Keruga Patiently Waits in Chaos (WUBRG Drafting)

On one hand, I should stop writing these because now people are also drafting WUBRG with me.  On the other hand, I really like writing these.

We had a big chaos draft on Thursday.  I had recently won a LotR:ToME pack, so I opened that, an Ikoria pack, and a Murders of Karlov Manor pack.  We had seven people, and opened a wide array of packs.  Very wacky!

Bloomburrow made it's first appearance at one of our drafts, in force!

I opened Keruga and immediately committed to mana value 3+ spells.  It's actually really fun to start off this way and have something to build around.  I only made a couple money-motivated "illegal" picks: 

Someday someone will set up a trade with my bot, so I can't ignore a $5 card.

Unfortunately, I had a hard time finding fixing.  This is probably because there were two other WUBRG drafters at the table!  I only got one non-basic mana fixer, two basic land cyclers, and one Crossroads Candleguide.  Oof.

I realized there was a bit of a strategy here, but I didn't foresee how strong it would be: cast pacifism-style cards like Prison Sentence to neutralize my opponent's creatures, then get Keruga out and draw for each of them.  (There were actually more white cards like that going around; I should have taken them all!)

Here's the deck I built, with Keruga as my companion:

My mana curve looks less flat when there's nothing in the 1 and 2 slots.

Since we had an odd number again, we did single-game matches.  I got five rounds in before my opponents were all gone.  In the first round I was matched up against one of my WUBRG opponents.  I was able to get the lock-down strategy out, with the Prison Sentence, Sigarda's Imprisonment, and Amphibian Downpour keeping creatures at bay.  With my own Kami of Jealous Thirst sitting pretty, Keruga drew four when it landed and I rode that value to victory.

Thank you, pseudo-general, for the four cards!

I noticed, after passing, that I missed the combo with the Kami's activation discount.  Whoops!  I kept that in mind going forward, though.  1-0.

In the second match, I faced someone who hadn't yet beaten me in a draft.  Of course they were also running WUBRG!  (And they managed to get Turn 5 "natural WUBRG", meaning one of each basic land, two games in a row!  Nice job!)  This was a hard-fought battle.  I played Keruga early and drew into my lockdown spells.  I got dropped to 2 while they were at 25.  I had stayed alive only because I got good timing on Amphibian Downpour (what a card!) to turn three creatures into frogs.

Those ad/art cards are Amphibian Downpour copies.

My opponent cast Liesa, then tapped their imprisoned Dorothea to crew their Aetherwing.  As they entered combat--which meant that Liesa could swing because of Tuktuk Rubblefort--I cast Vanquish the Weak, then responded to it with the Downpour to both get the extra storm copy and avoid the Liesa trigger.  That value play saved me a bunch of life, but I still went down to 2 a few turns later.  Luckily, I drew into another great combo in my deck: Go-Shintai of Hidden Cruelty, which happily kills the Downpour's 1/1 frogs.  The Kami of Jealous Thirst also came down and I was able to turn the tide, gain life back and eventually win. 2-0.

In round 3, I was up against a player I had never beaten in draft, playing a nifty simic deck.  I got the luckiest possible hand and draws.  I had the following sequence of turns, starting (of course) on turn 3: Prison Sentence, Axebane Ferox, Amphibian Downpour (on their turn, for an extra card storm bonus), Finch Formation with the offspring, and finally Keruga on turn 7 to refill my hand.

Yes, I would like to draw six cards!

I won shortly thereafter and broke my losing streak against that player.  (Sorry!)  3-0.

In the fourth round, my Keruga streak was snapped, but only because I didn't need it.  I was up against a strong Naya player and managed to delay a lot of the game with the help of Kami of Jealous Thirst and a surprise Reach for the Sky that put in a lot of work.  I got off the always-powerful Lorien Revealed, which brought Izoni to my hand for the first time.  Izoni immediately gave me board presence with the two spiders, and I got two more on the next turn.  

People probably hate it when I take these pics.

I brought Keruga to my hand but won before I needed to cast it.  4-0.

The hubris set in before round 5, and I was matched up against someone who beats me frequently in short order with an efficient horde of small creatures.  They always run white and this time were on Orzhov.  I kept a slow hand and regretted it five turns later when I played Keruga without drawing a single card.  

I have a bad feeling about this.

I lost two turns later.  4-1.

 

This was stupendous!  A lot of my WUBRG strategies paid off:

• I opened Ikoria first and built around Keruga.
• I took mana fixing high, which helped me get over the land deficit.
• I ran very few spells with two of the same colored mana symbol.  ("Pips?")

Even better, we saw a ton of cool combos.  In addition to the ones I showed, the player who beat me had Jalum Tome, which made extra value with their Containment Construct.  Wacky drafting continues to be my favorite draft format!