure when it's good to trade my Abomination of Gudul or Whooly Mammoth morphs against an unknown morph for instance. I hope to get to my 5th/6th land and unmorph them and stabilize by default. Any general advice here?
* I wanted to try out Blinding Spray, but never really had the chance. It's just so pricey, but I can imagine it has good blowout potential against an alpha strike, and it's a cantrip.
* I need to pay more attention to how many delve cards I have in my deck. I only had the fetch and Scout the Borders for enablers, but I originally had 4 delve cards. I later cut Become Immense since I already have a lot of big creatures as is.
* Scout the Borders into Hooting Mandrils / Treasure Cruise was awesome. One game I even had nearly back to back Treasure Cruises.
* I'm starting to get a better hang of when to play a card for a morph and when to hard cast it. Like with the 0/6 morph to reveal a blue card, there's almost never a reason to hard cast that, but I used to without much thought. Seeing their hand, and having a good blocker, while they only see a Glacial Stalker or whatever is great. I get to see if a combat trick might be coming my way or what might be cast after combat.
* Singing Bell Strike is an excellent tempo card. In the early game, it effectively removes the creature until they at least get 6 mana, and then they have to use up their entire turn to untap it ONCE. It isn't a Claustrophia, but still great. It's jumped up a little in my evaluation.
* Force Away has also bumped up a little in my evaluation because of the amount of outlast / +1+1 counter centric decks out there.
* Abomination of Gudul may be my favorite card to play in the format. 3/4 flying looter. Enough said.
* Jeskai Windscout has been creeping up higher in my evaluation lately due to its prowess ability. On my turn for instance I can Singing Bell Strike one guy, Force Away another (and optionally loot now that Ferocious is active!), and then get in for 4 damage. Loving it.
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Quick comments:
- you should probably value lands more highly
- weave fate is fine even if you expect some amount of treasure cruises- instant for prowess and goes to the yard for delve
- rakshasa's secret is a fine enabler
specific picks:
p1p3- I think Crippling Chill or the land is better than taking a card of a second color.
p1p7- the artifact morph is pretty mediocre, picking up a delve card here and prioritizing an enabler later is probably better, or just take weave fate to keep your options open
p1p8- if you are looking to be Sultai, I'd rather take the enabler (Rakshasa's Secret) here as you can usually pick up delve spells later once people start flooding on them. That said it's better to keep the Temur option open so Cruise is fine here.
p1p10- super late Temur Charm, should probably take it and consider moving in. You have literally zero black cards at this point.
Mostly just think you abandoned Temur too easily given that it was flowing and black wasn't.
p2p4- a lot of things to say about this pick, I think this was easily the most questionable pick. You are currently straight UG, you have a Temur triland, red playables (including an actual Temur Charm) were still floating around at the end of the last pack. Not really any signal into Sultai or real reason to go into Sultai at this point. The triland lets you stay open to either clan (or more likely UG with possible double splash). The RUG morph is also a possibility as you can splash the red but I'm pretty sure the land is better. Both are likely better than the expensive spell.
p2p6- Ascendancy is pretty good with a bunch of Delve cards, this is a fairly close pick but I think the Ascendancy is worth taking. Bellowing Saddlebrute is also very good and worth looking at here. Much easier to take either of these if you have the triland.
p2p8- probably want the delve enabler over the sideboard card
p3p5- you already identified this which is good, just reinforcing that this wasn't the best pick :V The Bear's Companion makes me even sadder you didn't keep an eye out for Temur.
p3p10- Taigam's Scheming looks awful but is actually pretty strong at enabling delve for cheap. Worth looking at given your lack of enablers this draft.
Overall you committed to the Sultai plan a bit too early imo. Could have stayed UG for at least a few more picks, even taking a few Sultai cards here in pack 2 is no reason to ignore the red cards. UG double splash probably more correct, leaning Temur.
As for morph on morph, obvious answer is "it depends." Do you want to trade now to buy time, keep the board simplified and feed future delve? If so just trade early and often. I wouldn't get super attached to your morphs even if they are sweet when flipped, the whole point of playing morphs is to have cards that can use your mana on multiple points on the curve, there's no reason to tie up all your mana and mental energy into flipping up your first morphs. Obviously it's nice but just do whatever the current situation demands.
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Looking back, I agree, it looks like Temur was quite open. I didn't take the Temur Charm to mean that much because even in Temur I don't like playing that charm. I think it's easily the worst of the charms. Either way, I did overlook Temur because I got too attached to having delve cards and Abomination of Gudul and focused heavily on having a solid two color base.
I didn't take Rakshasha's Secret because I really wanted to make sure my mana would be solid, and splashing for a Mind Rot / minor enabler seemed bad. I just wanted to keep my splash to the major cards like my Abominations and Sultai Charm. The spell is only good in the early turns as well, late game it's just a 3 mana spell to put the top two of my library in the grave many times.
I agree with the Crippling Chill / land over the Warname Aspirant which also has really underperformed for me in limited. 3/2s are really bad in this format of morphs.
About the Death Frenzy pick, I ended up not even playing the card. I wish I took the triland here.
Bellowing Saddlebrute has been very strong when I played it, so I could have taken that for my splash as well.
I'm very inexperienced with playing delve related strategies so I made some bad picks here. Should have taken at least 1 or 2 more enablers are some point and more dual/tri lands to support it.
Thanks for the feedback as always!
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United States22154 Posts
This is an interesting read, because I haven't really been following magic in the last 6 or so months, so its good to get some perspective. These are good reads, so keep it up.
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I shouldn't have played the Wetland Sandbar and Savage Punched that Round 1 Game 1. I should have just kept the creature on board to trade with the 5/2 or 3/1 I could block both, with 2/1 against his 5/2 and Abomination on his 3/1, and use Become Immense against any trick of his to keep Abomination alive. I don't think I would have won anyways with so little fuel and he would have Rite of Serpented my Abomination anyways. Still, I think this was a mistake on my part.
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p1p8 I take the RUG morph. I think treasure cruise is just not very good outside of sultai delve, and I have no reason to believe we are sultai instead of RUG. If we are RUG, it's better to start moving into it now. Treasure cruise is an easy card to pick up later.
p1p10 I think this is a clear charm, and a huge sign RUG is open. Even if you think the charm is the worst of the 5, it's still quite good, and goes with your earlier picks. There is no reason why you should even have the option this late. Additionally, scaldkin is quite bad if you don't have red. I'm pretty surprised to see the charm this late; it's rare that you see signals like this, and this has to be the worst pick in my book.
p1p11 The pick is clear, and is a signal that BUG is open. It's just worth mentioning that if you had taken the charm in the previous pick, you would be very open to either RUG or BUG, and could concentrate on more U/G on picks where the decision is close. It is likely a person to your left moves into RUG now, since you have passed the RUG charm and morph so late. We can expect RUG/R cards to be cut in the next pack, which hurts your options.
p2p1 I think the pick is close. Force away and punch are pretty equal in power level. Punch is a bit better, looking at your deck, as you said. The thing is we are heavier blue at this point, and there is even some chance that green ends up being the splash color. Either way, regarding your comments, there is a 0% chance force away can table in this pack. I also think the secret plans plan is bad.
p2p4 I think tri-land is clear as well. They are quite good, especially when they are in your likely color combination
p2p8 witness of the ages or rakshasa's secret. I just don't think disdainful stroke is very good.
I'd cut a cruise for the sagu archer for the maindeck. The other delve cards are easier to cast without delve, drawing both cruises could be fatal, and sagu archer should be maindeck here.
r1 game 1: I support the morph over scout the borders. Generally, in decisions like this, you want to make the one that advances your board state. This also gives us a chance to unmorph first, which will be good for your tempo.
On the turn after that, you definitely shouldn't savage punch. As you said, it is better to just play the 2/1.
In the 2nd screenshot I also don't understand why scout the borders is in your grave, but it looks like no other cards went with it?
r3 game 3: On the borders decision, just take the land.
I also think I just play the morph instead of scouting, and scout next turn for the 4th land if it looks like I'm missing a land drop. This gives us 2 turns to draw another land for the turn 5 unmorph glacial stalker, and I have plenty of gas in hand even if he kills it. I'm less sure this time with 2x treasure cruise in hand though. I do think it's generally better to develop the board and try to unmorph on turn 5 first.
Having taken the monastery flock, it is definitely incorrect to play it the next turn. Assuming I drew the 2/1, and opp didn't do anything more relevant than playing a morph, I'd go with cruise at this point to hit my land drop. My general strategy would still be to unmorph glacial stalker asap.
For the morph on morph stuff, what MCMcEmcee said is good. In general it helps if you have a plan for the next few turns. If it's your only relevant action you have to keep it. If there is a strong chance you will unmorph first, it pays to keep it. If you have a ton of useable gas in hand, but not as much lands, it pays to trade. If you have a plan on your next few turns even after trading, it's often better to do so. Keep in mind that opps also generally won't offer the trade unless they have something else going on, as bluffing here is a pretty poor play.
I think bell strike is better than I thought too. It is especially good in blue-based aggro/tempo decks. There is also mystic of the hidden way, jeskai windscout, force away, crippling chill, and that 2/1 for 2, all at common in blue for those decks.
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In the 2nd screenshot I also don't understand why scout the borders is in your grave, but it looks like no other cards went with it?
What happened there was I attacked with Abomoniation and looted away Scout the Borders so it hit the bin. Another questionable play on my part.
Though I agree with the general advice that I should have dived a little more into Temur territory, I wouldn't be particularly happy with the charm. With charms I generally want "kill a creature" as an option and this just has a slightly better sometimes worse Savage Punch while being harder to cast. The falter effect would be nice in a more aggressive shell. If the counter spell wasn't as conditional, I'd like it more. With that said, I don't really like the Scaldkin, even when I'm in Temur, so might as well take the charm over the other picks that suck there. And as others said, take more temur related picks earlier.
Disdainful Stroke has impressed me many times. There are some decks it's bad against, but countering someone's big delve spell for instance is fantastic. They no longer have the grave to fuel their other delves, and they get nothing out of an otherwise big spell. Other times it's just countering a removal spell on an important threat of mine, or countering some flyer I wouldn't be able to deal with. I've rarely played a deck where this card wasn't great. If it cost 3 mana I wouldn't like it as much - but U(1) is great. My favorite was when I sideboarded it in against someone who played End Hostilities in game 1, and I later countered it in Game 3 to secure my win.
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Oh right, you have abomination in play. I was actually trying to figure that one out for a while lol.
I think that temur charm is pretty good anytime you are around even on board. Fighting at instant speed is much stronger than sorcery speed. The biggest issue is it sucks when you are behind, even the mana leak. I personally think the card is quite good still.
Again, scaldkin shares two colors, and is quite a bit weaker. There are also signalling reasons to take the charm as mentioned before.
Disdainful stroke is a situational counterspell in a format where many of the major threats evade it with morph, and is usually just straight up dead against an aggressive deck. The format is tempo-oriented enough, where you don't want stroke in your deck.
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Wow, you draft a lot! This one's improved significantly from the first 
Previous posters have already covered most of what I would've suggested, but I want to repeat that you should be willing to trade face-down morphs as if they were just 2/2s under many circumstances.
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I've been drafting for about a year, just recently decided to start spending more time after the fact analyzing my play and asking others for feedback on it. I know my first blog entry on drafting here was a really bad way to start it - that deck was awful - but it's not like it was my first draft or anything. I've had plenty of awesome decks from M14, Theros, BTT, JBT, M15, and KTK, just not that one. It was partly what inspired me to really be hard on myself - I don't want to end up with shitty decks like that and I want to patch up all the leaks I can.
I've been keeping a spreadsheet of all my MTGO draft and sealed play, but it's mostly just raw statistics (format, archetype drafted, win/loss, win %, boosters won, tix won, cost to play). I average a win rate of around 60% - mostly 2-1s, rarely a 3-0, and even more rare an 0-3. I've also started keeping record of my drafts at my LGS for FNM where I usually go 3-1 and later on sell the boosters on eBay or to people at the store to try to make some money back.
I try to draft 3-5 times a week. I work a regular Monday-Friday 40 hour week and live with my gf where we often don't get to spend much time together, so I really can't play much more than that.
Also, worth mentioning, I'm currently on a 8 draft streak on MTGO where I haven't had to pay at all for entry. Just getting 2 packs pretty consistently and a few money pulls I sell for tix have done that (though I know I've gotten incredibly lucky there lately).
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United States9940 Posts
2 treasure cruise is simply 1 too many. 1 low cast treasure cruise should either catch you back up or straight up win you the game if you're already ahead. theres no need for a 2nd one. especially with a chance for 2 of them to be stranded in your hand.
if you can play a 2/1 into a 5/2, dont ever remove the 5/2 unless you feel a need to race him. otherwise, just sit back and wait for a chacne where you can 1 for 1 the 5/2 with punch (getting out a 4 power creature and a 3 toughness on board)
only looked at your deck and your first match though.
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EPT
