Hey folks! Check out this article on Channel Fireball: http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/legacy-weapon-breaking-theros-draft/

Caleb Durward looks at the "heroic" archetype for Theros draft - comparing it to a Limited "combo" deck. I think this is what people are looking for when they think heroic. If you're drafting Theros tomorrow, either online or at FNM, keep this in mind!

Basically, the deck is White or Red Weenie + "other colour". Drop the 1 or 2 cost heroic dudes, and takes upwards of TWELVE buffs - preferably Ordeals or Cantrips. I almost couldn't believe TWELVE, but Caleb says that the trick is aggressively mulliganing to hit your combo. Then deal crazy damage before they have any blockers and swing for the last points with either large early creatures (thanks to Heroic), numbers (thanks to Akroan Crusader), or fliers/burn.

He does point at a few other archetypes similar to what we were thinking, and we'll have to wait to see how the format develops, but this is the early draft deck to grab or have a plan against.

Mrphysics called this like a day after set release. Props to him.

I had what I thought was a pretty boss G/W heroic deck with ~7 enablers last night. This just wasn't enough to consistently do anything heroic. Because I was taking the "guys who were OK even if you didn't trigger them" they were all pretty high cost 3-5.

I will give a full report tonight.

Looking highly forward to it!

I drafted last night. I got there with the intention of forcing this to see if it's as good as he said, but my opening pack was a mistcutter hydra with nothing good for the heroic deck. I figured I could still go wg or rg heroic, but the next two packs didn't have anything for the heroic deck either. Initially, I wanted to try something like UGb dredge (commune with the gods, mnemonic wall and Pharika's Mender) for the kicks, but that didn't pan out either because I didn't get a single commune... I ended up drafting a ug tempo deck with 2 horizon chimera (I love those guys). It would be hard to say I'm unhappy about being unable to force the deck I planned, because I ended up going 3-0.

The highlight was when I was playing against a guy that was rw heroic. He's on the play, drops a plains. I drop a forest. He drops a mountain and plays satyr rambler. I play an island, drop sylvan caryatid. He plays a plains, swings, I let it through because blocking without a trick is suicide in this damned format. He drops a fabled hero post combat. I play a forest, pass. He swings with both, I let it through, he plays titan's strength on the fabled hero, "take 14?". I look at my hand, thank the Gods of Rome and Theros for that turn two caryatid and show a griptide. I was then able to stabilize and win that a few turns later. Frankly, it was a misplay on his part. He was greedy to use titan strength while I had so much mana open, but that was still an amazing feeling.

Wow! Fabled hero into Titan's Strength. Aside from the R/W guy, how fast were you finding the decks? Also, you say "damned combat tricks" - is it really that many, and did you survive it by being like or unlike them?

Seriously, blocking is the worst idea ever in this format, unless you have tricks of your own. They are everywhere. I had a few of my own, triton tactics, the flash +2/+2 aura and savage surge off the top of my head (as well as voyage's end and griptide which aren't exactly combat tricks, but could save me from bad blocks), but mainly I just rarely blocked. The guy I met in the final had a strategy where he'd often triple or quadruple block so that even if there's a trick to kill the first guy, the other 2-3 would do the job (obviously, you have to be intelligent here and not set yourself for a trick that wipes your board). It's also about knowing what the possible tricks given the mana they might have, but since there are several tricks at 1 and 2 mana in every single color, chances are, they have the mana for a trick when attacking.

This was the 2nd draft at my local store and many didn't go to the first one because it was on a friday at 3pm. Obviously, some people drafted their own boxes and stuff, but for many (including me), it was a first Theros draft. As such, I don't know how representative of the format this experience was. That said, my first two matches were done in a few minutes.

Match 1, I mulled to 4, he played agent of fate with a bunch of auras and tricks in hands, so it was done after 6 turns or so. Game 2 I went all in flyers on him and won turn 6 or 7. Game 3 was also done around turn 7 and I could have killed him faster, but I played it safe, always keeping mana for tricks and annul during his turn instead of dropping all my dudes (turns out I didn't have anything to fear, but I couldn't know that).

Match 2 is against the RW guy. Game one, I griptide on his turn 4, on my turn 4, I dropped the 3/4 flyer, then master of waves turn 5, then horizon chimera turn 6 and won turn 7. Game 2 was also over by turn 6 or 7 (he stumbled a bit on mana, missing his second white).

Match 3 on the other hand was a mirror match and there was a lot of back and forth. My flyers couldn't win as fast as usual because he had a bunch of his own and often we each had the 3/4 chimera staring at each other. Game 1 I ended up winning thanks to wavecrash triton taking care of blockers, game 2 probably last the longest, with the skies completely clogged, but I lost to that hexproof giant bestowed by the blue emissary (ewww!). I made the mistake of attacking with a bestowed scorpion and he traded with one of his dude. The turn after that he dropped the giant and without my scorpion, I had no answers. Game 3 I got some damage through early, the board then stalled a bit, but I dropped a master of waves that made 4 elementals. Despite him having 2 or 3 time to feed in his deck and not having played any that particular game, the master survived and the waves overwhelmed him.

Overall, the format looks really fast. Again, blocking is really bad in this format, so getting damage through is easy. If you're playing against heroic, it's even worse. You can't say "well, at least I traded my dude for his trick", because it doesn't end there, heroic made it so he got added value out of his trick. I saw someone go turn 2 the heroic guy for ww that pumps everyone, turn 3 the heroic flyer, turn 4 the cycling aura in black on the ww guy (swing for 6), turn 5 +1/+1 to both guys, swing for 11 lifelink.

People were saying this was the slowest format since RoE during spoiler season, but in truth, it's much closer to Gatecrash speed. A little slower, but still, there's a lot of potential for blazing fast starts.

Not to hold the same conversation in two threads, but this was basically my deck last night. Tricks and heroics and speed. I don't see a deck doing well in this format without 4 2-drops and some way to handle evasive flyers. This set is slightly faster than Ravnica, has more combat tricks than Ravnica, and curves that aspire to mirror Gatecrash. Basically it's a kick in the seat of the pants after M14's lethargic season.

I got blown out by double blocking into a dauntless. But I thought i had to kill his 4/4 lifelink hopeful+emissary.

I think I agree that blocking with no response in hand is very bad... But as this gets more widely known it will get easier to bluff with a fistful of land.

I wonder if drafting this format will convince my kid to not summon dudes in main phase 1.

Cool article but honestly my gut is telling me this feels like that one deck in early GRC, the all 1- 2- and 3-drops GR aggro deck that used forced adaptation and bloodrush and such. It never really got to be too important of a deck. Too gimmicky, too susceptible to 2-for-1's, too easily shut down by opponent's quality creatures.

Despite my best efforts to go some other way, I ended up in red/white heroic at FNM draft tonight. Crushed my enemies, saw them driven before me, heard the lamentation of their women and all that jazz, so I really can't complain. I'll probably post my list (pool and final deck) tomorrow, but for now, the recount of matches.

Match 1 I was against green, and both games just steamrolled over his early creatures, never letting him reach his endgame. I don't even really know what he was trying to do, but fast aggro won two quick scoops.

Match 2 was against blue/black. Game 1 went to me in a way completely unrelated to heroic: Shipbreaker Kraken versus Colossus of Akros, Colossus monsterous with untapped on my side, shipbreaker able to go monster on his, and Gods Willing in my hand to give the Colossus pro blue in response. Game 2 I got mana flooded and did basically nothing. Game 3, I got big creatures, did a lot of killing with combat tricks, and achieved aggro win

Match 3 was tough, My opponent was blue with a splash of red that I never saw other than the mountains. Heavy control, he had a lot of bounce, scry, and some fliers to harass me with. Game 1 went to me pretty easily all things considered: he fought back, but was on the back foot and sacrificing creatures (whether he meant to or not, lolcombattricks) from the early game on, culminating in me getting a big firebreathing first-striker unanswered. Game 2, I got stuck on 2 lands and died real fast. Game 3 was intense: it started out a lot like game 2 for me, except for the part where those two lands instead of doing squat, did Akroan Crusader with Ordeal of Heliod, which successfully cracked for 10 life. As I puttered about with my little soldiers, my opponent assembled a hell of a voltron: Wavecrash Triton enchanted with Thassa's Emissary and Nimbus Naiad. Clocked me with it twice before I finally topdecked the 4th land for Divine Verdict. Even then, he bounced his own Triton and replayed it, though the combo was now in pieces. After that, it started to slide towards game 1's pattern: I'd attack (if he didn't tap me down), he'd bleed a little life or lose a creature blocking, and if I didn't have to play a combat trick, I'd throw more gas on the board. I was behind for a LONG time when it came to board position (though thanks to the cracked ordeal, I was never behind on life, having 13 when I more or less stabilized), but eventually he ran out of tricks while I kept up the drops and bestows, and the chump blocks began, taking him from an awesome board with 5 power in the air only staved off by the threat of my Wingsteed Rider (His nimbus naiad and a Prescient Chimera), two Wavecrashes, the Emissary, and some other petty critters, to nothing left staring down the massive crusader, even bigger wingsteed rider, buffed Two-headed cerberus, pair of hopeful eidolons and trio of tokens that I had assembled while he had lost all that ground.

As I said before, It's a bit late tonight, and sorting and autocarding my pool/deck would take a while, but I can tell you I hit the magic number: Counting creatures with Bestow (some of which are more appropriate to count than others: I never bestowed Heliod's Emissary), I had a total of 13 cards in my deck that could get me Heroic triggers.

In my opinion, the Bestow cards were really key: combat tricks and enchantment cantrips are nice, but Chosen By Heliod doesn't win games the way Observant Alseid does, and if you're short on mana or bodies, you can just cast your bestow creature and start to turn IT into the amazing Voltron.

I think that's the key to Heroic, and possibly Theros limited in general: having a BETTER creature is the superior position to having MORE creatures. It's sort of eldrazi-ish, where you want to have your massive unstoppable thing before the other guy does (or kill his, of course), except your unstoppable thing doesn't come prefab: you either have to monster it up or build it from spare parts. This is also why I really prefer the white heroes (that get counters) to Akroan Crusader and his tokens: those tokens mattered in a grand total of one game, and even then I'm not sure I wouldn't have been better served by having one 3/3 over three 1/1s. You look at a board and you see gods, monsters, and chaff.

Now, the deck that did so well

MAIN DECK (41)

Land (18)
10x Plains
8x Mountain

Creatures (14)
2x Hopeful Eidolon
1x Observant Alseid
1x Wingsteed Rider
1x Heliod's Emissary
3x Akroan Crusader
2x Spearpoint Oread
1x Two-Headed Cerberus
1x Titan of Eternal Fire
1x Anax and Cymede (foil)
1x Colossus of Akros

Other Spells (9)
1x Gods Willing
2x Chosen by Heliod
1x Ordeal of Heliod
2x Divine Verdict
1x Coordinated Assault
1x Dragon Mantle
1x Titan's Strength

Sideboard

White (5)
1x Decorated Griffin
1x Ephara's Warden
1x Ray of Dissolution
1x Scholar of Athreos
1x Setessan Battle Priest

Blue (0)
Nothing

Black (3)
1x Erebos's Emissary (P1P1)
1x Insatiable Harpy
1x Loathsome Catoblepas

Red (7)
1x Flamespeaker Adept
1x Minotaur Skullcleaver
1x Priest of Iroas
1x Rageblood Shaman
3x Spark Jolt

Green (1)
1x Anthousa, Setessan Hero

Other (3)
1x Flamecast Wheel
1x Traveler's Amulet
1x Witches' Eye