Over the last few seasons I have been slightly disenchanted by Standard and Limited. None of the best constructed decks have really grasped me and consequently, I have invested very little time testing the format, even when it did appear to be pretty balanced and fun like the one prior to Ixalan’s release. With Ixalan, all of that changed and to my surprise, I’ve found myself playing nothing but Standard, Sealed and Draft since the Magic Online release. Despite not being overly successful with many of the Standard decks that I tried (we should all probably just be playing Ramunap Red), I couldn’t be happier with the way the limited formats have shaken up and, more importantly, I’m winning!

The tribal aspect of the format really plays to my strengths (as Sam Rolph said, ‘every deck in this format is like a bad modern deck’) and creating streamlined, focused decks is one of the aspects of Magic and more specifically deck design that I enjoy.

This isn’t necessarily easy though. As a general rule of thumb, I like to ‘stay open’ for as long as possible in drafts, simply picking the most powerful cards in various colours and prioritising colourless spells that can be played in any deck for the first few picks. Ixalan punishes you for doing this as many of the most powerful cards need to be built around and even if you have a coherent two-colour deck, it won’t compete with the more streamlined tribal decks playing powerhouses such as Bishop of the Bloodstained, Vineshaper Mystic and Thundering Spineback. This is a format where I believe even a wacky card like Belligerent Brontodon is a reasonable early pick as a build around uncommon, take this pack for example:

Seeing both a Belligerent Brontodon and a Looming Altisaur in the same pack is a gift. Altisaur is a pretty weak card in general but in Brontodon decks it excels as an early blocker that allows you to get into the late game and transform it into what is effectively a seven-power attacker! However elsewhere, the card is close to unplayable and so it is almost certain that it will wheel and we can grab it on the way back.

If green and white dinosaurs don’t take your fancy, Ixalan provides a wealth of other tribal options.

Pirates

So far, I’ve found the pirate deck the hardest to draft to a high standard as although there are some payoffs, they tend to centre more around treasure than pirates and the ones that do reward you for playing pirates are almost all multicoloured uncommons, rares and mythic rares. This deck suffers from the problem of having a good curve of reasonably costed creatures but not enough tribal synergy to break past the efficiency of decks like Vampires and Merfolk. Nevertheless, it’s unfair to say that pirate themed decks are completely unplayable as there are definitely ones that can compete and even excel. Being a ‘treasure-centric’ tribe, the multicoloured grixis shard cards aren’t always as difficult to cast as you would expect. That fact alone can push the deck over the top as it has the ability to splash all of the best rares in those colours as well as even some white and green cards (probably not Belligerent Brontodon’s though)! It may not be the easiest to make work, but grab a couple Storm-Fleet Aerialists and Ruthless Knaves and you’re well on your way to a 3-0 record.

Merfolk

As George Worsnop mentioned in his article last week, Merfolk is undoubtedly the most aggressive tribe. Most of its creatures are very aggressively costed (providing that your deck is full of Merfolk) and cost only between 2-4 mana. When a four mana 3/2 unblockable with downside is a playable card, you know that your deck is supposed to be aggressive. The good thing about this tribe is that a lot of the cards are pretty poor outside of a merfolk deck. River Sneak, Kumena’s Speaker and Shaper Apprentice form the foundations of the deck but perform only as 1 and 2 mana 1/1s and 2/1s in other decks. Deeproot Warrior and Vineshaper Mystic are high picks but it’s not too difficult to pick up a copy or two early on in one of your three packs. My top tips for this deck are to remember the strength of Hexproof creatures and auras (Jade Guardian and One with the Wind) and to remember to avoid putting Deeproot Waters into your deck.

Vampires

White vampires?! Ixalan really is a whole new world. I have thoroughly enjoyed every Vampire deck that I’ve played so far and have also had the most success with this archetype in online draft leagues. From what I can gather so far, vampires is the most powerful archetype. It holds the ability to race the low to the ground aggressive decks like Merfolk with lifelink creatures while still having an almost unbeatable late game in the form of Deathless Ancient and Bishop of the Bloodstained. Even Anointed Deacon is a powerful role player, making your 1/1 tokens into 3 power lifelinkers and rares like Sanctum Seeker and Vona, Butcher of Megan truly push the deck over the edge. Things to keep in mind when drafting vampires are as follows:

• Legion Conquistador is a vampire, so picking up 2-3 of these will create a card advantage engine that still adds to you vampire count for Bishop and Deathless Ancient
• It’s fairly easy to gum up the ground with tokens, conquistadors and other cheap bodies which makes flyers such as Skymarch Bloodletter and Skyblade of the Legion better than they seem at face value. Anointed Deacon can combine with these cards very effectively to break through stalled board states.

Dinosaurs

Ramp is a focal aspect of the Dinosaur deck. You can’t play a bunch of 6, 7 and 8 mana spells without a way to cast them! Luckily, there’s a plethora of different options in the set, the best being Drover of the Mighty and Otepec Huntmaster but even Blossom Dryad is a great performer, especially alongside New Horizons. Of course, that’s not why we’re playing the deck…

Dinosaurs are undoubtedly the best tribe for limited bombs. Even at common you get a fine rate for a 6/6 trample. The problem is surviving the early game with a healthy enough life total to stabilise with your gigantic prehistoric monsters. For that reason, it’s important to be aware that you still need a lot of early plays in the dinosaur deck. Pounce, for example, is a card that is great as a removal spell in general but won’t perform until you have a big creature and so shouldn’t be considered as an on curve 2 drop.

From my experience, the dinosaur deck is powerful but needs to strike an almost perfect balance between enablers and pay offs which can result in some awkward hands. But sometimes you live the dream…

Explore

This is the archetype that I have the least experience with but the highest hopes for. The uncommons are extremely powerful (Seekers’ Squire, Wildgrowth Walker, Merfolk Branchwalker) and the rares like Shadowed Caravel tend to be passed late. Unfortunately, the commons are a bit lacklustre in black and green for the explore deck but explore is a pretty powerful source of card filtering/ advantage so I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out that this is one of the most powerful archetypes in the draft format.

That’s all for this week, I’m going to moving away from draft and more towards sealed for day one of GP Liverpool over the next few weeks. I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on the raft format as it is so far. Comment below with any questions!