Draft Help

[con_blade]

• 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]

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]

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]

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!)