One More Thing...

Because I can't resist a self-imposed challenge, here's how to draft Snow.

Despite my best efforts, I knew I couldn't end my series on Modern Horizons without explaining how to draft Snow.  There's a pile of different strategies to assert yourself into this deck, from taking every snow basic you see starting on pick one, to watching certain cards in packs move around the table.

Drafting Snow, with Good Draft Strategy.

Be observant.  Without good observational skills, this deck will never be available to you unless everyone at the table is actively avoiding it.  You're going to take a step-by-step approach each and every pick until things get to 3 cards or less, in order to determine if Snow is draftable in you seat.  Some important rules.

Rule #1: Always predict what will come back.

While this is a good strategy for drafting in general, looking at packs and evaluating what you'll get after a trip around the table has never been as important as it is here.  At pack one, things are easy, as you'll almost always be looking to draft snow after taking a strong snow affiliated card first, so you can try to plan on the basic land coming back for you eight picks later.  Things already get complicated here, as you need to have a rough idea on where every card in the pack will get taken, which means having a good amount of experience drafting the format.  In a weak pack for example, you might take Abominable Treefolk first, hoping to get the snow Island back, but in the absence of standout uncommons or commons, it's likely someone else will speculate on the land before it makes it back.  Can we hope to get a Frostwalla or Icehide Golem back around the table here?  If not, taking the Treefolk gets complicated, as we might not be able to get something back if we do.  Remember, in this strategy you'll need to use 30-33 of your picks on average for cards in your deck, as you're going to be spending numerous picks on basic lands, and you need 22-23 spells just like everyone else.  Abominable Treefolk, as an example, is a strong enough card that I'm not going too worry to much about getting something back.  Replace it with Winter's Rest or Rime Tender, and it becomes a lot more pivotal to see something out of that same pack later.

Rule #2: Account for other drafter's opinions.

Assuming a pod of strangers, the only thing you can really expect out of a given draft pod is that people will make decisions based off of some reasoning; especially at a GP day 2 people are rarely taking cards at random or rare drafting.  Especially if you're really experienced at a format, you're going to see consistent faulty reasoning take shape among other drafters.  For an example on this format, I often see The First Sliver go 8th and later, and while I don't think it is the best rare in the set by any stretch, there is no pack strong enough that no one should have speculated on it in the previous seven picks.  Despite this observation, I have no incentive to break this trend.  If other people consistently undervalue certain cards, my goal is to very slightly value them over where other people do.  If for example, The First Sliver is generally taken 4th-6th pick, we can start taking it 3rd-5th. We'll end up with the powerful overvalued card more often than other people, but we don't have to make a big sacrifice to get into that position.  As this is more general draft strategy than specific strategy for snow, we look to exploit that knowledge here by asking ourselves a few small questions.  For example, we ask ourselves, "What is the best deck?" if we answer "Snow", then that means that we should value cards that are good in the snow strategy.  Applying this rule, we should aim to take snow cards slightly higher than other people are willing, in order to end up in this deck more often and increase our win percentage.

Rule #3:  Keep track of incentives, and have an exit strategy.

Continuing our theme of "draft good", drafting snow is never going to be a simple as just reading the signals and calling it a day.  As snow decks can take a large variety of shapes, watching for patterns among cards is much more important that what colors of spells you're seeing.  If you see lots of mana fixing, you can take it and draft any powerful cards you see, and despite Snow's U/G basis you're only tied to Green in the absence of Arcum's Astrolabe.  Pay attention to cards like Icehide Golem and Winter's Rest, as both are the opposite ends of the snow spectrum.  Icehide Golem asks you to play a lot of snow lands, and shines when you have lots of cards that care about snow permanents.  Winter's Rest really only needs a few snow lands.  If you're not seeing cards like Icehide Golem and Glacial Revelation relatively late, but you saw them initially in packs, snow as a strategy is unlikely to be open for you, and you should look elsewhere as soon as possible so that you can still end up with a good deck.  Color signaling matters a lot more when you've decided snow is no longer an option.  You can assume that Blue and Green are open if you're seeing lots of snow cards, even if you're not seeing lots of good cards of either color.

The best way to have an exit strategy is to not commit to early.  It's always an option to take every snow land you see, but if snow ends up not open enough you're going to end up a pile of useless basic lands and nothing to cast with them.  Cards like Rime Tender, Winter's Rest, and Frostwalla can function effectively when you don't have many snow lands, but Iceberg Cancrix and friends will not, making it a much bigger commitment.

Types of Snow Decks

In general, every snow deck will equal out to one or a combination of the following subtypes.  Keep these end points in mind when you're drafting.

5C Snow

If you can get multiple copies of Springbloom Druid or Arcum's Astrolabe, as well as powerful cards worth splashing, this is an ideal place to end up.  The First Sliver is your absolute best card here for the amount of work it takes, although sometimes the Abominable Treefolks and Conifer Wurms of the world will be stronger.

Mill

Once you have your 2nd copy of Iceberg Cancrix this is the deck to work towards.  Unlike your multicolor cousins you're going to be splashing less and prioritizing cheap snow cards and snow lands.  Stream of Thought is great in this deck, sometimes in multiples, but this deck will only be as good as your Crabs.

Snow Aggro

Snow is open but you are mainly seeing Icehide Golems, Rime Tenders, Frostwallas, and Savage Swipes.  Curving out and attacking is generally a plan C or D for this deck, but if you can back up early aggression with an enormous Abominable Treefolk to end the game, this strategy can be quite appealing.  Smoke Shroud gets massively better here, as casting it on turn 2 on Icehide Golem is very difficult to stop, but more so that this deck will almost always have Moonblade Shinobi or Mist-Syndicate Naga.

Snow Control

Most likely the "I have Future Sight" deck, you're going to want a low curve of cheap interaction, and multiple copies of Stream of Thought as Elixir of Immortalitys that enable a combo finish.  Snow control decks are almost always going to splash as well as win by milling the opponent, and as such are more of a combination of the above types than it's own individual deck type.

Closing

The last thing I can say about drafting snow in Modern Horizons is to check Twitter, specifically current trophy leader AlphaFrog's twitter, linked here.
Feel free to ask me any questions you might have, as this is a complicated subject that I feel like I could write 10 more articles about but lack the time.

Here's an example image of a snow control deck I 3-0ed with not too long ago.  Click to enlarge.

Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter
Podcast here.

Goodbye, Modern Horizons Part 5: R/B and G/B

This is the last installment of my 5 part series on the 10 Modern Horizons color pairs, and today we're finishing off by going over R/B and G/B. 

R/B "Sacrifice"

R/B Sacrifice, or alternatively R/B Goblins is a deck based around cheap aggressive creatures that accrue value over the course of games, usually reaching a high point around turn 4-6.  There's a lot of different looks to this deck, as it often assumes a "Jund" playstyle, and is the most midrange looking deck in the format.  All of your cards are functional in an aggressive gameplan, but you can assume a more controlling or even combo role in various match-ups.  None of your cards are particular stand-outs, but every card is flexible, from the lowly Goblin Champion, which will chip in for a few points early, count toward Munitions Expert or Return from Extinction mid game, and get sacrificed to Sling-Gang Lieutenant or Bogarden Dragonheart at the end of the game.  B/R decks can often be quite controlling, where you lean on Ransack the Lab and Igneous Elemental to accrue a steady advantage that can crush aggressive decks easily.  This deck definitely wants diversity, as cards like Goblin Matron lend themselves to having lots of options, and cards like Warteye Witch don't scale as well in multiples as the first copy often is.

Key Commons: Return from Extinction, Rank Officer, Goblin War Party (enablers)
Bogarden Dragonheart, Goatnap (Pay-offs)

This deck will generally take the shape of whatever class of cards you end up seeing a lot of.  Sometimes you'll be R/B Tokens, with a bunch of Goblin War Parties and Sling-Gang Lieutenants, and others you'll be graveyard focused, or sacrifice focused.  R/B rarely will lead to an amazing deck unless you're fortunate enough to have a fleshed out Goblin deck, but will consistently lead to decks that are above average.  It's important here to pay attention to what specific cards you're seeing in order to correctly draft a good R/B deck, rather than just to know that R/B is the open color combination.  Lots of Goblins will be self explanatory, but things get off the rails easily if you find yourself flooded with good common removal spells, as that'll move you toward a more controlling deck with numerous Phyrexian Gargantuas and Igneous Elementals.

General Pick Order For R/B:  Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, Seasoned Pyromancer, Pashalik Mons, Plague Engineer, Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, Sling-Gang Lieutenant, Endling, Lightning Skelemental, Firebolt, Graveshifter, Munitions Expert, Goblin Matron, Crypt Rats, Cordial Vampire, Mob, Defile, Pyrophobia, Magmatic Sinkhole, Bogarden Dragonheart, Gluttonous Slug, Undead Auger, Vengeful Devil, Putrid Goblin, Force of Rage, Hollowhead Sliver, Carrion Feeder, Goblin War Party, Changeling Outcast, Unearth, Cheap Filler Creatures (Orcish Hellraiser/Warteye Witch, etc.)

This deck has a long and inaccurate pick order, as card evaluations change so rapidly throughout the draft  that it's more important to know your general theme and to make a cohesive deck based around it, rather than to take cards off raw powerlevel.  Goatnap is good once you have two sacrifice outlets, and becomes fantastic once you have any more.  Feaster of Fools is really powerful once you have lots of cheap creatures, as it's as powerful as the amount of risk you're capable of taking on.  Ransack the Lab, Gluttonous Slug, Phyrexian Gargantua, and Rank Officer all form the same 4 card core that they do in Mono-Black.  Aside from Snow, I believe this to be the most difficult deck in the format to draft, although unlike Snow I think this deck is substantially more forgiving as you're not forced to spend numerous picks on basic lands.

Takeaways

This deck largely takes shape as a very typical "good" limited deck, made of mostly good cards but with smaller overarching synergies.  Sure, sometimes you were R/B Goblin tribal, but that deck very rarely came together compared to how often R/B cards came together.  This is the consensus 3rd place deck in this format, but unlike any other strategy there could be tables where 2-3 people draft R/B and all have good decks, just based off of what bundles of cards each is interested in.  Commons in Red and Black are strong in general, with only Shenanigans, Umezawa's Charm, and Mindrake as real duds.  I've done lots of transitioning into this deck when it seemed like I had no good options, and although it rarely led to anything great I salvaged an awful lot of 2-1s from the jaws of 0-3 with random mixtures of Red and Black cards.  The weird thing about R/B is that it led to a lot of decks that looked like Rube-Goldberg Machines, where you'd sacrifice a Goblin to Sling-Gang Lieutenant, scry off of Warteye Witch, and ping something with Vengeful Devil until your opponent just died, much like Slivers with Bladeback Sliver.

G/B "Graveyard"

G/B Graveyard is very similar to R/G, and it could have its name changed to G/B Winding Way instead.  As this is another deck heavily based off of Winding Way, the same incentives apply: high creature count, 16 lands, and spell slots reserved for removal.  Unlike, G/R, however, here we have access to Ransack the Lab as a less powerful but less constrictive Winding Way.  Also present here is the ability to kill big creatures thanks to Mob, something G/R really suffers at without access to it's own 8/8 Murasa Behemoth.  The name of the game is to fill the graveyard for value, either with cards like Return from Extinction to build a resource advantage, or to mill over cards like First-Sphere Gargantua and Dregscape Sliver to build incremental advantage alongside Rank Officer.  If you've read my earlier article about Mono Black in Modern Horizons, this deck really uses the same strategies, with the advantage of the Winding Way draw engine and green mana fixing to splash off.

Key Commons:  Winding Way, Ransack the Lab, Rank Officer (Enablers)
Return from Extinction, First-Sphere Gargantua, Gluttonous Slug (Pay-offs)

I'm not going to repeat everything I've said about Winding Way, you can find that here. This deck cares a lot more about putting certain cards in the graveyard as opposed to R/G which only really wants lands there.  This deck is very consistent thanks to Ranksack the Lab and Winding Way, but can struggle against more powerful slow decks that feature counterspells or a certain snow crab.  If you have powerful cards, such as Yawgmoth or Hogaak, finding them with your Winding Ways and Ransack the Labs is trivial, as it having enough random creatures in play to maximize them.

General Pick Order for G/B Graveyard:  Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, Deep Forest Hermit, Hexdrinker, Genesis, Crashing Footfalls, Endling, Cordial Vampire, Ayula, Queen Among Bears, Plague Engineer, Sling-Gang Lieutenant, Graveshifter, Mob, Crypt Rats, Defile, Springbloom Druid, Saddled Rimestag, Rotwidow Pack, Gluttonous Slug, Savage Swipe, Mother Bear, Webweaver Changeling, Wall of Blossoms, Krosan Tusker, Putrid Goblin, Rank Officer, Twin-Silk Spider, Winding Way, Ransack the Lab.

Just like in R/G, Trumpeting Herd is incredible in this deck but only if you have the spell slots to spare, which in general you won't.  Creatures, especially ones that facilitate grinding go massively up in value in this deck, and creatures and spells with aggressive slants go down quite a bit.  This is one of the best decks for various Changeling synergies, as unlike with W/B you have much better mana, but also cards like Ayula that aren't tough to make good in your deck just by playing cards you already want.  You always want some number of Murasa Behemoths or First-Sphere Gargantuas, often 1-2 of each, but they're relatively replaceable and you should expect to get them late.  Gluttonous Slug scales incredibly well in multiples here, as you have big green creatures to get them to incredible 4/7 and 5/8 sizes.  Hogaak is the absolute best card you can get in this strategy, very slightly edging out the almighty Yawgmoth and often impersonating his Modern self.

Takeaways

Personally, I struggled harder with this deck than any other in the format, and it took me by far the longest to get a handle on what I was supposed to do.  The problems was that I was skimping on enablers like Ransack the Lab and Winding Way, in favor of just playing a pile of mopey creatures and spells.  This deck is largely as consistent as R/B, as you have access to numerous good commons that work well together, and you're interested in cards no one else wants.  The problem here is that the ceiling of this deck isn't much higher than the floor, as when you're not fortunate to pick up cards like Yawgmoth or Hogaak this deck is often too slow against aggressive decks with lots of fliers, and too clunky against decks with crabs and counterspells.  Don't be too unhappy to end up here, but don't expect to 3-0 your draft pod, either.

On Modern Horizons

I'd really like to give my thanks to Wizards of the Coast and the amazing team that put this set together.  It was an absolute joy to play and I hope to see something along the same lines in the future.  Thanks to you(yes you), for taking the time to read these articles.  I hope I can help someone playing in GP Vegas next weekend, but also anyone who plays in a Modern Horizons draft in the future, maybe from a saved up box or a flashback MTGO league.

Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter
Podcast here.

Goodbye, Modern Horizons Part 3: R/W and W/B

Today we're going to talk about W/B Changelings and R/W Slivers, both tribal based decks that try to make the best of having White cards in your deck.

R/W "Slivers"

R/W Slivers is a deck based around the "Sliver" mechanic, where all of your creatures provide some bonus to all slivers.  This deck hopes to assemble a few different groups of Slivers in order to enable a specific strategy.  I would describe the two groups as beatdown and boardstall. The beatdown Sliver curve involves any 2 mana "Sliver" on turn two, Lancer Sliver on 3, and Cleaving Sliver on 4.  This curve enables a difficult block for 8 on turn 4, and unless your opponent can get rid of Cleaving Sliver or Lancer Sliver, and often both, it's pretty easy to secure victory from here by just attacking every turn.  The boardstall curve involves Blackback Sliver on 2, Lancer Sliver on 3, and Irregular Cohort on 4.  With this curve, rather than attack the opponent your hoping to keep their creatures at bay with a wall of First Strike creatures.  As the game drags on and you finish deploying your hand, you can just never attack the opponent and ping them to death with Bladeback Sliver's ability.  Ideally, any Sliver deck should be able to take advantage of both gameplans, which is what makes the deck powerful.  Lancer Sliver is easily the most important common in any Slivers deck, as while it is nearly useless on its own it enables everything the deck wants to do.

Key Commons: Lancer Sliver, Cleaving Sliver, Bladeback Sliver
Important Roleplayers: Irregular Cohort, Imposter of the Sixth Pride

Every card in a Slivers deck does double duty as both a pay-off card and enabler all at once; this deck thrives on having as many Slivers in play as physically possible so that they'll all become stronger as a result.  Diversity is going to be the name of the game here, as having one of each different Sliver is going to be a lot more powerful than having multiples of any, as only Lavabelly Sliver and Cleaving Sliver scale well in multiples.

General Pick Order for Sliver Decks: Winds of Abandon, Serra the Benevolent, Force of Virtue, Cloudshredder Sliver, Giver of Runes, Battle Screech, Firebolt, Sunbaked Canyon, Hollowhead Sliver, Pyrophobia, Magmatic Sinkhole, Cleaving Sliver, Irregular Cohort, Striking Sliver, Bladeback Sliver, Enduring Sliver, Lavabelly Sliver, Spiteful Sliver, First Sliver's Chosen, Valiant Changeling, Answered Prayers, Rhox Veteran, Imposter of the Sixth Pride, Fists of Flame, Settle Beyond Reality

Winds of Abandon is at it's absolute best here, as with Hollowhead Sliver and Striking Sliver in play you can easily churn through your deck until you find it while your opponent has no profitable attacks, and you can often instantly win the turn you cast it as well.  If I first pick Winds of Abandon, I generally want to end up here although I know I can be happy to end up in any White deck.  Cloudshredder Sliver is also unbelievably strong in this deck, it acts as a must answer threat if cast early and an Overrun type effect when cast later on, it's only lower in the order than Winds and the other White rares as it's so much more committal.  Remember that you're generally a base White deck, and as such build your deck around being 9/8 or 9/7 in favor of White, or 8/8.  Every non-Sliver card you play comes at a real cost, so keep your creature count high and avoid playing too many Rhox Veterans and Answered Prayers, although the first of each will be strong.  Lavabelly Sliver is pretty mediocre in this deck despite being your gold uncommon, it facilitates the "ping you to death" plan enabled by Bladeback Sliver a bit, but it just doesn't stand on its own as a hard to cast 2/2 for 3.

Don't splash here, as your deck is so inherently aggressive you can never afford to stumble even if your end goal is to force a board stall.  16 Lands is my norm although if your curve is high (multiple 5s, usually) or if you have a few Cycling lands, play 17.  At the risk of being a broken record, if you're playing cards with WW in their cost, bias toward playing more Plains so that your deck functions effectively.

Takeaways

Slivers was a real homerun in this format; it had multiple distinctive gameplans that worked well together, and played like no other Limited aggressive deck that I've ever seen.  This deck is not particularly resilient to removal or it'd be a much bigger player in the format, as is it's just a middle of the pack archetype that you never hope to get into but don't want to avoid, either.  Lavabelly Sliver is a weirdly underpowered gold card, especially in the context of this format, as it wouldn't do anything without Bladeback Sliver to incentivize pinging the opponent to death.  My first game of this format involved losing to a very diverse Slivers deck although I still initially wrote this deck off as it was incredibly overdrafted in the first few weeks Modern Horizons was available on Magic Online.  I really hope Wizards looks at this deck when they design future Limited aggressive strategies, as it's a lot more interesting than the combo of cheap creatures and combat tricks.

W/B "Changeling"

This is the worst deck in the entire format, and calling it supported or an archetype is incredibly generous.  Avoid ending up here without knowing White and Black are both incredibly open, as there aren't any real pay-offs for putting these two colors together.  In general, White Black decks will be combinations of Battle Screech, Mob, and Rares. The Changeling theme is reliant on a pile of specific uncommons that you want one of, and in general lead down the road of having awful mana.  Unlike in U/R and R/W where the Horizon Canopy land is awesome to have, this deck is a lot less capable of taking damage from its lands as it's often playing a much slower game.  B/W wants to play Defile but be base White, and wants to cast Changeling Outcast on turn 1 and Answered Prayers on turn 3.

In order to succeed with this deck, your best bet is to watch how your mana base will end up during the entirety of the draft.  This means that if you decide you want to play Defile, Answered Prayers is out of the question, as is Irregular Cohor.  Alternately, if you want to try to play Valiant Changeling early in the game, cheap Black cards can't make the final cut, especially cards like Cordial Vampire and Undead Auger.  Pick a base color here and stick to it, your deck is wildly inconsistent otherwise.

Key Commons: Mob, Irregular Cohort

As the synergies in this deck don't pan out, you're looking for cards that are good on their own with a small nod to wanting a bunch of creatures in play.  Cards that make multiple bodies are important, and Mob is great when you have cards that generate multiple bodies

General Pick Order: White/Black Mythics and Rares, Battle Screech, Graveshifter, Mob, Changeling Lords (King of the Pride, Undead Auger, Throat Seeker, etc), Changelings

As I advocate for avoiding this deck entirely, I would bias myself toward only taking strong generic White/Black cards early, and only deciding to be this deck after I know I have no other real options.  Putting together King of the Pride and Changeling Outcast can be worthwhile, but you're not going to want to do it without seeing King of the Pride 9th+ and essentially getting it for free.  Drafting this deck feels like resisting arrest, as you're going to fight to do anything else the entire time, only to ultimately succumb to playing with King of the Pride.

As with any other White deck, try to end up base White as a concession to hard to cast, time sensitive cards like Answered Prayers and Irregular Cohort.  These decks are typically slow but have relatively low curves, despite this try to play 17 lands here as a concession to how bad the mana often is.

Takeaways

I regret glossing over this deck in Episode 3 of the podcast, as it's really unfortunate to have such an unusable combination of colors in any draft format.  White and Black are both very self-serving in Modern Horizons, and as such they're the hardest colors to put together.  Defile, Crypt Rats, and Changeling Outcast just can't easily coexist with Answered Prayers, Segovian Angel, and Irregular Cohort, and that's where this deck generally falls flat.  This deck generally takes shape as two separate mono-color decks, which both work great but are hard to draft as they require their respective color to be wide open at the table.  Etchings of the Chosen is an interesting card to be sure, but in this format it's rarely strong enough to play unless you're lucky enough to name Bird.  This deck is so bad that I'd rather fight over Snow or Ninjas with two other players at the table than know for a fact I was the only Whie/Black drafter at the table.

Until next time, where we cover G/W and R/G!

Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter
podcast
Episode 3 available now!

Goodbye, Modern Horizons Part 2, U/G and U/W

 

Welcome back to the second part of this Modern Horizons send-off. We're continuing with the rest of the Blue color pairs, as it's always right to start with the best color in Magic.

U/G "Snow"

U/G Snow revolves around picking up snow basic lands and cards that care about them.  Your snow decks will either care about snow a little (to turn on Winter's Rest) or a lot (to make the biggest Abominable Treefolk).  Which side we're on will have a big influence on our draft, but as we're U/G in general we're going to be in the camp that wants to play every single snow land it can.  This deck wins by playing a bunch of efficient cards like Rime Tender as it's general filler, in order to enable very powerful cards like Abominable Treefolk or Conifer Wurm.  Snow decks are often mill decks, as Iceberg Cancrix can deck the opponent very quickly if you have a lot of snow permanents, especially more Cancrix.  Ideally you'll have a Plan A of milling the opponent quickly with Iceberg Cancrix, and a plan B of casting Conifer Wurm and killing the opponent in 1-2 hits.  This deck requires lots of snow lands; 7 minimum but 10 is the sweet spot.  Another subtheme of the deck is "5 color" as with cards we want anyways like Arcum's Astrolabe and Springbloom Druid, we can cast any powerful cards we see.

Key Commons: Iceberg Cancrix, Rime Tender, Springbloom Druid
Arcum's Astrolabe, Snow Lands but especially Forest/Island

Snow decks want a bunch of individual pieces in multiples, a bunch of snow lands and a bunch of each good common listed above as well.  Unlike in other sections of this series where I noted cards as pay-offs or enablers, in snow decks only the snow lands are strict "enablers" while everything else is some sort of pay-off/enabler hybrid.  While Rime Tender is much better when it has lands to untap, it'll also give Abominable Treefolk +1/+/1 and trigger an Iceberg Cancrix.  Ideally, stick to the theme and take as many snow cards as you can, as they all work well with each other in some way or another.  Generally you're a mill deck, a goodstuff deck, or something in between, so try to lean into your strengths.  If your deck is trying to mill the opponent as its primary gameplan, don't be shy about playing Stream of Thought, for example.

General Pick Order for Snow Decks: Hexdrinker, Dead of Winter, Powerful rares (Genesis, Future Sight, others), Abominable Treefolk, Conifer Wurm, Blizzard Strix, Arcum's Astrolabe, Springbloom Druid, Iceberg Cancrix, Good Splashable Removal (Magmatic Sinkhole, others), Snow Forest/Island, Savage Swipe, Winter's Rest, Rime Tender, Draw Spells, Mother Bear, Frostwalla

Notably absent from the above are Glacial Revelation, Icehide Golem, and Chillerpillar.  Chillerpillar just isn't powerful, you never want it but often play it to make other snow cards better.  Icehide Golem is in a similar boat, but once you have a lot of cards that care about snow and a lot of snow lands 1cmc snow cards can become quite strong.  Glacial Revelation is only a reasonable card once it has 14+ hits, and I aim for 18+ if I'm going to be happy playing it.  I generally try to leave it in packs as a future signal that snow is open, as you have to be very heavy on snow permanents in order to ever make use of it.  Forcing snow is easy but risky, as you can just take every snow land out of all of the packs, but if someone at the pod fights you or snow pay-off cards like Abominable Treefolk don't get opened, you'll be left with a pile of useless lands and nothing to cast.  I generally will speculate on early snow Forests/Islands, and always try to make a note of what snow lands are in each pack as I draft.  Good rares are often what make good snow decks, as any card without a heavy White, Red, or Black commitment can be cast easily.

This deck is relatively complicated to construct, and the only consistent advice I can give is to play 16 lands if you have 2-3 Astrolabe's but don't be shy on running a few extra lands if you can't get enough colored sources to cast your spells.  You don't need that 3rd snow Mountain at the expense of ever casting Iceberg Cancrix on turn two, as that defeats the whole purpose of playing cards like that in your deck.

Takeaways

I feel like I've suckered myself into another article on how to properly draft this deck, as I feel like I'm only scratching the surface here.  With that said, snow as a theme worked out well in this set, but similarly to Ninjas maybe a bit too well for its own good.  Good snow decks were often "Mill/Aggro/Control/5 Color/Ramp" with no discernible weaknesses.  They could grind with any other decks in the format, and had multiple angles of attack due to Iceberg Cancrixes and some enormous, under costed creatures.  The main issue I have with draft strategies like this, is that often the games played with these decks lack meaningful decision making.  Once you've finished drafting a snow deck, you should have a really good idea what your record will be, and you only have real agency during the other "not playing" time of sideboarding.  I've certainly milled myself to fuel Magmatic Sinkhole Delve, or strapped a Treefolk Umbra to an Iceberg Cancrix to catch an opponent off guard, but generally this deck is super complicated to draft but braindead to play, almost like you're constructing your own robot.  I don't have as much real life experience drafting this set as I'd like, but I know people really don't enjoy getting decked by Iceberg Cancrix or killed in one hit by a 20/20 Conifer Wurm from experience.

U/W "Blink"

U/W Blink is a deck based around creatures with enter the battlefield abilities and the ability to reuse them in the future.  These decks are built around cards like Ephemerate and Moonblade Shinobi, which are the most efficient way to abuse enter the battlefield effects at common.  Where this deck really shines is once Soulherder is in play, as if it survives you can expect to generate an advantage on it for as long as it survives, often with a good array of choices whether you blink Man-o-War, Pondering Mage, or a snow creature for Iceberg Cancrix.  This is one of the most poorly supported decks in the entire format, and I want to harp on that as if you don't have the first copy of Soulherder, you most likely shouldn't draft this strategy.  Soulherder is the best card in this strategy, so ways to find it, protect it, and combine with it should be high priorities.  As a result of this, cards like Vesperlark and Shelter gain a lot of value, as your gameplan often involves protecting Soulherder and riding it to victory.  There are other ways to build U/W that have some power, such as using 1 mana flying creatures to enable Moonblade Shinobi, or building around Future Sight and other draw spells to play longer games.

Key Commons: Man-O-War, Moonblade Shinobi, Irregular Cohort, Pondering Mage (Pay-offs)
Ephemerate, Settle Beyond Reality (Enablers)

Ideally, U/W Blink decks should have a few copies of Ephemerate and a few copies of Settle Beyond Reality, but both have major diminishing returns in multiples.  The more Man-o-Wars your deck has, the more time you'll have to enable your slower cards, especially in the absence of Soulherder.  Your aggressive draws get pretty obviously better, too, as you'll be able to generate a mana advantage over your opponent very easily by casting Man-o-War multiple times in sequence.   One of the common ways this deck suffers is a lack of good things to do on turn two, as Reprobation doesn't cut the mustard in just about any main decks.  As such, after Soulherder you're really looking for Watcher for Tomorrow, and you'll often want to build in support for Eyekite as well for lack of other effective 2 mana spells.  Good versions of this deck will often be either piles of Man-o-War, piles of good uncommons/rares, or something in between.

General Pick Order for Blink:  Serra the Benevolent, Winds of Abandon, Mist-Syndincate Naga, Soulherder, Bazaar Trader, Giver of Runes, Future Sight, Force of Virtue, Watcher for Tomorrow, Blizzard Strix, Battle Screech, Urza, Lord High Artificer, Man-o-War, Moonblade Shinobi, Faerier Seer, Fact of Fiction, Rain of Revelation, String of Dissapearences, Versperlark, Irregular Cohort/Settle Beyond Reality, Eyekite, Imposter of the Sixth Pride

Answered Prayers and Rhox Veteran can be pretty reasonable in these decks as well, but mainly if you're more aggressively slanted.  Segovian Angel and Smoke Shroud as well get much better if you have a bunch of Moonblade Shinobis, but that should be pretty clear.  Once you know you're this deck, only Serra and Winds take precedence over Soulherder, as without at least the first copy your deck really suffers.  Like in U/R in the previous article, you shouldn't plan on getting into this deck unless you start with good cards that happen to be Blue or White, which will mean always biasing toward the good rares, uncommons, and good generic commons like Man-o-War.

Keep the creature count high, as Ephemerate as a value spell wants plenty of creatures to work with it.  You're generally going to play 17 lands, base Blue with either Faerie Seers and draw spells, or base White as a concession to Irregular Cohorts 2WW casting cost.  This deck will often have mana problems, as the vast majority of White decks will in this format, so generally play 8/9 as you'll want multiple of each mana to function properly.

Takeaways

Along with W/B, which we'll go over on a later day, this deck represents a huge miss for this format.  As with every White deck in this format, you'll generally run into problems with heavy color commitments during most games, and that often represents a major lack of consistency to the archetype as a whole.  Like in BFZ/Oath where Wizards powered up Reflector Mage to compensate for an underperforming U/W, Soulherder is an incredibly powerful card and a good U/W deck with multiple copies feels incredibly powerful and oppressive.  Getting your creatures repeatedly bounced by Man-o-War quickly pressures the opponent to either have a removal spell that can kill Soulherder, or lose the game quickly.  A real lack of good 2 drops at common really hurts this strategy, as you don't want any of the White ones and Eyekite and Iceberg Cancrix are mopey at best in this deck.  Largely this deck lost out on all of the care that went to other archetypes, as you have a single powerful enabler spell in Ephemerate, Soulherder, and largely nothing else in terms of support.

Stayed Tuned for next time, where we cover two White pairs, W/B and W/R

Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter
sealedawaymtg.podbean.com in podcast form.

Goodbye, Modern Horizons Part 1, U/B and U/R

A Modern Horizons Retrospective and Definitive Primer.

Modern Horizons will go down as my favorite Limited environment of all time, something I think a big segment of the Limited community shares.  In somewhere around 250+ drafts (I lost my stats to MTGO deleting my data, something I'm going to account for in the future), I only got to do 90% of what I think was really possible in the format.  I drafted every mono-color deck multiple times each, and every supported archetype each in the double digits.  Sometimes I milled my opponents, sometimes I milled myself for value.  Cats, Goblins, Zombies, Angels, Slivers, Crabs, Vampires and even Soldiers; I drafted piles of different tribal decks.

Missing for me were a real deck based on Urza, Lord High Artificer, the Good-Fortune Unicorn/Persist/Sacrifice outlet combo deck, an aura deck based around Face of Divinity, and a Sisay, Weatherlight Captain deck; maybe some things I couldn't even have dreamed of, too.  All things I'll keep in mind when flashback drafts role around someday.  I can't possibly overstate how many possibilities existed in this set, even if some of the grandiose vision from the designers never got realized, the possibilities weren't endless but damn close.

In today's article, I'm going to talk about how two of the ten color pair based decks come together, what synergies drive them, and what cards might shine in them that aren't obvious at first glance.   As we look back, I want to reflect on what worked for each archetype and what didn't.  Keep an eye out for four more parts to this series, where I'll get to every color pair in the set.

U/B "Ninjas"

U/B Ninjas is a deck based around cheap, evasive creatures with an end goal of generating value off various combat focused abilities.  Sometimes you'll survive an opposing blocker with an Azra Smokeshaper, or create an Illusion army with Moonblade Shinobi.  When the deck is firing on all cylinders, you might swap a Ninjitsu creature for another, only to put that original Ninja in place of something else.  Your opponents are rarely left with good options aside from sweeping your board with Crypt Rats, Winds of Abandon, or Dead of Winter, all cards that have a large deck building cost.  In general your opponents could stabilize against your cards that are weak on their surface, but they'll be at 0 life before that would happen.  Repeated hits for 3 damage add up quickly, and this deck can easily finish off a low life opponent with its numerous evasive creatures and tempo oriented spells.

Key Commons: Changeling Outcast, Faerie Seer, Gluttonous Slug (Enablers)
Moonblade Shinobi, Azra Smokeshaper, Ninja of the New Moon (Pay-offs)

If you take a look at my pick-order list from a few days ago, one thing you might notice is how high Changeling Outcast and Faerie Seer are listed.  This deck is the reason for that high placement, as Ninja decks with multiple copies of these cards are substantially more powerful than those without.  Not only are these the cheapest evasive creatures in the set at common, but Changeling Outcast is a Ninja for the various cards that care and Faerie Seer will repeatedly set up your future draws with the Scry 2, something that is a nice bonus on turn 1 that turns into a huge consistency advantage as it gets repeatedly returned to hand and recast.  Gluttonous Slug is at it's best here, as having creatures repeatedly enter play will grow it to an enormous size, and an 0/3 menace on turn 2 can put in Moonblade Shinobi on turn 3 in a pinch to get things rolling.  The Ninja pay-offs are relatively self explanatory, as once you have a bunch of enablers your game plan is to repeatedly put them into play with Ninjitsu to generate bonuses and persistent, big hits of damage.

General Pick Order for Ninja Decks: Rare Ninjas (Fallen Shinobi/Mist Syndicate Naga), Ingenious Infiltrator,  Watcher for Tomorrow, Twisted Reflection, Mob, Man-o-War, Changeling Outcast/Faerie Seer, Defile, Moonblade Shinobi, Gluttonous Slug, Azra Smokeshaper, Ninja of the New Moon.

Other common cheap creatures will often be filled in as needed, like Eyekite, Pondering Mage, and Putrid Goblin. Smokeshroud can generally be picked up late and it's pretty great to have the 1st/2nd copy.  Phantom Ninja is awful, avoid playing it unless you have multiple Ingenious Infiltrators or you're short creatures in general.

Avoid splashing in this deck, and expect to play 16-17 lands with 9 sources of whatever color you have more one drop creatures in.  Bad spells like Umezawa's Charm are acceptable in this deck if your spell count ends up really low, as opponents are put under so much pressure to constantly block.

Takeaways

This deck works, but too well for the format's own good.  Playing this deck gives a feeling of constantly deceiving and tricking the opponent unlike any limited deck I've ever played, but being on the receiving end has led to some of the most unfun and tedious feeling games of Magic I've ever played as well.  Any game in which you get to put in Ingenious Infiltrator turn 2 on the play, victory is nearly assured, the snowballing advantage accrued from this point is almost insurmountable barring astronomically poor draws or an insane series of draws from the opponent.  Right after the London Mulligan was introduced, I nearly won a game off of a mulligan to 3 where the hand I kept was Island, Swamp, Ingenious Infiltrator, and if I had just played a bit better I would have gotten there.  The only thing that ended up hurting this deck was its own success, as it remained consistently over drafted for the formats entire life cycle.  With no Infest style sweeper in the format, you often have to kill every single creature this deck plays, or run them over when they have one of their weaker draws.  I'd rate this deck's existence as the biggest blemish on a perfect format, as if the cards here were just a touch weaker it wouldn't suck to play against so much.

U/R "Draw Two"

 

U/R Draw Two is a deck based on cards that get more powerful for each card drawn in a given turn, such as Fists of Flame and Thundering Djinn, and cards that gain an ability once the 2nd card of a turn is drawn, such as Eyekite and Spinehorn Minotaur.  This deck is best defined as an "Aggro/Combo" deck similar to Modern's Infect, as you're generally trying to use pump spells to kill your opponent on an early turn.  Eyekite is your consistent damage source, as it's easy to turn on repeatedly and attack for 3 over and over, while Spinehorn Minotaur excels when going for a quick kill with Fists of Flame.  You'll want both together in multiples as different combinations of draws will ask for different facilitators.  This deck should be made up of as many Eyekites and Spinehorn Minotaurs as you can get with some random aggressive creatures like Orcish Hellraiser and Mooblade Shinobi to round things out.  You're going to want Fists of Flame, Phantasmal Form, and a healthy amount of cards with Cycling as well as cheap removal spells like Pyrophobia and Magmatic Sinkhole.  This deck is generally weak to removal spells, as you're not going to have a lot of threats in your deck in general, and you're very reliant on pump spells to actually kill the opponent.

Key Commons: Eyekite, Spinehorn Minotaur (Enablers)
Fists of Flame, Phantasmal Form, Reckless Charge, Cycling Cards (Pay-offs)

The general gameplan for U/R is to combine Spinehorn Minotaur and Eyekite with Phantasmal Form to kill the opponent quickly over the course of two turns.  Phantasmal Form interacts incredibly well with these creatures, as Eyekite will become a 5/3 and Spinehorn Minotaur a 3/3 Doublestrike with Flying, adding up to an easy 11 damage as early as turn 4.  You'll want to supplement this with cards like Reckless Charge for quicker kills, especially with Spinehorn Minotaur, and as many Cycling cards like Windcaller Aven and Viashino Sandsprinter as you can afford to keep the "draw a card" metric enabled every turn. U/R Draw Two is less reliant on individual pieces than U/B, like one mana creatures, but is never as powerful or resilient.

General Pick Order for Draw Two Decks: Seasoned Pyromancer/Bazaar Trademage, Fiery Islet, Firebolt, Man-o-War, Thundering Djinn, Magmatic Sinkhole(first copy), Oneirophage, Pyrophobia, Eyekite, Spinehorn Minotaur, Red then Blue Cycling Lands, Phantasmal Form/Fists of Flame, Windcaller Aven.

As U/R can struggle with big creatures like Murasa Behemoth or even a large Abominable Treefolk, picking up some snow lands to turn on Winter's Rest is more important here than in other blue decks.  Like U/B, any creatures that are cheap will often find a home here, like Orcish Hellraiser and Bladeback Sliver, and you'll want Pondering Mage in any version of this deck that's less combo oriented and slower.  Rain of Revelation is much better than Fact or Fiction in this deck, so keep that in mind as well.  Generally, take removal highly and stay open, and move in once you start seeing Eyekite/Spinehorn Minotaur late and Fists of Flame/Phantasmal Form late.

You should almost always play 16 lands, as many of your cards will say "Draw a Card" on them somewhere, and flooding out can be pretty disastrous as these decks often lack staying power.  Fiery Islet is unbelievably strong in this deck, as it fixes your mana, turns on your theme, and you're in a great position to not care about your life total too much.  Like U/B, don't splash here unless your playing a controlling version of U/R, as your mana is being stretched to the limit already.

Takeaways

"Draw Two"'s existence is a testament to how flexible Magic can be as a game.  This is the first set where this has been a major draft theme, and not only does it have a lot of built-in support but it plays great as well.  The subtext of this mechanic is that it's trivial to activate during your own turn, but takes a lot more work during the opponent's.  You'll certainly be able to generate some blow-outs with Rain of Revelation after blocks, but it's a rarity.  U/R was my favorite deck in the format, as there was no greater feeling then assembling a creative kill combining Fists of Flame and Spinehorn Minotaur and some other random piece to get an unexpected turn 5 kill.  I certainly wish this deck had access to a card like Dive Down or even Negate, but I think that would have further exacerbated the problems that U/B Ninjas already have and thusly understand the exclusion of a good protection effect.  Admittedly, this deck was a tad tougher to get into than I would have liked, as aside from taking an early Thundering Djinn and praying, only Fiery Islet consistently let me end up in this deck.

Signing Off,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter
sealedawaymtg.podbean.com in Podcast form, with Episode 2 out now!

We Don't Need No Reprobation

How to identify underperformers in a given Limited environment, before you'd first cast them.

Reprobation earned my biggest ever shift in value on any card in any limited environment.  I started off thinking of all the things this card could let me do; attack in the air with fliers with nothing to block or race me or synergizing with Pyrophobia to never allow my opponent a chance to get their one block off with the 0/1 left behind.  I envisioned answering Murasa Behemoths and other big creatures, all for a measly 2 mana and a small life rebate to the opponent paid later, just like Swords to Plowshares.  Maybe this card would be bad sometimes, but I didn't understand at the time just how bad this card would be.

Not Seeing the Forest for the Trees

Like the vast majority of cards in Magic, context is what defines how powerful any given card is.  With no standard of what costs give what effect, cards would have massive variance in powelevel, but in reality you generally get some ballpark of the same deal at every cost.  Of course there will always be outliers, but the vast majority of cards, especially printed in the last 10 years, have a good relation between cost and general power.  Reprobation, on its face, is a 2 mana removal spell at sorcery speed, very similar to Pacificm, which is often a great removal spell in most formats.  If the rate is comparable to other cards that are good, and the context isn't that much different than many limited formats before in terms of how spells are priced, what makes Reprobation so awful by comparison?

1. Reprobation leaves behind a creature that can block, but much more importantly one that can attack.  In a set with Ninjitsu, a creature answered with Reprobation early on will often help get a Ninja in later on, often as soon as the following turn.
2. Blink is one of the major themes of the set, and there are numerous low cost bounce effects as well.  Reprobation doesn't work well in the face of cards like Ephemerate and Soulherder, but also lines up poorly against String of Disappearances and Man-o-War.
3. Aggressive decks don't have the breathing room to give opponents a life rebate on removal spells, and aren't often attacking with fliers.  White decks especially only have Answered Prayers that can get around a creature with Reprobation
4. The interaction with Pyrophobia never comes up, as opponents are incentivized to block with Reprobation enchanted creatures early on to avoid it.

Course Corrections

Once I was shown each drawback through the set's gameplay, I quickly started either not playing Reprobation or only playing it as a 1 off in decks that I thought could afford the various drawbacks. In the meantime, I lost a lot of games and drafted much weaker decks because I misidentified the power-level of this card, and what it meant for the format in general.  As far as the format goes, this card underperforming left White with no cheap removal option like the other colors had, meaning that in any White deck you had to make sure you picked up cards like Pyrophobia, Defile, Winter's Rest, and Savage Swipe from the other colors so that your deck could function effectively.  This also puts a damper on how good White can be in general, as without a card that would normally be one of its most important commons, White decks are going to lose to random creatures that can't be answered much more often than any other decks.  This tension also incentivizes White to be more proactive, as it doesn't have access to effective reactive cards and must generate pressure against the opponent to compensate.

Another Lesson on Context and Feeling Smart

I expect to remember the lessons I learned from Reprobation for every future Limited format, as not taking context into account properly when evaluating cards is going to lead to lots of bad evaluations that can be avoided.  Examples like this are more egregious, as so many of the set mechanics just embarrass this card with Ninjitsu and Blink as major set themes, that a quick read of some of WoTC's initial articles about Modern Horizons would allow for easy dismissal for cards like this.

Underlined above is the biggest reason I feel like I evaluated this card wrong; it made me feel smart.  I recall distinctly seeing Pyrophobia before I saw this card for the first time, and I think Pyrophobia is a more obvious "good enough in limited" style removal spell than most.  My brain made a bunch of leaps from here, as I pegged Reprobation as a card good in R/W decks that also played Pyrophobia, totally ignoring that other people would figure out the same interaction just as easily.  Getting tricked by "feeling smart" is the biggest mistake I see any above average player make, and I fall victim to the same often as well.  Often, I'll go out of my way to point out either to myself or to others this phenomenon with certain cards to try and train myself to avoid this fallacy. Sling-Gang Lieutenant would be the premium uncommon poster child for concept, as while it's a fantastic card I often see players take it over anything else in the set, and I can't help but think of how this card makes people feel when they play it as the biggest reason for that, rather than how often it actually translates into winning.

In summary, always know what the set themes are when you're evaluating cards for the first time, they're often readily available and can be learned in just a few minutes, and you won't make an embarrassing mistake like I did here.

A Quick Note on "Bad" Cards

Before we finish up here on this article entirely about the card "Reprobation", I want to offer a reminder that this card still has its functions even if it isn't generally strong.  The vast majority of cards in Limited at least have some fringe uses, but sometimes you have to be creative to maximize them.

• Against big, vanilla creatures, the card actually performs.  If you're looking to answer Murasa Behemoth, Krosan Tusker, or even Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, this card will do just that.
• If you have very few to 0 removal spells in your deck, having the first copy of Reprobation will help solve some problems you wouldn't otherwise, thus earning an inclusion.
• Against decks with Iceberg Cancrix, where you can attack into the Cancrix with anything, and then Reprobation after blocks to have it die as an 0/1.  

Signing Off,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter
sealedawaymtg.podbean.com in podcast form, Episode 2 is out now!

'Till Death do us Part

After making the trek to Las Vegas, you decide to enter into the Modern Horizons Sealed GP.  Your pool is incredible, and despite low confidence that you built it correctly you have an easy 8-1 finish on day 1.  You get to the convention center the next day, nervous but hopeful.  It's your first ever limited GP day 2, and your first ever competitive rules enforcement draft.  You gradually scroll through the pack, passing by a Firebolt, a Snow-Forest, a foil copy of Mob.  Out pops Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, the last card you in the pack, and you can't select it any faster.  The next pack comes, there's some strong uncommons like Abominable Treefolk, Battle Screech, and Saddled Rimestag, but not a black card in sight aside from a singular Putrid Goblin.  The pack is full of sideboard cards and mediocre white cards, so you decide these cards are the only viable choices.  What do we do now?

Married to a First Pick

This is a very common statement when people talk about limited, describing someone or yourself as "married to your first pick".  This refers to drafting around the first card you take, rather than reading signals and staying open.  In plain English, never get married to your first pick, except when you should.  As confusing as this sounds, the power level of your first pick is going to inform if it's a card worth getting married to or not, and the vast majority of cards aren't strong enough.  Some cards though, like Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, my pick for the best card in Modern Horizons, are often worth it to force.  If we're making the assumption that you win any game that you cast Yawgmoth on turn 4, a tad hyperbolic but not unfair, then Yawgmoth only asks us that we can cast him on turn 4 with some stability.  Either we aim to cast Yawgmoth with nothing else in play on either side, or we aim to cast him with random creatures to support him.  Cards this powerful will eclipse anything else going on and warp the game around them, and that's exactly what we're looking for if we want to be married to our first pick.

Renewing your Vows

Our next question should be, once we've decided our first pick is this important, is "How should this affect our draft strategy in subsequent packs?".  To answer this, we're once again looking at power-level over anything else, but we're also going to develop an intentional bias toward the color/colors or general strategy incentivized by our first pick.  Once again using Yawgmoth as an example, black cards in general, especially cheap ones that will help us cast him in a stable board position, or to use for his ability, go way up in our rankings.  Putrid Goblin especially, our sole black card remaining in our second pack, is both good with Yawgmoth and cheap, so it'd go up a huge amount in value.  Once we've reached this point, we can make a much more reasonable comparison between Abominable Treefolk, Battle Screech, and Putrid Goblin.  Once again, going off what we know, Battle Screech also goes up in value because of the context of the pack; we know some mediocre White card will be left over when the pack comes back around the table.  Yawgmoth is also very powerful alongside Battle Screech.  Abominable Treefolk is a major indication that the person to our immediate left isn't interested in drafting a snow strategy, unless they took a card like Dead of Winter over it, something we can't discern yet.  All of these picks have their merit, and I wouldn't fault anyone for making either of the 3 choices.  In this situation personally, I would take the Treefolk as I'd hope to be able to get it and Yawgmoth into some powerful multi color Green deck, but I also have an inherent bias toward drafting snow decks as is.

Context Matters Most

Imagine a similar situation, where rather than Abominable Treefolk and Battle Screech, we have Man-o-War and Springbloom Druid in the pack instead, and the good uncommons are weak sideboard cards instead.  With this shift, I would likely take Putrid Goblin, as I don't believe that either of the two powerful 3 mana commons is as good as the Putrid Goblin with a boosted rating.  Springbloom Druid could certainly be the pick here, as it could facilitate the casting of Yawgmoth in a Green based deck, and I'm not sure how close this actually is.  I would never take Man-o-War here however, as I think it gives me the lowest chance of casting the Yawgmoth in the future.

 

Closing

• In general, expect to play your first pick about 30-40% of the time. Any higher and you're getting married to your first pick or taking weak but generalist cards too often, any lower and you're taking too many risky cards or weak cards first.
• Only get married to the best cards in the set; there's generally only 1-5 cards in a given set worth forcing, and many sets don't have any at all.  In this set for example, I'm only ever getting married to Yawgmoth, there is no other card that I will first pick and instantly say, "this card will 100% make my deck".  Examples from other sets would include Chandra, Flamecaller from Oath of the Gatewatch, Liliana, Dreadhorde General from War of the Spark, and Tetzimoc, Primal Death from Rivals of Ixalan.
•  Getting married to a card doesn't mean drafting a deck and throwing it in at the end, you'll need a reasonable amount of cards of the same color or very powerful mana fixing, as these cards are rarely easy to splash.  Keep in mind that if you take lots of mediocre on color cards in pack 1, you'll likely get enough good playables of that color in pack 2 to support casting your powerful card.

Best of luck in that next draft!
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on twitter
sealedawaymtg.podbean.com in podcast form, Episode 2 is out now!.

My "Definitive" P1P1 order for Modern Horizons

I was scrolling through Twitter this morning when I stumbled upon
https://twitter.com/_Malavi_/status/1158728682438942721/photo/1
This is Lars Dam's (Malavi on Twitter/MTGO) definitive P1P1 order for Modern Horizons.  I agree in a lot of places, but also disagree on just as many.  Here's my list:

Click on the picture to zoom in, I recognize it's a bit small.
I'm going to point out places where I have strong opinions, or why certain cards are where they are in the ranking.  The ranking starts in the top left at Yawgmoth, goes all the way down to Force of Virtue, and then goes to the next column and so on.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician #1

The best card in the set by a mile, Yawgmoth is also in one of the two best colors, Blue and Black, which I have tied.  Yawgmoth takes 0 work to build around and can be jammed into any deck that can cast him.  He's hard to kill, generates a persistent advantage, and has the potential to take over any game in which he survives.

Serra, the Benevolent #8

Everyone plays this card wrong, including myself for the longest time.  You should both rarely cast Serra on turn 4, and you should almost never make a token.  In the vast majority of games, if you can play Serra and +2 her, you win the game next turn with the Worship emblem.  The only decks that can viably beat this are Iceberg Cancrix/Stream of Thought Decks and decks containing Rank Officer.  It is very trivial to put more creatures into play than your opponent has removal spells in their library, and as your White decks rarely draw extra cards your opponent will deck out first from drawing any cards whatsoever.  A note on White cards in general on this list; I prioritize first picking good White cards as having the ability to draft a good White deck is a major privilege at most tables.

Winds of Abandon #11

Considered by many to be the best card in the set, this card can often be seen coming and gets much worse in games 2/3 where opponents can board in Prohibit or Mind Rake to beat it. This card is also not easy to splash as it's only powerful if cast for 4WW, so you can't realistically expect to cast it unless you can reliably overload it once you're at 6 mana.  Still a completely incredible card, but these are the reasons it's at #11 and not #1.

The First Sliver #19

This card is both much easier to cast than it looks, while being a lot more powerful than it looks at the same time.  The fact that it gives "All Slivers Cascade" is a big red herring, as all you really need is your 5 mana 7/7 Cascade to break most games wide open.  Of course you need to pick up enough Springbloom Druids and Arcumm's Astrolabes to cast this, but once you do the reward is more than worth it.  5 Color Slivers is also a completely reasonable although mediocre archetype that this opens up, and in that deck if you cast this card you often win instantly.

Sling-Gang Lieutenant #25

I pick this card 1st more than almost any other card in the set, but I am probably the lowest on it of anyone.  I think this card often traps people because it makes you feel smart when you make an attack that exactly kills the opponent combined with the ability, but in match-ups where your opponent is trying to deck you or is killing you with evasive creatures, this card is just 3 1/1s for 4 mana and that's just not good enough with how good 4 mana cards are in this set.  Like Winds of Abandon, this card is still incredible, but be wary of how cards make you feel vs. how much they translate into winning games other cards wouldn't.

Springbloom Druid #32

I got a lot more receptive to this card after Mythic Championship Barecelona, as this is a card a bunch of the best teams had as the best common in the set.  This card is just the perfect enabler, as every single kind of strategy can use it in some fashion as long as they can play enough green sources.  I think snow is the 2nd best strategy (after Ninjas) and this is by far the most important common for snow decks.

Firebolt #35

The best uncommon or lower removal in the set, there is a huge number of X/2 creatures in the set and this kills them all for just 1 mana.  The bonus utility of being able to kill and X/4 for 6 mana or another X/2 later in the game is massive, and both you and your opponent will often mill over this card for value at times.  Firebolt is just a huge problem solver in this set, although I think this would be a very favorable set for Shock for what that's worth.

Cloudshredder Sliver #44

This is the absolute best card you can have in a Slivers deck, and I'm a big fan of cards that open you up to archetypes that other people don't have the same access to.  Anytime I face down this card turn 2 on the play I feel like I can never win unless I instantly kill it or my opponent doesn't play a 3rd land, and that's an insane amount of power for a 2 mana card.  Late in the game this card often means oops I win unless there's instant speed removal involved.

Fiery Islet #45

I think this is probably the most underrated rare in the entire set, as it's often picked for its monetary value and not to get put into decks.  As a piece of U/R aggressive decks, this card drastically raises your consistency, giving you consistent access to both colors of mana without slowing you down, while also acting as a "draw a card" enabler for your Spinehorn Minotaurs/Eyekites later on in the game.  As I generally build my U/R decks with 16 lands due to the large amount of cyclers, this card allows for much better 9/8 or 10/7 mana bases depeding on your color split, and this is the deck that cares the least about taking damage from a land.

Trumpeting Herd #50

Another card I've seen get a bad rap, Trumpeting Herd is a weird card because it can act a bit slow while being awkward when you want to use Winding Way in your deck as well.  With that said, 3/3s are a good size in a format full of 2/2s,  and making two of them for 4 mana is an incredible rate.  The real kicker for me is that this card scales so well in multiples.  The first copy will buy you time to cast future copies, which get better as you get more and more 3/3s each turn.

Force of Rage #52

Another card I rarely see played correctly, this really shines the brightest in R/B, as you can use it as a defensive tool to kill an opposing attacker, while also putting counters on your Gluttonous Slug, while also sticking around until your upkeep so that you can sacrifice it to Bogardan Dragonheart.  Offensively this is just a harder to block Ball Lightning for a cheaper cost, although that mode comes secondary to the defensive option.

Fact or Fiction and Rain of Revelation #77/78

These cards are super super close in powerlevel, as there's enough cards you want to put in your graveyard intentionally that Rain of Revelation is often just 4 mana instant draw 3 anyways.  Fact or Fiction also gets severely worse against better players, and as it effectively "mills you" 5 cards it can be a concern in multiples in decks that want it. In general I always take the first Fact or Fiction over first Rain unless I'm already U/R, and I would rather one of each in decks that want this effect.

Snow-Covered Forest/Island #82/83

Snow decks are more often base Green compared to Blue, so being able to cast your Green spells more easily is a generally higher benefit.  Snow Island has the advantage of turning on Blizzard Strix and Winter's Rest, which both only need 3-4 snow lands in a deck to be good enough.  Picking these this highly is a concession to how good U/G snow decks are, just like where Changeling Outcast and Faerie Seer are higher up on the list for Ninja decks.

Settle Beyond Reality #91

Despite this card existing as the top white common on this list, I don't think Settle Beyond Reality is better than Answered Prayers or Irregular Cohort.  It is much more splashable however, and it can provide strong utility to any deck looking to exile creatures or blink its own.  I often play this card most often in Green decks with Springbloom Druid, where I generally want 1-2.

Sword of Sinew and Steel #100

This card is not very good, and only sits where it does as an insane sideboard card vs. B/R decks or artifact heavy decks.  I generally only play this card these days if I'm a token strategy with few pay-off cards, or for a Snow deck to suit up Springbloom Druids for later relevance.

Notable Omissions

• Urza's Rage:  The vast majority of players would increase their win percentage substantially by never putting this card in their deck.  Past all of the text that rarely matters, this is a 3 mana deal 3, not a remotely good enough rate in a format as powerful as this.  You're playing this because you don't have enough removal, and once in a while in a deck built around casting it for 12 to win, stop picking this card highly, it sucks.
• Dregscape Sliver: I would personally pick this card above Scale-Up at #80, but other people value this card so low that I almost always table it if I want it.  Part of this pick order list is accounting for what other people do, and cards that are underrated just can't get picked too highly when they always make it around the table.  Force of Rage is in a similar boat but makes it on the list as it's just so strong it doesn't matter.
• Cycling Lands:  People in general don't value these highly, and only the Jund colored ones are real stand-outs.  Don't sleep on them but you don't have to 4th pick Secluded Steppe over anything reasonable.

This list is pretty subject to change on any given day, but today this is my feel for how I'd pick the top 100 cards in the set.  Aside from Yawgmoth, any cards near each other are relatively close in power level and should be picked with some of your own preference in mind.

Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter
Sealed Away MTG in podcast form.

I (We) Know Something You Don't Know

It often comes from some weird interaction in a game you're playing, where you happen to cycle a few Windcaller Avens, and then buy them back with Return from Extinction  only to cycle them a few more times.  You churn through the library of your R/B deck with Ransack the Lab, only to later discover that you can then Unearth Dregscape Sliver, a Changeling Outcast and a Cleaving Sliver in your graveyard for an easy kill on an early turn.  Your Plague Engineer names Illusion to wipe out some Moonblade Shinobi tokens, but later on you realize your Phantasmal Form can shrink your opponents lethal attackers to 2/2s.

Anytime something unexpected happens in a given draft, you have not only a new piece of knowledge going forward, but more importantly something else other people might not have seen before.  Personally I've had Dregscape Sliver go up pretty massively in my rankings after seeing it perform all sorts of random functions, from acting as an Overrun to cheating out Hogaak just like in Modern.  I still frequently see that card late, which I've derived as evidence that other people haven't seen all the powerful things that innocuous 2/2 can do.

Getting an edge in today's limited is really tough.  Access to information has never been better, from multiple high quality podcasts, endless draft stream and video content, and a decent amount of articles recommending various things.  You have set reviews often before any given set has been released, from some of the best in the game, and that means that the information arms race is both blisteringly fast and competitive.

Thinking Critically

A knowledge edge in Limited can be gained a variety of ways, but it's tough to know the best way.  There's always playing as much as you possibly can, a noble effort in the pursuit of improvement but one that almost always ends in bad habits and burnout.  You can read every article, consume every piece of content, do some watching and some learning, but how do we really know how good our sources of information actually are, especially when they inevitably conflict.  Do we listen to Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa's words without deviation, just off his results and informative writing?  The grinder with a billion MTGO trophies who does nothing but play the format all day and night?  The authoritative voice on our favorite limited podcast?

Always keeping a critical eye can be tough, as our brain naturally looks for any shortcuts it can find.  In general, I'd recommend that you evaluate everything you consume for good inherent logic and consistency, but as an individual you'll always look at things through the lens of your own experience too.

With that critical eye, we're going to want to consistently evaluate our own experiences with the same scrutiny we evaluate outside information.  If you think Changeling Outcast is the best black common (it's not, but I certainly thought so for a few weeks), but casting it doesn't often correlate with winning games of Magic, you're facing your own logical inconsistencies that are holding you back as a player.  Magic is a game with lots of variables, and it can be hard to see where we're wrong when we remember our 1/1 unblockable buddy magically transforming into a 6/3 that kills our opponent on the spot, vs. when that same card sits there idly while we getting attacked for lethal by our opponent's Quakefoot Cyclops.  Constantly evaluate the information you're abiding by, especially as it gets challenged in various ways.  There's a nearly unlimited amount of information out there, but the vast majority of it is noise that you'll have to cut through.

Evaluating for Incentives

Back to our topic for today, we're looking for ways to identify information other players won't have, in order to gain a competitive edge.  Information in Limited will always represent more options, and more options is going to lead to winning more often.  Knowing about that strange, mediocre deck that's easy to construct can turn a trainwreck draft into one where you steal a match win or two instead.  Above anything else, we want to look an incentives that any given card gives us.  Some are easy to identify, like on Return from Extinction.  All Return from Extinction asks you to do is put overlapping creature types in your deck, in order to get an extra creature out of the graveyard.  I see a lot of people refer to this as a synergy, but I prefer to use incentive in these instances as we're looking to fulfill conditions cards are asking of us.

Just like with Return from Extinction, the vast majority of cards are telling you something.  If you saw Stirring Address and knew nothing about Magic but could read English, you could probably discern that there are creatures in Magic, and that you can have more than one at the same.  That's all it really takes to pick up on what the various incentives are, and how you should build a deck accordingly.  A combat trick like Stirring Address not only requires a creature, but rewards us for having a bunch in play with the overload effect.  So the primary incentive for Stirring Address is to play a bunch of creatures in your deck.  It's that easy to pick up on the various incentives in Magic.

 

The loudest incentives in Magic are typically the tribal ones.  You'll often have some fairly ineffective looking cards at first glance that ask you to play a specific creature type, and in theory they get stronger for each extra member of that tribe in your deck.  Goblin Matron is an alright card if it can go looking for that one Putrid Goblin, but it can be a powerful tutor that can bail you out of a pile of different situations if you have a Munitions Expert, Graveshifter, and Sling-Gang Lieutenant in your deck.  When you're looking at what a certain card incentivizes, always imagine what would happen if you really pushed your deck to maximize that factor.  In Goblin Matron's case, imagine if you exclusively put Goblins in your deck; you'd have a 3 man 1/1 that could go looking for any creature in your entire deck, giving you massive influence over how each game plays out, and allowing you to choose the best creature for any given situation.  Cards get really strong when built around in general, excluding only the most vanilla of creatures and spells.

Building for Synergy

Decks where lots of cards overlap in incentives or provide each others incentives can be said to be synergy decks or synergistic.  Unlike cards like Goblin Matron, however, the vast majority of cards in the game aren't going to be that loud about what they want from you.  If we look at a card like Ingenious Infiltrator, for example, we can see something similar in that it asks us specifically to put Ninja cards in our deck, but will reward us for hitting the opponent with them with cards as well.  Once we're here, we can ask ourselves, how can we hit the opponent with our Ingenious Infiltrator or other Ninjas?  If we have removal spells, we can destroy opposing blockers and get through that way.  Alternately, if we had some way of granting out Ninjas some sort of evasive ability, we could consistently hit our opponent for both consistent damage and a constant stream of cards for our self.  From here, we can take a quick step into our opponents shoes to think about how our card might play out better.  What if we're facing down Ingenious Infiltrator?  We're not going to want our opponent to draw a bunch of easy cards, so we'll block whenever possible, or destroy it with a removal spell.  With this information in mind, we can discern that if our card incentivizes our opponent to block, combat tricks might become more effective, or ways of rebuying our Ninjas when they're repeatedly targeted by our opponents removal.

Just like at the beginning of this post, we're at a point where Windcaller Aven and Return from Extinction combine really well together, as Windcaller Aven is very easy to get into the graveyard with value attached, and is a Wizard like many of the blue creatures in this set.  Getting to the point where we understand how to play with powerful cards like Ingenious Infiltrator is great, but getting to that next step is where you can get a real edge over everyone else.  Always looks for the places that you can get to that next step.

Stealing Secrets

I'd put the percent of decks and strategies I come up with myself in the 10-20% range vs. my opponents 80-90%.  My last article about Mono Black was very much informed by an opponent I wish I could credit, as despite my extreme skepticism initially that I was "losing to bad cards of one color", the poweful interactions that player showed off in that match spokes for themselves, and I got beaten pretty badly.  Anytime your opponent does something strange, it's pretty easy and natural to write them off.  Resist this urge and you'll be better off, as there's often tons of things to learn from other people, especially things you never ran into the circumstances to try for yourself.  Some general questions to ask yourself when you're opponent shows you something weird but powerful

• Is this repeatable?  Is our opponent pulling off some crazy combo full of premium Uncommons, Rares or Mythics?  You're likely just playing against one of those 1 of 1,000 crazy decks.  All commons, especially ones that make it around the table late?  Take a closer look, the odds of the strategy being repeatable are high.
• Is there real power here?  Is our opponent's Rime Tender + Squirrel Nest making an overwhelming amount of tokens for any deck to deal with, or is it our complete lack of evasion and slow start that's causing us to lose this game?
• Is this resilient?  Our opponent who managed to put 3 Auras on their Segovian Angel destroyed our deck with no removal spells, but would they have won so easily if we had the ability to interact?

The most important thing I want to convey here today is to read the cards.  Don't just skim the, don't assume you know what they do.  Read their entire texts.  Look at the creature type or types, the fact that a card has a "may" ability or is required, and anything else that might sneak by you.  Magic is a very complicated game full of minor wording changes that can have a massive impact on how specific cards play.

Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg
https://sealedawaymtg.podbean.com/ in podcast form.