Soothsayer still has some stuff to sacrifice (removal targets, cheap creatures like the ones you mentioned, chumpblockers like the Saproling from Fungal Infection, things stolen with Keldon Overseer, or itself in a dire situation). It would be better in a Saproling deck obviously, but it's not a bad card in your deck either

Rampaging Cyclops is mostly there as a defensive creature, and on defense it's better than most of your other cards.

I'm not running 6-drops just to run 6-drops; and both of yours are fairly bad. I'd play the second Fire Elemental before running either one.

I like to keep in one Fiery Intervention as an out against annoying artifacts (Icy Manipulator, Helm of the Host,...).

Cucho's deck is not that far from mine actually; but the 16 lands may screw you over hard. I'd at least run one more land and run the Fungal Infection over one Fervent Strike (Fungal is a combat trick as well as a removal spell!)

Yes, like I said in the last edit: The lack of removal was instrumental in 2 losses. Shivan Fire also did a lot more work than Radha, it alone was worth the splash. The last game haunted me for a while.. I need to rage less

If you're interested..


edit: btw, 19 of the 20 cards I suggested to you made it into Modulo's deck
Good luck with your run.

Okay I lied, took modulo's build to battle instead (he convinced me - I'd especially forgotten that Soothsayer can sacrifice Keldon Overseer's targets, although that never came up). Went 7-2. The deck was surprisingly powerful and very good at generating value. I was thinking I had misdrafted somewhere, but if the game dragged out it was always me grinding my opponents out and not vice versa. Jaya Ballard was quite good and I got to ultimate her once, following which consecutive kicked Fight with Fires won me a game where I was on 8 life facing down an 8/8 Traxos (opponent didn't draw enough historic triggers). Even Cyclops was OK without combat tricks, and in retrospect, since the deck was so good at generating value, I didn't need to be aggressive with Cyclops so combat tricks are less important. I did use my removal spells quite aggressively, e.g. Fight with Fire on a Slimefoot on turn 3. No offense to Sol77, but I think removal spells should be used if you can push damage, and besides Slimefoot is almost a bomb.

Lost two games, both to mana problems. One was the very first game in a run when I mulliganed a 2-lander into another 2-lander, scryed to the bottom, and didn't draw land for 3 turns (goddamn 18-land decks ...). The other I kept a 2-Swamp hand with Windgrace Acolyte and a bunch of red cards, and immediately regretted it. Thanks modulo!

@Sol77 - I know I'd be very tempted to Syncopate the 2/3 as well. If I had Tolarian Scholar in hand then maybe not, but with no other plays I kind of have to do something. History of Benalia is a bomb though. And yes, getting mana/color screwed is an easy way to lose games. I'm beginning to think 18 lands should be the standard in Dominaria. Your cards tend to have high power level, and many cards come with kicker, so don't risk the mana screw.

Here's my next pile:

2 x Opt
1 x Fungal Infection
1 x Syncopate
1 x Arcane Flight

1 x Cabal Evangel
2 x Blink of an Eye
1 x Caligo Skin-Witch
1 x Vicious Offering
1 x Jousting Lance

2 x Wizard's Retort
2 x Academy Drake
2 x Tolarian Scholar
1 x Rona, Disciple of Gix
2 x Divination

1 x Thallid Omnivore
1 x Chainer's Torment
1 x Eviscerate

2 x Cloudreader Sphinx

1 x In Bolas's Clutches
1 x Cold-Water Snapper


Other cards in sideboard: Ghitu Lavarunner, Keldon Overseer, Adeliz, Rampaging Cyclops, Fiery Intervention. The pick 4 Adeliz to see if UR wizards was open clearly didn't work out.

I'm wondering what to cut. Probably run 18 lands since so many kicker spells anyway, so need six cuts. Arcane Flight is obvious cut to me - sure it combos with the turtle but the odds of me drawing both aren't that good, and many of my other creatures already fly. I'm not sure what else to cut though. Lance could be weak since I only have 11 creatures, but they're all rather small, so some way to enhance them is important ... Chainer's Torment hasn't impressed me since even if it goes off and opponent doesn't have removal, losing half my life points makes it hard for me to race, so maybe that's another cut; it is however the only historic card for Rona to exile. What else? I can scarcely cut creatures given I only have 11, and the other cards all seem so good. Maybe Wizard's Retort?

Still in the process of moving, but finally found a little time to get a DOM draft in. 7-1 with this pile of removal:



First pick Eviscerate into second pick Shivan Fire into third pick...Fungal Plots! Looked like green or even white might've been open through pack 2, but I largely stayed the course in RB. The Chroniclers did the heavy lifting, buying back both removal and fatal Fight with Fires. Though I'm generally quite low on Sentinels, they overperformed here as I was able to whittle down the creatures they couldn't blank with threat of activation. Only loss was my first game - opposing Karn got my Opp too far ahead and I ran out of time to find FwF to finish them off.

Got a Shivan Fire P2P8 this draft too. RB did seem super open in that direction but I mean...really? Seems the AI needs some more percussive maintenance.

Don't worry. Slimefoot is a worthy target. If you use it only to push through some non-lethal damage, you can run into the scenario I have described earlier. Might be improbable, but better safe than sorry.

I didn't have the Scholar in hand, I played it after drawing it.

@DCG Fungal Plots isn't exceptional imo, so I wouldn't treat it as a signal. Keldon Raider is a good card though - it lets you run 18 lands and filter for example - and I'd definitely run both probably over Drudge Sentinel. What do you mean by they are able to "whittle down the creatures they couldn't blank with threat of activation"? They're 2/1s, opponent should be able to block them pretty easily and even if not, the clock is only 2 points / turn.

AI definitely overdrafts Skittering Surveyor, and underdrafts Fiery Intervention. Dont' think I've seen Shivan Fire go so late, though.

Yep, this is definitely an 18-land-deck; you have a bunch of ways to use excess mana (Divination, Rona, Kicker) and want to hit your landdrops until late in the game.
This means we need 5 cuts; mine would probably be:
-Arcane Flight. You basically got the gist of it: Turtle combo is not quite good enough for an otherwise weak card in your deck.
-Jousting Lance. I personally really like to have one Lance in most decks as it gives you a manasink and enables attacks. You have better manasinks and most of your attackers are fliers anyway, so Lance is cuttable IMO.
-2 Opt. This may come as a surprise to you; but I basically value cards like Opt and Adventurous Impulse as filler cards. If I need/want every other card in my deck, they go; and that is the case in your deck as you want most of your creatures and basically all of your other non-creature spells are more vital to your deck than Opt.
-The last cut is debatable IMO; I'd lean towards one Wizard's Retort but could see cutting a Tolarian Scholar. The second Retort is your third counterspell which is a ton for Limited (and quite possibly too much). Tolarian Scholar is fairly mediocre, you have enough 3s and possibly have enough draw to get away with 10 creatures. I do agree that number is very low though.

@DCG_MTG: Strong deck, this definitely looks like RB was super open. I concur with Banedon though: you 100% should run both Keldon Raiders over Cabal Evangel (very mediocre 2 and you have more than enough early plays) and a Drudge Sentinel (you'd rather have different creatures than the second Sentinel in play often enough). I could see cutting the other Drudge and the Bloodstone Goblin for the two Keldon Overseers as well.

This was a quite good run, "only" 6-3 though:



I lost the final game mainly because of the Tatyova splash: Had 1 Island and rest Swamps all game. It was an open battle for a long time but ultimately he had more gas while I was collecting green cards. What's your opinion on the splash?

But even better was this baaaaaaaaad beat:

It's his turn, first main phase, the board state is:
me: Tatyova, Omnivore
him: Gaea's Protector, Helm of the Host

I had left two mana open and I hold Vicious Offering and 2x Cast Down.
He has 6 mana and on his activation of the Helm I play an unkicked Vicious Offering to lose the game right there. How is that possible? Yes, there's this card that we'd never run:
Arbor Armament

The result was that his Protector survived, he got a token copy, attacked with both, I had to block both and lost both creatures. With those creatures backed by the remaining removal he would've died in 2-3 turns.

Stupid me, but I never expected that

edit: Followed that with a hilarious 1-3 run. No need to post the deck (mostly white), lost to myself, a top-decked Lyra and the stupidest of cards again.. Shield of the Realm (saving Steel-Leaf from my Gideon's Reproach) and Broken Bond (my Icy Manipulator). Why do those deck's miracles need to happen vs me?

Right, at that point it was a speculative pick out of a weak pack. I saw a couple Spore Swarms and Yavimaya Sapherds going by seemingly a little later than usual, but not enough to pull me off RB. Also opened Baloth Gorger P1P1 and P2P1, but picked Eviscerate and Fight with Fire over them respectively.

I meant this in the defensive sense. The removal took care of the real threats, and the Sentinels prevented X/2s from realistically attacking with threat of activation.

The Sentinels were a deliberate inclusion over the Raiders. Even with DOM being a generally slow format, I've been bashed by UR and the occasional Wx aggro enough times that I prefer a more consistent curve over power. The low curve also gave the deck a nice plan - get the opponent down to about 10 early, then stall on the ground and finish with fliers/FwF. In my experience, Keldon Raiders often come down too late to be relevant against Gx decks. Perhaps it was incorrect, but that was my reasoning at any rate.

Tatyova is too good not to splash, and with a Grow from the Ashes it's even easier and better to do so. Think I'd have gone with an 8-8-2 manabase (instead of your 9-7-2). Definitely not perfect either, but the added Green gives you a slightly better chance at functional mana.

@modulo I'd cut Wizard's Retort before Tolarian Scholar to be honest. Without wizard synergies, Wizard's Retort is just Cancel, and that's never been a great card. So keeping the wizard and losing the payoff sounds reasonable. You would keep Chainer's Torment? I'm honestly also concerned about Rona, since he has like no targets and is a very costly mana sink, but have not really played with the card before.

@DCG - well for the Sentinels to block, you need to hold up mana. That's too pricey, isn't it?



Tatyova is very strong and I would totally splash for it, especially with Grow from the Ashes. I would agree on the 8-8 split of forests and swamps though. You don't have double-cost black cards that you want to cast early, and you have lots of green spells as well. It's also better to have extra green than extra black since you can cast Grow to find your black/blue mana.

Arbor Armament isn't unplayable. It's not good, but not unplayable. I would've made the same play as you though, unless I was feeling so comfortable that I would win (3 powerful removal spells, Tatvoya in play) that I'm OK burning a Cast Down instead of Vicious Offering. Why was the attack a disaster? You should end up trading both your creatures for both of his, no?

You're both probably right about 8-8-2. I didn't even know during the session that I was running 9-7-2. I had changed it a bit in favor of green though, the tool wanted 10 or 11 Swamps.

Why my removal failure was a disaster? Instead of untapping with Tatyova and Omnivore against an empty board to proceed killing him (was at ~13 life), my progress was stalled while he only needed to play a new creature for the Helm. In retrospect I think I should've Cast Down the creature to negate any potential combat trick.

Went 6-3. I didn't face the strongest opposition; among the wins was one game where opponent mana screwed hard at 2 lands, another was against a clearly bad player (he was doing things like chump-attack to push 2 points of damage). @modulo, no offense, but after trying out something similar to what you suggested I quickly made changes.

1) This isn't an 18-land deck. Yes, I have ways to use the mana, but they're not ideal ways to use the mana, and flooding out is a real problem. Much rather play 17 lands with 2 Opts. Given that the deck had weak cards and I needed to get lucky to win, I think I went all the way to 16 lands + 2 Opts. Opts aren't too filler. They can dig for lands early, and dig for bombs later. Topdecking Opt is okayish, topdecking a land can be game over.
2) Lance is important, I just have too many weak creatures. 2/3 Tolarian Scholars never scare anyone, but 4/3 first striking Tolarian Scholars can threaten something. Without Lance, I'm also stuck e.g. if my opponent has a Cloudreader Sphinx, because I just have no way to attack past it.
3) Soul Salvage is bad in this deck. With so few creatures, it's dead more often than not. Besides, if it isn't dead, I'm recurring the likes of Cabal Evangel and Tolarian Scholar a lot of the time. It's just not good enough. (However come to look at it, I somehow didn't list this card??)
4) Syncopate is not better than Wizard's Retort.
5) Chainer's Torment is bad. If the creature is answered, dealing yourself upwards of 10 points of damage is difficult to overcome. Sure, if the creature isn't unanswered you can potentially win very big, but if it is, you lose the game.

So from the original list, better cuts would be Syncopate, Arcane Flight, Chainer's Torment, Soul Salvage, one Wizard's Retort. In retrospect the deck was weak, so I'm quite happy to reach this record.

So next pile: P1P1, Hallar, the Firefletcher, Triumph of Gerrard, Shivan Fire, or Skittering Surveyor? I'm thinking Surveyor, just so I can pick strong cards and splash, but possibly Shivan Fire is superior.

Shivan Fire for me.

Well, took the Skittering Surveyor because Ben Stark said so. It turned out to be a good idea since red wasn't open. P1P2 I took Icy Manipulator over Serra Angel, then tried to avoid white since I figured I just passed a strong white card so it won't be open. But then I opened Shalai in pack 3 and was passed Blessed Light & Evra over mediocre GB playables, and I wound up with this pile ...

1 x Llanowar Elves

6 x Llanowar Scout
1 x Broken Bond
2 x Gift of Growth
2 x Saproling Migration

1 x Marwyn, the Nurturer
1 x Skittering Surveyor
1 x Grow from the Ashes

1 x Shalai, Voice of Plenty
3 x Thallid Omnivore
1 x Thallid Soothsayer
1 x Gaea's Protector
1 x Dark Bargain
1 x Eviscerate
1 x Icy Manipulator
1 x Naru Meha, Master Wizard

1 x Windgrace Acolyte
1 x Blessed Light
1 x Mammoth Spider
1 x Cloudreader Sphinx

2 x Cold-Water Snapper
1 x Evra, Halcyon Witness
1 x Thorn Elemental
1 x Primordial Wurm

1 x Memorial to Genius


This is looking like my old monster tricolor decks - actually quadcolor - but this time, I do have ways to splash (passed a Hinterland Harbor at some point in the draft as well, when it was looking like I was blue/green).

Tough build though. I'm clearly playing green. Blue is least likely since it'd only be for Cloudreader Sphinx. What else? Some kind of GBw deck splashing Shalai and Blessed Light? I have no idea how good Evra is.

I don't believe these concepts apply with the AI drafters. Though if you have any intel on their behavior, I'd like to read that.

I also picked Icy over Serra yesterday and consider it the right choice. Well, LR does and I follow

I always open this site http://www.draftaholicsanonymous.com/p1p1-dominaria/ on my second screen when drafting to give me a rough idea about card strength, but I don't blindly pick the higher ranked card.

Your pile really looks awkward (no offense ), could be a sealed pool

Your best green card is Grow from the Ashes, but only running/splashing a color to fix mana doesn't make too much sense. Though you're kind of forced into green anyway because that's the only color you have 1-3 drops in. I don't see the point in Marwyn, Naru or Evra, they're rare but imho not relevant in most limited decks.

So I would make a GB deck with a white splash for Shalai and Blessed Light (no Evra) and hope for the best. Opponents vary so wildly, you might even come up with a positive record.

edit: Took a while to post and just saw that this was your plan as well So good luck!

Yeah it was a tough draft. I was taking the best G/B/U card out of most packs, and still wound up with this. For example I remember P1P3, which was Baird vs. Thorn Elemental. Neither of those are great cards. They're solid playables, but not great, and it's only pick 3 (took Thorn Elemental because as mentioned I'd just passed Serra Angel). I never saw a Yamivaya Sapherd for example, or Slimefoot. It might be that I did things like pick Naru Meha over a better green playable, but at that point it did look like I was going to be UG. The swap to black only happened when I was passed a late Eviscerate.

I really have no idea how good Evra is. On the one hand if I have e.g. 10 life left I can attack, swap life totals, then lifelink back 10 to go to 14. On the other, it's a 6-mana 4/4 lifelinker, which seems below par. I'd guess it's a solid white playable, but no more, and probably shouldn't make my deck since it's not splashable.

Built this, haven't run it yet though:

1 x Llanowar Elves

1 x Llanowar Scout
2 x Saproling Migration
2 x Gift of Growth
1 x Broken Bond

1 x Marwyn, the Nurturer
1 x Skittering Surveyor
1 x Grow from the Ashes

1 x Shalai, Voice of Plenty
3 x Thallid Omnivore
1 x Thallid Soothsayer
1 x Dark Bargain
1 x Eviscerate
1 x Icy Manipulator

1 x Blessed Light
1 x Mammoth Spider
1 x Windgrace Acolyte

1 x Thorn Elemental
1 x Primordial Wurm


with 17 lands, two of which are Plains.

It's kind of a shame to cut so many elves which makes Marwyn hard to support, but what else? I suppose -1 Broken Bond +1 Llanowar Scout could be possible. I don't want to run Primordial Wurm as well since it's pretty bad, but if I drop it, the deck has a shortage of beef at the top end. Shalai can win games of course but she's slow; without Shalai it's just Thorn Elemental.

Shame on me for never understanding Evra until now. Thanks
I always thought: "Why would I want to go to 4 life?" without considering that she would get my life as power in return. Anyway, first time I'd activate her, I'd see a Befuddle in response.

Your deck looks very similar to what I had in mind. I'd run more Scouts though, over Marwyn (what's the point?), Gift of Growth and maybe the Wurm. Like you said, the Wurm stinks and I wouldn't run a 6-drop only to have a 6-drop. You're not winning a game against opposing 6-drops.

Disapointing 4-3
I mana screw a couple of times but thats life.
I did listen and trimed the end game a bit but I faced some agressive starts with good draws but I think the real problem was that the deck lacked early iteraction.

On other news:
I can`t believe Modulo runs Chainers torment! that card is awful and is the most welcomed sight when my opponent plays it, I think that card has won me some games I got no bussines winning...and I have never run it

Last 7-1 pile and oh boy I have missed reaching the 7 wins.


Corrosive Ooze was MVP in not one but 2 games... in your face freaking voltron BS!

I guess I will do one more DOM, before the next block.

After one day of work so much stuff happens... let's get to it.

Ad Chainer's Torment: I'd have kept it in Banedon's deck because that deck is very low on 4-drops and Torment is an okay-ish turn 4 play. It's not great and I'd rather have most other 4-drops, but it's playable IMO.

Yeah, you didn't list Soul Salvage and I would 100% agree with cutting it; your creatures are too weak for it overall to be good.

IMO Syncopate and Wizard's Retort are close in power level; Syncopate is better during development (leaving up 2 instead of leaving up 3 mana makes it a possible turn 2 play), Retort is better lategame.
I agree that Cancel overall is not a great Limited card, but it gets better the slower a format is, and DOM is slow. Ad, as an aside, even with tons of wizards Wizard's Retort is not too much better than Cancel unless you can make use of the mana you saved (mostly relevant for UR Wizards, not quite as relevant for your deck).

I guess 17 lands plus 1 or 2 Opts would work for your deck as well; a Limied manabase in particular is always speculative and almost never an exact science.

Agree with the p1p1 Skittering Surveyor; making all of your decks and enabling other cards to make your deck is absolutely huge. Shivan Fire would be my second pick out of the pack though.

Your resulting deck looks fine; I'd consider Llanowar Scout > Marwyn (don't think Marwyn is very good).