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By: MarcosPMA, nn
Jun 16 2016 12:00pm
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Hello and welcome to another edition of Sealed Success!  Eternal Masters came out last week and while I didn't anticipate doing a draft, but I ended up being able to do one on Friday night.  The draft didn't go too well for me, but I did manage to make my money back by opening all the mythics in the box.  Now, I only made my money back and that was with a draft.  So I'm glad the store didn't actually sell that box because someone would have lost a lot of money.

I drafted a mix of RG Aggro/Enchantments, and that went as well as that sounds.  Red was open in pack 1, but somehow didn't come together during the rest of the draft even though I started cutting it hard.  I did my draft guides for the format after the draft and not before, so even though I did a set review I was a little shaky on how to actually draft it.  My mythics didn't help as I only played one of them: Argothian Enchantress.  Hopefully I'll do better when it releases on Magic Online.

When I said I'd make guides for EMA, I started out by looking at the commons.  The commons are what make the backbone and core of your deck.  Sure, you can draft a bomb rare and build around it, but more often than not you start out with some good commons and then get passed the rares that go along with your deck.  I looked at the commons in both color pairs and tried to see what mechanics they shared and then build around that. This way you can find the theme of the archetype at common, and like Mark Rosewater has said: "If your theme isn't at common, then it's not your theme."  By finding the common theme we can explore that archetype and then make decisions about how to draft it once we add uncommons and rares.  For Eternal Masters the gold uncommons tell you what you should be drafting, but that's not always the case when you make your way to common.  Some archetypes only work once you have their uncommons, which means you have to change how you draft if you don't get one of those uncommons.

These guides are just that: guides.  They're the bare bones of what I think you should be trying to go for in a draft, but each draft is different and you won't always get the cards you need for your deck.  At common there are multiple decks that want the same card: Firebolt, Carbonize, Elephant Guide, Pacifism, Gravedigger, etc.  If your deck needs one of those to work, hopefully you'll draft those highly while the cards that only show up in that archetype will float to you.  With that said, let's begin!

EMA Limited Archetypes

 

At common, GB is GB Elves.  Lys Alana Huntmaster is your payoff for overloading on Elf cards and Eyeblight's Ending means you'll be able to kill a creature and get a 1/1 token with the Huntmaster in play.  Elvish Vanguard is your other payoff, but unless you have it on turn 2 it gets a little worse as the game goes on.  Civic Wayfinder lets you splash Rally the Peasants if you want, but I didn't include that in here. You want to overwhelm your opponent here, go wide and make combat difficult for your opponent.

Sentinel Spider is not an Elf, but it's a pretty big creature that is good on offense and defense.  This could be Emperor Crocodile if you want, but I prefer Sentinel Spider.  I'm more likely to not pick Blightsoil Druid highly as you don't need four mana accelerants in this color combination.  You can do without Blightsoil and just use Llanowar Elves.  Or you could use Werebear if you really wanted to, and even though it's not an Elf, it might be better than Blightsoild Druid.

GR is plain aggro in Eternal Masters.  Kird Ape is your pull to this strategy, and once you put Elephant Guide on it you'll have a big threat very very quickly.  You're an aggro deck, but you're not trying to go wide, you want to go tall.  You're not very good at going wide so you rather go tall with beefier creatures.  Emperor Crocodile might be a big hard to keep in play, but if you do you'll have a threat that is almost bigger than everything else.  

Removal isn't really a thing in this color combination although  Firebolt can be used to kill a small blocker.  I like using the burn as burn and having my creatures act as the removal.  Sylvan Might makes your creatures win almost every combat, so you're able to leverage your aggression.  Emperor Crocodile is a bit of a risk since you might not always have more than one creature to pair it with, but it's great if you're on the offensive.

At common, UB has a bit of an identity issue.  There's no common reanimation spell for you to justify being in that archetype, which I feel causes UB to have some problems.  You can be UB Control or UB Tempo at common, and personally I'd prefer the tempo approach.  This isn't to say that I think it's better than a control deck, it's just my preference.  

So why no Skulking Ghost?  I wasn't sure if I wanted the Ghost or Counterspell, and upon reflection I think I'd rather have Skulking Ghost over Counterspell in this build.  The idea is to use your fliers to damage your opponent while using Man-O'-War and Glacial Wall to keep your opponent off balance.  Peregrine Drake allows you to double spell in a turn, while Gravedigger getting back a cycled Shoreline Ranger lets you get max value out of it.  

You'll have trouble with decks going wide, but Nausea from the sideboard helps.  Phantom Monster is likely your best threat for the mana cost.

Even though UG is Threshold, I did not include Cephalid Sage in this build.  I think that card is better suited for UB Reanimator, but sadly that's not an archetype possible at common.  Werebear and Nimble Mongoose are the payoffs here, allowing you to have powerful threats for the mana cost.

However, that's not completely powerful in its own right.  3/3 and 4/4 are great early, but if you take a few turns to get Threshold, then you're only breaking even in terms of P/T available in later turns of the game.  In the end I think you want to be presenting a big creature every turn, then using Man-O'-War and/or Silent Departure to push them through.  Elephant Guide on anything is likely your best shot at winning.

I think most UG decks will be green heavy with light blue for a mix of Silent Departure/Man-o'-War/Phantom Monster.

When you get to uncommon, UR is a Burning Vengeance/Wee Dragonauts deck, but at common that's not really a thing.  My best guess for UR at common is to be UR Tempo/Burn.  You want to use your burn spells to finish off your opponent while cards like Silent Departure and Fervent Cathar make it hard for your opponent to handle your fast aggression.

Stingscourger could make an appearance here, although it's a worse Man-o'-War and likely shows up only because other blue drafters took Man-o'-War.  Stingscourger isn't a bad card, but having to pay Echo means you're likely tapping out and only adding a 2/2 to the board instead of doing something else.

I feel UR has a low land count because it might not need that many lands in play, making it ideal to put Faithless Looting in the deck to insure you're drawing more action and are able to cast cheap cards when you Looting later in the game.

UW is a fairly simple UW Skies deck.  Now, I only put two Squadron Hawk in the deck because I limited myself to two cards per common, but ideally you're playing 3-4 so you always have that steady stream of fliers going.

Warden of Evos Isle is very important to this archetype, so I'd prioritize taking it over every other commons and most uncommons is you want to be in this deck.  Generally speaking Warden of Evos Isle is going to show up in most blue decks, so be aware of that if you think UW is open or you're forcing it (having opened Thunderclap Wyvern.

This deck is the deck that is most likely to want Shoreline Ranger, and it's also the deck that is going to have a tough time handling an opponent who is going wide.  Aven Riftwatcher helps stem the bleeding a bit, but it's not reliable enough to help block.

WB in this format is Recursion, although I think it's more of a value deck than anything.  Carrion Feeder enables Morbid any time you want so Tragic Slip and Wakedancer are auto-includes in this deck.

Gravedigger is a beast here as it can get back Prowling Pangolin, which will more often than not be a Barter in Blood before coming back and dominating the board as a 6/5 beater.

I included Raise the Alarm in the deck because I figured it would work well with Carrion Feeder, which is likely your best way of winning games by making a big threat that is hard to manage.  If you have two Gravediggers you can loop them to keep giving Carrion Feeder +1/+1 counters, although if you're able to do that you should win regardless.  

You're likely going to have to do some grinding to win, but you should be able to get there.

GW in Eternal Masters is all about enchantments.  Yavimaya Enchantress gives you a very good reason to play multiple enchantments, and realistically GW is the only deck that wants to play with that card.  Now, at first I wanted to build a deck with multiple removal enchantments, but Roots isn't very good in my opinion so I went for more a "hexproof" type of build.

Elephant Guide is your best enchantment since on a Yavimaya Enchantress makes it a 6/6, and if you have other enchantments laying around it'll be bigger.  Monk Idealist gets back an enchantment that has been destroyed, most likely getting back Elephant Guide.

I put into the deck both Shelter and Coalition Honor Guard because I wanted a way to protect our threats from removal.  Benevolent Bodyguard is an option, but I don't like the body and I'd rather mask my protection and/or have it on an actual creature as opposed to having it in play.

 

This deck is, well let's just say I might have this one wrong.  So my approach with WR Aggro was to work hard to be a Rally the Peasants deck.  I'm sure there's a regular WR Aggro deck out there, but for the purposes of this exercise I wanted to push the token angle as far as I could.

Firebolt is removal here, Carbonize is burn, and Rally the Peasants is ideally your way of going wide to steal games and/or win very quickly.  I put Mistral Charger in the deck since a flying threat is always nice and works just the same with Rally the Peasants.  Kor Hookmaster is likely at its best here since you don't want to give your opponent the chance to actually have a blocker.

This is a very low to the ground deck that while it doesn't have a good chance at winning late, can still steal a game with a low land count + Rally the Peasants.

Lastly in Eternal Masters we have RB Sacrifice.  Carrion Feeder is a very big part of this strategy as getting Morbid and sacrificing a "free" creature gets you a lot of value while your opponent has to feel all the downside.  Innocent Blood + Dragon Egg/Deadbridge Shaman is a combo, and you can get it all back with Gravedigger.

I put a singleton Stingscourger in the deck since you can sacrifice it to Carrion Feeder with the Echo trigger on the stack if you're not wanting to pay it, so the bounce ability is more "free" than it would be.

I didn't put Firebolt and Carbonize in the deck, and that was on purpose.  I don't think you need red removal when you have Tragic Slip, and the burn isn't really appreciated here.  You can still play them, and you might want to go -1 Stingscourger +1 Carbonize, but at first glance I feel you can do without.

SOI Sealed League

This pool was not very good.  My rares were pretty hit and miss in the context of how the colors panned out.  My choice of UG/w Clues is what I think is the best option even thought that deck is not very powerful.  It can win games, but again, the synergy isn't strong enough to make up for the lack of powerful cards in the deck.

My other option was RB, but having Twins of Maurer Estate as your best creature is not what you want to be doing in Sealed.  That deck could be a bit of a grindy deck, but how are you winning?  With the right draw I can win on the play, but if I think I want to go long then I'm not doing much of anything.

Starting off 0-3 was not what I wanted to be doing, I think I could have won one of those matches, but it's not surprising how poorly I did.  My deck would merely be an okay draft deck but I'm not playing draft.  You have to play your most powerful cards in Sealed and I just didn't have the power. My only removal was Angelic Purge, and that's only because I was able to splash it.  Lack of removal and lack of power makes for a fundamentally flawed deck.

At 0-3 I'm left with the option to drop, or to experiment with different builds for the last two matches.  What should I do?  I feel as though there isn't much to be gained by playing the last two matches, but I wanted to leave that up to you.

Lorwyn/Morningtide Draft

Once again, I have no idea what I'm doing in this format, so don't think I'm doing anything right in this video.  I ended up going down the RB path, but I can't say it's a RB Goblins deck.  It's mostly just red and black cards that happen to have some synergy, but it's not going to be evident every game. I was fortunate enough to win round 1, but I did not record a match for round 2.  Personal issues came up and they were more important than finishing the draft, so I conceded to my opponent and left it at that.

Legacy Gauntlet

The Legacy Gauntlet may be over, but I managed to get a set of games in when it first came out.  I got UB Reanimator as my deck of choice, and while it seems relatively linear, the choices you have to make are quite complex.  Game 1 you have to try to survive long enough to do your thing, but post board games you'll face hate so you have to know how to play through it.  I got a free concession and then destroyed Elves two games in a row before falling to Infect in the last match.  I feel with tighter play I could win, but I was unsure of what to do in the last game and possibly made the wrong choice with my turn 1 Thoughtseize.  Legacy isn't easy!

Conclusion

Eternal Masters comes out this weekend, so that means I'll be doing some overpriced drafts hoping I open enough not to lose too much money.  I'll make a decision on the league by then, and we'll start our last SOI league soon.

If you have any comments, questions, or concerns leave them in the comments section below!

 

Thanks for reading/watching!

2 Comments

Oversight much? by Bueno81 at Fri, 06/17/2016 - 18:42
Bueno81's picture
2

Your section on WG should probably mention that Coalition Honor Guard (a common) COMPLETELY destroys the archetype.

How so? If they have their by MarcosPMA at Wed, 06/22/2016 - 03:11
MarcosPMA's picture

How so? If they have their own Coalition Honor Guard? Out of the W/x archetypes, G/W was the only one playing Coalition Honor Guard. Yes, it is an annoying card to play against, but I imagine more often than not you'll be the only one taking them. And/or your opponent won't think to side it in (more often than not).