fbpx

Sliding Doors In War Of The Spark Draft

Sometimes draft packs offer a couple of clear possibilities that lead down very different roads. Ryan Saxe shows how a decision Pack 1, Pick 2 can transform which card is “better” as soon as Pack 1, Pick 4!

Pack 1, Pick 1

The Pack:

The Pick:


Karn’s Bastion is quite underrated and I think it’s a fantastic first pick. Most decks in this format can utilize the proliferate well, and a land that’s a spell has more value than you might realize. It not only always makes your deck, but the fact that it replaces a land rather than a spell means that your density of cards that impact the game is larger than your opponent’s. It’s not a slam-dunk first pick in the same way a bomb is, but I’m always happy to see Karn’s Bastion when I open my first pack.

Vraska, Swarm’s Eminence is one of the best planeswalkers to first-pick. She can be played in 70% of archetypes, is often a two-for-one, and can take over the game since she grows her Assassins. I’m leaning towards Vraska because, unlike the Bastion, she brings power all on her own. Both cards are comparably flexible, and while the Vraska isn’t as powerful in terms of the card’s ceiling, the average case is probably higher. I don’t think you can go wrong with this pack.

Pack 1, Pick 2

The Picks So Far:

The Pack:

The Pick:

Grateful Apparition is enticing; however I think it would be a mistake to take it. It can be solid in Azorius, Boros, or Orzhov, but for the most part the Apparition is a Selesnya card. That can work well with Vraska, but I think Bloom Hulk is a better pick over it for flexibility. It still has an incredible power-level, and would be great in Selesnya, but will also be great in any of the green archetypes.

Is Bloom Hulk or Chandra’s Triumph a better follow-up to Vraska? I think the pick is close, but clear: Chandra’s Triumph. Cheap interaction is crucial, and there are a lot of hard hitters like Bloom Hulk. Furthermore, I have a slight bias towards red in this format, as I like the red archetypes the most. Lightning Strike has always been a premium card in Limited, and War of the Spark is no different.

Pack 1, Pick 3

The Picks So Far:

The Pack:

The Pick:

Bolas’s Citadel is a very strong rare. At the beginning of this format, I remember wheeling the card. That doesn’t happen anymore, but I also think that the world overcorrected. Most people, myself included, thought that Bolas’s Citadel asked too much of you. It turns out that the pace of the format as well as the density of defensive cards can turn the Citadel into an incredible engine to trump the game. But it’s not a bomb – it requires a bit of work and is expensive.

Eternal Taskmaster is phenomenal. This format is all about the cheap plays which is funny because the format isn’t all that fast. The focus on planeswalkers means that the person with the better battlefield presence dominates the game, and so drafting decks with cards like Bolas’s Citadel to trump the late-game and cards like Eternal Taskmaster as proactive two-drops are incredibly important. But when you have the option between both, what do you take?

The two-drop unless the expensive card is exquisitely good (and there’s a lot of that in this format). I think Bolas’s Citadel is good, but not that good, and since Eternal Taskmaster is one of the best two-drops that also scales to the late-game, I think this pick goes to the Taskmaster.

Pack 1, Pick 4

The Picks So Far:

The Pack:

The Pick:

Merfolk Skydiver is the better card but Spark Harvest goes in more decks and pairs with what I have picked better. I think this pick is a fairly straightforward Spark Harvest, but, as an exercise, think about this pick if you took the Bloom Hulk in Pack 1, Pick 2. This pick becomes much closer in that world. In fact, I think, in that case, the pick would go to the Merfolk Skydiver. That just goes to show the incredible nuance in Draft!

This deck turned into a reasonable version of the multicolor Golgari deck. I didn’t draft it myself; my friend Alex Nikolic did. This is the deck he ended up drafting, and the full draft log!


Forest

Forest
Forest
Forest
Forest
Forest
Forest
Forest
Swamp
Swamp
Swamp
Swamp
Swamp
Swamp
Swamp
Swamp
Mountain

Dreadmalkin

Duskmantle Operative

Eternal Taskmaster
Pollenbright Druid

Shriekdiver

Spark Reaper
Vivien's Grizzly
Leyline Prowler
Leyline Prowler

Centaur Nurturer

Centaur Nurturer
Saheeli's Silverwing
Elite Guardmage
Vraska, Swarm's Eminence

Thundering Ceratok

Arlinn, Voice of the Pack

Spark Harvest

Chandra's Triumph

Guild Globe
Guild Globe

Honor the God-Pharaoh

Deathsprout

Kaya, Bane of the Dead