So I have not played THAT much but I tend to do better with more A-B-C formats; some of the subtleties of making a great synergistic deck are still lost on me. For example, in SOIx3 I would usually end up in some kind of "sweet" clunky clue or delirium deck and would lose due to lack of win cons.

I had considered EMN being more of a shift back to a more typical meat-and-potatoes format. Then I read Ben Stark (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles ... aft-guide/) and listen to LR and they all hate 2 drops (because they are crushed by all the 2/3s) and thing UG emerge is the cat's pajamas.

And the deck surely does work. Today Frank Karsten's Pick Order (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles ... oon-draft/) comes out and low and behold... the best deck is RW? UR has a 40% win/rate? This is ... pretty much exactly what MY (limited) experiences were.

Now obviously you can't learn a format by just hangin on pros, but I always find it interesting to see what they think, but this is a pretty wide split in opinion.

I noticed that too.

One thing to remember is that Frank's data comes from his team intensive draft testing before the pro tour. It's a closed circle, and that may influence the results. I remember other pros commenting on earlier editions of Frank's pick order that they read the format quite differently. Funny thing is, they all do well at tournaments. Probably something to do with play skill

And Ben is not actively contradicting Frank. He says that, if you are the only RW drafter at the table, you can get a great aggro deck. What he does say is that RW can only support one drafter at a table, while both UR and UG can support two.

For me, the biggest eye-opener was Ben's color ranking, with black falling so far behind. Now that I read it, I can see it too; before I was dazzled by the removal. I was off blue because of sealed; now I understand why everybody and his uncle are trying to force it in draft. And he is totally down on GW. Another thing I can only agree on now, but would take me a long time to find out by myself.

Overall, I liked Ben's article and reasoning a lot more than Frank's article. But Frank says up front what he's writing about, and how he got the data. It's up to you to decide how to use the data.

It's all about what you can expect to see. Bears are not good enough for aggro; Brazen Wolves certainly are. There is also a great article on CFB about drafting red aggro in this set.

Pretty sure Ben's article is also the result of pro tour testing closed loop - if you listen to last weeks Limited Resources, LSV mentions it.

Black/Red is quite strong, but bunches of black cards simply just don't go in that deck.

Yes, that's probably true. But Ben's article is more reasoned, not so tied to specific cards, and I can mostly agree with what he says (based on my extensive (sort of (that is, five drafts) ) experience with the format). Strange thing is, I also agree with Frank that Rw aggro can be very good

I think every color combination can provide a strong deck; some just need to be more open than others to succeed.

I had best success with U/R spells if you get Thermo-dude but usually needs a bomb rare or uncommon to win games

and
G/R Wolves, you don't need any bomb opened rares, and you get plenty of toys still from SOI, your Waxing moons should wheel and it provides great early game aggro and honestly more mana syncs than a limited deck really needs.

I think U/G Emerge is great but it's hard to get the eldrazi, you can usually find the cultist and Maniac's you need but those gryffs go early and fit in other decks as well, If you lucky to get 1-2 Gryff's a Foul Emissary and a good uncommon Emerge eldrazi, maybe even found a late pick 2 Clear shot then you may have the best deck at the table. I think it's the best deck when your able to actually get the cards you need.

The more I think about this format, I think its hard to figure out because they jacked up the archetypes. Most of the key cards of an archetype are good in literally any deck, which makes it very hard to get a solid archetype deck. I think this means the format is all about tempo and mana efficiency...which just so happens to be what blue and red do better than other colors.