Introduction

This post transcribes the draft and deck building parts of LegenVD’s video MTG Arena - M20 Draft. The “I” point of view is therefore entirely from LegenVD’s point of view.

Draft

Pack 1, Pick 1

So, pack 1, pick 1, what do we have? Our rare is Bishop of Wings opened this quite a bit already. Again not the best rare, pretty difficult to make it work in draft. So we are looking at an air elemental, nice 5 mana 4/4 flyer, which is quite decent. We’ve got a pacifism as a nice efficient removal spell. Audacious thief is a nice common, but I don’t think I’ll take it over pacifism or air elemental. So I think its between Air Elemental and Pacifism. Not the biggest fan of white and draft in this set necessarily. It’s still a close decision here between Air Elemental and Pacifism. Nothing else really in the pack that stands out. Is there anything we can hope to wheel? I mean the bots don’t take brawler very highly so if we take elemental we might wheel brawler and end up in an elemental themed deck. We could wheel the Growth Cycle and end up in blue green, which is also fine. If we take the Pacifism, could maybe end up in like a black white grindy deck wheeling the skeleton. Yeah, I think I’m still taking the flyer here.

Pack 1, Pick 2

Allright, so maybe regretting our pick a little bit since the Warlord would have been a good follow up to a Pacifism. Haven’t really seen many go wide decks in draft. But this is definitely one nice build around if we can make it work and also gives us a mana sink. There’s not too mana sinks in the set, so spending 5 mana to make a token, might not seem like much. But if the board is stalled out, this is a pretty nice ability. What else do we have in this pack? Not much. This pack is pretty weak. We’ve got like a Diamond Knight which is serviceable. We’ve got a brawler again as a nice elemental card, although it does tend to wheel. Netcaster Spider is a solid green common. Vial, I only really like if we already have the Weaponsmith. The warlord doesn’t go with our air elemental at all basically. So if we take it we are basically speculating on green white being open. Which I don’t love. We could just take the diamond knight as an OK card. We could take the Lavakin Brawler to set ourselves up for elementals. I think those are the main considerations. So between a Diamond Lnight and a Lavakin Brawler… Again brawlers do tend to wheel, bots dont take them highly enough, so I kind of like the Diamond Knight here.

Pack 1, Pick 3

Allright, 3rd pick Risen Reef. I know where this draft is headed. Yeah, that’s an easy pick. Lets see what else is in this pack. Leafkin Druid would be a nice one as well. Don’t think we’ll wheel that one but this is a no brainer.

Pack 1, Pick 4

Allright 4th pick, what do we have here? I do like taking Evolving Wilds if we end up with like a Risen Reef or 2 cause we might end up in blue red splashing green for risen reef and then the fixing from Evolving Wilds is nice. Woodland Champion not at its best in blue green still serviceable if we have a few token makers. Remember that treasure tokens also count for the Woodland Champion so the 5 mana dragon will work as well. Again there is Lavakin Brawler which we might wheel or we could pick right now to set ourselves up for elementals. Smuggler plays well with the brawler. Not much in blue and green that I want to take highly. Like the Cutthroat is a fine card, but is also not gonna be at its best in the elemental style deck since we usually don’t have a pile of instances, its usually just a pile of creatures. I think its between like a brawler or evolving wilds for me here. Evolving wilds to set us up for maybe a 3 color elemental deck. Or just take the elemental that is in the pack even though again there is a chance that it wheels. I think I’ll take the Evolving Wilds.

Pack 1, Pick 5

Alright, pretty easy Embercat here. The only card in the theme or colors that we want and plays great if we end up in a heavy elemental deck. So again Risen Reef could still be splashed, that’s why we took the evolving wilds so highly. Diamond Knight might not be at its best, but we don’t have to play it, that is fine. Just take the Embercat for now

Pack 1, Pick 6

Alright, there is a few cards to consider. Gift of paradise could be additional fixing. I’m not happy about the gift of paradise necessarily, but it is kind of a necessary evil if we end up in multiple colors. Ramping from 3 to 5 can be useful in some decks. We already have a nice 5 drop in Air Elemental. We could also take Season of Growth which is also a nice build around if we end up blue green with maybe a couple of rabid bites and pump spells. Then, season of growth is also pretty decent. We are playing best of one so we don’t have to prioritize Natural End for the sideboard. I think I’ll take the season of growth for now.

Pack 1, Pick 7

Alright, that’s an easy Leafkin Druid. Brawler would also be a consideration but not over the Leafkin Druid.

Pack 1, Pick 8

And now we can take the Frost Lynx, stick to the elementals. Stick to blue. So, we are net sure yet if we gonna be blue green splashing red maybe. I mean we don’t wanna splash the Embercat, but we could maybe splash some other elementals like the Lavakin Brawler. Air elemental is double blue so it is not an easy card to splash. So blue green, splash red, or maybe without a splash is looking like the most likely right now. We’ll see where the next couple of packs lead us.

Pack 1, Pick 9

So this is the pack we wheeled. We did indeed wheel the Growth Cycle so that goes nicely with our season of growth. Overcome is also a card that is better then it looks. It was pretty bad in the set when it was originally printed. It’s a bit better here, especially if we have a creature heavy deck like the one we are trying to build here. I don’t know, I still like to have a couple of Growths with our Season of Growth if we end up in that type of deck. So I think I’ll take that for now.

Pack 1, Pick 10

I don’t think we’ll end up with a bunch of fearie miscreants at this point. Anticipate could be fine just as kind of a filler card at 2. Helps us find a Risen Reef more often.

Pack 1, Pick 11

A Wolfkin Bond plays well with the season of growth as well. Playable card. Spitter is an elemental but again I don’t think we’ll end up as red as one of our primary colors. So I don’t think the Spitter is gonna be amazing. Really want ways for the Spitter to be able to keep attacking or be relevant at the late game. And we don’t have many of those in the deck.

Pack 1, Pick 12

Alright, befuddle also has a little bit of synergy with Season of Growth if we target our own creature, just to draw an additional card. Could take the Crab as an OK blocker. Don’t have many 4 drops yet. So kind of an interesting decision. I guess we’ll take the crab.

Pack 1, Pick 13

Uncommon for the vault. I don’t think there is any chance we end up splashing. I guess if we open like a Yarok we could end up in Sultai. I’ll take the Bladebrand just in case.

Pack 1, Pick 14 and 15

(Natural End) (Bladebrand)

Pack 2, Pick 1

Heading into the next pack. Our deck is light on removal. In fact, we don’t have any removal. So we would love to pick up some Rabid Bites to go with the Season of Growth as well. Maybe some red removal we can splash. We’ve got some options here. Murder not really a card we can splash, sadly. We’ve got a Boreal Elemental as a nice 5 drop flyer that is also an elemental for the various synergies. Also something interesting to note is that we didn’t wheel any of those Lavakin Brawlers. Even though I mentioned the bots don’t take them highly. Apparently they either adjusted or we happen to be sitting next to a red drafter that took the Brawlers before us. So yes, the Boreal Elemental could be a consideration. There is some OK double green 2 and 3 drops here with Brontodon and Troll. Not the most synergistic in our deck since they are not Elementals and double green isn’t the easiest to cast but they are just individually pretty powerful cards. I think I still like the Boreal Elemental here. And then there are some cards we could wheel. Octoprophet, Brontodon, Troll would be all fine additions.

Pack 2, Pick 2

I’m looking at this other Leafkin Druid as a nice 2 drop to help us ramp, it is also an elemental. A Thornwood Falls would give us some mana fixing. And then I guess, if we splash red, Rapacious Dragon could also be a consideration. Unsummon can be playable. I think I’ll just take the Leafkin.

Pack 2, Pick 3

Allright we were talking about how our deck could use some removal. Sleep Paralysis, while not the most mana efficient or exciting removal spell, could get the job done. Feral Invocation is decent with a season of growth. So that is maybe a card we can hope to wheel. Outrage being double red is gonna be difficult to splash. So I think we’ll just take the sleep paralysis for now.

Pack 2, Pick 4

Wow, 4th pick Agent of Treachery. Especially with double Leafkin druid to help us ramp. This card is gonna be amazing, so that is an easy pick up. Would also like a Frost Lynx, a 2nd Growth Cycle would be nice. A Silverback Shaman is certainly reasonable. But yeah, we are gonna take this Agent.

Pack 2, Pick 5

A Spectral Sailor, one of the better uncommons in the set. Also nice mana sink with these Leafkin Druids providing additional mana so that is another easy pickup. So blue definitely underdrafted at this table.

Pack 2, Pick 6

Allright, got some options here as well. Scuttlemutt is not exiting but if we are trying to play big spells like Agent of Treachery, drawing cards with our Spectral Sailor, then having more mana dorks is kind of useful. There is another Diamond Knight, our deck seems to be skewed a bit heavily towards blue so the diamond knight could still be fine. Denizen could be kind of a win condition by itself, but I don’t think we need it here necessarily since we already seem to have a few nice flyers with Air Elemental and Boreal Elemental. Agent can win the game, so I don’t think we are necessarily milling the opponent. Convolute can be a nice card in some matchups. Our deck is mostly tapping out so keeping up 3 man for convolute is a pretty big cost unless we have a spectral sailor in play. If we picked up that Feral Invocation then the Convolute would also get a little bit better. Kinda like the Scuttlemutt. It is not an exciting or a flashy card but I think in our deck we just want to be able to make a ton of mana. It is just an extra creature so that Leafkin Druid can make double green faster. It also fixes for red mana if we still wanna splash red somehow.

Pack 2, Pick 7

Portal of Sanctuary, this is a pretty slow card. But in some matchups this is very difficult to beat. Especially if we have some nice enter the battlefield abilities. Works great with Agent of Treachery if we have the time to wait until we can play Agent for a total of 8 mana and then bounce it back with a portal. It is almost impossible to beat unless the opponent has instant speed removal or a counterspell. So that is a great combination. Works great with Risen Reef, Frost Lynx. Got some other combos with it. So I don’t hate the portal. Anything else? I mean the Octoprophet would be fine to, we don’t have many 4 drops. And Octoprophet would fit in quite nicely. Although there is a chance we wheel one out of the first few packs we saw in this second pack here. So I think I’ll take the portal and then hope to pick an Octoprophet later.

Pack 2, Pick 8

Allright could take another Scuttlemutt, another Anticipate. Not much too exciting here. The moats can be OK in some matchups. Pretty bad if we are playing against a flyer heavy deck and we already seem to have a decent number of 2 drops. So I don’t think we’ll play the Embercat (already in the deck). But we do have double Leafkin, Season of Growth, Anticipate that we can play early. Usually dont play the growth cycle on turn 2, but still a cheap card we can play. I think I just like the Scuttlemutt here. And now we can also keep our eyes on maybe another expensive card like another 7 drop. There is a giant (Howling Giant) at 7 mana which would be quite strong in our deck. Since thats also great with the portal to pick it back up and make more wolf tokens. So that is also a card that I wouldn’t mind picking up.

Pack 2, Pick 9

Now the Octoprophet did wheel, that’s nice.

Pack 2, Pick 10

I’ll take another Wolfkin Bond to go with our season of growth. Could also consider the Rapacious Dragon. Since we do have double Scuttlemutts, we do have evolving wilds so playing like a turn 4 or turn 5 Rapacious Dragon and then ramp into Agent of Treachery could be nice. I doubt I’m gonna play a 2nd Wolfkin Bond anyway. So I think I’ll keep the options open for a red splash here.

Pack 2, Pick 11

Nothing here that we really want. (Salvager of Ruin)

Pack 2, Pick 12

Allright, not against another Octoprophet here again. Don’t have many 4 drops yet. Could also consider the Sea Serpent since we do have quite a bit of ramp with double Leafkin Druid, double Scuttlemutt. So just having like a random 6 mana curve topper could be decent. Kind of hoping we can just pick up another expensive card in the next pack at some point and I think Octoprophet fits our curve nicely, so we’ll take the prophet.

Pack 2, Pick 13, 14 and 15

Convolute wheeled, might play that one. (Convolute) Probably not playing a denizen, but you never know. (Sage’s Row Denizen) (Swamp)

Pack 3, Pick 1

Last pack. Our rare is Lotus Field, don’t think this does much for us. So not exactly what we were hoping for. But another Boreal Elemental is nice. We could also splash this Reduce to Ashes since again we do have quite a bit of mana fixing with double Scuttlemutt and an Evolving Wilds, we wouldn’t need a ton of mountains to make that splash possible. So, it is probably between the Elemental and the Reduce to Ashes. So this one is pretty close. Our deck is pretty removal light. Just have the Sleep Paralysis and I guess Agent can steel something but that is about it. Boreal elemeantl has some build in synergie with Risen Reef which is nice. So I would definitely like both cards. If we don’t take the Reduce then we’re hoping to just get a Rabid Bite in this pack at some point or another reduce we can splash. I guess, like, Pacisfism could also be a splashable removal spell. Since we are not comited to the red splash we could splash any 3rd color so we could also consider pacifism over reduce. And just splash white instead of red. We are not gonna get many elemental synergies in white, but if we are just splashing for removal spell then I guess pacifism could just be better then reduce. Even if we don’t play the Rapacious dragon. I think I’ll just take the Elemental for now.

Pack 3, Pick 2

Pretty straightforward Cloudkin Seer. Let me double check. Flood of Tears isn’t particularly amazing in draft. Another Season of Growth but we didn’t end up with a ton of pump spells. Cloudkin Seer is just great, its an elemental, it draws a card, its a flyer. Probably a candidate for one of the best commons in the set.

Pack 3, Pick 3

Probably gonna take the rabid bite now. removal in our primary colors.. Another Frost Lynx would be nice, Reduce on the splash would be nice if we didn’t have the Rabid Bite. Pulse is playable, but we’ll just take the rabid bite. Also plays great with our Season of Growth.

Pack 3, Pick 4

This is an interesting pack. Lets take a look. We could use a 2nd Growth Cycle. There is a Highlands which would again further make it easier to splash red although we don’t have a great reason to splash red at the moment. And Stormkin on the splash also isn’t too exiting. So this is between the Growth Cycle and the land. If we take the land we are basically hoping to pick up a late Reduce to Ashes or some other elemental like maybe a Lavakin Brawler that we could consider splashing. Otherwise we could take just take the 2nd Growth Cycle and then double Growth Cycle with a Season of Growth is pretty nice and that gives us another way to break a board stall. Kind of don’t mind the Growth Cycle.

Pack 3, Pick 5

Another Rabid Bite. I think we would take that over Sleep Paralysis. We don’t have a ton of giant creatures to fight with. So that is one potential concern with Rabid Bite. We don’t have a scorpion with deathtouch for example. The thicket Crasher would also be a nice 4 drop although it does play a lot better if we would have a bunch of Lavakin Brawlers to give trample to. The trample is not to relevant in our deck. But yeah, we’ll take the Rabid Bite over Paralysis. Would love to pick up a late scorpion to go with these 2 Rabid Bites.

Pack 3, Pick 6

Still a ton of options here. Netcaster to give us a bit of game against flying creatures. A 3rd Octoprophet to smooth out our draws. Or the Feral Invocation as kind of another combat trick, pumpspell type effect. So lets take another look at our entire deck. I don’t think I’ll play the Denizen. Diamond Knight looks reasonable. Convolute is cuttable. Probably not playing the Rapacious Dragon at this point. Not sure about the Fortress Crab. So yeah, the cards we are most likely to cut here are Anticipate, Diamond Knight, Convolute, maybe one Scuttlmutt, Fortress Crab and maybe the Wolfkin Bond. So these are kind of the maybees, everything else I’m pretty happy with. So let us say we cut all these 5 cards, that leaves us 21 cards if we don’t count the land. So we need about 2 or 3 more playables. Netcaster slots in the 3 drops nicely but we do already have quite a few flyers ourselves with double Boreal Elemental, Air Elemental, Cloudkin Seer. So looks like we are not too worried about opposing flyers. Octoprohet would give us anther nice 4 drop, which we are definitely lacking. And now that we have double growth cycle I don’t think feral invocation is that important. If we had a second Season of Growth, then I would value the Feral Invocation a bit higher (Why?). I think I would just take another Octoprophet to be honest.

Pack 3, Pick 7

We have a few options here. Thornwood Falls would improve our mana. Since we don’t have any 1 drops, we can just play the land on turn 1. The tracker gives us a mana sink, although we already have a Spectral Sailor. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to have more mana sinks in the grindier matchups where there is a board stall and you just want to get ahead on cards. Otherwise there is a Pulse of Murasa which can buy back some of our better creatures like the Risen Reef and Agent of Treachery and some of our flyers. So there is 3 different reasonable options available. We do have quite a few mana producers with double Leafkin, double Scuttlemut so having these mana sinks is nice. If we play this (Pulse of Murasa) late, it allows us to spend a ton of mana getting back a creature, replaying that creature. So it is a quite mana hungry card and it allows us to get back our powerful creatures, but the tracker helps us find the powerful creatures in the first place. So I think, I like tracker over pulse and since we are not splashing a 3rd color, Falls is not as important as it would be normally.

Pack 3, Pick 8

We can pick up a 3rd Growth Cycle, they do get better in multiples. Yeah, I don’t mind it.

Pack 3, Pick 9

Maybe a Loaming Shaman, not gonna need Gift (of Paradise) or Natural End since we are playing best of one. I doubt we’ll be playing Loaming Shaman, but at the very least, it is an uncommon for the vault.

Pack 3, Pick 10

Wow, 2nd Season of Growth. So now tripple Growth Cycle, double Rabid Bite is looking a lot more appealing as well, giving us a nice card draw engine. I think I like it over the 2nd Tracker since we now have a Tracker and Spectral Sailor as mana sinks. A 4th Growth Cycle could also be nice but I think we would rather have 3 Growth Cycles and 2 Seasons instead of 1 Season, 4 Growth Cycles.

Pack 3, Pick 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15

(Faerie Miscreant) (Faerie Miscreant) Not gonna play the moats anyway. (Anticipate) (Sage’s Row Denizen) (Soulmender)

Deck Building

We ended up with a pretty sweet blue green Season of Growth elemental ramp deck here. So lets makes those cuts we were making earlier. Don’t need Loaming Shaman. Diamond Knight is kind of a card that I could take or leave. Same with Convolute. Don’t need the Crab now that we have tripple Octoprophets. And I guess Wolfkin Bond is OK now with double Season. So I think I’ll cut the Diamond Knight and I’ll cut the Convolute. Do we still need Portal of Sanctuary? That is maybe also cuttable now that we have double Season of Growth as kind of card draw engines to provide value in a longer game. Lets take a look. How many creatures with a nice enter the battlefield ability do we have? Agent of course is the best one, Cloudkin Seer draws a card so that is nice, Frost Lynx can tap something down so that’s useful, Risen Reef is also great. So we need to make 3 more cuts I think, this is probably a 17 land deck. We do have some expensive cards we want to play like Agent and we have some mana sinks like Tracker and Sailor. But we also have a lot of mana dorks with double Leafkin Druid, double Scuttlemutt. So don’t think we need more then 17 lands. Plus we have a ton of card selection with Octoprophet letting us scry, season letting us scry. So we can just bottom lands anyway, we also don’t want less then 17 lands. So ye, 3 more cuts. Could get behind cutting a portal, could get behind shaving a Scuttlemutt, could shave the Wolkin Bond. Maybe the 3rd growth cycle is not needed but with double Season this seems nice. Its just that we are a bit creature light. So if we end up with a hand that has like all pump spells and no creatures that’s awkward as well. Could also shave an Octoprophet. I think our deck has enough late game, that its not gonna need the portal since we have spectral sailor, tracker, double season. All as kind of card draw engines and a portal kind of falls in the same category as kind of a late game grindy card that provides a bit of advantage. So I think we can cut the portal from this deck. If we didn’t have double Season or Sailor or Tracker then I could see playing the Sancturary as it just plays well with Agent and some of these other enter the battlefield abilities. But it is pretty expensive to replay all those creatures. It kind of sets you back, when we want to be emptying our hands from all those extra cards we have drawn from Season and Sailor. Then Wolfkin Bond is cuttable I think, Growth Cycle might just be better. Then we could shave a Scuttlemutt pretty easily as well. I think this will be our final build. Looking at the mana distribution. I think I still like the Evolving Wilds even if we are not splashing a 3rd color, just as an enters the battlefield tapland. It is a little bad if we end up scrying a ton of lands to the bottom with Season of Growth and Octoprophet; and then shuffle our deck with Evolving Wilds. So there is a bit of drawback as opposed to the normal dual lands that enter the battlefield tapped but just having that early mana fixing on turn 2 can be quite useful because we need the green early for Leafkin Druids and most of our spells are blue. We have some double blue as well, but we also need double green in some of the late turns if we want to double spell growth cycle plus rabid bite. So this seems OK, I think we are good to go!

Games

For the games played with this deck, they start here: Start of the game.