Just wanted to get a thread down for Throne if Eldraine limited.

I watched some early access streams today, with an interest in drafts. A couple highlights:

First draft run I watched, the person was able to meme out with 6 copies of 7 dwarves. That’s easily the best of those memey creatures (the 1/3 mill doods, 1/1 lifelink kitties, 1/1 draw card fairies) and spells (goblin party sorcery) we’ve had the past few sets. Fairies in the right deck were ok, but kittens/goblins/millers were never really worth the effort. 7 dwarves are playable (tho replaceable) curve filler baseline, and really shine in multiples. Unlike the others, I think they’re worth speculating over non-premium cards early in the draft - if it’s not a bomb or premium removal, I’m looking hard at the dwarves. Perhaps an overreaction to a Christmas draft out the gates, but goddamn.

Another thing I noticed is how broken the black enchantment that trades 1 life whenever a creature attacks you is. That card is just unfair in limited... I watched someone lose to that without their opponent ever having to attack

Haven’t seen anyone playing the UR draw a second card archetype yet, but I’m interested in seeing how it plays.

Sorry, didn’t look up card names for those I don’t know by heart, so just describing effects to get this post up in haste.

I didn't get why people were praising Revenge of Ravens or why Limited Resources was reluctantly giving it a high grade until I reread it and saw that it also gained you life.

I really want the blue-red archetype to work. I look forward to playing that, green-white Adventures, and black-green Food. Black looks solid in general.

I saw some playing the RU archetype today. It was opponent of streamer I was watching, so I don't know build or draws, but they got crushed badly - never able to find any 2nd draws in a turn, so the stuff they played that relied on it was simply outclassed by the deck I was watching and it wasn't pretty... hoping to see someone draft it and see a fulll run rather than a single game from outside perspective.

I've seen a lot of BG and a fair amount of RW and UB so far. I'd say those are the most common color pairs early on in runs I've watched. Set is a blast - I love the flavor of the set, and adventure is a really cool mechanic. Also it's been hilarious seeing people struggle with food and the different ways cards can exploit it.

Limited archetypes guide



Monocolor Adamant
Adventure
Artifacts n Enchantments
Mill
Draw 2nd Card
Food
Knights
—- aggro
—- sac and equipments subtheme
—- grinder
Nonhuman
—- beatdown
—- ramp

Just finished my first Eldraine draft. I ended up with a Temur deck that was heavy on the artifacts and food. I thought it was kinda janky, but did ok for my first draft. The main strategy was to get out Feasting Troll-King using Royal Scions and other scrying cards. I had a few immediate concessions when I got out some early threats like wildborn preserver. Oakhame adversary was a standout, as was, surprisingly, inquisitive puppet. Scrying and at least two free blocks for 1 colorless mana was pretty sweet. I think I ended up with three wins. I actually lost the final game over what was basically a misclick with sacrificing food for life. Probs would have lost anyway, but still frustrating.

The Bo3 draft was pretty fun, it's well worth the 1500 gemstones I think.

I have a Wildborn Preserver in my current deck too, it's definitely a bomb.

U/B Mill might well be the best deck in BO1. I got crushed by it game 1 and never felt I had a chance, but in games 2 & 3 I took out many of my dead cards (Revenge of Ravens, hell even Outmuscle) for more threats and the otherwise-poor +2/+1 equipment, and was able to just kill my opponent in game 3. Maybe I shouldn't have sided out my card draw as well, I was flooding out. That said these cards I took out are excellent against other decks, hence U/B Mill might well be the best deck in BO1.

Giant Opportunity turned out to be very playable in my deck, I had tons of food generation and it's a 3-mana 7/7 more often than not.

gg Sol77, my bomb > your bomb.

Although I promptly lost the next match after forgetting to make tokens with Castle Arvendale two turns in a row. Opponent was using the autopass option and I was expecting to have to click through their second main phase twice. That might've lost me the game too, after getting milled out a couple of turns before it would've been lethal. His milling milled my bomb too and I didn't have the food to bring him back, didn't help that I had maindecked a copy of Fell the Pheasant knowing I was weak to flyers, and he didn't have any flyers (food makes it so much easier to survive, too).

That was you? Outflank into Ardenvale Tactician into Feasting Troll King (exactle 4 green sources in play) into Outflank as the last 4 topdecks.

I was so mad.. I would've drawn a land in one of those draws and died that turn

So, in case anyone is interested in some stats, I have finished my limited run for ELD:

22 ranked drafts
72-62 W/L record - ended up in Gold 2
total cost: 7,900 gems - 359 per - so drafts and Mastery Pass have cost me 11,300 gems combined which will be <10k when you factor in Mastery Pass gems - so ~50 euros as expected
I'm at 87 rares and 8 mythics before opening boosters - I started with 9/1 because of the win-every-card-event - 3 rares have gone to waste: 5th and 6th copy of Oathsworn Knight and a 5th Charming Prince.
That makes it 3.55 new rares per draft and if you factor in mythics 3.86 - so you get less than 1 rare passed per draft.

I've tracked that with an Excel-Sheet from reddit that I downloaded half a year ago for WAR, so sorry for not having a link - author's name is Eric.

I have 57 unopened ELD boosters now and 102k gold - will buy so many boosters that I have playsets of every rare that I care for - rest will come naturally through free boosters.

Since following this approach, the only bottleneck are mythic wildcards - and the annoying "downtime" of ~1 month after a set release before I can play Standard.

Yeah, that was me. Feasting Troll King is a strong card.

Also Revenge of Ravens feels totally broken against some decks. I had a pretty-good B/R deck, opponent played Revenge of Ravens, and I lost. Kind of ridiculous. I'd literally die to that card before they do especially considering food, and I started from 20 life.

Yeah, in a fair game, Revenge of Ravens is tough - you must not attack with 1-power creatures and be aware that attacking with a 2-power creature lowers both players' health by the same amount.

But there hardly were any fair games after people had discovered that bots undervalue the mill cards. I think I had more mill mirrors than games with neither player on mill. And for that, Revenge is obviously useless.

And btw, which of my cards did you call bomb?
I'm pretty sure, I didn't have The Circle of Loyalty out in that game - otherwise my 3/3 unicorn (the victim of the first Outflank) would've been 4/4 and have killed your 2/3 boosted by that +0/1 anthem enchantment.

So was it Syr Alin, the Lion's Claw or Roving Keep? I could somehow agree with Syr Alin, he's always been great - more often against me - but compared to Feasting Troll King it's not "<" but rather "<<<"

Attacking with 3-power creatures also lowers both players' health by the same amount more often than not, because drain 1 and opponent gets to block ~~

I was referring to Syr Alin as the bomb. Roving Keep is playable? It's a 7-mana 5/7 Defender with a mediocre activated ability, I'd consider that borderline unplayable.

I wouldn’t call it a bomb but I’ve seen at least one accomplished streamer run it as top end filler. Probably was Numot (Kenji) as that’s who I’ve followed almost exclusively this draft season.

That was something I noticed in the prerelease streamer event. Watching someone piloting a low curve aggressive deck that was doing very well until it ran up against Ravens. Literally nothing they could do to win once it landed. They desperately tried to pull it off anyways and ended up taking themselves from 20 life to 3 (opp just chilling playing defense and never attacked once) before tossing in the towel and conceding. I mentioned how busted it looked in OP.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that Arena would provide an answer through bots ignoring mill. I can’t recall a time when mill was such a legit strategy (outlier builds here and there, but nothing like current prevalence). Blue strongest color in Arena, no idea if that holds true in MTGO or paper.

You consider Syr Alin filler?? I find that incredible. It's a 5-mana 4/4 first strike, which is already hard enough to block, and it also has significant upside. Like, it's big enough to eat most creatures 1v1, and group blocking is always dangerous in the face of a potential combat trick.

Mill is very annoying on Arena, I agree. Forever Young is very effective against it though, and I presume sideboarding helps too (you can go above 40 cards). Unfortunately, I've only been playing BO1.

Lmao, no no I was talking about Keep. I meant I wouldn’t call it a bomb like Sol77 categorized

But I didn't

It's an okay finisher if you have nothing else. I was surprised when Banedon posted about my bomb, when my board had Syr Alin and the Keep

Ah, I see. Thought you were calling them your bombs; didn’t realize you were asking what he meant. Yeah, Syr Alin is a pretty good card that can put in some work but I wouldn’t call it a bomb either

Alin is certainly my favorite of the "Syr" cycle in Limited, he's one of the reasons Boros or Orzhov Knights can work so well in the current Mill-meta. Most decks struggle to kill them fast enough or draw some delay like the Forever Young you mention.

Boros can bring Double Strikers (don't sleep on that Goblin Knight) and pumps - most importantly Faerie Guidemother. If you're lucky you also get a Fireborn Knight or two. One of my two 7-x runs was Boros.

What do you guys think of this build?

1 x Scalding Cauldron

2 x Silverflame Squire
2 x Youthful Knight
1 x Curious Pair
1 x Trail of Crumbs
1 x Trapped in the Tower
1 x Kenrith's Transformation
1 x Golden Egg

1 x Aclaimed Contender
1 x Knight of the Keep
1 x Savvy Hunter
2 x Rosethorn Acolyte
1 x Giant Opportunity
1 x Fortifying Provision

1 x Wicked Wolf
1 x Outmuscle
1 x True Love's Kiss

1 x Lonesome Unicorn

2 x Tuinvale Treefolk

8 x Plains
8 x Forest
1 x Gingerbread Cabin


Considerations in the sideboard: 1 Idyllic Gorge, 3 Outflank, 2 Shining Armor, 1 Fortifying Provisions, 1 Rally for the Throne, 1 Fell the Pheasant, 1 Gingerbrute, 1 Prophet of the Peak

Wicked Wolf, Savvy Hunter and Trial of Crumbs are probably three of the strongest food payoffs so I'm running Giant Opportunity as well. Acclaimed Contender seems strong enought to play Knight of the Keep, but I don't know about Shining Armor. Not sure if Savvy Hunter is worth splashing, and True Love's Kiss maindeck also seems weird (I'm following Reid Duke's advice here, don't know how good it'll be).