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.
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
Here’s a list of format features that heavily incentivize you to lean towards mono coloured.
1. The Cycle of 10 Hybrid Uncommons
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.🏆 The key to this format is good mana. Building with good mana in mind/ figuring out how to draft in a way that pushes you towards mono coloured comes first, everything else about your deck is secondary— Alex Nikolic (@Chord_O_Calls) September 29, 2019
Draft Log: https://t.co/43TgAjJs8w pic.twitter.com/hDXKXCX3ty
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.)
I think I’ve given up my first pick in #MTGELD Draft more than any other format by a noticeably large margin. It’s probably somewhere around 50-60% of drafts!— Ryan Saxe (@rcsaxe) October 29, 2019
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.)
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.
Whoever decided that basing a limited format around food was a good idea should be baked into a pie. Slowly.— Zvi Mowshowitz (@TheZvi) October 1, 2019
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.
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.)
Picture Taken Seconds before disaster pic.twitter.com/alY2sKnAIo— Alex Nikolic (@Chord_O_Calls) October 26, 2019
Blue
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.
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.
🏆 Teaching people some better manners with this beauty. https://t.co/kIkf7IjhW7 pic.twitter.com/BOyUxODFQK— Lars Dam (@_Malavi_) November 5, 2019
Black
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
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
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.UR kinda sucks in ELD limited send tweet— Alex Nikolic (@Chord_O_Calls) November 2, 2019
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
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)
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
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/
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/
At Rick’s Carpentry, LLC we focus on providing Deck repair company harvey services with the highest levels of customer satisfaction. I grew up on the West bank in Terry town and live in Belle Chasse.
ReplyDelete