I only started out just yet. Can't be of much help.

However I want to warn you that as of right now we're only getting two weeks of ranked draft. So if you want a THB collection, go ham now.

Followed your advice (mostly) and cut the Naiad, Sentinel's Eyes, one of the Lions, but also went down one land since low curve deck and added Sleep of the Dead since it felt like I had to overrun my opponent. Went 3-3. Aside from one game where opponent couldn't answer Kraken and conceded, the other two wins were hard-fought. It felt like the deck's power level was simply too low; yes, it had removal for days, but all those attack steps the removal bought me was me attacking with 1/2s and 2/2s, hardly much of a clock. I badly needed the UW Curious Obsession-esque lifelinking aura, and more good creatures. As it is if you asked me if any of my cards overperformed, aside from the Kraken (and who didn't know this is a bomb ...) none of them felt impressive except maybe Banishing Light and Dreadful Apathy.

Three losses: one to opponent who had the 3/2 flying that returns enchantments. He also had the red omen, which wiped me out. Second loss was partly my mistake, since I could've used a (admittedly premium) removal spell on my opponent's 2/2 firebreathing which would've let me live a bit longer (maybe even win, opponent was on 5 life), but I forgot about the ability and lost. Last game opponent came pretty close to dying as well, but he had Gray Merchant and recurred it to stay alive, and also the UB unblockable 2-drop that had just enough damage to kill me.

Next draft is looking like RW since I first picked Iroas's Blessing and 2nd pick is probably Dreadful Apathy, is that a legitimate deck?

@DCG if you're running four colors I can't believe in not running the Green omen. I'm also rather skeptical of the blue splash, it's just one card (and a not especially good one either), why not cut that and run Nyxborn Marauder to up your devotion count for Gray Merchant?

Interesting build. I have some experience in the format, but not a lot with U/W.
Your overall power leven does feel a bit low though.

My cuts would probably be:
-1 Sentinel's Eyes. Card's good, but you don't have a ton of creatures to profit a ton from it, and Pilgrims to tutor it up if needed.
-1 Island. You don't have a ton of manasinks for the lategame and your curve effectively tops out at 4, so cutting a land makes a lot of sense for you. You're much heavier White, which is why I'd advocate for a 9-7 instead of an 8-8 split despite Nadir Kraken becoming harder to cast.
-1 Leonin of the Lost Pride. This cut should be your weakest creature, and I think it's quite a close call. Personally I've been unimpressed with Leoning which is why I suggest it. Alternative cuts would be Naiad of the Hidden Coves (the statline is not great for you and you're not playing on your opponent's turn much) or one Heliod's Pilgrim.

@Timh: Unfortunately Pilgrim cannot fetch Banishing Light, otherwise I'd sugest to cut Ichthyomorphosis...



Ichthyomorphosis is definitely not worth the splash, definitely run Nyxborn Marauder over it.
With not a ton of devotion payoff, I'd also run Omen of the Hunt over the Altar.

Unknown Shores is just terrible; paying 1 extra mana for your splash card makes it worse by enough that it's not even worth splashing oftentimes.

Setessan Training is just a perfectly fine playable even in GB (which I agree is the worst shell for it). In your case, I'd even consider running the second one to give you a fourth Rise to Glory target; the cut should probably be Temple Thief (card's fairly mediocre)

Skola Grovedancer seems super unexciting at first glance, but plays out incredibly well, being an enchantment 2-drop that sometimes fuels Escape or gains incidental life.


EDIT:

RW Heroes is a deck, and not a terrible one IMO; triggering Constellation while giving your army +1/+0 is not the worst. Make sure to pick up enough combat tricks (Indomitable Will, Karametra's Blessing) though.

@Mod: derp, that was brain fart on my part. I still wouldn’t have cut ichthyblahblah tho, even if banishings were auras. Power level not high enough to win on the ground and frogifying a flyer important option to let his fliers connect. Cards not great, but serviceable removal in a deck that absolutely needs all the removal it can run.

@Ban: RW is ok; have seen it be successful. Haven’t seen heroic shine nearly as much as I hoped, but the color pair can get the job done. Your first two picks are strong enough to consider being there. Personally I’d view heroic as incidental/upside rather than primary focus of build - have to have the right combination of heroic creatures on board and targeting spells in hand to have that be deck’s Identity, and in limited you don’t want a ton of non creature spells, so it’s not practical to build a Feather type deck where like 1/3 of your build is stuff that targets your creatures. Also not pumping toughness makes it risky proposition in ground attacks that aren’t getting lethal.

Ran RB again. Can't really say what the strategy was, other than beatdown. Theros limited feels a bit clumsy overall with the devotion mechanic clashing with multi-color builds. It doesn't feel as deep as Eldraine, which had a lot of deckbulding routes you could go down. I dunno, prepared to be proved wrong.

I'm 11 drafts in after the weekend, went from Bronze to Gold at ~58%.

My favorite decktype is big green creatures with Furious Rise. Black and white seem to work, too, but not with each other. Seeing a blue deck late means they have a super-bomb.

Dream Trawler sh*ts on everything else. I opened him p3p1 in my last run, turned my so-far Gruul deck into GW with a blue splash for only him, picked up all the fixers in that pack 3 and it went 6-0 into 7-2. He can be too little, too late, but when he is, no other card would save you either except for extreme niche situations.

Kiora bests the Sea God -which was the only card deemed better in the previews - cannot compete imo, because neither does it stop the opponent from killing you through the air, nor has it any protection. If I remember correctly I had the token out twice but never got to see chapter 2 - on my side. It is still a game-ending bomb, no doubt. Just not on the level of Dream Trawler.

Complicated draft, was waffling between blue, white and red but then when P2P1 was Archon, I moved into UW again, except this time the deck looks significantly stronger in terms of power level. Will build tomorrow but if you guys want to have a crack at it, do tell

Offhand I'm thinking:

1) Do not splash red. It's just Iroas's Blessing and while that should be a good card, it would also mean I need to run Traveler's Amulet & the Temple, not to mention a Mountain. Given that I have 1WW and 1UU cards as well this might be too much. Besides, I'm not short on playables.
2) I really have no idea how good the turtle is. For that matter, I can't tell if the rest of the creatures in my sideboard are as good as or better than the ones I have already.
3) In the same vein, I passed up a lot of chances to pick up the white omen. The card looks fairly poor to me - just two 1/1 tokens is worse than Raise the Alarm. I did pick up Hero of the Pride late, though, and there was a Phalanx Tactics floating around.
4) Similarly I can't tell how good the blue omen is. It's instant-speed constellation but there don't seem to be many cards that actually benefit from that. It's devotion, but there aren't that many devotion payoffs. Otherwise it's just an expensive cantrip. In Dominaria, Opt was always filler, perhaps this is filler too.
5) I got One with the Stars surprisingly late. Is this not close to the unconditional removal spell I think it is? In other draft formats a card like Charmed Sleep would be a high pick. Sleep Paralysis is not as good, but also a solid playable that's almost never cut.
6) There're enough flash cards that I wonder if flash is a real archetype. On the other hand, none of the flash cards seem that powerful (c.f. Frilled Mystic and Nightpack Ambusher).

Well, you want to play the Omen. Either to find the Archon or to trigger it. Not sure how far that deck will take you. Early game kinda sucks vs what other color pairs can do. But you play t4 Archon every game and you'll win most of those.

Lyre is a nice card. I used it on a creature with the Hydra enchantment. That creature became something like 256/256 without ever untapping

My

1) Agree with your reasoning here. Removal is worth considering splash, and it has synergy with archon, but youre not without removal as is and your color requirements on several early drops (including trying to get chimera out ahead of curve) make it not worth the effort here.

2) Turtle is a little better than 0/5 walls normally are, but it’s still not great. Flash plays really well with what U wants to do in this set, and card can have a roll if you have a bomb you need to stay alive long enough to find. Archon is something you want to stay alive to find and you have a few instant speed effects to increase play options, but prob one of your most replaceable cards. Archon isn’t Dream Trawler where you almost can’t lose after it lands (doesn’t protect itself and need triggers to bomb out), so buying time to find it isn’t quite as important.

3) White omen is pretty medium. Not every W deck wants it but it’s very important to heroic triggers. WU least desirable home, but if RW heroic, GW Siona with subtheme heroic, or WB with sacrifice outlets, it becomes more valuable. Scry is a bigger deal in limited with its thinner decks and bomb importance, so that added value should be respected on the omens. Plus the amount of enchantment synergies this set. Can be way better than Raise the Alarm, but also worse if your deck can’t exploit its upsides. Vacuum power level is low but synergies can raise it.

3) Blue omen is pretty good. Prob the 2nd best omen after the red one. Scrying 2 and drawing is already fine, but then you get to scry another 2 later. Blue really wants to play at instant speed this set, and this fits in very well to that plan with both modes. This set you can also flicker it or recur it with a few different cards, along with various enchantment synergies - all making it better than opt (except maybe when you were in wizards deck with the lord). I’d run it in pretty much any U deck (unless my pool was either too good to make room or too bad to bother digging through), but def in your build as it helps find Archon or triggers constellation after you have. And you have U demigod so devotion is a thing here.

4) I think One With Stars is decent, but enchantment hate is waaay more playable than in other sets and opp having an enchantment on board can be exploitable (devotion, sac outlets). Think it still compares pretty evenly with sleep paralysis tho.

5) Said before and say again, U really wants to play at instant speed this set. No flash bombs that compare to ambusher, but a lot of synergy in the commons range. I haven’t been very impressed with UR decks I’ve seen so far but UB is stronk when you’re threatening to blow up their aura play with Final Death or counter a spell if they make another move, then flashing in a bird or cracking an omen if they don’t. All that stuff is in commons.


If I have time later and you haven’t already finished run I’ll offer what I’d do with your pool but wanted to talk about these with time I had now

It’s funny that blue is imo the weakest color at peasant level, but the 3 biggest bombs in set are U. Trawler, Kiora, and Ashiok all can just win the game on their own. You covered the other two, but Ashiok onto an even board is ridiculous and hard to lose from that point.

Went 2-3. Three losses, one to mana screw (3 lands in top 13 cards), one to mana flood (13 lands in top 21 cards), and one to opponent having a Bogle.

I'm getting the feeling that any aura-based format is going to be pretty ****. Opponent can't answer your aura'd creature? Congrats, you win. Opponent answers it? Sorry, you lose. It's like playing with the monoblue Curious Obsession deck from a few metas ago, except there are more cards like Curious Obsession in the format. Pretty lame. The wins aren't fun, neither are the losses.

Sorry for the hindsight, but what you describe is the reason why some people rate Stern Dismissal among the best blue commons. It's in your pool but not in your deck. Yes it is worse than Unsummon and that is not even a good card, but this is all about context. Not all decks are aura-based though, so this is more of a sideboard card, but in Bo1 you gotta prepare for a mix of everything.

I didn't lose to not having removal, I had removal, opponent had Starlit Mantle and Alseid of Life's Bounty. For that matter in one of the wins, I was the one with Starlit Mantle (which I kept up the whole match, but opponent never drew removal).

Like I said, it really felt like the monoblue Curious Obsession deck from a few metas ago.

Well here we go for 3rd ever draft, this time going RG for once. I passed a Flummoxed Cyclops for a Incendiary Oracle at one point, because I had only one other 2-drop at the time, then saw a lot of Oracles late. Don't know if it's just the bots valuing it lowly, or nobody else is drafting red. I certainly felt like I got lucky this draft as well, since all three rares I opened were in RG colors; on the other hand, I also never got passed another RG rare.

Probably cutting some Stampede Riders because I seem rather short on 4-power creatures. That's also why I have both Aspect of the Manticore in the list right now. Don't know if the top-end Nyxborn Colossus are actually necessary or if the escape cards & tricks are sufficient. Not running Hydra's Growth because **** the Curious Obsession playstyle, and no idea if Final Flare's actually worth it. It's a powerful removal spell, but I don't have anything to sacrifice.

Four escape cards might be one too many. Probably cut the spider?

I would probably build it a bit differently. You may not like Hydra's Growth, but this is a wincon that demands an answer. That is not true for Aspect of Manticore.

The green colossus is a much better card than the white and red ones because it has power and toughness. Yes, it dies to Doom Blade, but what doesn't? I like one in a green deck. Might even run two.

Final Flare is the last omission I would not make. Instant 5-damage removal is often a crucial play - especially when you have some sac fodder than doesn't hurt you - like a stolen creature from your The Akroan War or a creature that's been neutered by something like Ichthyomorphosis. Don't underestimate flying fish though - put a few auras on him and he's great again

As for cuts, you need a critical mass of creatures, so you can't just shave the bad/medicore ones. Gift of Strength and Aspect of Manticore are questionable inclusions imo. Your creatures are already bigger. Relentless Pursuit is growing on me, you get 2 cards most times and fuel your graveyard. I think the spider is your best Escape creature. Without it you're pretty vulnerable through the air. Rage-Hound is rather weak for Escape is the only reason to run him.

edit, addendum: Don't worry too much about 4-power. You don't have Furious Rise so whatever. Not missing out on much.

Definitely don’t cut the spider.
Why?

-1 giant growth and/or Rage hound, +1 Grovedancer, and Flare or Colossus
Why?

-1 manticore aura, +1 hydra aura
Why?

WWTIMHD?

FINAL EDIT: reformatted for visual improvement. Added few additional thoughts along with way I’d build it

Goddamn ashiok is an unfun card, esp. in limited. Just feels like another Oko.

Managed to beat Ashiok the one time I saw it in Sealed. Helps that I'd resolved my own Ashiok the turn before I suppose...

Mercifully haven't run into anyone with Kiora Wins the Game yet.
Ended up cutting Island, Fishify, and Altar for Swamp, Marauder, and Omen. Went 3-1 after that to finish 6-3. Lampad of Death's Vigil is designed more for the RB deck I think, but it was still nice here for closing out games and getting incidental sac value. Fizzled an Opp's Triumphant Surge by sac'ing the target to deny them three life.

Only started the next draft before getting to sleep last night, first pack rare is Idyllic Tutor. Bleh..

Loll I splashed blue in my last draft solely for the Kiora enchantment. The one time I drew it my opp was holding up Deny the Divine. Talk about bad feels.

Spell is counterable therefore trash. Stop using it.