Of all the Throne of Eldraine archetypes, I’m most curious about
Knights. That may sound odd, because it seems like a fairly linear aggro
deck, however the inclusion of tribal synergies often have noticeable
effects on a Limited format.
Parasitism is a concern. If there are too many white cards and black cards
that only go into the Knight archetype, both colors can struggle to pair
well with other colors. Furthermore, if the cards for the Knight deck are
too good, the deck will never come together as other drafters will pick
them up. This was the case for the Izzet Thopter archetype in Magic Origins. There’s a proper balance in order to support a
tribal archetype in a non-tribal set, and I’m curious to see if Knights in Throne of Eldraine sits at that equilibrium.
The Knights archetype is based out of the Mardu colors. There can still be
Knights in other colors (e.g. Maraleaf Rider), but the synergies are
expected within red, white, and black. The powerful archetypal cards, such
as Wintermoor Commander, appear to be playable, yet unexciting, in other
archetypes. This usually means that will be a high speculative pick in Pack
1, but a reasonable card to wheel later in the draft as lanes solidify.
Only about half of the cards in Throne of Eldraine have been
previewed so far. There are lots of Knights, and the support runs deep
within all three colors, as can be seen by the different vanilla creature
options. I’m quite confident that drafters within these colors can get
their hands on at least ten Knights. But this begs an important question:
“how many Knights drafters can there be if it’s technically three different
archetypes?”
This will depend on how playable the vanilla creatures like Knight of the
Keep are. In Ixalan, Queen’s Bay Soldier was a begrudgingly
playable card to help on the curve for the Vampire deck. I expect Knight of
the Keep to be similar. And hence finishing off a Knights deck with a
couple vanilla Knights probably doesn’t get the job done. This presents a
concern that at least one deck out of Boros, Rakdos, and Orzhov will be bad
if all three are drafted because there aren’t enough premium cards to
share. And if this lesser Knights archetype is defined by density of
premium synergy cards, it’s possible that one archetype consistently falls
short.
My hope is that there’s a density of cards like Belle of the Brawl and Ogre
Errant. Errant isn’t even a great card, but it’s the kind of filler-plus
that synergistic decks need. And Belle of the Brawl is just a fantastic
aggressive card. Overall, I hope that there are plenty of cards in between
these two on power-level in order to facilitate the Knights archetype.
At the beginning of any format, the best way to learn it is to ask
questions:
- How fast are the games?
- Are there a lot of two-for-ones?
- Is [insert synergistic archetype] really a deck?
The quicker these questions are answered, the easier it is to capitalize on
said answers. So, I’ll leave you with this question: