I’ve finally had the opportunity to get some Rise of the Eldrazi Limited under my belt, and so far I’m a huge fan of the format. The contrast to the lightning fast Zendikar block is a breath of fresh air, and I know I’m not alone in that opinion. While I enjoyed drafting Zendikar, the format often felt remarkably punishing for any kind of stumble or slow start, and while that’s fun for a while, it had certainly reached the point that I was over it. Maybe it’s just that Rise is the cool new thing, but right now I absolutely love the set for Limited.
Early on in a Limited format, I think the most important thing to do is experiment. Make a point of drafting different decks, both so you can get a feel for how all the different cards play but also so you can make note of those cards played against you that feel particularly strong against your strategy. This will both improve your versatility in drafting as the format evolves, as well as give you a sense of the value of particular sideboard cards against different strategies. In particular, I try to pick even borderline rare cards when given the opportunity, since you’re much less likely to get a chance to play with them in the future, and you never want to be in a position to make a tough decision about a card you’ve never played before when it really counts (see: Hideous End versus Eldrazi Monument in Draft 2 of Pro Tour: Austin). With that in mind, this week I’m going to share with you some of the cards I found that I was impressed by, as well as cards that I felt underperformed.
The first deck I drafted in the format was U/W Levelers. I’d heard that the archetype was good, but I hadn’t had a chance to see it in action yet, so I was pretty much flying by the seat of my pants. The deck I ended up with seemed pretty insane, with Gideon Jura, Oust, Enclave Cryptologist, Coralhelm Commander, and 4 Knight of Cliffhaven as the headliners.
Gideon Jura is exactly as good as advertised. I never lost a game in which I drew him, and most of the games involving him were not remotely close. The ability to force your opponent to alpha strike into your board every turn alone would be incredibly powerful, but when you combine that with Royal Assassin, you’re really entering unfair territory. I don’t really feel like this is news to anyone, and most of the time if you open a Gideon you’re probably going to draft it for the price tag anyway, but I felt compelled to share my experiences, and also to brag that I opened a Gideon in my first ever RoE draft. Muhahaha.
Coralhelm Commander was also pretty outstanding, but that also probably isn’t at all surprising. Most of the levelers are great, and the rares are pretty aggressively costed so they’ll be playable in Constructed. Leveling for a single colorless mana means that the Commander will often be able to come down on the second turn and attack on turn 3 as a 3/3 flier, then get out of Kor-Line Stinger and Puncturing Light range as soon as turn 4. That’s not easy to race!
Speaking of Kor-Line Stinger and Puncturing Light, I had multiple copies of each of them in my first deck, and they did not live up to expectations. Kor-Line Stinger was fine, since he can just sit on the table and lock down Defenders or small to mid-sized levelers without any additional investment, but Puncturing Light was really bad. Having to leave mana open during your opponent’s turn in the early game to catch an attacking creature is really awkward, especially when you have levelers that make it really obvious that you have a trick, and beyond that point in the game the card loses a lot of value. I probably wouldn’t maindeck the card in this format, whereas it would have been an all star in Zendikar. Pretty interesting shift.
The next deck that I drafted was G/B Tokens. This time my notable cards were 3 Nest Invader, 2 Kozilek’s Predator, 2 Pelakka Wurm, Bear Umbra, and 2 Mortician’s Beetle. In this kind of deck, Nest Invader is simply outstanding. The combination of a reasonable early threat with potential mana acceleration or token shenanigans is very powerful. I would not be surprised to see Nest Invader show up in Constructed decks. It allows for that all important mana ramp to four to play something like Vengevine without forcing you to play with pure mana accelerators. Accelerating to a Kozilek’s Predator isn’t quite as impressive, but it still puts you way ahead of your opponent on board and threatens to power out even more fat creatures.
I took the first Wurm over a Vendetta because I was interested in trying the card out, and while I don’t feel like it’s better than Vendetta, it’s certainly closer than most one mana removal versus seven cost creature picks have ever been before. Pelakka Wurm is a fantastic card, since it does just about everything you could ask for from a big creature. It’s a big finisher that’s tough to deal with and gives you the life back that you need to stay in the race after waiting with it in your hand for so long. The fact that you can power it out with the aforementioned Nest Invader and Predator make it all that much more attractive.
Bear Umbra and Mortician’s Beetle were the rares I had a chance to try out (well, Consume the Meek too, but that’s in the “obviously awesome” camp). Bear Umbra was as awesome as I expected it to be. In one game, I played turn 2 Nest Invader, turn 3 Wildheart Invoker, turn 4 Bear Umbra it and cast another Wildheart Invoker. Now that’s a board presence! It wasn’t until I attacked with my Bear Umbra’d Invoker that I realized I had a combo on my hands, either. If you have an Invoker, you can attack with your Bear Umbra’d creature and float mana in response to the trigger, then use the mana to activate your Invoker! That can end games real quick. Keep in mind that mana clears from your pool between steps now and not just phases, so you can’t keep that floating mana in your pool until your opponent declares blockers, for example — you need to use it right away.
The Beetle was a card I saw floating around toward the end of the first pack and decided to give a shot, since I had a few Eldrazi Spawn producing cards already. It didn’t take long before it was clear to me that, in the right deck, the Beetle is awesome. The fact that you can get extra value out of sacrificing Eldrazi Spawn for mana is golden, and the fact that you can have Spawn just sitting and waiting as a combat trick makes the Beetle very difficult for your opponent to block effectively. I wouldn’t worry about picking him too highly, but I would snag one if you see it late. He’s one of those hidden gems that most players won’t have played with, and he only really fits into the tokens archetype, so most players won’t draft it too early.
The next deck I drafted was U/B Levelers, and this deck was just absurd. Not only did my deck have absolutely ridiculous bombs in the form of Drana and Sphinx of Magosi (both of which are absolutely as good as advertised, and neither of which is stopped particularly well by Guard Duty, which my unfortunate G/W opponent found himself forced to do), but it also had an excellent array of creatures and an abundance of removal. I think Blue may deserve a nod as a removal color in this set, as Narcolepsy is an excellent way to keep big creatures under control both offensively and defensively, and Regress is the best it’s ever been, thanks to big creatures, Levelers, and Umbras. Most of the times I’ve played Regress in this format, it’s essentially felt like a removal spell, since it can put your opponent so far behind on mana after they’ve leveled a creature up a few times.
Another card that I feel is quite powerful in this format is Deprive. While Deprive isn’t a great way to stop a creature early on, like Remove Soul, it can stop game-winning bombs later on, as well as protect your creatures from removal. One thing to note about Deprive is that if you want to avoid telegraphing the fact that you have it, you often need to consider the way you can use your mana so it’s not obvious you’re holding a counter when you don’t spend it all leveling. I’ve skipped playing a sixth land with a 3-cost leveler in play so I could tap down to two Blue and not broadcast my counter by holding up three mana that I could have spent leveling my guy instead. It’s these sort of subtle strategic decisions that make me love Rise limited!
While we’re on the subject of leveling, I want to point out while the U/W Leveler deck gets the most attention, I’m not convinced that U/B Levelers isn’t better. The White Levelers are more efficient than the Black ones, but it’s precisely their inefficiency that makes the Black levelers pair so well with Venerable Teacher. With my most recent U/B deck, I had a draw in which I played Zuraport Enforcer on turn 1, Null Champion on turn 2, and Venerable Teachers on turns 3 and 4. I attacked for 7 on turn 3 and forced my opponent to chump block on turn 4! While that sort of draw is obviously among the best possible, I think it helps illustrate my point that the expensive Black levelers are especially powerful when you can accelerate them with Teacher. You may have a somewhat higher variance deck, but you’re going have much more explosive possible openings. Basically, if you do decide to force Levelers and first pick Venerable Teacher, don’t tunnel vision into just picking White cards — U/B is also a serious force to be reckoned with.
The last archetype I’ve tried so far was R/B removal. There’s a ton of removal in those colors in RoE, and the interesting thing is how much less impactful it is in this format than it might have been in others. A lot of damage-based removal quickly gets outclassed by Levelers or doesn’t cut it against fatties or big walls. In particular, I’ve been very disappointed with Forked Bolt, since it only does two damage at sorcery speed. The difference between sorcery and instant speed is generally a big one, but it’s especially significant in this format since being able to kill a leveler in response to an activation is such a big deal, especially later in the game when both players have a lot of mana sitting around and any leveler can turn into a serious threat right away.
One card that stood out for me in all of my Black decks was Bala Ged Scorpion. There are so many low power creatures in RoE that it’s rare there won’t be something you can kill with it. Even killing an Eldrazi Spawn can be relevant, and the number of levelers or utility creatures you can hit with it for value is certainly significant.
Another general thing that stood out for me in my RoE drafts is how rarely I was happy playing a vanilla creature. In a lot of formats, a creature’s power and toughness for its cost are the most important element you’re looking at, but in RoE draft, evasion and special abilities are at a premium. I feel like this is in part because many of the vanilla creatures have effectively wall-like stats, but also because you can get so much value out of levelers at all stages of the game that it doesn’t make a ton of sense to play the vanilla creatures. I actually found that synergies and special abilities felt so important to a number of my black decks that I was consistently cutting the 2/1 flier for 3 mana. He’s just so underwhelming in a format with Knight of Cliffhaven and Sporecap Spider, not to mention Staggershock, Guard Gomazoa, etc, etc.
So far I’ve been really happy with the way Rise of the Eldrazi has forced me to rethink traditional notions of Limited play, and I’m looking forward to continuing that trend. Hopefully my future discoveries can help you as well! Now that RoE is on Magic Online, I expect to be playing a whole lot of it….
Until next time…
bmk