Rise from the Tides had been very inconsistent for me. The tokens entering tapped is a huge drawback; you tend to want to cast it last as the ultimate stopper to their assault, but losing that turn's worth of blocking hurts. Spider Spawning this ain't. I still think it's a fine card, just one that doesn't win enough of the games in which it's cast.

Drafted an awesome GU Clue deck that basically aimed to draw my entire deck, control the board, then recur all my best cards. Felt like I had so many advantages.

Vessel of Nascency is such a good delirium enabler. I've heard a few people call it the best green common and that doesn't seem so far fetched.

Finally drafted a werewolf deck. I had an amazing curve, tons of synergys, and brutral combat tricks. It was actually more of a wolf deck; I had maybe two transformers in the whole deck. The regular wolves are just very aggressive without the necessary complications.

After mostly aggro, I managed a super sweet clue / delirium deck but it didn't quite get there, VERY frustrating:

Round 1 game 1 I stalled out against UW humans -- my tireless tracker against his Hanawier Captain, we bothe had a couple fliers but could not break through and I conceeded with 8-9 cards left in library and no way to win (I used Crawling Sensation to good effect, but no Epitaph Golem or Ever After to prevent me from running out of cards.) How bad was it? I cast Traverse the Uvenwald with delirium... but only thing worth getting was a nearly dead 2/1 flier. Game 2 just got rolled.

This was in a 10 person draft, and round 2 I played the mirror - probably if we had pooled our cards and made 2 decks, one of us would have had an awesome clue deck and the other would have had an awesome delirium deck, but as it was I could not beat a 5/5 flier, and I played my only removal into one of his 4 bounce spells. Won game 2 when his deck did nothing.

Won match 3 2-0 against a deck that was avacyn + nothing.

1 x Thraben Gargoyle
2 x Moldgraf Scavenger
1 x Rattlechains
2 x Graf Mole
1 x Byway Courier
1 x Niblis of Dusk
1 x Inexorable Blob
1 x Tireless Tracker
2 x Silent Observer
1 x Drownyard Explorer
1 x Watcher in the Web
1 x Kessig Dire Swine

1 x Traverse the Uvenwald
1 x Confront the Unknown
1 x Vessel of Nascency
2 x Ongoing Investigation
1 x Rabid Bite
1 x Compelling Deterrence
1 x Gone Missing

1 x Drownyard Temple
1 x Warped Landscape
8 x Forest
7 x Island

Sideboard:
1 x Crawling Sensation
1 x Watcher in the Web
1 x Wicker Witch


That's maybe not 100% right. I tried to run 16 lands with the traverse and vessel, but Tracker kinda needs lands.

The trick with this deck is to deck them. Then you don't need attackers, just the enchantment. And nobody is prepared to fight that.

Oh, I see what you are saying. Just keep gaining life. But if you crack clues you will run out of cards faster. For sure you need Epitaph Golem.

Nope, the mill them enchantment. You stall the board, and then, instead of a single threat which they usually have removal for, you crack clues and mill them.

Oh yeah that one. I didn't see one. I think you can also win with crawling sensation + epitaph golem and just cast rabid bite or bounce for 4 mana until the board is clear.

That what was SO frustrating about 1-2ing with this deck. It was SO CLOSE to being a sweet engine of doom. But instead just did nothing for 50 minutes.

Just drafted SOI for the first time.

Decklist:


Went 5-2 in Swiss.
Lost match one, 1-2. Against Black/Blue.
Won match two, 2-0. Against Red/White.
Won match three, 2-0. Against Blue/White.

Initial thoughts:

• Delirium wasn't terribly hard to achieve. In many games, both players were able to get it around turn 5 or 6.
  Vessel of Epherma plays a lot better than I initially thought it would. It helps a lot that you can sacrifice it at instant speed.
  Unruly Mob is a little bit worse this time around than last time (but it may be the deck, not him).
  Invocation of Saint Draft is excellent on Uninvited Geist.
  Very impressed with Welcome to the Fold. Stole Sin Prodder from my second opponent. Felt dirty.
  Inquisitor's Ox is very solid.

I have definitely lost games to Invocation. The removal is pretty weak in this set.

Heh. Removal weak? I feel like I can get all the removal I could ever want, each draft. IMO, it's two-drops that are hard to get. Each color has a removal spell as a contender for the best common. And three of them have strong uncommon removal spells, black even has two. The UW deck below has two strong removal spells, plus some fine tricks. But getting three Dauntless Cathar in the same draft, that is an achievement.

Oh it's relatively plentiful it just sucks. I just got owned by Invocation again! My deck had 3 or 4 removal spells and and few fliers, but 6-8 power in the air is a quick clock.

COMBAT TRICKS

I've always been a guy to play the 1st combat trick and try to find a way to not play the 2nd.

Early in the format rumors of this being a heavily played combat trick format started. Anteri's Boros Hyper aggro deck with loads of cheap tricks spiking the GP is a good example.

So hear lately i haven't done well on my MTGO drafts to where i'm back playing 4-3-2-2's for value since i can usually manage to find 1 win. But every deck i play against outside of the very synergistic builds that have no use for a non-themed combat trick have been playing what feels like 15 combat tricks to go with less creatures. These combat tricks have been beating me up. I use to would play 2x Puncturing light easy and now i debate keeping the 1st one in. I even had a deck with 3 bounce spells and a welcome to the fold at instant speed to counter the tricks and that too provided challenging.

The Mythic rare of these tricks is Aim High, which is 1G counterspell to a Puncturing light, and a Kibler, plus any damage based removal / 1G kill a flyer.

Do i really start using my spell slots on Rush of Adrenaline over Fiery temper, Aim High over Rabid Bight?

Maybe i'll force something in the Naya shard and favor tricks over removal and see how that works.

I think no, you don' t run combat tricks over cheap removal. You might run it over throttle and the 5 mana burn spell; maybe even Inner Struggle. Puncturing Light is an interesting case.

My guess is the lower your curve the more combat tricks you should play. But aggro decks need a way of dealing with Watcher in the Web

Expose Evil? Jace's Scrutiny? And Purge, Paralysis.

Tricks or removal? Again, synergy. Removal typically cost more mana. If you plan to be ahead, pick cheap combat tricks and cheap creatures, so you can kill their blocker with your trick (they are tapped out, since you pressured them into playing the blocker) and then play another attacker in the same turn. If you plan to block, pick removal, since typically both players will have open mana when the defender plays a trick, and you will get blown out. It's safer to play a creature that blanks their early plays, and then remove their late drops, probably sorcery-speed.

Puncturing Light is not very good. The more the format evolves, the worse it becomes. It kills early drops, but you're usually better off just playing a creature that can both trade or attack, depending on your draw.

Removal is great in this format. But the focus has shifted, and you need to plan to trade with early drops. Using removal to kill a two-drop is almost never a good idea.

I appreciate what both you Z's had to say.

at FNM i did put a higher emphasis on tricks in a G/R deck with 2/3/4's a 5 and 1 Flameblade Angel
i had 2 Uncaged Fury, 1 Aim High, with some Equips 1 True-Faith Censer and 1 Neglected Heirloom.

I did OK going 3-1 but this is my LGS FNM and the skill level was lower than what you'll usually find in an 8-man online

highlight of the night was flat out stealing a game with a Gatstaf Arsonists Equipped with Neglected Heirloom flipped into the 6/5 Menace with a +3/+3 1st strike Equip and my opp at 20 and me dead on the crack back he has a watcher in the web on blocks that can't block the menace and Uncaged Fury does exacties. He wasn't happy

I had a somewhat similar situation in one of my matches Friday.

I started the draft with Veteran Cathar and trying to build Humans, but had to jump to UG Clues once the white dried up. I wound up running the Cathar anyway (had a few other humans), as well as a singleton Plains and some fetching.

Well, I was losing 18-6 and was not going to survive my next turn when I swung with all my creatures in what looked like a desperation move. Figuring it was only 5 damage (7 if I activate Cathar) and not wanting to risk losing his lone untapped creature he needed to kill me next turn, he didn't block. I played Confront the Unknown adding a seventh clue to my clue pile, giving my Cathar +7/+7, and then once I gave him Double Strike from his own ability he did the 18 damage alone.

Only went 1-1-1 on the night, which is about all I can hope for when my draft had several abandoned plans, and the only rare I actually drafted never actually got played.

For the record, I had never seen the Cathar's ability do anything. Mostly they just threaten, and don't activate. Or play a Provisioner and then don't have the mana. I have it as one of the less powerful uncommon build-arounds.

Cathar has always made combat a nightmare for me or anyone I've had it against. It nullifies most combat tricks and enables your little guys to take out their big guys. That said I don't see it as a build around at all, just a key piece of G/W humans.

If you aren't in G/W humans, then its a bear that becomes an expensive 2/2 double striker, which isn't anywhere near bad or do-nothing.

The only "bad" I've seen from Cathar is people afraid to attack with it because they place so much value in it.

You block it with a 2/3, and if they want to spend four mana to trade, you come out way ahead. Problem is, humans are small. I can't think of anything that has more than three power naturally in green and white. Maybe Arsonists? So a 3/4 just blanks the Cathar. And if you are using the ability to deliver damage, you just might lose the race, since you are not adding to the board. And do you really want to spend four mana, just to have your double striker bounced?

Sure, a bear is a fine card, and it has an ability. I was just saying that the ability does not seem strong to me, from my experience, and that seeing this particular card early will not entice me to draft GW humans, if there is a good card in the pack. I've seen Intrepid Provisioner do much more work that the Cathar. Incidentally, it has trample, which makes it the ideal target for the ability in the long game.

Edit: I probably used the wrong word with build around. What I meant is that it pushes you into GW humans, not that it requires any unusual draft choices.

I have seen it be just a bear -- actually there is a 3-0 CFB draft video (Frank Lepore, I think) where he has a GW deck and the cathar is never activated. Basically if your opponent plays a good blocker and you don't have a 3/x it doesn't do much. But if you go veteran cathar into 3/2 into 4th land on the play, they have to have either have madnessed out twins or played a graf mole - and those just trade.

It's really good at the same time that werewolves and vampires are good; on the play when you are slightly ahead or a parity.

It's a much higher pick than provisioner (even if on average provisioner has a little more utility).
a) it's uncommon
b) it's a 2 drop

What's wrong with trading? Depends on who has the better long game, but if they want to trade, they need to spend four mana to do it. You get to develop your board, they don't, you are the favorite. IIRC, that's what Frank was doing in that video. GW won before the ability became relevant.

I will pick Dauntless Cathar over Veteran Cathar in pack one. Dauntless is the better card, and it does not commit me to two colors.