#mtg l

[i-am-nickelbolt]

Bronze to Mythic: Khans of Tarkir, draft #3

I kinda feel like this deck is a 3-3 deck but I'm not happy about it...

Pack 1, pick 1 Zurgo Helmsmasher over Monastery Swiftspear and Debilitating Injury. I kind of agonized over this one, and I don't think it's crazy to take any of them, but I just wanted to play Zurgo and see how it goes. I think taking good 3 color cards early is okay. Pick 2 Sandsteppe Citadel, nice. Pick 3 Blossoming Sands over Feat of Resistance. Pick 4 Sultai Soothsayer over Blossoming Sands #2. I'm not married to Zurgo, and maybe the lands will work out. If I'm base Abzan, then splashing either of these is okay. And if you end up 5 color, having multiple of the same dual is not as helpful, and I already have Sandsteppe Citadel overlapping the Blossoming sands. Pick 4 Rugged Highlands over Ainok Bond-Kin. Bond-Kin suggests I'm playing white for sure, and I'm not there yet. Pick 6 Abomination of Gudul, good to pick up one of the premium morphs. Pick 7 Wind-Scarred Crag, which is making Zurgo pretty playable right now. Pick 8 Become Immense, Pick 9 Mer-Ek Nightblade, and some filler to round out the pack. I kind of like where I am, I really need some blue lands though.

Pack 2, Pick 1 Abzan Charm over Utter End. Perfect! Pick 2... Mantis Rider over Mardu Charm. Probably a mistake, but... Mantis Rider is pretty good... Pick 3 Dismal Backwater over Sultai Charm. Perfect, getting a blue land, and Sultai Charm doesn't really kill enough things to be good enough. Pick 4 Debilitating Injury over Jungle Hollow and Mardu Hordechief. Pick 5... second Mantis Rider???? Okay, here we go! Pick 6 Snowhorn Rider. Pick 7 Efreet Weaponmaster, and I picked up a Smite the Monstrous on the wheel.

Pack 3, pick 1 Rattleclaw Mystic over Sandsteppe Citadel. This fixes my mana really well. Pick 2 Arc Lightning over Savage Punch. I'm not really a great Savage Punch deck. But I got Pick 3 Savage Punch over Master of the Way, and I'm happier with one of each than 2 Punches in this deck, I think. Pick 4 Jungle Hollow over Savage Punch, Jeskai Windscout, and Warden of the Eye. I'm kind of committed to 5 colors so I need the lands. Pick 5 Winterflame over honestly about 5 other cards that would have made my deck, so I don't think I made the right pick. Pick 6 was a total brick, pick 7 Dismal Backwater, and Snowhorn Rider and Force Away wheeled.

As it ended up base Jeskai was the right place to be, but it was really hard to see how that would be the case after pack 1. I know i made some mistakes, but I felt like I had some power here if my mana worked out.

My first loss was to Abzan. They had High Sentinels of Arashin, which I was able to Smite the Monstrous, but after that I flooded pretty badly. Definitely had the chance to win if I drew something.

My second loss was to four color non-white. They dealt with my turn 3 Mantis Rider, they had a timely Icefeather Aven, and gained a bunch of life in an attack that might have been a little aggressive. They finished me off with Ashcloud Phoenix. The 8 life made a big difference.

My third loss was a heartbreaker. They were aggressive Mardu with Goblinslide, Raider's spoils, and a strange looking Rotting Mastodon that kind of brickwalled me. I was down to 2 life, and thought I had stabilized with 4 untapped creatures to their one, trying to play around removal spell plus haste creature, and yet... they had one card left, Take up Arms, which made 4 tokens with slide, leaving me exactly dead. They also misplayed early in the game, they should have Trumpetblasted before combat to get another haste-y 3/1.

These losses were all respectable, and my deck did what my deck was supposed to do. 3-3 I feel is a little disappointing, I was more expecting like 4-5 wins.

[tlatotem]

Planeswalkers in Magic Origins! We should discuss how we will play these Original Legends!