DRAFTING THE CAVE DECK | The Lost Caverns Of Ixalan Draft | MTG Arena

[@GreyGuyana]

you know it's gonna be a banger when half of the video is draft

[@Phenom5]

Actually I hate when I spoil myself by seing the length

[@yaenne888]

Hahaha

[@gearheadgaming1]

The set is called The LOST Caverns of Ixalan. It literally spells it out for you: you draft the Caverns, and then you LOSE.

[@brofenix]

Lol 😅

[@Journeyman2585]

I drafted a cave deck that got 6 wins, but I had the land that makes caves come into play untapped. It made a world of difference.

[@nicholasabraham259]

Thats spelunking right?

[@Journeyman2585]

@@nicholasabraham259 you're right, I had that and forgotten monument backwards. It's the one that makes caves tap for any color. I had both lol.

[@MarvelOfRain]

Forgotten Monument seems like the way to go with caves. Even just having one you can have some Compass Gnomes find it and then splash all the good rares. Spelunking on the other hand doesn't seem that good to me. It is a stonetree that instead of a 5/5 gives a few points of mana and average of like 2.5 life. The life is good and the mana might lead to a nice 5 drop, but most games it is turn 2 and 3 when the taplands hurt you the most. Beyond that it is mostly waiting a turn to crack them that hurts, but a cave deck doesn't care about that. Also I shiver thinking about how bad you feel having spellunking on 3 with no lands in hand. That feels like a game lossing play where Stonetree has a chance to bail you out from that.

[@Jawzah]

@@MarvelOfRain And the stone tree is not that good to begin with.. Ramp that can miss (if you're super unlucky - but then you get to bottom 6 nonlands - so I guess it might be better than not hawing it in case you're going for high mana curve ) and a sub par crafting outcome (compared to inverted Iceberg for example...) 9 Spelunking at least could be good with enough caves and taplands. 4 life is better than draw a card (0 mana gain 4 life would be a good card - while 6 mana vanilla 5/5 would not be a good card - right?).. If you have spelunking and no lands in hand in turn three.. Well play another 3 drop then - or play spelunking and hope you draw a land.. I suppose if you use spelunking you use more tap caves than usual and if you do you use more lands in total than usual - if you still get mana screwed - well - that's magic... And lands entering tapped can be a downside after turn three -- especially if your turn three was used for three mana do nothing e and if your mana curve is high - lie hawing a lot of 4 drops for the discover 3 to hit and hawing a 6 mana 5/5 to craft - imagine drawing your sixth land and it being ETBs tapped land making the 5/5 enter a turn later perhaps hawing a 6 mana benthisaur.. And if you have 5 lands one of them a discover cave and draw another discover cave -- if you have spelunking you can crack it right away and if you don't - you cant... Not sure if you want to usually but sometimes it might be the right play.. And yes if you have tap lands you probably want to play one of them turn one and not play them turn one and 3.. So you have like 8 tap lands and 10 non tap lands Spelunking could easily affect like 3 land drops that matter. 3 mana difference in long run - is a lot - can easily be a difference between an unplayable and a linchpin card... Kaslem Stonetree -- well if it was 5 mana to craft - I would want to play it - with 6 mana it's kind af trash.. If you crack a discover cave you go from 6 down to 5 - very inconvenient.. I guess it might be OK if you play the shireterracelike cave - which is not very good without cave synergies - but also become slightly better with spelunking... t really the only cave synergy card I see as actually strong is Cosmic Confluence -and it does not even need that many caves to be playable.. Bat Colony - well - that has a high upside when you got a lot of caves - and when you do you probably want the Spelunking too in the deck.. Benthisaurs seem to need that 6 mana also and ramp and like 8 caves in the deck to be any good. But you need something to survive until you can overcome with card advantage -- how about 4 life from Spelunking?

[@reidyo5404]

Alex from limited levels ups said it best. The cave decks wants you to be multi color, but the mana base just doesn’t support it. It’s mostly mono color or really slow lands unless you get that one cave that makes every cave give any color mana

[@10freekie2]

That plus the campus gnomes help it. I did ok with some of them.

[@Phenom5]

Plus the cave that says your cave lands come untapped

[@Guevon_Pajaro]

There's also that 3 drop green enchantment that let's them come in untapped. Maybe that helps? Idk. Called "exploration" I think

[@natesharpe]

This brought a smile to my face and definitely will make me less salty next time I go 0-3 with what feels like a good deck. Thanks Kenji, and hope the parenting journey is off to a good start 😁

[@abcdefghijkl5408]

Appreciate you trying it out and i thought you got there in terms of both cave payoffs and caves themselves. But, unfortunately it just isn't a good strategy (not a surprise)!

[@AMageOldAsDirt]

It's bad if you commit to it like this, but I've had some success just using Bat Colony. I picked up two Bat Colonies in my azorious deck, and got passed two cave of each of those colors plus three colorless ones. Bat Cave ended up being incredibly powerful. Trying to make multiple cave payoffs in multiple colors work at the same time is what's not working. The best cave deck possible is probably BW with Colony and Leech as your two payoffs

[@Kedislol]

​@@AMageOldAsDirtthat's an interesting take actually, I'll keep an eye out

[@mandurang4881]

I lost to a cave deck fast when my opponent played his second Bat Colony at turn 4. 4 growing bats from there and soon after the 5/5 lifelinker. Seems like a hard deck to draft to get the pieces together, but can be very strong when the payoffs are there. Thanks for trying and showing!

[@richardkhoo992]

For you Nummy - “Oh my gosh it was a 42 minute video, I knew it” But fwiw, I was really looking forward to this deck being drafted and played. Always felt that Caverns was a deceptively fast set and these games suggest that you either curve out with bombs or die :x

[@PaulTobelmann]

I feel like some of those caves could be awesome in Standard - in a durdly, long-game Slogurk deck. I haven't expected anything of "the Caves deck" in draft, however. Was not disappointed. 😛

[@brofenix]

Mother f***'ing Soverign Okinec Ahau, haha. That card is stupid good :P

[@Kedislol]

I love your positivity. I'm looking at around p3 thinking "that's a car crash"

[@dkblap]

the moment you took stone tree over the fight or the earthshaker dreadmaw in pack 3, was the moment you went too far

[@gkeuler]

omg this was 42 minute video I knew it!

[@andreikoto4810]

Samuel Black said it well, cave strategy is not the strategy in itself but rather it's there to support another strategy you already have. So, if you draft around cave payoffs it will never work well but if you add caves to, say, black/x descent it really complements the strategy well.

[@tomorrow3582]

It's poor design by wotc. The caves are ok as support cards for other decks but all these cave payoff cards are unplayable.

[@SpiritOfLenin]

oh my god, this was a 42 minute video, i knew it

[@doopersooper]

Thanks for drafting the caves. Please do it again soon!

[@MattTorres]

Man, too bad every OP had the nuts the deck didn't seem bad at all especially considering how hard it is to draft that deck

[@ryanjohnson2522]

I would have thought the best strategy for caves would be in the explore deck. You passed the UG 2/3 guy in pack two that I think could have escalated the deck to something more competitive.

[@TMOFApollios]

Funny you me tonight the black thing. I ran a draft today to trophy that was mono black splashing green for akawali. Now I did have the Skeleton enchantment, a ton of hand hate/removal and recursion. My top end being very consistently growing akawalis and reviving them over and over.

[@clagen86]

These are the videos that are the most entertaining. I'm still reeling from my most recent 0-3. Lost to opponent topdecking a Mythic 2-for-1 dino. Lost to insane rares on the play. Lost to opponent's creature perfectly shutting off my removal. This format has a lot of really good rares and I ain't getting passed any of them.

[@НикитаСологубов-л8ж]

Nummy is great, handsome and puts out great content! Wow.

[@tomorrow3582]

Is this a bot Kenji has paid to post this on all his vids?

[@saldiven2009]

Millennium Calendar would be cool if you had ways to reliably and cheaply untap an artifact.

[@TheeMasterSword]

Yea I watched the first half of the video on my way home and I sat at my desk to finish it and audibly went "wow the video is halfway over??". Cool to see that I'm supposed to never draft the cave deck basically lol.

[@timothydog76]

"Did you have fun in the match? :( :)"

[@horiama]

I think Bat Colony usually wheels right? And for good reason. Haha, I like the effort, and you did get some tough matches, but I think 0-3 is no surprise for most attempts at the cave deck.

[@MrAdamrogozinski]

Awesome video. Thanks Numot

[@MrAndoProductions]

cool decks don't work in this format, but I respect that you tried

[@AlkonKomm]

I remember in ravnica allegiance the gates deck (gates ablaze being the boardwipe) was completely busted, especially cause the bots didnt draft that deck at all back then.

[@nonstripedzebra]

The gates deck works because the format wasn't as advanced and gates were multicolor. Not everything in the format was a 2ormorefor1

[@snackplaylove]

Rd 1 was by FNM draft deck but I had the mythic vampire instead of the 5/3 flyer with similar effect 😂

[@johnmasinsin9067]

I've drafted a cave deck, went 5-3. It's fun but very janky. But when you pop off, it catches your opponents off guard.

[@mischavandenburg]

Omg this was a 42 minute video I knew it

[@UninformedProduction]

Yooo that was so disappointing, game 2 and 3 your opponents had such good cards. Game 1 was so fun. I think the only way cave deck works is if you get 3-4 bat Caves, without those the decks just to slow it feels.

[@jeremyklotz5803]

My most recent draft was so busted. Nearly went 7-0. p1p1 inti into 2 1/1 lifelink bats. Some iron paw aspirants. And a whack load of discover. Felt amazing when attacking with caparocti, trigger one or two additional discovers. Then hitting an etali's favour for another one 😁 Can't wait to see how this draft works out for Kenji!

[@LactoseIntolerant01]

I went 7-0 with a BW deck that had 10 removal cards, lol. I didn't have any bombs or anything either.

[@jeremyklotz5803]

@LactoseIntolerant01 removal is really strong in this format but tough to get your hands on a lot of it unless your colour is very open. Congrats on the 7-0!

[@johnjohnston974]

This is my cave experience. Although you actually drew yours. I remember one of my games I had 7 basics and 3 cave payoffs in hand, with 10 caves in the deck lol. Caves are not gates. Would not do again.

[@Krazyabe]

Omg this was a 42 minute video. I knew it😂

[@naana2597]

32:30 Wouldn't it be better if you had played the Benthisaur, blocked the 4/4 token with it next turn and survived with 1 life, then played the cave-in?

[@davidfailing2372]

Haven’t finished the video yet but…If you use a captivating cave to cast Bat Colony, can you get an extra token if the colorless you pay to use it is also from a cave?

[@ppapuli9009]

No, because that mana is being used to pay for the captivating caves cost rather than the bat colony

[@mikeoates2126]

Oh wow, wonder how the caves deck is. *Checks time* oh

[@tris149]

Cave Johnson here!

[@daneversen5900]

I think you were subject to some variance there, but yeah overall the cave deck can't be that great because 1) it forces a weird mana base 2) makes you play off-curve on top of that in what I believe is a pretty fast format 3) the payoffs are okay, but not good enough to justify it 4) on top of it all, it's tough to draft and requires you to get passed a ton of stuff you don't know in advance you'll see, while forcing you to pick lands over playables in the hopes of getting the payoffs.

[@jordancaldwell2208]

Title: Drafted [insert obscure deck] Running time: 42 minutes. Yeah, this is an 0-3 lol

[@benschroering6825]

Passes on Millenium Callender only to draft caves.

[@johannesvanderhorst9778]

CAVErn of Souls should have been a Cave. 😁😝

[@AriBFitness]

I'm not drafting the calendar - I want to win! Proceeds to 0-3

[@NumotTheNummyYT]

too soon

[@Arghore]

Do hope the cave deck will get another go somewhat later in the format. Fairly sure this was a fairly weak version of it ... clearly needed a couple of frogs for starters

[@pintlemounted]

Pretty sure in limited you absolutely have to have spelunking to have a functional cave deck. Otherwise too much comes in tapped and you end up too slow.

[@EvilMagnitude]

This format feels like the exact opposite of WOE in terms of viability of 4c/5c soup

[@BrainSlug91]

Caveman take cave.

[@scottyp4758]

Cave deck and less than 45 min video, yep, the math works out. 😅

[@kidoriam-1856]

At least you tried

[@AdamTyree]

Sigh, now I just want to see the millennium calendar draft

[@AllenandLorie7733]

42 minute video, I knew it

[@memebro3181]

Basically caves collapsed.

[@alp2ccc138]

This deck needed some early fast removal ggs

[@urimargalit9718]

I don’t think passing the Chubecabra for the cave was the correct pick. No matter what deck you are playing chuchu is one of the best uncommon in the set. And you were playing a black deck.

[@terraqueo89]

I knew it!

[@jakelous]

never clicked a video so fast

[@NumotTheNummyYT]

*smiles nervously*

[@tomorrow3582]

Who'd have guessed? Drafting a bunch of shit cards and lands which come into play tapped wouldn't work out? Every day is a learning day!

[@BuddyImBaked]

Boo hiss bad correct first pick pack one 😂

[@NLPokergeist]

👋these are not the caves you are looking for....

[@Guevon_Pajaro]

The deck was pretty cool, but you need it to go right, and you also got unlucky with the OP draws and all those dumb curve outs

[@ElektechN9ne]

Caves probably ain't that good like Gates in Ravnia Alligiance

[@spark1128]

So your recent tweet was just sarcasm

[@AlaricXIII]

Hmm... Caves is not exactly a _fast_ strategy.

[@bjarkov12]

This format can definitely support some nonsense, when you don't roll into 3 consecutive opponents that just have a curve out of good cards and a bomb. The more I play the format the more I go up on buried treasure to enable some ambitious splashing, playing cards ahead of curve or just mill value. Had a deck with multiples of that, double curator and throne of the grim captain the other day go 5-3 - one of the losses was for forgetting to add the 4th type for throne lol

[@Manitaur1]

42 min. Hard pass

[@rodintremboy6459]

format is way too aggro for a deck especially but even most midrange. a bunch of op 1 mana flyers and 1 mana 2/2 hastes should have given it away. faster game = more losses = more money.

[@aceking121212]

It may be asking too much Nummy, but you should edit some dead air to elongate the video so I don't see a 40 min video and know that you lose quickly. Something to throw us off at the end

[@pablophilipps2032]

this format sucks lol. by far the least fun i've had playing mtg. sealed is better than draft but both suck. too many non-games b/c of crazy evasive or go-wide curve-outs, or game ender bombs that need to be answered immediately

[@Aaezil]

w0w passed the calendar unsubscribing on all platforms asap

[@MI24CL3]

I was low-key hoping the 42 min video would be a trophy speedrun with the secret tech 🥲