My first impression of M11 for Limited (speaking primarily about Booster Draft) was that it was unlike previous Core Sets. There seemed to be more tricks, less ‘vanilla’ effects, and more of an Expansion feel than a Core Set feel. After having played in dozens of M11 Limited matches with various decks, I am now of the opinion that M11 feels more like a Core Set than an Expansion.
In Core Set drafts, once you determine the relative power levels of each card in the format (as Tim Aten has conveniently already done for everyone), your pick in each pack nearly always comes down to simply answering, “Which card is higher on the list?” Unlike in Zendikar with the Landfall, Allies, and other subthemes to consider, or the Spawn Token, Leveler, and so forth dimensions of Rise of the Eldrazi Limited, M11 has less to do with the archetypal synergy of your deck and more to do with the raw power of your individual cards. Given this assessment, the most salient feature that separates good decks from bad decks in M11 draft is whether you have chosen the correct color combination.
Choosing the correct color combination has much to do with what colors are open, based on what the people passing to you are taking and not taking. However, aside from this well-known fact about draft in general, there is an important aspect of M11 Limited that I would like to discuss at length in this article, namely which kinds of cards you need to make each archetype work, and why. Understanding not only pick orders but what cards are necessary for each color combination to succeed will put you in a much better position to do well in your M11 Limited endeavors.
In my estimation, if you break down the format by color combinations, there are 16 viable archetypes in M11 Limited: Five-Color-Green, each of the five mono-colored strategies, and each of the ten dual-colored strategies. Some color combinations require more work than others to succeed and come together with less frequency, but if the cards are there, each can give you the tools to win your pod.
I considered ordering the archetypes by power level, but this is nearly impossible to do because, depending on how open the color combination is, the power level of the resulting deck will differ radically. For instance, if you are literally the only drafter taking Blue cards and Green cards, you will end up with a deck that is far sicker than anyone else’s deck at the table, even though in general Blue-Green is the most difficult combination to succeed with. So I’ll just list them in no particular order. Today I’ll cover the five mono-colored strategies and the Five-Color Green archetype; next week I’ll cover all the ten dual-colored archetypes.
Five-Color Green
More often than not, this archetype ends up as 3 or 4 colors, the fourth usually being a splash, but if you get enough Cultivates and Sylvan Rangers, running at least one of each basic is quite possible. For this archetype to work, you need to pick the mana fixing higher than almost anything else. I have a difficult time justifying Sylvan Ranger over something like Blinding Mage or Quag Sickness, so I usually do not end up in this archetype. But I have played against it numerous times, and watched others draft it, and the consensus seems to be that it is one of the best decks when it works. But in order to make it work, you have to prioritize the mana fixing highly.
The strength of the archetype comes as two-fold: color fixing and ramping. You play a bunch of spells that fetch out lands and so your colors get fixed easily. This allows you to take the strongest card in the pack regardless of color, not unlike in Alara Block. So you’ll basically be able to pick just about any bomb or removal spell that comes to you and play it, regardless of how far along you are in the draft. The other upside to the archetype is that, especially with Cultivate, you are ramping your mana. So this allows you to play higher cost cards more effectively (e.g. 7-8 mana Rares and Mythics that cost too much for other archetypes to pick highly).
Mono Green
If you open Overwhelming Stampede or Garruk Wildspeaker in Pack 1, consider going into this archetype. With so much color fixing and so few ways to deal with creatures, Green is almost always better with at least a second color. However, with enough Giant Growths, Plummets, and Giant Spiders, you can control the ground and the air without another color. Your creatures will be larger than everyone else’s, and your Cultivates and Llanowar Elves will ramp you into them quicker. You will also have Acidic Slime and Naturalize to deal with non-creature threats like Sword of Vengeance. The rest of the deck should be filled in with big under-costed creatures like Cudgel Troll, Yavimaya Wurm, Spined Wurm, Garruk’s Companion, Awakener’s Druid, etc.
A lot of time if I open a Green bomb to start the draft, I’ll look to continue picking Green cards if possible. Sometimes Green happens to be wide open and there is never a need to branch out into another color. More often than not, something will cause you to splash a second color (Doom Blade, Lightning Bolt, etc.), but if the color fixing is getting cut while everything else Green is coming en masse, don’t be afraid to go Mono Green. You’ll also want to make sure you pick up an Autumn’s Veil and some Brindle Boars as sideboard cards.
Mono White
If you start the draft with an early Serra Angel or a bomb like Baneslayer Angel or Ajani Goldmane and White looks open, you can consider the Mono White route. The archetype simply does not work as a control deck, so don’t try it as such. The biggest upside to Mono White is that you become the fastest archetype in the format. Cards like Armored Ascension, Honor of the Pure, and even Inspired Charge are each high quality cards in this deck while only decent to bad in most other archetypes. So you will get them passed to you and be able to maximize their utility better than anyone else.
Cheap fliers are the name of the game. Stormfront Pegasus, Assault Griffin, Cloud Crusader, Wild Griffin, and Squadron Hawks provide the early offense that puts the opponent on the ropes before they can get going. Pacifism, Blinding Mage, and Excommunicate clear away blockers while negating an opposing clock. Then Armored Ascension, Honor of the Pure, or Inspired Charge will finish the game. Safe Passage is also very good because it protects your creatures in combat or from damage spells, or it can act as a Fog to give you one additional attack in a race situation. You also have Solemn Offering to handle things like Platinum Angel, Sword of Vengeance, or opposing Pacifisms.
Mono Blue
This one is probably the hardest of the mono-colored strategies to pull off, especially since Blue is so highly drafted, but if all the pieces line up, you can have quite the sicko deck. Blue gives you tempo, card advantage, and evasion. Aether Adapt, Unsummon, Sleep, and Ice Cage slow down the opponent enough to allow your Azure Drakes, Water Servants, Cloud Elementals, and Scroll Thieves to beat down. It is pretty much necessary in this archetype to have at least a pair of high-end bombs that consist of some combination of Air Servant, Conundrum Sphinx, and Mind Control. There just isn’t enough damage worth of creatures to get there otherwise.
If you pick up multiple Sleeps and both Green and White are getting cut, Mono Blue is something to consider. There are some interesting combinations with Blue. Water Servant equipped with Whispersilk Cloak is one of my favorites since it represents 6 points of unstoppable damage each turn. Furthermore, Blue has a tough time fighting past an opposing Giant Spider or Serra Angel, so if you are light on Sleeps, Cloak is a fine stand-in.
The problem with Mono Blue is that so many of its cards are designed to work with cards of other colors and not by themselves. If you draw enough cards with Jace’s Ingenuity, Scroll Thief, and Foresee you will be able to continue casting Unsummon and Aether Adapt until your Augury Owls, Scroll Thieves, and Azure Drakes finally get there. But without meatier creatures like Water Servant, Air Servant, and Conundrum Sphinx, your Sleeps will only be worth a handful and damage before the opposing monsters wake up. If you have these cards though, more power to you.
Mono Black
In M10 draft, as well as in Zendikar draft, Mono Black was the best deck. Going into M11 I expected Mono Black to be the best deck. While it is possible that it is, I think there are many comparably powerful archetypes in M11. The main reasons to go into this archetype are Corrupt, Quag Sickness, and sometimes Nantuko Shade. I drafted a pair of Phylactery Lich in this archetype once, but neither ended up making the cut because the rest of my pool was so strong without them (and the necessary package of mediocre artifacts). In theory, however, with enough Crystal Balls, Steel Overseers, and Whispersilk Cloaks, I suppose the Lich could be another incentive to go Mono Black.
The premium cards in this archetype are removal spells: Corrupt, Quag Sickness, Doom Blade, Diabolic Tutor (into removal spell) and to a lesser extent Assassinate and Deathmark. Most creatures just get plugged in at the end, since really all you’re trying to do with this archetype is ramp some dorks into an empty board to finish things off. Most of the game is a bloodbath of creatures getting massacred, hands getting Duressed and Mind Rotted away, and finally a vanilla 3/2 getting dug out of its grave to walk past a battlefield of corpses to victory.
Card advantage cards also play an important role and allow Black to get ahead. Things like Gravedigger, Mind Rot, Sign in Blood, Reassembling Skeleton, and Liliana’s Specter gain you incremental advantages over the course of the game that allow your mediocre Vampires or Zombies to finish things off in the end. Sometimes you’re lucky enough to have a Howling Banshee or a juicy target for Rise from the Grave to help your cause, but even these are not necessary if the essential pieces (card advantage and removal) are coming your way. Nightmare and Mind Shatter no longer exist either.
Mono Red
There are a number of subtle interactions in Mono Red, and few incentives not to play a second color. Cyclops Gladiator, Shiv’s Emrace, Fiery Hellhound, and Earth Servant are really the only incentives to staying mono-colored, and casting the Cyclops consistently on Turn 4 is really the only one that compels me to stay Mono. In the rare cases where you have a pair of Cyclops Gladiators early or no one to your right is taking red cards, consider staying mono.
Like most Red decks, burn spells are a high priority. So Lightning Bolt, Chandra’s Outrage, Fireball, Pyroclasm, Prodigal Pyromancer, and sometimes Fling are all cards you want to have in your deck. Even if Pyroclasm kills everything in your deck, there will be enough situations where you can use it profitably to merit its inclusion. If you go the route of Goblin Balloon Brigade, Goblin Piker, and Arc Runner, then Lava Axe is viable. Speaking of which, the Balloon Brigade is actually a fine card overall. It trades with Stormfront Pegasus and Child of Night, and has pseudo-shroud in the form of ‘too crappy to waste a card on’.
The cool thing about Red in this format is how it can randomly kill out of nowhere. One interaction that came up for me (or rather, against me) was Chandra’s Spitfire and Triskelion — yep, that’s 13 damage. Similarly, Act of Treason followed by Fling can be a kick in the teeth. I don’t think I would take anything over Fireball in Red, except Inferno Titan and maybe Chandra Nalaar, but there are other similarly powerful bombs such as Magma Phoenix and Hoarding Dragon. These cards, as well as Shiv’s Embrace, can finish off games quickly and efficiently.
. . .
Any of the 6 strategies discussed are viable if the cards are coming. In terms of risk, I would order them as follows, from highest risk (1) to lowest risk (6):
1. Mono Black
2. Mono Blue
3. Mono White
4. Mono Red
5. Mono Green
6. Five-Color-Green
Black is the riskiest because if you start getting pass-cut, you’ll have to branch out into a second color. This makes your Quag Sickness and Corrupt that much worse, and you’ve presumably already been passing good cards of the next most open color, so moving into it will be difficult for pack 2 since the person to your left is likely in the color you were supposed to be in. The payoff can be quite high if it succeeds and you get 4th pick Corrupts and 7th pick Sign in Bloods, but I label it the highest risk because it’s the archetype that is most difficult to move into a second color with.
On the other end of the spectrum, if you start taking Cultivates and Sylvan Rangers, you have the option of going in a myriad of directions. In the end, you may be a Green/White deck splashing a Doom Blade, in which case the Cultivates and Sylvan Rangers may not be as powerful in your deck as some of the cards you passed up for them early, but they are still fine cards. The only time this archetype is risky is if you draft it backwards — starting with off-color bombs and hoping to pick up color-fixing later in the draft (and potentially not getting enough).
Next time I’ll cover the 10 dual-colored decks.