A couple weeks ago I wrote about my first venture into the draft dungeons of Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. I promised to return for more, and now I have. This time I had to venture away from the comfortable realms of the quick draft queue out into the dangerous wilds of premier drafts. No sweat!
For better or worse, I ended up with Drizzt Do’Urden and a green-white deck yet again. But this time a certain singing planeswalker joined my party and a rip-roaring good time was had by all. Well, all except the opponents who lost our BO1 games.
Ellywick Tumbledeck
| Creatures (16) 2 Intrepid Outlander 1 Dwarfhold Champion 1 Prosperous Innkeeper 1 Oswald Fiddlebender 1 Gnoll Hunter 2 Circle of the Moon Druid 2 Priest of Ancient Lore 1 Gloom Stalker 1 Celestial Unicorn 1 Moon-Blessed Cleric 1 Icingdeath, Frost Tyrant 1 Arborea Pegasus 1 Drizzt Do’Urden Planeswalker (1) 1 Ellywick Tumblestrum Spells (6) 1 Cleric Class 1 Bag of Holding 1 Delver’s Torch 1 +2 Mace 1 You Find a Cursed Idol 1 Hunter’s Mark | Lands (17) 1 Temple of the Dragon Queen 8 Plains 8 Forest |
While I only managed to pick up four wins with this deck in a Premier Draft on Arena, it was a blast to play and I could have done better. Green and white play well in the “two drop aggro” draft metagame, and with repeatable ventures into the dungeon, the Tomb of Annihiliation starts doing serious work.
My only regret, besides losing three games, was the lack of Portable Hole. I feel so much more secure when I have my Portable Hole—but Bag of Holding might be even better in game if not name. Smoothing out those land drops helps a ton in this core-adjacent draft format, and you get the nice bonus of drawing your discarded cards back into hand if the game goes long enough—just like my old flame, Bane Alley Broker—though you mostly just win from digging through your deck.
Ellywick Tumblestrum performed even above my general expectation that planeswalkers crush in draft. Her ability to venture into the dungeon every turn gives you tons of options; with two Intrepid Outlanders to find and pair with her, you can set up some powerful dungeon antics. I mostly gave her +1 to venture, onluy digging for more creatures when I needed more board presence.
I never managed to pick up a legendary creature off Ellywick’s -2, but that’s some nice theoretical value to gain three life. I also never bothered to turn a treasure into Bag of Holding with Oswald Fiddlebender, but that feels like nice value too. Ellywick brings much surprise value to your gaming table, and some nice tunes too. (They should have made her play songs on Arena whenever you activate her.)
Prosperous Innkeeper combines very well with Cleric Class, and that’s another reason to dig for more creature drops with Ellywick. I found Cleric Class a little hard to get going—this is not a dedicated lifegain deck—but stage two does some real work, and I came back from nearly dead thanks to the one time got to the third stage. Cleric Class provides nice long game potential and some real combo potential, but you need repeatable lifegain to make it happen.
I haven’t even mentioned my Mythic Rare, Icingdeath, Frost Tyrant, my first pick of the draft. Basically just a four-mana 4/3 flying creature with vigilance, no big deal. The one game where I had to trade it off, I fell behind and lost with the legendary tapping sword mocking me. You’re much better off keeping the creature on board because they will struggle to block Icingdeath regardless.
Speaking of beatdowns, I’ve been impressed by Circle of the Moon Druid, which bashes through 1/3s and sets up Pack Tactics pretty much by itself. Curving Intrepid Outlander into Circle of the Moon Druid feels good and puts them to the test early. I think this deck would be better with pump spells to back up your attackers instead of the +2 Mace, which has the worst name ever and always felt worse than Delver’s Torch. I left Bull’s Strength and Inspiring Bard in my sideboard, but they both would have been better than the Mace.
Gloom Stalker felt like a vanilla 2/3, but I suppose in the right matchup it could have become a powerhouse. Why not just attack with a 4/2 circle of druids instead? The creatures in Adventures in the Forgotten Realms feel small enough that a vanilla 2/3 for three still provides a solid body, but don’t get your hopes up.
I should not have played the Temple of the Dragon Queen. Despite its sweet name and theoretical mana fixing potential, I lost a game where I drew it on turn three as my third land and had to play it tapped. It turns out Drizzt Do’Urden is not a dragon you can reveal. And the one time I thought it would be fixing, I ended up naming green mana and then drawing all forests for the rest of the game. Maybe that’s bad luck or results-oriented thinking, but I did not feel it was any better than Evolving Wilds in this deck. This format feels too fast to bother with tapped lands—unless they can become creatures, of course.
All in all, I continue to enjoy green-white creature decks. Will I draft more Adventures in the Forgotten Realms before Innistrad season descends upon us? Will I ever play different color combinations? Stay tuned to find out!
Carrie O’Hara is Editor-in-Chief of Hipsters of the Coast.