Scrapwork Mutt

Artist: Sidharth Chaturvedi TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

hi mtg mutuals and followers if this had resolved would the scrapwork mutt have stayed in play at end of turn? is the resolution of unearth considered part of the scrapwork mutt's abilities here?

The Brothers' War Bronze to Mythic draft #7!

Pack 1, pick 1 Siege Veteran. Boom! Pick 2 Mishra's Command out of a pretty weak pack. Looks like they picked an uncommon. Pick 3 Sardian Cliffstomper over Queen Kayla bin Kroog and Dwarven Forge-Chanter. No white cards. Maybe mono red is on the table? Pick 4 Goblin Blast-Runner, I'm liking where this is going. Pick 5 Unleash Shell, still no white cards. Pick 6 snapping off Evolving Wilds to splash Siege Veteran in mono-red. Pick 7 Conscripted Infantry over Aeronaut Cavalry. Pick 8 snapped off second Evolving Wilds over Blitz Automaton and Dwarven Forge-Chanter. I got Whirling strike on the wheel and a couple filler-level red creatures. I'm feeling a little underpowered, no Scrapwork Mutts, no Excavation Explosions, no Strongbulls, but I got all the red cards and I can easily splash my bomb, so it's hard to be upset.

Pack 2, I got a Mutt pick 1, a Strongbull pick 3, then... kinda bricked the rest of the pack. No white or red cards of note, I did get a couple Combat Couriers 6th and 8th.

Pack 3, I got another pick 1 Mutt, and second Sardian Cliffstomper pick 2. There was a pick where I had to choose between 2nd Blast-Runner and 2nd Strongbull, and in hindsight I think I should have taken Strongbull. I don't really have the sacrifice outlets for Blast-Runner but I don't really have the artifacts for Strongbull.

My first loss was to black red removal. My hand looked pretty good, but they Explosioned my 2 drop, they Shelled my Cliffstomper, and they got my Chaindancer's throat, and somehow managed to play an off-color 3/5, which is a nightmare stat for me. I drew my Siege Veteran, but couldn't cast it.

My second loss I'm going to chalk up to a pretty significant misplay. I had 2 Forge-Chanters and a Cliffstomper up against their 4/4 with a Courier, Mishra's Domination and Supply Drop. I ended up playing the domination on the 4/4 and getting in for 8, but I think I should have just attacked and Supply Dropped to kill the 4/4 on blocks. Bad play on my part.

My third loss was to drawing 9 lands and my opponent having turn 3 Siege Veteran.

I have to admit 2-3 was pretty disappointing. I didn't think this deck was great, even though whenever you're mono-red you end up having to run some derpy cards, but I thought I was at least fine for 4 wins. I was hoping to get a good curve out at least a couple of times, and I didn't have a 1 drop in any of my games.

I do want to say though, this set is slowly creeping towards my "all-timer" limited formats. mtg dads don't always get to draft as much as they would like, but I'm really wishing I could play this one more than I am. This is going on my medium list for set cubes I want to build.

The Brothers' War Bronze to Mythic, draft #5!

Whenever I do poorly in a draft on Arena, I always get this thought like, "Whelp, that's it for me, I'm never going to win a game again and all my gold and gems will disappear." And I know that's silly, I have a 64% win rating in limited since I started using 17lands a few years back. I am a good drafter and I will win again.

Pack 1, pick 1 Phyrexian Dragon Engine. The wheel for this pack is going to be bad. Pick 2 Hajar, Loyal Bodyguard over Corrupt, Blanchwood Prowler, and Wing Commando. Double R on the dragon unearth put me off Corrupt, but maybe that was just wrong. It seems like I've always been able to get an Elsewhere Flask. Pick 3 Scatter Ray over Hulking Metamorph, Wing Commando, and Deadly Riposte. Pick 4 Combat Courier over Yotian Tactician, Overwhelming Remorse, and Prison Sentence. I ran out of time on this pick. Pick 5 Giant Cindermaw, which felt like a signal that red might be open but there just weren't any good red cards. Pick 6 Scrapwork Mutt over Scatter Ray. Pick 7 Scrapwork Rager over Elsewhere Flask, which was a last second choice. Pick 8 Gaea's Gift over nothing. Pick 9 Branchwood Prowler wheeled, which I did not expect. Also got a Giant Growth and an Argothian Sprite, which kind of pulled me back towards green-red.

Pack 2 all of the green cards wheeled, but other than the Skyfisher Spider, it was a pretty mediocre pack overall. Pack 3 went really well, with multiple burn spells, the Arbalest Engineers... I did punt on a Blitz Automaton, which i didn't see in the pack, but I would have liked the option of a nice 7 drop, and with all my combat tricks, a hasty 3/2 would have been fine too.

I originally thought my deck was great, but the more I looked at it, the more I felt like it was just a bunch of mediocre creatures, especially at 3 and 4. I also just thought Fallaji Chaindancer had double strike naturally. Whoops.

My first loss was to Urza, Prince of Kroog. I couldn't for the life of me draw a removal spell. That said, I was really not impressed with what else was going on in their deck, it was just they had uncontested Urza and I couldn't break through.

My second loss was to GW. Their draw lined up pretty well against mine. I think I might be underrating Warlord's Elite. It seemed more like filler and I think it's maybe a C+? At least it seems like it's always been good against me. I guess I don't see the games where it rots in their hand when they can't cast it early. Anyway, I think I messed up a block late in the game and they topdecked me when we were at parity. I was 2-2 at this point and really feeling the mediocre creatures.

I should also point out that I misread Phyrexian Dragon Engine. I forgot entirely about the Unearth trigger. I was trying to go for a Giant Growth shot for 10, but the game didn't let me respond to it's etb. So I had to decline and they had a removal spell. Disaster! I still won that game though.

My other loss was to a "mirror," where we traded off all game, except they had Ironclaw Crusher, which notably has 6 toughness, with Audacity, and I only had 5 power with which to block. I died with two Unleash Shells in my hand that I couldn't even cast because I drew the maindeck Swamp I played instead of the Mountain it would have been had I not splashed.

5-3 was okay with this deck. I seemed to be in the "Bant colors" bracket, and I was really hoping the Argothian Sprites would be unblockable more often. I saw zero black cards in 8 games, and the red cards I saw out of the two blue-red decks I played were not impressive.

The Brothers' War Bronze to Mythic, draft #4.

Go 0-3 with Wurmcoil Engine? Yeahhhhhh... I got really lost in this draft.

Pack 1, pick 1, I took Monastery Swiftspear over Chromatic Star and Prison Sentence. Probably should have taken Chromatic Star? Pick 2, I took Yotian Tactician over Visions of Phyrexia, Yotian Dissident, Argothian Opportunist, and Prison Sentence. Pick 3, I took Emergency Weld over Sanrith Steelseeker and Powerstone Engineer. I think this is a mistake, I think I'm underrating Sanrith Steelseeker. Pick 4, I took Scrapwork Mutt over Fallaji Vanguard, Hero of the Dunes, Ambush Paratrooper (a soldier), and Disfigure.

At this point, I really have no idea where I am or what I should be doing. Pick 5 compounds my problems, I took Ambush Paratrooper over Fallaji Vanguard. The rest of the pack was pretty bad. There were a couple of late Branchwood Prowlers that I passed on. I did get an Elsewhere Flask, so maybe there was a universe where I have Yotian Tactician, two Fallaji Vanguards, two fixers, and a couple of 2 drops, which honestly sounds really good. Seeing that line is hard for me right now though. I think pick 3 is really what threw me off.

Pack 2, pick 1 I see Saheeli, Filigree Master, which seems really good and I almost pick her, except Wurmcoil Engine is right next to her. So at this point I started kind of forcing black-red, and it didn't really work out. There was a late Third Path Iconoclast and Urza, Powerstone Prodigy in pack 2 that I passed up, and digging into the packs more, blue seemed very open in packs 2 and 3.

The games weren't pretty.

Game 1, I punted. I thought I was at 7 life, but I was at 5 life, so I died when I thought I would be alive at 2 life and attacking for lethal. Their deck looked very good, and I stumbled on mana. I think I was lucky to be in the position I was in.

Game 2, I lost to getting brick-walled by an unexpected 6-mana 6/6 out of the blue-white soldier deck. They followed it up with Urza, Prince of Kroog. They had several creatures bigger than my 5/3 Mishra's Juggernauts. I was not expecting that.

Game 3, I lost to more random 6 and 7 drops from a red-black sacrifice deck when I flooded out. I thought I was so far ahead, I was not expecting that. They also exiled my Wurmcoil Engine, which was super rude.

I don't really know what the lesson from all this was. It was just a tough draft.