“Don’t Laugh. It works.”

Last week, we discussed pushing archetypes and interactions as hard as possible in Vintage Masters Drafts. This still seems to be the best approach to the format. Opening a card such as Lightning Rift will strongly encourage us to play a deck with a ton of cycling. Wild Mongrel can put us into G/U Madness. It’s not quite as obvious, but we can similarly push the envelope with cards such as Armadillo Cloak and Dreampod Druid.

Dreampod Druid is a first-pick-quality uncommon. In fact, we should probably be taking it over just about every nonrare that isn’t Flametongue Kavu. Last week, Lightning Rift would probably be the second-best uncommon, but the cycling deck seems overdrafted right now, and Dreampod Druid flies around the table as though it weren’t a card that breaks games wide open.

Our pick order for the G/W Aura deck should be taken lightly. It’s more important for our deck to function as though we’re playing Constructed than it is to have more of a particular card. Some cards, such as Dreampod Druid, are things we can never have too much of. On the other hand, good spells, like Exile, should be taken late, if at all. It’s hard to afford slots that aren’t creatures, Auras, or cards that protect creatures with Auras when we’re playing the Aura deck.

It’s important that we have enough creatures in our Aura deck. A deck with fewer than fifteen creatures or cards that make creatures, such as Battle Screech or Grizzly Fate, might run into opponents that punish us for playing Auras by picking up significant advantages through removal spells that trade for two cards with startling consistency.

Isn’t that a problem? Don’t we lose to removal or bounce spells? No we don’t; Benevolent Bodyguard and Shelter give our deck tremendous strength against expensive removal. We’ll win countless games by playing a turn-one Benevolent Bodyguard, a 2-drop on our second turn, and then Armadillo Cloak on the third. It’s surprisingly difficult to deal with that series of plays in the Vintage Masters format. Conveniently, the format’s second-best Wrath of God effect, Winds of Rath, is quite bad against our deck.

Pushing an archetype is important in Vintage Masters. We shouldn’t stumble over ourselves trying to force the G/W Aura deck—or any deck for that matter. We should be taking the best card out of early packs and move in on a particular archetype or strategy when the signal presents itself. The cards that should be pushing us into this archetype are Dreampod Druid and Armadillo Cloak, both of which are of first-pick quality.

The pick order in descending order:

• Power Nine or other stuff we can’t pass because of ticket value
• Parallax Wave
• Deranged Hermit
• Dreampod Druid
• Armadillo Cloak
• Council's Judgment
• Cursed Scroll
• Skullclamp
• Armageddon
• Swords to Plowshares

• Battle Screech
• Winds of Rath
• Grizzly Fate
• Kongming, “Sleeping Dragon”
• Jareth, Leonine Titan
• Wild Mongrel
• Ring of Gix
• Deftblade Elite
• Phantom Nomad
• Elephant Guide

• Benevolent Bodyguard
• Yavimaya Elder
• Pianna, Nomad Captain
• Soltari Trooper
• Soltari Emissary
• Simian Grunts
• Basking Rootwalla
• Brilliant Halo
• Decree of Justice

• Selvala, Explorer Returned
• Arrogant Wurm
• Genesis
• Erhnam Djinn
• Blastoderm
• Karmic Guide
• Mistmoon Griffin
• Gaea's Embrace
• Empyrial Armor
• Fyndhorn Elves

• Brindle Shoat
• Shelter
• Benalish Trapper
• Armor of Thorns
• Radiant's Judgment
• Radiant, Archangel
• Noble Templar
• Mystic Zealot
• Exile

Cards such as Benevolent Bodyguard and Shelter are extremely important to the G/W deck. We need to protect the Voltron we build from blue bounce spells and black removal spells. The 1-drops do a pretty good job of protecting us from Chainer's Edict and Predatory Nightstalker.

Brilliant Halo is a card that consistently goes last-pick. Conveniently, this is among the best cards for our deck. Even a random G/W beaters with a couple of Dreampod Druids and Brilliant Halos is quite strong. Green and white are easily the deepest colors in the format, and we’ll probably be rewarded for having Dreampod Druid combos even if our deck isn’t built around it.

We don’t want to be playing many noncreature/non-Aura cards, so we should start valuing those types of cards much lower once we have one in the first pack or two in the second or third pack.

I’ve had tremendous success with G/W Auras in Vintage Masters. I’ve won my 8–4 in three of the last four Drafts wherein I had a Dreampod Druid deck. My only loss was to mulligans. I strongly suggest trying out Dreampod Druid and friends, as the deck is surprisingly strong against what other people are drafting. The cards may not be great, but the deck is, and that’s all that matters.