I went 1-3 in my first draft, mana screwing twice, and then I was like "I don't even remember how to draft this, why bother" and went into a traditional GRN draft queue

That's better than my 0-3 trainwreck.
Did not see any good early drops in either of my colours, and one of them even dried up comletely; though it's beyond me how pack 3 had absolutely no White after pack 1 provided me with a 6th pick Luminous Bonds (And no, I did not ship good White pack 2). Black, while clearly the best colour to be in for my seat, also wasn't super open, so I had a horrendous curve, no bombs and was short playables. Not a good combination.
The psychic move would have been to jump into Red, which would have given me more bombs, but still a horrendous curve.

Will still draft the crap out of the sets; need the cards to fill out my collection for the sets. Still hoping for a tripe XLN draft some time.

Well, I had enough gold (yay for Traditional Constructed) that I thought I'd start a draft. Started out with Dire Fleet Daredevil first pick into Skymarcher Aspirant, and a nice aggressive R/W deck was coming, but then I saw a late Hunt the Weak and pack 2 I opened Zacama, and I wound up ditching white for green. Have pool, need build:

2 x Enter the Unknown
1 x Traveler's Amulet

1 x Dire Fleet Daredevil
1 x Otepec Huntmaster
1 x Sun-Collared Raptor
2 x Ixalli's Keeper
1 x Sure Strike

1 x Frilled Deathspitter
1 x Jungleborn Pioneer
1 x Orazca Frillback
1 x Ravenous Daggertooth
1 x Firecannon Blast
1 x New Horizon
1 x Hierophant's Chalice

1 x Needletooth Raptor
2 x Hunt the Weak

1 x Crested Herdcaller

1 x Carnage Tyrant
1 x Colossal Dreadmaw,
1 x Zacama, Primal Calamity

1 x Plains
8 x Mountain
8 x Forest


Possible cards in sideboard: Moment of Triumph, Skymarcher Aspirant, Snubhorn Sentry, 2x Martyr of Dusk, 2x Raptor Companion, Sun Sentinel, Legion's Judgment; Buccaneer's Bravado, Sure Strike, Shake the Foundations, Swaggering Corsair, Stampeding Horncrest, Plummet.

I have no idea how to evaluate Enter the Unknown, Hierophant's Chalice, and Shake the Foundations. I have Enter the Unknown on the assumption that if I explore into a land, then it's a 1-mana ramp spell, which is great. On the other hand if I don't explore into a land, it's a 1-mana scry & +1/+1 counter, which is passable, especially since I have strong enrage creatures (Needletooth Raptor especially). Is this correct? Hierophant's Chalice is here simply because it's a ramp spell; hard to see it as a good ramp spell, but it's still a ramp spell. Finally Shake the Foundations could easily be playable since I have lots of enrage creatures; however aside from Needletooth Raptor's effect none of the other enrage effects seem that good. How many x/1's are there in this format?

There might be too much air in this list. Traveler's Amulet, Hierophant's Chalice and New Horizon are all effectively blanks if drawn later in the game. Maybe -Hierophant's Chalice +Stampeding Horncrest (not a good card in the deck, but it's a creature)?

^That list went 3-3. Zacama literally never mattered because I never cast him. Carnage Tyrant carried some games though (I got a 3-for-1 after casting Sure Strike on it too). In hindsight I think Shake the Foundations should've been in the deck, but Hierophant's Chalice should not.

Hit 7-2 with this list. Lost game 1 because I played badly, lost game 2 because of mana screw, then rattled off 7 wins in a row. I didn't play well but the deck was strong enough to get me there.

1 x Fanatical Firebrand
1 x Fire Shrine Keeper

1 x Bloodcrazed Paladin
1 x Dinosaur Hunter
1 x Goblin Trailblazer
1 x Storm Fleet Swashbuckler
1 x Sun-Collared Raptor
1 x Tilonalli's Knight
1 x Moment of Craving
1 x Buccaneer's Bravado
1 x Swashbuckling

1 x Frenzied Raptor
2 x Swaggering Corsair
1 x Reaver Ambush
1 x Bombard
1 x Hijack

2 x Impale
1 x Dire Fleet Neckbreaker
1 x Brazen Freebooter
1 x Vampire Revenant
1 x Dusk Charger

1 x Unfriendly Fire

8 x Mountain
8 x Swamp


The last round at 6-2 was quite scary because I had to mulligan to five on the play, but my deck blessed me with a perfect curve while my opponent did nothing until turn 4, and even then I had removal for his creature. One particularly funny play this run was when opponent played Luminous Bonds on my Storm Fleet Swashbuckler enchanted with Swashbuckling. Then he played Slaughter the Strong to sweep the board of small creatures. But I was holding Bloodcrazed Paladin, which landed as a 4/4 as a result (sacrifice the Swashbuckler!!) and opponent died a few turns later.

The 1-drops were fairly unimpressive but the 2- and 3-drops did serious work. Swashbuckling Corsair in particular was great, always being a 3-mana 3/3 pirate. Dire Fleet Neckbreaker is one heck of a lord as well. Brazen Freebooter was probably the weakest of the non-1-drop cards, since it was often just a 4-mana 3/3; the treasure did matter once though by helping me double spell.

Hello everybody,
I was reading your discussion here on the rix draft and decided to try one (I did several in dominaria before but I think, it is easier there than this).
At least, I am afraid I have made a mess of this.
I suppose, river's rebuke should come here as a finisher (put all the opponent's creatures back to the hand and attack). Not sure about crested herdcaller and white splash. But two other green cards are Ancient brontodon, and naturalize. And do not like the curve and three cards should go. Can you help with ideas?

The W splash definitely has to go. The best of those three cards is the Griffin, and he's not worth a splash with no fixing; let alone the other two cards (Legion's Landing is a nice raredraft for Constructed though).
I'd also cut the Verdant Rebirth and add one Sea Legs over it; that card is not as terrible as it looks due to RIX somewhat often ending up in races. If you absolutely dislike Sea Legs you can try Spell Pierce, but that's a horrendous enough topdeck that I'd rather try Sea Legs.

The rest of the deck looks okay. Nothing too special, but a solid enough deck to play with and River's Rebuke is a nice finisher. You're slightly prone to flooding out lategame, but your spells should be fairly impactful for the most part, so we're okay.

Thank you!
Interesting that I thought that Bellowing Aegisaur is also a win condition and surely better than griffon. I hoped that it can add a counter or if to take into account the tricks maybe two counters to all my creatures.
But yes, I certainly see your point.
I hoped Verdant rebirth will help me get back forerunner that will bring me also the second creature and will give one more card. So a good draw card.
Thank you.

Agreeing with Modulo. Splashes aren't free - they weaken your mana base. You only splash 1) when the cards are great and 2) you can afford to not be able to cast them for a while, i.e. if they are high-cost cards. Bellowing Aegisaur might be worth splashing for (not experienced enough with the format to tell), but certainly not Legion's Landing and Resplendent Griffin. I'd definitely cut both of those.

Mist-Cloaked Herald should be pretty bad unless you have ways to buff it. That's probably my next cut, and I might even cut both and play Sea Legs instead.

Thank you. Interesting. Always thought sea legs to be unplayable or playable in limited circumstances (pirate deck).

Sea Legs is not great, but -2/-0 is not a terrible permanent effect in a fairly aggressive Limited format riddled with evasion. Not being able to hit Pirates sucks, but you still have a decent amount of targets. I'd say Verdant Rebirth is worse and I would also generally consider Mist-Cloaked Herald a worse card in Limited. However, drawing it against a pirate-heavy deck is fairly bad and it's still not a great card, which is why I would keep the Heralds in over it (they are your next worst cards in the deck by far, though).

Bellowing Aegisaur is good if the deck can reliably
a) cast it before they're dead and
b) damage Aegisaur while preferably having some board state.

rishka's deck can fairly reliably get to 6 lands, but cannot reliably hit White (at least not at the cost of putting virtually any other spell in the deck in jeopardy) and has no way to reliably damage Aegisaur aside from Emergent Growth. That's mediocre enough that I wouldn't splash for it in her deck.
I would probably splash for it in, say, a GR Dinos deck that has reliable ways to damage it (Forerunner of the Empire or Pounce, for instance).

Thank you for your advise.
2:3 (one win and 3 losses)

Interesting that all decks were rather quick.

1. U/R pirates , quick with legendaries, I had mana screw, had to mulligan to 5
2. I won against vampires in spite of beginning mana screw (had 2 blue mana but did not want to mulligan) . They had lots of big removal but it is useless against small menfolk folk.
3. Lost to vampires (he was left with 5 lives but I with 0) . That mist-cloaked merfolk was rather good there, at least the opponent used two spells on it (bright reprisal).
4. I won, but the opponent just had bad mana screw and could not make normal play
5. I have lost to a good vampires deck but, I suppose, it is more my mistake. They had lots of flying creatures 3/1 and I could not cope with it.
Sea legs did not show up any time. So I could not see them play. Rebuke showed once in the last game, but I had to use it too soon to be finisher.

7-2 with this deck:

2 x Snubhorn Sentry
1 x Moment of Triumph

1 x Raptor Companion
2 x Sun Sentinel
2 x Dire Fleet Hoarder
1 x Queen's Bay Soldier

1 x Profane Procession
1 x Fathom Fleet Boarder
1 x Sadistic Skymarcher
1 x Ruin Raider
2 x Luminous Bonds
1 x Recover

3 x Sanguine Glorifier
2 x Vampire Revenant
1 x Ravenous Chupacabra
1 x Call to the Feast

8 x Plains
9 x Swamp


Cards in sideboard not used: Mark of the Vampire, Dusk Charger, Queen's Agent, Sun-Crested Pterodon, Legion Conquistador (I only had one).

Lost twice. One loss was to uber misplay: opponent attacked with a 9/5 Colossal Dreadmaw enchanted with Tilolani's Crown. I had a Sanguine Glorifier out with a Moment of Triumph in hand, and would've accepted the trade, except I misclicked and passed priority. I lost shortly afterwards. The other loss was literally the first time I encountered Wind Strider; otherwise it would still have been very close. I was low on life, but my opponent wasn't much higher, and I had Sadistic Skymarcher flying over a stalled field.

Cards that were great: Ravenous Chupacabra (I'm shocked I got this P1P3), Sanguine Glorifier, Profane Procession (also shocked I got this P2P3), Sadistic Skymarcher (my P1P1), Luminous Bonds, Ruin Raider. Profane Procession was quite gross. I 2-for-1'ed an opponent by exiling a creature on a double block, although he should've seen that coming and I should've seen that I can exile 1/1 tokens without flipping Profane Procession. If the board is stalled it's simply superb. I'm not sure I'd pick it before Chupacabra P1P1 though, because it's mana intensive and I can't play it if I'm behind. I'm somewhat surprised Call to the Feast did decently since I lacked a good way to pump it, but most of my opponents didn't have big creatures too and sometimes 2/2 tokens were enough.

Not sure if Mark of the Vampire was worth using. I didn't miss it, but it looks like a reasonable card, giving a big life swing even if opponent has immediate removal. Anyone have experience with it?

By the way this primer is hugely useful, recommend adding to the OP! https://www.massdrop.com/talk/3319/team ... ted-primer

Done