An M15 Draft

A couple weeks ago, I participated in a draft for M15. Out of my first pack came a Soul of Ravnica, which any Soul is powerful in Limited, so I definitely grabbed it. Among the other packs, I picked up three rares, one of which was Hornet's Nest. That was the most powerful card to have in this deck, at least until I could get some of the other heavy hitters onto the field.

Blue Cards	Green Cards	White Cards
Aeronaut Tinkerer Aeronaut Tinkerer Chasm Skulker Coral Barrier Divination Divination Encrust Frost Lynx Glacial Crasher Into the Void Invisibility Jace's Ingenuity Jorubai Murk Lurker Kapsho Kitefins Mind Sculpt Mind Sculpt Negate Nimbus of the Isles (FOIL) Paragon of Gathering Mists Soul of Ravnica Statute of Denial Stormtide Leviathan Turn to Frog Void Snare Wall of Frost	Charging Rhino Charging Rhino Gather Courage Hornet Nest Hunt the Week Living Totem Naturalize Satyr Wayfinder Undergrowth Scavenger Vineweft Vineweft	Divine Favor Ephemeral Shields Selfless Cathar
	Artifacts	Land
	Ornithopter Staff of the Mind Magus Tyrant's Machine	Darksteel Citadel (FOIL) Mountain Forest

When you grab a couple blue rares, especially something like Soul of Ravnica, and you find a Hornet's Nest, there is nothing left but to go with a Blue/Green control deck with a mix of aggro late game. So check out the deck:

Green/Blue Control/Aggro

3rd Place, Red Battle Games FNM Draft: Danville, VA 25 July 2014

Creatures x1 Wall of Frost x1 Chasm Skulker x1 Coral Barrier x1 Frost Lynx x1 Hornet Nest x1 Living Totem x1 Paragon of Gathering Mists x1 Charging Rhino x1 Nimbus of the Isles x1 Soul of Ravnica x1 Stormtide Leviathan Land x11 Island x5 Forest

Artifacts x1 Tyrant's Machine x2 Staff of the Mind Magus Other Spells x1 Gather Courage x2 Vineweft x1 Void Snare x1 Invisibility x2 Mind Sculpt x1 Negate x1 Turn to Frog x1 Encrust x2 Divination x1 Hunt the Weak x1 Into the Void x1 Jace's Ingenuity

So, the main goal is to hold on long enough to get something out. The first possibilities were Wall of Frost, Chasm Skulker, Coral Barrier, Frost Lynx, or Hornet Nest. From there, playing something like Vineweft, Living Totem, or Paragon of Gathering Mists would boost at least one of those. Of course, any boost to Hornet Nest would help.

    

I never saw Chasm Skulker in any game, but I did frequently see Paragon of Gathering Mists and occasionally saw Coral Barrier. I won 4 of the 6 games I played, and it heavily depended on having Hornet Nest on the field, so that was definitely the key player, but other cards played a big part in the game.

    

The supporting players either drew cards or milled cards. In the first match, I played against a White/Black lifegain deck, and I was able to fight off some large threats and get a decent amount of insect tokens out of it during the first game and brought in backup with Soul of Ravnica and Stormtide Leviathan. In the second game, I was able to play Hornet Nest when I was at 5 life, and then used both Mind Sculpts which milled out options that could get rid of it, and then used Divination and Jace's Ingenuity until I could find my Stormtide Leviathan. Additionally, Tyran'ts Machine was amazing as I was able to take out a heavy hitter before I could get something on the field to help. I stopped many large strikes.

    

The deck worked great and only failed against a Red/Black deck that was much faster. Without Hornet Nest, the game slowed down considerably. Either way, going 2-1 in this draft was pretty awesome. If you notice though, all the important cards for the late game either fly or have Islandwalk. All the tokens have one or the other and the big creatures do as well, and in Limited, the game ends with Stormtide Leviathan because unless you could get some of these cards that provide Islandwalk or you have some sort of flyer, then there isn't much you can do against this deck unless you can play faster and send damage in before I can play my creatures.