Round 1
1. Yawgmoth’s Vile Offering
2. Wizard’s Lightning
Yawgmoth’s Vile Offering is a game breakingly powerful spell. Even with the legendary sorcery restriction, I windmill slam it here. The best part is the Offering is it’s splashable, so even if you end up finding your legends in W/U, you can easily play one of the most powerful cards in Dominaria.
After that, things flatten out a bit. Wizard’s Lightning, Vicious Offering, and Adeliz, the Cinder Wind are all close. This time the more restrictive U/R card isn’t massively overpowered, so it loses out to classic removal. Between the red and black options, I prefer Wizard’s Lightning. Three damage is a large upgrade from -2/-2, three to the face happens a lot, and sacrificing a creature is a real cost outside of G/B. Vicious Offering is much more a Bone Splinters with upside than a Disfigure with upside, if that makes sense, and ends up in third place.
1. Yawgmoth’s Vile Offering
3. Wizard’s Lightning
There are four cards in this pack I’d be happy to first pick: the three above and Vicious Offering. Kwende is the next best card, but I don’t like white very much.
Yawgmoth’s Vile Offering is a risky pick. Even if you end up black, you might not be able to play it, and it will likely ask you to take a few legends over stronger or more flexible cards later, but it’s easily splashable and I think the power is worth the risk and investment.
Adeliz is similar—high investment, high upside. I suspect a lot of people would take a flexible, mono-color removal spell here, but I err more toward premium creatures over removal than I think some players do, and Adeliz is a fantastic card in a very good deck.
Despite liking Wizards, I like black more than red, so Vicious Offering and Wizard’s Lightning are fairly close for me, but if I’m red, I do like to be Wizards and the card is stronger overall. It’s particularly great with Ghiru Chronicler, one of my favorite red cards in Dominaria.
1. Yawgmoth’s Vile Offering
2. Wizard’s Lightning
It’s early enough in the format that I see no shame in slamming the rare and moving on here. Yawgmoth’s Vile Offering is a Zombify stapled to a Hero’s Downfall and that’s exciting. I could see the Legendary Sorcery restriction pressuring us into pulling the trigger on casting it earlier than we would like to make sure we’re able to cast the card at all, but I think the card is powerful enough to merit a first pick here even if you assume sub-optimal targets.
The rest of the pack comes down to your removal spell preference between Wizard’s Lightning and Vicious Offering. Vicious Offering can kill bigger things and is a little cheaper most of the time; Wizard’s Lightning can remove players some of the time and becomes actual Lightning Bolt if you end up in Wizards. I value the utility of pointing my removal spells at my opponent highly and lean towards taking the Lightning.
Round 2
The two rares in this pack are close. Muldrotha is definitely more powerful than Zahid, but Zahid is still very powerful. Since it’s the difference between an A and an A+, I’ll just take the most castable one.
The rest of this pack is also powerful, but The Eldest Reborn is better than the commons. It’s easier than it looks to catch people with the first Diabolic Edict trigger, but the real kicker is that there are tons of ways to loop the three-for-one.
For me, the legendary creatures are far above everything else in this pack, followed by Vicious Offering and The Eldest Reborn. The next best card is either Urza’s Tome or Llanowar Elves, and I feel strongly that Llanowar Elves are a worse pick than the top four, but I think hype around the card is such that some people might take it over a removal spell.
Zahid and Muldrotha are very close for me. Zahid pushes you to find artifacts and Muldrotha pushes you to find Ramp and fixing. Zahid’s honestly probably the better pick for most players, and maybe even for me, but I love the kind of decks Muldrotha is best in and have way more fun playing it.
The Eldest Reborn and Vicious Offering are comparable in power level, but I’d rather guarantee that I have a powerful cheap removal spell, and I can worry about finding high impact cards later. I think taking The Eldest Reborn risks a clunky deck that’s weak to some strategies.
Foils create some interesting decisions. Picking between a rare and a mythic isn’t easy, but I’m voting for the rare this time. A 5/6 flying body has done nothing but impress me in this format, and I’m not sure I’ve seen a turn 4 Zahid lose yet. Add in being a single color instead of three and I’m very happy with this first pick.
Muldrotha, the Gravetide is powerful enough to merit an early pick despite costing three different colors of mana. The good news is that you’re going to splash the third one, so there’s three different two-color pairs you can end up in and still play Muldrotha, which is pretty good. The inevitability Muldrotha gives is hard to beat and worth the deckbuilding cost of splashing a color. Note that with Muldrotha in your pool, the value of future Memorial to Follys you encounter goes up dramatically.
Even after the rare and the mythic are gone out of this pack, there’s nothing wrong with starting a draft with Vicious Offering. You could maybe make an argument for Llanowar Elves, but I think the removal spell beats it out every time.
Round 3
1. Multani, Yavimaya’s Avatar
Multani, Yavimaya’s Avatar is a giant unkillable trample reach legend. This is very good.
Actual gameplay with The Eldest Reborn:
Ari casts Blink of an Eye with kicker targeting The Eldest Reborn.
Two turns later…
Ari triggers Rona, Disciple of Gix targeting The Eldest Reborn.
As for Pegasus Courser, I rated Aerial Guide only barely behind Open Fire and Ambuscade in Hour of Devastation. Please let me live in my “they can’t block, but I can choose how to attack” world some more.
1. Multani, Yavimaya’s Avatar
In this pack, as in any pack, I slam Multani and don’t look back. It’s my pick for the literal best Limited card in the set.
As it happens, the rest of the pack is fairly weak after The Eldest Reborn, which I think is considerably ahead of Danitha.
I take Danitha third because it’s a solid creature and starting with a legend is good for giving you options on using historic triggers and legendary sorceries.
1. Multani, Yavimaya’s Avatar
Take Multani, Yavimaya’s Avatar. End of story. I have watched every line of text on this card win games all on its own. If you’re behind, Multani will be the biggest creature and you can safely hide behind it for a bit. Not even flyers can touch you. When you’re ready to turn the corner, trample ensures there’s not much your opponent can do to stop you. And if they line up some obscene multi-block or have an Eviscerate, your Multani will just be back in a turn or two. Card is a huge bomb and a fantastic first pick.
After the Multani’s gone, this pack loses a lot of its luster. I think reasonable cases can be made for Danitha Capashen, Paragon, The Eldest Reborn, Mammoth Spider, and Pegasus Courser. I’ve been relatively unimpressed with The Eldest Reborn due to the number of small bodies in the format that tend to clog up battlefields and make the edict ability very unreliable. I think Danitha is better than Pegasus Courser in white, which leaves Danitha and Mammoth Spider as my next two picks.
Round 4
2. Gideon’s Reproach
This is the worst pack so far by a lot. Hallar, the Fire Fletcher is the best card, but it isn’t something I would splash, and without a second or third trigger it isn’t much better than Baloth Gorger as a threat. Even if I ended up in G/R I could easily see the two being close enough to not care which I took, so mono-color 4/4 it is.
Baloth Gorger versus Gideon’s Reproach is also technically close… but no one scoops to Llanowar Elves into Gideon’s Reproach. Big Baloth. Big Smash.
Hallar, who isn’t amazing, is the best card here by a wide margin. After that it gets close, and I’m fine with taking Baloth Gorger, Ancient Animus, Gideon’s Reproach, and Jousting Lance in basically any order. I think Jousting Lance is probably the strongest card, but my bias is away from aggression, so I try to avoid it early. Basically, I don’t think any of these cards are strong enough that I want them to dictate my draft, so I’m just taking the ones that are best in the kind of decks I like to end up in (green control decks).
2. Gideon’s Reproach
This is the least exciting pack we’ve opened yet by quite a lot. Starting off a draft with a Baloth Gorger is very boring, but I think it’s correct. Gorger is very likely to end up as the biggest creature on the battlefield at either of its price points and while that’s the only thing it has going for it, it’s a convincing sell nonetheless.
I may be underrating Gideon’s Reproach to not have it as the pick out of this pack, but I have a bit of a vendetta against removal spells that give my opponents so much play. Normally the Divine Verdict restriction makes me worry about wasting mana, but Gideon’s Reproach only costing two makes that much less of a concern. However, I’m worried about my opponent reading me for a Gideon’s Reproach and never risking their critical utility creature in combat. I discount removal spells that won’t always do what I want them to, and I think that’s the case here.
Past Gorger and Reproach, there’s nothing in this pack I’m very excited about. Ancient Animus and Hallar, the Firefletcher are the only two that really catch my eye, and of the two, I suspect the two colors in Hallar’s cost will be less of a deckbuilding restriction than finding enough legendary creatures to make Ancient Animus good.
Round 5
I did recently say History of Benalia isn’t as insane as you would assume, but that just means it is normal extremely powerful and not three-drop auto-win. Beyond being above rate, it offers Knight, historic, and rebuy synergies that allow it to hit unbeatable status.
Tatyova, Benthic Druid and Sporecrown Thallid are both extremely powerful but conditional. Vicious Offering is just a bit too far down the removal scale to compete, where something like Eviscerate would easily dethrone one or both of these. Tatyova is just going to be great a significantly larger amount of the time, both in blue deck or in the 30% or so of green decks that are a bit short on Thallids and Fungi.
I’ve never been fortunate enough to play with History of Benalia, but it seems very easy to win when you cast this if you’ve drafted around it, as there are a decent number of Knights in the set and it’s a great rate regardless.
Tatyova honestly isn’t far behind it for me, as if you wait until you can play a land immediately to play this, it gives you value upfront, and I’ve rarely seen someone lose after untapping with this.
Nothing else in the pack is competitive with Vicious Offering for me, as it’s the best common in the best color.
I’m not sure where everyone else is with this format, but I’ve been very impressed by Tatyova, Benthic Druid. Games where you get to play out more than a single land with Tatyova on the battlefield are very difficult to lose and only get harder to lose the longer you get to keep Tatyova around. You must build your deck a little defensively and double-color is certainly a risk, but Tatyova definitely pays you off for taking it.
It does feel weird not taking the mythic first, but a lot of History of Benalia’s power is in its efficiency, an attribute more important to Constructed Magic than Limited. History is still very good of course, but if you’re not careful it will just end up being a slightly cheaper Call the Cavalry. Other Knights go a long way towards making it better than that, as does a deck that plans on ground-based aggression.
Finally, I’m not at all upset to start a draft with Sporecrown Thallid. This is one of the key cards to the Saproling deck and if you end up in that archetype, it will be a more powerful card in your deck than either Tatyova or History are likely to be in their decks. Even if you only end up with a middling amount of Saproling synergies, Sporecrown Thalid will still merit an inclusion in your deck, and it’s easy to draft at least a few Saproling synergies in any green deck.