Tournament Reports

Round 1: Azorius Aggro | 2 - 1
Aggro matchup? That means stick a blocker early. 2 is the magic number in this draft, and a 3 toughness blocker makes it very hard to get through. I do end up losing one game to getting tempo'd out with Faith Unbroken and Miscalculation, but it happens. Cleric class and Ruin Crab were very strong against this deck because they have incredibly good grind potential, and my 3-0 was almost gone out of the gate against a t1 Ruin Crab because I had him dead on board with 3 cards in his library: he didn't draw a land. I baited out his reinforce pump spell by using Moan of the Unhallowed tokens to double block his 2/4, knowing by how he was playing that he had a pump spell. I then untapped and sent him to the shadow realm with a Dead Ringers. Incredible match, as was every match this draft.

Round 2: Bant Creatures | 2 - 0
This was a relatively fast 2-0. Game 1 he got mana screwed and I got a relatively fast start with Stromgald Crusader early on. I was just able to aggro him out before his game started. By the time he was able to play creatures, it was too late. Game 2 I had the nastiest curve I have played in a very long time: Thrull Parasite > Toofer > Grist > Smokestack. Even on the draw, that spiraled out of control because while he was able to kill my Grist and start leveling his Kabira Vindicator (after giving it indestructible using Gaea's Will to protect it from Grist's downtick), I was able to kill the Vindicator afterwards. The game ended with him beating me down with a 2/1 and me beating him down with my Shepherd of Rot with both of us down to 3 lands due to Smokestack on 2. I eventually drew a Fell Stinger, exploting Shepherd of Rot and targeted him for lethal.

Round 3: Gruul Monsters | 2 - 1
Phew, this was a tough one. He killed me very quickly game 1 due to a Beserker's Onslaught and a Frenzied Saddlebrute making it impossible to play the game. He just went too fast too quickly. Game 2 and 3 went a little differently, however: he had Klothys in both, but in game 2 I topdecked an Oblivion Ring on turn 3, right after he played Klothys, which made the nightmare end before it began. It ended up being a very tight game with me slowly chipping in for 4 using my Stromgald Crusader and Spirit en-Dal; eventually he hit me down to 7 using his Saddlebrute and another creature; I could hit him to 4 with my 4 combined power, but I would die on the crackback. I took the risk and used Wicked Pact to remove both of his attackers. He had no haste, so I won the game at 2 life. Game 3 featured an uncontested Klothys, but I got ahead on board and cooked him with Dead Ringers, using Thrull Parasite to gain back a ton of life. Cards like Baffling End and Elspeth's Smite were instrumental in denying him early Klothys triggers, allowing me to more aggressively play to the board. He ended up flooding out and I killed him over the course of a few turns.

All in all, probably one of my proudest drafts in recent memory. When drafted around, Smokestack feels AMAZING. You want a high land count, small beaters that have good evasion (flying, shadow, the like) or mana sinks (firebreathing is a good example), and some decent Top-End. A high land count is key (I ran 17 due to mana rock and Ornithopter of Paradise) because you have to hit those as often as possible. Lastly, don't forget that this archetype is for true cooks only. You can't draft this if you're a coward or afraid of losing: you go all-in, and you win, or you die trying.

Credit to my friend Cameron who turned me on to this deck a while ago by going 3 - 0 himself and texting me about it, and also helping me during deckbuilding. You're a very cool guy.

I don't have a match-by-match breakdown like I did for the last tournament report, but I have some large-scale tips and learnable moments. I won most of my matches because opponents didn't have interaction or kept hands that were "good enough", which is what carried me in a lot of games. I faced no graveyard hate and often had enough time to tutor for black lotus turn 2, cast Lurrus and recast Lotus turn 3, then still be able to attack profitably with lurrus the next turn because my opponent didn't have a creature. Additionally, an oft-useful play was the infamous shortdrils, where you Tendrils your opponent for 8 or 12 life, buying you a bunch of time, then either recasting it with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy's backside's downtick, or recasting it with Underworld Breach. I also did win my last match because my opponent misread finale of devastation and used their mana dorks to superpower it, not realizing that it gave +X/+X to all creatures and not just the creature that you tutored for, which they could have used to kill me. Something very important that I did: I cut Trinket Mage and Emry, Lurker of the Loch after game 1 and used Lurrus from then on, and it felt a lot better to have the Lurrus in the companion zone, opting to instead play Damnation and Incinerate in the maindeck. Damnation never came up, but I did kill someone with incinerate.

I got basically everything a storm deck needed, but every match was still incredibly close. After this event, we decided to change storm a bit by adding Elemental Eruption and Eris, Roar of the Storm to help "medium" storm decks that don't get enough pieces or are missing cards in one important category (Recursion, Tutors, Mana, Draw). I think this will change the cube for the better (mostly because Courser of Kruphix is finally gone yippee!).

I had a great time, but I'm going right back to Bant Pile after this draft. My head hurts.

Round 1: Bant Pile | 2-0

The round 1 mirror was quite interesting, but I ended up having the answers needed. The first game was won off of the back of a White Wlume Wdventurer who completed the Undercity in just 3 turns with the help of a Phyrexian Metamorph to copy it and get the trigger a second time. I then hit Thrun, Breaker of Silence from the Throne of the Dead Three and my opponent asked for game 2.
Game 2 came down to a very insane curve where I played a Faerie Mastermind against his Uro to draw a card, Enduranced his Uro on my turn 3, then cast a Primeval Titan with the help of a Mox and an Ancient Tomb on turn 4. This led to me snowballing a win very quickly for the 2-0

Round 2: Boros Aggro | 2-1

The round 2 aggro matchup was interesting but it really came down to who had the fast mana. Game 1 I ended up winning due to a Mox Emerald letting me skip ahead to an elder gargaroth, who I then copied with phyrexian metamorph. I was also able to use Boseiju to destroy Sulfuric Vortex to stop slowly bleeding out and let my gargaroths gain me back life.
Game 2 I lost on the draw because my opponent had a mox start and went turn 1 two drop, turn 2 three 1 drops, at which point I was not able to come back.
Game 3 was pretty spicy; my opponent attempted to Mizzium Mortars my Wall of Roots, not realizing that it's an 0/5 and not an 0/4, which was a very big misplay. He stuck a Chandra, Torch of Defiance on turn 4 but it was too late, as I used Fractured Identity to effectively steal her away from him and Flame Slashed his last creature for the eventual win.

Round 3: Storm | 2-1

Kind of the nightmare matchup, but we both knew each others' decks so I had a plan going in. My opponent was sort of unlucky in that I know how to play against storm, had drafted for it, and he hadn't played it before. The most important point against storm is good enough is never good enough. Keeping a perfect curve hand won't work unless you're on the play and the creatures are naturally aggressive, like White Plume Adventurer or Radha's Firebrand. Both of his previous aggro opponents lost to him because they kept solely aggressive starts instead of finding disruption. I would mull to 4 in this matchup in an attempt to find one of two things: disruption such as Endurance, Lion sash, Scooze, or Thalia, or a very fast start, mostly a turn 2 White Plume Adventurer. Past that, my deck is designed to outlast and not to outrace, which you can't do against storm. The last important thing was that my opponent did not have Black Lotus, Lion's Eye Diamond, or Underworld Breach, which makes the deck a LOT slower. With that in mind, on to the games.
In game 1 I immediately disregard my instructions and keep a turn 3 White Plume Adventurer and die exactly when I expected to, the turn before lethal. It was on the play so it wasn't the worst, but I do think I should have mulliganed.
Game 2 I won off of the back of an Endurance in response to his Yawgmoth's Will, which exiled itself, preventing a viable storm win with his Brain Freeze on the bottom of his library. Thalia came in clutch here, cancelling out his Birgi and eventually making the game a nightmare once I exiled Birgi with Leyline Binding.
Game 3 he inquisitioned me and saw a hand of 2 Plains, a Triome, Selfless Spirit, Lose Focus, Endurance, and Boon-Bringer Valkyrie. This game was a massive grindfest, in which he decided to take my lose focus and play around endurance using Birgi's Backside to generate card advantage because I had such a low-pressure hand. I think it would have been correct to take the Selfless Spirit, because then I have no pressure to speak of and have to wait until I draw a creature, as I can never proactively cast Endurance. After poking him a bit, he Brain Freezed me I drew Lion Sash and ate his Brain Freeze. He killed my Lion Sash with a Firebolt, but the damage was done and he had to find a way to win aside from Brain Freeze. I only had 6 cards left in my deck, but I had an Endurance, so it wasn't all that relevant. He cast a Memory Jar and immediately cracked it to kill me, to which I responded with Endurance. We both played badly, as I should have responded to his casting the Jar with my Endurance and put my graveyard on the bottom, as if he had played correctly he could have held the jar over my head for the rest of the game. He eventually ended up casting a Troll of Khazad-dûm to try to beat me to death with 2 cards left in his library, but earlier in the game I had used Phyrexian Metamorph to copy Harnfel, Horn of Bounty, and now used it to draw into enough creatures to block and kill the Troll, at which point he decked out.

It was a very fun draft and I'm happy with my deck. It was a sick list and I'm proud of my drafting, deckbuilding, and mulliganing decisions. After that match 3, I promised that opponent that I'd force storm next time I get p1p1 Lotus. What could possibly go wrong?