Thursday, November 7, 2019

Everything I know about Throne of Eldraine Limited - What I’ve learned from 80 drafts




I can’t promise that this will be the most eloquently written article I’ve ever published, but I can promise that it’ll be jam packed with as much as I know about Throne of Eldraine limited. There’s a lot to cover so I’ll forgo a lengthy introduction about the format and jump right in. Let's get to it!

The most defining feature of the format, and what separates good decks from medium/bad decks, is optimizing your draft and build for a good mana base.

If you had a draft table with 7 players that had drafted the set 50 times and one player who had never drafted it, I think the most likely (and most punishing) mistake that one player would make is going though the draft assuming that their deck will end up in a place where a 9-8 mana base is acceptable or optimal.

Au Contraire

In ELD limited you want to lean as hard towards one colour as possible. There are exceptions to this,  as there are ways to enable multi colored decks, but consider being heavily weighted towards one colour the rule and anything else the exception.

Here’s a list of format features that heavily incentivize you to lean towards mono coloured.


 1. The Cycle of 10 Hybrid Uncommons

These are some of the more powerful cards in the set, cards I’m taking above a good chunk of rares, and cards that someone drafting with a traditional 9/8 manabase in mind will only be able to take advantage of 1 of the 10 cards in the cycle. A drafter that is near mono blue in pack 3 has the chance to open or get passed Arcanist’s Owl (U/W), Thunderous Snapper (U/G), Loch Dragon (U/R), or Covetous Urge (U/B) with a good chance of any and all of those cards making their deck.  These cards are fairly flexible early picks, and great payoffs late for staying close to one colour.

2. Adamant Cards

The Adamant cards fall into two categories, cards that are fine cards even without the Adamant bonus.


  

And cards that are nearly unplayable without the Adamant bonus.

 



Similarly to the hybrid uncommons, by leaning heavily towards one colour, you leave yourself outs to having access to a higher number of playable cards. A 9/8 UB deck can’t in good faith play either Lochthwain Paladin or Vantress Paladin, but either card is a welcome addition in their mono colour homes.

A small note on the Paladin Cycle: Garenbrig Paladin is actively good and a card most of your green decks want 2-3 copies of, the rest range from fine to good when you can cast them with their adamant bonus. I’ve even come around to liking the red one and white one even though they look sort of dorky. 5 haste damage is a huge chunk and 3/6 on curve reads “can’t be blocked” enough of the time for me to not mind a copy.

For all intents and purposes, you can count this cycle of rares as adamant payoffs as well when considering how to draft with a good manabase in mind.

   

3. Adventure Cards and Double Spelling

This one is kind of sneaky, and not obvious at first, but the more adventure cards you have in your deck, the better you want your manabase to be. A lot of the adventures want you to be able to play both sides in the same turn. You want to be able to cast your Gift of the Fae + Faerie Guidemother for maximum damage output, and you want to be able to cast Venture Deeper plus Merfolk Secretkeeper to start blocking ASAP. Many of these cards are cheap so you don’t have much time to fiddle around waiting to draw the mana you need. Getting to two sources isn’t too difficult, but when you consider play patterns like “Venture Deeper, play Merfolk Secretkeeper, hold up So Tiny” or “Gift of the Fae, Faerie Guidemother hold up Outflank” are common, you want to ensure that you can cast both sides of your adventures and still have other sources available for additional spells.

 

Ardenvale Tactician in particular wants you to play upwards of 11 W sources so that you can have WW on turn 3 and WWW on turn 5 as often as possible.




Ideally, by the end of the draft you have a mono coloured deck that has enough quality playables that you aren’t sacrificing any power just to be mono coloured. This doesn’t happen all that often, especially at a table of drafters familiar with the format.

More commonly, my decks end up in a place where I have a 14-3 or 13-4 mana base with a base colour splashing a few cheap removal spells or higher rarity cards. If by the end of the draft my deck demands a manabase that is 10-7 or worse I know mana will likely punish me  at some point in my games.

How to optimize for a good mana base as soon as P1P1

1. Make concessions to your mana when a pick is close 

 

P1P1 I take Slaying Fire over Bake into a Pie. I think that Bake nudges out Fire on raw power but being able to still play Slaying Fire in a 13 W source 4 R source deck is huge. I’m not making any large concession in power for my mana base, but when a pick is close, taking a single pipped card is usually the tiebreaker.

2. Try to get deep into one colour, and if you notice that colour dries up, jump ship into another colour.

This contrasts the strategy of most formats which is “try to find the two most open colours.” Since everyone is so incentivized  to be heavily weighted towards one colour, its very punishing to not move off of a colour that’s drying up and equally as rewarding to move into the open colour. This format more than any other, I’ve abandoned my first 4-5 picks because my colour just wasn’t open and still ended up in a great deck (if I had to guess, I’d say this happens around 50% of the time.)


3. Draft Golden Egg early and often


There a ton of applications for this card but one of the best things this card does is alleviate some of the pressures that mana bases can have in the format. If I’m forced to play a 10-7 mana base, I’m much happier if I have 2 Golden Eggs in my pile.

White is good in this format, for the love of God please draft white

White FINALLY gets its day in the sun. I’m going to defer this point to Ethan Sak’s article on white in Eldraine , he does a fantastic job of dissecting white in this format and I want to echo everything he says here https://blog.cardsphere.com/being-whitelisted-in-eldraine-limited-2/.



Don’t ignore that 5th pick Ardenval Tactician and that Flutterfox that wheeled (it’s absurd that this still happens imo.)

This is not a slow format

I think this format suffered from a bit of misrepresentation early on. The first iteration of the Arena bots pushed everyone into durdly black/green decks that resulted in 30 minute B01 matches. The slow food decks were heavily over-represented and word got around that ELD was one of the biggest slog fests we’ve had in a while.



This coupled with Limited Resources’ first impression episode saying that aggro was straight up bad (no blame on their part here, the first few days of the format are the wild west) set the format up to be painted as something it wasn’t.

This is a medium-fast format. On the M14 (1) to Zendikar (10) scale, its about a 7. You need to make plays, be them defensive or proactive every turn of the game starting before turn 3. You may think that the aggro decks would fold too easily to a few food tokens being made, but play design equipped the aggro decks with enough tools to combat the food decks in the form of cards that provide reach, combat tricks that are essentially 2 for 1’s, and cards like Brimstone Trebuche that provide persistent sources of damage. The format being fairly fast is yet another reason why your manabase needs to be good, as stumbling trying to cast your early spells can result in a swift death.

    Brimstone Trebuchet (ELD)


The part with the top commons in each colour

White

  

Ardenvale Tactician is the truth. The card is absurdly good at pushing damage, and rivals Bake into a Pie as the best common in the set. I feel like my white decks can be 3 Tacticians, 20 other spells, and my deck is good. Ranking Flutterfox over Trapped in the Tower may look a little strange but Flutterfox is just too good of a threat for me to take over a good, but somewhat replaceable removal spell (especially when that removal spell has multiple ways to get punished in this format.)



Blue

  Didn't Say Please (ELD)


Merfolk Secretkeeper is the best blue common in my books and you should be taking it pretty highly. It enables what most blue decks what to do, and having 2-3 copies with a few ways to recur it gives you a massive edge in any slower match-up.

So Tiny is the exact type of interaction your blue decks want. Its cheap, it’s an instant what’s not to love? This card is a good notch better than Charmed Sleep, a card that’s not even in my top 3 commons. The third best blue common is close between Didn’t Say Please, and Witching Well, but I’ve given the nod to Didn’t Say Please because I think people have a tendency to undervalue this card and Witching Well is somewhat replaceable with the amount of good card draw in the format.

Black

Bake into a Pie (ELD)  


Black is straight forward with its top commons. You may get to a point in your draft where Tempting Witch or Smitten Swordsmith is better than Reaper but, in a vacuum, I like taking Reaper early.


Red

  

Similar to black, red is straightforward. A five mana removal spell usually doesn’t make red’s top common list but Searing Barrage’s deal 3 just makes it Chandra’s Bigrage, the reach matters a lot.

Green

  

Outmuscle Vs. Witchstalker as the top green common is something that is debated among even the best drafters still. I personally take Witchstalker but either is fine. Garenbrig Paladin looks like a big dummy, and he is, but he’s a lot closer to Air Elemental than he looks.

My 17 Lands Rankings

https://www.17lands.com/card_tiers/ELD?baseline=30588ade239246d0ab12393d00dc801a

This a link to my most recently updated 17 lands ranking of all the cards in the format. Don’t take this as gospel, and don’t let it dictate your whole draft, but it’s a good starting point if you’re fuzzy on trying to evaluate a specific card or place where two cards line up against each other.

Uncommons I take over Bake Into a Pie, the best common, P1P1

In my last article I posted a list similar to this one, but this is an updated list now that the format has fermented in my brain a bit.



Related, here is a list of uncommons I take over the next best commons (Ardenvale Tactician, Scorching Dragonfire, Reave Soul) in order from best to worst


Cards that are better than they look

A quick note before we hop into this next section, Throne of Eldraine is full of cards that like bad cards from previous formats, be careful not to write a card off as bad just because it looks like a stinker from the past.

Weasleback Redcap



This is the poster child for cards that look like bad cards from the past. Bellows Lizard this is not. Redcap threatens to deal massive amounts of damage or trade with cards way more expensive for reasonably little investment. Being a Knight and playing well with cards like Barge In and Ferocity of Wild doesn’t hurt the card either.

Scalding Cauldron




This is one mana draw a 3 mana deal 3 with artifact synergy upside. This card loses a bit of value as you find your lane in the draft and can pick up slightly more efficient removal, but early on it’s a good flexible pick.

Ferocity of the Wilds



Remember Street Riot for Guilds of Ravnica draft? Yeah, this isn’t that card. This effect for 3 mana is actually a good rate and the non-human clause on it is fairly negligible.

Midnight Clock


Midnight Clock is more like a ticking time bomb than a clock tower. When the clock hits 12, you win the game a large percentage of the time. It’s easy to miss that it triggers on each upkeep, and easier to miss that many blue decks actively want things to do with their mana at the end of their opponent’s turn. I have this as a P1P1 over all the non-rares in the set.

Folio of Fancy



Another card I P1P1 over every non-rare. Folio is kind of a messed-up card. A lot of decks can’t beat this card when you play it on turn 2 as you just start milling them, and they don’t have the capacity to race you or empty their hand quickly enough. The times when it doesn’t virtually win the game on the spot it’s a great late-game engine. 

Revenge of Ravens



The word on this card is long out at this point but I think its worth reiterating how good this card it. It straight up invalidates a decent number of aggressive creatures and makes it very hard for aggro decks to win once it hits the table. The sneaky part of this card is that it not only makes it harder for your opponent to kill you, but it says “your opponent has X attacks left in this game where X is their life total” and there are certain gamestates/ decks that your opponent literally can not win the game though that equation . I will caveat the praise I have for this card with the fact that it’s pretty bad against Fierce Witchstalker/Garenbrig Paladin.dec and the mill deck.

Golden Egg



It fixes your mana, it trigger’s your draw 2 payoffs, it helps your food decks flow, it jumps your Flutterfoxs it slices, it dices.

This is an early pick because of how flexible it is and how many decks it goes in. I'm sad if I can’t pick a sweet rare or uncommon P1P1 but i'm not unhappy to pick an Egg if there’s nothing above replacement level in the pack.

Didn’t Say Please



Didn't Say Please must be the best a variant Cancel has ever been in a limited format. Blue decks have a ton of stuff to do at instant speed so the opportunity cost of passing the turn with open mana is low. It plays out much how counterspells do in constructed than how they normally do in limited.


Gingerbrute 



The base white aggro decks and the GR non-human creatures matter deck both love this card. It looks really cute wearing a Rosethorn Halberd or an All That Glitters, and appreciates mass pump effects from Syr Alin, Grumgully, Silverflame Ritual, and Ferocity of the Wilds.

Cards that are worse than they look

Bog Naughty


Poor Bog Naughty. When the set first came out, it looked like it was going to be the mythic uncommon of the set but things just didn’t pan out that way for this little guy. Most black decks are defensive, and 3/3 on turn 5 just doesn’t block very well. Couple that with the fact that food is somewhat scarce resource and almost all the common removal trades way up on mana with Naughty makes for a card that is good, but not anything to take before pick 5 or 6.

Cauldron of Eternity



Cauldron is just sort of clunky. It’s a value engine in a set full of decent value engines, except this one is uncastable for a decent amount of the game. The opportunity cost on this card is just too high for a pay off that is good (if I get back 2 creatures I’m pretty happy) but not insane.

Order of Midnight



This card is still quite good, but again, a lot of the black decks are defensive and not being able to block is a reasonably large cost. RB and WB still love this card as they don’t mind playing it on 2, but in slower decks look at this as a Raise Dead with slight upside rather than a Gravedigger with flying,

Into the Story



In most blue decks, the two common draw spells are just better than this card. 7 mana is a ton. When you have 3-4 Merfolk Secretkeepers, feel free to pick up this card, it’ll be solid, but early in the draft it’s better to take Witching Well.

Joust



Your knights generally have low toughness so this end ups being Bone Splinters more times than you want to be. It’s third rate removal and something you should expect to wheel.

Charmed Sleep


This card is fine, and you’re going to play it in most of your blue decks, but So Tiny fills the same role and is better in most cases.


Be careful when drafting UR draw two

This tweet is mostly in jest but it has some truth to it. UR draw two has a few issues that you need to be aware of when drafting it.

1. The payoffs at commons aren’t cards I almost ever want in my deck so the deck is reliant on picking up multiple uncommon/rare payoffs

Improbable Alliance (ELD)

2. The common enablers (Opt Merchant of the Vale etc.) are largely interchangeable and air in your deck.  You need good payoffs to make these cards worthy inclusions, this isn't a deck that can be build with just commons most of the time.




3. The deck folds hard to mill and needs answers to Revenge of Ravens (the most common way you’re winning is through Faerie tokens)

4. The deck sometimes just loses to itself. If your payoffs are in the bottom half of your deck, you sometimes cant draw enough cards to trigger your payoffs before you deck yourself.

The deck is still pretty good, you just need to draft it as a control deck with the good draw two payoffs as your win conditions rather than a “turbo” draw two deck


My 3-0 Draft logs/decks and further reading
I hope this has been helpful to some of you, especially those competing at PT Richmond this weekend. I’ll leave you with my previous article detailing my first 21 trophy decks and their draft logs. Hopefully the logs will be able to highlight the kind of picks I’m making in this format (I think its especially important to pay attention to the times when I hard pivot off of my first few picks.)

https://limitedlevelups.blogspot.com/2019/10/21-trophies-with-21-draft-logs.html

Ill also leave you with a few article from some great content creators who’s opinions I really respect and who’s views on the format really line up with mine.

Ethan Sak’s Cardsphere articles: https://blog.cardsphere.com/tag/limited/

Ryan Saxe’s SCG articles: http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/tags/Limited


If you’ve made it this far then perhaps you’d also enjoy the brand new podcast that I just launched, Limited Level-Ups! http://limitedlevelups.libsyn.com/




              

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