And we’re back with Masters 25! Did you miss me?
These last couple weeks of graduate school have been hell, so I was pleasantly surprised when this format turned out to be awesome! There is an abundance to do. Hyper aggressive decks seem good and supported. Five-color control/midrange decks are powerful and viable. There are even a variety of combos to weave into your gameplan. I have been enjoying this format quite a bit, so look no further, let’s dive into what was my first draft of the set!
Pack 1, Pick 2
The Picks So Far:
The Pack:
Starting off a draft with a three-color-card can be a bit intimidating, but fixing is plentiful in this format. All it takes is a Cultivate to set everything up, and with land cyclers and Prophetic Prism running around, I’m not worried about the cost of starting with Prossh. To be honest, I could even see splashing the card!
The Pick:
Out of this entire pack, most cards are easily replaceable. In fact, there
really aren’t any good cards with a truly unique effect, something I’m
always looking to prioritize for Masters sets. However, Prophetic Prism and
Disfigure are the least replaceable cards that are also good early picks.
So which should you take?
I’ve been taking Prophetic Prism highly, and I’ve been very happy with
that. There are so many powerful cards, and the opportunity cost of playing
Prism is so low. Increasing the probability that I play a density of
powerful cards is a good way to win in this format, and the fact that
Prophetic Prism enables this for non-green decks is nothing to scoff at. I
wouldn’t be surprised if, after the dust settles, fixing is taken so highly
that you really need to take Prophetic Prism here in order to enable the
most powerful decks. However, I don’t think that is the case just yet.
I would take Disfigure here. Disfigure is actually even better than it
looks in this format. It’s a spectacularly cheap interactive card to help
shore up aggressive starts, but it also won’t be dead against control decks
thanks to morph. And it’s even on-color with Prossh, Skyraider of Kher to
boot!
Pack 1, Pick 3
The Picks So Far:
The Pack:
The Pick:
This pack is kind of an odd-ball for the start of this draft. The best card
is Fiend Hunter by a country mile, but a double-white card doesn’t
particularly pair well with Prossh. That doesn’t mean we can’t take it, but
let’s explore the other options first. Also note that this means I’m not
going to consider Urbis Protector, as if I’m taking a white card, it’ll be
Fiend Hunter.
Frenzied Goblin has really impressed me. A lot of decks in this format
don’t put a creature on the battlefield until turn 3, so Frenzied Goblin
can really run away with the game. So taking Frenzied Goblin and going for
a B/R sacrifice aggro deck, which could even potentially splash Prossh,
seems like a reasonable avenue.
Perilous Myr is a nice little road-block. It pairs better in the
non-aggressive sacrifice synergy decks that Prossh, Skyraider of Kher goes
in, but I imagine that the Myr is low impact enough that it doesn’t make
the main deck all that often.
Then there are plenty of other cards you could take I guess. Vessel of
Nascency for more of a graveyard-oriented strategy or even Echoing Courage
to go towards a tokens route. However, after really dissecting the whole
pack, I think the decision is between Frenzied Goblin and Fiend Hunter.
Personally, I think Fiend Hunter is enough better than Frenzied Goblin that
it’s the pick here. Maybe we draft a white deck and it’s great, and maybe
we don’t, but I want to take the card with the highest ceiling. So that’s
what I would do!
I ended up with a pretty sweet four-color aristocrats deck, and while I
didn’t main deck the Fiend Hunter, I did get to cast it off of Prophetic
Prism after grabbing it with Living Wish. And it was good enough to take
the trophy!