Whoever designed and worked on #MTGUMA, I’m buying you a drink if I get the opportunity. This set is everything I’ve ever wanted from a masters set. It feels like a beautifully designed cube, where there’s so much overlap in synergy from archetype to archetype.
— Ryan Saxe (@rcsaxe) December 10, 2018
Maybe it’s a bit early to make a statement this bold, but Ultimate Masters is my favorite Limited format of all time. This may be biased because of how much I’m winning — As of writing this I’m second on the MTGO Phantom Trophy Leaderboard and have a record of 37-7 — but I’ve heard a lot of people express their love for this format.
Have I gotten lucky to run this well? Yes. But it isn’t just luck. I am approaching this format from a fundamentally different perspective than that of most Limited formats. Before I tell you how that is, can you figure it out? Take a second to mull over these decks, all of which won every match without a problem at all:
The decks above have the following in common:
-
They are red. Red has the deepest commons in this format and is the
only color with more than one common I am actively happy to first
pick. 8/9 of my trophies have been red. It’s a common color to
splash.
Every color combination is viable, but all of the red ones have really
impressed me. Fiery Temper is the best common by a reasonable margin, and
Faithless Looting, Thermo-Alchemist, Mad Prophet, Fire//Ice, and Reckless
Wurm are all highly impactful in this format. This means that until the
world calibrates towards those commons, you will get them late. This is why
I have been red so often.
-
They all have a very clear plan, and are extremely focused at
executing it.
I mentioned in
my previous article
that an important heuristic for drafting a successful deck in a masters
format is that you should be able to give your deck a descriptive name.
There’s no such thing as “Izzet” without some form of “Madness” or “Spells”
in the title in this format. Don’t try and draft an “Orzhov Goodstuff”
deck. You will be dwarfed by your opponents’ synergies. Ultimate Masters takes this to the extreme. Your deck needs to be
a smooth, oiled, killing machine. Don’t be afraid to take “worse” cards
that are better for your gameplan. In the majority of black decks in this
format, Olivia’s Dragoon plays an important role, and so I take it over
Unholy Hunger.
- Each deck is capable of winning a game out of nowhere.
This is the innovation. This is what I’m looking to do that I wasn’t aware
of until I played the set. Ultimate Masters is a lot more like
Cube than its predecessors. There’s an unbelievably large number of combos
available to draft, and you can pair them in pretty much every archetype.
Some are more in your face, like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Apprentice
Necromancer. But many are subtle, such as Wild Mongrel and Anger. The best
decks in this format have a plan, and they play in such a way that they
turn around the corner before you know it. When drafting, be on the lookout
for ways to piece your cards together. You won’t always be able to draft
instant kills, but be on the lookout for them. They aren’t that hard to
find once you start looking.
Now that you know my secrets, will you still make the same picks as me?
Pack 1, Pick 1
The Pack:
The Pick:
In my opinion, this pick is really only between two cards: Thermo-Alchemist
and Last Gasp. While Reya Dawnbringer and Wingsteed Rider are both powerful
white cards, they each only go into 50% of the white archetypes, which
makes me less happy to start off a draft with them. Sleight of Hand will be
good in any blue deck, but it’s not powerful enough to pull me into blue.
Lastly, Stingerfling Spider has an extremely high ceiling, but an
embarrassing floor. It’s a good card, but five mana is a lot for a
conditional card, and so I don’t take it so highly.
This pick really comes down to point number two. Your deck needs to enact a
gameplan very well. While Last Gasp is a fantastic removal spell, certain
versions of red decks exist where Thermo-Alchemist is one of your best
cards. Alchemist facilitates a gameplan on its own and gets even better in
multiples. Furthermore, Alchemist is playable in every single red deck,
even those not maximizing the synergies. This all adds up to a card I would
rather start my draft off with. I know that Gasp is a spectacularly
efficient removal spell, and I do take it highly.
A good way to describe where I take Gasp is just under the key common
roleplayers like Wild Mongrel and Thermo-Alchemist. I would take it above
Olivia’s Dragoon because, while that card is good and plays a role, it will
never be the best card in your deck. The same is not true of cards like
Wild Mongrel or Thermo-Alchemist.
Pack 1, Pick 2
The Picks So Far:
The Pack:
The Pick:
We can rule out All is Dust. I think All is Dust is too expensive. A wrath
for seven mana just isn’t where you want to be. While you can exploit the
card by drafting Eldrazi creatures and colorless cards, it’s not enough of
a theme to get me excited.
Wild Mongrel is the best green common, and as previously stated, can be one
of the best cards in your deck; however, Kitchen Finks is a also a green
card that I take higher than Wild Mongrel. It’s less aggressive and doesn’t
facilitate wins out of nowhere like Wild Mongrel does, but there are plenty
of ways to abuse persist in cards like Shed Weakness and Travel
Preparations. Furthermore, it is a form of card advantage and plays so well
against both the aggressive and lategame decks that i’ll be hard pressed to
take another card. And I haven’t even mentioned that the card is hybrid and
hence goes in the majority of decks!
A second Thermo-Alchemist is enticing. This little guy becomes a real
menace in multiples, and starting off your draft with two is definitely
something I am interested in doing. However, I think there’s too large of a
power level gap between Alchemist and Finks, and so I believe the correct
pick is Kitchen Finks.
Pack 1, Pick 3
The Picks So Far:
The Pack:
The Pick:
We can rule out Last Gasp solely on the prior logic that I think Wild
Mongrel is a higher pick. I’m even more certain that Mongrel is a better
pick over Gasp here because there’s already a green card in my pool.
Between the two red cards, Squee, Goblin Nabob gets the nod. There’re just
too many ways to abuse Squee in this format. Whether that’s Wild Mongrel,
Fauna Shaman, Spark Spitter, Faithless Looting, Entomb, and I could keep on
going. This card is an engine with the entire Ultimate Masters
format. While Faithless Looting is also a card that works well in tandem
with the abundance of graveyard synergies, I think Squee’s potential to
generate value and generate combos leads it to be a full league above
Faithless Looting.
Between Wild Mongrel and Squee, I think the pick is Squee. In fact, I don’t
think it’s remotely close. Keep in mind that if you have enough discard
outlets, you don’t even need to cast Squee to use him. But the fact that he
has a chump-block-forever mode is also nothing to scoff at. I see merit
behind taking Mongrel, but that’s not what I would do.
Curious about the whole draft? You can view the log
here.
This deck felt very powerful, and it took home another trophy!
