Felorin's picture
By: Felorin, Dr. Cat
May 29 2013 1:07am
5
Login to post comments
3137 views


My earlier columns & Ars Arcana have presented a number of thoughts on different three color combos in this limited format. I'm still very interested in which of those predictions will prove correct, and which colors will turn out to be strongest. So far it seems that Wizards has at least done a good enough job balancing the set so that many color combos are at least viable, and drafting something that's reasonably open from your position will often lead to a decent playable deck that you can have fun playing and have a solid shot at winning matches with.

I'm interested in exploring that further, but also very interested right now in a couple other directions. Five color drafting is always a blast like this, and sometimes leads to a very powerful deck. Taking a lot of color-fixing early can still leave you open to end up three color anyway, but staying highly flexible early on till you see your best opening.

On the other paw, top players like team Channel Fireball seem to think focusing heavily on one guild can give you a deck that's aggressive and consistent enough to beat up on the slower three color decks and possibly be the strongest and most correct approach to the format. Whether you end up two color, or pick up a third color late as a splash. They took their drafting advice from Ben Stark as usual, many consider him the best drafter in the world right now. You can find his summary of how to draft the set right here.

So, heading into this draft, I was pondering - do I want to draft it my way, or be like Woo or like Stark? Looking for what's open is important in deciding, right?  Let's draft!

  Pack 1 pick 1:

  My Pick:

The Travis Woo part of my brain (or my heart) was secretly happy to see a pack with no super-strong cards. Ok, not so secretly. Emmara Tandris is kind of like the legendary creatures you see in Master's Edition sets that don't actually DO anything. Of course she does a little something, and combined with Trostani's Summoner she could be pretty sick. But you're already probably winning if you just play Trostani's Summoner by itself, so maybe she's just a win-more card. And we don't know if we're going to get passed any of those, yet!  The clear pick here is Tithe Drinker, which fits into the Ben Stark plan, various Dr. Cat or Ars Arcana 3 color groupings that seem good, heck it even fits into the Travis Woo plan ok. Even at the Pro Tour, the announcers said blue/white/black is the third-winningest color combo in early DGR drafts on MTGO. (Top five from first downwards: Blue-Black-Red-Green, Green-Red-White, White-Blue-Black, White-Black-Red, Black-Red-Green).

Heck with it, Tithe Drinker is strong, but maybe not as strong as the strength you gain from the Five Color Plan when it works out. Gimmed dat guildgate!

  Pack 1 pick 2:

  My Pick:

Could have another gate here, a gatekeeper when I don't know yet if I've successfully gotten a high gate count (too soon!), the truly excellent Krasis Incubation, or the near-unstoppable Carnage Gladiator I still haven't gotten to draft and would like to. At the pre-release one of my few losses was to a guy that hadn’t THREE of these in his sealed pool! 

But the incubation is just way too strong. It's better than Arrest, and Arrest is already super good! THIS can move to a bombier enemy creature in an emergency, and in a board stall or against an enemy's slow start, it can play the role of pump that costs too much but makes the pump permanent and keeps recurring! When players can stabilize the board against each other, this puts the inevitability on your side. That's a good place to have it!


  Pack 1 pick 3:

  My Pick:

I like the Steeple Roc a lot, they helped me get my 3-0 drafts in triple dragon's maze drafting. The first strike makes a lot of pests stay home, and he's a solid beater! I've drifted away from them a bit and need to drift back. I consider the guildgate, but it doesn't excite me here, nor do the gatekeepers with only one gate guaranteed so far if I pick one of them. Mazeglider is a very good card, often initiating alpha strikes with strong gold cards, and being a quite solid flyer even if he has nobody to boost up. Glider it is. Plus he matches colors with my previous pick, which is what really gives him the edge of the Roc In my mind.

  Pack 1 pick 4:

  My Pick:

Would I play two copies of this excellent card? Yes I would! Also the guildgate is gone but I don't even care now, I've got strong Simic cards and Simic is a Gatecrash guild, we're in full on Ben Stark Plan A mode from here on out and we're going to draft Simic and cut Simic cards hard!

  Pack 1 pick 5:

  My Pick:

Now this is sweet. It could provide near infinite evolve triggers, there's a lot of other synergies for it in the set, it removes enchantments my opponent might throw on my creatures, and Maze Glider would LOVE to levitate this guy and chant "Finish Him!"  It's our only Simic option here but it's a great one, and we're certainly sending a clear signal downstream here to keep Simic open for pack 2. Second pack in a row with no gates.

  Pack 1 pick 6:

  My Pick:

Now gates are open again. Could open up for white cards and/or gatekeepers. But Alive/Well is a playable green card, and pretty strong if I get the white mana, and I want to cut playable green or blue cards as well as gold cards that have both. Nobody plays Phytoburst, do they? Someday I'm gonna find a deck for that with a lot of evasion where it's actually good or something. Or not.

  Pack 1 pick 7:

  My Pick:

Roc's still nice but we want to stay on color and we need some creatures at 2 and 3 for our curve. If we stay two color or two with a splash, faster is better and this comes down a lot sooner than the roc.

  Pack 1 pick 8:

  My Pick:

There's a late guildgate. Phytoburst might be interesting in an aggressive deck with a lot of flyers. But so far we have two. Guildgate opens up options, now white is as plausible a third color or splash as red, and we have more chances of maybe getting a Gatekeeper activation or getting value out of a Greenside Watcher. We'll take it. No, I don't need a bag, I'm going to eat it in the car.

  Pack 1 pick 9:

  My Pick:

Pilfered Plans is ok, Down/Dirty is sometimes good. Either puts us in black. Bred for the Hunt might actually become playable if I get enough +1 counter things, and it cuts Simic harder. Looking back I think Pilfered Plans is a more correct pick here. I might or might not end up playing it, but it's a good solid card. That adds consistency to your deck.

  Pack 1 pick 10:

  My Pick:

Rakdos Drake goes with Bred for the Hunt, if we really want to be Bred we should add black or red as a third color and go with Unleash in addition to Evolve. But this is a solid blue card that answers bombs or protects early leads, and I'm obsessed with this Ben Stark plan by now. All in!

  Pack 1 pick 11:

  My Pick:

Ok, now I reaaaally have to emphasize Evolve, and anything else that makes +1 counters! Again, this could become playable, in the right circumstances.

  Pack 1 pick 12:

  My Pick:

Hidden Strings is So Bad! But I am still angry at Uncovered Clues from when I actually drafted it on purpose. I had 4 Nivix Cyclops, 2 (Flux Charger), Melek, Izzet Paragon, 5 or 6 Uncovered Clues and some sweet burn spells & other spells. I lost round 1 to a poor matchup + poor draws. Tried to draft it again, archetype wasn't open so I drafted a sweet Woo deck, and my OPPONENT had the Nivix Cyclopes and beat me with them.  I will take the awful Hidden Strings and bury it in the basement somewhere.

  Pack 1 pick 13:

  My Pick:

Cluestone, yay! I figured I'd get one of these late, and I figured I could. Nice to have a ramp option if you have some high-end spells in your deck. Plus more splash help if I need it.

  Pack 1 pick 14:

  My Pick:

Aetherize's inferior little brother.


  Pack 1 pick 15:

  My Pick:

Sweet, bonus cluestone, in case we end up with enough high-end to ramp into we'd want two. Or if we end up 3 colors splashing a 4th? Not our goal, though. We got a decent start in Simic, we want to vacuum up good Simic cards like crazy while keeping open for a potential 3rd color or splash. We have fixing options for white or red, but still could grab black if we see an awesome black spell. We're low on creatures and will want a bunch, but that's often the case coming out of Dragon's Maze. Let's Gatecrash!

  Pack 2 pick 1:

  My Pick:

Wow, Crocanura is one of the best evolve creatures, and we need 3 drops too, he's perfect. Hands of Binding is good too, and adaptive Snapjaw with Species Gorger would just be hilarious. But what's this, a mythic rare? It's worth about a booster pack, $3.50 you say? Dang, have to grab this. IF we end up green/blue/red or green/blue/white, and have some fixing, we COULD splash this since it's also super strong. It's just a rare-draft though. If we were playing at a Grand Prix or something we'd slam that Crocanura and have a better deck.

  Pack 2 pick 2:

  My Pick:

Urban Evolution is nice, and I really want that Ivy Lane Denizen that won't wheel. But man, Simic Manipulator and steal people's stuff and win? Yes please! This guy is pretty powerful if he survives a few turns. Clearly we did ok at cutting the guy to our immediate left out of Simic!

  Pack 2 pick 3:

  My Pick:

What evolve creature is better than Crocanura at the 3 drop slot? Well, besides Simic Manipulator that is? How about Win Condition Krasis that's hard to kill with burn spells or Death's Approach?  This guy does a reasonable wall impression in a pinch too. Unblockable is better than flying in most cases. We're getting hooked up in this pack!

  Pack 2 pick 4:

  My Pick:

Ok, not as much here. But with two gates this will do good work sometimes, and putting it on a flyer or Elusive Krasis will be good other times, or just throw it on a ground guy who could become too big to block with a little more oomph. Does invite two for ones, but you can save it till late, hold counterspell mana up, play it against removal-light decks or just get a sick read on someone that "they haven't got it". It's a good enough card to maybe run main deck, depending on what else I have to build with. Nothing off-color is super strong enough to draw me in, I guess Ruination Wurm would be the best and it's not amazing, just solid. Thespian's Stage can be "one more gate" if you're a gates deck and low on gate count to trigger gatekeepers. But that's not us, this time.

  Pack 2 pick 5:

  My Pick:

Every evolve deck should have one of these, and he can actually fight too - or dissuade your enemy's whole ground team from swimming in. Happy to get him. Nothing bomby enough off-color to pick over him, though Angelic Edict is quite good. If we weren't actively considering 2 color for our final deck it's the strongest card in the pack and would be a likely pick here.

  Pack 2 pick 6:

  My Pick:

Gridlock is a good finishing move, just like Teleportal, Blustersquall, etc. To force your bunch of creatures through for the win. We don't HAVE a bunch of creatures yet, or any 2 drops. Give me that 2 drop creature! It's also evasive, we're leaning very blue and evasive so let's have more of that. A 2 power flyer for 2 with a slight tax is still quite good for a deck that's trying to kill slower, less consistent 3 color decks by being fast and consistent. Being evasion-based is one more reason not to bother with Gridlock, as we'd just be getting the Fog half of it mostly and who runs Fog? Last Thoughts is fine if you already have a bunch of flyers and want to play more long game, that's not where we're at. I did consider the powerful Call of the Nightwing for infinite flyers - it's no Bitterblossom, but it is a Badderblossom. But it's the one third-color choice that we don't have fixing for yet, it costs 2 more mana, and might take MORE than two extra turns to come down compared to sprite, since we have to wait for splash color mana first! Not the pick here, though normally I'd slam Call of the Nightwing in a lot of decks.

  Pack 2 pick 7:

  My Pick:

It's the same common print run! Go read what I said last pick. And hooray for two creatures in the two drop slot, more flyers, etc!

  Pack 2 pick 8:

  My Pick:

This thing is a good card generally, can go nicely with our 5/5 or our 6/6, still good value if we get 3 or 4 power on it. Easy pick here.

  Pack 2 pick 9:

  My Pick:

Hands of Binding wheeled! I miss you Croc, but our second choice is here, so nice gift. Especially now that we have more flyers than the last time we saw this, goes good on a Metro Sprite.

  Pack 2 pick 10:

  My Pick:

The counterspell could be a thing, it does cantrip but it's narrower than the one we already have. A big obstacle on the ground is good for a flyers deck, and hey we did want everything that can evolve or trigger other evolvers, right?

  Pack 2 pick 11:

  My Pick:

Voidwalk could be interesting, but let's go aggressive. This guy can swing into any board, and any time they don't have an X/3 or higher blocker, he'll actually get Value.

  Pack 2 pick 12:

  My Pick:

Nothing to see here.

  Pack 2 pick 13:

  My Pick:

This could get our flyers through if they have flyers. Plus it ups our damage output a little and could shave a turn off their clock.

  Pack 2 pick 14:

  My Pick:

Sure, I'll take another one in case of a flyer-heavy opponent.

  Pack 2 pick 15:

  My Pick:


  Pack 3 pick 1:

  My Pick:

Hmm, a color fixing for a two color deck, one chump block then I'm dead Gatecreeper Vine? No thanks! We didn't get tempted into a third color at all! We might pick one up in this pack but we might not, and we'll be looking to slam enough good fighting monogreen and monogreen creatures that we can stay at two. The fighters at 6 and 7 mana are ok, but we're looking to be a fast aggressive deck. Giant Growth and Tickle Monster Soulsworn Spirit are both good for our deck. We still need more creatures, plus this guy helps race by being evasive AND by giving you one free detain, so it gets the nod over the pump spell. Besides these days our Giant Growth is called Slaughterhorn and has more options on it. Wouldn't mind wheeling the Growth, but we won't.

  Pack 3 pick 2:

  My Pick:

Rhino's decent, Aerial Predation is a good sideboard card. Common Bond is awesome and very good for our deck, but we don't know if we're going to splash. Rather pick up a for-sure main deck card than the Predation or even the Bond. Let's have a little more high-end for games we don't finish quickly, a 3/3 flyer plus a detain is a nice package.

  Pack 3 pick 3:

  My Pick:

Green 8 drop or green 4 drop? Were we fast aggressive or slow controlling again? Yeah that's what I thought. If we were in black or wanted to be, Dreg Mangler is better here. Cancel's also solid, Sundering Growth is good sideboard.

  Pack 3 pick 4:

  My Pick:

Wow, Annihilating Fire and Underworld Connections both went a ways here. No blue and green just has a 5 drop and a 1 drop. The little guy can chump and then scavenge onto a flyer for free, plus he gives more potential to our Mutant's Prey and Bred for the Hunt. Along with our occasionally scavengeable Monitor from the previous pick. Ok, this guy might sit in the sideboard or might be our 23rd playable, whatever! He's good sometimes.


  Pack 3 pick 5:

  My Pick:

Nice stacked pack!  What was in here for the first four picks?? Shoutouts to Auger Spree and Stab Wound for being great for someone else's deck. I considered Stab Wound, but with zero fixing for it it's hard to Go There. We have a Towering Indrik, which is good, or a wall that trades away the "sometimes okish on offense" of the Indrik for being stronger on defense. Our deck could use something on D for the enemy decks that are quick enough to fight back, or for when we don't kill normal speed decks fast enough, which will happen often. Blustersquall is often better than Gridlock, but again it's not something we need as much in this deck.

  Pack 3 pick 6:

  My Pick:

Wow, late Launch Party. For our deck it's Runewing or Death's Presence. I took the enchantment because it's more powerful in the abstract, but since we're going for fast and evasive I think it's too slow for some matchups and I think I'd have preferred the Runewing. It even comes with built-in card advantage! Johnnys will love the game or two where you do sick things with Death's Presence.  It combos with "having creatures in your deck"!

  Pack 3 pick 7:

  My Pick:

Inspiration is good for making decks more consistent. But we want to be dropping creatures on turn 4, not durdling. This is a weak creature, but its a creature. Actually with Way of the Thief, which fits appropriately with this gal's name, you have a card drawing, fast clocking machine, especially when there's a guildgate on our side. That happened once in this draft (spoiler!)  Some fun-ish cards in other colors but we are SO two color now.

  Pack 3 pick 8:

  My Pick:

Dispel is weak, ok we'll pick up the powerful removal spell that could occasionally copy our Miming Slime for extra value. We could do a one card splash, or bring this in against decks that beat us up with bomby rare creatures. Though the counterspell from pack 1 might be better for that sometimes, since it lets us keep mana consistency.

  Pack 3 pick 9:

  My Pick:

That's a nice wheel, we could squeeze in one more expensive flyer. This one sometimes removes a 3/3 before it starts the beatdowns, too!

  Pack 3 pick 10:

  My Pick:

Common Bond wheeled?  Wtf!  Ok I'll take it, might even think about playing it but probably not. More valuable early, and splashes often can't be played till mid or late game except when you're lucky.

  Pack 3 pick 11:

  My Pick:

Only needing three mana up rather than four to counter something is good. So is being unconditional. One naturalize effect for sideboard is always good to have, but this card just does more for us and will likely make main deck.

  Pack 3 pick 12:

  My Pick:

Ok, free random green creature.

  Pack 3 pick 13:

  My Pick:

Let's make sure nobody gets hurt by this. Especially us!

  Pack 3 pick 14:

  My Pick:

Slimy, yet satisfying.

  Pack 3 pick 15:

  My Pick:


This draft converter created by Benjamin Peebles-Mundy. Visit the draft converter today!

Not bad. Things dried up some in the second halves of packs 2 and 3, but we got solid enough cards to go two color, or splash one or two strong white cards.  So, here's how I built this one!

 

The deck wasn't too hard to build, as if we avoid all splash options, we're just a trifle over 23 playables. I decided not to splash the Common Bond, aiming for more speed and consistency. I chose to run one of the two Skyblinder Staff main deck, as I'm hoping to win with small flyers and speed, and a reasonable scenario is I get them beaten halfway dead and they get up flying blockers. The Staff keeps the beats going in, while providing a not-irrelevant +1 power boost against non-flyer decks. I can side up to two or down to zero after the game one scouts their deck for me. I decided against Death's Presence as too slow and expensive. I didn't have enough +1 counter sources to reliably cast Bred for the Hunt or Mutant's Prey - sorry those aren't showing correctly in the sideboard above. The deck is trying to be consistent and fast, so the way to maximize that while cutting down to 23 playables is to leave out the inconsistent cards and favor ones that will always do something. The curve is low enough that I don't feel the need for 18 land here, I can consider siding up to 18 when I know I'm on the play. On the draw I'll always stay at 17 for sure.

I am so much more blue than green I decided going 10/7 rather than 9/8 on the land split was ok. Most of the green cards are mid to late game plays, whereas not only Cancel likes to have extra blue early, but sometimes I'll be to pump Metropolis Sprites on attack and play blue spells in the same turn, so plenty of blue is good. When siding up to 18 lands I can add a forest and go 10/8.

Round 1, Fight!

I had to mulligan a one lander into a 3 forest hand. Awkward! Makes me glad I stayed at 10 blue sources! My spells were all blue or blue/green except for Armored Transport, which I laid on turn 3, then drew a forest turn 4 like a champ. Still a slow draw. My opponent, meanwhile, had two swamps and an island, starting with a turn 3 Underworld Connections for plenty of card advantage. He got out a Thrill-Kill Assassin, and dropped a Runner's Bane on my Elusive Krasis - I knew eventually I could evolve it enough to pop that! But my opponent did 3 extra damage to himself and couldn't draw another land, as I laid out a Metropolis Sprite and a Wind Drake, finally he scooped after discarding an Adaptive Snapjaw, revealing his third color as green.

Game 2 he got three forests and a swamp, missing the blue mana this time. He had a couple of early creatures, but clearly had more stuff stuck in hand either by cost, colors, or both. Meanwhile my turn 2 Metropolis Sprite got a Way of the Thief and Brought The Beatdowns, being joined by my other Metro Sprite after that. He played a Trestle Troll to try and stem the bleeding, but I dropped Tickle Monster (aka Soulsworn Spirit) rather than Krasis Incubation to detain the troll now and get another elusive beater on the board, figuring I'd put Incubation on next turn. He entered scoop phase before that, though. He had beaten me down to 10 life because I didn't bother playing defense. He revealed his hand showing me a double-blue spell, three double-black spells his one swamp wouldn't cast, a Deathcult Rogue that either a swamp OR an island would have turned on - and a Thrill-Kill Assassin he could actually have cast before losing the race next turn.

Metropolis Sprite Way of the Thief

This makes me as happy as Elvis with a Peanut Butter & Banana sandwich.

His slow mana development did make things easy for me that game, but a slower deck than mine wouldn't have put so much early pressure on, and his four 2-3 mana creatures could have bought him enough time to draw into some more lands. So go go gadget flyers deck for being the right tool for this matchup!

Round 2, Fight!

Speaking of matchups, my round 2 opponent was an aggressive Naya deck, focusing heavily on Boros. Not knowing this, I kept a 4 land hand with one 6 drop creature and two spells. Which, frankly, I should have considered mulliganing against anyone, I think the keep was just wrong here. Even though I won the die-roll again, his curveout of Foundry Street Denizen, Viashino Firstblade, Viashino Firstblade was brutal and had me dead on turn 5, my defense of Skyblinder Staff plus lands being totally inadequate. I missed my proper defense of Hands of Binding with nothing to cypher onto turn 5, die on turn 6 instead, though I thought about doing that. Hey, less info revealed to him, whatever. Let's side in Slitherhead for the unnecessary staff, and bring in the 5 drop Gobbling Ooze for one of the 6 drop flyers, and give this another shot. And mulligan correctly if needed! Also remember this was probably a nut-draw type of situation, not what I can expect every game. My opponent did let me know after the match he only had two Firstblades, so, yeah.

Foundry Street Denizen Viashino Firstblade Viashino Firstblade

Not what you want to see across the table when you have no early plays.

Game 2 his defense consisted of a Bellows Lizard.  Huh? It did get in 4 whole points of damage as he never pumped it, but I sure wasn't blocking it with my Elusive Krasis as it had valuable beatdowns in its future and I feared a pump spell or trick. My Mossdog ate Annihilating Fire, leaving it not even scavengeable, but that made Elusive a 1/5. Then Hover Barrier turned it into a 2/6. Way of the Thief got me to 4/8 unblockable, and my opponent dropped a 2 counter Mana Bloom. Ok, should expect a good play from him next turn, finally.

What's this, I'm at 7 mana turn 7? Ok, Krasis Incubation my guy, remove it, swing with my unblockable 6/10 creature, knock you from 13 life to 7.  Go.  I guess he had no way to stop me from pumping it to 8 and killing him next turn, 'cause he scooped!

Elusive Krasis Way of the Thief Krasis Incubation

This trick is lots of fun at parties. If they're blood-crazed Rakdos parties!

Game 3, on the draw, I'm presented with a two lander. They're Island and Forest, I have three 3 drop creatures, a 2 mana spell and a 4 mana spell. Being on the draw, short of having an actual one or two drop, this is about as good as two land hands get. So I decide to keep.  Let's do the math - chances of drawing a land by turn 3, getting a dude down without missing a land drop, are 1 minus ( (18/33) * (17/32) * (16/31)). That's an 85% chance to not miss my third land drop, that's pretty good. Of that 15% of bad draws, a little over 1/3 has me at least drawing one of my two Metropolis Sprites to have a meaningful play. So chances of having NO play by turn 3 at all are 10.2%. Furthermore, having missed my turn 3 land drop, I have a 50/50 chance of hitting it on turn 4, which will be fast enough to keep me in the game against a lot of opposing draws in this format.

Not so much here. I *did* miss land on 3 draws, I did draw zero Metropolis Sprites, these are the chances we take. My opponent, however, had plays marginally better than a lone Bellows Lizard. The Loxodon Smiter was fearsome, the Scorchwalker was the last thing you want to see against a slow start, but I had the turn 4 land to play out one of my 2/2s to trade with it. But then he had Massive Raid. If he didn't have removal again my next 2/2 would let me go down to 3 life, hope he didn't play out more than 2 power AND I drew a fourth land to put my Krasis Incubation on the Smiter AND hope I could stabilize against his other plays and keep going from there.

But actually his next play had 4 power of hasty attack strength and I was down to -1 life on turn 6.

Loxodon Smiter Scorchwalker Massive Raid Viashino Firstblade

The only four spells he played - that's all he needed to play!

We chatted a lot after the game, and he agreed it's a solid keep. Which I still think looking back. His draw was very strong, and even so I'd have a chance if I'd had a 3rd turn land. I'd have only taken 5 from Scorchwalker instead of 10, might have stabilized, and then gotten down Elusive Krasis, gotten Hands of Binding on it and evolved it and started going to town. Ah well. Having a very friendly opponent chatting about the format and wishing each other good luck in round 3 made even a losing match much more pleasant. I prefer people like this over the guy that never says one word to you the whole match!

Round 3 did I say?  Oh yes, this is a swiss draft, thankfully. Let's go win one for the gipper!

Round 3, Fight!

I win the die-roll for the third match in a row. My opener is a sweet keeper with 3 lands and finally my Simic Manipulator I haven't drawn once in the first two matches. Awesome! My green/red/white/blue opponent mulligans to five. He drops three guildgates in the early turns as I lay down the Manipulator, and then Clinging Anemones. Then he lays the Skymark Roc on me.

I drop Stealer of Secrets, bringing Manipulator to 2 counters and wishing I could steal the Roc. Thinking at least if he swings in and has no followup creature I can draw an extra card. Roc goes by power, not toughness, I was worried about him bouncing Manipulator for nothing.  D'oh!  He did leave 5 mana up, and I decided to play around counterspells when he probably didn't even have any in his deck. I made some other misplays, including blocking his Roc with only my flash 3/4 flyer, and not throwing Hover Barrier in front of it too. When his bloodrushed Ghor-Clan Rampager spell gave trample, that meant i took 3 more damage I didn't need to take. I had gotten a chance to try and steal the Roc, but he had Martial Glory to protect it and make me lose my counters, and THEN he bounced the now 0/1 Manipulator back to my hand. At least I correctly made the steal attempt on his turn, so he didn't have his pumped by 3 attack power during HIS turn to attack with. Point to me for playing that part right!

Finally when I seemed stabilized at 7 life, he had Trostani's Summoner. (An Elf, a Knight, a Centaur and a Rhino walk into a bar...) A massive attack took me down to 2, but I had a few beefy things on the board and killed some of his attackers and stabilized after that. I had Way of the Thief on my Stealer of Secrets - nice combo but I held it back to keep him from swarming in damage on the ground. He could force through 1 damage in the air but not two, and would lose stuff to do it and couldn't repeat that performance.  Or I could use my Simic Manipulator to steal anything 2 power or less if there was pump or other shenanigans. Stalemate.

He dropped Emmara Tandris, and 6 of his 8 creatures were tokens! Thanks to Eyes in the Skies, Beckon Apparition, and Trostani's Summoner - he'd given up the Call of the Conclave token to knock me from 7 to 2. Could have been at 9 to 11 life if not for misplays, which seemed pretty relevant here! But I had a larger toughness blocker for seven of his eight creatures, so I was still stabilized and all he could do was knock me to 1 and lose his 1/1 summoner, and I had the sky locked down now. Soulsworn Spirit let me sneak in one hit with my unblockable 4/4 Stealer of Secrets to get a card, which turned out to be a Forest. And the stalemate went on.

At this point his clock was well under 7 minutes, and I figured we'd never finish 3 games. If I could win this one, it would be almost impossible for him to come back, so I was determined to try. Drawing a Cancel, I figured my chances were pretty solid as I could shut down any shenanigans or game-breaking cards he might play. Seeing he has to make something happen, he swings in with everything while my 4/4 Stealer is tapped, but his Rhino is still detained too so we're even there. I could block everything, but with my new unblockable 2/1 filling in for the turn for my 4/4, I decide I don't want to lose him. I live his 1/1 spirit token unblocked, and block everything else. Then I tap Simic Manipulator, now up to 3/4, and remove one of the three counters to steal the spirit.

And he uses his one card in hand, Skinbrand Goblin, to bloodrush the unblocked spirit for fatal damage. And my Cancel can do NOTHING about bloodrush.  D'oh, serious punt on my part!

My opponent's clock is down to just under 5 minutes (4:55). He didn't seem like he was double-queuing in game 1, just a slow player. But I figure he'll play faster here, and 5 minutes is enough to win a game. If I can hold on here, he might not make it through game 3, especially if grindy matchups like game 1 are normal for our decks.

My draws in game 2 are pretty good. He starts out with Boros Mastiff into Centaur's Herald, and then Armory Guard over popping the herald. Meanwhile I start on turn 4 with (Alive) for a centaur token, Leyline Phantom, and then Miming Slime for a second 5/5 creature! He got out Skymark Roc again, but none of my 3 beefy creatures were targets for it. I threw Krasis Incubation on it anyway, not knowing when I'd rip a 6th land to play out my Skyline Predator and not feeling the need to play riskier or more aggressive with a hand full of gas. I also had Mindstatic, Clinging Anemones and Stealer of Secrets still in hand. He had (Courser's Accord) and Eyes in the Skies, I had the 6th land to flash in Skyline Predator to maintain the superior board position - and then he ran out of time on his clock.  He really was a slow player, I hope he gets more used to MTGO and speeds up his play.

So, the deck was pretty good, and posted a 2-1 record!  You don't have to be "Boros fast" to win games with some speed and consistency, just "faster than the average in this format", which two-color Simic can clearly do. Having some evasion helps, and any deck in this format can supplement its 1-4 drop plays with some 5-7 mana finishers for the games that do go longer - which some games will do in this format. While Simic turned out to be weaker than hoped in triple gatecrash, now it's less about evolve and more about just playing solid blue and green creatures. I still want to try Boros and/or Orzhov - and a lot of 3 color and five color decks. But I would go Simic in a draft again, without any regrets!

See y'all next time.