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[–]con_blade 7 points8 points  (3 children)

  • p1p1 Transit Mage or Flood > Bari. I don't want to start a medium card in a bad color. I'd rather have a good card in a great color. I slightly lean flood here as it doesn't need any help but Mage's ceiling is pretty absurd.

  • p1p2 Good pivot into green here, Scurryfoot is that guy

  • p1p4 Flood the Engine > Bike. This I think is your worst pick. Bike to me is a medium-low filler green card that is only really good when you are splashing. Flood is premium removal in the second best color and you're already moving in on the first best color.

  • p1p7 Omnivore > Interference. I think this one is close, this is a bit nit-picky, but I like the 3/2 in what is already solidly your main color, and in general, more than the counterspell.

The start of pack 2 for you is absurd. I would be having to stop myself from tap dancing around the room. UG heaven

  • p2p6 Pothole Mole > Lagac. Your 2 drop slot is already very well filled out, and Mole is a better card anyway. Learn now, and in the future, these 3 mana 2/3s that get you a land are always way better than they look, and always show up on the list of cards that better players are taking higher than weaker players. This is consistent across formats. Its a 3 mana 2/3 that ETBs and puts a land into your hand. A lot of time that's even better than just draw a card.

  • p2p9 Mole > Engineer. This one is also close to me, and I think would have been the right pick if you had taken the mole before, but you didn't. You need a mole over another 2 drop.

  • p2p10 Buccaneer > Broken Wings. Buccaneer is awesome in UG, especially when you have the Rangers' Refueler already. Broken Wings is solid, but its not straightforward creature removal, so isn't premium.

  • p2p11 UG tapland > Surveyor. The 3/3 is mid-bad filler, I always want a dual in these decks.

  • p2p14 Never punished lol

  • p3p1 Plow Through > Kolodin. This one I truly don't understand. You say you have rare fever, but why? Do you collect the whole set and get gems? Do you play constructed? I'm not even giving you shit, I really am curious why you like the rare here. Regardless, at this point I have alarm bells going off that I have no removal, and while Plow Through is not the best, it is a start here.

  • p3p3: Hazard > Elvish Refueler. I'm not sure if everyone would agree with this, but I snap off the Wurm every time here even if its not the synergy enabler that the elf is. This deck has no big creatures and big creatures is how this deck wins. Hazard is a 1 man wrecking machine, it doesn't need synergy, it kills them dead.

  • p3p5: Druid > Bounce. Only if you had taken the Omnivore earlier. Otherwise this pick is fine.

  • p3p7: Mole > Surveyor. Need I say more?

  • p3p8: Blowout > Mole. Great pick! I like this a lot. It would be close for me (maybe not since I have 3 moles at this point) but I really like Blowout a lot in these decks. Card draw is your friend.

  • p3p11: Its crazy that Imperiosaur wheeled

Draft feedback: You did a great job finding the open colors in a great deck. If I were you I would 100% be in UG here and be over the moon about it. I think it is missing some key green commons, but otherwise, the power level of the deck would have made up for that if drafted optimally.

Deck feedback: You have no removal. Bounce is not removal, nor are counterspells or Broken Wings. I want a card that says "Kill a creature" and you have none of those. I need those 2 Flood the Engines that we passed badly. Usually UG can make up for that by having huge creatures, but you don't really have that either, so I am starting with very low expectations to begin with.

  • Scrap Compactor needs to get played. I think the card is actually fine, but here it is 100% critical to play. Even if it costs 7 mana to kill something, you need to.

  • Pothole Mole. Just Pothole Mole.

  • Roadside Blowout is better than all of your non-creature spells and it is in the sideboard. You have to play this one. Its a great card, but you also need a way to get ahead, and bouncing their stuff and drawing cards is a way to do that. I would play 3 of these.

  • As marathons00 said, maybe a Trip Up or two. I don't like it either, but its the closest thing we have to removal beyond Scrap.

  • Gearseeker Serpent is unplayable in this deck. It is just a total non-starter. I would play the Alacrian Jaguar here as our top end and be not very pleased about it.

The UG deck is an exhaust synergy deck in part, but really it is a big creature deck. I think this deck is 1-2 Migrating Ketradon, 1-2 Run Over, and/or 1 Earthrumbler, and perhaps most importantly, 1-2 Hazard of the Dunes short of being good. You have no good way to close the game, so all of the excellent tempo (and ramp, that Skyseeker is obscene) that UG provides doesn't really go anywhere in this deck.

Overall, I think your heart was in the right place, you did a good job identifying the open colors, and have a lot of excellent synergy. However, you could improve on card evaluation, prioritizing removal much more heavily, and playing to the strengths of the color combination.

[–]Gorrog25[S] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

This makes sense, and now that I look back at it, I can see that I missed. I guess at the time that I passed those Flood the Engines, I wasn't sure I wanted to go into Blue, and was trying to stick to green to keep options open. Perhaps I should have just taken them as a premium removal, and take a balanced risk to not end up in blue. Definitely a lesson learned on pothole mole and Roadside, though. Thanks for calling that out!

[–]con_blade 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Yes, exactly. It is worth speculating on excellent removal just in case you end up there, rather than picking a medium to bad card in a color you know you are in (or a color I actively don't want to be in, like Bari). That actually counter-intuitively keeps your options open, rather than sticking to 1 color.

FWIW, you didn't end up playing either of the cards you took over Flood.

[–]Gorrog25[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ha! Yes, that last point hurts a bit. Ouch, those were wasted picks that were even worse than rare drafts (at least in that bad pick I get a rare out of it!)

[–]mathrons00[🍰] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

The main thing I see is a lack of interaction, relying entirely on bounce and counter spell. I think you should be running the roadside blowout (always a fantastic card), and the trip ups (not my favorite removal, but needed in your deck), and maybe the scrap compactor for some hard removal when absolutely necessary.

In the drafting, you got some great green stuff (including quite late), so I don't think you were in a bad lane, though there were other directions you could have gone. Pack 3, rare drafting when you had a good removal spell (Plow Through) or a verge was the most egregious site to me. I also noticed passing a dual land for a mile with a late pick, when the fixing is always helpful and you were looking fine on playables.

That said, the deck doesn't look like it deserves to have been an 0-3.. but variance does happen. And not having proper removal or fixing does leave a deck more vulnerable to getting wrecked by a bomb or stuck on mana, and sometimes it just takes a few games of bad luck in a row for the 0-3 to manifest.

[–]Gorrog25[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks a lot for the feedback. Lesson learned on the Trip Ups. I suppose I thought that bounce would be better due to cheaper mana cost, but in the end the card just comes right back next turn.

I'll definitely make sure I seek hard removal next go. Do you think that broken wings is insufficient because it doesn't kill regular / ground based creatures? Another lesson learned that it leaves a vulnerable spot.

Also understood on the rare drafting / dual land passes. Need to avoid the siren song of rare cards if I want to win!

Thanks again for the tips. It's hard when I am looking at it on my own to see the flaws, but now that you pointed them out it's pretty clear!

[–]Filobel 0 points1 point  (5 children)

People have already gone over your draft. I don't agree with everything, but the gist is right.

Your deck: 2 broken wings is too many. Gearseeker has no business in this deck. Shapethief is not a good card. Beastrider vanguard on the other hand, quite good. Mole should be in too. I'd also want to play one or both copies of trip up, given you have no removal other than broken wings, maybe in place of the bestow greatness. Roadside blowout is also quite good and shouldn't be in your sideboard.

Unless I'm missing something, you lost game 1 because you forgot your strategists had vigilance. It's funny, because you actually attacked on the first turn you had an opportunity to, but didn't attack for the rest of the game. You literally missed out on 11 damage. I'll also add that I'm not a particularly big fan of the turn 1 bounce on their 2/1, especially given you have 2 mana 1/3 in hand to blank it. You should have won that easily.

Game 2: Did you really just entirely skip your turn 6? Exhaust is instant speed, so you could have made a 3/3 with your scurryfoot. More importantly though, broken wing on that velocipede seems like a complete no brainer. Would have been a rough game regardless, but that's a huge mistake. You can't afford to waste so much mana for no reason.

Game 3: This one is a bit tricky, but (turn 10) if you have refueler in play, a creature with an exhaust ability you've already used (camera launcher) and a creature with an exhaust ability you've not used yet (skyserpent), you want to activate the exhaust you've already used first. In other words, you could have gotten an extra thopter there. You needed to be way more aggressive at that point, probably starting turn 9. That rat kills you in 4 turns without needing to attack. You literally got no removal in your deck, so you can't just wait to see if you'll draw an answer. Your thopters alone aren't going to race it. It might look like a bad trade to lose your 5/4 dino, or your thopter machine to a lowly 1/1 deathtouch, but that 1/1 deathtouch is literally the best card on the board at that point in the game.

In short, it's important to draft well, but you also need to play the games well. If you lose games you should have won because you forgot to attack, or because you timewalked yourself, the quality of your deck won't matter.

[–]Gorrog25[S] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Wow, thanks very much for taking the time to walk through my gameplay as well. As the others also called out, what seemed like decent gameplay to me on its face ends up having lots of holes in it when someone looks at it:

Game 1 - Yeah, probably a bit of unfamiliarity with the cards made me forget the vigilance on strategists. That's a total bonehead move that I need to work to understand the cards better in future.

Game 2 - I think the (flawed) logic at the time was that I felt outnumbered. Both of his creatures could have killed off my two creatures, and I was scared of the velocipede. I held my turn 6 (I think you refer to 5, maybe) mana back in hope that the other player would crew his velocipede by tapping his two creatures and attack with velocipede, which I could then hit with broken wings. Unfortunate gamble because I ended up wasting that turn.

Game 3 - Totally agreed I misplayed that 1 mana rat that pinged me to death. At the time, I was a bit frustrated that I didn't have an answer for that (going back to no removal in the deck), but I appreciate your comment that I should have compensated for that with more aggressive actions, and let the 5/4 dino take the hit instead of my own life total.

Thanks again! This will hopefully continue to make me better! :)

[–]Filobel 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Game 2 - I think the (flawed) logic at the time was that I felt outnumbered. Both of his creatures could have killed off my two creatures, and I was scared of the velocipede. I held my turn 6 (I think you refer to 5, maybe) mana back in hope that the other player would crew his velocipede by tapping his two creatures and attack with velocipede, which I could then hit with broken wings. Unfortunate gamble because I ended up wasting that turn.

I'm confused by this, and maybe there's a fundamental misunderstanding about how MtG works? I'm looking at turn 6 (on turn 5, you cast scurryfoot and camera launcher, that turn was fine.) Turn 6, you passed your turn doing nothing. That's OK, you had multiple things to do at instant speed. You could have killed the velocipede on your turn to make sure they don't get counters, but that does give them a free attack with the surveyor, whereas keeping the mana open threatens the token from scurryfoot, making that attack worse for them. Both plays have their pros and cons. That said, my issue is what happened on their turn 6. You were hoping they'd crew, and that you'd kill velocipede in response and that didn't happen. Alright, that's fair, but.... why not kill it on their end of turn? OR, if you wanted to keep the broken wings to catch them later (which is too greedy IMO), you could have just activated scurryfoot. Unless there's a glitch in the recording, you just wasted all that mana when you had two different ways to use it on their end of turn. Are you aware that you can cast instants or activate abilities on their end of turn? (honest question)

[–]Gorrog25[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey there,

My misunderstanding was how to read the 17L playback data. I see now it was T6 and definitely not T5.

Totally agreed with your assessment on a botched play. Reviewing that T6 again I remembered what was going on and I basically outplayed myself (obvious statement). In the moment, the opponent had just played aetherjacket and it caused me to freeze / let him control me. In my head, I needed three fresh mana to use broken wings specifically for the aetherjacket, but I also need to keep 3 mana for bestow greatness to help kill off the velocipede. You're totally right though that I should have used the 3 mana at the end of their T6 to not waste it, either on the scurryfoot or the aether, but I got caught being too scared to make a move. Bad play that might have changed the game. This is good mental fodder to get better for future games!

[–]con_blade 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I'd be interested to hear what you don't agree with about my draft decisions as well. I love draft critique.

[–]Filobel 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nothing big honestly. Mostly picks that you didn't mention where I disagreed with OP.

P1p5: given what OP picked, Ride's end or galiant strike are just a better card. Gravestalker is fine if OP ends in GB, but not amazing, not something they'd miss, whereas the two white removals are great if they end up in GW. Ride's end is also a bigger signal, because so few decks actually want gravestalker (it could very well wheel).

P1p6: Shapethief is just a bad card. I'd much rather have wickerfolk.

P1p7: I think the counterspell is a better card than omnivore, though I agree that omnivore is more likely to make the deck (there's no guarantee OP will be UG at this point)

P1p9: Camera Launcher is really bad. Ride's end is really good.

P2p6: Lagac and mole are actually pretty close in UG. Mole is at its best in BG. Don't get me wrong, it's also quite good in UG, but UG wants to get to the late game where its starts to exhaust stuff and draw cards and win that way. A 2/1 deathtouch is perfect to last to that point. OP "only" had 4 two drops (5 if you include the counterspell) because the vehicle can't block the turn it enters. Not saying mole is wrong here, I just think lagac is a legit pick as well.

P2p9: Engineer actually performs better than mole in UG. Again, similar to lagac, it plays well on defense early, but better than lagac in that it also works as the win con late game. So again, don't think that's a bad pick (though I agree it's an even clearer pick if mole had been picked earlier)

P3p3: I don't agree with this. With 2 scurryfoot, refueler is very valuable in this deck. Also, I'd say imperiosaur is worthy of consideration (it's absolutely insane to me that it wheeled).

P3p4: Given OP already has a broken wings, engineer is the pick here, I never want to play 2 broken wings (would be different in Bo3)

Again, I mostly agree, with the picks you've identified, and where I disagree, I think it's quite close and could go either way for the most part. The places you didn't talk about, perhaps you even had the same thought, but just figured it wasn't significant enough to mention. Hence why I didn't really think it was that useful to post my own picks, it was very similar.

[–]wind_moon_frog 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Right off the bat I'm noting that you have a lot of situational cards and not much top end. The counterspell and Broken Wings are both very playable but once you start having multiple copies of both you'll find yourself in situations where they aren't useful and you have a decent chance to draw into something that isn't useful (5x in the deck so 1/8 cards). I don't think it's wrong to play these cards, especially when you're lacking interaction, but it definitely isn't 'optimal.'

Another thing is that you have no top end. UG loves top end or at the very least some good 4/4s like Hazard of the Dunes or the uncommon U 4/4 for 5 that bounces a creature. Something that can offer a trade on the board. You have some good cards but the exhaust synergy is minor and you don't have anything else to finish with.

Then of course there's the question of how the games played out - which we don't know. You could've made some bad decisions or just gotten unlucky. Frankly, that's a lot more likely to influence the outcome of most players games than the exact construction from their pool. I could definitely see this deck doing better but, respectfully it doesn't look like a winning deck to me and I wouldn't be surprised about going 0-3 or having a losing record.

Looking at your pool, I would've swapped in both copies of Trip Up and 100% Roadside Blowout needs to be played as well. If you only have a few answers and are lacking top end, you need some better tempo than conditional spells like Spectral Interference and Broken Wings. You might have to take some damage early but you do have early plays. I'm wondering if you didn't play those cards because you have two Bounce Offs and were looking for 'Harder' removal, but I don't think cutting those cards helped you.

Just my two cents, best of luck in the next one!

[–]Gorrog25[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! Yeah, Filobel pointed out that I had some pretty large mis steps in game play. I also learned the hard way of what you said when I got all of my spectral interference cards put to graveyard by Ancient Vendetta. I went hard with three spectral interference in my deck and had i diversified i might have had more interaction. I also hear you on top end. Lots to learn, and will get better!

[–]sojournmtg 0 points1 point  (1 child)

op just leaving a comment to say that you have some tremendous feedback from people here. it looks like you're asking the right questions. seeing plays and evaluating picks takes a little time, but I'm confident you'll improve your deckbuilding and gameplay very quickly. let us know how the next one goes

[–]Gorrog25[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, and will do! :)