A thread for M20 limited play.

I’d enjoy reading Modulo’s card evaluations - if you’re up to that and have time, Mod.

Drafting archetypes neru posted in the spoilers thread:

White-Blue + Red: Flying
Blue-Black + Green: Enters the Battlefield Control
Black-Red + White: Aggro
Red-Green + Blue: Elementals
Green-White + Black: Go Wide


Archetype guide from Nizzahon:

Some notable combos and synergies:

Scholar of the Ages + Soul Salvage + Gorging Vulture or Cavalier of Thorns (saw this with vulture/scholar/salvage and it was value city - just take care not to deck yourself)

Yarok’s Wavecrasher + Gravedigger

Sanitarium Skeleton + Blood for Bones or Bloodsoaked Altar or Bone Splinters or Cavalier of Night or Rotting Regisaur or Keldon Raider or Glint-Horn Buccaneer or Tomebound Lich or Atemsis, All-Seeing or Hard Cover or Mask of Immolation (so many ways to extract value from Sanitarium Skeleton this set)

Heart-Piercer Bow on evasive creature + Fathom Fleet Cutthroat or Ogre Siegebreaker

Wolfriders Saddle + Ripscale Predator

Unchained Berserker + Goblin Smuggler

Lavakin Brawler + Goblin Smuggler

Metropolis Sprite + Ancestral Blade or Glaring Aegis or Hard Cover + Goblin Smuggler

Yoked Ox + Gauntlets of Light + Goblin Smuggler

Scuttlemutt + Noxious Grasp or Fry or Devout Decree or Aether Gust or any of the Protection From creatures.

Definitely won't have time for a full write-up this time around.
I will still post about cards that over-/underperform, maybe post a 'First Impressions' post/thread after I've done a few Sealed/Draft leagues with the set, but for a full write-up I would've needed a head start and by now be done with the majority of it.

EDIT: As a heads-up, I'm currently in my first Sealed league. This deck went 6-0 until my computer decided to crap out on me during game 7 (I was slightly behind, but the game was far from over).

1 x Spectral Sailor

1 x Negate
1 x Rabid Bite

1 x Cloudkin Seer
3 x Frost Lynx
1 x Netcaster Spider
1 x Overgrowth Elemental
1 x Risen Reef
1 x Befuddle
1 x Mu Yangling
1 x Feral Invocation

3 x Octoprophet
1 x Brightwood Tracker
1 x Bone to Ash
1 x Sleep Paralysis

2 x Boreal Elemental
1 x Silverback Shaman

1 x Howling Giant

8 x Island
7 x Forest
1 x Thornwood Falls
1 x Cryptic Caves


Some of my impressions:
-The format seems quite alow, especially the Sealed portion. It's not quite as slow as Dominaria was, but slower than M19 thanks to the RW deck being far less aggressive.
-Cloudkin Seer is one of the top 2 commons easily, the only card to compete is Murder.

Cool - an over/under list would be interesting.

My Way Too Early mentions of some cards that stood out in my limited exposure to M20 limited. These are cards that didn’t pop for me in spoiler season for various reasons, but have looked pretty strong in practice:

Squad Captain. A 2/2 vigi for 5 mana didn’t seem worth it. Thought if you’re trading off creatures T2-4, this mostly be an overcosted weenie. Early games observed board stalls where this was having no trouble landing as a 5/5 or higher (most commonly landing as a 6/6). Lot of 2 mana 1/3s to block bears, virtually no 2 mana 3/1s, and a notable number of spells that put multiple bodies in play. The smallest I saw it cast as was a 4/4, which is fine.

Metropolis Sprite. I didn’t think this would be bad - saw it as a fine playable. But it’s looked better than fine. Paired with the W or G equipments or W/G/U/R auras and it can deal a beating with extra pumps.

Scholar of the Ages. I didn’t think this would be playable at 7 mana. It was a total house in the games I observed it in. Format looks much slower than I originally was thinking. Haven’t encountered ANY pure aggro decks yet, so maybe this observation changes if one becomes a popular draft archetype.

Lavakin Brawler. I thought this would be ok, but it’s looked better than that. This card was a house in games I observed. This with the common 4 mana green elemental that gives elementals trample is a formidable combination. I’ve seen it win a lot of games early on.

Feral Invocation. 3 mana for a +2/+2 aura looked pretty bad to me. Flash to use as a combat trick is huge. UG has a number of cards to take advantage of or extract greater value out of things played at instant speed. This over-performed in games I saw it played.

Draft doesn’t seem any faster than sealed. It’s all looked way slower than I thought it’d be. Expected it to look more like M19 but I haven’t seen anyone playing pure aggro like the Boros deck from that set. The amount of boardstalls I’m seeing make green’s overrun card look like it’ll be good.

I really love Cloudkin Seer. Even in spoiler season I knew it’d be a top common.

7-1 in my first Sealed, ended up in UR Fliementals. Bag of Holding was MVP, it was sweet with Renowned Weaponsmith and Keldon Raider and made Cavalier of Flame even more gross. Only cracked it for the discarded stockpile once, but got six cards out of it. Mask of Immolation was more effective that I thought it would be, enabling attacks I wouldn’t otherwise have and making combat math tricky for Opp.

Edit: Here's the deck, didn't get around to uploading it earlier.

Ogre Siegebreaker + Heart Piercer Bow is one hell of a combo - seems close to unbeatable without removal.

I think I went 3-3 in my first Sealed run. My deck rather lacked power - I opened crappy rares or rares in colors I couldn't play. Proceeded to lose one game to Ajani and almost lost another to Vivien, although opponent got greedy and my Meteor Golem got me back into the game. Another loss was to the combo above, and the final one was to a misplay. I did open Yarok, the Desecrated but overall was not impressed with the card. The body's fine, the ability's good, but in my deck at least it's not a game-winning bomb like the planeswalkers. Wolfrider's Saddle turned out to be surprisingly good - it would enable attacks against almost any board.

Now 1-1 in another Sealed run, this time opening only 5 R/G + 1 artifact rares!! ... and then one of those rares is the unplayable green Leyline, the artifact rare is the equally unplayable Grafdigger's Cage, and among the remaining four, there's Marauding Raptor when more than half my creatures have 2 toughness, and Thunderkin Awakener with nothing to return.

Oh well. At least one of the final two rares is mythic Chandra, which is definitely a bomb.

The format is definitely less about bombs than WAR though, all of them can be beaten and there's a good amount of not great Rares.

My second Sealed went 1-3 despite having another Mu Yangling together with some other bombs, but the overall consistency wasn't there.

6-3 On the first run M20, drew Chandra one turn too late last game to make it to 7. Just got all the removal and things to smash their face.

Some early observations on colour power level on my part:

I might be biased by the fact that I haven't had a single Sealed pool where I didn't play Blue. But to me, it seems Blue is the best colour in the format due to its depth in above average commons. Cloudkin Seer is probably the second best common after Murder, Frost Lynx and Boreal Elemental are solid top 10 material, Octoprophet and Winged Words are great cards you'll probably as many of as you can get, the first Unsummon is amazing, and even its 2-drops are among the best in the format (Moat Piranhas blocks every grounded 2-drop and almost every grounded 3-drop, Metropolis Sprite can trade earlygame or pose 2 power lategame. The one 2-drop that I'd consider better is Leafkin Druid). No other colour has this much depth.

The second best colour is between Green and Black for me, and IMO Black edges out slightly; mostly by virtue of having access to Murder. There's some other quite good cards at common (Agonizing Syphon, Audacious Thief, Boneclad Necromancer, Gorging Vulture, Bone Splinters, Fathom Fleet Cutthroat). My main gripe with Black is the lack of impactful early drops; Sanitarium Skeleton and Blood Burglar are fine, but quite a step down from Blue's 2's; Sorcerer of the Fang seems rather mediocre.

I've pegged down Green as the third best colour; and in a format where ruling the skies means ruling the board this may seem puzzling. However, Green has all the tools it needs to deal with opposing fliers in Rabid Bite as well as two reasonably sized Reach creatures at common in Netcaster Spider (trading for Boreal Elemental is huge) and Mammoth Spider. If all of this (and the Reach creatures at Uncommon/Mythic) fails, there's still Plummet, too.
Thanks to this and the fact that Green creatures are fairly beefy by nature, Green is probably the best defensive colour in the set; and thanks to the likes of Silverback Shaman and Brightwood Tracker it can keep up the card advantage game.
Its biggest problem is turning on the offense since it has to slug through a probably fairly clogged board; if a different colour can take these duties Green is amazing.

Red and White are the worst colours. Red is mostly a worse Black, with quite a bit of solid removal and some ways to go late; but with very few fliers and not as good of a defensive stance. White wants to go wide, but the small creatures get blanked by about every blocker. Also both of these colours, despite wanting to be aggressive, have too few good 2-drops to do so.

I'm really liking Audacious Thief followed up by a Fathom Fleet Cutthroat when it finally gets blocked.

I've also been happy with Pattern Matcher. There are a lot of good common creatures, and a good portion of those have ETB triggers in this set. You should be able to get multiples of a couple of different key commons. Also, if you have one they add value to those Golems Matter cards that are pop up every once in a while. Plus, I own a "widdle bunnie" now so I like the art and flavor text.

There seems to be more card draw in this set than in War. Especially card draw attached to creatures.

Looking forward to draft going live. Hard to gauge how much faster it will be from sealed having only seen a few runs from streamer early access day. Right now the set looks really slow - nobody having trouble playing out their 7+ drops.

Bag of Holding is insane. Goes in any deck and generates a ton of value. I’d p1p1 it without a second thought.

@sixty4half - yeah, does seem to be a lot of draw. Thief at common is better at what silent sub wanted to do at rare. Cloudkin Seer a better Blade Juggler. Brightwood Tracker a better Vivian’s Grizzly. Spectral Sailor is a must-kill-ASAP 1-drop, especially with Bone to Ash in the set. Then factor in all the spells with loot and rummage effects and you can really burn though your deck. During spoiler season I thought the 5-mana GB enchantment that draws when your creatures die wouldn’t be very good because of how late it comes down. Now I think it’s biggest problem is decking yourself - which I’ve seen happen like 1/2 the times I’ve seen it played

I thought it was live. I'm waiting to finish up my WAR draft before I start one though.

I should watch some vids and see what other people are doing.

What's the max number of Faerie Miscreants people are willing to draft? 3, 4, 5? Is 5 to many?

Also, don't discount Destructive Digger for card draw. If games are going really long, then you'll probably have lands you don't need and it's a nice body for a 3-drop

Just going through the commons and uncommons it seems the creatures are slightly smaller than they were in WAR. Besides Vorstclaw there's nothing bigger than 5/5 (frilled serpent at 4/6). I think Frilled is worse than Ashiok's skulker due to the cost of the ability. White and Black have creatures that can get bigger in Vengeful warchief (at uncommon) and Squad Captain. Due the lower size of creatures (and slow pace of games) I think Squad Captain can be quite good as a 5 drop. Maybe extremely good. I had him in sealed and he performed as a 6/6 a few times. 4/4 often when I was behind. In draft I feel he'd be better because you'd be picking up more Go Wide cards.

Have any of you played with Dragon Mage yet? I didn't get him in sealed but I have him in my first draft deck. I passed on the second one I saw due to having Scholar of Ages already and three 7-drops seems excessive. But maybe I should have taken it.
My thoughts on him are, if you're attacking, then you must be ahead and drawing with (possibly) 7 untapped lands (maybe 3 or 4 if you had to play removal to clear the way). If you're not ahead, then at least he's a 5/5 flying blocker, and since everything but 2 creatures at common and uncommon dies to him in combat, that's a good thing. Maybe he belongs in a deck with counterspells (there are a lot of common ones) so that he can protect the next turn?

Here's my first draft deck (currently 2-0):

1 x Faerie Miscreant
1 x Spectral Sailor
1 x Infuriate
1 x Negate
1 x Renowned Weaponsmith
1 x Heart-Piercer Bow
1 x Prismite
1 x Cloudkin Seer
1 x Frost Lynx
1 x Winged Words
1 x Feral Invocation
1 x Octoprophet
1 x Sleep Paralasis
2 x Chandra's Outrage
1 x Lavakin Brawler
1 x Thicket Crasher
1 x Wolfrider's Saddle
1 x Boreal Elemental
1 x Fire Elemental
1 x Reduce to Ashes
1 x Scholar of the Ages
1 x Dragon Mage
7 x Island
6 x Mountain
3 x Forest
1 x Evolving Wilds

Hearing some people saying 0 is the correct number of Miscreants; 1 mana 1/1s don’t do enough in limited and they’re a trap. I can see the reasoning, but don’t think they’re the same trap level as the lifelink cats from WAR or the 1/3 mill doods from Ravnica. Evasion alone makes them less a trap. I think they’re worth drafting if you have flying payoffs or other ways to make them more useful. The set has a lord for flyers, a +2/0 equipment, some team pump effects, a couple auras that don’t scream 2-for-1 (the flash aura and the one that gives a wolf token), and some spells that want sac fodder. But I think if you are targeting Miscreants, you want as many as you can get.

I agree about Digger. If draft is a slow as it looked during the streamer event, you should be able to make it a late game draw engine.

Re: Dragon Mage - I haven’t liked it due to the symmetrical draw 7 and considered it unplayable, never wanting to give my opponent a fresh grip. However, I saw a couple streams where people ran it in draft or sealed and it preformed better than I would have thought. Feel like it’s a card you want to run as top end with an otherwise low curve - make it so it’s either dealing lethal when it attacks or drawing you a fresh 7 while cycling cards in opps hand. 5/5 body does rule the skys in this set.

I don't think 0 is right. a 1/1 flyer is always useful especially as you said, some nice equipment in this set. An axe at common everyone can get 1 of, and two uncommon equipments that bring tokens into play. Even at 1, as I got in my draft, I don't feel bad playing him.

So I've just drafted a deck that went 0-2. It had Mu Yangling, Vivienne, Drakuseth, Rapacious Dragon, 2 Risen Reefs and a slew of elementals from 1-4cmc to support the whole thing. First match I get 11 lands (and Gift of Paradise!!) in the first 17 cards. We were even the first 4 turns, that's when the land flood started and I never played anything relevant for the rest of the game. Second game of Match 1 I get 3 lands, 2 creatures out, and then proceed to draw every expensive card in the deck until I die.

2nd match he drops Skyknight Vanguard T2 and I never get a flyer or removal to deal with it. 2nd game's looking okay, until he drops the Shifting Ceratops and proceeds to counter every removal I throw at it and I never see one of my larger creatures. I was able to shock the Vanguard second game... :shrug:

Draft is a bit faster and lower on the power level than Sealed, as it usually is.

I personally don't like Miscreant. There's very few decks that would want to play Suntail Hawk, and the number of Miscreants you'd have to play to be more than that exceeds the number of Suntail Hawks you'd want even in those decks. Plus, this format has quite a lot of bigger fliers and reach creatures that they're blanked fairly easily.

The one deck I think they're okay in is UW fliers with a lot of team pump (Empyrean Eagle, Inspiring Captain, Inspired Charge) and maybe a piece of equipment or two (that deck also has access to Griffin Protector which may like multiple creatures entering in a turn). Even then I wouldn't play them unless I have access to 4+ copies and am certainly not taking them early in a draft.


For the record, my first draft went 4-2 after my mediocre Orzhov deck somehow managed to 4-0 the first four opponents.
My second draft is at 1-1, the deck is a probably even worse Rakdos deck that's short on playables (as in I'm running 3 Prismites. My colours weren't open, but they were the only colours I saw even decent cards in at all).

That seems about right to me

Me too. I guess I should have been more specific. In a flying deck, UR or UW, how many miscreants do we want. I think 4 is best. 3 and 5 should also be fine.



Yes, I'm seeing these games end much quicker. I haven't seen any 3 colored decks except the one I ran Draft #1. My 2 color elemental deck runs much smoother. This set also seems to be much more of a pauper draft. There's a few combinations of commons that can just straight win the game. I know it's uncommon, but this makes me feel even stronger about Pattern Matcher.