Trophy Gruul Mid

Starting off with a very mid Gruul midrange deck. Not much to say here. There's a minor lands theme with Strip, Titania, and Icetill and otherwise, we're basically just beating down.

Slamming a couple haymakers into a deck has historically been a winning strategy, but I think the secret might be out. We got a Bomba, Scarlett, and an Ouroboroid, but outside of that, where's the beef?

New card Vastlands Scavenger provided some. I'm still not quite sure what to make of this fuzzy fella - not amazing, but serviceable? The body really rumbles, though I don't know if I ever popped off the spell.

Trophy Esper Lurrus

A nice assertive Esper Lurrus deck.

A lot of great threats - Ajani, Ocelot Pride, Bowmasters - and some disruption to back them up. Without any actual draw, we were leaning hard on the cat mom for card advantage, though I'll give a nod to Wan Shi Tong here - it's fantastic in a Lurrus deck.

I don't know if I've ever actually cast Soul Cauldron before; it was really handy just to pump up our little guys!

Trophy Azorius Tempo

I've sung the praises of Esper tempo decks in the past; turns out they're just as good without the black.

This a nice clean blue/white deck. As is often the case, Little Teferi was the pull into the deck, though I'll say Makdee and Itla are no slouches. Boy, sucks there's no paper verison of that card!

Newcomer Skycoach Conductor was pretty solid. Somewhat interchangeable with the other blue flash threats, but solid. The stats are really good and getting to cash in the blink later lends it more flexibility than a traditional Resto Angel.

Trophy Bant Timewalk

A textbook Timewalk deck. We're stuffed on three-drops, but that's kind of balanced out by having too many mana dorks. Otherwise, pretty standard stuff - Timewalk and anything we could find to rebuy it.

Another new card in Emeritus of Abundance. Great to rebuy Timewalk here, but I've been liking it in any green deck. The regrowth is always handy and you've got some flexibility to save it or immediately double spell. The body's big enough to tussle in combat too, unlike Eternal Witness. Personally, I think this is the best Emeritus by a mile, though they're all cool cards.

Anyway, green's an obvious pairing for these decks - Tamiyo is almost a two-card combo with Timewalk - but white's been a nice complimentary colour just for the great removal and it really showed up here.

Trophy Sultai Reanimator

I honestly didn't expect this one to get there. The draft started strong - we've got two thirds of an amazing reanimator deck! Reanimate and Life // Death are some of the best spells, Archon and Atraxa are the two best targets.

What we're really missing are ways to set up the reanimation. Outside of Frantic Search and a Formidable Speaker, we're mostly just hoping to accidentally mill over the big stuff. The deck's also clogged on three and light on fixing to boot.

Still, we lined up the pieces often enough and had a decent midrange plan to fall back on. And, y'know, maybe the Lotus helped!

2-1 Sultai Lurrus Smog

I've been speccing on the Smog/Witherbloom combo whenever I can - you can see the Witherbloom Apprentice hanging out in some of the previous sideboards. It's not great, but Golgari's often open and this is a nice compact combo to have as a backup plan.

We moved in on Lurrus early, but didn't settle into our colours and the combo until the last pack. You can see from the sideboard we ended up jettisoning a lot of good white cards to try to simplify our terrible mana base and fit in the combo. Maybe we could've cut blue, but like I've probably said before, Wan Shi Tong is fantastic in a Lurrus deck.

Of all the new charms, I've liked Witherbloom Charm the most. The destroy mode hits a ton of dangerous pieces and later on, caching in a land for some new cards can keep you in the game.

Viscious Rivalry was also okay. At four mana, there's plenty of more powerful or simply interesting cards, but it was good out of the sideboard. Really nice to have against the artifact decks, which does give it an angle over Deluge, though probably not enough to keep it in.

Trophy Azorious Tempo Two

We closed out the MTGO season with another blue/white tempo deck. No power, no Threeferi, just a bunch of fliers and some counterspells.

This was about as straightforward as these decks get. I guess that proves out the general viability of the archetype: you just need a few key points of disruption to turn a game and there's enough redundancy in the cube for the skeleton to come together consistently.

Shout out to our last opponent - they had a phenomenal Mardu agro deck. We got through by the skin of our teeth, largely on the back of Parallax Wave. What a crazy card - it totally shut down Ajani, Gut, and Fable. Looks like it won't be in the new Arena cube, which is a bit of a bummer. Powerful card, but really cool.

7-0 Triple Power Jeskai Agro

Switching over to Arena, our first trophy was an assertive Jeskai deck.

The curve is absolutely horrendous - we're running nothing but three drops. That wouldn't be my first choice, but double mox and a Crypt let us skip up to the heavy hitters and apply a ton of early pressure.

A new inclusion in Traumatic Critique. No trauma here - my critique's a positive one! It's a nice, flexible card, both in filling in the curve and the types of decks that are happy to run it. Being able to go face with the damage really elevates its potential.

7-2 No Removal UWU

Where the last deck was hurting for some two-drops, this one would've killed for a couple pieces of removal.

We've really only got Solitude as a hard kill spell, but as we've seen before, the blue/white decks can keep opponents on the back foot long enough to close out the game.

Newcomer Elite Interceptor is much, much worse than Thraben Inspector. The tap/untap can be useful, but needing to keep the Insepctor around is awkward, as is the sorcery speed. Definitely worth a test, but I'd rather just see another inspector if the cube's hungry for this kind of glue-y one-drop.

7-1 Wet Boros

A straightforward Boros deck splashing for Recall and Fractured Identity.

Outside of the splash, we're not doing anything too special here. A bunch of Boros allstars and then also an Embreth Shieldbreaker.

Come to think of it, it's a shame we didn't get reversed Shieldbreaker in Secrets of Strixhaven. It'd be way better to deploy the threat immediately and have a prepared Shatter waiting in the wings. Oh well, hopefully we revisit this mechanic soon - it's really solid.

7-2 4C Golgari Garbage

This draft definitely didn't deserve to trophy.

We were bobbing around during the draft and settled into Golgari + blue for Time Walk in pack three.

The late gameplan meant we were really scrapping for playables, so we've got a random Emrakul hanging out. We did manage to cast here, even without the Lotus, so kudos to us there.

Otherwise, without the power, absolutely not a trophy deck. Hey, sometimes you get lucky!

6-3 Esper Lurrus

I'll chat about any half-decent Lurrus deck. Heck, I'd go so far as to call it three-quarters-decent!

Like we saw with the previous deck, Bowmasters is one of the best reasons to land in Lurrus, of course. Tinybones was, uh, okay. I don't think he ever connected, but he plays fine on either offense or defense.

I'm going up and up on Fractured Identity. I guess it's no surprise - it's been around for ages - but definitely the kind of interactive finisher these decks are looking for.

7-2 Dark Blue

A super sweet almost mono-blue deck, splashing black for Frog, Push, and a cheeky Life // Death.

Blue was open and we got hooked up. I wouldn't have chosen such a narrow colour spread - you do give up versatility and power locking into a colour - but they kept shipping us good cards. Never ever tapping out with this deck.

We're pretty light on wincons - it would've been great to snag a Worldspine Wurm for the Flash - but dropping a Primus got the job done. The sickest move was flashing Primus to pop two planeswalkers in one shot.

7-2 Esper Ninjas

Back on the Esper tempo train, this time with Time Walk and Recall.

I think this deck was solid, other than the mana, but boy were the games a struggle. Somehow we were fighting for our lives even after landing a couple pieces of power. Maybe we needed some more removal?

Unearth isn't at it's best here, but we had a super cool game against Painter's Servent/Grindstone. They had it hand, but we didn't have any instant-speed interaction. Check this - we ticked up Teferi, discarded a Loran to hand size, and instant-speed Unearthed her to blow up the Grindstone. Pretty slick.

7-2 Naya Tokens

What I guess I'd call a tokens deck? Not much reason to be tokens, but we sure make some!

I can't say why this one went the distance except that we have a smattering of strong cards and enough pressure to run over the slower decks. We're real light on removal though and an Elspeth or an Ajani would've really gone a long way.

I don't know if I've actually played with Figure of Fable before. My personal tastes skew away from these Figures in my own cubes, but dang if they aren't effective when they get rolling. I'm shocked how effective this one is; a Hex Drinker at instant speed is a real threat.

7-2 Tempo Timewalk

Yet another aggressive blue/white deck, this time with a Timewalk to back it up.

We weren't doing anything special with the extra turns, though a couple extra counters off Agent Bishop doesn't hurt. Still, the tried-and-true strategy proved itself again.

I don't remember if we've ever talked about it before, but boy Aang is a house. Even as just a threat, it's great, but you're often up a card off the ability or two if you can eat an attacker. Flipping it is almost always terrible, but nice to have the option. Crazy card, hopefully it sticks around.

6-3 Esper Lurrus Part Trois

One last Esper Lurrus deck to close out the season. Maybe someday we'll see some red or green, but it's hard to beat Bowmaster, Ajani, and counterspells.

This one is much better than the previous one. Speaking of counterspells, I would've been real happy to grab another one or two, but otherwise, we're cruising here.

I know it's no surprise, but boy, Karakas, heck of a card. Lowkey one of the best cards in the cube - how many Legends fold to a humble Plains - but it's so, so nice to have here as a way to protect Lurrus.

The Secrets Out on Strixhaven

On the whole, Secrets of Strixhaven was a pretty decent set for cube. Erode is an instant staple, Elite Interceptor is a near miss, and Skycoach Pilot is fine until the next flash blue threat.

I don't see the charms sticking around, but I do think the multicolour/Rokiric package is a cool one to bring in on occasion.

The emeriti are decent, but I'd probably only keep the green one and maybe the blue one and retire the rest.

Largely unrelated to Strixhaven - boy, the artifact theme in the Arena cube felt like a stinker. I think there's something there - I run an artifact theme myself - but cards like Tough Cookie were tough pills to swallow - they felt way too far below the bar.

Anyway, cool set, glad to get back to actual Magic. A shame school's out for summer!