Pack 1, Pick 2
The Picks So Far:
This draft starts off with one of the best uncommons in the set! Tatyova is extremely powerful and can just run away with the game. She’s even splashable! But the question is, how hard do you try to take green and blue cards to increase the probability that you can play Tatyova? The best card in the following pack is neither of those colors. Do you take it anyway?
The Pack:
The Pick:
Before deciding whether to veer out of U/G to take Shivan Fire, let’s first discern which is the best on-color option between Academy Drake and Yavimaya Sapherd. In this format, I haven’t been all that impressed with Academy Drake. It’s a fine card that you play in plenty of your blue decks, but neither mode is particularly exciting. Yavimaya Sapherd is very good in most green decks, so in a vacuum, I would prefer the Sapherd.
That said, I would much rather be blue than green in this format. The green decks can really struggle without a combination of a lot of synergy (usually via tokens) or ramp combined with powerful spells. Not to say the color is bad – it’s fine – but every single blue archetype is always solid regardless of the cards you get as long as the color isn’t extremely dry at the table. Overall, I think the Sapherd gets the nod here. But if the Drake were say, Divination, I think I would prefer the blue card.
All right, so what’s the pick between Yavimaya Sapherd and Shivan Fire here? I think it’s pretty clearly Shivan Fire. I know that it’s not on-color with Tatyova and in what is considered by many to be the worst color (I disagree, but to each their own). Still, I think Shivan Fire is simply too much better than Yavimaya Sapherd to try to stay on-color. Both cards are splashable and both cards are great. And there’s even a chance that Sulfur Falls wheels to help facilitate a splash.
Pack 1, Pick 4
The Picks So Far:
With Grow, the probability I get to play every card drafted so far is reasonably high. I’m quite happy with the start of this draft. The following pack has some options, but none are all that exciting given this start.
The Pack:
The Pick:
The two best cards in this pack are white, but we haven’t drafted any white cards. What I will say is that if I’m taking a white card here, it would be Blessed Light. While Pack 1, Pick 1 I would take Danitha Capashen, Paragon over Blessed Light, with the current cards in the pool, I would rather have the splashable removal spell. So how does Blessed Light compare to Juggernaut and Syncopate?
Syncopate is just okay, so I don’t think I’m going to take it here. Yes, it’s a blue card that makes your deck a good portion of the time, but I rarely end up missing a Syncopate if I don’t have it. Juggernaut hits hard, but isn’t all that great in the format. The “must attack” clause can be a pretty big downside even though the card hits quite hard. And there’s an abundance of four-drops in the format, so I just don’t think this card is as good as you may think.
Taking all this information into account, I’ll take Blessed Light. Not only is it a better splash than Shivan Fire, but having maindeck answers to enchantments can be quite important. I think any card in this pack is a defensible pick, but Blessed Light is mine.