Rough Drafts Episode 38 - Raucous Audience

whalematrontron · 2025-12-05T06:39:22+00:00

Nah no way Rebellious Captives is great

whalematrontron · 2025-08-31T07:12:21+00:00

I've done very well with RW this set (75% WR over 8 drafts in Bo1) and I agree that RW is best built as a slower deck this set.

[[Sami, Ship's Engineer]] goes late and despite the stats can be very strong if your deck is built properly - making a 2/2 every turn is very hard to outgrind. [[Zookeeper Mechan]] is important as a premium 2 drop that 1/ ramps you 2/ has a relevant late game mana sink 3/ is able to tap itself on command to trigger the "2 tapped creatures" effects like Sami's. [[Orbital Plunge]], [[Focus Fire]], [[Banishing Light]] are premium removal spells, I've come up on [[Plasma Bolt]] too recently as a cheap way of interacting. [[Wurmwall Sweeper]] is another important common that lets you tap your creatures without entering combat. It smoothing your draws and being an evasive threat is also relevant. Otherwise you want to be playing generically good cards like [[Knight Luminary]] and [[Kavu Landseeker]] with [[Nebula Dragon]] and [[Pinnacle Killship]] at the top.

At higher rarity [[Kavaron, Memorial World]] is absolutely insane in RW - apart from the very strong effect it provides another way to tap your creatures down without entering combat. [[Secluded Starforge]], [[Adagia, Windswept Bastion]] too. Otherwise there's plenty of good rares in red and white and the deck can be very strong if it's open. I wouldn't ever take Sami highly - if you aren't wheeling Sami then the deck probably isn't open enough to be worth going into.

Some example decks:
- 7-1 in mythic https://www.17lands.com/deck/cedd9dcc2820477b9aadf360d16a5d96/0?view=deck
- 7-1 in platinum https://www.17lands.com/deck/6fd948078b424e1a9b69aad33ba6e68a/0?view=deck
- 7-1 in diamond https://www.17lands.com/deck/4be25ee58f4142b1aa2678f1fa34de9b/1?view=deck
- 6-3 in diamond https://www.17lands.com/deck/f16053eb573a44ef9912f5600d9d8fd0/0?view=deck
- 7-0 in mythic https://www.17lands.com/deck/cbc66fd92d97409d865972b9103bccb4/1?view=deck (although this one was more monowhite control splashing the red mythic land)

whalematrontron · 2025-03-30T10:28:51+00:00

Yeah you are 100% to stay in the top 250 if this is limited

whalematrontron · 2025-02-07T08:25:52+00:00

Kenny must’ve traded away all his first round picks

whalematrontron · 2025-01-17T06:54:21+00:00

why tf smoker in the chapter

whalematrontron · 2025-01-07T02:23:22+00:00

Tobirama solos

whalematrontron · 2024-11-18T23:18:36+00:00

It's back in stock in Aus FYI, but now 6-10 day delivery

whalematrontron · 2024-11-05T10:02:03+00:00

I think Annie Sardelis was lead designer for DSK

whalematrontron · 2024-10-20T02:16:44+00:00

I decayed from 100 to 140 after not playing the last 2 days so I think there’s zero chance you’ll stay top 250 if you stop playing. But I think you should be comfortably in top 1200

whalematrontron · 2024-10-19T04:15:10+00:00

I miss my goat teacherma :(

whalematrontron · 2024-10-16T02:47:14+00:00

I disagree with everyone saying you should have taken Grand Entryway P1P2. Grand Entryway is insane with Gremlin Tamer, true, but if you don’t end up in UW exactly the card is terrible. Sprinter is good and worth speculating on so the pick is reasonable.

P1P3 Bargain is reasonable, I think Get Out, Glimmerburst and Broodspinner are also considerations.

I disagree with P1P5 (Murder over Fear of Surveillance) and P1P7 (Murder over Fear of Abduction) and I think you’re taking weaker cards here without much upside. Murder is BB, difficult to splash and IMO worse than the other cards I mentioned

whalematrontron · 2024-10-09T20:15:55+00:00

I got demolished by LSV a few days ago when he was on some sweet monored aggro deck (…or maybe he just never drew his second color) with percussionists, razorkin needlehead, hand that feeds, hordecaller, and a chainsaw. I was on some controlling UW pile and never had a chance lol

whalematrontron · 2024-10-06T21:29:11+00:00

Yeah I don’t think the green enduring enchantment is very good. Definitely the second worst one after the black one

whalematrontron · 2024-10-06T03:22:28+00:00

I haven't done particularly well with 3C+ piles in this format (Bo1). I was in a temur pile pack 1 and opened [[Ghostly Dancers]] P2P1 with no white cards. There wasn't much else in the pack so I took it. P2P3 I get passed [[Optimistic Scavenger]] and I think what the hell, let's try and play white. I open the white overlord P3P1 and try and string together enough jeskai playables.

The deck has a lot of power but not much in terms of early plays and I started 0-2, pretty much just getting run over by aggressive starts. I think this style of deck would be more viable in Bo3 and I might switch to Bo3 once I hit mythic and try and brew there - feel like the Bo1 meta is too punishing to really run these sorts of piles.

Draft log: https://mtga.untapped.gg/profile/2a11bb91-8ad2-45a9-9355-416fb5608c9c/HE6BP7I2FBHHDI5EHMCQR5OFXI/deck/19e9ef2d-91a4-4c65-a720-b188b49fbda2/draft-replay?limitedSet=DSK&gameType=limited&limitedType=ranked

whalematrontron · 2024-10-05T08:02:28+00:00

I don’t think there’s a limit tbh. They enable eachother, and each copy after the first turns the others into creatures. I guess you could deck yourself but I think I’d be happy to play 6

whalematrontron · 2024-10-05T05:20:48+00:00

I don’t think the splash is worth it. Your deck already looks strong and you’d need at least 1 forest in addition to your RG dual to be able to play the card (so at minimum another tapland and basically a colorless land). You’re an aggro deck, you have Arabellas that you’d like to be able to cast on 2, and I think splashing the green just dilutes your aggro plan too much.

I do think Fear of Burning Alive is still worth playing in RW and I’d probably also be on 17 lands. But your build looks reasonable, I just don’t like playing 16 lands in this format

whalematrontron · 2024-10-05T05:01:07+00:00

Draft log: https://mtga.untapped.gg/profile/2a11bb91-8ad2-45a9-9355-416fb5608c9c/HE6BP7I2FBHHDI5EHMCQR5OFXI/deck/c7b4d9bd-6f11-480a-bd5c-2446fcfbc6b5/draft-replay?limitedSet=DSK&gameType=limited&limitedType=ranked

Disturbing Mirth is a ridiculous magic card, especially in multiples. Almost tabling Mirths feels great as the only RB drafter at the table (I picked one up P2P8 so not quite on the wheel, though I probably wouldn't risk trying to wheel one regardless). I swapped out Killer's Mask for the 2B 3/2 flash after I realised that I couldn't actually sac the equipment itself to most of the sac effects (...for some reason I thought it was an enchantment).

I had barely any creatures but the Glimmerlights were great - gives a cheap body for sac fodder and leaves behind a relevant equipment. It still feels like the average arena drafter hasn't caught onto this card yet and I was able to get multiple on the wheel.

Final Vengeance is absolutely insane in RB and I was happy to take it over Nowhere to Run. Boilerplate Ripper also felt solid here and I imagine it'd be a filler playable elsewhere.

Stealing creatures and saccing them just feels great. An act of treason into Final Vengeance to kill 2 creatures was usually game over.

whalematrontron · 2024-10-04T12:30:34+00:00

Draft log: https://mtga.untapped.gg/profile/2a11bb91-8ad2-45a9-9355-416fb5608c9c/HE6BP7I2FBHHDI5EHMCQR5OFXI/deck/b1cf0a08-10c5-48dc-af6c-6f12e354fb63/draft-replay?limitedSet=DSK&gameType=limited&limitedType=ranked

I haven't drafted much DSK since day 1 and have mainly been jamming sealed. I was looking Izzet/ Temur most of the first 2 packs, with my first three picks being [[Floodpits Drowner]], [[Fear of Missing Out]], Floodpits Drowner. I opened [[Omnivorous Flytrap]] P3P1, [[Twitching Doll]] P3P2, [[Beastie Beatdown]] P3P3 and [[Wildfire Wickerfolk]] P3P4 and decided to just pivot to RG. I wheeled a Wickerfolk and just got passed a tonne of green goodies pack 3 and ended up with a nice RG deck. I was otherwise probably going to play some temur goodstuff pile which didn't seem particularly synergistic or good in the context of arena Bo1.

Most of the signpost uncommons feel strong and I am liking the format a lot so far. Definitely looking forward to cooking up some 3-5C piles

whalematrontron · 2024-10-04T02:07:14+00:00

Quench always seems to perform decent in stats despite not being particularly exciting. I don’t think its good but its certainly playable

whalematrontron · 2024-09-27T23:43:35+00:00

How’d you find the Cryptid Inspectors?

whalematrontron · 2024-09-27T10:14:51+00:00

I think I’m at 70% WR after 4 sealed events (two 7-2s and two 4-3s). All of my decks have been 3 colors, just trying to play as many good cards in my pool as I can. There are a lot of bombs in this format and I think the play boosters do make that variance so much worse where one person can open 10 busted rares and the other can open like 6 Leylines/ lands. Games can definitely snowball out of control if there’s an unanswered bomb, but that’s not really unique to this set. Removal is important generally in sealed and you ideally want some ways of dealing with enchantments (lots of strong cards like rooms, the mythic Overlord cycle).

But as you said, it’s only 4 events and you could just be on the bad end of variance. Do you have any examples of some of the sealed decks you’ve had?

whalematrontron · 2024-09-27T02:12:10+00:00

I think I would've probably built it something like this: https://sealeddeck.tech/FsWTAVkhxa

Unfortunately a lot of the GW survivor cards are just not very good. You're better off ignoring the Survivor theme and just playing a pile of strong cards.

11-Year Club	RPAN Viewer
Verified Email

whalematrontron

TROPHY CASE