As shards is the flashback draft this week on MTGO and also one of the community drafts I thought I would add my thoughts on this. This is not, in any way, to say that I am an expert in this format but it is probably my strongest limited set (perhaps equal with TPF).

As I mentioned in the community draft, I think the best decks are 5 colours, normally with a focus on 2 or perhaps 3 colours with a couple of splashes. Mana fixing should be taken early but there is plenty of it. You probably will only run 15 lands in your final deck because of all the fixing.

I did an online draft earlier and went 2-1 (and was annoyed that I lost which was mainly down to drawing 8 land in a row (not an exaggeration) in a 15 land deck in the final round). My deck was base splashing the other 3 colours predominately for a Fleshformer. I made a stupid pick early on expecting a Fusion Elemental to wheel but it didn't. The guy who beat me (and won the tournament) was also 5 colour. My other two opponents were both jund.

Here were my observations/recollections which may be useful if anyone is drafting but may, of course, not be:
Necrogensis is a bomb uncommon. With the amount of unearth in the set this card is immense
Cycling cannot be countered - I completely forget this when running into a guy I knew had Resounding Silence with a counter in hand and lost my two best creatures.
There is so much fixing. I ended up with one tri-land (Arcane Sanctum, 2 Panorama, 2 Borderposts and 3 Land Cyclers)
Anything with protection from any colour is an auto-include. Chances are your opponents will play that colour
Similarly artifact and enchantment hate (at least up to 2 spells) can be included.

Anyway just my thoughts. At the time of writing I have just submitted my deck for the next draft and, yes, it has 5 colours (although the moutain is only for Stun Sniper

As a quick addendum having just finished my second draft - Behemoth Sledge may just be the strongest limited card in the set. If you get it, pick it, play it and win

But, but the community draft simulation just passed a necrogenesis. (:

Yah, all those different colours makes Shards pretty hard to draft.

The secret to any limited format is drafting the deck that nobody else wants. If everyone is going 5cc, try going for something else, like an aggressive naya deck.

Just play Esper or Jund, get the removals, win the games. The fixing in Alara block is actually pretty bad for a gold set, especially one where the final set is litterally all goooooooold

Or you can draft one of the other shards, but they just aren't as good. Like, Bant is just borderline bad.

Shards is actually one of the easiest sets to draft as long as you follow very simple rules:

1 - is there a bomb? If so take it
2 - is there fixing, if so take it unless you already have 5+ fixing. The point here is that Reborn is the strongest pack so you want your fixing early so you don't have to pick it up later
3 - bearing in mind usual rules about curve and creature count take the best card but ignore all colour issues.

Follow those 3 rules and generally you will win a shards draft.

I had a suspicion that this draft format was terrible before I played it; then I played it an it was reinforced. This is a draft set of it not mattering of what you cast but rather just making sure you can actually cast the three color abomination of spells that you will be forced to play. There is no point drafting aggressive decks because your opponent will play a brick wall every game that blanks your board and the lack of removal won't let you break through. I'm glad I wasn't playing when this was around because this is a nonsense draft format.

Yeah, it wasn't that bad when it was only Shards and Conflux, and Triple Shards isn't bad, but god is full block miserable

You know, I just think that I simply dislike drafting full blocks. I preferred mirrodon besieged draft, too.

I could see the triple format being good, actually. Lots of 2-for-1 creatures and value guys makes for an interesting format with underpowered removal. Rewards players who are good at combat and crafting a game state.

With respect I disagree. This is a great format to draft because you need to have different considerations to a normal draft. In Shards, mana fixing ranks alongside removal in terms of power level and pick choice.

Also, I disagree that aggro decks don't work. A base naya or esper deck with 14+ 2 mana creatures will generally overrun anything other than a great 5 colour defensive deck.

Yeah, that's why it's a bad format. There is no removal when all of the creatures are two for ones, and no mana fixing when you're forced to play three colors.

I've watched quiet a bit of the format being played, and basically your draft has to be perfect to be an aggro deck. I'm not sure what your experiences of the format are but it doesn't seem reasonable.

Are you sure you are talking about shards?

In Shards there are tri lands, panarmas and obelisks
In Conflux there are landcyclers in every colour
In Reborn there are specific land cyclers for every land and borderposts for 5 pairs.

On top of this there are other miscellaneous fixers such as Sphere, Exploding Borders etc.

Basically there is more fixing than there is in any other type of card in the set!

The thing is, there's also the meta aspect. Maybe slow decks are better, but the format becomes inbred. People start tuning their decks for slower matchups, the good slow-deck cards become overdrafted, and the good fast-deck cards go later, which can give aggro decks an edge, even in a format where they aren't favored. It's like Ravnica, where you took down a draft with coalhauler swine and utvara scalper.

Let's put it this way:

Dragon's Maze had a mana fixing card IN EVERY PACK, along with a cycle of 10 common mana fixing cards, along with oodles of other fixing. And that was for a set that was focusing on playing TWO colors. AND EVEN STILL there were times you couldn't get the fixing you needed.

Compare the fixing in RTR block to SHA block.

So in my most recent draft my first three picks were:
Agony Warp
Bant Charm
Resounding Thunder
so I had drafted all 3 colours in my first three picks

By the end of pack 1 I had exactly one creature Rhox War Monk(foil)

My first pick in pack 2 was Conflux

By the end of the draft I had the following fixing:
Jungle Shrine
Naya Panorama
Obelisk of Jund
3 Borderposts
5 Land cyclers

That's 11 fixers.

If you need fixing in RTR block draft, you're drafting the wrong deck.

I'm with Jman here. Ravnica had tons of fixing and you'd still lose for mana problems. Cato, your argument is a strawman, stop it.

Just because there are common mana fixers in shards doesn't mean you instantly have great mana. Just because you took a million mana fixing spells doesn't mean your deck is good. All fixing no gas is a loss. All gas can't cast spells, you lose.

The argument of "the challenge of the format is that you have to draft backwards based on the fundamentals of drafting" does not mean it's a good format. ex: Theros.

There is no "meta" aspect to Shards draft because you just draft good stuff and all of the four drops block the two drops into oblivion and you can't do anything about it because the removal is sparse and there are no density of combat tricks to push through.

Looking at a format with rose tinted glasses isn't good for overall outlook. I loved playing Mirrodin standard but I can objectively tell that it hurt Magic. Enjoying Shards limited is different than it being a good draft format, which it isn't. Being forced into 3+ color decks in which it's all good stuff isn't a quality format. You want aggro and control to exist in a limited format. This is a reason why RGD is not a good format. You drafted signets and karoos then ramped and fixed into giant spells and it didn't really matter which ones you cast because they were all powerful.

All I can say with any certainty is that triple Reborn is a pretty terrible format.

lol I did Triple Reborn once. You literally just draft ever single card that says "Cascade" on it, and then play a bunch of random lands.

Eventually, you get to cast one spell, and get two to five into play off it.