fbpx

The Ultimate Guide To Kaladesh Limited

Pro Tour Champion Ari Lax knows you can’t wait to Prerelease this weekend! Accordingly, he’s setting you up with an easy reference to guide you through the entirety of the upcoming Limited format! Your Draft victories are one click away!

Today’s goal: to answer a few key questions about Kaladesh Limited.

How do the mechanics affect the format?

How does creature sizing affect the format?

What cards do I want to be first-picking?

Are there any holes or oversaturated slots in a color?

How does the color play to the set’s themes?

How do the rares line up for the color?

What are the cards I think will be under- and overvalued?

Mechanics

Fabricate

Fabricate is a very important mechanic for Kaladesh Limited. Any time you can split a creature into two bodies, you create the potential to trade it for multiple opposing creatures. This implies any one-toughness ground creature in Kaladesh is a liability to attack with. Any large creature without evasion is also likely to be chumped for days.

Wizards R&D is definitely a step ahead of me here, however. There are really no one-toughness creatures to attack with, and the majority of the large creatures have trample or other evasion. Be wary of the few cards that don’t fit this mold. Also note that Fabricate is only in green, black, and white, so decks heavy on blue or red might be weaker against the cards made worse here.

Fabricate’s “go wide” aspect also improves mass pump spells in certain color combinations. Engineered Might implies the core here is G/W, but Inspired Charge in B/W is likely similar.

Sizing

Not really a mechanic, but every color has a jump to four toughness or power at four mana, which is fairly early. Creatures that are 2/2s and 3/3s really need something to set them apart, like evasion or a non-combat bonus or some way to trade up.

Vehicles

There are seven common or uncommon Vehicles. Most of them are massive threats that outsize the rest of the format. This can be your way for your 2/2s or 3/3s to trade up into 3/4 creatures.

Vehicles being the big threats also pushes on the removal of the format. They are only going to become creatures in combat, making sorcery-speed answers worse. Smaller removal also gets worse as you are much more concerned with being hit by a train than a Vedalken. Bounce and other tempo tricks get better as you are also getting tempo value on the creatures tapped to Crew the Vehicle.

Too many Vehicles can become a liability. Cars can drive other cars, but they aren’t good at it. Similar to emerge from Eldritch Moon, try not to fall too low on non-Vehicle creatures in deckbuilding.

While Vehicles are more creature-like than past artifact sets’ mechanics, remember that the difference between artifact removal and just removal is very small in this set. Cards like Appetite for the Unnatural are maindeck high picks instead of sideboard options.

Energy

Energy is a very weird mechanic. It is clearly parasitic in that every Energy card only works with itself and other Energy cards, but there often isn’t a clear line between enablers and payoffs. When looking at cards that make and spend Energy, most of them are priced to work on their own and do work reasonably well that way. However, the mechanic is clearly at its best when you are redirecting the resource into the highest-payoff effects from those that produce more than they need.

Look at your Energy cards. Think about how good they are if you don’t spend your Energy on them. Think about how good they are if you spend extra Energy on them. Don’t play too many cards that fall into one of these bins and not the other or you will have a deck that isn’t actually synergistic.

Example: Janjeet Sentry is clearly a card that wants you to pour additional Energy into it for more activations. A deck where all your Energy sources are also Janjeet Sentry is going to have a lot of 2U 2/3s.

White

Common

Converted Mana Cost 1

Tasseled Dromedary

2

Aviary Mechanic

Eddytrail Hawk

Ninth Bridge Patrol

3

Herald of the Fair

Glint-Sleeve Artisan

4

Propeller Pioneer

Thriving Ibex

5

Skyswirl Harrier

Removal

Revoke Privileges

Fragmentize

Impeccable Timing

Tricks

Acrobatic Maneuver

Built to Last

Inspired Charge

Pressure Point

Uncommon

2

Trusty Companion

Servo Exhibition

Gearshift Ace

3

Aerial Responder

Fairgrounds Warden

4

Consul’s Shieldguard

Visionary Augmenter

6

Wispweaver Angel

Removal

Skywhaler’s Shot

Other

Consulate Surveillance

Refurbish

Rare

Great

Angel of Invention

Captured by the Consulate

Cataclysmic Gearhulk

Master Trinketeer

Good

Aetherstorm Roc

Fumigate

Okay

Toolcraft Exemplar

No Thanks

Authority of the Consuls

Top Commons

Both Fragmentize and Revoke Privileges miss on hitting big Vehicles, but Fragmentize hits the medium and small ones and costs one. There are also a ton of artifact creatures. You won’t be short on targets here.

That’s it. All of white’s other commons feel like they aren’t super-efficient or have large hidden drawbacks.

Top Uncommons

Normally I would support saving the Whales, but not in Kaladesh. Skywhaler’s Shot is instant removal that kills Vehicles and bomb rares and huge threats and has an upside.

Aerial Responder isn’t Vampire Nighthawk, but I think everyone is glad that isn’t the case. As is, the card is still very powerful and extremely difficult to race.

A lot of other cards are just behind these, including Fairgrounds Warden and Visionary Augmenter. What white lacks in power commons, it makes up for at uncommon.

Curve and Sizing

White has no creature at common that directly punches through a four-toughness blocker. You have to go around, go over, or get in your SUV and drive through it.

Spells

Often white is heavy on creatures and light on spells, but there are so many artifact creatures in Kaladesh that each color had to be relatively loaded on spells. Enabling Vehicles also plays into this.

The thing I like about the white spells is there is no nonsense here. It’s all combat tricks and removal. You are playing to the battlefield every step of the way. The key is going to be finding which ones underperform and playing less of them.

Mechanics

White has a subtheme of flickering and bouncing your own things for value. This plays into using Fabricate to make Servo tokens for reuse value, which plays into the go-wide plan in G/W and B/W. In U/W, this plays into Energy generation. W/R still has some ways to play to this plan but no real core setup.

For parasitic purposes, white’s Energy cards are all more on the source side. Use their Energy to fuel your other color payoffs.

Rares

White’s rares are amazing. I’m likely even being modest in my rankings here: Fumigate and Aetherstorm Roc are likely closer to great and Toolshaper Exemplar is a really good playable-level card. It has multiple sweepers and multiple giant fliers.

Sleepers

If you have never played against the Coalition Honor Guard mechanic, it is miserable. You can’t play removal. You can’t play combat tricks. You can’t play Auras. This card will often get a two-for-one and sometimes get more as it turns off multiple cards in their hand. Bonus points for playing it on an artifact creature so they can’t Disenchant effects on it.

I usually hate these Cloudshift-style tricks, as it is hard for them to earn you a card of value, but Acrobatic Maneuver comes with the card built in. Instead you are gifted with a situational two-for-one, which sounds great to me. One notable trick is Crewing a Vehicle and using Acrobatic Maneuver to “untap” the creature you used to Crew it.

Traps

As mentioned with Fragmentize, many of the threats you want to neutralize are Vehicles. Energy triggers and Fabricate also mean creatures generate value despite being removed. Revoke Privileges is an all-time low for Arrest effects, hence why it has extra bonuses. Hard removal is still good and I expect to first-pick the card, but more strong creatures go ahead of it in the pick order now.

This reads like an efficient creature or good Crew member, but many of the Vehicles I like have Crew 4 or 5. This isn’t much better than a 2/2 there, and it still trades for 2/2s and gets brick-walled by 3/4s. For the most part this is a generic two-drop that attacks poorly.

Summary

White lacks true power at common, but makes up for it at uncommon and rare. It tries to make up for this with small synergies, so if your white deck doesn’t have a plan to add up to more than the sum of its parts, you’d better have been passed a lot of good ones.

Blue

Common

1

Thriving Turtle

2

Aether Theorist

Curio Vendor

3

Wind Drake

Vedalken Blademaster

4

Nimble Innovator

Weldfast Wingsmith

5

Hightide Hermit

7

Gearseeker Serpent

Removal

Revolutionary Rebuff

Malfunction

Failed Inspection

Tricks

Aether Tradewinds

Select for Inspection

Dramatic Reversal

Other

Tezzeret’s Ambition

Uncommon

1

Minister of Inquiries

2

Glint-Nest Crane

3

Janjeet Sentry

4

Long-Finned Skywhale

5

Experimental Aviator

Removal

Aether Meltdown

Ceremonious Rejection

Shrewd Negotiation

Disappearing Act

Other

Era of Innovation

Glimmer of Genius

Rare

Great

Confiscation Coup

Good

Torrential Gearhulk

Aethersquall Ancient

Padeem, Consul of Innovation

Saheeli’s Artistry

Okay

Insidious Will

Paradoxical Outcome

Unsure

Metallurgic Summonings

Top Commons

Now this is a real removal spell. Malfunction is still hampered by the format having a lot of enters-the-battlefield effects, but it hits Vehicles. Just remember your tap trigger at competitive events or you will be very sad.

Similar to white, blue drops off into solid playables quickly from there. None of the other commons have that all-around efficiency I usually expect from a first-pick-quality card.

Top Uncommons

Okay, maybe the Whales can help themselves. Four-power fliers for four mana are basically unheard-of. Your opponent will die to Long-Finned Skywhale very quickly.

Aether Meltdown is an instant-speed removal spell that is cheap and gains value. Note that the -4/-0 also prevents creatures it enchants from Crewing Vehicles.

Curve and Sizing

Blue has no four-toughness creature for four, instead relying on its artifact creatures. This means secondary-color four drops when in blue are likely to be above replacement level.

Spells

While it isn’t flooded on spells like usual, blue is heavy on countermagic. There aren’t many good activated mana sinks due to Energy and there aren’t many flash creatures, so try to pair your counters with instants that let you otherwise use the mana or as follow-ups to cheap creatures.

Mechanics

Blue has similar trigger recycling payoffs to white but has no Fabricate overlap in color. Look for this as well when making U/R, U/B, and U/G decks, as many of the same synergies exist on a smaller scale.

There is a small “artifacts matter theme” running through blue, black, and red. Value artifact creatures more highly here.

U/G is the Energy deck, with blue providing the clear sources and green providing mostly solid sinks. Almost all of the enabler-only cards are U/G as well. Just remember balance here: sinks and sources, not too many of each.

Rares

Blue’s rares are a step down from white’s, but still solid. I’m starting to think there is a push towards good rares in the actual colors in Kaladesh to try to push people into a lane early in a draft.

Note that almost all of blue’s rares pay you off for a defensive style of play, either costing mana or providing longer-term card advantage.

Sleepers

Gearseeker Serpent is one of the few common creatures that stands up to Vehicles in finishing power and has a powerful mechanic built in. This is a lot closer to a five-mana 5/6 with evasion than it looks at first.

Similar to white, blue has many other strong uncommons but few that are universally good. I feel like I should specifically mention that Shrewd Negotiation is going to play out less conditionally than Switcheroo did in Magic 2013, as you have Servo tokens from Fabricate to trade away. Again this interacts with their Vehicles and their best creatures.

Traps

Most of the expensive cards I want to counter are Vehicles, and it’s a lot easier to pay the two for this than the three for Mana Leak. Revolutionary Rebuff becomes a blank very quickly.

It is somewhat ingrained in our minds that double Thopter makers are Whirler Rogues, but Experimental Aviator is far from it. It only provides two power and has no bonus ability besides blocking 2/2s. This is more of a role-player than a slam dunk.

Summary

Blue as always is a little more finicky than other colors, but a lot of the synergies have overlap in this set. It also gets bonus points due to the more even creature spread across colors in Kaladesh, so expect blue to overperform the individual cards rather than getting bogged down with blanks like in Shadows over Innistrad.

Black

Common

1

Night Market Lookout

2

Thriving Rats

Dhund Operative

3

Lawless Broker

Foundry Screecher

4

Prakhata Club Security

Maulfist Squad

5

Ambitious Aetherborn

6

Dukhara Scavenger

Removal

Die Young

Tidy Conclusion

Tricks

Rush of Vitality

Subtle Strike

Other

Fortuitous Find

Live Fast

Mind Rot

Uncommon

2

Fretwork Colony

Embraal Bruiser

3

Weaponcraft Enthusiast

4

Aetherborn Marauder

Ovalchase Daredevil

Removal

Essence Extraction

Underhanded Designs

Make Obsolete

Other

Morbid Curiosity

Harsh Scrutiny

Diabolic Tutor

Rare

Great

Demon of Dark Schemes

Noxious Gearhulk

Good

Eliminate the Competition

Gonti, Lord of Luxury

Okay

Marionette Master

Syndicate Trafficker

Midnight Oil

No Thanks

Lost Legacy

Top Commons

Instant speed. Kills anything. Gains life. Tidy Conclusion is where it is at.

Top Uncommons

Good removal with a bonus. Underhanded Designs is shockingly similar to Tidy Conclusion.

I’ve been harsh on small-things-only removal, but Essence Extraction’s tacked-on lifegain is a big plus.

Curve and Sizing

A theme in black this set is durdly-sized creatures without evasion. Find ways to avoid a ground stall in your black decks.

Spells

Black this set is weird. It has two extremely powerful tricks, which feels out of character for it. Subtle Strike is especially weird, as the one-toughness creature I want to kill the most is black’s own Foundry Screecher!

Black also has three different three-mana two-for-ones at common. This means you should never prioritize these unless a specific one really fits your deck.

Mechanics

Black has a minor +1/+1 counter subtheme. The primary overlap is supposed to be green, but Fabricate in white also give you some play there.

Rares

Black’s rares are mostly on the reasonable side of things, except the two mythics. I have no idea why both of these very similar cards are in the same set, but there are multiple giant evasive six-cost creatures that kill their things.

Sleepers

Dhund Operative is one of the few creatures that trades up well in the format, but it does so while also attacking well. In a deck that reliably has an artifact, a 3/2 creature with deathtouch for 1B is a solid payoff that has a reasonably high floor as a default Grizzly Bear.

Most recursive creatures like Ovalchase Daredevil have a “This can’t block” clause. Ovalchase Daredevil doesn’t. It isn’t phenomenal stats, but it can play offense and defense, which makes it better than the average similar card.

Traps

Diabolic Tutor seems especially bad in Kaladesh. Creatures are relatively pushed, and Vehicles want you to spend your mana committing to the battlefield while providing top-notch finishers. There are very few cards I want to spend four mana to find, and even fewer when you consider that sweepers are worse due to vehicles too.

Oddly, Make Obsolete may be preemptively obsolete. Beyond the four-toughness jump, creature sizing is very varied, making the one-toughness jump worse, and lots of the non-Servo one-toughness creatures are being driven out of the format by Servo tokens. I remember Cower in Fear being a maindeck card in Magic 2013, but Make Obsolete is more of a sideboard card.

Summary

Black has a lot of ways to get chip-shot advantages but needs an actual way to win. That is what you are looking for in your other color.

Red

Common

1

Ruinous Gremlin

2

Reckless Fireweaver

Thriving Grubs

3

Spireside Infiltrator

Salivating Gremlins

4

Terror of the Fairgrounds

Spontaneous Artist

5

Wayward Giant

Removal

Chandra’s Pyrohelix

Welding Sparks

Demolish

Tricks

Renegade Tactics

Built to Smash

Hijack

Other

Cathartic Reunion

Giant Spectacle

Uncommon

1

Inventor’s Apprentice

2

Speedway Fanatic

3

Aethertorch Renegade

Brazen Scourge

Quicksmith Genius

4

Maulfist Doorbuster

Removal

Spark of Creativity

Incendiary Sabotage

Furious Reprisal

Harnessed Lightning

Other

Start Your Engines

Rare

Great

Chandra, Torch of Defiance

Skyship Stalker

Good

Combustible Gearhulk

Pia Nalaar

No Thanks

Madcap Experiment

Unsure

Lathnu Hellion

Fateful Showdown

Territorial Gorger

Top Commons

Welding Sparks is not small-ball removal. It is base small-ball removal that scales up at instant speed. This is my pick for best common in the set.

Salivating Gremlins isn’t quite Brazen Wolves, but at times it will be better. The trample is a big deal, and the third toughness is very nice in a format where a third power isn’t rewarded elsewhere.

Top Uncommons

While I didn’t draft much of the format, I heard stories about Swelter in Odyssey block drafts. Furious Reprisal is slightly worse in current Magic, but clearing away two small creatures is still powerful.

Uncommon instant sweepers are not something we see often for good reason. I’m especially interested in the ability of Incendiary Sabotage to let you block with your creatures that will die to it and add the three damage to finish off larger creatures.

Curve and Sizing

While high-power creatures are usually decent blockers, red doesn’t get high enough power at good enough rates to consider it in this set. Its common three-drops also attack for four damage. Turn things sideways and figure it out later.

Spells

Not a lot to say here. Red just has a solid mix of aggressively slanted spells with different styles of tricks and removal.

Mechanics

In addition to the previously mentioned artifact overlap with blue and black, red has Vehicle-specific payoffs. It also has high-power creatures that are oddly good at driving the expensive cars on their own. Terror of the Fairgrounds is fully licensed and insured to take Demolition Stomper out for a spin.

Rares

I’ve listed a lot of red rares as unknown as I’m not sure where to evaluate them, but most of these are somewhere between bad and okay and not anywhere above that. They are very situational cards; it’s just a matter of if the situations they are good in are reasonable or rare.

Sleepers

For the first time ever, Demolish will correctly be in people’s maindecks. There are enough solid artifact creatures and Vehicles to kill that it is approximately on the same level as Smite the Monstrous in a normal set.

Since all of the big creatures and Vehicles in the format have trample or evasion built in, Hijack’s ability to deal damage is maximized. There aren’t many sacrifice outlets for the combo, but it’s a fine finisher.

Traps

I don’t think this is a format that pays off early-game filtering, and the additional land you have to sandbag to cast Cathartic Reunion makes it start feeling conditional where Tormenting Voice was marginal but always castable.

I don’t like 3/2s in this format, and a conditional one-shot loot isn’t going to make me like Quicksmith Genius.

Summary

Land, creature, sideways. Land, creature, more sideways. Land, trick, even more sideways.

Green

Common

1

Wily Bandar

2

Sage of Shalia’s Claim

Kujar Seedsculptor

3

Thriving Rhino

Highspire Artisan

4

Peema Outrider

Wild Wanderer

5

Riparian Tiger

6

Cowl Prowler

Removal

Take Down

Hunt the Weak

Appetite for the Unnatural

Tricks

Ornamental Courage

Commencement of Festivities

Larger Than Life

Other

Attune with Aether

Uncommon

2

Longtusk Cub

Servant of the Conduit

3

Ghirapur Guide

Fairgrounds Trumpeter

4

Armorcraft Judge

5

Arborback Stomper

6

Elegant Edgecrafters

Removal

Creeping Mold

Nature’s Way

Tricks

Blossoming Defense

Other

Durable Handicraft

Rare

Great

Cultivator of Blades

Verdurous Gearhulk

Nissa, Vital Force

Good

Architect of the Untamed

Bristling Hydra

Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter

Wildest Dreams

No Thanks

Dubious Challenge

Top Commons

Ah yes, Peema Outrider, the old four-mana 4/4 trample creature at common with an upside.

Appetite for the Unnatural is not only instant removal for Vehicles and artifact creatures with a bonus, it also hits Malfunction and Revoke Privileges to counter their removal.

Unlike in the other colors, there are even more commons I want to mention here. It isn’t just my normal green bias; the green commons genuinely feel very strong relative to the other colors.

Top Uncommons

There are tons of expensive things to use the mana on, tons of things to use the Energy on if you draw this late, and tons of things to do with a 2/2 body. Servant of the Conduit hits on all the relevant specs.

Somehow most of a Thragtusk ended up at uncommon. With trample and better stats.

Curve and Sizing

Green is giant. Every other color jumps a bit at the four-slot, but green goes even bigger into Vehicle territory.

Spells

One side effect of an artifact set is that green gets to be a removal color. The last artifact set was before fight cards like Prey Upon existed, so this is the first time green has had real removal on top of this. As a result, it looks on the surface like green has it all with great spells and great creatures, whereas usually the spells are scarce.

Mechanics

A secret mechanic in artifact sets is that you can more freely splash. When your on-curve creatures cost generic mana, you can get away with missing something for a little longer. Green has several enablers for this strategy. Expect Malfunction to often be drafted as a G/U hybrid card.

Rares

Green’s rares are very pushed. Not a lot to say here; they’re just big creatures in a world where sorcery-speed removal is punished.

Shout out to Dubious Challenge, aka Collected Dump-any, for keeping it real and reminding us not everyone can be a star or even make the team. Props to Neal Oliver for the name.

Sleepers

Normally land tutor effects like Attune with Aether are mediocre in two-color decks, but the bonus Energy here adds a partial card of value to a cheap effect.

Four is a lot of power to add, and trample means you can’t just chump block away Larger Than Life. It isn’t great, but it’s one of the best sorcery-speed individual pump spells I can remember.

Traps

Oh Rabid Bite… except sorcery-speed removal is much worse in this format and most of the big things I’m targeting already trample. Still fine, but Nature’s Way is definitely second-tier removal.

All the big threats trample and ignore Servo blockers…except sad Cowl Prowler. Expect this to run into blockers all day long.

Summary

Green is the best color in Kaladesh: great removal, great creatures, great rares, and even great archetype payoffs.

Artifact

Common

2

Eager Construct

Narnam Cobra

Consulate Skygate

Sky Skiff

3

Prakhata Pillar-Bug

Workshop Assistant

Weldfast Monitor

Renegade Freighter

4

Dukhara Peafowl

5

Bastion Mastodon

Self-Assembler

Aradara Express

7

Accomplished Automaton

Other

Inventor’s Goggles

Torch Gauntlet

Prophetic Prism

Cogworker’s Puzzleknot

Glassblower’s Puzzleknot

Metalspinner’s Puzzleknot

Fireforger’s Puzzleknot

Woodweaver’s Puzzleknot

Uncommon

3

Chief of the Foundry

Foundry Inspector

Filigree Familiar

4

Iron League Steed

Snare Thopter

Bomat Bazaar Barge

Ovalchase Dragster

5

Ballista Charger

6

Demolition Stomper

Other

Decoction Module

Fabrication Module

Whirlermaker

Perpetual Timepiece

Rare

Great

Deadlock Trap

Smuggler’s Copter

Skysovereign, Consul Flagship

Good

Cultivator’s Caravan

Fleetwheel Cruiser

Key to the City

Multiform Wonder

Okay

Scrapheap Scrounger

Bomat Courier

No Thanks

Aetherflux Reservoir

Panharmonicon

Unsure

Metalwork Colossus

Dynavolt Tower

Electrostatic Pummeler

Aetherworks Marvel

Ghirapur Orrery

Animation Module

Top Commons

There shouldn’t be many chase commons in colorless as it drives weird things in drafts, but I’m taking the high-power Vehicles fairly aggressively. Renegade Freighter is exciting as it is easy to Crew and hits hard.

Top Uncommons

What is this card? Snapping Drake isn’t enough for you, so let’s make it colorless and give it more abilities?

Curve and Sizing

The artifact creatures in Kaladesh are surprisingly reasonably sized for their cost, ignoring any bonus abilities. Expect them to dry up a bit early as people select whatever curve filler they need.

Mechanics

I want to note: I don’t list the Vehicles in the top picks section, but I talk about how they affect removal a lot earlier. This makes sense when you think about wanting only a couple of them as finishers, but at the same time wanting your removal to interact as well as possible when you need it to. A big part of that is stopping their finishers, which much of the removal just doesn’t do against a Ballista Charger or Demolition Stomper.

Rares

There are a lot of rare build-arounds in the artifact section, and unlike red’s, some of these have real potential. My best advice at this point is to try them out if they look good in your deck and see what happens.

Sleepers

Even at twice the cost, a Bonesplitter is exciting to me. Torch Gauntlet might be one of the few really solid common Equipment cards that squeak through development these days.

Chaining off slightly clunky creatures doesn’t seem great, but it plays much better than expected. Making a few 4/4s in a row really makes it hard to be in a bad position unless you were behind and getting buried on tempo to start.

Traps

I think most of the Puzzleknots are too clunky to just play. You really need to want the artifact or the Energy if they make it to put them anywhere near your deck.

Filigree Familiar hits at a weird curve spot right before the sizing jump. It’s never going to be bad, as it replaces itself, but it won’t often get the good trade you want it to.

Summary

The artifacts in Kaladesh are sturdier than you would think. Expect them to be taken earlier due to their generic nature.

Multicolored and Land

Uncommon

2

Contraband Kingpin

Voltaic Brawler

Veteran Motorist

3

Empyreal Voyager

Whirler Virtuoso

4

Restoration Gearsmith

5

Cloudblazer

Removal

Unlicensed Disintegration

Hazardous Conditions

Other

Engineered Might

Sequestered Stash

Aether Hub

Rares

Great

Dovin Baan

Good

Saheeli Rai

Rashmi, Eternities Crafter

Depala, Pilot Exemplar

Okay

Kambal, Consul of Allocation

Concealed Courtyard

Blooming Marsh

Botanical Sanctum

Spirebluff Canal

Inspiring Vantage

Inventors’ Fair

The multicolored spells in Kaladesh are all fairly strong. The real standouts are in U/W, with Dovin Baan as a great planeswalker and Cloudblazer as an all-around absurd card. I’m also willing to splash Unlicensed Disintegration and Restoration Gearsmith. Aside from Restoration Gearsmith, they all give you an idea of what the archetype wants to be doing. Draft them fairly highly and use them as guidelines.

The lands on the other hand are just okay. Fast lands are much worse in Limited as games go longer, and the other lands aren’t anything special. Even Inventors’ Fair is a minor bonus that has a real cost in colorless mana.

Overall

Color differences are less pronounced with more strategic differences than card availability ones.

The overall power level is high.

There is lots of built-in creature value and creatures that dodge sorcery-speed removal, making most removal a bit worse than normal.

Most colors are looking towards the higher rarities for payoffs.

There are lots of big trample or evasive creatures in Kaladesh. Don’t try to block a lot. Kill it, tempo it, or play to win first.