This past weekend I competed in the Stream League 2: a 32-player tournament put together by Charizard James and sponsored by CoolStuffInc. The first place prize was $500, as well as $500 to the charity of the winner's choice, which is pretty awesome. Additionally, monetary prizes trickled down to the Top 5 participants.

This all seemed great and I was super excited about the event, but I had to come to terms with one unfortunate fact.

I'm not really much of a Constructed player any more.

This is a super weird realization to come to, especially when I'm specifically known for articles and videos that tackle unique decks in Constructed formats, like Modern and Standard. I don't know when it happened, but it feels mostly true. I still love brews just as much as I always have, but this weekend I realized I'm just a much better Limited player, and I think I enjoy Limited formats more.

In fact, one thing I've never understood is streamers that play Constructed formats all day, like Standard, grinding the same deck over and over. I totally understand this all comes down to personal preference, and there's definitely an alluring quality to learning the ins and outs of a deck, but it always struck me as so... boring? So repetitive?

Meanwhile, when I stream for a day, and do three or four Drafts, every game and match is different, and that has such a big appeal for me. Every deck is different. The cards I'm going to draw from event to event are always going to be significantly different, and even from game to game since most cards in your deck are one-of's rather than four-of's. The level of variety just seems so much higher to me, as opposed to casting the same Lovestuck Beast 22 times in a day.

I think I've always liked drafting more than playing Constructed, and I have a few good reasons for that, the best of which is that I'm terrible at a) picking a decklist, and b) tweaking a deck to take the metagame into account. The fact that I never have to choose a deck when I'm entering a Limited event, only to regret my choice in the second round, is a huge perk for me. This is basically one of the reasons I'm always drawn to brews and obscure decks. There always feels like such a limited number of playable cards in Constructed formats (when compared to the total number of cards that are actually legal, that is), and being able to play with cards outside of those and experiencing new interactions was always extremely appealing to me. It still is! This is why I love Vintage Cube so much. I likely do about 30 or so Vintage Cube Drafts every time they're available on Magic Online. Black Lotus is in the Vintage Cube, and I've likely cast Emergent Ultimatum more in the past week than I've cast Black Lotus in the past two years in all the Cube Drafts I've done combined! That's the variety I crave.

Speaking of Emergent Ultimatum, however, for those curious, this was what I played in the Stream League.

Sultai Ultimatum | KHM Standard | Frank Lepore

• Companion (1)
• 1 Yorion, Sky Nomad

• Creatures (4)
• 1 Burning-Rune Demon
• 1 Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider
• 2 Valki, God of Lies

• Instants (10)
• 1 Cling to Dust
• 1 Negate
• 1 Wilt
• 3 Eliminate
• 4 Heartless Act

• Sorceries (19)
• 1 Bala Ged Recovery
• 1 Sea Gate Restoration
• 2 Alrund's Epiphany
• 2 Extinction Event
• 2 Migration Path
• 3 Shadows' Verdict
• 4 Cultivate
• 4 Emergent Ultimatum

• Enchantments (11)
• 1 Kiora Bests the Sea God
• 2 Elspeth's Nightmare
• 4 Binding the Old Gods
• 4 Omen of the Sea

• Artifacts (2)
• 2 Mazemind Tome

• Lands (34)
• 3 Island
• 4 Forest
• 4 Swamp
• 1 Castle Locthwain
• 2 Ketria Triome
• 4 Barkchannel Pathway
• 4 Clearwater Pathway
• 4 Darkbore Pathway
• 4 Fabled Passage
• 4 Zagoth Triome

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Cling to Dust
• 1 Negate
• 1 Wilt
• 2 Bloodchief's Thirst
• 2 Duress
• 2 Erebos's Intervention
• 3 Mystical Dispute
• 2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
• 1 Yorion, Sky Nomad

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As you have likely surmised by now, I did not do very well with it. 0-2 drop, to be exact, a record that I'm sure we're all very familiar with. That's the nature of Magic though, isn't it?

We faced off against the mirror match in round one, and they were simply better equipped to deal with us. They had one Disdainful Stroke in their main deck and, despite having 80 cards, managed to have it in hand to cast against our first Emergent Ultimatum. It was pretty backbreaking.

Round two we faced off against Control, which was just a miserable match for us. For a deck that has nine spot removal spells and five sweepers, the last thing you want to see is another control deck, and I played two of them in my first two rounds. What on earth am I casting four Heartless Act, three Eliminate, two Elspeth's Nightmare, two Extinction Event, and three Shadows' Verdict against in these matchups? I remember a time where I had six of those cards in my hand at one time, staring down at a handful of blanks, and realizing I couldn't even effectively activate my Castle Locthwain without taking something like six damage.

As for my commentary on the deck, I did not like or need the Wilt at any point. I also wish I had less removal and more counterspells. I also wish those counterspells took the place of some lands. There were a lot of versions of this deck and many of them were running closer to 30 or 31 lands. This version was running 34, along with one Bala Ged Recovery and one Sea Gate Restoration. Many versions were playing more copies of Sea Gate Restoration, along with some number of Jwari Disruption. In hindsight, I would have definitely cut some basic lands and added some number of Jwari Disruption if I could do it all again. I would likely add two, along with an additional Sea Gate Restoration, going down to a more common 31 "actual" lands (because of course the additions also count as lands).

Several versions were also running about two copies of Shark Typhoon and one copy of Esika's Chariot. I think both of these are correct. The deck manages to get a lot of lands into play fairly quickly and there were definitely times where I was running out of threats to either win the game with or find with Emergent Ultimatum. There were times I was searching and had to really scrape the bottom of the barrel to not grab a random removal spell as my third card against a control deck.

The funny thing is I played the deck on stream earlier that week and uploaded the matches to YouTube. I believe I went undefeated. I played a couple more matches with the deck after that, and won those as well. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I was pretty much undefeated with the deck until it counted. Ha! But that's how it goes. I definitely made my fair share of misplays, both in deck construction and within the matches themselves, but having to know metagames, and still having no idea what you'll face in a given event has always been such a huge curse for me. Again, in a draft, there's no real metagame to prepare for. If they have a certain amount of mana up in specific colors, there are only a handful of things they could have. I guess random bombs showing up would be the equivalent of having a bad matchup here.

Don't get me wrong, I still love Modern, and Pioneer, and Historic. I really like finding cards and strategies that are under the radar. I love playing with wacky and powerful cards, and you'll still see me doing so in the future. I just wanted to clarify a little more why I do so poorly in a lot of Constructed events, and what appeals to me more about Limited events.

What do you guys think? Do you love Constructed formats more than Limited ones? Do you know why? Tell me all about your preference and reasons in the comments, because I'd love to hear different opinions! Thank you all so much for reading. As usual, stay safe, and I'll catch you all next week!

Frank Lepore

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