Are we all talking about this stinky serpent right?

That's 13mana for 4 points of damage and 2 whole turns.
It dies to the exact same removals that would kill wall of mist but you cast it on T6 if you are flooding... that serpent is awful, sure I have lost one game to it but that thing is just bad.
Any 3-5CMC flyer is better... or Vampire neonate, Wall of mist, Speaker of omens, I dunno about you guys but I´m not touching that thing.

You're comparing Serpent to cards you should not compare it to.

Serpent's baseline is Minotaur Abomination. Abomination is the stereotypical definition of a filler card: not a great card, but if you need it it's there.
Its job is to hold down the ground against multiple opposing 4/5 drops. That's something none of the 3-5 CMC fliers can do, neither can Omenspeaker nor Vampire Neonate. Wall of Mist prevents the damage dealt by one of them, Minotaur Abomination kills them if they dare attack into it without a trick.

That is the baseline on which we should evaluate Serpent; and in that regard it's comparable to completely different cards; some of these are Colossal Dreadmaw, Thornhide Wolves, Knight of the Tusk and Bogstomper. (Another one would be Gearsmith Guardian, which I'll leave out of contention due to its value largely depending on the exact deck). Minotaur Abomintation would be worse than all of these bar Knight of the Tusk, but not much worse than Wolves or Stomper. Serpent I believe to still be quite a bit worse than Dreadmaw, but about on par with Thornhide Wolves and Bogstomper, and that little bump is because of the activated ability.

You shouls only pay for the activated ability in the super-late game and if you don't need the Serpent to function as a blocker. However, in a board state that is completely stalled out and in which both players have flooded out, this ability to grant it evasion is absolutely huge: it prevents chumpblocks and sends a veritable clock in the opponent's direction. Granted, this is a very situational ability and should not be used at all time (this is, in fact, not a 13 mana deal 4 card), but these situations do come up in M19 Limited.

Went 7-2 in my 3rd ever draft Can't remember the exact deck, but it had the following:

9 Forest
8 Plains

1 Marauder's Axe
1 Oreskos Swiftclaw
1 Take Vengeance
1 Rabid Bite
1 Dryad Greenseeker
1 Knight's Pledge
2 Talons of Wildwood
2 Elvish Rejuvenator
1 Satyr Enchanter
1 Star-Crowned Stag
1 Giant Spider
1 Druid of Horns
1 Gallant Cavalry
1 Bristling Boar
2 Rhox Oracle
2 Angel of the Dawn
1 Lena, Selfless Champion
1 Colossal Dreadmaw
1 something (probably a third Rhox Oracle)

Both losses I had loose keeps. I only remember the second one clearly: would you keep a land of 4 lands, 2 Talons of Wildwood, 1 Marauder's Axe on the play? I decided to do it, drew 5(!) lands off the top of my deck, and died without casting any creatures. In hindsight this was very likely a mulligan. Sure I could draw well, but it's a hand that absolutely needs a creature to function. Talons aren't an early game play either.

Other memorable games: there was one game where in a ground stall, opponent played Declare Dominance + Titanic Growth on Daggerback Basilisk. Perhaps he didn't notice I had Lena out, who saved all my other creatures. Later that same game I almost decked because I had a Satyr Enchanter in play while recurring my Talons of Wildwood to grind my opponent out. My opponent must've realized that I was going to deck before he was, and despite having larger creatures (although I had the largest one) he never attacked. I'd realized that my best chance of victory was to draw Angel of the Dawn, but I didn't draw it till there were like 4 cards left in my deck. Fortunately I hit lethal with 2 cards left. Another memorable game, my opponent had an early Colossal Majesty and I didn't have any way to remove it. He was drawing lots of cards, but I had Greenseeker active, two Rejuvenators, and a Rhox Oracle. Played Lena for five and two back-to-back Angels of the Dawn to attack for lethal. Opponent was at 19 life before the first attack too!

There was one pick the draft I wasn't sure about. This was in P2P1. I don't remember clearly the cards I had, but I was locked into green and had something like Stag, Knight's Pledge, and Take Vengeance for white cards + no red cards of note. P2P1 I open Demanding Dragon. The pack also had an Angel of the Dawn. What's the pick? I took the dragon, but did not see many good red cards afterwards (only a Dragon's Egg and a late Electrify). Not sure if that was correct since the Angel would undoubtedly have made the deck.

The honeymoon won't last though, I had a limited rank of "Beginner" and now I'm Silver.

Went 7-1 with UB mill Forgot to take a screenie before match 7, I'd pretty much assumed I'd go 5-3 and didn't expect to just win out. First picked murder into neonate and was thinking I'd have a good lifegain deck, but white just wasn't flowing. Opened Patient Rebuilding pack 2, got passed a caress, a symbiont and a corrosion and the deck looked ok but I had only an omenspeaker and a wall of mists for 2 drops. Went very smooth though, got lucky to draw rebuilding and/or corrosion almost every game and that card is absurd. Had a full mill out in 5 games. I could easily see the same draft doing much worse with slightly different draws, though I did have some card draw for consistency.

that serpent has evasion, isn't that pretty good in limited? Also games go longer in that format so that thing might be okay, especially since removal is lite

Congrats on the 7-2; the deck looks solid though I'd prefer a few more early plays (another 2- or 3-drop would've probably been good)

4 lands 2 Talons 1 Axe is close IMO. If your deck had a few more 2- and 3-drops I might have kept it, but 2 draw steps to find one of your 5 early creatures is too little so I probably would have mulliganed.

I think the P2P1 is close as well since Demanding Dragon is an incredible bomb. At a professional level the pick would likely be Angel of the Dawn since your White is pretty solid at this point (Stag+Take Vengeance), but even there Demanding Dragon might be defensible; and since you get to keep the Dragon I wouldn't fault you for tking it here ever.

Demanding dragon is one of the best bombs in limited, RG is also good if you got one colossal majesty and some big bodies.

Ideally, in P2P1 you should know what colors you are and demanding dragon is double red... so it's not all that splashable.
Stag is great but not enough to go white, Knight pledge is decent in GW auras but again not enough, Take vengeance was the best reason to go white from what I can tell, but none of those has the impact that demanding dragon has, Angel on the other hand, is one good reason to go white and it makes all of the other white cards you had better so yes I think the pick was Angel, if you have picked up one Colossal Majesty in P1 then I guess I would have picked the Dragon, and tried to build the RG Majesty deck.

Good thing that you went 7 wins even after chopping the dragon!


I can see the argument for Serpent but I think that that's not what the UB deck wants to do at 6CMC or to win the game, Mill, Card advantage, recursive threats or some sort of life gain/drain are your win cons and Serpent does not help in any of those plans and there are plenty of commons that can advance those plans and it comes very late to the board. Without an early Murder, Djin of Wishes, a couple of neonates, the big Sphinx, Chaos wand or Patient rebuild, I rather stay away from the archetype in limited... attacking has worked vastly more consistent for me. Like AD2016 says the deck can go have some awful draws. -right now I´m 2-1 with one UB with one P1P1 Djin of wishes, that guy is amazing! I will report how that works out-
EDIT: ended 3-3

UG may be the "right" deck for that Serpent, but ideally, you should not touch that thing IMO.

Congrats to both 7 win decks!! Especially the mill one that´s quite an accomplishment!
I also got another 7 win with another RW go wide!
YAY!

Just 7-2 with a RB Sacrifice deck. Didn't save the list since I started 2-2 and expected a mediocre finish, but then it started working great.

1 x Sigiled Sword of Valeron
1 x Demon of Catastrophes
1 x Brawl-Bash Ogre
1 x Vampire Sovereign
2 x Act of Treason
1 x Skymarch Bloodletter
2 x Skeleton Archer


Then a couple of filler cards.

Got a 7-2 with uw, but I'm pretty sure it's actually an example of a failed draft.

Pick ones were: Cleansing Nova and Hieromancer's Cage*2 which is great. But I ended up in some janky UW build looking for artifact synergies and I think it's a pretty poor deck overall. In retrospect there had to be a better colour pair than blue and it wasn't like the white was flowing or high quality outside of my pick 1s. Quite possible that I should have ended up in two completely different colours. Still was lucky enough to 7-2 with Nova winning me a few games singlehanded - on one of the losses a topdecked land would have given me a 6 for 2 and left my opponent with 1 card in hand, topdecked manalith instead and his last card was inspired charge. Very much carried by the cages and nova (oh, and Horizon Scholar, great card).

Another 7-2, much better deck though, felt a little cheated to not go 7-1 after stalling at 2 lands in my first shot at the 7 wins.

First pick Exclusion Mage didn't make me feel too hopeful but the deck came together pretty nicely if a little creature light. Think I might be valuing Uncomfortable Chill a little too highly, could have had a vanilla 2/3 instead of it, but it can be real good at changing combat math or fogging a Heroic Reinforcements. Pretty happy with the deck overall, could have done with some nice creatures and a sleep maybe, but it played out quite smoothly.

Yet another 7 wins deck!
This one is odd it started with P1P1 Vine mare... so I kept grabbing green the whole first pack... then P2P1 there was one Chaos wand... and a 5-or 6 pick Twins... so I figured that green was wide open, I never tried a mono deck in draft so I thought off giving it a try... I jammed every green card I possibly could and the pile looked... clumsy to say the least, it even had one fog in there... and I hate that card! but hell I wanted to try a mono deck... and it worked surprisingly good I was 6-0, and ended 7-1... amazing!
Best play was against one UW artifacts that had 5 creatures on board dropped Angel of Dawn made a huge swing and left me at 4, he had vigilance and all... but oh boy that didn't work out so great for him coz I got Declare dominance and one Deathoucher with trample. On my turn, I swing for 8 and killed his entire board!! -insert maniac giggle here- that was so sweet! but this guy was not joking, after that he dropped freaking Tezzeret and turned one Explosive Apparatus into a 5/5 with Skilled Animator... I was at 4 but I chump with one vigilance dude then the twins hit the board and next turn Chaos wand fetches for one disperse clearing the board for lethal!!
Chaos Wand is soo good in limited I love that thing!

Here´s the deck.

My experience with wand has been absurdly underwelming for now.
Saw it in two sealed games, first one I was against a control deck, hand was a little loose but I figured the wand would carry me, hit disperse,disperse,sleep, he was playing multiples of counterspells(I was wanding when he casted creatures) and two walls of mists.

Second one, first hit was a supernatural stamina or whatsitsname, second try while he controls a dockhand... should have picked up the clue that he figured casting the dockhand was safe, got to see the whole deck failing to find a targed, at least it made playing game 2 and 3 much easier...

I also thought that was way to inconsistent, in fact this was the first time I actually drafted it. But I already have played againt it a couple of times and that thing stole all my removal. I guess it’s worse against Blue or White and shines against Black or Red. Green is almost all about combat tricks.

I guess that hoping for the counter is asking to much, I only activated it before or during combat if I was attacking, without creatures at the opponent endstep.

Whoa, went 7-2 in my 4th ever draft with the following deck (again off my memory):

1 Vampire Neonate
2 Rabid Bite
1 Marauder's Axe
1 Greenwood Sentinel
1 Talons of Wildwood
1 Colossal Majesty
1 Centaur Courser
2 Oakenform
1 Reclamation Sage
3 Bristling Boar
1 Poison-Tip Archer
1 Vine Mare
1 Giant Spider
1 Skymarch Bloodletter
2 Lich's Caress
1 Colossal Dreadmaw
1 Ghastbark Twins
+1 something (again it's a duplicate card but I don't remember what)

Both losses came to flyers. One opponent had Resplendent Angel. I had the better board and five cards that can answer it, but didn't draw any of them in the top ~17 cards. Once my opponent hit six mana he never cast another spell, which made for a depressing loss. The other time it was to Vampire Sovereign, and again I didn't draw my removal (none of them until the game ended). That forced me to race and he had the 3/7 Vigilance knight. He even blew me out with Aegis of the Heavens when I thought I'd be able to trample through.

For the wins, there was at least one game where my opponent screwed up. I had Vine Mare, Bristling Boar and Skymarch Bloodletter with Talons. He had a 3/3 Minotaur, 3/3 Angel of the Dawn and 2/4 Giant Spider. He was on 2 life, I was on 3. I attacked with everything thinking I'd force him to chump block. He agreed, chumped blocked, and I was left with the Vine Mare that won the game next turn (hands up if you don't see what the mistake was ).

In another game I had a Centaur Courser with Oakenform + Marauder's Axe for an 8/6 attacker. Opponent was R/G, which as far as I'm aware, cannot deal with such a creature except by combat. Against his 4/2 Rhox Oracle, Druid of the Claw and a Centaur Courser of his own, I used Rabid Bite on the Oracle. The turn after, he hit 7 mana counting the Druid, and played Meteor Golem. Wow. I almost lost that one, although he likely misplayed too. Both of us had card advantage engines going (Colossal Majesty vs. Arcane Encyclopedia) but he also had Talons in play on the Meteor Golem. My biggest creature was the 7/7 Ghastbark, while he had a 6/6 Dreadmaw + more creatures in play. Clearly it was the Ghastbark holding him back. Perhaps he could've chump attacked with the golem, attached Talons to Dreadmaw, forced the trade, and won that way. But he didn't see it, and eventually Skymarch Bloodletter flew over for the win.

As for the draft I first picked Vine Mare over Chaos Wand and never looked back. The card underperformed though. 3 toughness just means it trades down easily. Hexproof is great but it can still be gang-blocked. I didn't win a single game because of auras on the Vine Mare. Poison-Tip Archer however was fantastic. Dinging the opponent for 2 each time a creature trades is huge, and Reach + Deathtouch means it blocks almost everything also. Oakenform also overperformed, surprisingly, although it's still not a high pick. There aren't many way to directly kill a creature, and I won one game simply with turn 2 Sentinel into turn 3 Oakenform. A disappointing moment of the draft was when I opened Spit Flame and couldn't pick it (I was considering a splash for it but the pack also had Poison-Tip Archer). Even more disappointing was opening Liliana, Untouched by Death in pack 3 and couldn't pick it. So much for on-colour mythic rares.

There were three notable cards I didn't play: another Greenwood Sentinel, a Highland Game, and a Skeleton Archer. I'm particularly curious about the Archer. Do you guys think it's a good idea not to include it? I needed one more cut and figured 1) it didn't trigger Colossal Majesty + 2) its effect doesn't seem that strong without Death Baron, so I cut it.

I'd have been tempted to run the archer over an oakenform. It's a decent card that sometimes pings off a creature vs an enchantment that begs to be 2 for 1'd. Though I can see why you'd run them with Vine Mare. I guess I just don't like enchantments

Skeleton is good, It is a solid 3/3 and the 1 point of damage can go face if you cant set up a kill, it's not amazing but definitively good.

The vigilance dude + Oakenform is one hell of a T3 play, I have played that combo plenty of times and I think I have never gone 2-1 coz a 5/5 T3 eats at least one creature in combat. I don't like auras either but they can be plenty powerful in limited, just cast them when your opponent is tapped.

Poison Tip Archer is great in GB

He double blocked the Boar?!

Final draft for M19 went 7-2 yay! The best part was that I pay with coins for it so I got 950 gems back!!
The deck was another GB deck similar to what Banedon posted but this one had tons of removal...
- 1 Murder
- 2 Rabid Bite
- 2 Lich Caress
- Some death touchers
- 2 Explosive apparatus
- Demon of Catastrophes
- Vine Mare
- Twins
- Hydra... this one is a bit tricky... I think is a good threat but Its hard to know when to attack and when to leave it on defense, I lose one game coz I misplayed that minigame.

I thought I have saved the deck but apparently, I did not...

Wrapping up this week draft block, I think the Boris deck is the best I have built yet, that archetype is fast consistent and can run over any deck that stumbles T2-T3, with one Axe and one Act of Treason it can end the game before most decks build their board.
Also, these G/x decks perform quite good in this environment, U seems a bit slow and is too high variance in comparison, while White and Black the most powerful and versatile colors IMO.

In the end, I´m enjoying this format... It's not as fun as Dominaria and the boards can stall quite often but the picks are not so easy and once you locked into one game plan If you have read well the "table" you can get very late rewards coz there are plenty of cards that are only useful in very specific archetypes.

Not a 7-X, but I thought this deck was interesting. One of the more polarizing decks I've ended up with - as expected, it absolutely trashed aura and mundane midrange decks but folded easily to RW or GW go-wide. Saw 8 Dwindles total in the draft Ended up 4-3 with it and opened another Bolas in my reward pack to finish off the playset.

No lol he blocked the Vine Mare with Spider and traded with the other two creatures. Don't ask. I think it was a moment of mutual blindness.

@DCG-MTG What did you have in your board? I'd probably not have played the Diregraf Ghoul, probably Abnormal Endurance and maybe Hired Blade as well if I could help it. That deck is a control deck with strong late-game, so these aggressive cards should be subpar.

Also, went 7-1 in my fifth draft ever. This is getting scary - I'm in danger of getting overconfident.

This is the deck (I took a screenshot this time at 6 wins):

1 Mystic Archeologist
1 Rabid Bite
2 Greenwood Sentinel
1 Omenspeaker
1 Essence Scatter
1 Daggerback Basilisk
1 Draconic Disciple
1 Cancel
1 Colossal Majesty
1 Oakenform (never played this card the entire run)
2 Manalith
1 Electrify
2 Bristling Boar
1 Skyrider Patrol
1 Giant Spider
1 Bone to Ash
1 Rhox Oracle
2 Thornhide Wolves
1 Colossal Dreadmaw

7 Islands
8 Forests
1 Timber Gorge
1 Woodland Stream

Notable sideboard cards I didn't play: Lich's Caress, Sparktongue Dragon, Tolarian Scholar. I didn't know you could change your deck in between rounds! Also, somehow I keep ending up in green decks ...

This deck I'm quite unsure about. I first picked Archeologist followed by 2nd pick Lich's Caress, but then didn't find many good cards in blue and black so wound up drafting lots of green cards to go with my 3rd pick Colossal Dreadmaw. By pack 2 I still wasn't locked into a second color. Opened Sarkahn and again couldn't pick him. It was only later in pack 2, when I was passed Skyrider Patrol, that I committed to blue/green. However there were also some strong red cards going around, and I decided to splash off the two duals and Manalith. Was my manabase correct? I didn't mana screw or flood, but there were times I didn't have the right colors to cast spells. Also, could I have conceivably splashed another color instead or used another color combination (since Lich's Caress is so good)? At one point in pack 1 for example, there was a pick between Bone to Ash and Skeleton Archer, and I took the counter. I have no idea, so if someone more experienced can help please do

For the cards, Archeologist was great (I didn't know it drew two cards) but it's very mana intensive. It's hard to get to a board where I'm safely ahead so I can hold up mana. It breaks ground stalls really hard though. The deck had some trouble with flyers however, and two games I just scraped through with a Draconic Disciple flip on the last possible turn (this card is also very mana intensive). Electrify saved my life once when it killed an Epicure of Blood while my opponent had two Vampire Neonates up and I was low on life. Otherwise the deck seemed pretty low on power and was carried by its bombs, although in several games I didn't need the bombs and simple goodstuff ran my opponents over. What.

For the games my opponents seemed surprisingly bad. For example in the last game, my opponent had me on two life but he had a Vampire Sovereign against my Skyrider Patrol. I also had the Disciple ready to flip. He topdecked Abnormal Endurance, which would kill me if he just got me to block the Sovereign with the 5/5 dragon, but he cast that before blockers. I was safe in any case since I also had the mana to cast Cancel, but he could easily have thrown the game there. There was one time my opponent main phased Murder before attacks too, which doesn't make sense. The one game I lost my opponent played strangely. He was playing land after land without casting spells, while I just had a Sentinel and Omenspeaker without drawing more creatures. The two attacked him down to like 10 health before he played Child of Night. I was thinking he had too many expensive cards in hand and was holding countermagic, so why not kill it with Rabid Bite to keep attacking (I had no more creatures). Then he revealed the reason why he was sandbagging - he had Cleansing Nova. I countered, and then he started casting all the creatures. I think he outdrew me that game, but using the Rabid Bite on a 2/1 seemed like a bad play in retrospect.

What's the next draft format?

Had an extra copy each of Wall of Mist and Dwindle, as well as an Uncomfortable Chill. I wasn't keen on the last Dwindle, as even more redundancy wouldn't do much to help the areas I was weak in. I figured afterwards that I probably should've used the Wall over Endurance, upping the blocker count would've helped a bit. Think I just straight overlooked Chill because it underwhelmed in less focused decks previously, but it certainly would've shined in two of my matches.

I just never find the time to get into a Draft somehow. I played some QC last night and I'm up to around 20,000 coin so I should really try sometime.