| Rise of the Eldrazi (Commons Primer):- Blue & White | by Russ Davies on 26/04/2010 | Colour Focuses
Before moving on to discuss individual cards I think it's important to discuss how the set encourages people to draft. To begin with, many will have noticed that Green, Red and Black (the "Eldrazi Colours") have all the mana ramp in the set - pretty vital if you want to power out 8+ power monsters without evasion early enough to affect the outcome. In contrast, most of the "levellers" are in White and Blue, with some in Black and then just a smatter in Red and Green. In addition White and Blue contain the best ways to deal with Eldrazi (Guard Duty, Smite, Oust, Narcolepsy, Regress) in a toughness-independent way whereas most of the removal in Red and Black, while plentiful, is restricted by how large a creature it can deal with.
Because of this split between UW and RBG in terms of focus and removal flexibility you will often be able to get a good handle on the archetype your opponent is playing in the first couple of turns of the game simply by their first two land drops.
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Archetypes
From my early impressions, there seem to be three main archetypes. I've listed them below along with the colours you can expect to see played in them.
- Evasive Beats.dec - UWrg - although there are "quick beaters" in all the colours, there is only a significant amount of invasion in Blue and White. Red and Green also provide a small amount of Evasion and make fine partner/splash colours in this archetype (particularly Red due to Wrap in Flames and Battle Rattle Shaman).
- Totem Armour.dec - GUw - Because the tempo in draft is much higher the Totem Armours (essentially hasty damage coupled with a massive increase in tempo, and potentially two for one if your opponent doesn't have the RIGHT KIND of removal) increase in utility in draft when compared with sealed. In addition, Aura Gnarlid is going to be a very high draft pick and really forms the backbone of this deck. Alongside the stronger Auras (Drake Umbra, Eel Umbra, Boar Umbra, Spider Umbra, Hyena Umbra, Mammoth Umbra if you have evasive guys) Aura Gnarlid can rapidly become unblockable - and you often don't even need to risk a 2-for-1 involving your best guy if you place your Auras on OTHER creatures. This deck looks to combine cheap evasive guys with tempo and power-boosting Umbras and is the fastest deck you can draft, though also quite risky when options such as Regress and Induce Despair exist.
- Fat Aliens.dec - RGB - Anyone playing two or three of the Jund colours is likely doing so either because they are trying to power out enormous fatties, got passed a huge amount of quality removal, or both. These decks revolve around multiple Spawn-creating effects and Green ramp staples like Ondu Giant (who is amazing in this deck), Growth Spasm and others.
There is some significant cross-over between archetypes 1 & 2 which can lead to conflicts, however the Evasive Beats deck will tend to value levellers & removal over totem armours.
But What About Walls? - The inclusion of Walls and so much cheap removal has definitely had a warping effect on the limited formats - making 2/1s and 2/2s pretty terrible for the most part, unless they either have evasion or can level up to this, or to bigger front-ends. But the walls don't serve a huge purpose - unless you have Overgrown Battlement or multiple Vent Sentinels I would shy away from playing many walls at all. If you're an Eldrazi deck buying time they are an excellent sideboard inclusion - but the better draft decks will either be ramping to Eldrazi (walls no use), flying over (walls no use), or attacking with Umbra'd up dudes for 5+ damage (walls fog for a single turn...). So while the presence of walls in the format does have a big effect on the types of deck people will look to draft, I feel they will see little play outside of niche players (generate mana, win condition, cantrip etc.) and as sideboard options.
General Observations
The sealed format was very slow - if you're coming to drafts from a "sealed" background at Pre-Rel or similar, you should understand that the drafts are significantly faster. This does *not* mean it's harder to cast Eldrazi though, as you will find a focused Eldrazi deck will have a higher concentration of spawn token producers available.
Many levellers are still excellent - however because the format is faster (and you will see slightly higher proportions of removal played) they are slightly weaker - especially those with expensive level-up costs. Further, playing some levellers to use excess mana is still a good thing, but if you end up with multiple leveller creatures you will never have mana to power them all up - and many look VERY puny at Level 0 or 1.
The previous formats, ZZZ and ZZW have been incredibly friendly to creatures with only a single toughness - Eldrazi on the other hand is incredibly hostile. There are so many ways to lose card advantage when playing with X/1s versus Black and Red decks that I will often warp my deck after boarding against Black or Red, and play out creatures in an order that doesn't present multiple 1-toughness targets at a time. It does make it very hard to run an aggressive deck if your draft offered up alot of small critters, but them's the breaks. When choosing whether to level up or deploy more creatures, keep in mind that you want to minimize the number of 1 toughness critters you expose at any one time.
Creature combat is usually incredibly one-sided. With so many Umbras, Eldrazi, Power-Pumping effects like equipment and Battle Rattle Shaman, most combat is either "chump" or "eat" - there aren't many trades, and there don't appear to be many places that +1/+1 or -1/-0 effects are useful. Bear this in mind when evaluating cards.
Rise of the Eldrazi has very little evasion in comparison with other recent sets so evasive creatures are to be taken at a premium. If you want to win without casting any Eldrazi you're going to need to draft as many evasive beaters as possible. A side-effect of this is that a single flyer can go a long, long way given enough time.
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Card Evaluations - White - Common -
Caravan Escort - A reasonably good aggressive one drop that levels up quickly and can beat for 2 starting turn 2 if your curve isn't great. His "total cost" is only 11 mana - this is quite a good deal given how early he starts nibbling, and how difficult 5/5 First Strike is to deal with.
Dawnglare Invoker - Any flyer is welcome in most of the White based decks - however this guy loses alot of ground in draft as 8 mana takes too long to come online, and unlike sealed you won't get many games where your opponent fails to find an answer entirely. That being said he can be a slam-dunk when you get a game against decks that don't feature Black or Red - in these scenarios you can simply opt to never attack with him (Puncturing Light) and reduce their likely outs to only a Regress...
Demystify - Sideboard only but will be used quite often. For starters it's superb against the Umbra deck and can force a 2-for-1 quite often, and both Demystify and Naturalize have unusually high importance for any Eldrazi-based decks sideboards. When playing against Blue and White their best answers for Eldrazi are often Enchantments and the ability to turn off Narcolepsy and Guard Duty for just a single mana is not to be ignored.
Eland Umbra - Pretty much unplayable except in very narrow circumstances.
Glory Seeker - Difficult to justify, but will make it as a filler in some aggressive decks.
Guard Duty - Not what you want to be casting when you're beating down with a bunch of ground pounders, but is definitely worth picking up for the matches you play against the inevitable 2-3 Eldrazi drafters at the table. In addition, can work nicely with Aura Gnarlid.
Harmless Assault - While on the surface this card looks like it can setup blowouts, there are very few situations where players will be blocking and have mana open to get anything out of it - and because of the levellers having so much open mana will be rare, and often telegraphing the trick. That being said, I'm sure the card will see a little play, but it feels like it will only make your deck if your draft went south...
Hyena Umbra - An excellent aggressive umbra, sure to go as a high pick as the ability to get an extra point of damage out of your evasive attacker while taking it out of staggershock range or making it survive a Flame Slash is well worth it. An aggressive tempo card.
Ikiral Outrider - Barely making the cut in sealed, this will almost never make it into a draft deck - though it may come in from the sideboard to beat Glory-Seeker.dec I'd hope you can beat that deck anyway... An incredible 18 mana gets you a 3/10 Vigilant creature. Massively overcosted.
Knight of Cliffhaven - Definitely one of the top picks in white, this starts as a reasonably costed beater, but just a single 3 mana activation makes him either a much better blocker, or an evasive beater. It will cost you 14 mana to get him up to a 4/4 Flying Vigilant guy which won't happen often. But if he's been beating for 2 all those turns already, it won't take long to finish a game from there.
Kor Line-Slinger - A useful but unexciting 2-drop which will either give you some temporary removal or add an element of evasion to your team. However his one-toughness is a problem and for this reason I'm hesitant to say I'd be happy to have him. I think he'll make the deck most times I pick him, but rarely with a smile on my face.
Lone Missionary - A pretty poor prospect for an aggressive deck but will still be shoe-d in from time to time, this guy is much better for a deck looking to survive until the lategame. With no Into The Roil or similar tricks to let you reuse his ability without losing card advantage, I suspect you will be able to pickup these reasonably late.
Makindi Griffin - This has crept up on me as a surprisingly reasonable thing to be doing on Turn 4. It holds off every other common/uncommon flyer early in the game, and as a beater can start a slow clock while being fairly difficult to kill with 4 toughness. A solid pick.
Puncturing Light - Will definitely see play, but the colour it's in would rather remove the blocker BEFORE it has blocked - and will want to use it on an attacking creature much less often than on a blocker. You'll be maindecking it, but it will dissapoint you fairly often.
Repel the Darkness - Another late-bloomer for me, this is a great way to force damage through, and can be particularly backbreaking for someone who has just cast an Eldrazi. Probably a mana too much to be truly awesome, but will see play in every deck which has them available and lacks "proper" removal.
Smite - A little too situational to be quite as good as "1 mana, kill a creature" this is still a very high pick. I think the only issue keeping this card from being a straight-up first pick is that you will find yourself dying imminently to a flyer or unblockable Aura Gnarlid with this card dead in your hand.
Soul's Attendant - Distinctly mediocre this will likely be brought in from the sideboard for evasive/aggressive mirrors, possibly even maindecked by some Eldrazi decks which end up playing White for removal...
Stalwart Shield-Bearers - My heart told me that this was unplayable when I first saw it, and nothing since has changed my mind.
Totem-Guide Hartebeest - The Hartebeest got my immediate "ooh" when I saw it - as one of those skill testing cards which most people will dismiss somewhat, but will rapidly rise in value once "pick orders" become published. This guy may not have the best body, but he tutors for some of the best cards around. Fetching a Mammoth Umbra, Drake Umbra, Narcolepsy or similar is pretty nice - and the body should help to keep you alive until next turn to cast it. On top of all this, if you were fortunate enough to pickup an Eldrazi Conscription early in the draft, this will be a windmill slam.
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Card Evaluations -Blue - Common -
Champion's Drake - My first impressions upon seeing this card were that it was probably pretty good, but likely to be a little unreliable. All observations since have backed this up, with the emphasis on "pretty good". I've seen this guy on one side or the other of the table in ever draft final I've seen so far... read into that what you will.
Deprive - Excellent, though not quite as good in draft as it is in sealed this will see play in most blue-heavy decks. Little to say, except that if your curve stops at 4 or 5, this is an auto-include.
Distortion Strike - Probably my choice for top Blue common after Narcolepsy, this is especially potent in UR or UG decks where you will often have guys with big front-ends but be short on evasion. It's fairly feasible in the mid game for this to add 6 damage the turn it is cast, and another 6 the turn after, ending most games.
Eel Umbra - It's hard to rank the Umbras because they do such different things at different mana costs - however this one DEFINITELY goes later than it should right now. For the non-rare Umbras I'd say that Drake is best, followed by Boar and then possibly this puppy.
Fleeting Distraction - Very difficult to justify playing as it will be useful in very few situations, however it does cantrip for a single mana so if your deck wants to dig this could see some play, but it's fairly miserable unless cantripping in an attempt to find a bomb.
Frostwind Invoker - This guy will make every deck you draft him in, he's nicely aggressive and has one of the better "Invoker" effects, and can also act as a wall for the numerous smaller flyers.
Halimar Wavewatch - Deceptively useful, this guy is a small wall for 2 mana, an effectively enormous wall for 4 mana, and for a total of just 12 mana ends the Blue mirrors. You will play him most of the time, and side him in versus anyone Blue.
Jwari Scuttler - Wow, does this guy illustrate the difference between the Zendikar draft formats and RoE or what? In ZZZ a 2/3 was a house, very useful power/toughness combination and you were usually very happy to get any 2 or 3 mana guys with those states. In RoE he's not unplayable, but I can't see him getting into many "First 22s" - the body does not attack for enough, doesn't block anything meaningful enough and there's alot of competition on the curve.
Lay Bare - Primarily a Sealed card, there will be little room for this in most draft decks, but if you have no Deprive available (which won't go all that high anyway, so won't be hard to find!) you might want to grab one or two late picks, to shore up your sideboard for Eldrazi matchups.
Merfolk Observer - Forget it. Yes you'll play him to fill out your curve at the 2-drop slot, but the ability is junk and in anything other than UR (where a number of effects to stop blocking can be found) he is going to be irrelevent or dead quickly.
Mnemonic Wall - As a wall it's pretty poor, coming down on a turn where you really need to be affecting the board in a more positive way - however the ability to bring back anything from Staggershock to Distortion Strike will make this a fairly high pick. I suspect a very good UR archetype exists where this will be a natural fit alongside the enormous number of quality red instants and sorceries.
Narcolepsy - Definitely the top Blue pick - it doesn't deal with every creature in the format (Brimstone Mage, Drana, Gul Draz Assassin and others) but it *DOES* deal with most of them, and conveniently 2-for-1s the Umbra decks. It's cheap, efficient and tutorable (by another common) removal in a colour which doesn't usually get any help like that. In fact other than the lack of ability to deal with "utility" creatures it's only drawback is that you can't play it and swing past the creature in the same turn.
Regress - A higher pick than it would ordinarily be due to the high playability of Umbras and to the presence of Eldrazi, it's still not amazing but I would be surprised to see many languishing in sideboards.
Sea Gate Oracle - Not as good as he "used to be" in his previous incarnation as Court Hussar for two reasons - the first is that two cards is just not as deep as three, and because a 1/3 body these days can productively block fewer creatures in the format than back then...
See Beyond - While this puppy will definitely see constructed play in every format including those not yet invented, it's not so hot in RoE Draft. Most Blue-based decks want to be tempoing their opponents out with flyers, or levelling up dudes rather than drawing an extra card. If your 2-drop slot is light then go ahead, but I think you'll be unimpressed most games.
Shared Discovery - Almost unplayable, with the caveat that when U is splashed into a good Spawn shell in R/B/G it will suddenly become a VERY strong card. So narrow though, that you can probably count on getting them VERY late.
Skywatcher Adept - Currently very highly rated by others, it's hard to argue that the guy is good - but I feel he's not great. He's a bit too expensive to level up into a 2/2 flyer (see how he compares with Knight of Cliffhaven), doesn't do enough until you level him, and then his final level adds no toughness, leaving him trading with everything rather than punching past it. They'll be in the deck, but you'll rarely level him past Level 1. A total of 10 mana for a 4/2 flyer just doesn't excite me enough.
Venerated Teacher - Now if ever there were a reason to play Levellers, this guy is it. The mana-intensive nature of your levellers is significantly offset by the presence of this guy. In addition, once you have picked up one their synergy is so strong that I would probably look to force levellers... more Teachers and any Time for Heroes you can find, along with just about any leveller you can get. If you can find 2 teachers then even the weakest levellers become very potent.
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That's my wrap for today - later in the week I'll walk you through the commons for the Eldrazi Colours - Red, Black and to a lesser extent, Green.
-RD- Richard Smith
26/05/2010 | Very much agreed on Eel Umbra. It's regularly the equivalent of a 2 or 3 for 1.
Disagreed on Regress; I think it's excellent in this format, since it not only hits the things you mentioned but also makes levellers look stupid. At that point, it's strong against most of the major archetypes going around, plus the fact that it's strong in the UR Kiln Fiend archetype in its own right means it's very good.
Distortion Strike's fine, but not amazing. As you say, it's best in UG or UR, but UG is generally a pretty miserable colour combination to be in.
Ikaral Outrider's not great, but he's still a perfectly reasonable man, as a 2/6 vigilant butt is actually quite useful most of the time. Combine him with Time of Heroes and he's a pretty ludicrous beater that's hard to deal with with anything short of Corpsehatch.
I really, really want to draft a white deck sometime soon built around Knights and Hyena Umbras, but I've generally found that unless it's paired with blue, white's been pretty weak, as its guys require too much mana invested into them, only to die to the first removal spell that comes along. Hyena Umbra's utterly ridiculous though, and I still don't understand why I keep seeing them going late (aside from the fact that white's quite underdrafted generally), because it's almost impossible to block a knight of cliffhaven who gets one dropped on him... |
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The Week Ahead
Tuesday - Casual, EDH & more at West Coast Gamers (7:15pm)
Wednesday - FNM at The Gaming Crypt (7pm)
Friday - Standard FNM at Cleator Gaming Club (7pm)
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