Bant Flash (cube rotisserrie) (Cube)

OK, so with COVID, we did a big rotisserie draft of the cube. It was a wild and difficult experience. I tried to force blue because I have standards, but there was obviously some real competition right away. There was one green ramp drafter who signaled hard p1p1, but this left green pretty open, and so I dipped into green quickly. I lost out on some of the best big payoffs for a control or combo deck, however, and so later in the draft I shifted into white, which was drafted lightly. I was pretty stunned to leave cards like Primeval Titan, Ugin, and Coalition Relic in my sideboard. But I liked this version best. It is cheap and pretty interactive, and there are some nice synergies. It was a lot of fun to play - passing with mana up all the time.

My results:

I lost to Greg's UB control deck. His discard really wrecked me, and his endgame was generally better than mine. His Chrome Mox fueled draws were very good - in game 3, he went T1 JVP and T3 JTMS, and I was not ready with counterspells fast enough. My G2 win involved Eternal Witness triggering on counterspells for something like 4 turns in a row, which was pretty beautiful.

I beat Peters RW aggro deck. I have lots of cheap creatures, so I don't get run over easily. I managed to deal with Jitte when it showed up, sometimes throw convoluted means (Vensering and countering, chumping with Knight of Autumn and getting it back with Eternal Witness...), and if the game went long enough, Dream Trawler could get me there - it is how I got both my wins. G3 was wild - Winds of Abandon blew him out big, but he followed up with an Experimental Frenzy. He played lots of cards, but the board was generally stable, and it looked like he might deck! A Mana Leak kept Bonfire of the Damned from doing its thing, and the Trawler got me a win.

Jordan's 4-color dredge monstrosity was...something. I beat him down game 1. Games 2 and 3 I was slowish and more reactive, and so they involved him turbo-dredging (which he really could do!) and me trying to disrupt his final LabMan turn. In game 2 I punted by letting LabMan resolve (during upkeep via Shelldock Isle) and then Venser'ing, rather than Vensering it on the stack, because he drew in response to win. In game 3 I did better, and had too many counters/bounces to let him get the win.

Anna's Gr ramp deck was scary. Game one she flooded a bit, and I was able to just swing with dorks and disrupt enough to pick her apart. Neither deck really did its thing. Game 2 we stalled out, and she generated huge mana, going over my conditional counters to land hornet queen. I dug very deep (Tireless Tracker + cloned Oracle of Mul Daya = a lot of clues) but couldn't find the wrath I needed. Game 3 we both did our thing. She turbo-ramped, but Clique snatched Craterhoof from her hand, and Day of Judgment cleared out 4 or 5 mana dorks. From there, a Compulsive Research left me with a hand of Queller/Venser/Resto/CoCo/Censor/Remand. Can't really lose from that position...