raredrafting sucks and throws the draft off a bit which i hate, fortunately most money bombs are also limited bombs so you pick them anyway but it can still be annoying.
In this format it's only really thoughtseize though, a must pick for the money which you otherwise don't want. The mythics are either not worth enough or practically must plays anyway, only opening them pack 3 kinda stinks if you can't use them.
Redrafting rares sounds like an awesome idea by the way but I don't think anyone would agree with it at the store I play it. You'd have to stay till the end and everyone kind of has to be honest, people might be tucking away that elspeth or whatever. Problems of those aside it seems like a great idea though, you can make the draft cheaper by getting rid of packs as payout while still having a nice payout for winning and you remove the raredrafting problem at the same time.
I especially hate it when the costly rares are such totally uninteresting must picks like some duals or fetchlands were before, just worth enough to make you want to pick them but not feeling really excited either just because it was such a lackluster card to play with. At least online drafting for free has none of these problems but lacks the serious play of actually drafting for a prize unfortunately.
Excluding rares for me it's:
wingsteed rider
battlewise hoplite
phalanx leader
triton fortune hunter
wavecrash triton
Most heroic guys are too insignificant without getting a trigger first or only benefit themselves when they get a trigger which makes it too easy to lead into blowouts, especially as they require you to pump them basically.
The best ones for me are those that are fine without a trigger like wingsteed rider and battlewise hoplite and grow out of common removal range quickly. Otherwise I like them to have some sort of trigger that is beneficial even if the heroic guy get's offed, phalanx leader, wavecrash triton and and triton fortune hunter all have this.
All five are strong cards that become unbearable if paired with even the least ammount of support.
only elspeth is a near unbeatable card in this format. Reaper of the wilds is very good but plenty of stuff that beats it. Whip same thing, very slow and difficult sometimes to have enough guys to use it with. Nemesis of mortals is just ok, not even better than nessian asp i think. Benthic giant is unplayable, just really bad
I prefer courser because I find it harder to fill the 3 drop spot on my curve than the 4 drop spot. Also the lifegain can of course be irrelevant sometimes if it doesn't end up in some sort of racing situation. Still it's a fine card and it gains a fair amount of life usually.
Just play 18. Scry like others said is a mechanic that actually favors playing a higher land count not a lower one and using scry to make sure you hit drops. Scry spells are preferrably used later as scry get's stronger then and scry spells don't help you at all with 1 landers, rarely even with 2 landers as most scry spells are tricks. Scry does however help greatly with avoiding flood. Bestow and montrosity also just give great use for mana making 18 a good choice.
Of course there are some decks like the aggressive heroic deck that want 17, especially with some cantrip aura's. Decks with lots of acceleration are probably fine at 17 too, but anything else i'd go with 18.
Had 2 paper drafts now after about 15 online drafts. Blue is definately top color by far, it's creatures are rivaled only by green but the other spells are just the best. Green is very solid but can have some trouble against things like people just suiting up a heroic guy with an ordeal etc.
UG feels the best combination by far to me so far, only colors to really provide multiple guys at 2-3 cc I want to run (which are the tough spots to fill up) and the colors compliment eachothers weaknesses nicely. Blue has some bounce to deal with troublesome stuff green just can't handle and green has the fatties to stall the ground for flyers to finish it off. Green also gives some enchantment removal which I always like to have 1 or 2 from just because it's so good against the bestow creatures. UG also has the best dual color cards I think, agent of the horizons and horizon chimera.
Black is better than I first thought, in potential as strong as green/blue but I don't prefer to pick it still because it really wants to be the dominant color. Big problem still with it as well is that you have no good early creatures except baleful eidolon below 4 mana basically. Returned phalanx and some artifact creatures are often neccesary to keep your deck fast enough, or good defensive splashes from other colors. Only way it get's aggro basically is the minotaur deck or some absurd amount of rares/uncommons in it. Still it's just solid and I like the pairing with white or green in a more controllish deck.
White just has alot weaker commons than the rest I find. Especially it's hard to find good 2 and 3 drops for them which usually need to come from uncommon. White also has some very relevant cards at double white making the mana even more troublesome if you don't main the color. Getting the heroic theme going strongly can make some otherwise soso cards become good. Otherwise as a more controlling color some cards, like divine verdict or the vigiliance stuff also get's a lot better. Either way you really want a specific archetype it looks and not just splash some white goodstuff.
Red has dropped from middle to worst for me. Major problem with it was that I always ended up with topheavy decks, with lots of stuff at 4 and 5 mana. Even the removal in red isn't as good as I first though as so much stuff can quickly grow out of reach for red, one bestow when you're untapped and you got a tough time killing that creature.
There should be mathematically correct number of scry lands even in aggro.
I remember aggro, most recent example being BR vampires, playing 3-4 tapped lands out of 23-24 total. Sure, they doubled up as creatures, but scry 1 improves your chance of drawing a creature.
That probably has something to do with a fact that deck worked on 2 mana.
The scry lands are still criminally underrated. Even in aggro there are plenty of times you don't curve out exactly and just getting a scry then is fantastic. Most of all though they are very good though when you are a little landflooded, scry is very good later on when you want specific cards and shipping away lands or useless mana elves etc. becomes really strong.
There are also just some fine interactions with scrylands here and there, for example with domri rade. Suppose you play 28 creatures then domri's +1 has a 28/60 = 46.7% chance to hit. Now if you play a scry land first you either see a creature or you see a non-creature you'll scry away and then have a 28/59 chance to hit still, thus: 28/60 + 32/60 * 28/59 = 72% chance to hit.
It is true though that scry is at it's strongest when you have specific cards you need to hit while it becomes fairly irrelevant if you have redundant cards. Especially aggro can be built with redundancy sometimes lessening the power of scry a little but at the other time their need for land is much more specific than control usually since aggro wants to hit a certain amount of land and not more while control keeps wanting to hit them much longer. I think the key thing of these scry lands is to remember that scry grows in power the more specific your needs are, the more dead draws there potentially are the more scry does for you and this is oftne later in the game. So the scry lands often get rejected for 'but these suck entering tapped in aggro' which they do but they excel in those hands where you have a few too many lands anyway (since lands are a dead draw then) and you play these on a later turn. Overall I actually think that makes them arguably stronger in aggro than control since control plays these on turn 1 typically where the scry is fairly weak and they actually suck for control later on where you still want to tap out.
It's a bit difficult to explain exactly but the way these lands work they actually sort of synergize with aggro while they are obviously just fine too in control making them pretty good overall. Lots of decks will play them and the way to do so if just by playing a bit more land overall like you usually do with lands that prevent flooding.
Hmm I'm favoring naya.
First of all the manabase for naya isn't that much worse, selesnya also has problems with the mana actually. 3 color isn't much tougher than 2 color in this format. Selesnya has 4 duals and possible some awful guildgates, naya has 12 duals and some decent temples. Sure naya is slower and the mana is slightly worse (mostly just more painful) but it's also less reliant on hitting all 3 colors directly while selesnya kind of wants to hit GW always on turn 2. Naya can still have decent plays like domri/magma jet turn 2 if you're stuck on white for a little.
Overall I just think that red adds enough for it to be worth it. Stormbreath dragon is great in a deck that lacks haste, boros charm is rootborn defense but much better, magma jet/mizzium mortars are solid removal which can also target some guys normal selesnya can have a lot of trouble with like chandra's phoenix, stormbreath dragon and blood baron. Finally ghor-clan rampager provides that much needed combat trick which is far better than the selesnya charm played by selesnya and domri is a house providing removal and card advantage for an archetype which otherwise has none.
The best way for selesnya to go though I think is more white focussed so it can play brave the elements (not the crappy tokens build with rootborn defense etc.) and that deck can be pretty good and quite different from naya. It's fast and brave the elements can be a blowout. It's quite vulnerable to supreme verdict though having no haste and no burn at all though, basically just voice and maybe advent of the wurm to play around it.
Not any huge archetypes I think, but there are a lot of subthemes you can have going on.
Bx control, black cards tend to be slower and defensive which can work well with some defensively minded cards like guardian of meletis, gray merchant, baleful eidolon etc.
Heroic deck, usually WU. Just a lot of the solid heroic guys like wingsteed rider etc. and then play some cantrip aura's, god's willing etc. Ended up playing this in my first paper draft yesterday but it's quite difficult to get enough good heroic guys especially since they are all quite fragile.
RB minotaur, based around minotaur lords obviously.
Usually it's just a fairly aggressive goodstuff deck I want to be in, mostly with U, G or both. Good two and three drops are crucial since you're lategame is usually set anyway between bestow and montrosity and there are so many good tricks to beat through blockers.
He just feels like domri #5 or perhaps domri #4. He is especially just good agianst control where churning out hasty satyrs is a very viable plan, and being able to ramp out super quickly with him works out great. Xenagos +1 into domri is a very strong play.
White (and to a lesser extent blue) are definately the best colors for a heroic deck. Good spells to trigger heroic and the best heroic creatures at common/uncommon.
The cantrip aura's are still risky often and I only run them if i need fillers or really have the heroic theme going well (like 5+ good guys with heroic). Feral invocation is another great heroic enabler by the way. The ordeals are basically all ok if you have heroic going though the blue and red one are best for sure.
Playtesting Results(playtesting more MUs tomorrow)
RDW
Pre-Board = 1-3
Post-Board = 4-4
So this isnt that great of a matchup. I will be looking at the sideboard for more help and possibly even the mainboard once again. I will go into that more later
Esper(didnt Finish)
Pre-Board = 1-1
Post-Board = 4-1
The current Sideboard is very good against them, that along with the amount of walkers I have in my list. In one turn after he played elspeth I played and made Monstrious a strombreath dragon thanks to xenagos.
UW Trading Post(Brad Nelson list)
Pre-Board = 5-0
Post-Board = 0-0
Pre board was hugely lopsided. Our card advanage out weighed theirs and he was playing from behind in every game. To me this deck feels like it can prey upon the true midranger decks but not these aggro/midrange hybrids like what I have here.
Cards on the chopping block
Mainboard:
2x Chandra - Its not that she isnt good, its that we isnt always good. I think 2x Magma Jet/2x Mizzium Mortars would possibly be better to help against RDW game 1. Likly would swap out chandras for Mizzium Mortars. Chandra was really helpful at keep a aetherling from blocking my creatures so that is a thing of note.
1x Boon Satyr - 4 feels like a bit too much. I believe I will cut 1 Boon Saytr for 1 Fleecemane Lion
1x Destructive Revelry - I usually only bring in two whenever I do bring this card in. It is likely fine as a 2-of in the board.
1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed - Dont think we need this guy against control, although he may be a nail in the coffin. Against esper I didnt even bring him in so he is likely coming out asap
All the rest have preformed exactly like I thought. In place of that in the board we could maybe go fiendslayer paladin if the RDW matchup continues to be as terrible as it was.
EDIT: I also played in the ML trial, and got 2nd place only scooping to esper in the finals because I had to leave. I beat two RG decks, got a bye, and beat a UW control Deck
That's quite in line with what I expected from your list, planeswalker setup is good for control, not so much against aggro.
Magma jet is the card to play I think, mortars is just too much dead weight against control since blood baron is not so popular. Finishers tend to be elspeth and aetherling mostly occasionally desecration demon. Jet is just very versatile, sometimes great but never terrible.
Still curious why there aren't 2-3 experiment one though, opening up 1-drop is just very sweet.
In the sideboard glare of heresy, boros charm, mizzium mortars and courage are a must I feel. Overall there is not really much needed for control anymore because there is hardly anything I want to take out, problem with most board cards for control is that they are non-creature and don't improve the deck that much since.
Destructive revelry is nice but many times glare of heresy is the more versatile enchantment removal that I don't want more than 1.
Selesnya charm is mostly an answer for decks with demon or kalonian hydra which you're not always sure off so charm can at least do other things.
The rest is mostly for aggro, specifically RDW though. That matchup has by far the most cards I want to bring out (the planeswalkers, boon satyr and slow stuff like rampager and dragon) so about half the board comes in for that matchup. Might as well shore up those matchups while other cards are only marginal improvements in other matchups. Domri becomes weak if you bring in too much stuff anyway but against RDW i don't like domri in the first place.
Something good against R/G decks would be good though, an effective answer to opposing walkers that is still versatile for example. Preferrably creature form actually. Not sure yet if there is something good for that.
The value of a vanilla 3/3 for 3 varies a lot between draft formats because it matters how well it matches up with everything. What sort of removal is there? How big are the other creatures? How well can it block? How many cards are there at 3 mana? How fast is the format? etc. etc.
Removal in Theros draft is quite cumbersome, a lot costs quite a bit and the cheaper ones often hit bears but not courser. Last breath, pharika's cure, magma jet etc. miss courser. He also blocks quite well, ie not many situations where he get's blown out by a trick easily, which is basically dependent on the type of tricks and cheap creatures there are. Finally a 3/3 can trade with all common/uncommon 4-drops, not something you see in every limited format either. From my play experience he just matched up quite well in this format, i can't recall an other format right away where 3/3 for 3 was terrible but right now it's just quite good.
As for bestowing, many bestow cards give some ability that is best if it comes on a good body. For example courser is excellent to give lifelink on turn 4 because a 4/4 just wins race. He may lack heroic but he is big enough that he ends up being a good base for building your own supercreature while being hard to remove in response to the bestow.
The order I put the top green ones was very debateable as I think they are quite close actually. From your list i'd definately strike time to feed, out of the top 5. It's very conditional and it's way too easy to get blown out by removal or a pump spell in response, fighting at sorcery speed for that much mana is just too risky often. And the situations where it does work well you are often not even needing it that much, afterall you're likely to have the biggest guy on board for it to work well.
Savage surge is alright and would be 7 for me, Usually I tend to pick decent guys over decent pumps first just because ending up with too much tricks is so much worse than too much guys. Good 1 and 2 drops creatures are hard to come by in this format hence i like scorpion quite a bit.
Fade into antiquity is lousy I think, I like enchantment removal in this set and am happy to play 1 main and potentially bring in a second from the board but the instant enchantment removal is so much better and not hard to pick up late generally. Fade into antiquity sucks vs bestow compared to the instant removal that it's pretty rare for this to make my deck or spend an early pick on.
Nylea's presence is stone cold unplayable i'd say, wasting so much tempo for some slight color fixing is awful in this format where you're often spending all your mana thanks to the numerous outlets. Cards like these that just replace themselves also make mulliganning correctly much harder.
Staunch-hearted warrior is also pretty lousy, with 1 heroic trigger succesfully he is only slightly above par (a 4/4 for 4 would be good but not insane) and almost all removal can still kill him in response to that heroic trigger and the spell you're targeting it with.
For green i'd continue the list with:
7. Savage surge
8. Nylea's disciple
9. Time to feed
Agent of horizons is probably top 5 if you have blue,otherwise 10th spot. Rest is pretty much never making the cut except sideboard appearances, even in GR i'd hardly play satyr hedonist.
That last line is one of the main reasons Im playing him.
Reckoner is super harsh on the manabase of the aggro versions of naya where we rather have turn 1 mystic over turn 2 caryatid since turn 2 we rather boon/smiter/domri/fleecemane/VoR.
And like Razorgore said he is also really good against control. We do side him out against aggro, but I believe that to be fine.
Anything I we may have missed? I will post back later tonight with my results.
That direction for the deck looks pretty solid.
I'm not sold on skipping experiment one though, it's just such a solid beater and crucial I think for having that clock against control. 2 or 3 is a good number I think, you don't want to draw 2 during a game perhaps but overall it's pretty solid. Fleecemane lion should just be a 4-of really he is always good.
Overall I think you're too much on the topside and planeswalkers, it's tuned alright for control that way but against other aggro this is a bit problematic. Just a few less planeswalkers and a few lightning strike or magma jet main is what i'd suggest. RDW can race this deck quite often actually and being able to interact with firefist striker or chandra's phoenix early on is huge.
Chandra is not for this deck I think, ticking up to ultimate is pointless in this deck which makes her a little weaker. The 0 ability is also often just overcommitting into sweepers, she only costs tempo against control and without sufficient amount of burn the card advantage she provides can often just be moot as an active elspeth can easily outchurn an active chandra for example. She is fantastic in RDW where knocking blockers out of the way is huge and just drawing and burning out an opponent is very viable or even ultimating but here most of her abilities are often not nearly as good as they can be.
Which between magma jet and lightning strike i like more is hard, probably magma jet. It sets up domri very nicely, is straight up better than lightning strike against rdw and only really missed out fleecemane lion in the mirror compared to lightning strike.
In this format it's only really thoughtseize though, a must pick for the money which you otherwise don't want. The mythics are either not worth enough or practically must plays anyway, only opening them pack 3 kinda stinks if you can't use them.
Redrafting rares sounds like an awesome idea by the way but I don't think anyone would agree with it at the store I play it. You'd have to stay till the end and everyone kind of has to be honest, people might be tucking away that elspeth or whatever. Problems of those aside it seems like a great idea though, you can make the draft cheaper by getting rid of packs as payout while still having a nice payout for winning and you remove the raredrafting problem at the same time.
I especially hate it when the costly rares are such totally uninteresting must picks like some duals or fetchlands were before, just worth enough to make you want to pick them but not feeling really excited either just because it was such a lackluster card to play with. At least online drafting for free has none of these problems but lacks the serious play of actually drafting for a prize unfortunately.
wingsteed rider
battlewise hoplite
phalanx leader
triton fortune hunter
wavecrash triton
Most heroic guys are too insignificant without getting a trigger first or only benefit themselves when they get a trigger which makes it too easy to lead into blowouts, especially as they require you to pump them basically.
The best ones for me are those that are fine without a trigger like wingsteed rider and battlewise hoplite and grow out of common removal range quickly. Otherwise I like them to have some sort of trigger that is beneficial even if the heroic guy get's offed, phalanx leader, wavecrash triton and and triton fortune hunter all have this.
only elspeth is a near unbeatable card in this format. Reaper of the wilds is very good but plenty of stuff that beats it. Whip same thing, very slow and difficult sometimes to have enough guys to use it with. Nemesis of mortals is just ok, not even better than nessian asp i think. Benthic giant is unplayable, just really bad
Of course there are some decks like the aggressive heroic deck that want 17, especially with some cantrip aura's. Decks with lots of acceleration are probably fine at 17 too, but anything else i'd go with 18.
UG feels the best combination by far to me so far, only colors to really provide multiple guys at 2-3 cc I want to run (which are the tough spots to fill up) and the colors compliment eachothers weaknesses nicely. Blue has some bounce to deal with troublesome stuff green just can't handle and green has the fatties to stall the ground for flyers to finish it off. Green also gives some enchantment removal which I always like to have 1 or 2 from just because it's so good against the bestow creatures. UG also has the best dual color cards I think, agent of the horizons and horizon chimera.
Black is better than I first thought, in potential as strong as green/blue but I don't prefer to pick it still because it really wants to be the dominant color. Big problem still with it as well is that you have no good early creatures except baleful eidolon below 4 mana basically. Returned phalanx and some artifact creatures are often neccesary to keep your deck fast enough, or good defensive splashes from other colors. Only way it get's aggro basically is the minotaur deck or some absurd amount of rares/uncommons in it. Still it's just solid and I like the pairing with white or green in a more controllish deck.
White just has alot weaker commons than the rest I find. Especially it's hard to find good 2 and 3 drops for them which usually need to come from uncommon. White also has some very relevant cards at double white making the mana even more troublesome if you don't main the color. Getting the heroic theme going strongly can make some otherwise soso cards become good. Otherwise as a more controlling color some cards, like divine verdict or the vigiliance stuff also get's a lot better. Either way you really want a specific archetype it looks and not just splash some white goodstuff.
Red has dropped from middle to worst for me. Major problem with it was that I always ended up with topheavy decks, with lots of stuff at 4 and 5 mana. Even the removal in red isn't as good as I first though as so much stuff can quickly grow out of reach for red, one bestow when you're untapped and you got a tough time killing that creature.
The scry lands are still criminally underrated. Even in aggro there are plenty of times you don't curve out exactly and just getting a scry then is fantastic. Most of all though they are very good though when you are a little landflooded, scry is very good later on when you want specific cards and shipping away lands or useless mana elves etc. becomes really strong.
There are also just some fine interactions with scrylands here and there, for example with domri rade. Suppose you play 28 creatures then domri's +1 has a 28/60 = 46.7% chance to hit. Now if you play a scry land first you either see a creature or you see a non-creature you'll scry away and then have a 28/59 chance to hit still, thus: 28/60 + 32/60 * 28/59 = 72% chance to hit.
It is true though that scry is at it's strongest when you have specific cards you need to hit while it becomes fairly irrelevant if you have redundant cards. Especially aggro can be built with redundancy sometimes lessening the power of scry a little but at the other time their need for land is much more specific than control usually since aggro wants to hit a certain amount of land and not more while control keeps wanting to hit them much longer. I think the key thing of these scry lands is to remember that scry grows in power the more specific your needs are, the more dead draws there potentially are the more scry does for you and this is oftne later in the game. So the scry lands often get rejected for 'but these suck entering tapped in aggro' which they do but they excel in those hands where you have a few too many lands anyway (since lands are a dead draw then) and you play these on a later turn. Overall I actually think that makes them arguably stronger in aggro than control since control plays these on turn 1 typically where the scry is fairly weak and they actually suck for control later on where you still want to tap out.
It's a bit difficult to explain exactly but the way these lands work they actually sort of synergize with aggro while they are obviously just fine too in control making them pretty good overall. Lots of decks will play them and the way to do so if just by playing a bit more land overall like you usually do with lands that prevent flooding.
First of all the manabase for naya isn't that much worse, selesnya also has problems with the mana actually. 3 color isn't much tougher than 2 color in this format. Selesnya has 4 duals and possible some awful guildgates, naya has 12 duals and some decent temples. Sure naya is slower and the mana is slightly worse (mostly just more painful) but it's also less reliant on hitting all 3 colors directly while selesnya kind of wants to hit GW always on turn 2. Naya can still have decent plays like domri/magma jet turn 2 if you're stuck on white for a little.
Overall I just think that red adds enough for it to be worth it. Stormbreath dragon is great in a deck that lacks haste, boros charm is rootborn defense but much better, magma jet/mizzium mortars are solid removal which can also target some guys normal selesnya can have a lot of trouble with like chandra's phoenix, stormbreath dragon and blood baron. Finally ghor-clan rampager provides that much needed combat trick which is far better than the selesnya charm played by selesnya and domri is a house providing removal and card advantage for an archetype which otherwise has none.
The best way for selesnya to go though I think is more white focussed so it can play brave the elements (not the crappy tokens build with rootborn defense etc.) and that deck can be pretty good and quite different from naya. It's fast and brave the elements can be a blowout. It's quite vulnerable to supreme verdict though having no haste and no burn at all though, basically just voice and maybe advent of the wurm to play around it.
Bx control, black cards tend to be slower and defensive which can work well with some defensively minded cards like guardian of meletis, gray merchant, baleful eidolon etc.
Heroic deck, usually WU. Just a lot of the solid heroic guys like wingsteed rider etc. and then play some cantrip aura's, god's willing etc. Ended up playing this in my first paper draft yesterday but it's quite difficult to get enough good heroic guys especially since they are all quite fragile.
RB minotaur, based around minotaur lords obviously.
Usually it's just a fairly aggressive goodstuff deck I want to be in, mostly with U, G or both. Good two and three drops are crucial since you're lategame is usually set anyway between bestow and montrosity and there are so many good tricks to beat through blockers.
The cantrip aura's are still risky often and I only run them if i need fillers or really have the heroic theme going well (like 5+ good guys with heroic). Feral invocation is another great heroic enabler by the way. The ordeals are basically all ok if you have heroic going though the blue and red one are best for sure.
That's quite in line with what I expected from your list, planeswalker setup is good for control, not so much against aggro.
Magma jet is the card to play I think, mortars is just too much dead weight against control since blood baron is not so popular. Finishers tend to be elspeth and aetherling mostly occasionally desecration demon. Jet is just very versatile, sometimes great but never terrible.
Still curious why there aren't 2-3 experiment one though, opening up 1-drop is just very sweet.
This is my what I like now:
3 Boon Satyr
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Fleecemane Lion
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Voice of Resurgence
3 Experiment One
4 Loxodon Smiter
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
3 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Temple Garden
4 Forest
3 Plains
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Stomping Ground
2 Temple of Abandon
2 Temple of Triumph
1 Mountain
1 Xenagos, the Reveler
2 Magma Jet
2 Unflinching Courage
2 Glare of Heresy
2 Mizzium Mortars
1 Destructive Revelry
1 Xenagos, the Reveler
2 Boros Charm
3 Warleader's Helix
1 Flames of the Firebrand
1 Selesnya Charm
In the sideboard glare of heresy, boros charm, mizzium mortars and courage are a must I feel. Overall there is not really much needed for control anymore because there is hardly anything I want to take out, problem with most board cards for control is that they are non-creature and don't improve the deck that much since.
Destructive revelry is nice but many times glare of heresy is the more versatile enchantment removal that I don't want more than 1.
Selesnya charm is mostly an answer for decks with demon or kalonian hydra which you're not always sure off so charm can at least do other things.
The rest is mostly for aggro, specifically RDW though. That matchup has by far the most cards I want to bring out (the planeswalkers, boon satyr and slow stuff like rampager and dragon) so about half the board comes in for that matchup. Might as well shore up those matchups while other cards are only marginal improvements in other matchups. Domri becomes weak if you bring in too much stuff anyway but against RDW i don't like domri in the first place.
Something good against R/G decks would be good though, an effective answer to opposing walkers that is still versatile for example. Preferrably creature form actually. Not sure yet if there is something good for that.
The value of a vanilla 3/3 for 3 varies a lot between draft formats because it matters how well it matches up with everything. What sort of removal is there? How big are the other creatures? How well can it block? How many cards are there at 3 mana? How fast is the format? etc. etc.
Removal in Theros draft is quite cumbersome, a lot costs quite a bit and the cheaper ones often hit bears but not courser. Last breath, pharika's cure, magma jet etc. miss courser. He also blocks quite well, ie not many situations where he get's blown out by a trick easily, which is basically dependent on the type of tricks and cheap creatures there are. Finally a 3/3 can trade with all common/uncommon 4-drops, not something you see in every limited format either. From my play experience he just matched up quite well in this format, i can't recall an other format right away where 3/3 for 3 was terrible but right now it's just quite good.
As for bestowing, many bestow cards give some ability that is best if it comes on a good body. For example courser is excellent to give lifelink on turn 4 because a 4/4 just wins race. He may lack heroic but he is big enough that he ends up being a good base for building your own supercreature while being hard to remove in response to the bestow.
The order I put the top green ones was very debateable as I think they are quite close actually. From your list i'd definately strike time to feed, out of the top 5. It's very conditional and it's way too easy to get blown out by removal or a pump spell in response, fighting at sorcery speed for that much mana is just too risky often. And the situations where it does work well you are often not even needing it that much, afterall you're likely to have the biggest guy on board for it to work well.
Savage surge is alright and would be 7 for me, Usually I tend to pick decent guys over decent pumps first just because ending up with too much tricks is so much worse than too much guys. Good 1 and 2 drops creatures are hard to come by in this format hence i like scorpion quite a bit.
Fade into antiquity is lousy I think, I like enchantment removal in this set and am happy to play 1 main and potentially bring in a second from the board but the instant enchantment removal is so much better and not hard to pick up late generally. Fade into antiquity sucks vs bestow compared to the instant removal that it's pretty rare for this to make my deck or spend an early pick on.
Nylea's presence is stone cold unplayable i'd say, wasting so much tempo for some slight color fixing is awful in this format where you're often spending all your mana thanks to the numerous outlets. Cards like these that just replace themselves also make mulliganning correctly much harder.
Staunch-hearted warrior is also pretty lousy, with 1 heroic trigger succesfully he is only slightly above par (a 4/4 for 4 would be good but not insane) and almost all removal can still kill him in response to that heroic trigger and the spell you're targeting it with.
For green i'd continue the list with:
7. Savage surge
8. Nylea's disciple
9. Time to feed
Agent of horizons is probably top 5 if you have blue,otherwise 10th spot. Rest is pretty much never making the cut except sideboard appearances, even in GR i'd hardly play satyr hedonist.
That direction for the deck looks pretty solid.
I'm not sold on skipping experiment one though, it's just such a solid beater and crucial I think for having that clock against control. 2 or 3 is a good number I think, you don't want to draw 2 during a game perhaps but overall it's pretty solid. Fleecemane lion should just be a 4-of really he is always good.
Overall I think you're too much on the topside and planeswalkers, it's tuned alright for control that way but against other aggro this is a bit problematic. Just a few less planeswalkers and a few lightning strike or magma jet main is what i'd suggest. RDW can race this deck quite often actually and being able to interact with firefist striker or chandra's phoenix early on is huge.
Chandra is not for this deck I think, ticking up to ultimate is pointless in this deck which makes her a little weaker. The 0 ability is also often just overcommitting into sweepers, she only costs tempo against control and without sufficient amount of burn the card advantage she provides can often just be moot as an active elspeth can easily outchurn an active chandra for example. She is fantastic in RDW where knocking blockers out of the way is huge and just drawing and burning out an opponent is very viable or even ultimating but here most of her abilities are often not nearly as good as they can be.
Which between magma jet and lightning strike i like more is hard, probably magma jet. It sets up domri very nicely, is straight up better than lightning strike against rdw and only really missed out fleecemane lion in the mirror compared to lightning strike.