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[Draft] In depth guide to drafting Blue/White in The Hobbit

Introduction

Blue/White is a very powerful and synergistic deck in this format. I don't think that's news to anyone, but I think what makes it more powerful and versatile than most people think is this goes beyond the simple draw 2 synergy. A lot of people think the blue/white deck is built around having a bunch of ways to draw 2 (whether by recruiting or just drawing) and then having payoffs like [[Lakeshore Apothecary]], [[Bard the Bowman]], and [[Master's Councillors]] be great payoffs. This kind of blue/white deck is powerful, but the payoffs are limited to just 1 common and a few uncommons where if this was the only way to build the deck it wouldn't be very versatile. It would be one of those it's good when it's wide open decks, and I think blue/white is a true pillar of the format. I've been doing well drafting blue/white frequently and wanted to share what I think makes it such a pillar.

What makes blue/white synergistic is recruit. Recruit itself is a synergy, and not just part of the draw two synergy. Getting a 1/1 is shockingly good from discarding a nonland. Way more powerful than the connive +1/+1 counters are. It's at the point now where unless I'm actively flooding out I discard a nonland. While you are wiling to discard plenty of nonlands to get a 1/1, it's nice to discard cards that are still useful from the graveyard. [[Plunder the Trollshaws]] is the best card for this, but [[Eagle's Rescue]] is also quite good, and even [[Moment of Glory]] is not terrible because of this.

Just an aside on Moment of Glory. The 17 lands data on this card is wild. Among white commons in general Moment of Glory is 8th out of 10 which is bad but not an F. In blue/white though it moves all the way up to 4th out of 10 (slightly below average), but in red/white it's WAY in last place, and is the 2nd lowest card in the entire set with data in Red/White. Truly terrible.

So anyway I think 1/1s are better than +1/+1 counters, but in this format 1/1s go even further than normal. There's a ton of menace in this format. That doesn't matter to you though because you have a bunch of 1/1s to block menace creatures. [[Crude Bent Blade]] is reduced in effectiveness because you usually have a 1/1 to sacrifice to it. Also they are amazing at chump blocking. Chump blocking in this format is amazing! I Know that sounds weird, but it's a super fast format, there are a ton of big creatures, and none of them seem to have trample. It's a tailored made format to chump block.

So the main gameplay is a combo of tons of card draw and card selection, flooding the board with 1/1s, and killing them either with tall creatures, going wide, or flyers. It's a great way to win lots of games.

Ok now that we went over the deck as a whole lets go over the key cards and discuss them.

Card Evaluation

Most Important Commons (B- level)

Lakeshore Apothecary, Plunder the Trollshaws, and removal.

These should be your top picks at common until you have either a huge amount of them, or a critical need somewhere else (pretty unlikely on Arena at least). Lakeshore Apothecary despite not being necessary for the deck to succeed is still very powerful, and there aren't other common 2 drop creatures you want in this deck anyway so this fills a critical need there. Plunder the Trollshaws is amazing for all the reasons I linked above. If you don't get it there are replacements, but it is the best at it's job. Without a few of these the deck is vulnerable to flooding out in a way it just isn't otherwise. I wouldn't even question playing 4 of these. Beyond that it depends, but this card is absolutely critical. Removal is the other most critical part. If you don't get enough removal your deck can and will lose to opponents synergy and bombs. Blue/White has less removal than one would want so it's important to make sure to get some. I would say until you have 4 removal spells take removal at the same level as these top commons. Once you are at 4 pieces of removal you can be a little more chill about it. Between the 3 removal spells ([[Magnificent End]], [[Uneasy Partings]], and [[Enchanted River's Grasp]]) I would say in general Magnificent End is the best, and then the 2 blue removal spells are slightly lower, but these are deck dependent, and you want a mix of the 3 over stacking 1 removal spell.

Next Level Down Commons (C+ level)

[[Patient Instructor]], [[Bilbo Baggins, Burglar]], [[Long Lake Nuisance]]

These are your card draw/recruit sources. The fact that there are 3 good ones definitely reduces their importance. Of these 3 Long Lake Nuisance is the best. As a 3 power flyer this thing ends games. Despite the abundance of card draw this card would be in the category above except that people haven't caught on and it's really easy to get a ton of these, and as a 4 drop creature you don't want an unlimited amount. Bilbo probably has the highest power level of any common in this archetype, but the fact that patient instructor is another powerful card draw common creature at 3 mana you just don't need to pick Bilbo that highly. If you do your 3 drop creature slot will become overloaded.

Two additional notes on Bilbo. First don't worry about Bilbo being a legend and put less in your deck because of it (I would run 4 Bilbo's if I had no other 3 drop creatures). Between him having 1 toughness, having lots of recruit, and still being able to use the scry adventure with your second Bilbo while the 1st one is on the battlefield it isn't an issue. Second if for some reason you can't get any good flashback/graveyard spells like Plunder the Trollshaws recruit will become less good, and Bilbo should move up your pick order because he draws without discarding.

Patient Instructor is the last card in this list, and it's very good. I treat it as basically interchangeable with Bilbo most of the time. The vigilance on this is shockingly good as it allows you to race really well. A lot of times your opponent won't want to block with their menace creature and you can get a lot of free damage in while still leaving this back to block.

Bread and Butter Commons (C level)

[[Dwarven Provisioner]], [[Esgaroth Garrison]], [[Lake-town]]

Dwarven Provisioner benefits from being basically the only other playable 2 drop creature outside of Lakeshore Apothecary. It can also help with go-wide and dwarf synergies (more on those below). Esgaroth Garrison does a great job of holding up the ground, and provides critical redundancy as a source of recruit if the top cards dry up. When this deck is open though I usually cut these because I have plenty of the C+ commons. I think Lake-town is very nice as fixing and tap lands are totally playable since this deck has plenty of card selection, and very few 1 drops. The counters from Lake-town are also nice. I usually try to put them on Patient Instructor or a human enchanted with Eagle's Rescue.

The Rest of playable Commons (C- level)

[[Hobbit Hole]], [[Confusticate and Bebother]], Moment of Glory, [[Mirkwood Nurturer]], [[Lake-town Lookout]], 2 drop common creatures

Only play these if you have a hole in your deck, or they have crazy good synergy in your specific deck. Mirkwood Nurturer combos really well with [[The Mountain-king's Return]] for example. If the common card isn't on this list I would really try hard not to play it at all.

Uncommons

So instead of categorizing the uncommons I thought I would just explain card by card the important uncommons. I'll include the uncommons ranked by how good they are in descending order. I'll include a grade next to it and an explanation.

[[Celebrate the Mountain-king]] (A-): This card is amazing. If you discard something like Plunder the Trollshaws to the recruit on this the card essentially acts like 4 mana Exile a nonland permanent, draw a card, and create a 1/1. If you are low on removal going into pack 3 I would take this over ANYTHING! The fact that it hits nonland permanent is not insignificant either. There are a lot of broken artifacts and enchantments in this set (like this one) and this is the only realistic way to hit those in blue/white. Absolutely busted card in Blue/White.

[[Stone by Sunlight]] (B): Critical removal. The 4 power constraint is not a problem in this set. There will always be targets. Furthermore the indestructible option is viable and useful. I probably pick it about 30% of the time. Realistically I would play 4 of these no problem. Ideally you can fill your deck with this and Mountain-king and then you don't have to play as much of the mediocre common removal.

[[Bilbo, Luckwearer]] (B): I think this gets better the worse your deck is overall, because as the deck gets good most of what this provides gets covered by other cards. In Sealed for example this card I think is better than Stone by Sunlight. The switcheroo adventure is nice because you almost always have a 1/1 to switch. Also if you have the option to discard a land to this cards loot effect I usually do because there is no penalty like there is to recruit.

[[Thranduil, Sindarin Liege]] (B-): Great card in general, but also provides a good synergy with recruit as it ensures you have tons of lands to play. I usually try to play this on turn 5 so that I can trigger it's landfall immediately. I also wouldn't worry about playing this cards adventure that much. Recruit gives you plenty of lands, and you often have better things to do on turn 3.

Bard the Bowman (B-): Understatted but has plenty to make up for it. Basically the best card in the set when trying to race. Putting a +1/+1 counter and lifelink on a flyer every turn is impossible to beat in a race. Furthermore this has reach so you can chump with this against their big flyer in a critical turn if you need to. Try to trigger it the turn you play it because this is a removal magnet, but if necessary just play it on turn 3 and trigger it next turn.

The Mountain-king's Return (B-): This uncommon version of the common Bilbo. This card is a very powerful recruit card, and is better than the common ones, but often it acts as a slightly better Patient Instructor. This does combo with a few cards very well though. In particular Mirkwood Nurturer is amazing to discard to this and will allow you to pick up and play this again.

Master's Councillors (B-): The uncommon Lakeshore Apothecary, but not necessarily better. The mill is very real if you have multiples of this, and if that is the case this becomes better than Apothecary. However, with only 1 copy you are unlikely to present a real mill threat and I would rather have Apothecary over this.

[[Iron Hills Blacksmith]] (C+): This is better in Red/White but it's plenty good here. Combos very well with Eagle's Rescue and the Mountain-king's Return.

Eagle's Rescue (C+): The second best card to discard to recruit behind Plunder the Trollshaws. I usually try to play this from the graveyard unless it's providing an immediate win. Fine to put on 1/1 tokens, even better if you can put it on a Lakeshore Apothecary, but the best is to put it on the blacksmith as discussed above.

[[Thrór's Map]] (C): Gets better if you are splashing or somehow have a shortage of recruit/card draw. Overall though this shouldn't be necessary as there is so much redundancy with card draw.

[[Sound the Trumpets]] (C): This can work if you have a ton of instants or are especially controlling. I wouldn't consider it a premium card though.

[[Ravenhill Flock]] (C): It will get out of hand quickly, but as a understatted 4 mana creature that doesn't have an ETB in a fast format it has a lot working against it. If you don't get any Long Lake Nuisances this goes up, but I would definitely take this below the common flyer.

[[Lake-town Toymaker]] (C-): Seems like it would be a good fit in this deck, but a few things make it way underperform. First you have so many good 4 drops already that there often isn't room for this. Second this card triggers at the start of combat, which is a problem often. It straight up doesn't work with cards like the uncommon Bilbo, [[Great Gilded Boat]], and [[Bard's Company]]. And while you can get it to work with instant speed card draw and recruit creatures it requires you to spend your mana precombat which isn't always what you want to do. Also most of the time you won't trigger this on the turn you play it. Between all that this card is much worse than it looks.

Other Topics

Avoids:

I think the #1 thing you want to avoid are playing expensive creatures that are not included in this list. Cards like [[Eagle of the Great Shelf]], [[Gandalf, Wandering Wizard]], [[Ori, Keeper of Songs]], and [[Dwarven Shortsword]] are absolutely traps. Between the top recruit commons and all the great 4+ drop uncommons and rares you just won't have room to play random other mediocre expensive creatures. If there is a pick where there are no top commons available spend a pick on a random cheap creature or a dual land because there is at least a chance you end up short on 2 drop creatures and fixing. You won't be short on 4 drop creatures.

The other thing to avoid are generic go wide effects. This deck has the ability to go wide with recruit, but you want your payoffs to that to be with cards that fit within a recruit/draw two deck. Not cards that only support going wide. So Moment of Glory supports go wide but is a great card to discard to recruit. Dwarven Provisioner is good for going wide, but also fills a need as a cheap creature. [[Thorin's Last Stand]] is just purely a go wide payoffs and should be avoided. Esgaroth Garrison is good as a recruit card, but if you have enough of those don't play this just because it's good when you go wide.

Dwarf Version:

There are some very powerful white dwarfs in this set. In particular [[Fíli the Pathfinder]] and [[Kíli the Resourceful]] are quite good if you can get storied or play more dwarves. Are these worth altering your deck to play? The answer is yes, but only slightly. I would bump up decent cards in the deck if they are dwarves. Stuff like Dwarven Provisioner and [[Bofur, Reliable Guardian]]. I would not however start taking unplayable cards just because they are dwarf payoffs. So still try to avoid Dwarven Shortsword.

Other colors besides White?

So I don't know if you noticed but in particular at common all the best cards are blue. So that begs to question can this deck do well as a different second color like black? I personally haven't made it happen yet, but I think the answer is definitely yes. In particular I think black has a great removal suite to compliment blue, and also has plenty of powerful cards in general. In my experience though Black has been relatively cut as a color when drafting, and white has been fairly open, but if for some reason both blue and black are open at your table I would not hesitate at all to draft a blue/black version of this deck.

Blue/Red and Blue/Green versions are trickier. They both can work, but I don't think are particularly setup to thrive in this kind of deck. I have seen blue/green draw two decks do well, but those seem to be built more around having a critical amount of Apothecaries versus recruit synergies.

Conclusion:

So hopefully this helps clarify how to draft a good blue/white deck. Right now I think this color pair is criminally underdrafted so you should be able to get a ton of the best cards. I think even down the line as people adjust it will still be good, but you will have to adjust. Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions.

reddit.com
u/wormhole222 — 1 day ago
▲ 34 r/MagicArena

In depth guide to drafting Blue/White in The Hobbit

Introduction

Blue/White is a very powerful and synergistic deck in this format. I don't think that's news to anyone, but I think what makes it more powerful and versatile than most people think is this goes beyond the simple draw 2 synergy. A lot of people think the blue/white deck is built around having a bunch of ways to draw 2 (whether by recruiting or just drawing) and then having payoffs like [[Lakeshore Apothecary]], [[Bard the Bowman]], and [[Master's Councillors]] be great payoffs. This kind of blue/white deck is powerful, but the payoffs are limited to just 1 common and a few uncommons where if this was the only way to build the deck it wouldn't be very versatile. It would be one of those it's good when it's wide open decks, and I think blue/white is a true pillar of the format. I've been doing well drafting blue/white frequently and wanted to share what I think makes it such a pillar.

What makes blue/white synergistic is recruit. Recruit itself is a synergy, and not just part of the draw two synergy. Getting a 1/1 is shockingly good from discarding a nonland. Way more powerful than the connive +1/+1 counters are. It's at the point now where unless I'm actively flooding out I discard a nonland. While you are wiling to discard plenty of nonlands to get a 1/1, it's nice to discard cards that are still useful from the graveyard. [[Plunder the Trollshaws]] is the best card for this, but [[Eagle's Rescue]] is also quite good, and even [[Moment of Glory]] is not terrible because of this.

Just an aside on Moment of Glory. The 17 lands data on this card is wild. Among white commons in general Moment of Glory is 8th out of 10 which is bad but not an F. In blue/white though it moves all the way up to 4th out of 10 (slightly below average), but in red/white it's WAY in last place, and is the 2nd lowest card in the entire set with data in Red/White. Truly terrible.

So anyway I think 1/1s are better than +1/+1 counters, but in this format 1/1s go even further than normal. There's a ton of menace in this format. That doesn't matter to you though because you have a bunch of 1/1s to block menace creatures. [[Crude Bent Blade]] is reduced in effectiveness because you usually have a 1/1 to sacrifice to it. Also they are amazing at chump blocking. Chump blocking in this format is amazing! I Know that sounds weird, but it's a super fast format, there are a ton of big creatures, and none of them seem to have trample. It's a tailored made format to chump block.

So the main gameplay is a combo of tons of card draw and card selection, flooding the board with 1/1s, and killing them either with tall creatures, going wide, or flyers. It's a great way to win lots of games.

Ok now that we went over the deck as a whole lets go over the key cards and discuss them.

Card Evaluation

Most Important Commons (B- level)

Lakeshore Apothecary, Plunder the Trollshaws, and removal.

These should be your top picks at common until you have either a huge amount of them, or a critical need somewhere else (pretty unlikely on Arena at least). Lakeshore Apothecary despite not being necessary for the deck to succeed is still very powerful, and there aren't other common 2 drop creatures you want in this deck anyway so this fills a critical need there. Plunder the Trollshaws is amazing for all the reasons I linked above. If you don't get it there are replacements, but it is the best at it's job. Without a few of these the deck is vulnerable to flooding out in a way it just isn't otherwise. I wouldn't even question playing 4 of these. Beyond that it depends, but this card is absolutely critical. Removal is the other most critical part. If you don't get enough removal your deck can and will lose to opponents synergy and bombs. Blue/White has less removal than one would want so it's important to make sure to get some. I would say until you have 4 removal spells take removal at the same level as these top commons. Once you are at 4 pieces of removal you can be a little more chill about it. Between the 3 removal spells ([[Magnificent End]], [[Uneasy Partings]], and [[Enchanted River's Grasp]]) I would say in general Magnificent End is the best, and then the 2 blue removal spells are slightly lower, but these are deck dependent, and you want a mix of the 3 over stacking 1 removal spell.

Next Level Down Commons (C+ level)

[[Patient Instructor]], [[Bilbo Baggins, Burglar]], [[Long Lake Nuisance]]

These are your card draw/recruit sources. The fact that there are 3 good ones definitely reduces their importance. Of these 3 Long Lake Nuisance is the best. As a 3 power flyer this thing ends games. Despite the abundance of card draw this card would be in the category above except that people haven't caught on and it's really easy to get a ton of these, and as a 4 drop creature you don't want an unlimited amount. Bilbo probably has the highest power level of any common in this archetype, but the fact that patient instructor is another powerful card draw common creature at 3 mana you just don't need to pick Bilbo that highly. If you do your 3 drop creature slot will become overloaded.

Two additional notes on Bilbo. First don't worry about Bilbo being a legend and put less in your deck because of it (I would run 4 Bilbo's if I had no other 3 drop creatures). Between him having 1 toughness, having lots of recruit, and still being able to use the scry adventure with your second Bilbo while the 1st one is on the battlefield it isn't an issue. Second if for some reason you can't get any good flashback/graveyard spells like Plunder the Trollshaws recruit will become less good, and Bilbo should move up your pick order because he draws without discarding.

Patient Instructor is the last card in this list, and it's very good. I treat it as basically interchangeable with Bilbo most of the time. The vigilance on this is shockingly good as it allows you to race really well. A lot of times your opponent won't want to block with their menace creature and you can get a lot of free damage in while still leaving this back to block.

Bread and Butter Commons (C level)

[[Dwarven Provisioner]], [[Esgaroth Garrison]], [[Lake-town]]

Dwarven Provisioner benefits from being basically the only other playable 2 drop creature outside of Lakeshore Apothecary. It can also help with go-wide and dwarf synergies (more on those below). Esgaroth Garrison does a great job of holding up the ground, and provides critical redundancy as a source of recruit if the top cards dry up. When this deck is open though I usually cut these because I have plenty of the C+ commons. I think Lake-town is very nice as fixing and tap lands are totally playable since this deck has plenty of card selection, and very few 1 drops. The counters from Lake-town are also nice. I usually try to put them on Patient Instructor or a human enchanted with Eagle's Rescue.

The Rest of playable Commons (C- level)

[[Hobbit Hole]], [[Confusticate and Bebother]], Moment of Glory, [[Mirkwood Nurturer]], [[Lake-town Lookout]], 2 drop common creatures

Only play these if you have a hole in your deck, or they have crazy good synergy in your specific deck. Mirkwood Nurturer combos really well with [[The Mountain-king's Return]] for example. If the common card isn't on this list I would really try hard not to play it at all.

Uncommons

So instead of categorizing the uncommons I thought I would just explain card by card the important uncommons. I'll include the uncommons ranked by how good they are in descending order. I'll include a grade next to it and an explanation.

[[Celebrate the Mountain-king]] (A-): This card is amazing. If you discard something like Plunder the Trollshaws to the recruit on this the card essentially acts like 4 mana Exile a nonland permanent, draw a card, and create a 1/1. If you are low on removal going into pack 3 I would take this over ANYTHING! The fact that it hits nonland permanent is not insignificant either. There are a lot of broken artifacts and enchantments in this set (like this one) and this is the only realistic way to hit those in blue/white. Absolutely busted card in Blue/White.

[[Stone by Sunlight]] (B): Critical removal. The 4 power constraint is not a problem in this set. There will always be targets. Furthermore the indestructible option is viable and useful. I probably pick it about 30% of the time. Realistically I would play 4 of these no problem. Ideally you can fill your deck with this and Mountain-king and then you don't have to play as much of the mediocre common removal.

[[Bilbo, Luckwearer]] (B): I think this gets better the worse your deck is overall, because as the deck gets good most of what this provides gets covered by other cards. In Sealed for example this card I think is better than Stone by Sunlight. The switcheroo adventure is nice because you almost always have a 1/1 to switch. Also if you have the option to discard a land to this cards loot effect I usually do because there is no penalty like there is to recruit.

[[Thranduil, Sindarin Liege]] (B-): Great card in general, but also provides a good synergy with recruit as it ensures you have tons of lands to play. I usually try to play this on turn 5 so that I can trigger it's landfall immediately. I also wouldn't worry about playing this cards adventure that much. Recruit gives you plenty of lands, and you often have better things to do on turn 3.

Bard the Bowman (B-): Understatted but has plenty to make up for it. Basically the best card in the set when trying to race. Putting a +1/+1 counter and lifelink on a flyer every turn is impossible to beat in a race. Furthermore this has reach so you can chump with this against their big flyer in a critical turn if you need to. Try to trigger it the turn you play it because this is a removal magnet, but if necessary just play it on turn 3 and trigger it next turn.

The Mountain-king's Return (B-): This uncommon version of the common Bilbo. This card is a very powerful recruit card, and is better than the common ones, but often it acts as a slightly better Patient Instructor. This does combo with a few cards very well though. In particular Mirkwood Nurturer is amazing to discard to this and will allow you to pick up and play this again.

Master's Councillors (B-): The uncommon Lakeshore Apothecary, but not necessarily better. The mill is very real if you have multiples of this, and if that is the case this becomes better than Apothecary. However, with only 1 copy you are unlikely to present a real mill threat and I would rather have Apothecary over this.

[[Iron Hills Blacksmith]] (C+): This is better in Red/White but it's plenty good here. Combos very well with Eagle's Rescue and the Mountain-king's Return.

Eagle's Rescue (C+): The second best card to discard to recruit behind Plunder the Trollshaws. I usually try to play this from the graveyard unless it's providing an immediate win. Fine to put on 1/1 tokens, even better if you can put it on a Lakeshore Apothecary, but the best is to put it on the blacksmith as discussed above.

[[Thrór's Map]] (C): Gets better if you are splashing or somehow have a shortage of recruit/card draw. Overall though this shouldn't be necessary as there is so much redundancy with card draw.

[[Sound the Trumpets]] (C): This can work if you have a ton of instants or are especially controlling. I wouldn't consider it a premium card though.

[[Ravenhill Flock]] (C): It will get out of hand quickly, but as a understatted 4 mana creature that doesn't have an ETB in a fast format it has a lot working against it. If you don't get any Long Lake Nuisances this goes up, but I would definitely take this below the common flyer.

[[Lake-town Toymaker]] (C-): Seems like it would be a good fit in this deck, but a few things make it way underperform. First you have so many good 4 drops already that there often isn't room for this. Second this card triggers at the start of combat, which is a problem often. It straight up doesn't work with cards like the uncommon Bilbo, [[Great Gilded Boat]], and [[Bard's Company]]. And while you can get it to work with instant speed card draw and recruit creatures it requires you to spend your mana precombat which isn't always what you want to do. Also most of the time you won't trigger this on the turn you play it. Between all that this card is much worse than it looks.

Other Topics

Avoids:

I think the #1 thing you want to avoid are playing expensive creatures that are not included in this list. Cards like [[Eagle of the Great Shelf]], [[Gandalf, Wandering Wizard]], [[Ori, Keeper of Songs]], and [[Dwarven Shortsword]] are absolutely traps. Between the top recruit commons and all the great 4+ drop uncommons and rares you just won't have room to play random other mediocre expensive creatures. If there is a pick where there are no top commons available spend a pick on a random cheap creature or a dual land because there is at least a chance you end up short on 2 drop creatures and fixing. You won't be short on 4 drop creatures.

The other thing to avoid are generic go wide effects. This deck has the ability to go wide with recruit, but you want your payoffs to that to be with cards that fit within a recruit/draw two deck. Not cards that only support going wide. So Moment of Glory supports go wide but is a great card to discard to recruit. Dwarven Provisioner is good for going wide, but also fills a need as a cheap creature. [[Thorin's Last Stand]] is just purely a go wide payoffs and should be avoided. Esgaroth Garrison is good as a recruit card, but if you have enough of those don't play this just because it's good when you go wide.

Dwarf Version:

There are some very powerful white dwarfs in this set. In particular [[Fíli the Pathfinder]] and [[Kíli the Resourceful]] are quite good if you can get storied or play more dwarves. Are these worth altering your deck to play? The answer is yes, but only slightly. I would bump up decent cards in the deck if they are dwarves. Stuff like Dwarven Provisioner and [[Bofur, Reliable Guardian]]. I would not however start taking unplayable cards just because they are dwarf payoffs. So still try to avoid Dwarven Shortsword.

Other colors besides White?

So I don't know if you noticed but in particular at common all the best cards are blue. So that begs to question can this deck do well as a different second color like black? I personally haven't made it happen yet, but I think the answer is definitely yes. In particular I think black has a great removal suite to compliment blue, and also has plenty of powerful cards in general. In my experience though Black has been relatively cut as a color when drafting, and white has been fairly open, but if for some reason both blue and black are open at your table I would not hesitate at all to draft a blue/black version of this deck.

Blue/Red and Blue/Green versions are trickier. They both can work, but I don't think are particularly setup to thrive in this kind of deck. I have seen blue/green draw two decks do well, but those seem to be built more around having a critical amount of Apothecaries versus recruit synergies.

Conclusion:

So hopefully this helps clarify how to draft a good blue/white deck. Right now I think this color pair is criminally underdrafted so you should be able to get a ton of the best cards. I think even down the line as people adjust it will still be good, but you will have to adjust. Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions.

reddit.com
u/wormhole222 — 1 day ago
▲ 73 r/lrcast

In depth guide to drafting Blue/White in The Hobbit

Introduction

Blue/White is a very powerful and synergistic deck in this format. I don't think that's news to anyone, but I think what makes it more powerful and versatile than most people think is this goes beyond the simple draw 2 synergy. A lot of people think the blue/white deck is built around having a bunch of ways to draw 2 (whether by recruiting or just drawing) and then having payoffs like [[Lakeshore Apothecary]], [[Bard the Bowman]], and [[Master's Councillors]] be great payoffs. This kind of blue/white deck is powerful, but the payoffs are limited to just 1 common and a few uncommons where if this was the only way to build the deck it wouldn't be very versatile. It would be one of those it's good when it's wide open decks, and I think blue/white is a true pillar of the format. I've been doing well drafting blue/white frequently and wanted to share what I think makes it such a pillar.

What makes blue/white synergistic is recruit. Recruit itself is a synergy, and not just part of the draw two synergy. Getting a 1/1 is shockingly good from discarding a nonland. Way more powerful than the connive +1/+1 counters are. It's at the point now where unless I'm actively flooding out I discard a nonland. While you are wiling to discard plenty of nonlands to get a 1/1, it's nice to discard cards that are still useful from the graveyard. [[Plunder the Trollshaws]] is the best card for this, but [[Eagle's Rescue]] is also quite good, and even [[Moment of Glory]] is not terrible because of this.

Just an aside on Moment of Glory. The 17 lands data on this card is wild. Among white commons in general Moment of Glory is 8th out of 10 which is bad but not an F. In blue/white though it moves all the way up to 4th out of 10 (slightly below average), but in red/white it's WAY in last place, and is the 2nd lowest card in the entire set with data in Red/White. Truly terrible.

So anyway I think 1/1s are better than +1/+1 counters, but in this format 1/1s go even further than normal. There's a ton of menace in this format. That doesn't matter to you though because you have a bunch of 1/1s to block menace creatures. [[Crude Bent Blade]] is reduced in effectiveness because you usually have a 1/1 to sacrifice to it. Also they are amazing at chump blocking. Chump blocking in this format is amazing! I Know that sounds weird, but it's a super fast format, there are a ton of big creatures, and none of them seem to have trample. It's a tailored made format to chump block.

So the main gameplay is a combo of tons of card draw and card selection, flooding the board with 1/1s, and killing them either with tall creatures, going wide, or flyers. It's a great way to win lots of games.

Ok now that we went over the deck as a whole lets go over the key cards and discuss them.

Card Evaluation

Most Important Commons (B- level)

Lakeshore Apothecary, Plunder the Trollshaws, and removal.

These should be your top picks at common until you have either a huge amount of them, or a critical need somewhere else (pretty unlikely on Arena at least). Lakeshore Apothecary despite not being necessary for the deck to succeed is still very powerful, and there aren't other common 2 drop creatures you want in this deck anyway so this fills a critical need there. Plunder the Trollshaws is amazing for all the reasons I linked above. If you don't get it there are replacements, but it is the best at it's job. Without a few of these the deck is vulnerable to flooding out in a way it just isn't otherwise. I wouldn't even question playing 4 of these. Beyond that it depends, but this card is absolutely critical. Removal is the other most critical part. If you don't get enough removal your deck can and will lose to opponents synergy and bombs. Blue/White has less removal than one would want so it's important to make sure to get some. I would say until you have 4 removal spells take removal at the same level as these top commons. Once you are at 4 pieces of removal you can be a little more chill about it. Between the 3 removal spells ([[Magnificent End]], [[Uneasy Partings]], and [[Enchanted River's Grasp]]) I would say in general Magnificent End is the best, and then the 2 blue removal spells are slightly lower, but these are deck dependent, and you want a mix of the 3 over stacking 1 removal spell.

Next Level Down Commons (C+ level)

[[Patient Instructor]], [[Bilbo Baggins, Burglar]], [[Long Lake Nuisance]]

These are your card draw/recruit sources. The fact that there are 3 good ones definitely reduces their importance. Of these 3 Long Lake Nuisance is the best. As a 3 power flyer this thing ends games. Despite the abundance of card draw this card would be in the category above except that people haven't caught on and it's really easy to get a ton of these, and as a 4 drop creature you don't want an unlimited amount. Bilbo probably has the highest power level of any common in this archetype, but the fact that patient instructor is another powerful card draw common creature at 3 mana you just don't need to pick Bilbo that highly. If you do your 3 drop creature slot will become overloaded.

Two additional notes on Bilbo. First don't worry about Bilbo being a legend and put less in your deck because of it (I would run 4 Bilbo's if I had no other 3 drop creatures). Between him having 1 toughness, having lots of recruit, and still being able to use the scry adventure with your second Bilbo while the 1st one is on the battlefield it isn't an issue. Second if for some reason you can't get any good flashback/graveyard spells like Plunder the Trollshaws recruit will become less good, and Bilbo should move up your pick order because he draws without discarding.

Patient Instructor is the last card in this list, and it's very good. I treat it as basically interchangeable with Bilbo most of the time. The vigilance on this is shockingly good as it allows you to race really well. A lot of times your opponent won't want to block with their menace creature and you can get a lot of free damage in while still leaving this back to block.

Bread and Butter Commons (C level)

[[Dwarven Provisioner]], [[Esgaroth Garrison]], [[Lake-town]]

Dwarven Provisioner benefits from being basically the only other playable 2 drop creature outside of Lakeshore Apothecary. It can also help with go-wide and dwarf synergies (more on those below). Esgaroth Garrison does a great job of holding up the ground, and provides critical redundancy as a source of recruit if the top cards dry up. When this deck is open though I usually cut these because I have plenty of the C+ commons. I think Lake-town is very nice as fixing and tap lands are totally playable since this deck has plenty of card selection, and very few 1 drops. The counters from Lake-town are also nice. I usually try to put them on Patient Instructor or a human enchanted with Eagle's Rescue.

The Rest of playable Commons (C- level)

[[Hobbit Hole]], [[Confusticate and Bebother]], Moment of Glory, [[Mirkwood Nurturer]], [[Lake-town Lookout]], 2 drop common creatures

Only play these if you have a hole in your deck, or they have crazy good synergy in your specific deck. Mirkwood Nurturer combos really well with [[The Mountain-king's Return]] for example. If the common card isn't on this list I would really try hard not to play it at all.

Uncommons

So instead of categorizing the uncommons I thought I would just explain card by card the important uncommons. I'll include the uncommons ranked by how good they are in descending order. I'll include a grade next to it and an explanation.

[[Celebrate the Mountain-king]] (A-): This card is amazing. If you discard something like Plunder the Trollshaws to the recruit on this the card essentially acts like 4 mana Exile a nonland permanent, draw a card, and create a 1/1. If you are low on removal going into pack 3 I would take this over ANYTHING! The fact that it hits nonland permanent is not insignificant either. There are a lot of broken artifacts and enchantments in this set (like this one) and this is the only realistic way to hit those in blue/white. Absolutely busted card in Blue/White.

[[Stone by Sunlight]] (B): Critical removal. The 4 power constraint is not a problem in this set. There will always be targets. Furthermore the indestructible option is viable and useful. I probably pick it about 30% of the time. Realistically I would play 4 of these no problem. Ideally you can fill your deck with this and Mountain-king and then you don't have to play as much of the mediocre common removal.

[[Bilbo, Luckwearer]] (B): I think this gets better the worse your deck is overall, because as the deck gets good most of what this provides gets covered by other cards. In Sealed for example this card I think is better than Stone by Sunlight. The switcheroo adventure is nice because you almost always have a 1/1 to switch. Also if you have the option to discard a land to this cards loot effect I usually do because there is no penalty like there is to recruit.

[[Thranduil, Sindarin Liege]] (B-): Great card in general, but also provides a good synergy with recruit as it ensures you have tons of lands to play. I usually try to play this on turn 5 so that I can trigger it's landfall immediately. I also wouldn't worry about playing this cards adventure that much. Recruit gives you plenty of lands, and you often have better things to do on turn 3.

Bard the Bowman (B-): Understatted but has plenty to make up for it. Basically the best card in the set when trying to race. Putting a +1/+1 counter and lifelink on a flyer every turn is impossible to beat in a race. Furthermore this has reach so you can chump with this against their big flyer in a critical turn if you need to. Try to trigger it the turn you play it because this is a removal magnet, but if necessary just play it on turn 3 and trigger it next turn.

The Mountain-king's Return (B-): This uncommon version of the common Bilbo. This card is a very powerful recruit card, and is better than the common ones, but often it acts as a slightly better Patient Instructor. This does combo with a few cards very well though. In particular Mirkwood Nurturer is amazing to discard to this and will allow you to pick up and play this again.

Master's Councillors (B-): The uncommon Lakeshore Apothecary, but not necessarily better. The mill is very real if you have multiples of this, and if that is the case this becomes better than Apothecary. However, with only 1 copy you are unlikely to present a real mill threat and I would rather have Apothecary over this.

[[Iron Hills Blacksmith]] (C+): This is better in Red/White but it's plenty good here. Combos very well with Eagle's Rescue and the Mountain-king's Return.

Eagle's Rescue (C+): The second best card to discard to recruit behind Plunder the Trollshaws. I usually try to play this from the graveyard unless it's providing an immediate win. Fine to put on 1/1 tokens, even better if you can put it on a Lakeshore Apothecary, but the best is to put it on the blacksmith as discussed above.

[[Thrór's Map]] (C): Gets better if you are splashing or somehow have a shortage of recruit/card draw. Overall though this shouldn't be necessary as there is so much redundancy with card draw.

[[Sound the Trumpets]] (C): This can work if you have a ton of instants or are especially controlling. I wouldn't consider it a premium card though.

[[Ravenhill Flock]] (C): It will get out of hand quickly, but as a understatted 4 mana creature that doesn't have an ETB in a fast format it has a lot working against it. If you don't get any Long Lake Nuisances this goes up, but I would definitely take this below the common flyer.

[[Lake-town Toymaker]] (C-): Seems like it would be a good fit in this deck, but a few things make it way underperform. First you have so many good 4 drops already that there often isn't room for this. Second this card triggers at the start of combat, which is a problem often. It straight up doesn't work with cards like the uncommon Bilbo, [[Great Gilded Boat]], and [[Bard's Company]]. And while you can get it to work with instant speed card draw and recruit creatures it requires you to spend your mana precombat which isn't always what you want to do. Also most of the time you won't trigger this on the turn you play it. Between all that this card is much worse than it looks.

Other Topics

Avoids:

I think the #1 thing you want to avoid are playing expensive creatures that are not included in this list. Cards like [[Eagle of the Great Shelf]], [[Gandalf, Wandering Wizard]], [[Ori, Keeper of Songs]], and [[Dwarven Shortsword]] are absolutely traps. Between the top recruit commons and all the great 4+ drop uncommons and rares you just won't have room to play random other mediocre expensive creatures. If there is a pick where there are no top commons available spend a pick on a random cheap creature or a dual land because there is at least a chance you end up short on 2 drop creatures and fixing. You won't be short on 4 drop creatures.

The other thing to avoid are generic go wide effects. This deck has the ability to go wide with recruit, but you want your payoffs to that to be with cards that fit within a recruit/draw two deck. Not cards that only support going wide. So Moment of Glory supports go wide but is a great card to discard to recruit. Dwarven Provisioner is good for going wide, but also fills a need as a cheap creature. [[Thorin's Last Stand]] is just purely a go wide payoffs and should be avoided. Esgaroth Garrison is good as a recruit card, but if you have enough of those don't play this just because it's good when you go wide.

Dwarf Version:

There are some very powerful white dwarfs in this set. In particular [[Fíli the Pathfinder]] and [[Kíli the Resourceful]] are quite good if you can get storied or play more dwarves. Are these worth altering your deck to play? The answer is yes, but only slightly. I would bump up decent cards in the deck if they are dwarves. Stuff like Dwarven Provisioner and [[Bofur, Reliable Guardian]]. I would not however start taking unplayable cards just because they are dwarf payoffs. So still try to avoid Dwarven Shortsword.

Other colors besides White?

So I don't know if you noticed but in particular at common all the best cards are blue. So that begs to question can this deck do well as a different second color like black? I personally haven't made it happen yet, but I think the answer is definitely yes. In particular I think black has a great removal suite to compliment blue, and also has plenty of powerful cards in general. In my experience though Black has been relatively cut as a color when drafting, and white has been fairly open, but if for some reason both blue and black are open at your table I would not hesitate at all to draft a blue/black version of this deck.

Blue/Red and Blue/Green versions are trickier. They both can work, but I don't think are particularly setup to thrive in this kind of deck. I have seen blue/green draw two decks do well, but those seem to be built more around having a critical amount of Apothecaries versus recruit synergies.

Conclusion:

So hopefully this helps clarify how to draft a good blue/white deck. Right now I think this color pair is criminally underdrafted so you should be able to get a ton of the best cards. I think even down the line as people adjust it will still be good, but you will have to adjust. Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions.

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u/wormhole222 — 1 day ago
▲ 38 r/lrcast

Super early probably out of date by the end of night thoughts on the format after playing 4 drafts.

Just wanted to get very early early thoughts out there because there is basically no info outside of prerelease speculation.

  1. Format is super aggressive. You want to get on board early and often, and then get ahead and stay ahead. If you don't have a 1 or 2 drop on the draw you are DEAD!!!
  2. Removal is super premium. I have yet to find a removal spell I don't want to play. I don't care if it leaves a creature around to sacrifice or lets them sacrifice a 1/1. Removal is good. In general cheaper is better. Pinecone Strike is amazing. Crude Bent Blade is great! Uncommon removal is insane.
  3. Every color pair is good and playable except Blue/Green. Blue/Green is really bad. I would probably have Red/Black and Blue/White slightly above Green/Black and Red/White but whatever is open.
  4. If both of you are aggressive and get on board early it can lead to a board stall. At that point flying is great. [[Velvetwing Butterflies]] has been nice because it is a flyer for winning these board stalls and the tapping adventure can be a great tempo play.
  5. I think despite the format seeming like an aggro removal format there is a lot of room for synergy within the rules of the format. Dwarf and equipment synergies can really go off. Ferocious can lead to some really snowball situations. I've gotten destroyed by a hyper dedicated draw 2 deck. I don't think you should always try to be super synergistic (sometimes just plain old aggro with good cards is better), but I do think synergy is important.
  6. Kind of an extension of super aggressive format but lifegain is very nice. I've found the spatula equipment to be pretty good. Bard giving lifelink is a big deal.

So yeah let me know your thoughts or if you agree/disagree.

Edit bonus point:

  1. I’m pretty sure blue/black off color is a thing. It’s a fast format control deck which means lots of early drops and removal and then if you survive you just win.
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u/wormhole222 — 9 days ago
▲ 10 r/lrcast

Hobbit Archetype and Two-Card Combo Guide

##Quick background

There's a Magic Arena draft overlay, updated and maintained by Unrealities that runs alongside Arena and shows you live win rate data and pick suggestions while you draft. I modify it further to track two card combos and add an archetype tracker to it. To make those actually work I had to comb through the entire set card by card and catalogue which cards feed into each archetype, plus track down every two card combo I could find. Since I had already done all that legwork, I figured I would turn it into a written guide to The Hobbit's archetypes and two card combos. It is all here to read through, but if you would rather have it come up automatically while you draft, alongside 17Lands data, you can download the tool here: https://github.com/wormhole2222/MTGA_Draft_17Lands/releases

Note: 17 lands doesn't make their data public for use for 1.5-2 weeks so the 17 lands data portion will not work until then, but the archetype tracker and combo trackers will.

#Archetype Explanations

To clarify, this is mostly information based on the data I collected. Things like pointing out whether an archetype has more scarcity in payoffs or targets, and what the actual cards in each category are. I tried to make it as little subjective as possible, but some categories like good sacrifice targets did require judgement calls on my behalf. The Hobbit only has five two color archetypes so this is a shorter list than usual. Also just to let people know ahead of time. Every color pair technically has a creature type theme, but of the 5 supported pairs, only Elves and Dwarves have real payoffs. Humans, Goblins, and Woodland creatures have barely any payoffs (often just the dual lands and a rare or two), and you will have enough targets for those payoffs to be useful just by being in those colors (it's hard to be blue and white and not have a base level of humans).

###Red/White Dwarves, Equipment, Enduring Story, and Go Wide:

So this is really a combination of Dwarf and Equipment payoffs, and then Enduring Story cards. The dwarf and equipment payoffs really fit together. Often the same card is a payoff for both, or an equipment card will be a dwarf payoff card or vice versa. There is definitely a lot of support for both. Enduring Story is relatively easy to trigger as over a 3rd of the set qualifies as a saga, artifact or legendary. The Storied payoffs are usually small but meaningful for the cards that have payoffs. Overall I suspect you won't want to put too much specific effort to trigger enduring story, but it will be good to have. Also every card with Storied is a legendary so as long as they are out you only need 2 other cards to trigger Enduring Story. Between all 3 of these Red/White does seem to have a good amount of synergies and payoffs worth building toward. There is also a go wide package in white which seems pretty strong. I'm not sure how well it plays with the other red/white synergies, but there is a reasonable amount of support for it so it's worth keeping in mind.

###White/Blue Draw Two and Go Wide:

As mentioned above White/Blue humans is not really supported so don't worry about that tribal component. The theme of Blue/White is draw two, which can be done through normal blue card draw, or through the recruit mechanic which if done on your turn will draw you the 2nd card. Drawing cards and recruiting are just good even without payoffs, but if you are looking for payoffs there are only 6 though. One is at common so it's possible this could still be a synergy worth chasing at times, but overall I wouldn't expect to be building blue/white decks as a streamlined draw 2 hypersynergistic deck. It will probably be more of a you happen to draw multiple cards because you want to anyway and if that's enough to make the payoff cards good you will play them. Additionally the go wide theme that was in Red/White also exists in Blue/White. And it's possible with recruit it is even stronger here. So definitely be on the lookout for go wide being the "real" blue/white deck.

###Green/Blue Elves and Landfall:

Elves are actually supported with real payoffs, but with all of them being uncommon or rare (except the land) I don't think it will be worth it to specifically go for all/mostly elves much of the time. There are a couple rares that are really strong and hyper synergistic with elves where if opened 2 or 3 copies of those I could see going all in on Elves, but otherwise it'll probably be more of an incidental synergy. Landfall has more payoffs though, and quite a bit of support both in terms of card draw (to draw more lands), and ways to specifically get lands/put multiple lands into play. It definitely seems like if you can get multiple landfall cards in play and play multiple lands you can snowball very quickly.

###Black/Red Sacrifice:

Goblins is not a supported theme outside of rare, and while amass can be good with itself, it's not really that synergistic on it's own. However, Amass is a good way to create small creatures which are good to sacrifice. That combined with lots cheap creatures and artifacts means there will be plenty of good sacrifice cards. The sacrifice outlets (cards that allow you to sacrifice for value) are all at uncommon or rare (except 1 removal spell) so those will be premium cards if this archetype works well. I do think you will have to be prepared for red/black drafts where you don't get any sacrifice outlets and pivot either by being a more general aggro deck or finding another way to generate value over time.

###Black/Green Ferocious:

There are only 6 ferocious payoffs, but between being all at common and uncommon, and the flexibility they have (many are cheap and will count themselves if you get them to 4 power) this seems fairly supported. There is also plenty of 4 power creatures, including a 2 mana uncommon and a 3 mana common. So this archetype does seem fairly supported. I'm not sure if green/black will be good, but if it is it seems like a ferocious beatdown deck will be the way it is. Also there is a minor bear theme, but it's a subtheme within green.

##Two Card Combos:

These are the current two card combos I have found in The Hobbit. These are not just synergistic cards. I only included them if I thought the two cards really played well together and gave you a major power boost from having both, without any extra build arounds required. If you know of any others not listed here please comment.

  1. [[Mirkwood Nurturer]] + [[The Mountain-king's Return]] : The most useful combo here because it doesn't involve any rares. Ideally you have Nurturer in your hand when you play Mountain-king's Return. You discard Nurturer to the recruit in chapter 1 to give yourself a 1/1. Then in chapter two you return nurturer to the battlefield and bounce this saga which allows you to play it again for full value and makes your nurturer a 4/3. You can even save your saga for once the nurturer dies and then return it again and bounce the saga another time if you want, but even without that there is a ton of value here.

  2. [[Wizard's Staff]] + [[Smaug the Magnificent]]: Wizard's Staff makes the equipped creature's triggered abilities happen an extra time. Put it on Smaug and his upkeep now makes two Treasures, and his attack, which deals damage equal to your Treasure count to any target, fires twice. So you double both the Treasure snowball and the burst of damage, and it gets out of hand quickly.

  3. [[The Notary Hobbits]] + [[Bard, King of Dale]] or [[Roll-Roll-Roll-Roll]]: The Notary Hobbits enters and makes two non legendary copies of itself. With Bard, King of Dale, who doubles all of your token creation, that becomes four copies, and since each copy taps for a colorless mana for every Halfling you control, you get a huge pile of mana and bodies off one card. With Roll-Roll-Roll-Roll you can flicker the Notary Hobbits every chapter, making two more copies each time, for an exponentially growing Halfling army.

  4. [[Belladonna Took]] + [[Wizard's Staff]] or [[Bard, King of Dale]]: Belladonna Took escalates every turn as your tokens enter, the first token gains you life, the second draws you a card, and the third puts a +1/+1 counter on your whole board. So the first trigger isn't nearly as powerful as the 2nd. Getting two token triggers can be hard though. Wizard's Staff doubles her token triggers, so each token counts twice and you hit the big payoff much faster. Bard, King of Dale instead doubles your actual token creation, so even a single token maker feeds her two tokens a turn and turns her into a repeatable draw and pump engine.

u/wormhole222 — 9 days ago
▲ 3 r/MagicArena

Optimizing the Surveil lands in limited gameplay.

So in recent years magic sets have included this [[Unknown Shores]] variant with Surveil 1 on playing the land attached to it as a common land. Unknown Shores was considered a bad card to include most of the time, but the Surveil 1 changes everything, and now you should usually include at least 1-2 copies of this in all decks if you can in most formats. However, there are some things worth noting about gameplay involving this land that can help you. These notes are split between deckbuilding notes (mostly how to splash using this land), and gameplay notes (mostly how to surveil using this land).

##Deckbuilding Notes##

So as I said above I would usually include up to 2 of these in any deck. This includes both a 2 color streamlined deck, and a multicolor deck. When it comes to splashing these lands have a unique feature where because their splashing also causes the spell you are casting to be 1 mana more expensive they are often better at splashing cheap cards than expensive. So in particular these lands are great at splashing cheap removal. They likewise are bad at splashing expensive bombs.

Also when it comes to sources these cards are interesting because again they can tap for any mana but make the spell more expensive. In general I count these lands as .5 of a source of every color. So that means if you play 2 in a 17 land deck you still have 9/8 of your sources but with some surveil. With splashing they contribute to the splash but often you will need other ways to splash for it to be profitable. Again it depends on what you are splashing as with cheap removal I would count these as a full source of that splash mana, but with a 7 mana bomb I would basically not count this as a source at all.

##Gameplay Notes##

So the following apply to when to play this land to take advantage of the surveil most optimally. However, if you need to play this land to play a specific card of a color ignore that and just play the land. Using your mana is almost always more important than fixing your draw.

So if you have a surveil land in your opening hand/early I generally try and avoid playing it as long as possible and then using it as a wait to combat mana screw or mana flood. This mean either waiting until you don't have anymore lands and playing it as a way to potentially put in the graveyard a nonland card, or waiting until you really don't want your next draw to be a land and using the surveil to put in the graveyard any land on top.

This is much better than playing it early, because often early any card you draw is acceptable, and unlike constructed you usually don't really need specific cards to make your deck work.

So yeah I hope this helps people get just a little better in limited. I know people here talk about the high learning to get good at draft so hopefully this helps a little.

u/wormhole222 — 1 month ago
▲ 22 r/lrcast

Drafting Red/White. A surprisingly good home for Red when it's open.

So this isn't going to be some crazy post of how to redefine the format, but I think this can provide small value. So Red is a pretty bad color in MSH. Definitely the worst color. Often there can be value in learning how to draft the worst color because it's often open. Usually the best way to draft a bad color that is often open is to go hyper synergistic. Since you can consistently get the synergy pieces of the open color you go all in and the synergy boosts all the cards. This would indicate drafting Blue/Red or Black/Red because those decks have a lot of synergy. However, the best red deck in the data is White/Red.

I assumed this was just because white is such a powerful color that it was carrying red, and that is partially true. However, I think white and red are particularly well suited for each other in this set. We look at red's removal and it's a bunch of damage spells that are very flexible (can often even go face) as long as you only need to target creatures/artifacts and they aren't too big. Well white's removal is great at targeting big creatures and enchantments (Murdock's Crusade basically covers everything that red removal doesn't kill), but isn't ideal for small creatures or dealing damage. So they both cover each other's weaknesses. White has lots of great creatures you can play on curve, but isn't great at card advantage (I think that's why Hero in Training is so good). Well red has a shocking amount of card advantage in this set, but a lot of really wimpy creatures. Again they cover each other.

So yeah I think Red/White is a pretty good home for Red. Make sure red is open, but if it is you can mostly take red card advantage creatures and removal spells and pair that with just typical white midrange, and you have a pretty good deck.

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u/wormhole222 — 2 months ago
▲ 23 r/lrcast

MSH Sealed Tips

So with the Arena Directs starting tomorrow I thought maybe some people were looking for some Sealed tips. Here are some tips based on my experience playing Sealed. I've had reasonable success. Some of these tips are going to seem obvious, or apply to draft too, but I wanted to list them anyway.

###1. You NEED removal/interaction.

If your deck has 6 bombs and no removal. Guess what your deck sucks. Your removal doesn't need to be exile or kill spells but you need removal. Stuff like Trickster's Stratagem and Atlantis Attacks (we'll get to this card) totally count. You just need something because your opponents will be doing crazy stuff and you need to interact. I'd also say that unless you are really on the back foot I'd try to plan what I use removal on and not just fire it off.

###2. Don't play 2 drop creatures unless they are good late game.

You probably want to play at least a couple 2 drops, but if I only had two 2 drops that were good late game I'd probably just play those 2. Ideally they are 2 drops that fly, draw/filter your cards or provide card advantage, or kill or lock down an opposing creature/artifact/enchantment. But I've found cards like Agent of Atlas to be very mediocre because they just get outclassed quickly.

###3. Atlantis Attacks is very strong

It's strong in draft too, but I think it's even better in Sealed. You are in more board stalls in sealed than draft, and the bounce does work as removal. It's just very very strong.

###4. Splash but don't ruin your mana splashing.

Probably similar to draft, but basically if you have the fixing I'd definitely splash decent to good cards (including removal), but don't ruin your mana base because you don't think your deck is strong enough.

###5. Hyper synergistic decks don't usually come together, but there are lot of two card combos or pockets of synergy to take advantage of.

So it's pretty tough to get a true artifacts or villain deck to come together. And even if it does there are times it will exclude you playing your best bombs. But you can still look out for micro synergies. There is a long list of two card combos that you should be on the lookout for (I wrote about those here), and additionally you should be on the lookout for small pockets of synergy, because you are trying to pull every bit of power you can from your limited pool.

#6. Every color and color pair is playable.

So draft is dominated by blue/white, but Sealed you get what you get. That means playing whatever has your removal, bombs, and synergy. Don't worry about color power rankings here. I forced blue/white in my last 5 drafts. In Sealed I play whatever colors I can.

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u/wormhole222 — 2 months ago
▲ 53 r/MagicArena+1 crossposts

Marvel Superheroes Limited: Archetype and Two-Card Combo Guide (Plus an Update to the Magic Arena Draft Overlay App)

#Quick background

There's a Magic Arena draft overlay that runs alongside Arena and shows you live win rate data and pick suggestions while you draft. I created a new version that also adds a two-card-combo alerter and an archetype tracker to it. To make those actually work I had to comb through the entire set card by card and catalogue which cards feed into each archetype and catalogue out every two-card combo I could find. Since I'd already done all that legwork, I figured I'd turn it into a written guide to the set's archetypes and two-card combos. It's all here to read through, but if you'd rather have access to it automatically while you're drafting along with 17 lands data you can download the tool here: https://github.com/wormhole2222/MTGA_Draft_17Lands/releases

#Archetype Explanations:

So to clarify this will mostly be information based on the data I collected. Stuff like pointing out for the archetype if there is more of a scarcity in getting payoffs or the actual cards in that archetype. Or point out if there are payoffs in other colors besides the two advertised colors. I tried to limit the subjective advice since it's very early in the format.

Green/White Heroes: So there are a lot of heroes, but most of the great payoffs are at rare so there is definitely a potential issue of having a ton of heroes but no real reason to be so locked into heroes. Notably most of the great payoffs are white only (not green) and about half the creatures in blue and rare are also heroes (along with their multicolor white uncommons) so I definitely think it's possible to be a blue/white or red/white hero deck (which would also allow you to double up with teamwork and noncreature synergies). Additionally Avengers Tower is very interesting as a potential splash land. If the cards you are splashing are only heroes Avengers Tower can be used to splash multiple colors. I could definitely see picking up 2 Avengers Towers and being a mostly white deck "splashing" green, blue and red heroes. Overall though I think this is a deck where you need to see some payoffs before you really go all in.

Black/Red Villains: This I think is the opposite of above. There are a lot of very good payoffs at common and uncommon, but it might be difficult to play all villains. Black is mostly villains but red is split about 50/50. Overall though there are some very good payoffs including quite a few burn payoffs. This deck could end up looking somewhat similar to the Red/Black goblins deck from ECL where you grinded them out with a bunch of life drain cards. There is notably also a Villains land (Villainous Hideout) which you could use to splash in a similar way I mentioned above, but there are less villains in the other colors to splash. The one exception are the other black multicolor uncommons (Kang, Temporal Tyrant and Killmonger, Scourge of Wakanda specifically) which both fit right into a black/red grindy burn deck.

White/Black Equipment/Attack Alone: Despite officially being attack alone theme this color pair also has quite a bit of equipment and equipment payoffs too. Which works fairly well with a deck already trying to beef up 1 creature to attack. Support for this is pretty good with plenty of equipment, vigilance creatures, and ways to get value from attacking alone. However, this kind of theme often doesn't succeed and so there will be questions of how powerful a synergistic deck like this will be, and further questions on whether it will be an aggressive or controlling deck. My guess is this actually ends up being an attrition midrange/control deck that won't be afraid to splash especially some of the powerful blue cards.

Green/Black graveyard: There is a ton of support both for filling up the graveyard and for taking advantage of it. But if you are trying to turbo fill the graveyard to get 2 creatures by turn 3-4 though you need to play specific mill cards or the land cyclers. Notably if you are playing and cycling the land cyclers this makes green/black an excellent splash deck. Also while the 2 creatures in the graveyard is a big synergy there is also just quite a bit of regular old graveyard recursion cards which is a little more forgiving in how quickly you fill up the graveyard.

Green/Blue counters: Between power-up, connive, and other abilities there are a ton of ways to gain +1/+1 counters. Unfortunately there are only 11 cards in the whole set that have a payoff for putting counters on something. If you happen to get enough of these cards then the synergies might be worth building around, but most of the time I think this will be a pocket of synergy you can use, while playing blue/green tempo or soup. Separately I think Green/White can be a reasonable home for counters as well. There are some counter payoffs in white and there are also a lot of creatures that have a lot of keywords that are a good target for counters.

Green/Red Power-Up: Power-Up is a ramp and mana sink payoff in and of itself, but beyond that there are only two cards that really pay you off for powering up specifically (beyond the +1/+1 counter payoffs). Overall I think Green/Red can succeed as a stompy deck that splashes, but don't try and build around specifically powering up.

Blue/Black Draw Two and Connive: There are only 10 actual payoffs for drawing two/conniving, but notably two of them are at common, and both of these do provide inherent value and graveyard synergy. There might be some kind of hyper synergistic draw two deck with a bunch of Atlantean Cavalry, Roxxon Brutes and Construct a Cosmic Cube, but overall blue/black might just be a control deck most of the time.

Blue/Red Artifacts: So this is a weird one. There are plenty of artifacts, and artifact payoffs, but most of the red payoffs involve sacrificing artifacts, and outside of a black 1 drop creature (Project Deathlok Soldier) and maybe treasure tokens created by the Stark Industries Executive there aren't really any good artifacts to sacrifice. In the past we have had tons of artifact tokens or artifacts that draw you a card when sacrificed. There isn't much support for that though. Furthermore the blue payoffs mostly involve having a lot of artifacts in play which doesn't fit very well with sacrificing artifacts. So yeah there is support, but I don't know how the deck will work out.

Blue/White teamwork: So teamwork spells are split pretty evenly across all the colors as are creatures that tap. Blue and white do have a few strong tap abilities on creatures, and a few different ways to untap creatures. These could perhaps be combined with some teamwork spells and vehicles to create some synergy. It's possible this kind of deck can splash red for some more strong tapping creatures and cards like Hawkeye's Bow which could trigger multiple times a turn. Also this can be a home for hero synergies as well.

Red/White noncreatures: Reasonable amount of payoffs including prowess creatures at common, and some better effects at uncommon and rare. Also there are some self target payoffs for combat tricks and auras. This also bleeds into blue. So you could splash blue or perhaps do a blue/white version.

##Common Archetype bleeds:

So as mentioned above I think there are a few archetype where the payoffs and cards are really split among a bunch of colors. Here are the ones that I think most diverge into more than just the 2 colors.

  1. Heroes in White/Green/Red/Blue

  2. Counters in Green/Blue/White

  3. Artifacts in Blue/Red/Black

  4. Noncreatures in Red/White/Blue

#Two Card Combos: So as listed above these are the current two card combos I have found in the MSH set. These combos weren't just synergistic cards. I only included them if I thought the cards really played well together and gave you a major power boost from having both in your deck without any additional build arounds required. If you know of any other combos not listed here please comment, and I will update the app with them.

  1. Super Intelligence + Monica Rambeau or Atlantis Attacks or Speedball, New Warrior: Hexproof creature plus an aura that draws you a card every turn. Removes all downside of aura based ability.

  2. Ronin, Shadow Stalker + Stolen Stark Tech or Super Suit : Ronin is good with all equipment, but these equipment are pseudo combat tricks and so with Ronin's mana ability both of these equipment can be played at instant speed when you are tapped out of otherwise usable mana just by tapping Ronin.

  3. Hawkeye, Young Avenger + Avengers Disassembled or Bullseye, Death Dealer or Hawkeye's Bow or Human Torch, Johnny Storm or Photon Blast Barrage : With Avengers Disassembled Hawkeye turns it into deal 5+ to all opponents creatures, but still only 3 to yours (also making it so Hawkeye survives the damage). With Bullseye she turns his ability into deal 4+ damage. With Hawkeye's Bow she combos exceptionally well because it not only causes the bow to deal extra damage, but when equipped to her it increases her power and causes the extra damage to increase too (since it increases damage by her current power). So if you tap Hawkeye with a bow equipped the bow does 4 damage to the opponent. With 2 bows equipped she will deal 10 to the opponent, and with 3 bows she will deal 18. With Human Torch she is a hero to turn on his damage ability and with her every draw does 3+ damage to the opponent. Finally Photon Blast Barrage her ability triggers with each copy causing every copy to deal 3+ damage instead of just 1.

  4. Photon Blast Barrage + Red Hulk : Particularly nasty combo here. You have every copy of Photon Blast Barrage target Red Hulk. Each copy causes him to gain a +1/+1 counter and do an increasingly high amount of damage. So if you used barrage with x = 5 (which is one more mana than it takes to play Red Hulk) than Red Hulk becomes a 12/13 and deals 21 damage to any target (divided as 1+2+3+4+5+6).

  5. Wonder Man, Hollywood Hero + Hulk, Gamma Goliath : These naturally combo with other power up creatures. But if you play Wonder Man after Hulk you can power up Wonder Man for free twice making him essentially ETB as a 8/8 flyer for 5 mana.

  6. Captain Mar-Vell, Space-Born + Captain America, Super-Soldier or Justice, Vance Astrovik : Mar-Vell allows you to play creatures at instant speed in response to your opponents removal (because your opponents removal is a spell). Both these creatures can then be played to avoid the removal either by giving Hexproof to your creatures or returning the targeted creature to your hand.

  7. Viv Vision, Teen Synthezoid + Avengers Assemble! or Iron Man Armor or Patriot, Shield Wielder or Super-Soldier Serum or Vibranium Energy Daggers : All easier ways to make Viv Vision strong enough to activate her draw a card ability than her overpriced time sensitive Power Up.

  8. Captain America's Shield + Captain America, Wings of Freedom or The Kingpin of Crime : Both cards do very well with the +8 toughness. With Kingpin he makes it so that the shield essentially gives +8/+8 to the attacking creature. Captain America pairs even better. When equipped with the shield and attacking he gives all your other heroes +9/+9 which with even a couple other heroes should be game over.

  9. Fin Fang Foom + Avengers Disassembled or Atlantis Attacks : Fin combos with a couple other cards too, but these are the best. With Atlantis Attacks the initial copy has to target an artifact to bounce (which could be your own), but if you do the 2nd copy will be able to target anything and will create ANOTHER 6/5 hexproof kraken (assuming you used teamwork on the initial spell. Avengers Disassembled doesn't even need an artifact because there will always be targetable lands. This combo will deal 6 damage to all creatures, but Fin Fang Foom will still survive because he gains two +1/+1 counters in response to the copy.

  10. Human Torch, Johnny Storm + The Thing, Ben Grimm : Part of a larger 4 card combo, but this combo is decent too and much easier to achieve. The Thing provides the hero for Johnny Storm to trigger, and each card draw gives The Thing two +1/+1 counters.

  11. Mister Fantastic, Reed Richards + Mole Man, Moloid Master or Stark Industries Executive : Ironic that Mister Fantastic works better with these cards than the rest of the Fantastic Four. Mole Man turns every land drop into a card draw, and the card draw makes it so you have a land to play every turn. With Stark Industries Executive it creates a situation where her ability essentially becomes 1 mana tap to draw a card.

  12. Arc Reactor + Giant-Sized Flying Ant : Giant Ant can untap the Reactor upon ETB making it so the Ant essentially only costs 1 mana.

  13. Widow's Bite + Iron Fist, Living Weapon or The Serpent Society : Not only does Widow's Bite provide the self target that Iron Fist needs, but by giving Iron Fist deathtouch you turn his ability into tap kill target creature. You do need to use a different creature to activate the teamwork ability though for this to work. With Serpent Society if you target a dying creature it will cause the Society's ability to trigger.

  14. Super-Adaptoid + Hercules, Prince of Power or Take Up the Shield : Super-Adaptoid will permanently get the abilities that are temporarily granted to Hercules or whatever creature you save with Take Up the Shield. This will also work with other abilities like [[Spider-Man, To the Rescue]] and [[Stolen Stark Tech]], but keep in mind you will need to play those pre-combat for Super-Adaptoid to be able to get those abilities by attacking.

  15. Mister Hyde, Monster Within + Thunderbolts Conspiracy or The Astonishing Ant-Man or Kid Loki : With Astonishing Ant-Man when Hyde removes a counter and draws the card it instantly puts a counter on Astonishing Ant-Man. So Hyde's second ability essentially becomes draw a card. Same with Kid Loki except it also gives him hexproof. Thunderbolts Conspiracy might be the nastiest combo. You can remove the finality counter (it just says a counter not a +1/+1 counter) so it allows your villains to come back indefinitely. It also protects Hyde from non exile/aura removal because HE is also a villain.

u/wormhole222 — 2 months ago
▲ 8 r/lrcast

I added a couple features to a 17Lands overlay

I've been using the MTGA_Draft_17Lands overlay to draft for a while now and love it, but there were a couple things I wanted to add for my own use.

The big one for me was a two card combo alert. I was finding that I'd overlook otherwise mediocre cards even when they comboed with something I had already picked. I think my brain had just trained itself to filter those cards out entirely, so I'd glance past them in the pack without giving them a thought. I wanted something that would flag and show me when a combo piece was in the pack.

The other was an archetype tracker. This is a panel where I could pick a target archetype and see live counts of how many key cards (removal, fixing, build arounds, payoffs, etc.) I'd drafted toward it so I would be able to more appropriately build a good deck while drafting.

I built both, they worked really well for me, so I figured I'd put them out there in case anyone else wants to try them.

Here's my version with the added panels (Windows, macOS, Linux): https://github.com/wormhole2222/MTGA_Draft_17Lands/releases

Here's what they look like in action: Combo Panel and Archetype Panel.

All credit for the underlying tool goes to unrealities and bstaple1. I just bolted on these two panels. The whole thing is open source on GitHub, so if anyone wants to take what I added and extend it, fix it, or build on it further, you of course can, and if it matters to you, you have my blessing.

Heads up: right now both features only have data for Secrets of Strixhaven since it's the current set and I have to include all the combo pieces and decide what each archetype wants manually. I plan to update them for new sets as they release and as I play them. If there's enough interest I might also go back and add data for past sets too.

u/wormhole222 — 2 months ago
▲ 1.2k r/nba

Why has Duren been so bad especially offensively in the playoffs? He had 33/16 in a game against the Cavs at the end of February.

Like if you watch the highlights here he looks totally dominant. He's able to score in the post against Allen. He's able to face up guys. He's able to dominate on the offensive glass. He's even able to hit open cutters. What has changed so dramatically that he suddenly can't do all this in the playoffs?

u/wormhole222 — 3 months ago
▲ 69 r/nba

The Thunder are the first team since the 2019 Warriors to make the conference finals the year after winning the championship. They are only the second team since 2019 to make the conference finals at all after winning a championship.

They join the 2023 Lakers as the only other team that won a championship in this era to make the conference finals after their championship. However, they are the first team to make it in the following year. They are just two series wins from being the first team to go back to back in this new parity era.

reddit.com
u/wormhole222 — 3 months ago
▲ 20 r/MagicArena

List of good two card combos in SOS limited.

I was trying to find a good list online, and I couldn't find any. I know Alex had a good list on Limited Level Ups, but I thought I would try to make a more expansive one. I have included some I know about below, but please respond with others you have discovered

Applied Geometry with Zealous Lorecaster/Archaeomancer/Dualcaster Mage

Creatures that if you copy give you another copy of Applied Geometry. With Dualcaster Mage you actually can I think create infinite 6/6 Dualcaster Mages. The other two you just get your Applied Geometry back.

Hardened Academic / Summoned Dromedary

Since Summoned Dromedary can come back to your hand for 2 mana you can basically spend 2 mana to put a +1/+1 counter on something and give Hardened Academic lifelink. You can repeat this process as many times as you want in a turn.

Aziza, Mage Tower Captain / Hop to it

Both useful because with a copied Hop to it you still have blockers when you tap your board, but also Hop to it gives you 3 creatures to tap for the captain.

Informed Inkwright / Spiritcall Enthusiast

If you trigger Inkwright just once with Spiritcall Enthusiast out it will prepare Enthusiast at which point activate Enthusiast will trigger Inkwright which will prepare Inkwright and so on.

Cauldron of Essence / Pestbrood Sloth

When sloth dies (or is sacrificed to cauldron) it gives you two pests which can later be sacrificed to cauldron to get the sloth back and this can repeated over time for value.

Withering Curse / Potioner's Trove

Trove works with all infusion, but I think the single best use is with Withering Curse. Basically you play curse (on full control in arena) and in response to casting it, but before it resolves, you use Trove to gain 2 life which then causes curse to become a full board wipe without having to spend extra mana on another spell to gain life.

Practiced Scrollsmith / Wilt in the Heat

When you play Scrollsmith you use it's ETB on a Wilt in the Heat in your graveyard. Since that Wilt has left the graveyard this turn it's cost reduction is triggered so you can play it for 2 mana without another card leaving your graveyard this turn.

Scheming Silvertongue / Cost of Brilliance

If you put the +1/+1 counter from Brilliance onto the Silvertongue it now gains you 2 life when it deals damage and will prepare itself without additional lifegain.

Again I would love to hear other 2 card combos if you have them, so please feel free to post your own.

reddit.com
u/wormhole222 — 3 months ago
▲ 35 r/lrcast

List of good two card combos in SOS limited.

I was trying to find a good list online, and I couldn't find any. I know Alex had a good list on Limited Level Ups, but I thought I would try to make a more expansive one. I have included some I know about below, but please respond with others you have discovered

Applied Geometry with Zealous Lorecaster/Archaeomancer/Dualcaster Mage

Creatures that if you copy give you another copy of Applied Geometry. With Dualcaster Mage you actually can I think create infinite 6/6 Dualcaster Mages. The other two you just get your Applied Geometry back.

Hardened Academic / Summoned Dromedary

Since Summoned Dromedary can come back to your hand for 2 mana you can basically spend 2 mana to put a +1/+1 counter on something and give Hardened Academic lifelink. You can repeat this process as many times as you want in a turn.

Aziza, Mage Tower Captain / Hop to it

Both useful because with a copied Hop to it you still have blockers when you tap your board, but also Hop to it gives you 3 creatures to tap for the captain.

Informed Inkwright / Spiritcall Enthusiast

If you trigger Inkwright just once with Spiritcall Enthusiast out it will prepare Enthusiast at which point activate Enthusiast will trigger Inkwright which will prepare Inkwright and so on.

Cauldron of Essence / Pestbrood Sloth

When sloth dies (or is sacrificed to cauldron) it gives you two pests which can later be sacrificed to cauldron to get the sloth back and this can repeated over time for value.

Withering Curse / Potioner's Trove

Trove works with all infusion, but I think the single best use is with Withering Curse. Basically you play curse (on full control in arena) and in response to casting it, but before it resolves, you use Trove to gain 2 life which then causes curse to become a full board wipe without having to spend extra mana on another spell to gain life.

Practiced Scrollsmith / Wilt in the Heat

When you play Scrollsmith you use it's ETB on a Wilt in the Heat in your graveyard. Since that Wilt has left the graveyard this turn it's cost reduction is triggered so you can play it for 2 mana without another card leaving your graveyard this turn.

Scheming Silvertongue / Cost of Brilliance

If you put the +1/+1 counter from Brilliance onto the Silvertongue it now gains you 2 life when it deals damage and will prepare itself without additional lifegain.

Again I would love to hear other 2 card combos if you have them, so please feel free to post your own.

reddit.com
u/wormhole222 — 3 months ago
▲ 7 r/NBA_Draft

The top 4 of this past draft has been remarkably good. With Flagg looking like a future superstar, Kon looking like a star, and VJ and Harper already showing up for their teams in big playoff games. However, the top 3-4 of this upcoming draft has been hyped as all time for a while now and has been considered good enough to cause many teams to tank for. Which top 4 of the draft class do you think will end their careers as the more valuable group of players?

reddit.com
u/wormhole222 — 4 months ago
▲ 390 r/nba

I word it weirdly because both the Lakers (2020) or the Thunder (2025) would break the streak, but they are playing each other so only 1 can make the conference finals.

Cavs last won the title in 2016

Spurs last won the title in 2014

Pistons last won the title in 2004

Philly last won the title in 1983

New York last won the title in 1973

Minnesota has never won the title.

The is quite a surprise as Boston (2024) and Denver (2023) both lost in the first round when they were big favorites to win their series.

reddit.com
u/wormhole222 — 4 months ago