My first Roto cube draft!

I recently did a roto cube (I'm assuming anyone reading this knows what that is but here is a link if you don't know) and kept fairly detailed notes as I drafted each card.  I went a healthy 6-3 (with one of my matches being a huge punt on my part) which, pending some other match results, gives me a very good shot at making the top 8 showdown.

update: I lost in the quarterfinals to essentially the mirror match, except my opponent had a few glue cards (Badgermole, Springheart Nantuko, and Sylvan Safekeeper) that gave his deck the edge against mine.  Ah well.  If I'm not going to win I have to admit that it was nice to see the archtype I was championing taking it down in my stead.

For reference, here is a link to the draft.  I was seated in the #4 spot.

Picks 1 - 3:  Strip Mine, Titania, Icetill Explorer

I started the draft specifically wanting to go for a mono-G lands deck.  And, as luck would have it, I was at pick #4 with the drafters in front of me going in different directions (ragavan, phelia, chrome mox which implies not-green), so I took the Strip Mine and hoped for the best.

I fell asleep and woke up to see exactly one other G drafter, Thor, two seats down from me.  He had taken Badgermole Cub - a card i've neither played with nor against before - and Springheart Nantuko, a landfall payoff.

Hm.  Mild cause for concern, but the two cards I had originally wanted to build my deck around were still there, so I went for them.  I took Titania - a five-drop - for my second pick, with one intention:  to declare "I'm drafting lands.dec, and if you're also drafting lands, we are going to fight for it".  I grabbed Icetill on the wheel to lock the message in.

And, I guess the threat worked?  Thor took Adeline next, a card that costs 1WW, with his third pick, which made me feel pretty good about sticking to my guns there.  From there, Thor moved into Selesnya but leaning heavier white, giving me a wide open mono-G lane, at least for the first 15 or so picks.

Picks 4-5: Lotus Cobra, Wrenn and Six

Thankfully, the three people on my left were shaping up to be monoR, monoW, and monoB in succession, so for the most part I was able to plan around wheeling pairs of cards.  With no one else taking any green cards at all, I basically had my pick of the litter.

So with those two picks, I chose two cards that continued leaning heavily into the Lands deck, trying to be as transparent as possible about my intent, have unique effects that I intend to abuse that aren't replaceable, and are cheap to cast.

Picks 6-9: Wooded Foothills x2, Verdant Catacombs, Stomping Ground

Round six started a fetch land fire sale, and they were going fast.  Given that my first four spells were all taken with the intention of breaking fetchlands, I knew I had to prioritize them.  But I also was the only heavily green drafter, which let me wait a round or two after many other drafters, while still snagging three of them and a stomping ground to fix my mana for Wrenn and Six. 

Of note:  LastAbzan (seat 2, two to my left) took a suite of Bant fetch/shocklands, signifying intent to, at the very least, splash green.  Thor (seat 6, two to my right) took a Noble Hierarch and 2x Windswept Heath, putting him squarely in Selesnya in what seemed to be building towards something aggressive / go-wide.

Picks 10-11: Malevolent Rumble, Six

Another round with no one else drafting green cards 🎄 Both cards are generically good and help in a lot of different ways - the rumble ramps / helps find something situationally useful / mills three cards; Six can block, get lands back, mill cards, and can break the game open if it goes long.  Plus, they're both easily splashable, which means those are the cards I want to get out of the pool immediately.

Picks 12-13: Primal Might, Exploration

I wanted to lock up at least one piece of interaction, so I once again went for the one that's most splashable so as to continue dissuading other people from dipping into the pool.  I think Primal Might is one of the most important cards for green in the cube and it was on my "must have" list, so I wanted to grab it early.

Ditto exploration.  Not that it's necessarily important, but it's a 1-drop that strongly bolsters what my deck is trying to do, and there aren't any cards for 1 mana that do anything like it, so I wanted to make absolutely sure I got it.  There are a lot of other 1-mana G one drops that are good, but for the purposes of my deck, they're all pretty much the same, so I didn't feel the need to worry about the mana dorks.  I figured I could wait on them until there was a push.

Pick 14-15  Birds of Paradise, Utopia Sprawl

... and then Thor picked Brightglass Gearhulk, and that signified "get your one drops now".  One of the primary reasons I specifically took Birds here was that I was pretty sure Last Abzan was at least considering taking it and leaning heavier green, so I wanted to cut that off.  He took Esika's Chariot - an acceptable loss - so at the very least there may be cause to be concerned.

With Birds secure, I took Utopia Sprawl, which I actually think is the best one drop ramp.  It doesn't have summoning sickness and it can't be shocked, which are both great.  Plus, I have the only card that really wrecks it (Strip Mine) which makes it far more safe to play.

Thor followed up with Llanowar Elves which once again made me feel like my hunch was right.  Assuming no one else does anything crazy, there's still Elvish Mystic/Ignoble Hierarch/Deathrite Shaman in the pool, and I only really feel like I need at most one more one drop.  I don't want the deck to fold to enemy hands with lots of removal, which is why I lean towards Exploration and Utopia Sprawl as preferred ways to ramp early on.

Picks 16-17: Ignoble Hierarch, Overlord of the Mistwoods

With Thor wheeling Llanowar/Mystic as expected, I took Ignoble Hierarch pick 16, locking up a third card that costs G that can produce R mana, thus increasing the odds of turn 1 land, turn 2 w6 > strip.  I was still worried about Thor's Brightglass Gearhulk pick, so wanted to make sure I got all of the 1-drops I truly needed.  There's still Deathrite Shaman which is fine, but not necessary.

With my 1-drops squared away, I decided to move on to cards that I want to make sure make it into my deck, even if I'm fairly confident that no one else is taking them.  My main priorities are cards that:

- ramp my mana

- are threats in and of themselves

- have a low floor, but high ceiling

- bonus points if they're flexible mana-wise

Overlord of the Hauntwoods is basically the premier card in this category.  It's great on turn 2 for three mana, or on turn 3 for five mana, both of which are very much possible with this deck.

Packs 18-19  Lumbering Worldwagon, Green Sun's Zenith

I took Lumbering Worldwagon next, which was almost definitely a reach.  But it's a card that I really want to put in my deck, so I decided to get it out of the way now just in case LastAbzan was eyeing it  (he took Esika's Chariot and has three colors of lands, so it's not entirely out of the question).  I personally think LW is insanely underrated - it's a ramp that can also swing for 10, with inherent protection against sorcery speed removal and sweepers.

I then took Green Sun's Zenith for similar reasons - as Thor has a Badgermole Cub with Springheart and a lot of mana ramps, I can see a world where he prioritizes a redundant copy of cub, so I wanted to get ahead of that.  GSZ is a very flexible card in a deck with a lot of utility green creatures, which my deck certainly is.  

Picks 20 and 21:  Inscription of Abundance, Grist

I was actually planning on taking the Deathrite this round but Rich grabbed it from me exactly one pick before I could.  Oh well, not the biggest deal - I mainly wanted it as a maindeckable grave hate card more than as a mana rock.  I have 4 good one-drops already so I'll be ok.  From here, most cards that I want are cards that I strongly suspect will go uncontested, so I'm mainly prioritizing cards that I want in my deck.

Pick 20 I took Inscription of Abundance - at the end of the day, I think it's a really good card for the deck.  A combat trick / removal spell / lifegain all in one card, that can be a 2- or 5- drop depending on the situation is perfect.

After that I followed it up with Grist.  While I don't technically have a land to cast it with yet, there aren't any Golgari drafters so I feel fairly confident I can grab an Overgrown Tomb later.  Color requirements aside, Grist is another really good removal spell that fits what the deck is trying to do:  it's a great 3-drop to cast on turn 2, it can be tutored for with GSZ, and can be retrace'd with Six in a game that goes long.

Picks 22 and 23:  Voracious Hydra and Nissa Who Shakes

Somehow, despite a 12-hour layover in between picks and lots of looks over the draft, I did not realize that Thor had taken Rofellos.  I went to pick Rofellos and got a big red error box, which made me look back and realize what I had missed.  Which, uh - was all of:

-surprising, in that Thor's deck has a lot of white 1-drops, cards that cost WW, and nothing that costs more than three mana in his deck.

-disappointing, in that that was a card that I was absolutely counting on floating through until the later rounds

-alarming, in that: was it a hate draft (unlikely) or a signal that Thor is planning on taking cards worth ramping into (more likely, at least imo)?

So, on the fly, with that new information, I decided that it's time to start taking cards to ramp into, knowing that I might be racing Thor to get the ones I want.

I started with Voracious Hydra (aka "Green Pyrogoyf"), a card that I think is criminally underrated (alongside Prmal Might and Inscription of Abundance).  There are only so many options that I have for interaction, so I decided to prioritize this first.

I then followed up with Nissa, Who Shakes the Earth.  This was another card that I figured I could float until later rounds, but with Thor having taken Rofellos, I wanted to make sure I had at least one card that rewards a mono-green mana base.  I think this card is an absolute beating - the whole goal of my deck is to outspend the opponent on mana, and this card basically doubles my output while also putting threats on the board.

Picks 24 and 25:  The Great Henge and Nissa, Ascended Animist

The Great Henge is actually a card that was off my radar for a long time - original builds of the deck had Escape to the Wilds in it.  But then when I saw TGH and thought about it, I realized that:

- the deck is really good at making TGH cost 2 or 3 mana

- if I get Nexus of Becoming (next target) I can cheat it into play

- it's a card that (a) is hard to deal with and (b) is really hard to beat if they don't deal with it

-it's a lifegain card, something I want as much of incidentally as possible to have a chance against Watdajel's mono-red deck  (which I personally think is the favorite to win it all at the moment)

I think took the other Nissa because all three of its modes are really good in my deck.  It's a source of creatures every turn that lives through a wrath, it's a disenchant effect (which is worth a lot since Bosejiu and Pest Infestation have been taken), and, most relevantly, it's basically a Craterhoof Behemoth if you cast it for seven mana.

Picks 26 and 27:  Primeval Titan and Nexus of Becoming

Well, my deck has Wrenn & Six and Six, might as well add two more 6-drops, right?

These two cards were both taken because they have a lot of synergy with the rest of the deck - Primetime can fetch out Strip/Field which is huge, and Nexus allowing me to put a creatre from my hand into play every turn is busted.  They both cost six, which isn't great normally, but my deck to this point has been set up to facilitate casting them even in the face of heavy creature removal from the opponent.

Picks 28 and 29:  Field of the Dead and Overgrown Tomb

Now that I for sure have Primetime, the next step was to get Field of the Dead.  My deck is mono-G with a single Gruul card (w6) and a single Golgari card (Grist), and with the exception of LastAbzan (who has moved into Naya and took Commercial District last round) I feel like I should have my pick of the litter when it comes to finding Jund lands that can up my unique land count without hurting me too much.

I then took Overgrown Tomb mainly as a precautionary measure - I was originally going to float it through for a few more rounds, but I do have Grist already which I need to make sure I can cast, and I'm worried that Golgari has been so untouched that one of the black players might choose to dip into it.

Picks 30 and 31:  Underground Mortuary and Esper Origins

With LastAbzan taking Commercial District, I wanted to make sure I had at least one on-color surveil land, so I decided to prioritize Underground Mortuary this round.  This, along with Grist and Overgrown Tomb in my deck, were the only attempts at this point to take Golgari cards, so I also wanted to stake my claim.

Humorously, in the time leading into this draft, MTG Arena brought back Final Fantasy drafts, so I decided to run one of those.  My deck was extremely mid  (UG towns ramp lol, I am who I am), but the main thing I remember was losing to someone with two copies of Esper Origins who thoroughly stomped me with them.

Obviously, cube is different from normal limited, but those games did help me realize how many little things it does: gain 4, surveil 4, draw 1, add GG, overrun while providing a nice body that very much deters attacks.   Plus, there was a nice confluence of factors that made me decide to prioritize EO here - the main thing being that the (Nissa Nissa Nexus Henge Primetime) block of picks made my mana curve jump exponentially, and I wanted another (a) cheap spell and (b) way to smooth out my draws.

My other main concern at this point was that both LastAbzan and Thor were starting to focus heavily on green cards, and stuff that I was targetting was starting to get snapped up.  Given that, I wanted to make sure I had all the cards I was planning on maindecking ready to go.  With that pick, I had my maindeck (outside of a few lands) basically locked in, allowing me to start focusing on sideboard cards (and filling out the last few lands I needed for the FotD package)

Picks 32 and 33: Shifting Woodland and Tear Asunder

I think Shifting Woodland is a sneaky good card in my deck?  Because (a) it should always come in untapped, (b) I actually have a pretty wide spread of card types in my maindeck and think I can get delirium fairly quickly, (c) if Six is dead, I can turn the Woodland into it and then cast pretty much whatever I need, and (d) I want as many viable one-of lands as I can get in order to enable FotD without punishing my mana base.

Finally, I took my first sideboard card:  Tear Asunder.  While there are enough matchups where it's bad to make me not maindeck it, there are a few matchups where I think I will be extremely useful.  Basically the intent is to treat it like disenchant, and if it manages to take down a creature or planeswalker, that's a-ok too.

Picks 34 and 35: Endurance and Skysovreign, Consul Airship

And with that, I began to enact The Plan™.  Of the decks in my pod, I would point to Watdejel's mono-R burn deck as the scariest opponent - they basically had their pick of the litter for aggressive red cards throughout the entire draft, which made me painfully aware of how expensive my top end is.

At first, I wanted to approach this matchup with big lifegain creatures like Vaultborn Tyrant and Wurmcoil Engine.  While this sounded good in my head in theory, there was concern that the answer to getting run over isn't "different 6- and 7- drops", especially given that they have Screaming Nemesis.

So instead, I went with plan B - take out the top end, replace those cards with creatures with big asses  (4+ toughness) that skew well against aggressive decks.

While Endurance is probably the least anti-red card in The Plan, a 3/4 with flash is nothing to sneeze at.  But, more importantly, at that point I had no graveyard hate, and there appear to be multiple decks in the pod that can abuse the graveyard as a resource.  I main took Endurance first because it was the card I was most worried about another green drafter taking.

Meanwhile, I looove Skysovereign.  I don't think I can maindeck it since it's not very good against control decks, but there are a few decks in the pod that are very reliant on small creatures and this gives green a way to start killing them while also providing a huge body to block or a fast clock to race.

Picks 36 and 37:  Polukronos (Unchained + World Eater)

Continuing with The Plan™, I took two large creatures (5/5 and 6/6 for 4 respectively), both of which serve as backup pieces of removal.  I think that the 5- and 6- drops in the maindeck are better against the field, but against fast decks specifically I think it makes sense to replace the Nissas with the Polukronoses since they're cheaper and have a more immediate impact on the board.

There's a nonzero chance I maindeck Unchained if I can find room for it?  It's a giant body that can stall the board against aggressive decks, but it's also a threat that I can recur from the graveyard / bin naturally with Origins/Rumble/Six/Icetill.  Hmm.

Picks 38 and 39:  Scavenging Ooze and Migloz, Maze Crusher

I then took two more cards that (a) can target specific decks as hate pieces, and (b) can help stall out the board against an aggressive start.  Against Lurrus/Reanimator/Chtlotian nightmare I will likely find room for the Ooze, and against the Sacrifice/Artifact/Equipment decks I have the option to bring in Migloz with Tear Asunder as a piece of interaction.

Picks 40 and 41: Bristly Bill and Scythecat Cub

If I'm being honest, the main reason I took these two cards is that they're so obviously good in an aggressive landfall strategy, I want the option to bring them in if I switch to a more attack-focused build after sideboarding.  I don't exactly have a plan for them yet, but unlike the last four cards I was targetting I thought there was a strong chance Thor would take them next round if I didn't grab them soon, so I did.

Picks 42 - 45:  Sazh's Chocobo, Sandman Shifting Scoundrel, Wight of the Reliquary, Golos

Haaah I might have had a lucky break.  Pun intended, as this final round of cards seemed to take forever to finally end.

While I was waiting for our draft to finish up, I played a scrim with Aspi and learned a few things in the process of mostly getting smoked:

- Exploration is bad, if you draw it in a hand without land in it is it trash

- the man lands are awful, coming in to play tapped sucks

- you can't play a large clump of 5- and 6- drops, even with ramps - if you draw them all, you're sunk

Meanwhile, I had already picked up the Bill/Cat package last round, so why not?  I decided to pivot the deck away from "monoG ramp" and more into "Gbr landfall", drastically dropping the mana curve of this deck and giving it, a far better shot against aggressive decks while not giving up too much against slower ones.

...

At the end of the day, this was what the final deck looked like:

...

I ended up with a respectable 6-3 record.  I stacked up very well against the control decks (which I was expecting), and got whooped around by the mono-red deck (which I was also expecting).  The one thing that caught me off-guard was that I lost to both Selesnya decks - huh.

So what have we learned?

Cards That Were Better Than I Expected:

- Shifting Woodland - this card was insane, oftentimes turning into a late-game Overlord or Primeval Titan that's immune to sorcery-speed removal.  The deck has a wide spread of card types (I took almost every green non-creature spell in the cube) and a lot of self-mill, making delirium easy to get.

- Primeval Titan / Field of the Dead - I found myself getting an active Field of the Dead to be trivially easy in this deck, and it was often the play that would put the game out of reach.  I had Wight/Titan/Green Sun's (for titan) to tutor for the field outright, and Rumble/Six/Icetill to help dig for it.

- Sandman, Shifting Scoundrel - this card had two modes:  7/7 for 3 mana with evasion, or an unkillable card that I could recur from the graveyard whenever it died (or if I milled it) that brings back a Strip or fetchland

Cards That Were Really Good (As Expected)

- Icetill Explorer - To be fair, I drafted my deck around it, so it had better have been good.  But also, it allowed for stuff like this.

- Birds of Paradise, Utopia Sprawl, Ignoble Hierarch - I do actually think that the 1-mana dorks are the most important cards for green decks.  The only reason I didn't pick them higher than I did is that there are lots of good ones that are all roughly as good as each other, so there was no real way to lose out on getting at least three of them given the relative openness of Green in my pod.

- Lumbering Worldwagon and Overlord of the Hauntwoods - if you think of their ETB/attack abilities as "draw a land and put it into play", these two cards are basically Uro that you have to jump through less hoops to attack with.  I had at least two games that went turn 1 dork, turn 2 worldwagon, turn 3 overlord > crew worldwagon, which is an absolute beating.

- Primal Might, Inscription of Abundance, Voracious Hyrda - you need interaction to compete, and all three of the fight spells are extremely good when you can develop your mana ahead of schedule.

- Grist - the fact that you can Green Sun's Zenith for this, and also use Six to recast it if it's in the graveyard (unlike my other interaction spells), made this card absolutely worth splashing.

Cards That Were Worse Than I Expected:

- Exploration - woof.  Thankfully, I discovered in my scrims how bad this card is in this deck.  There is such a world of difference between this and a mana elf, in that it does not do anything at all by itself.  I had multiple scrim games with this card in my deck where I either had 1 land + exploration or 2 land + exploration + 4 cards that cost 3+ mana, and then more where I drew it with no lands in my hand and it was a complete blank.  I think the problem is that there aren't draw-7s in this cube, and only one effect that lets you play land from the graveyard (Icetill) and that already comes with Exploration attached.

- Basically every 5+ drop other than Titania/PrimeTime -  My original build of the deck had all the fun stuff:  Nexus of Becoming, The Great Henge, both Nissas - and it suffered huge from Clunky Deck syndrome.  In a format where everyone gets to hand-craft their deck, you simply can't afford to have a hand full of cards that you can't cast.

- Malevolent Rumble and Esper Origins - I dunno, these were fine.  But they were almost always the first cards I sidebarded out in favor of more proactively threatening cards, and I can't recall any games where they were significant difference-makers.

Cards I Regretted Not Getting:

- Sylvan Safekeeper - I incorrectly assumed that no one would want this card if they didn't have Titania, and that I could get it later on in the draft.  My deck would have been a million times better with this card in it.

- Rofellos, Llanowar Emisary - another card that I incorrectly assumed I could get towards the end of the draft only, to see get poached.  If you cast this on turn 2 and get to tap it on turn 3, you will win the game.  It's really that easy.

...

So what did I learn for next time?

I am fairly happy with my navigation of the draft overall.  While I had a few cards that I wanted poached from me (notably Rofellos, Sylvan Safekeeper, and Pest Infestation), I would say that I got probably 95% of the cards that I ultimately wanted to end up with.

While I had a few really bad (with the gift of hindsight) picks, I do think that part of the reason I was able to get Sazh's Choco/Bristly/Scythecat/Sandman so late was that I had carved out landfall as "my" lane with my first five picks. 

That said, my original strategy was flawed.  In reflecting upon why, I think my biggest takeaway is that you have to judge cards by their floors, not their ceilings.   When cards like Exploration (no lands in hand) or Nexus of Becoming (sitting in hand because I don't have six mana) are bad, they are really really bad.  When you're getting run over and need a blocker and draw Esper Origins with 5 mana, you absolutely feel it.

This was a lot of fun, and I'm definitely hooked on Roto as a format.  Thanks to samp for making all of this happen!