When Is It Correct To Splash Bombs In Theros Beyond Death Draft?

Enigmatic Incarnation is an awesome rare, but it’s harder to make work than is often worth stretching for. When it’s the best card in your deck, it really is awesome, but I don’t want to pick this card and completely shift my plan. I would rather take it later in the draft. It’s a good card, but I’m not taking it over any of the best commons.

Wolfwillow Haven is probably the best card in this pack. Rampant Growth is one of the most powerful effects in Magic. Nowadays we get this stapled to a creature for two mana. This is substantially worse because a removal spell can turn a strategy sour. Wolfwillow Haven is the most powerful card in this pack, and would be my pick for Pack 1, Pick 1. However, with an Ashiok, Nightmare Muse, I believe it is correct to take a card that’s slightly less powerful, but in blue or black.

I agree that the entire community seems too low on Agonizing remorse. I would take remorse 1 over FD 1

— Ethan Saks (@lordtupperware) February 10, 2020

Agonizing Remorse is one of the most underrated uncommons. It’s not the best card, but if you currently don’t believe it’s at least on the same level as Final Death, I believe you should take a second look at the card. Both Final Death and Agonizing Remorse can answer anything the opponent casts and exile it, but often at a mana disadvantage. Remorse is better early, and Final Death is better late. But they really aren’t as different as they look. 

I actually believe Agonizing Remorse is a better card than Omen of the Sea by a small margin. However, I also believe the correct pick out of this pack is Omen of the Sea. This is because the blue decks are more conducive to splashing than the black decks. Orzhov and Rakdos will struggle to play Ashiok without multiple copies of Traveler’s Amulet, which I wouldn’t be too happy about. Traveler’s Amulet is a fine card, but I’m not looking to play more than one copy.

With the amount of card selection blue has given Omen of the Sea and Thirst for Meaning at common, it’s quite easy to splash a card with minimal sources. Furthermore, Omen of the Sea and these other forms of card selection get substantially better with a card as powerful as Ashiok. Hence, even though I believe Agonizing Remorse is a better card than Omen of the Sea, I believe it is correct to bias towards blue in this scenario just enough that Omen gets the edge. The pick is close and I wouldn’t fault anybody for taking Remorse.

I originally thought Glimpse of Freedom would be powerful, but I’m not a huge fan anymore. The card is good, and it plays an awesome role in the Izzet Flash strategies. However, it’s mostly a Divination that requires a bit of work. This yields an unexciting, yet playable, card. The reason I was originally high on the card was because of the rarity. It reads like a common, and hence I thought that play design bumped up the rarity because it overperformed. Don’t take it this early, but it’s a fine playable.

Omen of the Hunt and Traveler’s Amulet are valid picks here even though they are not high-impact cards. Ashiok is one of the best cards in the set, and I do plan on splashing it in whatever deck I draft. Omen of the Hunt is a great card to ensure that my Golgari or Simic deck can easily play Ashiok. However, if I’m going to spend a pick on a card like this, I would rather take Traveler’s Amulet since it ensures I play Ashiok in any deck, not just green ones.

Overall, Mogis’s Favor is just the best card in the pack. It’s enough better than the rest of the options that I believe it is a mistake to take anything else. Sure, Glimpse of Freedom is flashy and potentially powerful. Traveler’s Amulet ensures Ashiok is castable.

However, I think Mogis’s Favor is a fantastic card that I always want in multiples. It looks like a card with diminishing returns, but having two just means that both can be cast to handle threats with higher toughness. This makes Mogis’s Favor a potent card that I’m happy to take early.

This is quite the unfortunate pack. Not one of these cards is great. In fact, I think the best versions of any archetype will keep all of these cards in the sideboard. What is correct in this kind of scenario? 

Thaumaturge’s Familiar and Wings of Hubris are “playable in every deck because they’re colorless.” However, the percentage of the time it is correct to start either of those cards is so low that they’re less likely to play than multicolor spells. Don’t be fooled by the fact that they don’t provide any color commitment. 

Aspect of Lamprey, Nyxborn Marauder, and Temple Thief are all fine filler for black decks depending on what they need. If I had to pick between these black cards, I would take Aspect of Lamprey. I’m rarely worried about my curve in this format, but I am often worried about maintaining a resource advantage. This is one of the odd formats where a Mind Rot has more utility than a Runeclaw Bear. 

I believe the correct pick out of this pack is Triton Waverider. The fact of the matter is that it’s unlikely that the final 40 cards includes a card from this pack. Hence I would rather use this pick to affect the probability that Pack 2 has more goodies for me, and attempt to signal that blue is closed by cutting it. I’m not a huge fan of Triton Familiar, and if there was another blue card in this pack, I would likely take something else. However, I just feel like signaling is the most impactful thing that I can do with this pick.

And, as is always important in Draft, sometimes the cards move in weird ways. I actually pivoted away from this start and into an Izzet deck that splashed Ashiok because red was unbelievably open.

I took this deck to a 2-1 finish, unfortunately losing to a very solid Gruul deck. While I imagined that my Riptide Turtles would help squash Gruul, some mana issues alongside cards lining up poorly (e.g. Destiny Spinner resolving when I had multiple counterspells in hand) took the trophy away from me. The deck felt super-powerful and you can see the draft log here.

In fact, after playing the League, I believe I built incorrectly. The better build of this deck would have another Swamp and play Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger. The deck wanted another resilient win condition, and with the amount of velocity and ways to pitch Kroxa straight to the graveyard I believe it would have been a solid inclusion.