#28 - Aetherdrift II

Featuring the new meta, how to make Jeskai colors work, and what the big dogs know that everyone else doesn't.

Feb 19, 2025

Welp, the jig is up: Every green common is now going earlier on Arena. A green tax like this should make Greta Thunberg proud:

People will overreact to this data because, hey, that’s what we do. Some of these draft positions are overreactions themselves. Draft is self-correcting. We’re mid-correction. If the correction lasts more than eight days, see a draft doctor.

Moving on.

I don’t really want to talk about green much today because it was what we thought it was. There isn’t a lot of equity parsing whether we should be taking Hazard of the Dunes or Ketradon higher in the same way we don’t need to debate whether “What I Got” or “Santeria” is the better Sublime song. It’s been almost 30 years. We can just let that be, friend.

If you have an RCQ coming up, it’s probably more important to talk about what is exploitable, what you’ll see in a Top 8 draft, and how to take advantage. Because, spoiler alert, sealed is pretty much draft but slower.

Here’s the rub: I think draft is about to get faster and I’m going to make my case today, your honor. I’ve got a deep dive on Jeskai colors, a look at Soup, what top drafters are doing differently than you1, an update on the data I presented last week, and a picture of my dog. All data captured on 2/18 and provided courtesy of the amazing team at 17Lands.com, a site you should sign up for.

Speaking of signing up for shit: If you haven’t already, you can get these free emails in your inbox and not filtered out by some algo that hates original long-form writing.

In This Issue

(Editor’s note: If you haven’t read my previous piece on DFT limited, start there. Then come back. Otherwise, some of this won’t make sense. Or you’ll miss stuff that made sense before and still does.)

#26 - Aetherdrift

Jake Browne

February 15, 2025

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Fixing Boros

We’re used to Boros winning one of two ways: curving out and going around opponents (KLD, LCI) or curving out and going wider than opponents (WOE, MKM). The first takes advantage of evasive creatures, aggressive creatures, and tapping creatures to punish slower opponents. The second dumps a bunch of little pieces of cardboard on the table and then makes it big.

Curving out? Critical regardless.

The problem with DFT is that, when you’re playing Vehicles, you have to make your on curve play every turn or else you can’t crew, you can’t attack, and you’re losing. Your haste creatures don’t give you an extra attacker that can push through those last points of damage because someone still has to crew. Your Cloudspire Coordinator probably should be making a 1/1 instead of being a 3/1 attacker.

These are all problems.

Since we can’t go over opponents, how can we go wide? We have Cloudspire Skycycle and Captain to make our squad a little bigger. If you’re going to play Vehicles, I think they’re critical. But I don’t think Vehicles are really how you win in this format, so let’s come back to this in a second.

There was a thread on the Limited Resources subreddit today bemoaning the win rate of Lightning Strike as a mere 55.3%. I think we tend to romanticize the value of 1R three damage spells, but hey, want to feel even worse?

In Boros, it has a win rate of 52.2%

Some of this is because red is underperforming—that actually makes it the third best common in Boros—but it shouldn’t be counted out. People are saying things like, “It doesn’t kill big green cards!” but that was never the role of Lightning Strike in any format. You still need to kill a Mindspring Merfolk or Gloryheath Lynx. Just because Paul Simon looked short next to Sabrina Carpenter at SNL 50 doesn’t mean he’s a different height next to Shaq. Lightning Strike is relative, not absolute.

Removal isn’t the problem. We have to win the Mana War. Combat tricks are our best leverage.

Tricks and Interaction

Boros is having fits because green has a lot of great creatures that stabilize well and blue has cheap interaction that sets it back. We can’t do much about the cheap interaction part—especially if people keep wising up to Bounce Off—but we can beat green’s creatures. We just need to make them pay the cost.

We can’t let a Hazard of the Dunes blank our first three turns of the game, folks. Sure, it feels a little retro, but we’re going to need to leverage combat tricks and cheap interaction that punches above its weight class to get there. Part of the reason I’m digging Sundial, Dawn Tyrant is it plays very well with Lightshield Parry, a card you can essentially draft for free right now.

Since four toughness feels like the name of the game—hell, they told us as much when they printed Gallant Strike—I love being able to use one to two mana to blank their four drop. Sure, they can choose not to block, but if we've been curving out, that’s pretty rough.

That’s the second part of the mana war: double spelling. We’re looking to follow up our combat trick with another creature. We want to avoid turns where we pass with unspent mana at all cost, but I’m also very reticent to play a copy of Wind-Scarred Crag unless my deck is truly double-pipped to hell, A tapped land can be a Time Walk for an opponent. Cast creatures. Keep applying pressure. Save your Ride’s Ends for the real answers, like Ketradon.

When To Draft Boros

Most people should be soft forcing green for a few weeks at minimum. People hear “best deck” and it takes a while to force them off of it. Last week, I discussed the problem with set reviews before cards are played. If there’s a second level-up you can make, it’s not internalizing the first week's worth of takes and making that your strategy for the rest of the format. The best players are already comfortable in other colors.

Success in Boros is predicated on it being underdrafted. Howlsquad Heavy, Draconautics Engineer, Gloryheath Lynx, Burnout Bashtronaut, and Basri, Tomorrow’s Champion are your lynchpins. I don’t think you’re doing well without around three cards on this list. From there, you need a couple finishers in the vein of Boommobile, Guardian Sunmare, or Dracosaur Auxiliary to bring it home.

You’re fine to start with Heavy, Engineer, or Perilous Snare as picks that are better than premium uncommons like Veteran Beastrider, Haunt the Network, Skyserpent Seeker, or Spikeshell Harrier. Chandra is also a real consideration, although I wouldn’t overrate her.

From there, there’s a big gap to Lynx, Bashtronaut, Boommobile, and Hazoret, even if you’re not the best Hazoret deck. This is part of the reason it’s hard to get into Boros: I’d rather have a Run Over before I took a lot of cards that come later than this. You’re hoping that you can chain something like a P1P1 Engineer into another red rare into a third pick Lynx before it starts looking at all appealing, but you’re probably better off taking a Lightning Strike over the Lynx.

In my opinion, you don’t want to commit to Boros before pick five or six.

Yes, this means giving up on a medium green card you took, hedging in the event Gruul was open. It’s important to remember that if you have the correct read on your pod, you won’t struggle to make playables at all. Boros cards have the least amount of crossover with other colors. Players are allergic to them.

What About Vehicles?

The bottom three cards with enough games to qualify them for GIH WR2 in Boros tell a harrowing story: cards that care about Vehicles and Mounts but don’t attack are broadly bad. Alacrian Armory (42.2%), Interface Ace (44.6%), and Lightwheel Enhancements (44.8%) would go down as some of the worst cards to see consistent play in modern limited history.

Skyseer’s Chariot, Air Response Unit, Clamorous Ironclad, Spire Mechcycle, and Spotcycle Scouter have negligible enters abilities at best, so they’re basically do-nothing artifacts that you can turn into creatures… at the expensive of your other creatures. When have those ever been great? Now, can you imagine playing another card that does nothing (Armory) to make your other card that does nothing into something? What happens when they kill that creature? You’re down so, so bad.

You can afford a max of one of these do-nothings in your deck.

Quick Hits:

I think midrange Boros, which people have discussed, is usually a bad idea. Other decks have better ways to spend their mana, generate card advantage, and win longer games. The exception is like, a deck with Explosive Getaway and Spectacular Pileup so you can actually outcard people, but when is that happening?
Draft more mounts than vehicles. Starting as a creature and always being a creature is important.
Gloryheath Lynx is the truth and can make cards you’d be less interested in—Canyon Vaulter and Cloudspire Captain—much better. If I have a couple Lynxesis I’m more likely to play a couple Mounts Matter cards.
Try to play fewer lands, especially if you have Lynx. This deck really cannot deal with flooding. We have to leverage our lower curve.
The more tricks you have, the better Bulwark Ox gets. It’s no Luminarch Aspirant, but it can do a decent impression when you build around it.
The big white vehicles in here are fine as finishers—Broadcast Rambler and Detention Chariot—but mind your curve.

Fixing Izzet

I may have chided Cheon for being dramatic about the plight of Izzet on LR a few weeks ago, but this is yet another case of the prescribed archetype failing you, the trusting limited player. This archetype likes cycling less than Larry David likes anything.

Sure, it’s fine to have good cards that also cycle in your deck: Scrounging Skyray and Marauding Mako are solid early plays in a deck with incidental discard. It’s also no mistake that they’re the only cards with cycling in the top 35 best Izzet cards by GIH WR.

Conversely, Trade the Helm, Stall Out, Skybox Ferry, and Waxen Shapethief are all in the bottom ten. Monument to Endurance, a card I pegged as a solid enabler, is a middle-of-the-road #31. You don’t want to cycle to feed the discard machine. It’s not a machine, it’s a Jack-in-a-Box that goes “boo” and your opponent reaches across the table and shuts it.

Here’s what we know: looting is good. At minimum, our hand stays the same and our draws get potentially weaker. At best, we trade our worst card in for a much better card. Newer players are loot-adverse, but you? You love it because you’re reading this.

A lot of cards have quasi-free looting attached to them in this deck, so you should play more consistent games. Broadside Barrage is fine removal on rate, but it also gives you bonus consistency. Greasewrench Goblin is a nice, aggressive creature on face. It also means we’re less likely to flood out later. This same trend applies to the payoffs we want: I’m never cutting a 5/4 for four mana and Ward, regardless of the little upside Captain Howler gives us. Thopter Fabricator is a good card.

You don’t need to go all in on cycling. You don’t need to force your discard with things like Kickoff Celebrations. It’s there and it should feel free.

What is Tempo?

I truly could not tell you. It means so many things to so many people, like “good pizza.” Is Izzet Tempo the deck that you’re supposed to draft? I think that’s what a lot of people would call this. I don’t think that’s exactly accurate.

To me, tempo implies there’s value in delaying your opponent with bounce, tap, or top of library effects while getting in for damage. You play low-to-the-ground threats and then harass them as they try to stabilize. So far, those threats play well and the spells? Not so much.

For the average player, Bounce Off is the 54th best common in Izzet. Trip Up? 67th. The latter should be a slam dunk in a deck that cares about discard, right? Even Roadside Blowout, a card that replaces itself, is a pedestrian 32nd.

I’m not here to just shout numbers at you. I think there’s an important takeaway, which is that this deck wants to do two key things:

Play to the board as much as possible early
Generate more cards and cardboard than your opponent

“Play to the board” is overused. It’s hack. Why can’t we spend our turns bouncing stuff if we have early threats? It seems fine to do that and make our opponents waste their time coming back.

I went to the trophy list to find every Izzet trophy from players Diamond and higher. Outside of a rogue Push the Limit deck (that is pretty cool!), that classic “tempo” strategy isn’t taking home packs and gems:

I wouldn’t consider any of these “tempo” decks. There’s a single copy of Bounce Off and Trip Up between all five of them. They feature strong early plays, solid removal and draw to follow them up, and 1-3 finishers.

Kind of reminds you of Boros, right?

While everyone else is playing the slow game, we’re compacting our early turns to get as much out of them and then trying to haymaker our way to a win. Sure, green may be great at stabilizing, but one of the advantages of being able to loot is that it helps you find your best cards and get rid of bad ones. I’m more bullish on Izzet than I was 30 minutes ago, that’s for sure.

When To Draft Izzet

Here, I think your preference is to start blue when possible, as Simic remains a Tier 1 deck as long as packs of Aetherdrift are being opened. Mindspring Merfolk is a card that has impressed in Izzet, for example, that people would be more inclined to think of as a UG card. Ranger's’ Refueler in the same breath.

Think about blue as your card draw refill when your red card aggro tank runs a little low, as Howlsquad Heavy, Draconautics Engineer, and Greasewrench Goblin shine here. My rule of thumb is my red creatures should probably cost three or less, while my blue creatures (Mu Yanling, Wind Rider, Spikeshell Harrier3, Nimble Thopterist) can cost four or more.

Thunderhead Gunner is probably being a little overdrafted at the moment, but it’s at its best in UR and part of what makes this deck strong is when a table undervalues it. Getting your best red common for free at the end of packs creates problems for your opponents. Yes, I would take it over Lightning Strike. Most of the time, I don’t need to.

What about overlapping themes?

Jeskai colors have an artifact-matters Venn Diagram thing going on, with blue caring about raw artifact count, red caring about vehicles, and white caring about both.

I don’t think Izzet should care about either. This isn’t a Gearseeker Serpent deck. During preview season, I thought it might be cute to have Guidelight Optimizer to help pay for cycling costs. Narrator: it wasn’t cute.

Exhaust is more interesting. Izzet naturally discards more lands the later the game goes, so it never feels like the deck wants cards that are mana-hungry. Simic gets the green payoffs. Your commons aren’t nearly as good and I suspect I’m lower on Skystreak Engineer in this deck than most. Outside of Bluefueler, I’m not pressing myself to Exhaust or splash green.

Quick Hits:

As someone who has had both massive successes and devastating failures trying to make Push the Limit a thing, I can’t advise it in a competitive scenario. Too many things can go wrong. I’m also totally fine hate drafting one late if I’m a slower green deck. It’s a busted card that forces awful drafts.
I don’t think this is an Aether Syphon/Riverchurn Monument mill deck without very specific build requirements that you’re better off making work in Dimir or Simic. Red’s defensive speed just sucks.
I’m very hesitant to pitch lands until I know I’ll make my desired drops. This deck can fight its way back from flooding, but having cards stuck in your hand is very painful.
I dislike Magmakin Artillerist. The body is too defensive yet not defensive enough (should have been a 1/5), the ping is really irrelevant as we don’t care about Starting Our Engines, so it’s in limbo.
Sometimes you wind up with the bonkers Mako/Skyray build and you really do want all the cycling you can get. I recommend picking up a copy of Spell PIerece to act as your Dive Down to protect them.

Fixing Azorius

I don’t know if there’s a deck with a better late game than Azorius. The trick early on has been figuring out how to get there because I think the best blue-white decks do something the colors aren’t usually known for: ramping.

Presented here from “worst” to “first,” we have options for getting our big plays out ahead of curve. Ticket Tortoise is not ideal, but it is an artifact for affinity count and, sometimes, two. Guidelight Optimizer makes a turn three Memory Guardian possible and takes a lot of heat off you when it happens. But our crown jewel is clearly Voyager Quickwelder.

It can function as two additional land drops if you can double spell on your next turn. Untapping and casting a Broadcast Rambler feels just as good as casting a second Quickwelder and a Thopter Fabricator. Okay, sorry, that second turn probably feels better. But you get the picture.

While I stressed that this was a grindy format last week, I hope you’ve taken away the lesson so far today that it will get faster. Quickwelder not only makes our artifacts cheaper, but it gives us speed of our own: defensive. A 2/4 body for three mana is a legitimate pain for most decks that would prefer to save removal for your top end.

Sundial, Dawn Tyrant servers a similar role of blanking a lot of 2/X’s you see on turn two, albeit with utility. Midnight Mangler never has to swing but counts as an artifact on the field and can help with double blocks down the road. We need creatures that can keep us in the game.

As I called in preview season, I’m less nervous about getting my affinity count up for Voyage Home because if this deck survives into the late game, so many cards have bonus cardboard/draws stapled onto them. Stay alive.

What’s Our Top End?

First, let’s cover what it’s not: Gearseeker Serpent, Unswerving Sloth, and Valor’s Flagship are all fine in the parking lot. I think that’s the only reference I’ve made to racing and I can live with that.

Ideally, our big, splashy play at the top of our curve does something immediately because—if our opponents are smart—they have removal waiting. Paying six mana for your Gearseeker Serpent to get Crash and Burned is how you lose games. Sloth is not a closer. Flagship can stabilize, but it also dies to Disenchant and taps your board while doing so.

Meanwhile, Guidelight Pathmaker gets you a card, Rambler makes a token, Possession Engine yoinks their best threat or at least resets it, and Harrier can buy you back some Speed. You’ll notice we’re not shy about playing the vehicles other decks might shy away from, either. Since we are going to out-card our opponents, we can figure out how to crew and bash later.

Quick Hits:

Splashing black is so damn good and it feels free. Haunt the Network continues to impress me, duals gain you a little life, and it has great cheap interaction in Bauble (which feels bad to splash and you should be careful with) that counts towards your artifact count.
Speculate on those duals early. People are underdrafting Azorius so you should be fine on playables.
Lynx is an incredibly premium uncommon because missing land drops is death.
Mill is on the table here. Monument slightly over Syphon because it can be very difficult to hit Max Speed and I definitely have decked myself already.
Offensive cards (Brightfield Glider, Armory, Pride of the Road) are offensive to this build and read as “win more.” Interface Ace is not the kind of defensive speed you want.

Okay, now that we’ve been through all of that, let me give you the real Azorius deck: aggro.

Here’s your plan:

Start the game on turn two with a 3/X to apply pressure from the jump.
Ideally play a Quickwelder on turn three. It crews anything you’ve tossed out already and sets you up.
Play a Rambler/Hulldrifter on turn four. They’re both way above rate as four drops and can either go taller/over, respectively, most things your opponents are going to do. Alternately, you can drop something like Synergist plus any of your two drop artifacts you’re holding. That’s a board, baby.
Turn five you’re probably removing a threat or casting another five ahead of curve and doing something else.

These are both Mythic trophies from different players (if the basics are to be believed) that didn’t backdoor into this, but rather pursued it as people disrespected the power of cost reduction and overstatted artifacts. It feels as real to me as the control builds because you’re still not falling into the “vehicles matter” trap.

Try it. It’s no Slitherblade, but it’s good4.

They Soupin’

Aw, made you look.

So far, it’s been hard to get a definitive read on potential four-to-five color green decks (colloquially known as “soup") because it seems like there’s not a ton of upside to them. Out of a few hundred trophies, it’s mostly people splashing for Sab-Sunen, Luxa Embodied.

I think that would have been a reasonable call before we touched a card.

What’s going on with soup? Why aren’t we seeing more of it?

First, your bombs aren’t very splashable outside of Sab and Loot, the Pathfinder so you’re not incentivized to ruin your mana for an off-color Gearhulk. Nice work by the design team.
Second, there are some fairly natural three color decks—Temur Exhaust, Esper Artifacts—that don’t gain much from a less synergistic fourth color, let alone fifth.
Third, we don’t have an Evolving Wilds at common, so agnostic fixing is at a low. Our mana rocks are a vehicle and an aggressive Manalith. 👀
Fourth, there are too many archetypes that have free cards right now. This early in the format, it’s not worth trying to make a mess when there are free, perfectly functioning archetypes being drafted poorly. When people are drafting correctly, we’ll have to make weirder decks.

That’s the prognosis: when there are more competitive pods we’ll see more adventurous decks. Here’s my current deck on Arena, in which I’m not brave enough to play Spectacular Pileup:

I’m 4-0 and currently playing against Gruul two-drops. I’m not afraid.

Big Dogs No Fear Halftime Show

We have very little top player data at this point, but it’s the data I find the most useful when trying to figure out what everyone else is getting wrong. These are the stats of cards when the best 17Lands users play them, draw them, include them in their decks, etc.

Some cards are frozen pizzas: everyone is going to put them in the oven the same way and get the same mediocre results. Some cards are risotto: I don’t know what the #$%^ to do with risotto.

First, let’s look at pure Game In Hand Win Rate. Which cards are better when they draw them?

Nine of the top 20 are white, which tells us that the color isn’t doomed per se. They tend to skew aggressive or evasive, so file that away under “useful.” Skybox Ferry is #2, but that’s really a function of the rest of us playing it to a miserable 49.7% WR. I’ve been in games where an opponent refused to three-for-one me with Winter, so maybe that’s a skilltesting card after all?

What I find very interesting is a card most people agree is good in Ride’s End can be that much better. Also, worth noting we see two Esper lands here. I think that’s an archetype with its best days lying ahead of it.

But hey, before we get to the games, let’s take a step back: how are they building their decks?

Here I ran the same analysis (Pros vs Everyone) and looked at the top 20 cards that they add to their decks after drafting them.

Loooooooooootta Verges here. Whole lotta Vergin’. Some of this can be players trying to fill out collections for constructed without ever intending to add the land to their deck. Sometimes they spec on something but never draft a payoff. Top drafters take these lands and make them count.

Monument to Endurance feels like a Monument to Cockiness, but hey, maybe it’s working for them, as they’re also playing more Fang-Druid Summoners and Mill Cards. Part of taking buildarounds is actually building around them.

Notable here is Gunner, which people are underrating, and interaction broadly. Bounce Off is entirely due to Dafore5.

On the flip side, there’s a lot of cards we’re confidently maining that they’re mostly taking a hard pass on. Let’s roll the numbers:

A nice mix of bad rares, overrated commons, and Raceways. Woof, do they hate Raceways.

I think this makes sense. First, it’s not hard to come by Start Your Engines cards. Second, they’re usually not very good. Third, making your mana worse is always bad.

Whir of Invention highlights something important, though, that I’d like to remind you about: this is a very incomplete dataset. Top drafters haven’t even seen enough Whirs to play zero of them. There are cards that aren’t on this list that will be in a couple of days. This is not definitive.

But let’s take a step even FURTHER back, because ATA (or Average Taken At, the pick number of where these cards are drafted) probably tells a more complete story. Or it creates a throughline here. These numbers look small. A quarter of a pick earlier? Who cares? At scale, These Shifts Matter.

I would wager that 90% of you reading this have at least five cards on this list wrong if top drafters are to be believed. I believe them.

There should be no surprises on here outside of maybe Bestow Greatness, but that’s the end of the pack for you. These are mostly top commons and cards that a medium drafter might pass in lieu of an uncommon or rare. It’s okay to draft commons. In modern limited, they can be quite good.

If those are the cards you want to be taking a liiiiiiittle earlier, here are the cards you should probably pass more frequently:

Here again we’re seeing… a whole lot of white cards, so maybe they don’t want them, but make the most of them when they have to. And sometimes, you get value you don’t expect and make it work for you.

Lagorin continues to be the overrated Selesnya card, probably Pick Anchoring because it was very hyped in preview season. Adrenaline Jockey and Pacesetter Paragon continue to be the same card in my head, but both of these “the thing matters” cards are not what you need. Just do the strong things that don’t need buffs or bonuses.

Trap Update

The most frequent discussions I had about my initial draft guide were with people saying I was wrong about a card I listed as a Card That People Are Mostly Wrong About.

I expected this. These are the terms of engagement: find a card that someone has misevaluated and air our grievance.

In the spirit of accountability, I want to present that same list with performance data since my last column:

I went ahead and sorted by win rate since the lack of some of the mythics being drafted has made the pick data a little wonky. Let’s review:

Explosive Getaway dropped a half-pick and got 1.3% better. I noted it “will get better” so I’m going to call this a win. Drafting cards where they should go means you get better cards, but it’s not some massive victory lap.

Cards that gained because they really had nowhere to go but up: Daretti, Bloodghast, Monument to Endurance. None of these feel like particularly brave calls.

Lifecraft Engine and Gastal Thrillroller made relatively “big” gains. If you want them, fine, but I don’t want to waste high picks on them—which is the only way to draft them right now. Thrillroller is probably being drafted a full two picks ahead of where it should be. That’s inefficient.

Everything else pretty much bore out. People got the memo.

While we’re here in Numberland, a quick list of cards that regressed by 1% GIH WR or more while being picked at least a quarter (.25) picks higher:

Not bad cards, just cards that can’t sustain every Tom, Spike, and Johnny drafting them.

How Do You Win Your PTQ/RCQ?

Here’s my RCQ deck from this weekend at a not-particularly intense shop:

Yes, that is a single two-drop. It was a fairly easy 3-0, 6-1, ID to top 8. The only game I lost? I drew three Bikes and no top end.

I’m banking that most pools will play out slowly and I want to win the late game. Here, Lightning Strike is actually critical for this deck in the event I face a legitimate curve. My Gearhulk was FINE but I can’t leverage it that well. It’s a body. I want to play questions and demand answers.

Prepare for a slow game.

I also avoided traps in this pool, like the Hazoret the person that registered it was drooling over. What does this deck do with Hazoret? I barely own A two-drop, let alone multiple two-drops that would necessitate an entire Hazoret.

Rarity is for collectors, not for games.

With duals and a certain amount of overlap, I had a way to pivot into more blue against decks that couldn’t pressure me and invalidated my “Lightning Strike as a two drop” plan. If we’re trading haymakers, I’d rather have Stock Up and “harder” removal like Flood the Engine.

Have multiple plans.

My cards could play a fairly deck-agnostic game because a lot of the best ones came without an agenda. Agonasaur Rex and Pyrewood Gearhul just want to be cast. I don’t need to get to Max Speed for Goblin Surveyor to jump in front of a person. But Hazoret required a lot of specific considerations I didn’t care to make.

Build to the strength of your bombs.

So, Where Does That Leave Us?

If I had to make some broad statements about the format right now, I’d say:

Green is the best color by virtue of it being able to support multiple drafters at a table with solid cards at multiple rarities.
Red and white aggressive strategies are emerging to target those green decks.
I would expect the format to start feeling faster rather than slower soon, which is unusual for limited.
Esper colors, in particular, seem well suited to counter more aggression. I think they’ll be a great seat to wind up in over the next week or so as green deals with attrition.
If I didn’t mention a deck in this article, I pretty much stand by what I wrote last week.

The next week of drafting is going to feel weird. It’s going to be fast. It’s going to be full of people trying to figure out if red and white are real or if they’re just a speed bump on green’s road to inevitability6. But if you’re reading this, you’re already ahead of the curve. Pay attention. Adapt. And when people start zigging too hard—well, you know what to do.

That’s all I’ve got. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a bunch of stuff I wanted to say. That’s why there’s the Mana Club Discord or you can bug me on X or Bluesky. The first person to read this can get some MTGO points #AD: CCGW-RNMR-GXEZ-F8Q7-TXAY

I hope this wins you your PT draft or some gems on Arena. I hope you feel like you know something more about limited than when you started reading 20 minutes ago. I hope you love this shit as much as I do. Because, to me, this is as good as it gets.

3 packs. 40 cards. 17 Lands.

Make them count.

Giveaway Update

My apologies to the multiple people named Alex that I bamboozled into DMing me on Monday. None of you were the Alex but it was nice to hear from you. The giveaway rolls on! I’m going to grab some stuff in Chicago to add to the pot that will be Cool™ and you have a chance to win it just by subscribing.

Speaking of which: if the average sideboard guide is like $50 (or $15, I might have misheard) and you found this useful, consider upgrading to a paid subscription. I’ve spent so. many. hours. on. this. When I see a paid subscriber pony up, it really does make my day a little better as a guy who is terminally “between opportunities” since leaving his company.

Thank you to the following paid subscribers: Casey, John Dale, Will, Alex, Connor, Joshua, Denis, Kyle, Ben, Patrick, Sam, Tyler, Ian and Eddie! You make my day… well, a little better. You’re the opposite of that Arya Stark list or the Steve Buschemi list from Billy Madison.

Reminder that I’m off on Saturday! If you see me in Chicago, say hi! I’ll be at the PTQ on Friday, the limited cup on Friday if the PTQ goes terribly, floating on Saturday, and the Stacked Sealed whatever on Sunday. As much as I’d love to get back on the tour, this weekend is about seeing homies and making new ones, Saturday PTQ be damned.

We’ll return on Wednesday with our regularly scheduled programming and, who knows? Maybe a tournament report.

Passing the turn, Jake

P.S. Remember Two-Drops.dec from earlier? I should have been afraid!