KTK #3

  Pack 1 pick 1:




The cards in the pack that I'm looking at are Arrow Storm and Force Away. I like Winterflame quite a bit but it's two colors.

Arrow Storm is definitely the obvious pick I think, because it functions as both removal and a closer. I went against my instinct, however, and took Force Away. It's cheaper and I think blue is a better color.

This pick might be psycho.


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  Pack 1 pick 2:


This is a pretty tough pick. The two cards I'm looking at are Dead Drop and Debilitating Injury.

I think Dead Drop is a more powerful card in the abstract and I like the delve strategy in general, but I went with Injury to try and keep with my "cheaper is better" mantra.

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  Pack 1 pick 3:


This is a pretty nice pack. The cards that stand out to me are Ruthless Ripper, Bitter Revelation, and Woolly Loxodon. I think Rush of Battle is also a reasonable consideration to be honest.

Ruthless Ripper is stronger than Bitter Revelation (and less likely to be available as a later pick) so it comes down to that vs. Loxodon. Loxodon is great but I don't feel like the power level is worth the deviation from a color that I already have.

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  Pack 1 pick 4:


My deck is kind of starting to take shape. Supposedly one of the best strategies is the black/green big toughness deck, and Archer's Parapet is a key card in that deck. I already have two pretty nice black cards, and aside from Mardu Skullhunter, there aren't any cards that come close to fitting in with what I already have.

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  Pack 1 pick 5:


This is another great pack. I'd be happy to take Ponyback Brigade, Jeskai Charm, or Wind-Scarred Crag from it, if I were able to use them. As is, I'm still pretty happy to just take Hooting Mandrills.

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  Pack 1 pick 6:


This is a pretty tough pick too. Not like any of these cards are spectacular, but I think Awaken the Bear is underrated in general, and one of my favorite things to do ever is to curve out with a morph or whatever on 3, and then Scout + Mandrills on 4. I almost auto-locked in on Scout, but then I took a look at Kheru Bloodsucker and figured it would be a lot more useful in the deck I was trying to draft when I made the Parapet pick (B/G big booty).

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Perhaps Bond-Kin is a more conservative pick since I'll likely play it in any black deck I make (that doesn't end up spectacular), but I took Crippling Chill on the off chance that I end up U/x tempo and get to use it with my Force Away.

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With back to back Sambars, I have a pretty good foundation for the tempo deck I mentioned earlier, in case the draft goes sour.


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  Pack 2 pick 1:


I almost immediately took the Parapet, but I think Icy Blast is so strong that I'll probably splash it in my B/G deck, if I don't outright abandon that deck for U/x tempo anyway.

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I'm not seeing black cards, and I love Crippling Chill, so with this pick I make it official - I'm U/x tempo. Now to figure out what X is.

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This is a strange pick, and upon reviewing it, I feel like I should have just taken Waterwhirl. U/B tempo isn't really a thing as far as I know, and even if it is, Disowned Ancestor is not the most aggressive creature. I feel like this pick was me waffling and thinking, maybe B/G toughness is workable after all.

I'm not sure. I think this pick was wrong. The problem I have with a lot of my decks in this format (tempo or otherwise) is that I end up with too many spells and not enough creatures, so I guess my subconscious incorrect solution was to take a creature I wasn't likely to use rather than a spell that I would have used.

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  Pack 2 pick 4:


Getting back to a tempo deck, my choice here is to take Windscout and be safe, or take Grizzly and try to make U/G happen. I don't have that many good green cards yet, just a Mandrills, so Windscout is safer. However, the payoff for Grizzly is a lot higher, since it improves so many cards in this archetype - Savage Punch, Crippling Chill, Force Away, not to mention the Icy Blast that I have.

Windscout is sick and I have no problem taking it super early, but I think Grizzly is better for what I want to achieve in this draft.

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  Pack 2 pick 5:


Super happy to take a 2 drop here. I already mentioned my too-many-spells issue, otherwise I'd have loved to have taken Force Away or Waterwhirl. I chose Smoke Teller over Highland Game since it stands up a little bit better to tokens.

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  Pack 2 pick 6:


I'm not quite ready to dip into Whirlwind Adepts for creatures yet, and I don't actually have any pumps, so Awaken the Bear it is.

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  Pack 2 pick 7:


I'd really rather not play a third color, so Scaldkin is out. The next most useful card is Disdainful Stroke.

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  Pack 3 pick 1:


Awesome open. Something that Tommy Ashton pointed out to me was that his favorite way to cast this card was just face up as a Mahamoti Djinn. I think I have to agree that it is a bit better that way.

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  Pack 3 pick 2:


I really like Glacial Stalker, and it's a bit more versatile as far as fitting into my curve right now. I'm not really sure why I took Mandrills over it, especially considering I don't have any Scout the Borders yet. I think if I could go back, I'd take Stalker.

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  Pack 3 pick 3:


Crippling Chill is what makes this U/G tempo deck work. Plus, too many Mandrills without enough ways to fill the graveyard can be pretty awk.

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Well we have the Grizzly aspect under control. If only it weren't too late to start seeing Savage Punches.

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This pick is a godsend after all those Mandrills. Now I have a reasonable way to cast them early.

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I'd rather have the creature than the fixing. I don't think my mana will be too demanding.

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I like the way this deck turned out. It's not super streamlined, but it has everything you need to win with U/G tempo - the ability to curve out, lots of Crippling Chills, and two reasonable bombs (Thousand Winds and Icy Blast). I'm actually excited about the prospect of the two Whirlwind Adepts since I think he will hit hard if I can keep the board under control with all my instants.

R1

My opponent had a Temur deck. I won game 1 despite my earliest efforts being thwarted by Dragons Eye Savant (another card that I think is sick and underrated). I had Icy Blast to be lethal over 2 attacks with a Crippling Chill backup as a spare blocker. Turns out, my opponent had one also, but you can't target Whirlwind Adept with it, so I was able to get in enough damage to be able to clean up eventually.

I lost game 2 to an Ashcloud Phoenix and a Waterwhirl. I navigated the board into a situation where I was at 12 and had a Whirlwind Adept and a Kin-Tree Warden, to my opponent's incoming Ashcloud Phoenix, Mardu Heart-Piercer, and two face down creatures, one of which I know is Snowhorn Rider. My opponent had 8 or so mana up and no cards in hand and attacked me. If I block a morph, I run the risk of it being Snowhorn Rider and taking exactly 12, so I decide to block Mardu Heart-Piercer. Unfortunately, his other morph was Woolly Loxodon and I ended up taking exactly 12 anyway. Pretty tough beat.

I won game 3 by curving out and having Icy Blast. That card is the real deal.

R2

My opponent had an aggressive Mardu deck. Luckily for me, he missed his 4th land drop for a few turns and I was able to keep trading blows with him.

There was a really strange turn where my opponent played Monastery Swiftspear and attacked his four creatures (Swiftspear, Mardu Skullhunter, Mardu Hateblade, and Bloodfire Expert) into my board of Whirlwind Adept and a face up Thousand Winds. My opponent had Scoured Barrens and Nomad Outpost up, so I felt like Ride Down was highly likely and thought carefully about how to not get destroyed by it. I was at 11, so blocking poorly would definitely mean losing.

I decided to block Mardu Hateblade with Whirlwind Adept and Bloodfire Expert with Thousand Winds. I reasoned that if he had Ride Down, I'd still get Hateblade off the board, and I could untap and live at 3 life with two creatures (I had a tapped morph as well), with a third on the way and Force Away as backup.

My opponent didn't have Ride down (or maybe didn't want to cast it, although less likely) and decided to just give deathtouch to the Hateblade to trade with my Adept. This left me in a great position. I clocked him down to 7 with my 5/6 and morph, and played another creature. My opponent found another land and played Summit Prowler and passed. I clocked him down to 3 and felt great with Force Away as backup vs. the Ride Down that I smelled a fwe turns earlier, He alpha-ed, I blocked Summit Prowler only to go from 8 to 3, and he tapped his remaining 2 mana to try and Crater's Claws me for exactly 3. Force Away took his Ferocious away and we were on to game 2.

I lost game 2 to a Rush of Battle. My opponent had an early Swarm of Bloodflies, and I took too much damage from a Valley Dasher that I was afraid to trade with since it would just grow the Bloodflies. As it turns out, that strategy just played into my opponent's hands. Pretty nice pseudo-synergy that I didn't really notice before.

I won game 3. I had an awesome curveout (2 drop into Grizzly) and quickly got my opponent to 5 with a Crippling Chill and a Force Away, and I was ready to close the game out with Icy Blast, but my opponent stopped playing creatures (which meant that tricks were likely and that I couldn't just jam without walking into something). I was content to just wait and build my board, since if my opponent ever tapped out to keep building his, I would just win with Icy Blast.

I navigated carefully and was fortunate enough to have my deck continue to deliver creatures, while my opponent never seemed to draw many. Eventually I decided to alpha when I had Awaken the Bear and Icy Blast, requiring my opponent to have 2 cards to stop me. He only had one (a second Feat of Resistance) and I was on to the finals.


R3

Kind of an anti-climactic round. On the play in G1 I kept three Islands, three Forests, and a Wetland Sambar. Almost certainly a mulligan, but I feel like taking six cards on the play is basically a death sentence in this format, so I'm loathe to do it unless I literally can't play Magic with my 7 card hand.

It was looking good for a while, as I drew a few spells, but then lands started coming again and I died to a massive flood.

I kept a 2 land 7 card hand in game 2 and did not ever see a third land.

Overall, I'm happy that I made the finals, especially because I haven't been having too much success in this format (particularly Sealed). This draft does leave me with lots of questions, however. I know that the strategy that Ari Lax favors is the strong cards & lands multicolor strategy, and I'm wondering what picks I could make differently in the beginning to slant this draft towards that strategy instead of bad U/G tempo.

In general I feel like the cards in this format are so similar in power level (even if it's not obvious) that you have a lot more flexibility in drafting whatever deck you want as long as you know what to prioritize. For example, I bet I could have taken those two early Rush of Battle and built a pretty nice Warrior deck, and it wouldn't really have been "wrong." I'm not too sure of that however.