Every format has a bar of commons where it’s unfortunate to first-pick anything worse. The first four commons on this list I’m actively happy to first pick, and the other six are fine but unexciting.
4. Reave Soul
5. Golden Egg
9. Outmuscle
10. So Tiny
Honorable Mention: Searing Barrage
Pick orders are important. Card rankings within archetypes are important. They get some flack because “Draft is nuanced” – there are many situations where the pool of cards drafted so far have a large impact on said pick orders. And it’s almost impossible to simply demonstrate how these shifts happen.
However, they are still important. Pick orders provide context. They aren’t perfectly actionable, but they help understand bias. How good the cards are in a draft pool dictates how strongly to bias towards certain colors, and that’s strongly correlated with pick orders. What follows is not an extensive pick order for the whole set of Throne of Eldraine, but rather my list of best commons and how that deviates by archetype.
White
2. Flutterfox
It took me a while to fully adjust to white in this format, and that’s partially because understanding how good Flutterfox is isn’t necessarily intuitive. Curving Fox into Rosethorn Halberd or even just a Gingerbrute can be a complete beating. And Trapped in the Tower just isn’t as good as it looks. It’s fine, but there are plenty of times I would rather have a Silverflame Squire.
- Azorius: No changes.
- Orzhov: Silverflame Squire over Flutterfox, Flutterfox moves to #4.
- Boros: No changes.
- Selesnya: Depends on number of Rosethorn Halberds and Adventure synergy. Without many Halberds, Trapped in the Tower bumps to #2 and Silverflame Squire squeaks in at #3. With further adventure synergies, Silverflame Squire can even get up to #2!
Blue
2. So Tiny
Blue doesn’t actually work like this. The value of the cards deviates so much within each archetype that it’s not even useful to say the top three commons. In fact, there are so many different ways to build blue archetypes that I can’t just say “the priority shifts in [some way] in Simic” because that’s incredibly dependent on the set of cards in the pool. Lucky Clover enables some very strong Merfolk Secretkeeper builds, but outside of that there’s a green-base-tempo version that really likes Run Away Together and also a multi-color-splashing deck. What follows is my top three blue commons for each archetype assuming that it isn’t a Merfolk Secretkeeper deck. Because if it is, then I believe the above ranking fits just fine.
- Azorius: So Tiny, Witching Well, Charmed Sleep.
- Dimir: No changes (although there’s argument for Didn’t Say Please as #3).
- Izzet: Opt, So Tiny, Witching Well.
- Simic: Charmed Sleep, Witching Well, Run Away Together.
Black
2. Reave Soul
3. ???
Unlike blue, black commons are fairly straightforward. There are almost no situations where Bake into a Pie and Reave Soul aren’t the best two commons in this color. Occasionally an out-there Knights deck will prefer a Smitten Swordmaster, but even in those decks the removal is often more premium.
- Orzhov: Smitten Swordmaster as #3.
- Dimir: Reaper of Night as #3.
- Rakdos: Smitten Swordmaster as #3.
- Golgari: Nothing actually jumps out as #3. It can range from Wicked Guardian to Tempting Witch to Foreboding Fruit.
I think initially a lot of players thought that black was clearly ahead of the other colors thanks to its top two commons, but that isn’t the case. The drop-off from second- to third-best common in black is enormous. Black isn’t bad, but it’s not broken. It’s balanced.
Red
This may be somewhat controversial, but I like Rimrock Knight more than Searing Barrage. Don’t get me wrong, Searing Barrage is a great Magic card, but two-drops that scale into the late-game are, in my opinion, often better than five-mana removal. In fact, the only archetype where this priority changes is Izzet.
- Boros: No changes.
- Izzet: Searing Barrage at #2 and Merchant of the Vale at #3.
- Rakdos: No changes.
- Gruul: No changes.
Green
2. Outmuscle
Like black, the drop-off after the top-two-commons is huge. However, unlike black, Rosethorn Halberd comes in hot because every single green archetype can be optimized for an aggressive deck. For context, I think Gingerbrute and Wildwood Tracker are cards I prioritize if I’m already green because of this. Curving a one-drop into Rosethorn Halberd is where this aggressive architecture gets such a punch.
However, not every archetype is perfectly built this way. I believe this is the correct top three commons for green assuming an aggressive bias. The following changes to #3 are specifically for the non-aggressive versions of the archetypes. No changes if I don’t believe they exist.
- Selesnya: No changes.
- Simic: Rosethorn Acolyte as #3.
- Gruul: No changes.
- Golgari: Depending on the version, #3 can be Rosethorn Acolyte, Maraleaf Rider, or Curious Pair.