Ixalan is here, grab yer pirate hats ‘n’ yer dino saddles ‘n’ get ready to pillage the plane of Ixalan. Arrrr! Pre-Release weekend is always one of the most exciting times for Magic players and I hope you got a chance to play at a Pre-release last weekend and try out the new set for yourself.

The second sun has set on the plane of Amonkhet for limited and what a shame, triple Amonkhet with the hyper aggressive strategies filled with 2 drops adorned with cartouches, followed by the greedy format of Hour of Devastation dominated by ramp strategies, 4 colour mana bases and UR spells.  I for one really enjoyed the recent limited formats and the stark contrast that the addition of a small set provided.

But now Ixalan has arrived and along with it is a fresh new limited format that looks just as exciting as recent limited formats, I’ll be taking a look at some of the features of Ixalan limited and what I expect to be good (and not so good) for the coming set.

Initial look at Ixalan

Ixalan is a fast set, we are possibly back to even Amonkhet levels of fast.  Every colour has a number of good 2 drops and many of the colours have abilities that reward attacking and combat.  There are some curves that can be devastating and Ixalan is not a set that allows you to stumble for a turn or two.  Focus on your curve and efficient creatures in order to win with this format, there are a large number of removal spells in this set, however, many of the removal spells are clunky, situational or slow, so you need to be making clever trades and good blocks in order to come ahead in this aggressive format.  Save removal for some of the more powerful creatures in your opponent’s deck, the ones that you truly can’t beat by blocking alone.  Otherwise, focus on flying creatures, combat tricks or just playing some big dinosaurs in order to win via combat.

Although this set is a fast one, oddly enough splashing is quite easy; treasures allow many decks to try splashing rares or other powerful effects, even the aggressive decks can do this as many treasure tokens are attached to efficient creatures anyway.  So be prepared to see a lot more rares than you usually might as many players will be looking to splash powerful effects more easily in both sealed and drafts.  This doesn’t just include green decks either, much of the best fixing is actually in blue or black as they are the predominant pirate colours and therefore have the most treasure available to them, gone are the days of green having the best fixing and in Ixalan the colour pie might not be completely as you’d expect (Sorry Maro).

Tribes

As you have probably figured out, Ixalan is a tribal set, consisting of a multitude of different creature types, with the biggest focus on Dinosaurs, Pirates, Vampires and Merfolk.  If you haven’t figured this out then I suggest reading Luke’s article from last week as it provides a more in depth look at the tribes.  This tribal focus means it can be important to look at not only a creature’s power and toughness but also its creature type, as being a pirate can have good synergy with other pirates and even some spells, similarly with dinosaurs, vampires and merfolk.  However, there are not many cards that completely rely on you to focus wholly on one tribe, (which is difficult in sealed anyway) many of the synergistic cards work fine on their own and only get marginally better with a large number of that creature type.  So, what I am trying to say is it can be important to have a number of Merfolk in your deck, but do not go slamming a Headwater Sentries into your deck thinking it will be amazing, whereas if you are unsure of which creature to cut between a dinosaur and a vampire in your mostly dinosaur deck, then keep the dino.  

Raid

Welcome back old friend, Raid is a mechanic that was originally in Khans of Tarkir, sported by the Mardu clan, now it is back but this time with added pirates.  Many of the Raid cards really rely on you being able to trigger the ability, as without it they are often not fantastic creatures.  Most of the Raid cards are also 3 mana, such as Storm Fleet Spy and Deadeye Tormentor. This, combined with the fact that they are not very good without Raid, means you need to be packing some number of 2 drops into your deck in order to curve out and get attacking right away.  Luckily, Ixalan provides some premium 2 drops, with many of them having some form of evasion, such as flying, menace or “can’t be blocked”.  The key to having you Raid creatures work effectively is to have a good curve with some quality 2-drops so that you can profitably attack early on in the game, but take care not to be forcing this by adding bad 1-drops and 2-drops.  There are even three 1-drops in this set that have flying, which are all reasonable additions to your deck if you want to be attacking and triggering Raid, just remember you also need a good curve to win with.

Explore

I think explore is a great mechanic and so does Luke in his previous article.  Explore acts a little like a better version of scry, on the one side you get to draw lands from your deck and play a reasonable creature or you get to play a beefier boy on curve.  Either way this creature is a good rate and it means I would probably play most explore creatures in my deck, as long as they are reasonably sized to begin with.  With most of the Explore creatures I feel this is true, with the exception of maybe Queen’s Agent, Sunrise Seeker or Brazen Buccaneers.  You have to ask yourself; if I play this creature on curve and it draws a card rather than gets a counter, does it put me behind on board?  My advice is play all of your explore creatures that cost 3 mana or less without hesitation while considering those 4 mana or more with a little more consideration.  Similar to what Luke said I would also consider adding some larger finishers into your deck once you begin to play 4+ explore creatures, as alongside treasure tokens you can end up with a lot of mana.

Enrage

This may be a bit of an elephant in the room, but I’m sure many of you play Hearthstone as well as Magic and if that is the case then you will have seen enrage in action (with the exact same name and design)…  Like the Explore mechanic, you don’t have to go out of your way to trigger Enrage; this will happen naturally as the game progresses, your creatures will fight in combat and trigger Enrage, don’t forget that even taking lethal damage will still trigger it, so more often than not you will get the benefit at least once (unless they have a removal spell for every single Enrage creature #BadBeats).  There are also some ways to Rile up your dinosaurs and use the beneficial triggers to Savage Stomp your opponents allowing you to get some really great sequences with your enrage creatures.  Like Explore, I wouldn’t suggest playing lots of bad creatures with Enrage due to having a large number of fight cards and Riles, but I would play almost all of the Enrage dinosaurs.  You should consider playing some Riles in your deck after putting in maybe 3+ Enrage creatures in your limited deck.

I hope I have helped give a first look at the format and hopefully you had figured some similar ideas out for yourself during the pre-release last weekend which you can apply to even more limited events in the future.  If you have any questions or you might have a good story to share from your pre-release make sure to leave a comment.  

Happy Raiding and enjoy the release of Ixalan!