The cards with the converge mechanic in Modern Horizons 2 are going way too late. I think people read the cards as if you have to be in all five colors to play them. Kaleidoscorch is one of the best uncommons in the whole format, and I just had a draft where I got passed one pretty late in Pack 1.
That shouldn’t happen.
These cards are powerful enough that I’m happy to play the common dual lands even if they only produce one of my base colors in order to facilitate converge because it’s just that powerful. I just trophied with a deck that had four converge cards, and was a base two-color deck with a single splash. Yet I could converge for five colors reliably. You don’t need to be a five-color deck to capitalize on converge.
This draft is starting well, with three very strong rares in a single color. Would you stay the course and take a blue card or would you take the converge card out of this pack?
Pack 1, Pick 4
The Picks So Far:
The Pack:
The Pick:
If you’re not taking Radiant Epicure here, you’re doing one of the following wrong:
- Putting too much value on staying open and taking a blue card to stay on-color.
- Undervaluing Radiant Epicure . . . Alex Nikolic says “it’s just Siege Rhino”, but honestly it’s even better!
It’s not that the other options are bad, it’s that this is one of the best first picks in the set, and it absolutely should not be going this late. I wanted to highlight that. If Radiant Epicure weren’t in the pack, I would take Hard Evidence, as I think it’s the best blue common since it does something for every blue synergy (delirium, artifacts, and tokens).
Pack 1, Pick 5
The Picks So Far:
The Pack:
The Pick:
So Shiny is an interesting card. If you can almost always have a token, it’s a premium spell, but without a token it’s quite mediocre. This leads to a card I basically never want to take early, but once I’ve solidified into a deck like Simic Tokens, So Shiny becomes a priority. Given that this start looks like it will care more about artifacts, I would rather take the other blue options.
Steelfin Whale is a card I’ve liked in tandem with Etherium Spinner, but otherwise it’s not particularly impressive. It’s a solid role-player in the different Affinity archetypes, but again, not a priority.
This pick boils down to Chrome Courier and Glinting Creeper. Glinting Creeper is a powerful card, and a really solid follow-up to Radiant Epicure. I wouldn’t fault anybody for picking it, but I haven’t been as impressed by the card. A large creature that can’t be chumped is a great card, but it’s still a five-mana play without immediate impact. The immediate drain from Radiant Epicure is worth much more than the extra stats on Glinting Creeper, making Epicure a first-pickable card, and Creeper not.
Given that Creeper is a step down, and my current incentives are to be a blue-base artifact deck rather than a green-base multicolor deck, I think Chrome Courier is the better pick. A big reason for this is that Chrome Courier has been incredibly impressive. 1/1 flying artifacts have additional texture thanks to modular, and the life and card matter a great deal given the speed of aggressive decks.
Pack 1, Pick 8
The Picks So Far:
The Pack:
The Pick:
This is an important juncture in the draft. Up until now, I’m thinking of my deck as a blue-based multicolor deck with an artifact subtheme. This makes all the blue artifact dual lands an extremely high priority. Tanglepool Bridge is the better card for my current deck. But Necrogoyf is a massive signal. In the right Dimir shell, the card is solid. And in most Rakdos decks, the card is a straight-up bomb. Speculating on the Madness archetype could pay handsomely. And I can be especially confident that archetype will be open because this pack still contains Bone Shards.
In most drafts, I would take Necrogoyf and look to pivot. In this particular one, I don’t believe that’s correct. My start is too good. I have two bomb rares, Nettlecyst and Thought Monitor, that need artifacts. My current artifacts to go with them at the moment are two copies of Chrome Courier, a premium common that does not overlap well with Necrogoyf. Even if my archetype isn’t fully open, and Rakdos Madness is, I think my current pool of cards is so powerful that the Madness deck may not even end up better than if I stay the course. Hence, I’m happy to take Tanglepool Bridge and stay in my lane.
