Marvel Super Heroes Draft # 2 (WUBRG Drafting)

I got to my second Marvel Super Heroes draft at my FLGS, Intergalactic Plastic, last night.  We had a group of exactly eight and got right to it.  Right off the bat, the player sitting to my right opened The Mind Stone, passing me Thanos, the Mad Titan.  

If you are a new reader, you might think that this would dictate a new draft strategy for me and that I was lucky that I got that for my second pick.  I always go WUBRG (as most of you know) so I was already on that track.  Here are all the picks I made: 

Oops!  The card behind Serpent Specialist is a Hell's Kitchen.

There are a lot of things going well in that draft pool:

• Lots of fixing-lands.  Eight! 
• Two basic land cyclers: A.I.M. Scientists and Kree Sentinel.  
• Many creatures that could win the game.  (Power-up abilities are really good for me.)

Here's the deck I built:

I did not do any sideboarding; this is the deck I started and finished with.

The games were pretty intense, so my notes are more sparse than usual.  My apologies!  Another fun part of this draft is that I got to use a new life counter, a d30 that I got at Genie Hobbies in Gaylord, MI a few weeks ago. 

That store is right across from the Claude Shannon park, which is pretty neat!

 

I started the first round against a really strong player running an Orzhov Esper Weenie deck, chock full of lots of efficient creatures such as Agent Phil Coulson and Hero in Training, complemented by an arsenal of removal spells.  On turn three, I played Thanos.  My opponent played Ronin, Shadow Stalker, which they equipped with S.H.I.E.L.D. Spy Kit.  I should have read Ronin more carefully, because they used the ability to kill Thanos on the next turn.  Oops!  I played a Ninja of the Hand on turn four and on turn five Hulk, Gamma Goliath, who met with a Web Up.  On turn six, I played Call Damage Control to get Thanos back and cast him.  I didn't get to power him up that game, but my opponent got mana flooded and I won.

In the second game, I got Thanos out on turn four, but he again met with removal.  I went down to 2 life before I was able to get him back into play and stabilize.  I won at 9 life.  We had extra time so we played a bonus third game where I was able to play Thanos and snap his fingers.  1-0.

My second round was against another player running an Orzhov deck that turned out to actually be Esper.  In the first game I got Kang, Temporal Tyrant, on turn four, then Thanos on turn six.  Thanos got immediately exiled by Cloak and Dagger, Entwined.  I went down to 4 life, but played Doctor Doom, planning to use Kang's attack trigger to keep me alive.  

A pretty dangerous plan!

A few turns later, my opponent played Unliving Legionnaire, threatening to take me out with it as the only flier.  I drew Photon Blast Barrage and made a costly bet to try and kill the Legionnaire and get Thanos back.

One original and many copies and-... oh, Take up the Shield.

 

The Legionnaire killed me the following turn.

In the second game, my opponent started off with two mulligans, but the first was not just any mulligan!

I have seen very few "All-Land Mulligans".  I think this is the second ever.

Down two cards, they recovered quickly with Captain America, Living Legend, on turn three, but I played Thanos on turn four, followed by Black Widow, Double Agent.  My opponent got me to discard my hand with HYDRA Infiltration, and then killed Thanos with Murdock's Crusade.  I got an Aerial Doombot down, however, and was able to win with that.  

In the third game, my opponent flooded out and I was able to win with Human Torch, Johnny Storm.  2-0.

In the third round, I was up against a mono-green deck.  In the first game they had a quick start with Ava Ayala and Hulkling, Burgeoning Bruiser on turns two and three.  I caught back up and managed to get everything off of the board.  Then they dropped Squirrel Girl.  Thankfully that turn I had exactly the mana to play Thanos and snap his fingers.  They played Titania, Rugged Rumbler, and Go Nuts! to kill Thanos and keep the game going.  I cast Doctor Doom, but they got two Wakandan Royal Guard, followed by Pet Avengers to put me on the back foot.  I got one of my deathtouchers out as well as other potential blockers, then played Human Torch to win another game.

In the second game, my opponent had two early Guerrilla Gorillas, then H.E.R.B.I.E. Scout Unit.  I played Storm, Windrider, on turn four, both acting as a big blocker and shutting down H.E.R.B.I.E.  The game went back and forth; Wakandan Royal Guard was again acting really strong.  My opponent took out Storm, but then I drew the card that had won me game after game all night: Thanos, the Mad Titan.  I played him without snapping that turn, then drew into snap mana the next and wiped the board.  Thanos's lifelinking was enough to get me to victory.  3-0.

After the tournament I played against one of my friends who really wanted another match and won both games, though they had to mulligan down to four in the second game.  

Here are some afterthoughts: 

• I'm now 5-1 across two Marvel Super Heroes drafts. 
• I think this set is just really strong for WUBRG drafting.  Somehow I expect that has just gone under the radar.  The lands, basic landcyclers, and other assorted fixing is amazing.
• I like Power-up cards!  It really clicked with me this second time.  
• I got really lucky to get Thanos, and even luckier to draw him in so many games.  I also got lucky to have three colorless-generating lands.

I really want to do more of these; I hope I get more chances!  H p y M g c i g!

Marvel Super Heroes Draft (WUBRG Drafting)

I got to a Marvel Super Heroes draft last night at my FLGS, Intergalactic Plastic.  I knew very little about this set going in.  Nothing except that it's a huge set, there are some kind of common dual lands, and there are creatures like Super Skrull that benefit from WUBRG.  I was very excited to find out that there were also lots of cards with Basic Landcycling.  

There were only six of us at the draft, which I was surprised about.  It's summer, however, so people are doing lots of traveling.

It turned out that six was fine.  I was able to pick up lots of mana fixing!  Here are all my picks:

Five fixing picks in a row in pack one!

I thought that making cuts would take me a long time, but I actually finished quite quickly.  Here's the deck I built: 

This is a surprisingly reasonable mana curve!

In my first round, I was up against a player with an Izzet deck.   They started off the first game with an Aerial Doombot on the first turn.  I didn't have a play until turn four, so I was on the back foot until I got to play Abomination, Terrifying Titan... and I stayed on the back foot because they kept it off the board with We Say Thee Nay!  On their following turn they played Ultron, Artificial Malevolence with Super Intelligence on it.  On my fifth turn, I played Grim Reaper, which was one of the powerhouses of my deck.  They played Shuri, Wakandan Inventor on their turn.  I smelled danger and didn't tap to activate the Grim Reaper's ability on the attack.  My opponent blocked with Ultron and used HULK SMASH!, but I turned the tables with Stolen Stark Tech.  They didn't give up and locked the Reaper out with Spider Woman, Secret Agent on their next turn.  Then we both played 4/4 fliers, first me with Captain Mar-Vell and Wiccan, Rising Magician for them.  I passed my next turn, intending to use Mar-Vell's power.  They played Hydraulic Helper and I droped both Captain America, Living Legend, and a Bold Biochemist.  With Mar-Vell's flashing ability, the game sped up and I just kept playing beats to win, even after my opponent powered up their Aerial Doombot.

In the second game, my opponent again started on turn one with an Aerial Doombot, but they missed their turn two land drop.  (Thankfully they hit on turns three, four, and five.)  I flashed in Tigra after their turn three and then played Bullseye, hoping to take the Doombot out before it got big.  Unfortunately, they had We Say Thee Nay again, keeping it off the field.  They played Hawkeye, Master Marksman.  I attacked into him with Tigra, thinking it was safe.

It was not safe.

However, I played the Grim Reaper on my next turn, and there wasn't any answer for that.  I won within a few more turns.  1-0.

In the second round I was up against a Rakdos "Removal Tribal" (actually Villains) deck.  In the first game, my opponent had to keep using removal to trade a creature with one of mine.  First two Widow's Bites on my She-Hulk, Jade Defender and Abomination, Terrifying Titan, then a Lightning Strike on my third threatening creature.  (I don't remember which it was.)  Despite losing my good creatures, that efficiency put me in a solid place to win by just keeping up the beats.

In game two I was keeping up pretty well early game.  My opponent played Madame Hydra on turn four, then Madame Masque turn five.  Each conniving Villain brought along two more Villain token friends.

Like this Red Room Recruit.

I kept up.  Then they played Super Skrull.  I might have been able to play around it, but then they played Baron Helmut Zemo.  I scooped with more than 20 life.     

In game three, they were fast out of the gate with Project Deathlok Soldier, Red Room Recruit, and Volcanic Villain in the first three turns.   I played She-Hulk, Jade Defender again, and on their fourth turn they attacked for another removal-to-trade situation.  Then I played Captain Mar-Vell on turn five.  They played Klaw and saw that I had Stolen Stark Tech, but picked something else for me to discard.  With Captain Mar-Vell out, I got to play reactively, and my opponent was even more hesitant because I was likely to win any removal-to-trade with the Stolen Tech.  I kept the advantage up and won.  2-0.

In the third round, I was up against a strong Abzan deck.  They had a quick start, with Reptil and Serpent Specialist in the first two turns.  I had Claim the Kingdom on my third turn.  We alternated Gammas: them with Hulkling, Burgeoning Bruiser and me with She-Hulk, Jade Defender.  Unfortunately, she got hit with Go Nuts using the Serpent Specialist.  I played Political Triumph on turn five but nothing else useful before I died on their seventh turn.  

The second game had a slower start.  I played Captain America, Living Legend on my third turn.  My opponent played Mole Man, but I killed it right away with Wolverine, Fierce Fighter's ETB effect.  They played Reptil, I played Roxxon Brutes, they played Hero in Training, and I played Bold Biochemist.  On their sixth turn, they played White Widow, Free Agent and then Go Nuts to try to even things up, but I had Stolen Stark Tech.  My opponent scooped soon after.

The third game had an amazing mirror-like sequence.  My opponent basic landcycled for a plains, then with their three mana, cast Restorative Technique.  At the end of their turn, I basic landcycled for a plains and then also cast Restorative Technique on my turn.  They passed, then I cast Captain Mar-Vell.  When I passed, they flashed something in.

Captain Marvel?  You've got to be kidding me.  (Mar-Vell is upside down because my opponent was reading it.)

They played Mole Man, a land, Reptil, and then Go Nuts to take Mar-Vell off the board, sadly.  I played Wolverine, Fierce Fighter to kill Reptil before they got a sixth land and could start beating with it.  They played The Thing, Ben Grimm, which outclassed the Unliving Legionnaire that I cast.  They played Abomination, Terrifying Titan and powered it up, but I had Stolen Stark Tech to keep my Legionnaire alive.  They hadn't used their mana to make Captain Marvel indestructible, so I played my own Abomination, Terrifying Titan, also powered up, to kill her.  Unfortunately, they played Hulkling, Burgeoning Bruiser and had the Go Nuts to kill my Legionnaire before I could activate it's power up next turn.  They killed me while at 52 life.  2-1.

Bonus round!  One of the remaining two people in the pod I hadn't played (I know them well) asked if I wanted to duel, which I obviously did.  (I came to play Magic!)  We played quite speedy.  I curved out sweet in the first game and won.  In game two, they got Machinesmith Automaton on turn three and got artifact after artifact with it, often treasures or equipment.  I could not keep up.  The third game was really tight, but I edged out a win with another strong showing similar to the first game.  

This obviously went really well!  Here are my takeaways:

• The set is a great WUBRG set without having an explicit WUBRG theme or payoff.  Hopefully this can stay under the radar and not be another Ravnica Allegiance situation.
• The gain lands are great.
• The basic landcycling is great.
• I probably should have run The Thing, Ben Grimm, because I was hitting with heroes a lot.  I'm not certain.
• I don't know whether I should actually have been running my two plan cards.  Were they actually good enough?
• I didn't pick much removal.  In many games I was fast enough that it didn't matter, but it also wasn't there at my disposal when I needed it.
• There are a lot of cards, so read things carefully so you know how things actually work.  I expect this will be a problem for me in future Marvel Super Heroes drafts if I can get to them.

I really hope I get to go to more of these drafts!  This was so much fun!  Happy Marvel Magicking!

Wacky Worlds 2026 Results

Wacky Worlds 2026 ran on Saturday!  It was wicked fun for me and I hope the same was true for everyone who came.  There's a lot for me to write about here without talking about the seven different formats or point system that we'd worked out ahead of time, so if you are interested in that, you need to check out my prior post about all of the Wacky Worlds 2026 rules.  The four main things I relate here are:

• How I fared.
• How it went for the particpants in general.
• Some surprising stats.
• Takeaways for future consideration. 

Participants started arriving right at the 10am start time, though some people didn't arrive until the afternoon.  In all we had 11 participants and there was a stretch in the afternoon where all 11 people were here!  

I took photos of the packs people chose before they opened them.  The first player, P1, opened Wilds of Eldraine, Journey to Nyx, Theros Beyond Death, Kamigawa Neon Dynasty, Duskmourn, and War of the Spark:

I didn't have any OG Theros or Born of the Gods packs, so this is as Therosy as you can get.

Those are from six different sets, so they got the 6-point bonus.

P2 opened the most spectacular set of packs, Secrets of Strixhaven, Avatar, March of the Machines: Aftermath, Strixhaven, War of the Spark, Alara Reborn 6-card pack, Homelands, and Fallen Empires:

Eight different sets!  I wish I could have awarded points beyond 6.

There are so many fascinating aspects of these eight packs:

• There are packs from all four decades: Nineties, Aughts, Tens, and Twenty-Twenties.
• The time difference between the release of the first pack (Fallen Empires, November 1, 1994) and the last (Secrets of Strixhaven, April 24, 2026) is 31 years, five months, and 23 days.  That is easily the longest I've seen between packs at any kind of chaos event.
• There are four different kinds of half-sized packs.  No one else opened more than one.  
• We looked up what the rarity distribution of cards was for the Alara Reborn 6-card packs beforehand, and it was very unlikely there'd be a rare in the pack.   

I will be amazed by these choices for years to come.

UPDATE (June 15, 2026): P2 also had an amazing combo in their deck: Deep Spawn + Jace, Wielder of Mysteries.  A combo 25 years in the making!  

P3 opened Mystery Booster 2, Modern Horizons 2 and 3, Magic 2012, War of the Spark, and Double Masters:

I love how they arranged these on their playmat.

I don't think I've ever seen a Double Masters pack opened before!  Crazy!

Those first three players opened their packs, built their decks, and got down to challenging the horde decks and earning points pretty quickly.  I had a moment, so I got my packs ready.  I opened an Onslaught Tournament pack, Khans of Tarkir, Murders of Karlov Manor, and Duskmourn:

I forgot to line these all up nicely.

I picked boosters with other face-down creatures to complement Onslaught.  I opened my packs and definitely had the cards to fit that theme:

No fetchlands.  Sigh.

I did not build my deck right then because more people showed up!  

P5 arrived and brought blueberry scones they had made!  (I ate two.)  They opened Strixhaven, Modern Horizons 2, Lord of the Rings, Modern Horizons 3, Avatar, and Secrets of Strixhaven:

Lord of the Rings is kind of Modern Horizons 2.5.

They were very careful about building their deck!  

Meanwhile, P6 opened Mystery Booster 2, the full trio of Modern Horizons packs, a Duskmourn Collector booster, and a March of the Machines: Aftermath:

First collector booster!

Part of the reason I wanted to do a sealed event was so that people could open and use collector boosters "safely".  Draft doesn't work as well because then you have to pass a bunch of the cards. 

P6 named their deck "You better check yourself before you deck yourself" because they ran out of cards in all but one game!  They also were very nice as they brought two elder dragons to add to the prize pool!  Amazing and generous!

Now we had a prize for second place too!

P7 arrived with P6 and opened Secrets of Strixhaven Collector, Aetherdrift, Spider-Man, Turtles Collector, and Lorwyn Eclipsed:

Doubling down on collector boosters!

You'll notice that they didn't have six different packs, so just like me they didn't get the 6-point bonus.  They didn't like their pool and only played one game before they decided to open a second set of boosters with Spider-Man, Turtles, Lorwyn Eclipsed, Thunder Junction, March of the Machines: Aftermath, and Secrets of Strixhaven Collector:

Still getting that collector booster goodness!

P8 arrived and opened Duskmourn, Thunder Junction, Bloomburrow, Tarkir, and two Final Fantasy packs:

No 6-point bonus but our first Final Fantasy packs!

P9 arrived and opened Kamigawa Neon Dynasty, Kaladesh, Aetherdrift, Edge of Eternities, Brothers' War, and Duskmourn:

One of these is not like the others.

P9's plan was to build around vehicles.  Their deck, "Teferi Kart World" succeeded!  It was in Yore-Tiller colors (WUBR) with Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim and 6+ vehicles-matter cards!

I think it was around this time that I had my deck built.  Here's what I put together after many cuts:

A very normal mana curve.

I didn't have a lot of mana fixing, but I also had so many 3-generic face-down creatures to play that it was okay.

P10 arrived.  They had been talking about their pack choices for a while, so I was excited to see what they settled on.  They opened March of the Machine (normal and Aftermath), Secrets of Strixhaven, Modern Horizons 2 and 3, and Commander Masters: 

First Commander pack!

Commander packs might be broken in this format, if only because Sol Ring is such a powerhouse!  At least they counted as 1.5 packs, so you couldn't just swap out a single pack for one.

I got into some games.  Here's me playing Face the Hydra with P5 and P8:

It takes two Clay Spiders (morphs) to kill one Hydra Head.

Here's a game of Defeat a God I was with with P10:

One Clay Spider can trade with an Ecstatic Piper.

Here's a shot of the planar map from a Planechase Eternities Map game I was in with P3, P5, and P10:

Izzet Steam Maze doubled P5's Sign in Blood!

See how Lethe Lake and Sanctum of Serra are next to each other?  Their combined oppression caused many people to die by decking.  At the end of the game, I was at 3 and P3 hit me with Incinerate with their dying Lethe Lake trigger so that P5 won!  Amazing!

Here's how the Explorers of Ixalan setup looked in the middle of a game between P1, P5, and (I think) P2:

They dug straight for a 6-tile.

P11 arrived and opened Lord of the Rings, Match of the Machine: Aftermath, Commander Masters, Battlebond, Aether Revolt, and Thunder Junction:

First team-oriented pack!  Wait, are there team oriented packs aside from Battlebond?  ...First Battlebond!

P11's Aether Revolt pack was one they had purchased on a summer trip to a store I used to play at two decades ago in Salem, Massachusetts!  With their pool, they built a five-color deck named "WUBRG Speed Mill".  (I didn't get to play with them, sadly.)

I got into an Explorers of Ixalan game with P1 and P3 and achieved a new thing for me: I got a morph creature, a manifest creature, and a mysterous creature all in the same game!  

The week before, I told some people that I'd be really excited if we ever had three simultaneous games running at any time.  Well, that happened multiple times!  

No games were allowed to start after 8pm, so once 7:20 hit, I felt pretty confident that no new games were going to start.  I was in an Explorers of Ixalan game with P1 and P2 that finished at exactly 8pm.  I ended with 16 points and P1 and P2 both had 45, tied for first.  P5, P8, and P9 were locked in an epic game of Ravnica: Clue, however, and P5 also had 45 points.  Although P1 and P2 had played more games, P5 was on a winning tear, scoring 4 points in three non-co-op games!  They didn't win that final Clue game (they did score two points by guessing their opponent's correct accusation at the end) but any result was enough to put them on the top.  P5 won with a total of 47 points!

In order to determine second place, we had to go to the (poorly crafted by me) tie breaker: the product of the individual scores instead of the sum.  P1 got 3 x 3 x 6 x 6 x 3 x 3 x 4 x 1 x 1 x 4 x 2 x 6 x 3 = 1,679,616.  P2 got 3 x 3 x 6 x 6 x 3 x 3 x 4 x 1 x 4 x 3 x 6 x 3 =  2,519,424.  P2 won second place!  (I'm so glad we didn't have to resort to any hare-brained further tie-breaking measures!)

As for my own results, I earned 16 total points: 2 from a Battle the Horde win, 2 from a Face the Hydra win, 4 from a Defeat a God win, 2 from surviving five planar shifts in a Planechase game, 1 from each of two Explorers of Ixalan games, 1 from a Ravnica: Clue game, and 3 bonus points for playing in six different formats.  (I tried really hard to discover the Golden City in the Explorers games, but it didn't happen.)

I noticed one card constantly underperform during my games: Efreet Weaponmaster.  Because of the word "another" on it, you really only get the full value when:

• You have another creature, and
• You get into combat with both that creature and the face-down Weaponmaster, and
• The other creature happens to be fighting something it needs more power to kill, and
• The Weaponmaster is facing something with two or more power and four or less toughness, and
• You have the five mana available to pay for the morph cost.

That is really hard to make happen.  I even just had trouble getting another creature to stick on the board.  

Take that, Khans of Tarkir card!

 

Congratulations to P5, P2, and P1 for taking first, second, and third places!  I made a Google Sheet to track all the scores as games were finished.

 

Here are some fun stats:

• All seven different formats got played.  (Only one game of Kingdom was played.)
• Packs from 38 different sets were opened!  Three of those were collectors and play boosters from the same sets, so 41 different packs were opened!
• 26 different games were played, not counting co-op games where the players didn't win.  (I didn't record those!)  
• 9 people were able to claim the 3 bonus points for playing 6+ different formats.
• Only one brave soul played all six formats: P3.  
• Four people scored 40+ points!  P1, P2, P3, and P5.  I was very surprised the scores went up that high!  Four more people scored 30+ points: P6, P7, P8, and P9.  

 

Time for the takeaways!  First, here are things that went great:

• Each player opened many different boosters.  There was plenty of wackiness!  I'm not even sure I needed to include the 6-point incentive.
• Players were excited to pull off combos between cards from different sets.
• People seemed to have a good time! 
• The sheets worked out pretty well; people were able to keep track of their own scores pretty well. 
• No one made the mistake of opening their packs beforehand.  Whew!  I was nervous about that one. 
• Having the March of the Machine Aftermath Epilogue packs available was good to help fill in 1/2-pack gaps for people. 
• People needed assistance and had rules questions for many of the games.  Thankfully I was expecting I'd need to help facilitate, so my expectations were set correctly. 
• If people were out of one game early, it was easy to get them into a different game. 
• I'm glad each co-op format could only be scored twice.
• P1 and P2 were both really gung-ho about Wacky Worlds.  They knew all the different formats really well and helped out a ton by answering questions and encouraging the wackiness all around.  Props to both of them! 
• The Ravnica: Clue "add-on rule" for Wacky Worlds worked nicely.  (This was that before someone makes an accusation, all other players write down what they think the correct answer is.  If the accusation is correct, then those players reveal what they wrote down.  If any of them match the accusation, then those players score 2 points instead of 1.)   
• The standings were close!  There was a quick spike by P1, P2, and P3, but then lots of people caught up and they went back and forth a lot at the end.    

 Here are some "woulda-coulda-shouldas" (based on things that didn't go so great):

• I should have rearranged my furniture more to make more room so I could comfortably hold three tables of games.
• Events were not self-explanatory.  I don't know how I could have solved this except by making print outs of each different format to hand out.  Ooh!  I should have put a QR-code on the score sheet that linked back to the blog post!
• I left some typos and formatting errors in the sheets.  I need to proofread those better.  Oops!
• The max scores for the horde formats should have been harder to accomplish, so groups couldn't speed run those and might decide to come back around to them later instead.  I would have preferred people score points on the easier setting first instead of only going for the max points on each.
• There was some confusion about what "X" meant in the scoring table (a four-player option) for the Battle the Horde format.
• Planechase Eternities Map games took too long.  In the future I would set the starting life totals to 10.  I know that's extreme, but I think one of them took well over two hours!  It would also mean that it's less likely to claim the 2-point loss scenario by surviving five planeshifts.  Everyone got that.  
• It would have nice to have some sort of 1v1 format so if there were two players who had completed all the co-op events, they could start a game. 
• I bought seven take-and-bake pizzas from Aldi's to serve for dinner.  They are quite big and we only ate four.  Oops! 
• The learning curve for Kingdoms is really high and since it only supports exactly 5 people, it's hard to run.  (Ravnica: Clue also has a high learning curve, but it's not as bad.) 
• I wish I had tracked all of the horde losses instead of just the wins.  I'm not sure how feasible that'd've been, though.
• 10 hours was probably too long.  I can be a marathon-magicker, but some of my friends seemed like they were getting worn out towards the end.  

 

Congratulations again to P5 for being the Wacky Worlds 2026 champion!  Congratulations to P2 and P1 for coming in second and third.  Thanks to everyone who came and everyone who contributed ideas for the formats and rules.  Thanks to people who played formats they'd never done before!  I hope your bravery was rewarded!  I hope everyone had at least as much fun as I did.

If you want to do something like this yourself, go for it!  If you don't have the supplies, I made sites where you can play Face the Hydra, Battle the Horde, Defeat a God, Ravnica: Clue, and Kingdom.   

Happy Magicking, as Wacky as you can get!  

 

Trying on a Bracelet Amidst Chaos (WUBRG Drafting)

I got to do a little four-person draft on Wednesday.  The context for this is that it came shortly before Wacky Worlds, set to occur three days later.  It was, therefore, a bit of a calm before that storm.  I was coming off a tough record at a Modern RCQ, but not to worry!  I was back in the element that I thrive in!

I stuck to my plan of opening Ikoria, included Secrets of Strixhaven (spending my Gamestop money for the month), and threw in an Adventures in the Forgotten Realms to mix things up.  Here's what we all opened:

Lots of good chaotic packs here!

We decided to do the variant where the first pick of each pack is actually two picks instead.  I was very excited when I opened my Ikoria pack and found what I wanted: a triome!  During that first pack, I tracked my colors, being dedicated to getting all five sooner rather than later.  I got a bit stressed because I failed to draft any use for black mana.  I didn't solve that until halfway through pack two with Locust Spray, but I wound up drafting many black spells anyways.  Also of interest was my third pick in pack two, The Dominion Bracelet.  "Dominion" isn't "Domain", but it's close.  I really wanted to activate that during the games.  Here are all my picks:

Yay, Triome!

I really don't know whether I did a good job with this deck.  I agonized quite a bit over the construction.  Here's what I put together:

Bruenor turned out to be way better than I expected!

We decided to do a round robin of full matches.  I sat down against my first opponent, running a vicious Rakdos deck.  They started off by casting Umbral Collar Zealot on turn two.  I drew The Dominion Bracelet and cast it on turn three; they followed by casting Page, Loose Leaf.  I drew well again, grabbing Bruenor Battlehammer.  I cast him and used the free equip, making him an 8/4 creature right off the bat.  Sadly, my opponent Extracted a Confession from me, then played a Common Crook.  On the fifth turn, I played my Culvert Ambusher, face down.  My opponent then cast Mornsong Aria.  I'm very well acquainted with Maralen of the Mornsong, having played her in various of my Shuffleupagus decks for years.  There are, however, two very important differences: 

• Mornsong Aria is an Enchantment, not a creature, and
• Players can neither gain life nor draw cards.  This second part I wasn't aware of!

Look at that deck above.  See any enchantment removal?  See any in my draft pool?  Nope!  I was behind on life and without any mass removal cards, so all my opponent had to do was remove my creatures for a few turns before I died.

In game two, they played the Common Crook on turn two, then the Aria on turn three before I'd played anything.  I put up a fight, using each of my searches to find useful removal.  Orbital Plunge, Electro's Bolt, and Farideh's Fireball all hit their targets, but the last of those was Judith, Carnage Connoisseur, who also created a 2/2 with Duel Tactics.  I lost on what I think was turn seven.  0-1.  We played two more bonus games (since we were done so quickly) and I lost both of those as well.

I didn't last long enough in any game to see this sweet combo they had.

In round two I was up against "Temur Tam" a real strong Izzet value deck.  They played Tam, Mindful First-Year on turn two, the namesake of the deck.  I cycled my Topiary Panther on turn three and they played Tend the Sprigs.  With my mana sufficiently fixed, I got Bruenor out, but he was hit immediately by a Debris Field Crusher.  I hit Tam with Electro's Bolt on turn five, then they played a Rimeshield Frost Giant, which turned out to be a real problem.  I played The Dominion Bracelet and they attacked me, putting me at 12 with them undamaged.  I had nothing on my turn and they played Spider-Rex.  I died on turn eight.  

In game two, they got Virulent Emissary out right off the bat.  I played my Timid Shieldbearer then they traded in combat.  They cast Tam, which I hit with Electro's Bolt again on my third turn.  I cast Garrison Excavator on my next turn, but it got countered with Quandrix Charm.  On their fifth turn they played the Rimeshield Frost Giant again, and all I had to do was cast Lorehold Charm during their end step to get the Timid Shieldbearer back.  They played Elemental Mascot during their sixth turn, which they claimed was one of the best cards in their deck.  (They had two.)  I cast Ancestral Anger and realized that it was not the card I'd thought: Fists of Flame.  (I'm not sure how I mixed those two up!)  I took the card out of the deck for future games.  My opponent had Tend the Sprigs again, but this time got the bonus 3/4 Treefolk.  On their next turn they mutated Lore Drakkis onto that creature and grabbed Quandrix Charm back.  I took out the combination creature with Farideh's Fireball.  

Whose Fireball?  Farideh's Fireball!

On my ninth turn I played my Riftburst Hellion face down, but my opponent hit me with Homesickness at the end of my turn.  They played Slumbering Trudge and killed me on their tenth turn.  0-2.  We played a bonus game afterwards and I was very excited because I got to activate The Dominion Bracelet and win!  It doesn't count for anything, but it was still fun!

Dear Reader, at this point I was on a 7-round streak of losing matches 0-2, if you count my performance at the Modern RCQ just ten days prior.  It's time to turn this around!  My final opponent was running an aggressive Bant deck.  They started the first game with a turn one Studious First-Year.  I played the Dominion Bracelet on turn two and then they cast Elite Interceptor.  (Slightly better than Squire.)  I played a second equipment on turn, my Ranger's Longbow, only because I didn't have any creatures I could run out yet.  Thankfully, on turn four I drew a land and got to play Garrison Excavator.  My opponent played a Starbreach Whale, which I immediately hit with Orbital Plunge on my fifth turn.  (Five toughness?  Perfect.)  My opponent cast Daily Bugle Reporters and then we went back and forth hitting for six damage.  Sadly, they played a Badgermole Cub on turn seven.  With that extra power on the attack, I couldn't get in for the last bit of damage to win and I died when they swung back.  I died with 8 mana on the board and the Bracelet on a 6/6 creature.  One mana away!

In game two, I started off with Dungeon Descent and they played the Elite Interceptor again.  On their second turn they warped in the Starbreach Whale.  I cast Ranger's Longbow on turn three, then Bruenor on turn four, making him a 9/4.  My opponent cast Studious First-Year and then the Rejoinder to draw a card.  I attacked on turn five.  They cast a scary Badgermole (not the cub) but I had Electro's Bolt for it and continued my attack on my sixth turn.  They played Facet Reader and scared me away from attacking on turn seven with four power of creatures on the board.  I cast Topiary Panther, equipped the Longbow to it, and passed.  They cast Uthros Scanship.  The Panther was big enough to survive an attack into everything, so I had it press in and used the Dungeon Descent and Bruenor to go delving.  (Not that delving.)  My opponent scooped on the next turn.

In game three, my opponent played three creatures in the first three turns while I played only the Longbow: Curious Farm Animals, the Facet Reader, and an Infirmary Healer.  I played Garrison Excavator, but it got Essence Scattered!  My opponent cast Spider-Man India, web-slinging the Facet Reader.  I had an Electro's Bolt for it, but they followed that up with Daily Bugle Reporters.  All I could do was cast Sneering Shadewriter on my turn, but I was down to five life and couldn't block all the attackers.  

Beaten up by little critters.

0-3.  I ended the night on a streak of eight match losses, but at least I won a game in that last one!

Takeaways:

• Wacky drafting?  Do I even know how to do that?

I had so much fun with this deck, though!  My games were all really fun.  Happy Magicking: may you have as much fun as I do!

Shuffleupagus at RCQ (Mediocre Modern)

In the mid-Aughts, I had a long run of 2-X PTQ appearances.  It was after one of those, on a cold walk through the Allston/Brighton neighborhoods of Boston that my friend and I said the name "mediocre magic".  It fits the janky style perfectly.

I don't know if this is still a thing nowadays, but there was a bit of a counter-movement against "netdecking" in the nineties.  Mark Rosewater famously told Zak Dolan, the first world champion, not to tell anyone what was in his winning deck so people couldn't copy it.  That term doesn't mean anything anymore with ubiquitous Internet activity.  I like that there are metas and people scrutinize and optimize specific decks, but I want to create something of my own.  

I don't have illusions of grandeur.  I remember reading about top Extended decks after Mirrodin's release and the Scepter Chant deck (Isochron Scepter + Orim's Chant) had come out of nowhere and made a big top 8.  In a group interview, the creator rightfully got to say their deck was completely new while everyone else explained which version of the well-known deck they'd tweaked.  I'm not about to make something both that strong and unique, but maybe I can at least be known a little bit for getting some fun jank to work.

I have been working on versions of Shuffleupagus since 2003 when Psychogenic Probe was first spoiled before the Mirrodin prerelease.  I've been squirreling away cards that cause your opponent to shuffle their deck for years and have sporadically run it in different forms ever since.  (I was very excited when Modern was announced and the Probe just survived the cut.)

My FLGS, Intergalactic Plastic, ran a Modern RCQ on Sunday, May 31, less than two weeks ago.  I had gone 2-1 (kinda 0-2) on Friday with Spiteclasm, but it was a bit unfulfilling.  My friends knew I had a mono-black version of Shuffleupagus ready to go, but I had chickened out from playing it.  

I blamed it partly on a lack of Volatile Faults.  I had zero and kept hitting dead-ends finding them.  This is not just sour grapes--those faults are in some ways better than Ghost Quarter because that treasure token provides one more copy of Bitter Ordeal--but it's not like the deck is useless without them.

On Saturday the universe gave me a sign that I could not be so cowardly.  While at a yard sale in town, I saw a little bunch of magic cards for sale.  I flipped through and saw a Volatile Fault.  I overpaid for the cards, but was excited as I resolved to take Shuffleupagus to a real tournament. 

I did have some misgivings about running mono-black, but I tried to increase the chance I'd find Psychogenic Probe by including four Serum Powder.  This brought up an interesting rules interaction with London Mulligans: technically you are supposed to put cards on the bottom of your library at the end of each mulligan.  That means that if you don't like your hand with Serum Powder and you're a few tries into mulliganing, you can put cards you don't want exiled onto the bottom of your library and then exile the Serum Powder and the rest of your hand to get a redo.

Okay, here's the mono-black Shuffleupagus build I came up with:

• 4 Psychogenic Probe 
• 4 Serum Powder 
• 4 Lantern of Insight 
• 4 Bitter Ordeal 
• 4 Surgical Extraction 
• 4 Extirpate 
• 4 Deadly Cover-Up 
• 3 The End
• 1 Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire
• 1 Ob Nixilis, Unshackled
• 2 Doom Blade
• 4 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Volatile Fault
• 20 Swamp
  
  Sideboard:
• 2 Doom Blade
• 2 Cranial Extraction
• 3 Lost Legacy
• 1 The End
• 1 Maralen of the Mornsong
• 2 Canyon Crawler
• 4 Troll of Khazad-dûm 

I really struggled with the sideboard and making choices between Lost Legacy, Infinite Obliteration and similar cards. 

I believe 19 people showed up for the tournament, so we had five rounds.  In the first round, I was paired up against someone I knew but had never played before.  They were running Living End, the only deck I'd really prepared for!

I had been disappointed by presumably-good-matchups with Shuffleupagus before.  In the Aughts, when Tooth and Nail was hot in Extended, I thought I had a good plan against it with Cranial Extraction and Bribery.  I went to some big tournament, got matched up against Tooth and Nail right off the bat, couldn't pull off a win in that first round, then never faced it again as I floundered my way through the lower brackets.  This was my chance for redemption!  

Game one started slow.  On their turn three, they cycled Curator of Mysteries.  On my turn, I played Varragoth, but they evoked Subtlety and I put Varragoth on the top.  On turn four they cast Violent Outburst into the Living End, but I responded with Surgical Extraction to get rid of all the Curators.  Subltelty hit the field and I played Varragoth on my turn.  On my fifth turn, I played a Psychogenic Probe.  The game slowed down and I made a critical miscalculation.  Apparently the Living End deck only runs three of them, not four.  I had enough to Bitter Ordeal for two, which would have been enough, but was hoping to get three.  Instead my opponent played Shardless Agent a bit later and won the turn after.

In game two, I swampcycled a Troll on my first turn.  I played Probe on turn two, but my opponent was wise to the game and Force of Negation'ed it.  That left them without a counter for my Lost Legacy next turn.  They played a Curator of Mysteries on turn four, then countered the The End I hit it with next turn with a second Force of Negation.  They played another Curator one or two turns later and I didn't have any way to kill them both.  I got Varragoth out but died shortly thereafter.  0-1.

In round two I faced a remixed affinity deck that didn't actually use the Affinity mechanic at all.  On turn one, they dropped "flipwalker" Tamiyo, which was mostly there to generate clues.  They played Urza's Saga on their second turn and an Aether Spellbomb.  I got a Psychogenic Probe out, but I was clearly behind.  They played a Mox Opal on turn three and created a construct while I got out a second probe.  On turn four, they dropped their Urza's Saga to search for a Shadowspear as well as create a second construct.  I Extirpated the Urza's Saga at the end of their turn and then passed on mine.  I was only one life or one shuffle away from having enough to kill them with shuffles.  Instead, I had to hold for a The End for one of their constructs, but they even had Flame of Anor to destroy one of my probes before I searched on their turn.  I died to the construct soon after.  

In game two, they had a big turn two with Tamiyo, two Mishra's Baubles, and a Mox Opal.  I took out their Urza's Saga with my Ghost Quarter at the end of their turn.  On turn three I hit Tamiyo with a Doom Blade and then Surgical Extracted her on turn four.  Before I could do that, however, my opponent had played a second.  I drew a swamp and hit it with The End on my fifth turn.  My opponent had a better play: Cori-Steel Cutter.  I had Deadly Cover-Up on turn six and had enough to collect the evidence, which I used to get rid of Forces of Negation.  Unfortunately more monks emerged from the Cutter and I died to many of them.  0-2.

In round three I was up against a Charbelcher deck!  It was kind of neat, to have one Mirrodin artifact facing down another.  Their deck played no lands, instead relying on MDF Cards with lands on the back side.  I started off with a Lantern of Insight while they suspended a Lotus Bloom.  I cast a Psychogenic Probe on my second turn, but they had a Spell Snare for it, which was quite disheartening.  I had a second Probe in hand, but correctly guessed they were holding more counters and baited a Counterspell out with Varragoth.  I safely played the Probe and a Lantern on turn four.  They cast Tameshi, a new card to me!  

It combos real well with Lotus Bloom.

I was without a hand and they promptly got out Goblin Charbelcher and killed me with it.  

In game two they suspended the Lotus Bloom right away again.  I cast Lost Legacy on turn three, but they Force of Negation'ed it.  I played Maralen of the Mornsong on turn four and they resolved their Lotus Bloom.  I played Ghost Quarter on turn five and they surprised me with a Whir of Invention for four, bringing up a Charbelcher.  I Bitter Ordeal'ed the remaining three but it was too little, too late.  They activated the cannon on their next turn and killed me.  0-3.

In round four I was up against an Eldrazi deck.  In the first game all I really got down was a Lantern of Insight on turn one.  They used Kozilek's Command to set up for Through the Breach on turn four.  Emrakul came to my town and removed my entire board.  

In game two I had another first-turn Lantern of Insight.  They played Ugin's Labyrinth into a Talisman of Creativity.  I got a second turn Probe and they played Chalice of the Void for one.  On turn three I wanted to both Ghost Quarter and Bitter Ordeal but was one mana short.  Instead I decided to take out the Ugin's Labyrinth and hold on to the Bitter Ordeal.  There was a calm of a few turns and then I dropped the Ordeal on turn five.  Unfortunately they had Untimely Malfunction (sided in) to kill my Probe.  They played Eldrazi Command on their turn for nine.  Their next turn had Emrakul; Yggdrasil, Rebirth Engine; and Ulamog all on the same turn.  0-4.

Round five.  My last chance for a win... even a game win.  I was up against a mill deck.  My opponent and I were both in high spirits, clearly there for the fun of playing Magic.  They started the first game by Thoughtseizing one of my Probes.  They cast Fractured Sanity and hard cast Archive Trap.  I cast Deadly Cover-Up to remove a single Hedron Crab as my library withered and then again to take out a single Ruin Crab.  I still got decked.  

In game two they cast Thoughtseize on me again right away, followed up by Tasha's Hideous Laughter on turn three.  On my turn four, I used Ghost Quarter with Bitter Ordeal to remove three Fractured Sanities from their deck.  They had one in hand and used it against me right away, then an Archive Trap on the next turn.  (I was surprised they hadn't sided those out!)  I Extirpated the trap and then they played Ashiok, Dream Render.  My library kept disappearing until it was down to one card, a Swamp.  I drew it with my opponent at 12 life.  It was my sixth land and I cast Ob Nixilis for the first time all day.  I passed the turn and they did the same.  I entered my upkeep and Ghost Quartered one of their lands, with Extirpate in my hand.

They declined to search (obviously).  I cast the Extirpate for good measure and lost the closest game I'd had all day with my opponent at two life.  0-5.  0-10 in games.

Despite the tough record, I had a great time.  I was pretty nervous at the beginning since I hadn't been at such a high-level event in well over a decade, but all of my opponents were wicked friendly and I quickly settled into a great mood.  (The judge was also really good at promoting a chill atmosphere.)  

I honestly don't know what I should have done differently.  I would really like to see how the Orzhov, Dimir, and even Rakdos versions of the deck fare in a real tournament.  I also would like to have had more Volatile Faults!

It was fun to once again be a part of a higher-stakes event!  I think it's important for there to be a layer of jank at these things that sometimes shoots for the moon.  

Happy Magicking, no matter what level you're playing at!