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Drafting With Olivier – M11 #4

Wednesday, September 8th – Follow Hall of Famer Olivier Ruel, pick by pick, as he drafts a deck that he calls “close to being the strongest deck I’ve had in the format.”

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There are a lot of possible picks here: Squadron Hawk Deathmark Awakener Druid and Mana Leak are all good options depending on your personal preferences. As much as I can I just try to avoid going Green – it’s not unplayable but it is still pretty bad. Blue is the color I’ve had the best results with by far so I’d rather go with it and pick the Leak.

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The more removal you can play the better the Ophidian gets. With the three first picks I have there are pretty good chance it gets excellent.

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I usually like Strongbox in control decks but Combust is excellent in a format in which six players a table usually play Blue or White.

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No idea what that Squadron Hawk is doing here – but I could play the Tunneler so I won’t counterdraft here.

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There are three options here: Ingenuity Doom Blade and Cloud Elemental. When I play Blue control decks (usually U/B or U/R) I like using the scry cards as fixers to splash removal from a third color. Here the Doom Blade could be an option – but with no scry cards and two other pretty good cards I’ll pass it for now. Then my deck probably won’t be very aggro and Cloud Elemental wouldn’t shine in it as it would in a U/W deck. If I was indeed U/W I’d go with the 2/3 – but in a control deck I’d rather pick the card drawer.

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Another illustration of what I said about the last pick. Cloud Elemental would be excellent in some matchups but it’s not that good in even more matchups – and I shouldn’t have much trouble splashing the Pacifism. Also I had many playables after Pack One so it wouldn’t be too annoying if it was to remain in my sideboard.

However I’m not saying Pacifism is necessarily the right pick here. It mostly depends on the orientation you want to give the draft. With so many removal spells you could try and go super-aggro in which case Cloud Elemental would be pretty good. It’s just that with many card drawers (Ingenuity two Scroll Thieves and the strong possibility of getting more) I want to build a control deck in order to make better use of my card advantage.

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If I didn’t already have an Ice Cage I’d pick it. While the card may be excellent I don’t really like having two in the same deck.

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I’m not sure about this one. I do like Augury Owl a lot and it would make my chance to have Scroll Thief on turn 3 higher but if I get a third Thief Sleep will be pretty good as well.

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No matter how good Adept would be my deck shouldn’t lose to any non-super-fast deck. And against those there is no better card than Pyroclasm. (Also the card is excellent with Scroll Thief.)

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Bang!

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The Elixir could be playable but Terramorphic Expanse makes the Pacifism splash possible.

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This is now close to being the strongest deck I’ve had in the format.

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1 Augury Owl
1 Azure Drake
1 Cancel
1 Foresee
1 Harbor Serpent
1 Ice Cage
1 Jace’s Ingenuity
2 Mana Leak
4 Scroll Thief
1 Sleep
1 Stormtide Leviathan
1 Unsummon

2 Chandra’s Outrage
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Pyroclasm
1 Volcanic Strength

1 Pacifism

1 Gargoyle Sentinel

1 Plains
7 Mountain
9 Island
1 Terramorphic Expanse

Sideboard:
1 Silvercoat Lion
1 Disentomb
1 Lava Axe
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Mind Rot
1 Swamp
1 Combust
1 Vulshok Berserker
1 Swamp
1 Maritime Guard
1 Bloodcrazed Goblin
1 Swamp
1 Back to Nature
2 Goblin Tunneler
1 Elixir of Immortality
2 Canyon Minotaur
1 Pyretic Ritual
1 Demolish
1 Fiery Hellhound

Round 1 vs. U/W
Scroll Thief removal bounce Scroll Thief Pyroclasm. 1-0

Stormfront Pegasus? Augury Owl. Another one? Scroll Thief. Removal counter removal Foresee Scroll Thief bounce removal. 2-0

Round 2 vs. U/B
In theory this is the archetype I want to face the least as it could both have answers to my Thieves and card drawing to counterbalance my card advantage. However the first game goes pretty much like the previous two. By the time he deals with my 1/3 I have already drawn two cards with it and cast Foresee. He tries to play his own Foresee but I play Mana Leak and my early card advantage gives me full control of the tempo.

Usually you have either tempo or card advantage – but Scroll Thief keeps the opponent from attacking making it a very rare type of card.

In game two I don’t have an early Scroll Thief for the first time. However things turn out pretty good as he doesn’t play any two-for-one cards like Liliana’s Specter Mind Rot Gravedigger or Foresee – so once again I just deal with the problems one by one until turn 7 when I play Harbor Serpent. He assassinates it one turn later but he doesn’t have removal left when I cast Scroll Thief forcing him to keep his two guys back on defense. I’m holding Sleep but I’d rather wait for a second Thief to make sure the card will be lethal. Two turns later I get what I wanted and my Sleep gives me four cards from which I get Stormtide Leviathan for the win.

Round 3 vs. R/G
In this match none of my Scroll Thieves dealt a single point of damage. However they still helped a lot in winning both games. Indeed in the first game the two I played were killed instantly – leaving my opponent with no removal when I cast Stormtide Leviathan. In the second game it forced him to hold two creatures back on defense for the whole game allowing me to finish the game on twenty when I didn’t even have a strong defense. In the end only Azure Drake and Augury Owl would attack and I finished my opponent with a Chandra’s Outrage on Cudgel Troll.