UPDATED WITH CARD IMAGE LINKS

"Predicting things is hard, especially about the future" - Niels Bohr (possibly apocryphally)

== Executive Summary ==

This is not a card-by-card rating, but rather an attempt to holistically look at OGW in the context of the set we have just drafted (BFZ). Overall, I think that the following has occurred (although of course, one really has to play the set a bit to know this for sure):

1) Overall power level of creatures (at common) is slightly lower
2) Removal is strong
3) Synergy is less important
4) The set may better tolerate more aggressive strategies, and well as more pure control strategies.
5) The fixing is much better, I think it will be pretty easy to splash a third color (although that includes “Colorless”)
6) I think green is at least average now

Note: 3), 4), 5) and 6) are all things one could predict “bind”, just by regression to the the mean of recent sets.

Red in particular seems to be weaker than BFZ, while green may be stronger. Blue looks like it will remain quite strong. U and B I think are about the same, but their is pretty sweet.

I do think that it’s possible that the BFZ cards opened will strongly affect the draft (or your sealed pool) — especially in U or R — there seem to be very few OGW commons on the power level of Clutch of Currents, Eldrazi Skyspawner, Outnumber, Touch of the Void. The best W and B commons are removal spells in both sets so I don’t think that will be a big effect. Green is of course going to be closely watched,

In short, the set feels a bit like Dragons of Tarkir, in terms of a generally mid-rangey draft experience.

The wild card in all this is the 6th color, cards that require colorless mana to be cast or to activate abilities, and the availability of colorless sources. This is (obviously) the “cool” part of the set, and it’s quite unique (I never played with snow mana, which might be closest) so I can’t really say how it will affect the rest this evaluation as a whole.

Notes:
* The “best 5 commons from BFZ” are taken directly (without permission) from LSV’s set “redoes” on CFB, indexed here: http://www.channelfireball.com/tag/lsvs-set-review/
* The assumptions on the number of commons from OGW and BFZ in a typical draft are taken from MTGS’s scottjhebert: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the- ... comment=19

== White ==

Most creatures are allies. Isolation Zone at common! Searing light seems good against BFZ walls and pseudo-walls (one of the reasons I suspect aggro strategies are better supported)

Wall of Resurgence seems insane value. It’s basically a free 0/6, although it’s so cheap that you might need the land for mana (pretty broken with Embodiment of Insight). Also synergy with awaken.


=== Comparison with BFZ’s best commons ===
5. Ghostly Sentinel
4. Sheer Drop
3. Courier Griffin
2. Smite the Monstrous
1. Gideon's Reproach

I think Isolation Zone is better than all of these, but not sure if Expedition Raptor beats Courier griffin.

=== Bombs ===
* Linvala, the Preserver obviously.
* Eldrazi Displacer looks like total bomb to trigger repeated supports or rally, plus [s]can dodge[/s] EDIT: saves other creatures from removal. (thanks to lr subreddit for this catch)

== Blue ==
There are 6 devoid commons and 6 true blue commons

===True blue cards===
Again, Cyclone Sire (“pseudo awaken 3 on die trigger”) is extremely strong, it’s already a fine 3/4 flier for 5.

Bounce spell (Sweep Away) seems good. Boy, can you imagine on an attacking land? Also supported guys. Unity of purpose seems too expensive for a vanilla trick, but it is the same cost as Comparative Analysis.

Comparative Analysis would have been borderline busted in 3xBFZ as there were no good draw spells. Negate, too would have been very welcome. However, if the format is faster, these are going to be as good as they usually are.


===Blue Devoid cards===
Prophet of Distortion doesn’t do anything — except draw you 1 (maybe 2!) cards/turn late game. That’s going to be busted in a board stall.

===Comparison with BFZ’s best commons====
5. Tightening Coils
4. Mist Intruder
3. Clutch of Currents
2. Benthic Infiltrator
1. Eldrazi Skyspawner

The big entry is Containment Membrane which is just way better than Coils,
Mist Intruder seems terrible now. Clutch is probably still better than Sweep Away. Jwar Isle Avenger seems just “fine” (outside of 2HG), but I think worse than Skyspawner. Maybe on par with Infiltrator?


===Bombs===
* Deepfathom Skulker looks very hard to beat with fliers.
* Crush of Tentacles ought to be really good but it’s going to be hard to surge. Still it’s blue Planar Outburst, you should be able to win with it.

== Black ==
Unlike blue, the non commons are mostly devoid (commons are 6:5). 2 solid removal spells at common, and 2 at uncommon (including Visions of Brutality). White also has 3 removal spells although they are more conditional. Esper control? No real wrath though beyond the uncommon -2/-2 Flaying Tendrils.

===True Black Cards===
There are 3 allies (1 at uncommon) plus a bad aura and an interesting graveyard enabler (corpse churn)
Null Caller looks to be a solid build-around uncommon, and Malkir Soothsayer looks really, really good — maybe not quite Grip of Desolation good, but great.

===Black Devoid Cards===
Oblivion Strike jumps out at me as a top common. Essence Depleter is a BWc Lifegain card on a playable body. Kozilek’s Translator is an interesting mana fixer/ramper, but I don’t know that it’s good. The other creatures seem OK with colorless mana, Sky Scourer seems bad.

===Comparison with BFZ’s best commons====

5. Mire's Malice
4. Demon's Grasp
3. Kalastria Healer
2. Sludge Crawler
1. Complete Disregard

Healer is going to be much worse given the unlikeliness of multiples. I think Sludge Crawler remains the best common black creature in OOG draft. Oblivion Strike seems somewhat better than Complete Disregard, unless people start using more combat tricks. I could see Zulaport Chainmage being extremely good in a board stall. Tar Snare is a worse disregard, but still does most of the same thing, certainly better than Grasp. Mire’s Malice looks to remain very solid unless this format really speeds up (which it might)


=== Bombs ===
* Dread Defiler looks very very good (if you can get to 7).
* Inverter of Truth. Not sure. Ends the game quickly, but what happens if it gets bounced or killed? You just lose. Card seems to be basically Demonic Pact.

== Red ==
So red gets a 2-mana shock, 1 first striker piker and only 6 devoid cards (4 common). There are 4 other removal spells that are pretty conditional, Boulder Salvo being the best. There are a couple falter effects.

===True Red Cards===
Reckless Bushwhacker looks very good in a go-wide strategy, but it’s going to hard to be cast for 2 on T3. Kazuul’s Toll Collector is a clear build around but I don’t see Pyromancer's Assault getting there. Embodiment of Fury is like a worse tidecaller but still good. There are a couple common allies but no strong cohort effect.

===Red Devoid Cards===
Meh. I like Maw of Kozilek but I am not sure it’s good. Immobilizer Eldrazi could make red aggro viable.


===Comparison with BFZ’s best commons====

5. Valakut Predator
4. Outnumber
3. Stonefury
2. Touch of the Void
1. Nettle Drone

Well ok then. Nothing approaches this list, except Zada’s Commando and only that if you can get a sufficient density of 2 drops and attack through walls.


===Bombs===
* Chandra, Flamecaller doesn’t protect herself but should be impactful.
* Eldrazi Obligator aka Zealous Conscripts seems good.
* Fall of the Titans is almost always going to be good, even great.

== Green ==
Ah this is the crux of the whole analysis isn’t is? Will Green be (more) playable in draft?? Will it still be the worse color? Fundamentally, I am going to assert that the *reason* green was bad in BFZ draft was:
a) the synergy was overall weak or unsupported
b) the overall power lower of the commons was low
c) it seems to have a 3+ color theme, but the fixing was awful

Green has fewer devoid cards than Red, only 2 commons. They are both quite good though - a colorless mana rootwalla and a 2/2 + 1/1 scion for 3.

===True Green Cards===
At the uncommon level Embodiment of Insight and Seed Guardian stand out. There is only a single common ally, but I like him too (Tauru Pathwarden). There’s no fight spell, there is a weird 5 mana sorcery one-side fight spell at uncommon (Nissa's Judgement)… which seems pretty great as long as you have a few creatures and don’t need to kill something huge. Saddleback Lagac is possibly very good

===Green Devoid Cards===

There are only 2 commons but they are excellent. There’s an uncommon fixer that’s also ramp if you control a wastes. That should be playable in 3+ color (including obligatory colorless) decks, and mandatory if you are 5 color.

===Comparison with BFZ’s best commons====

5. Eyeless Watcher
4. Tajuru Beastmaster
3. Tajuru Stalwart
2. Lifespring Druid
1. Evolving Wilds

Yes, this is LSV’s joke. Scion Summoner is better than all these, Tauru Pathwarden is at least roughly as good as beastmaster, and Saddleback Lagac might be great. Stalking Drone is… I think a little worse than Snapping Gnarlid, but I think Gnarlid is improved relative to the rest of the block as a whole. Stalwart and Druid may be a bit worse relatively UNLESS you are 4-5 color (not colorless). That being said, Evolving Wilds may remain a high pick in BFZ if you are Gx.


=== Bombs ===
* 3 mana planeswalkers like Nissa, Voice of Zendikar are obviously great
* World Breaker doesn’t seem game breaking but very hard to beat in a long game.

== Pure Colorless Cards and Lands ==

Most of the cards that require colorless to cast are rares, so unlikely to make a impact on draft as a whole. Walker of the Wastes (4C cost) is clearly a build around uncommon “pick all the wastes”. The two commons seem OK, a 6 mana 5/5 with some activated pseudo evasion, and a 4 mana 2/3 vigilance that taps for colorless mana. That seems like it could be a really valuable card, but the body is pretty meh.


=== Colorless Mana Production and Consumption ===
This seems like a critical part of the format. There are 12 non-rare cards with obligate colorless activation costs - a ~cycle (1 colorless) at common, a ~cycle (2 black devoid) at uncommon, and several rares as well. Some of the activated abilites are minor, some are awesome. Depending on how many of these cards you have and how cool the abilities you might want 5-6 colorless sources in your deck.

There are 5 common lands (plus 4 rares/mythics) that produce C, plus a 3 CMC mana rock(Seer's Lantern). There are 4 mana “dorks” one at 2 generic (Hedron Crawler), one at 4 generic (Warden of Geometries), and color-devoid cards at 2U (Cultivator Drone) and 4B -- Kozilek's Translator (both with restrictions), plus a couple green cards that can fetch Wastes, and a couple scion generators. BFZ of course has a cycle of lands at uncommon, Kozilek’s Channeler (which produces CC!), evolving wilds (which can fetch a Wastes), and scion generators at all rarities.

Without really breaking down the numbers, I think that typically there will be 24-32 colorless sources floating around per draft, if 1/2 the decks want them (and note that some are otherwise great cards or fix for colored mana!) then getting ~6 should not be a problem if you prioritize them. On the other hand, running 2 cmc 3 mana rocks is probably dicey.

Can you get enough to play something like “mono green/colorless”? It seems possible, especially if the color you are in is very open, you could easily play like a 11/6 or even 10/7 mana base.

== Gold Cards and Dual lands ==
Well, there are 10 uncommon gold creatures and 10 uncommon duals in both cases 1 for each color pair. The gold creatures all seem quite solid, and in a few cases (BW, GW, BG, WR) appear to support archetypes.

Baloth Null (BG) just seems like the best uncommon in the set.

They all seem very strong in that color pair, and they may just be flat out first pickable.

There are 3 legendary creature gold cards at rare as well, with Mina and Denn, Wildborn supporting GR “landfall”, and BW being a sac outlet.



== Effect on BFZ Archetypes ==

White Effect on BFZ Archetypes:
*Wx allies: Has plenty of allies, but they are just OK, this looks to me like it morphs into 4-5 color maybe playing the good converge cards if they get opened.
*UW fliers: seems weaker, but maybe the 3/2 that you can pay to fly is good?


Blue Effect on BFZ archetypes===
*UW: Two common fliers, and they both look pretty good. Plus the bounce spell. No wind drake though, so what does this deck do on T3? Play a blocker? Can’t even divination.
*UB: I don’t see the support for Process, although possibly you could treat Thought Harvester as a build-around uncommon.
*UR: Possibly this morphs into URC 3 “color”. This deck was low in synergy but high in power. I don’t see anything as good as Skyspawner or Infiltrator.

Black Effect on BFZ archetypes===

*BR devoid - I don’t really like the 2/1 for B, there are some reasonable ago cards and removal so seems fine
*UB process - this is looking like a control deck now.
*BG “sacrifice” - this was not a deck in 3xBFZ and it looked like there was some support, but there are zero sacrifice outlets in OGW (accept a one-off Green creature). There are cards with death triggers which appear to be playable anyway, so maybe you crack a vampiric rites and go off.


Red Effect on BFZ archetypes===
*UR devoid - there just aren’t enough R and U devoid cards to make this deck - without going “heavy” into pure colorless. Even so, there are only a couple R cards that matter.
*UB devoid - well, maybe. I think this is just a straight up RB aggro deck
*RW allies - there are red allies you can still play in your W(g?) ally deck. But this is probably now the weenie deck, with a side order of equipment.
*RG landfall - there is the one uncommon landfall guy that’s good. And maybe a couple pikers plus falters makes this deck better.

Green Effect on BFZ archetypes===
Green didn’t have any functional archetypes except landfall (barely) in BFZ.
BG sacrifice was a failed archetype in BFZ but BG graveyard might be a lot better. Might be missing a satyr wayfinder type card.

Overall, BFZ had 4 high synergy archetypes - BW, Wx allies, UB devoid, and GB sacrifice, a couple moderate synergy archetypes (RB and UR devoid, RG landfall) and a zero synergy deck, UW fliers. Converge overlapped pretty strongly with WG allies.

How were these archetypes effected by OGW? All of these elements are here, but it appears that most of the cards in OGW require less synergy.

=== BW Lifegain ===

There are cards that would go in BW life gain, but not many - and few payoff cards like Bloodbond Vampire. I think this deck has moved into the “build around” category, but hoping to get hooked up in a single BFZ pack seems dicey.


=== GB sacrifice ===

This deck almost never worked in BFZ, but it was clearly an intended theme. There are lots of death triggers in OGW, and some cards that care about the graveyard, but very few sac outlets. That would imply that you can’t reliably get them in BFZ, so build deck accordingly.

=== UB Ingest/Process ===
Stuff will still get exiled for processors, and there are a couple of cards that can exile repeatedly for {C}-based costs. There is no process in OGW so you will have to evaluate the third BFZ pack accordingly. This seems like a build-around archive based on opening the right things in OGW, rather than the default UB.

These 3 decks seem like they have *some* support, but more at the “goblinslide” level rather than being the default for their 2 colors.

=== Allies ===

There are lots of allies - especially in white, and you are paid off for having ally + cohort ally but I am not sure you need a deck full of them. With cohort, the 3rd ally on the board has diminishing returns (even if you have 2 cohorters). Of particular note, the (non rare) ally in BFZ, Tajuru Warcaller costs GG3, and there is only 1 green ally creature in OGW. You can definitely get paid off in RW though. 4 or 5 color allies with converge cards in BFZ could also easily be an “extended theme” (not sure it’s an archetype)


=== RX Devoid ===

There are fewer U and R devoid cards in OGW, but I think it will still be possible to have a deck with ~18-20 devoid cards. It might be 3 colors (or 4 including obligate colorless). The devoid cards seem pretty strong.

=== RG Landfall ===

There are no common landfall creatures in OGW, but a couple good uncommons and rares. That said, the strength of this archetype depends primarily on the strength of beating down in general (which was not easy in 3xBFZ)

=== UW Fliers ===
There are U cards, W cards and some fliers. There is however, no wind drake.



== New Archetype Hints ==


===Wx - go wide/support (WR? WG?) ===
There are some OK support cards in white, but no weenies. I think this will work if it works on the 1/3 flier for 2. Note in Green there are quite a few cards in BFZ that seem to work well with this (scion producers and ally pump spells).

===WR Equipment ===
There appear to be three “key” uncommons for this deck: Stoneforge Acolyte, and Kazuul’s Toll Collector, and Weapons Trainer.
However, since the equipment sucks, I don’t see this paying off in limited even with a nut pull, although you can’t really run more than 3 equipment in a limited deck, so maybe P1P1 the rare one works. It may be that the uncommon are strong enough to support mediocre equipment

=== GB graveyard ===
It looks like this color pair is moving more to “graveyard value” rather than a repeating sacrifice engine, but if you are prepared to flex, you could pick up some engine cards in BFZ

The other color pairs seem to be less “synergistic archetypes” and more the usual themes - in particular UW and UG “tempo” decks, UB control decks, with R and G having the usual beat down roles.

I will read this once I have an easy way to reference the cards, probably once gatherer has uploaded the set or I review it myself. Then I'll offer some genuine feedback.

yeah, when gatherer links are up I will edit this.

MTGS does have image hints up (for most of the cards), so I edited the post there if you cannot wait.

Why doesn't gatherer have the cards yet? I thought they used to do that so people wouldn't comment until they played with the cards at the prerelease, but now there's no comment function.

Dunno, they don't put them up until either right before or right after the PR.

It's typically the Wednesday before prerelease. I expect it to go up tomorrow.

Well, what a wall of text. Bravo.

I will read it thoroughly. Right now, just a quick observation: I don't see many aggro cards, and a lot of defensive two-drops. Also, sufficient efficient early-game removal. So, I predict games won't really start up until turn six. There will be interaction before that, but I have a feeling that the wins will be decided with six-mana or more expensive cards.

This should effectively be a three-color format, and such formats are slower by default. The 18-lands rule should continue to hold, and I'm pretty sure that R&D tried to slow down the format so that the focus would be on the Eldrazi. Smite is gone (almost), as is Grip. So just how does the new set deal with monsters? White, blue and black have an answer each, but only the black one is reliably permanent.

In the finals of a recent triple-BFZ draft, I met a GB deck. Funny thing is, I was GB too. I have a feeling green was simply misunderstood in BFZ. The working GB deck, for me, was Eldrazi ramp. Not the sacrifice deck, that was a very succesful decoy. And there was also the Wurm-Baloth deck that could be quite good.

And the first trials suggest that the white 5-mana support flier is quite bad. It has a very low-value fail case, and should be regarded as a synergy card. If you plan to have a full board of non-wall creatures, fine. Otherwise, no thanks.

Updated with links!

Uh, I have a GB post too! In a different thread. I have now played a sealed and a draft of OOB and I think the format is going to be slow ~on par with BFZ. The hard part is finding finishers.

Holy cow guys! All the cards in this set have 5 stars! Barring an act of incredible IT incompetence, this must be the most powerful expansion ever!

maybe they let the designer vote once before the PR

Mr Zenbits Esq.
Will you be posting the Top commons by color post as you did with BFZ with pictures? I like to hear all the magicians thoughts including going back to check my own opinions to see how wrong or right i was.

Unfortunately i'm a slow reader and won't be able to devote the time to read your entire piece in one sitting before pre-release. I do wish i could. But know I appreciate the work put in, and do plan on going over it when time permits.

Probably not. They seem pretty obvious this time around, at least as far as the first two places go, and the rest is mostly a guessing game. There is also no contention for the overall best common in the set, one is just better than all the rest.

It seems that in OGW, as was the case with BFZ, the commons are mostly split between the two factions, with some overlap for removal. So that the evaluations, and the pick order, will vary widely depending on the direction you want to go. Unless you are very good at guessing the whole relative strength of the decks thing, you won't start by picking up the Mist Intruder. Which is how it should be.

My free picture hosting service started to put up some commercials, so I don't use them anymore. I do have a web site where I can host pictures, but I'm not sure if I can access it from home. It time permits, I might just post pictures, and let anybody who wants to do so, speculate a bit.

You should probably just read LSVs reviews on channelfireball (which are out) and (if you have 5 hours) listen to Limited Resources.* thr

The best commons are all removal spells. Period. LSV likes the blue colorless guys -- and generally they like devoid (UBR) > allies (WG).

The colorless *really* throws it off though. There are a BUNCH of cards which are only really good with 5-6 colorless sources, and you just going to get hosed if you and the guy to your right both fight for colorless.

This set seems all about mana bases and how you draft and build a mana base with a 6th color that you can't just fill out your deck with.

I was planning to start a new thread with this, but you gave me the perfect introduction, so here we go.

Colorless mana. This is probably the thing that will be hardest to adapt to. It should be helpful to look at some numbers first.

There are twelve commons of each color, two colorless ones, three artifacts, and four common lands. 69 in all. Which makes me think I miscounted, but Gatherer agrees. In his set review, LSV estimates that you should play at least four and up to six colorless mana sources to make use of abilities that require colorless mana to activate, depending, of course, on what uses for colorless mana you managed to pick up. Repeteable sources of colorless at common are

Warden of Geometries
Cultivator Drone
Kozilek's Translator
Unknown Shores
Holdout Settlement
Crumbling Vestige
Wastes
Hedron Crawler
Seer's Lantern

I listed them in pick order. If you are the unfortunate guy that ends up forced out of blue, you should ignore the second one (just the second one, cause if you're not blue, you should at least be black).

With 160 OGW commons opened in a draft, statistics says there will be a bit less than 21 repeatable sources of colorless mana opened in a draft. Sounds about right, making getting enough of them an interesting proposition. The last two are more or less unplayable, since they take up spell slots and you will always be better off just playing Wastes. The first two are first-pickable in a weak pack.

In the posts below, you have the colored commons of OGW. You all know where to find the LSV rankings; when I find the time, I will post mine.

And the disclaimer: these are of course my personal preferences. Your comments will be appreciated.

OGW white commons:

OGW blue commons:

OGW black commons: