This wekend, MtGO pushed me into UB, both drafts. I was quite excited by the first one; it's not every day that you open a bomb, and get passed a bomb in the same color:

1 x Dakra Mystic
1 x Pharika's Chosen
1 x Thassa's Ire
1 x Fleshmad Steed
1 x Returned Phalanx
1 x Sigiled Starfish
1 x Hubris
1 x Servant of Tymaret
1 x Chorus of the Tides
1 x Rotted Hulk
1 x Squelching Leeches
1 x Silence the Believers
1 x Sudden Storm
1 x Whip of Erebos
2 x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 x Keepsake Gorgon
2 x Shrike Harpy
1 x Dictate of Erebos
1 x Lash of the Whip
1 x Rise of Eagles
1 x Sip of Hemlock
7 x Island
10 x Swamp

1 x Gnarled Scarhide
1 x Triton Shorethief
1 x Viper's Kiss
1 x Spiteful Returned
2 x Cast into Darkness
1 x Claim of Erebos
1 x Read the Bones
1 x Agent of Erebos
3 x Weight of the Underworld
1 x March of the Returned
1 x Sphinx's Disciple
3 x Warchanter of Mogis


As you can see, I ended up a little short on creatures, specifically the little deathtouch guys, but Theros was very kind to me, with two Garys, Keepsake, Lash, Sip. The deck played even better than it looks, and it made short work of a RW and a UG deck. Still, I managed to lose the finals to a UG deck that just kept dropping monsters turn after turn. It was tight, and if I had the luxury of looking at the replays I might just identify the mistake that cost me the game, but finally, the last monster standing did me in. My opponent made my day, though; in the second game, he commented, "My creatures are large, just like my gut". I mean, no matter how lucky he gets, gotta love a guy like that.

And the next day, this.

2 x Eye Gouge
1 x Retraction Helix
2 x Bloodcrazed Hoplite
2 x Returned Phalanx
1 x Shipwreck Singer
1 x Feast of Dreams
1 x Scourgemark
1 x Voyage's End
1 x Felhide Minotaur
1 x Black Oak of Odunos
2 x Nimbus Naiad
2 x Asphyxiate
1 x Read the Bones
1 x Rotted Hulk
1 x Thassa's Emissary
1 x Floodtide Serpent
1 x Phenax, God of Deception
1 x Rise of Eagles
8 x Island
9 x Swamp

2 x Aerial Formation
1 x Font of Fortunes
1 x Traveler's Amulet
1 x Nullify


This began badly, with black getting cut early on in JINX, and me picking up a little bit of everything after that. And then, Phenax. So UB again, but this time, I barely managed to get to 23 playables. Still, I decided to try to get a win out of this failure. And I almost won the whole thing, getting the God down five times, which won me two matches. Another 2-1, but this time, I felt lucky to have gotten there.

Also, two radically different UB control builds, both lacking in Grim Guardians and Baleful Eidolons, a lot of fun to play for me, probably hell to play against for some impatient RW or WG bashers. Some guy just gave up when I tapped my Servant Of Tymaret with the Thassa's Ire.

White seems like the worst color to be in full block. Heroic is too diluted to be competitive, and Mastiff, while good, cannot make up for that. I'm pretty sure the guy who passed me Dictate in the first draft took Golden Hind over it (a common was missing). Green is suddenly the best color, with both GU and GB being extremely powerful. And black is close behind. I prefer it right now, since green is just so overdrafted.

I think I would have made a few changes to your first deck list:
- Cast in Darkness is removal for any small creatures with power 2 or less (unless they get pumped by something)
- In a controlish deck I definitely want Read in Bones.
- I think you want 18 land with so many 5 drops.

So I would have
- Fleshmad Stead (just not as good as Cast in Darkness)
- Rise of Eagles (your curve is so high)
- Rotted Hulk (this is just a terrible card)
- Lash (this is controversial and it's a toss up between this and the other Cast in Darkness)

In deck 2 I think I drop an eye gouge for Font of Fortunes

I agree with you summary that deck 1 is better but deck 2 does look like it could go 2-1

I don't think you can drop down to 13 creatures like that for one bad removal spell. I might have played Read the Bones over Sudden Storm... SS is great but that's just not a sudden storm deck.

Perhaps for the Gx deck you could bring in march of the returned and just try to grind them out with dictate and thassa's ire.

I white is OK as a support color for R(aggro), B(control), or U (control/flyers). But not heroic. White actually has a huge pile of removal.
Red is weak but usually open and there are good cards in Journey and Born. Black seems really hit or miss because it's super thin in Journey (see deck 2, above).

The last 1/2 of the packs are usually mostly R and B ... but that doesn't mean they are playables.

Blue also seems very solid, and even RU is OK now. There was an ars magica article that showed that Ux was performing the best online (Wx and especially GW, the worst).

This whole format seems very dependent on lucking into the best Theros cards. Colors are usually very set by pack 3 and most of the great cards are double colored so you have to pass them.

Your 1st deck is pretty meh without 2x merchant, keepsake gorgon and WHIP.