Is Ruinous Ultimatum A First Pick In Ikoria: Lair Of Behemoths Draft?

Ruinous Ultimatum is Plague Wind for two less mana. Normally that kind of card would be a Limited bomb, but how often can Ruinous Ultimatum be cast off seven lands? Given that it isn’t trivial, I expect Ruinous Ultimatum to play as if it costs eight or nine mana and require a Mardu deck. Normally I take rares at the beginning of a format to see how they play out, but this asks a bit too much of me. It might be the best card in this pack, but I need to understand the manabases of the format before the Ultimatums entice me.

Sanctuary Lockdown is a powerful card in a deck filled with Humans, but how often is that going to happen? Mutate and other non-Human-synergy cards incentivize deck construction towards a marriage of Human and non-Human creatures. Unfortunately, there appears to be more incentive for those builds than the 100% Human builds. This means that I expect Sanctuary Lockdown to be a low pick that wheels often. When the right cards present themselves, it will help a Human deck become very strong.

My Guess at top10 #MTGIKO Draft Commons:

1. Fire Prophecy
2. Farfinder
3. Blood Curdle
4. Of One Mind
5. Pacifism
6. Dead Weight
7. Forbidden Friendship
8. Evolving Wilds
9. Ram Through
10. Mysterious Egg

— Ryan Saxe (@rcsaxe) April 12, 2020

I expect both Evolving Wilds and Fire Prophecy to be in the top commons in Ikoria, with Fire Prophecy winning by a substantial margin. Hence this pick boils down to Zagoth Mamba and Fire Prophecy.

I’m taking Zagoth Mamba. I expect one-drops to be premium in this format for mutate shenanigans, and Zagoth Mamba may be the best of the bunch. Fire Prophecy will be better than most uncommons in the format, but I think the best build-around uncommons, such as Zagoth Mamba, are better early picks. Later in the format, should we learn that mutate doesn’t play such a major role in gameplay, then this pick is likely incorrect. Still, I know how good Fire Prophecy will be and I’m less sure about the Mamba. This solidifies my pick of Mamba because optimizing for learning is important at the beginning of any Draft format.

Ketria Crystal and Evolving Wilds are both great pieces of fixing. I believe that Evolving Wilds is the better card unless the deck has one of the following qualities:

1. The deck contains green, blue, and red cards.
2. The deck contains two of the three colors that the Crystal provides and cares about cycling.

With that in mind, I believe that Evolving Wilds is a better early pick. This may surprise you because Evolving Wilds is common fixing and Ketria Crystal is uncommon fixing, so wouldn’t the people who designed the set make the uncommon fixing better in Limited? Not necessarily. Having five cycling mana rocks at common may not be something they want to introduce into the Limited format, even though they aren’t individually as good as Evolving Wilds.

Will of the All-Hunter is a fascinating combat trick. Cycling on a combat trick is always nice to see because tricks have specific windows of opportunity. There’s often a risk that they get stuck in hand, and cycling mitigates that risk. Furthermore, excess reward on blocking — +1/+1 counters in this case — is a great touch that creates engaging gameplay. I don’t expect the card to be a high pick, but I think it’s quite good and will rarely be cut from a white deck. That’s not often true of combat tricks!

This boils down the pick to Avian Oddity and Wingspan Mentor. Both cards are blue and care about flying, which is a micro-synergy in the set as can be seen by Jubilant Skybonder. But which is better? Wingspan Mentor is a worse rate for three mana than Avian Oddity is for four mana. And Oddity has a higher floor thanks to the cycling effect. Yet the ceiling of Wingspan Mentor is tremendous if it’s put in a deck chock-full of flyers.

This begs the question: how often will a deck contain enough flyers? And is that often enough to justify taking Wingspan Mentor over Avian Oddity? Honestly, I wish I could answer this question. Avian Oddity is the safe pick, but I don’t take the safe pick early on in the format. I wouldn’t fault you for taking Avian Oddity, but I take Wingspan Mentor here.

Dreamtail Heron and Cavern Whisperer are the on-color mutate commons to go with Zagoth Mamba. Both cards look fairly solid. “Draw a card” tends to be more valuable than “discard a card” and a 3/4 flyer is almost always better than a 4/4 on the ground, hence Dreamtail Heron takes this battle, but the competition is stiff and I don’t think this flying mutation can beat out the next blue common.

I have Of One Mind as the best blue common. I think it can be easy to think of interaction like Essence Scatter and Capture Sphere as the clear best blue commons because “removal is removal” but I strongly don’t advocate that kind of thinking. Yes, removal is an important piece of a successful Draft deck, but it isn’t the end-all-be-all. Essence Scatter will be quite good and Capture Sphere will be playable, yet unexciting. The exciting blue common is the one with the ceiling of only “draw a card” away from Ancestral Recall! I think it would be a great follow-up to Wingspan Mentor, since both cards incentivize similar deckbuilding restraints. 

But is Of One Mind better than Neutralize? This comparison is difficult without format context. Blue has a clear flash theme, as can be seen by Cunning Nightbonder. This makes counterspells better, as the more instant-speed spells one has, the better each one gets. Cycling as a main mechanic helps push playing at instant speed and Neutralize is a perfect example of that since it’s somewhat of a one-card combo. Just like flash cards make each other better, putting cycling on a conditional piece of interaction skyrockets the value. My gut says that Of One Mind is a better pick because the ceiling is just so incredible while the floor is good old Divination. However, I could see format context drastically changing this pick.

I had to read Auspicious Starrix a couple of times before I understood what it did. Most importantly, it’s a splashable 6/6 for five mana. That may not seem like a big deal, but I promise it is. A 6/6 is the top-end of sizing in most Limited formats and Colossal Dreadmaw tends to be the bread-and-butter example for these cards. They rarely offer card advantage on top of the beefy body but Auspicious Starrix has a ceiling of plopping monsters onto the battlefield with ease. However, hitting lands is no longer particularly beneficial once in the mid- to late-game and I can see this card ranging from an incredibly high pick to a fine top-end to any green deck. 

I think the pick between Auspicious Starrix and Of One Mind is oddly close, but believe the correct card to take is Auspicious Starrix. It’s a mutate card to go with Zagoth Mamba, and the base rate of a five-mana 6/6 is much stronger than Divination.