Modern Horizons Draft Guide - Part 5 - Draft Navigation, Quick Tips, and Final Words

Draft Navigation AKA What to do When you Actually Open your Packs

We’ve basically covered everything you need to know about the set itself, but how do we apply this information? How do you navigate each pack when you’re sitting down at your FMN, or even Day 2 of a GP?

Here’s a breakdown of how I navigate a MH1 draft:

1.     For picks the first few picks of pack 1, my pick orders roughly go:

A.     Generically great cards like the best removal spells, good uncommons/rares/mythics that are good in any deck)

B.     Synergy pieces that go in multiple decks (think Bogardan Dragonheart, Springbloom Druid, Changeling Outcast)

C.     Synergy pieces that go in 1-2 decks (Faerie Seer, Winter’s Rest, Snow lands)

D.     Ok removal or removal you don’t want too many copies of (Settle Beyond Reality, Magmatic Sinkhole)

2.     Bias your picks towards staying one colour until the wheel. Each colour has self-contained pockets of synergy that don’t requite you to branch out into a second colour too early. If you aren’t sacrificing too much power, take the card that matches your good first or second pick cards

3.     Pay attention to the wheel. In high synergy formats, this is where you really get a sense of what’s open. If you’re consistently getting late Smoke Shrouds, Astrolabes, or Slivers in each pack of the wheel, that an important data point to keep tract of and a potential sign that you should move in.

4.     If you’re too far deep into your colours and can’t pivot, try and draft your colour pair’s Plan B deck. Even if someone close to you is taking your synergy cards, you should still end up with the right cards to make the backdoor strategy work.

Quick Hits

Here is a quick list of tips for the format that I didn't feel belonged anywhere else

·       Sword of Sinew and Steel is not an A plus level bomb. You’re almost always taking this card P1P1 because its powerful colourless cards, but once you know what lane you’re in there are cards ill take over it. If I’m solidly in Snow and I open this and Abominable Treefolk in Pack, I’m probably taking the Treefolk.

·       Pick up an Echo of Eons if you see one floating around late, it’s a near unbeatable sideboard card against the mill deck.

·       Making Concessions to your mana base is critical in this format. This set isn’t designed like most traditional limited sets in the past 10 years or so. In most sets they make a conscious effort to have very few double colour pipped cards at common and uncommon. That’s just not the case for this format, there's double pipped cards everywhere, you really need to pay attention to your mana especially because the format is so punishing if you miss a beat. A deck with Faerie Seer and Undead Auger in it is just asking to lose to its own manabase.

·       A list of Uncommons that you should P1P1 over every common in rough order of best to worst. I’ve left gold cards off the list because that comes down to preferences of how open/ willing to take a rider on gold card you want to be.

-        Battle Screech

-        Watcher for tomorrow

-        Graveshifter

-        Firebolt

-        Conifer Wurm

-        Oneirophage

-        Undead Auger

-        Sattled Rimestag

·       You’ll notice that Fact or Fiction and Crypt Rats aren’t on that list. I think both Man-o-War and Springbloom Druid are better than both of those cards P1P1 in this format. Fact or fiction has a common analog in Rain of Revelation so its not as unique of an effect as it is in most sets. Crypt rats is great, but you have to be heavy black for it to reliably be a field wipe so while its powerful, it’s narrower that it looks.

·       Without any snow payoffs you should play your on-colour snow lands if you have Goatnap or Fallen Shinobi BUT you shouldn’t play they if you don’t have those cards in your deck in case your opponent has a Fallen Shinobi of their own

·       The Horizon lands are worse than the cycle lands unless the Horizon land is fixing your mana

·       Talismans are not high picks and should basically almost never make your deck. Taking turn 2 off in this format is punishing, you can’t afford to not affect the board while your opponent plays a Sattled Rimestag. This isn’t cube or a set splashing is a default. In addition, most decks don’t want mana source 18/don’t care about the mana past if it’s not cast exactly on 2

Final word: I’ve played this format what I consider to be a decent amount and to good success (currently a 74% win rate across Phantom and Non-Phantom leagues) but I can only report on my own experiences with the format and the gathered knowledge I’ve gained from others good player.

I want to shout out @amrlx @_Malavi_ @jrpinato and @Alfaphrog on twitter, great players that helped me see a wide range of decks early in the format. 

Also want to shout out theory-craft collaboration with Ben and Ethan of Lords of Limited fame, and input from many members of the Lords of Limited discord.

If you’ve had experiences that differ from the information presented in this guide, I’d love to hear them, cross referencing other players is one of the best ways to fine tune your evaluations of a limited format. This format is super deep and there’s no way I could succinctly cover every notable interaction or synergy so if you think I’ve left out something feel free to let me know!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this guide and would love to hear what you thought about it. You can reach me on Twitter at @Chord_O_Calls, and am always hanging out in the Lords of Limited Discord