Aether Revolt draft at my local game store. This deck may be one of the limited decks I'm most proud of, since I first started drafting a couple of years ago. While I definitely made a few mistakes in the draft itself, this was probably the most successful I've ever been in utilizing my entire pool to tailor the deck to the match. This deck features a transformational sideboard to take it from a fairly straightforward R/W vehicles deck into a W/U vehicle/tempo deck. And it was some incredibly fun Magic.
The draft started with a somewhat literal bang. I opened Engineered Explosives in my first pack, and there was no way I was forgoing a Masterpiece for any reason whatsoever, so took it I did. I intended to simply leave it aside to take home, but (as I'll describe below) I actually found a use for it in one matchup, which made me endlessly happy. My next pick was Caught in the Brights, and I continued taking a lot of White cards from there. I also nabbed Pacification Array early, as I've always been impressed with that card. Figuring out my second color was tricky, but I grabbed a couple of Red & Blue cards, leaving myself open to whichever. Turns out, this is exactly what I ended up doing all the way through. Quicksmith Rebel and Quicksmith Spy both made their way to me, so I took both, and I also took Chandra's Revolution and Renegade Wheelsmith pretty quickly, plus a Mobile Garrison, which is a pretty solid vehicle. I also got Spire Patrol. In the Kaladesh pack, I prioritized more strong White cards, like Revoke Privileges, Skyswirl Harrier, and Bastion Mastodon, plus a couple more vehicles like Bomat Bazaar Barge and Aradara Express. I also found Confiscation Coup passed my way, so I took that either to use it myself or just to not play against it.
On the deckbuilding front, I had to decide what to do with all the cards I got. I briefly entertained trying to put together a Jeskai build, but with literally no fixing and some double costed cards, I decided that was a terrible idea. I felt that the Red/White combo was probably a little stronger against most decks I was likely to face, so I started there, and left the Blue in my sideboard to bring in if I got paired against a slower "go big" style deck, or if I found myself against something I'd particularly like to steal with Confiscation Coup. I also particularly enjoyed both Quicksmith Spy and Quicksmith Rebel paired with any Artifact plus Mobile Garrison. Tap to damage or draw a card, then untap with the Garrison to do it again was just a fantastic combo every time I could pull it off (which was once or twice with each pairing). So, R/W vehicles with a transformation into W/U tempo it was. And so it began.
Round 1 found me against a R/B deck. This was the toughest matchup of the night, since he had tons of removal a la Daring Demolition to ruin my day. I won the first game pretty solidly with some vehicles and some great curving, but lost the second and third games to his powerful removal and lack of strong draws on my part. So I lost the round 1-2, but I felt like it could have been better if I hadn't whiffed so hard in the last game.
Round 2 was against a G/U deck. It had a lot of energy cards and some solid cards, but nothing I couldn't deal with. The first game I thought I had it locked down, and was going to use my Destructive Tampering to push through for the win, but he had a very well-timed Negate to prevent that from happening, so it ended up being a very close game, with me just barely eking out my victory with him at 1 life. Game 2, however, was no contest, with me bulldozing my way over his slower deck with my powerful vehicles, taking me to a 2-0 win for the round.
Round 3 was against a W/B deck that seemed centered on Sram, Senior Edificer, a bunch of flying creatures, and multiple copies of Conviction to abuse with both of them (There's something about a 2/5 flier that's just really annoying to deal with). Also, turn 1 Night Market Lookout into turn 2 Conviction is really gross. I held off for a long time in the first game, getting my opponent down to 6 life, but ended up losing to his fliers after he stabilized the board. Given the high toughness issue I was dealing with here, I felt that transitioning out of W/R into W/U was the right choice for the first time of the night. And boy, was I happy I made that call. Ice Over was much better against his deck than Harnessed Lightning, and Quicksmith Spy kept me drawing into gas, which I desperately needed in this matchup. As a result, game 2 was a completely different story. I was able to out-tempo my opponent at every step of the way, with cards like Spire Patrol playing significant roles here. I also landed Ice Over, Caught in the Brights, AND Revoke Privileges in this game, which completely shut him down. I took the game very easily. It was at that point that I realized that all the key cards in my opponent's deck were 2-drops, so I decided to sideboard in my masterpiece Engineered Explosives. And it WORKED. I dropped it on turn 2 and just let it sit there. He was forced to play around the card so much that he could only keep one copy of Conviction on the table at a time, and always left mana open to pull it back to his hand for fear that I'd blow it up and shrink down his creature to something blockable. It also made putting Sram, Senior Edificer on the table a non-starter for him. This slowdown to play around my explosives allowed me to continually build up my board while keeping his weaker than ideal. He managed to peck in with fliers enough to get me down to 9 life, but finally, thanks in large part to my Quicksmith Spy turning a Bastion Mastodon into a card-draw engine, I made the play of the night, using Confiscation Coup to steal his 3/3 Night Market Aeronaut and turn the game around for a 2-1 victory. That was some damn good Magic, and one of the most fun games I think I've ever played.
As I said before, I was enormously proud of this deck. Even though it wasn't perfect, and I went 2-1 for the night, it was incredibly fun to play and I really enjoyed changing up the deck to tailor to the opponent I was facing. Probably my favorite Kaladesh block limited deck to date.
