We’ve had a rapid succession of plays recently, and our seventh session is already over. Special thanks to Nick, Kyle, Noah, Miller, Joah, Tavish, and Garrett, who all gathered to play another draft. I asked each guy to write some notable cards from his deck before leaving for the night. Let’s see the standings and what the lads highlighted.
Congratulations to Nick for taking first place! Nick played a very strong Jeskai () deck with a host of removal, an exile/processor theme, and a spirits theme. Both Parallax Wave and Ulamog’s Despoiler did great work for him, but those were only the top-end of what was a deep and effective exile package. For spirits, he had cards like Like, Really Angry Spirits or Triplicate Spirits paired with lords like Drogskoll Captain or Patrician Geist. He also had the fortune of casting a turn 3 Mantis Rider four(!) times. And as a backup, he had Ruin Crab to pressure the opponent from an alternative angle. Finally, he wanted to give a shoutout to Boros Guildgate for holding his mana together, saying “I know if anyone got me, Boros Guildgate got me.”

Miller took second place with a fun RB () aggro deck. Miller has made quite an impression since joining at the beginning of season two, and he has now finished in the top three twice in a row. He just barely edge Garrett out for second place based on Opponent’s Match Win %. Miller’s deck was fairly straightforward as far as RB aggro goes, but he did have some aggressive draws that combining Hateful Deceiver (Aura Bards) with Untamed Hunger to swing for five damage on turn 3. It’s high-risk, high-reward, but most of the time, it worked out.

Garrett took third place with a fascinating UB () artifact/mill deck. After first-picking the Inevitable Primus (Kumano’s Blessing), Garrett shifted into a mill subtheme. The deck was capable of winning through artifact beatdowns or turbo mill, which made it very effective until he ran into Nick’s Jeskai tempo deck in the finals. With 40 card decks, cards like Maddening Cacophony or Fractured Sanity eat through the library quickly!

Tavish and Joah both finished 1-1-1! Joah played a GB () Value deck that he described as “The Rock.” In particular, cards Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary let him power out his threats, cards like Ulvenwald Mysteries allowed him to grind out games, and cards like Treesoul Elite (Callow Jushi in green) allowed him to pressure opponents out of games if they stumbled. Tavish played a Temur () draw/mill deck with cards like Folio of Fancies or Fevered Visions to pressure the opponent’s library with resiliency. Tavish was also the first player to cast Xyris, the Writhing Storm for its actual mana cost (instead of via Unexpected Potential.) Considering his deck, it looks fantastic if it stays on the board.

Finally, both Kyle and Noah went winless with gates decks ☹. Yes, you read that right; the first time someone decided to build a gates deck, two players build it on the same night. Kyle described his deck as Four Color Gates, whereas Noah described his as “Bad Gates Control.” It turned out that the gates payoffs were too weak to warrant the various colors and the tapped lands. Kyle gave credit to Slumbering Priestmount (Eradicate under Selesnya) and Lentic Glade (Takenuma Bleeder under green enchantments) as his best cards. Noah listed Maze’s End (even though he only had 8 gates, so he couldn’t win with it), Infinity Elemental, Ulamog’s Crusher, Mox Pearl, Azor’s Elocutors, and Genesis Hydra as his standout cards. You’ll notice that, among two gates decks, only one card that cares about gates (Maze’s End) was noteworthy.

As a result of the finishes, Nick gets four changes, Miller gets two changes, and Garrett gets one change! Remember that a change can be a one-to-one substitute of cards (e.g. Oaken Brawler becomes Helpful Pirate) or modifications to two cards in the cube without replacing them (e.g. Nick’s errata of Blighted Thoroughfare after session 5). Moreover, remember that, keeping with the theme for our season, the top three finishers also get one free change as long as the card added is a land.

Finally, just for anyone keeping stats, I wanted to include the results. Plus, this way you can verify the tie-breakers. We’ll get some changes published to you shortly. See you soon!