Intro

It’s been a long time since I’ve done well at a ProTour and finally this past weekend I reached a great result (20th place) thanks to my Limited undefeated score of 6-0. 

Today I want to show them to you and how I got there. 

My strategy leading up to the ProTour was to be open to most of the archetype, despite 17Lands data showed a very poor performance of Start your Engines Mardu decks, we found them very good in testing, and thanks to Team Worldly Counsel and our Limited Leader Eduardo Sajgalik we developed a nice pick order and strategy for them. 

Green was unanimously the best color, which also means it would be the more contested at the table, but being stubborn with it often meant great gifts in Pack2 or Pack3. 

Draft #1 

I sit down at my first pod and get blessed by opening Agonasaur Rex, a card of extreme power level that made me want to try to force Green. 

My second pick didn’t have any Green powerful cards or anything worth moving into so I second picked Willowrush Verge. I value Dual Lands very high in Green decks, it’s very common to draft 3+ color in this format and I use the same Cube approach where I like to pick lands high since there’s never shortage of playable and you might be rewarded with some late draft gifts. 

Such as my third pick Captain Howler, Sea Scourge which is great in Izzet but also a fantastic card to splash. 

Blue was flowing in First Pack and certainly wide open, whereas Red and Green didn’t seem as open. 

Pack 2 started with one of the strongest uncommons in the set: Greenbelt Guardian, but the most important pick was the next one, that gave me the final direction: Run Over > Boomobile. I could have chosen to give up on Green and Temur and focus on Izzet but instead decided to hold on to Agonasaur Rex and continued to stay on Green. 

My final deck looked fine, I wasn’t a fan of Simic as color combination, which usually lacks of interaction, although here I had plenty with Run Over and two Flood the Engine as well as up to 4 Trip Up. 

My Red splash was perfectly fixed and the two red cards I chose to play were extremely powerful. 

Ticketed Tortoise, Wreck Remover and Skybox Ferry may look like really bad cards but I was very impressed by them in testing and was very happy to play in my Green decks. 

Tortoise is great in this format. There are a lot of X/3 which the Tortoise is great at trading with. It gives you more agency on the draw which is always tough to do, and it fixes for the Red splash. 

Both Wreck Remover and Skybox Ferry have Cycle, which synergises with both Scrounging Skyray and Captain Howler, Sea Scourge. 

Round1: vs Gruul 2-1 

Round2: vs Rakdos 2-1 

Round3: vs Orzhov 2-1 

Every match was extremely close and I found myself sideboarding a bunch of cards such as up to 4 copies of Trip Up, Spell Pierce and Hulldrifter (which I don’t think is a good card in Simic and wouldn’t MainDeck). 

Every game I drew the Agonosaur Rex (three times) it won me the game since it was basically impossible to remove, and I wanted to write this because it’s important to know when to stick to your initial color because of some extremely powerful bombs you opened in P1P1. 

The Day continued not in the best way with a 2-3 in Constructed, although I was happy just making Day2 with a 5-3 score, that gives me good chances and hope to achieve the 10-6 target I had. 

Draft #2 

The caliber of players in the second Draft was much higher and I started it again with a Green 5 drop, this time it was Terrian, World Tyrant. 

I then get passed Veteran Beastrider and Basri, Tomorrow’s Champion and quickly understand what my lane is: Selesnya. 

Selesnya wasn’t a color combination I was particularly happy to draft, although getting passed these super powerful cards made me understand I was in the right spot which is more important in Draft than having the best color combination. 

White was extremely open and in the two first two packs I pick up almost 25 playable, although the power level isn’t particularly high (because White commons are very weak). As I review my deck after Pack2 I notice the overall low power level of the deck and hope to open and get passed some nice Selesnya Bombs as my neighbours were for sure not those colors in Pack1. 

And so it happens as I open the best card in the set: Sab-Sunen, Luxia Embodied and proceed getting passed Guardian Sunmare and Agonosaur Rex (yes, third pick!!!). This is an insane power level and change of direction for my deck. 

I spend Pack3 looking for all the fix I can find for Sab-Sunen but unfortunately don’t find any. I did pass many Columns and Bike in the previous packs, but Selesnya isn’t really an archetype that wants to splash, but I guess Sab-Sunen is the exception. 

Overall I’m happy with how the deck ended up and decided not to play Sab-Sunen in the Maindeck because I prefer to keep a solid strong deck vs the field and maybe sideboard to a 8-8-2 manabase against the Control decks. 

Round1: vs Gruul 2-1 

Round2: vs Esper Artifacts 2-1 (sided into Bant) 

Round3: vs Rakdos 2-0 

I managed to go 3-0 once again fighting very hard for every win. 

Against Esper Artifact I manage to steal Game3 with Sab-Sunen while my opponent missed his fifth land drop to play Syphon Grasp (-6-6 Removal) on it and got run over by it. 

Against the other two Aggro opponents I was happy to remain Selesnya without making my manabase worse curving out with my nice aggro deck with top curve bombs. 

Post Tweet 6-0 Draft.

Last time I went 6-0 in Draft was the distant 2018 when I top8 PT Rivals of Ixalan, unfortunately this time I was not able to convert to a Top8, but this good result following the two Limited Open Top8 in Las Vegas gave me a strong confidence about my skill in Draft going forward.