Rise of a new limited, Part II: Archetypes (@metaknightmare)

Hi again, it’s @metaknightmare from twitter back to look at what actually appears to be happening with rise of the eldrazi limited. In my earlier guest post on this here blog, I ranted about what I thought was going to happen with the limited format. But now I’ve played with it, and I feel I know what each color pair is trying to do and what the strongest archeytpes are.

Here is a quick summary of each of the color pair’s main archetype(s), before I rant about each one:

• U/W: Levelers (Grab as many dorks with three sets of power and toughness as you can and beat down)
• B/U: Levelers (Slower than U/W, but black has better removal than white to make up for the worse leveler quality), Control (Grab as much removal as you can, a few eldrazi or other bombs as finishers, and sit down for a long game)
• R/B: Removal Ramp (Blow up your opponent’s stuff while you make spawn and cast some huge dorks)
• G/R: Ramp (Spend the early game generating extra mana, then bring down the beats by saccing your spawn and tapping a ton of lands)
• W/G: Aura Gnarlid (Grab as many of these guys as you can, a few umbras, and then smash faces in)
• U/G: Aura Gnarlid (Same as W/G, but drake umbra instead of mammoth umbra, and narcolepsy actually gives your gnarlid +1/+1 while tapping an opposing dude), Ramp/Control (Grab green ramp and blue removal/bounce/card drawn than drop your giant bomb that isn’t always green or blue but wins the game fast)
• G/B: The Rock (Play efficient dudes, kill off their stuff, maybe ramp into an eldrazi)
• B/W: Levelers (You get to play with the best of the best, but no blue)
• W/R: Defenders (This actually works, even without eldrazi. Trust me that it works with these colors)
• R/U: Good Stuff (play evaison dudes, removal, bounce and bombs, along with other ways to generate card advantage).

Now for a more in-depth look at each archetype.

U/W Levelers:

Blue, while not having that many powerful levelers itself besides Enclave Cryptologist (the looter), is what makes the leveler archetype tick. You get both Champion’s drake, effectively a 4/4 for 1U in a real leveler deck, and Venerated Teacher, or, as I call him, Venerated Cheater. Even if you only have one or two levelers out when you play him, you still get more levels than you would usually out of that mana, along with a bear. However, when your curve goes Looter->Level up looter-> 1~2 level up dorks->1~2 level up dorks->Venerated Teacher, smash! you are probably going to win that game. I like white with blue because there are more white levelers at common and uncommon than there are for black, along with time of heroes to give an additional boost to all of your weenies.

B/U Levelers:

Like in U/W levelers, you get the ridiculous mana efficancy that is Champion’s Drake and Venerated Cheater, but without the sheer number of dorks that U/W has. However, even though black doesn’t have as many levelers as white does, they are quite strong. Even zulaport enforcer becomes a pretty damn quick clock once he gets to max level, and Nirkana Cutthroat is a must-deal with threat even at the second stage. However, what really differentiates B/U from U/W is the quality of removal. Instead of Smite, Puncturing Light and Oust to remove opposing blockers (because that’s the only reason this deck needs removal), you get Vendetta, Induce Despair, last kiss (for racing situations) and Corpsehatch. However, what I think is the best reason to go B/U instad of U/W is if you open the bomb of Guul Draz Assassin. Seriously, I played him in my U/B deck at the prerelease without any venerated cheaters (I didn’t open any), yet he still DOMINATED the board whenever he became active.

U/B control has the same high removal picks as the U/B levelers does, but it values corpsehatch over induce despair and last kiss. This is because, instead of trying to beat down, the U/B control deck attempts to stop the opponent and then bring down the beat down with big bombs like Sphinx of Magosi and Pestilence Demon, along with the big eldrazi. The U/B control deck also values card advatage much higher than the levelers deck, and picks cards like mnemonic wall over the more average levelers like Skywatcher Adept.

R/B doesn’t have a real archetype that has been named before, but the best way to describe it is removal/ramp. The colors have some of the most efficient removal spells in the format (Vendetta, Flame Slash, Forked Bolt all cost only one mana), but there are also two removal spells that give extra spawn (Spawning Breath and Corpeshatch). While this doesn’t give R/B the ridiculous ramp potential that G/R has, it allows R/B to control the board and stop whatever the other deck is trying to do while ramping up to eldrazi or bombs. Another advantage of this color pair is that it has the highest density of huge, non-eldrazi bombs, like Drana, Hellcarver Demon, Magmaw, and Hellion eruption to name a few.

G/R is probably the archetype that can best use Hand of Emrakul, along with the bomby Eldrazi in general. You still have the cheap and powerful removal of red (flame slash and heat ray) at common, along with the high density of spawn generators that green has. This archetype actually takes brood birthing pretty early, because there is a long list of spawn generators that can be picked up later because other decks don’t want them, along with some of the best ways to use the spawn without sacrificing them (Broodwarden, Bramblesnap, lavaflume invoker). In case you weren’t aware of the lavaflume invoker + spawn attack trick, I think it was Mark Rosewater who pointed out this play: if you attack with all your spwan with the invoker out, you simply sacrifice the spawn that they block for the extra mana you need to activiate the invoker’s ability.

The only true “archetype” that is present in G/W is the Aura Gnarlid archetype. The problem with this archetype is that it can leave you with a single gnarlid and a bunch of otherwise bad cards. However, if you end up with 2~3 gnarlids, you should be able to pound past whatever defenses your opponent attempts to put up. Because your deck wants a bunch of cards that other decks don’t (the 1-mana auras, snake umbra, totem-guide hartebeest). You only have to spend your early picks on Gnarlids and the bomby umbras (Bear, mammoth, boar). However, you need to be careful against blue and black decks – Regress, Narcolepsy and Induce Despair are able to sneak around the protection that the umbras give. Also note: Guard Duty gives your gnarlid +1/+1 because the text says “each aura”

For the enemy color pairs, I don’t think they mesh as well as the allied color pairs do, and the archetypes seem to be mixtures of the strengths discussed in the allied color pair section. Expect these to be a *bit* shorter.

With U/G, you have two options – Aura Gnarlid and a kind of rampish/controllish deck. With aura gnarlid, you get the same strategy as white, except instead of guard duty, you get the nearly strict upgrade Narcolepsy, along with domestication to steal a guy and pump up the gnarlid as well. You also have drake umbra instead of mammoth umbra, and some amount of card draw/selection to help you find your gnarlids. The rampish/controllish deck plays a bit like G/R, but instead of burning stuff away, you either bounce it or clog up the board with cards like ondu giant and sea gate oracle until you can either level up some guys or drop some ridiculous fattie.

G/B gives you the deck that has always had no good and no truly bad matchups, the rock. This deck, in draft, gains incremental advantages usually in the form of spawn instead of the common card advantage from discard that the rock usually uses. You play efficient removal and dorks (many of who give you spawn), playing a bit like a control deck and a bit like an aggro deck. However, unlike the old elf rock or extended rock that win with tarmogoyf or cheap elves, you usually win by annihilation.

B/W has the best levelers quality and quantity mixture in the set. However, I think of this color pair as the “awklevelers” because you actually have to pay mana to level your guys up. Sure, that nirkana cutthroat looks pretty beastly once it gets to stage three, but having an opponent spend a single mana to deal with the guy you invested 12 mana into is a bit heartbreaking. I played this deck in the finals when I drafted at the release with my U/W leveler deck and just steamrolled him. He simply couldn’t keep up with my venerated cheaters leveling up my guys at infinite miles per hour. I feel this deck can work at times, but I highly advise switching out the weaker of these colors for blue if possible.

I’m going to skip R/W for a bit, and go onto R/U. This archetype is all about efficiency – you have what I’m pretty sure is the best removal suite in all the color pairs, including ways to deal with umbras and spawn hordes and weenie hordes. On top of that, you get Tim-on-steroids Brimstone Mage and a way to level him up at speed. This deck will probably be finishing the game with some six-drop flier plus BUF (burn your face). I’m not really sure how exactly this archetype will work out, but it seems like it will have a lot of good stuff.

Finally, the enemy color pair archetype I find with the most theoretical potential, R/W Defenders. Now, some of you probably had the same experience a few of my drafting buddies did at the prerelease, and found that WotC had hyped the defender and slowness of the format too much. However, I feel that this is the one color pair that has the most synergy in defense. Not only do you get some pretty sweet removal to stop dorks with too much power, but you get the most efficient defenders with the most cards that care about them. You have Stalwart shield bearers to make your butts bigger, Vent Sentinel to clock them, and I think the card you’ll be able to pick up a ton of and will help against the aggro decks is Ogre Sentry. Seriously, nothing any one else drops in the early game will be able to attack into this guy without either being eaten or traded with. Also, even though I haven’t played with either wall of blossoms or wall of omens yet, I’ve heard they’re pretty good. Also, in case you didn’t know, vulshok morningstar is pretty good in limited, and it’s even better when it makes your dudes who otherwise couldn’t get in smash your opponent’s face.

This is starting to approach 2000 words, which is a lot for me, as I have finals for a few classes approaching, but I’ll just sum up my main points here. Venerated cheater is good, allied color pairs are usually stronger than enemy ones, cheating on mana is good, I hate hand of emrakul, and W/R may be the defensive stoneblade. Or stoneshield. If you want to hear my ranting about my crazy deck ideas or the sharks hockey, follow me on twitter at @metaknightmare, and again thanks to Billy Moreno for hosting my rants and cementing my love of G/U/B decks way back in 2005.

RoE Limited Set Review (Green) by Haibing Hu

by Haibing Hu

Here’s the scoring breakdown:

10: Bomb. If I’m in the color I’m definitely taking it. If I‘m not in the color, I‘ll consider switching. Should win the game on it‘s own. (Sorin, Nighthawk, Day of Judgment.)

RoE Limited Set Review (Red) by Haibing Hu

by Haibing Hu

Here’s the scoring breakdown:

10: Bomb. If I’m in the color I’m definitely taking it. If I‘m not in the color, I‘ll consider switching. Should win the game on it‘s own. (Sorin, Nighthawk, Day of Judgment.)

RoE Limited Set Review (Black) by Haibing Hu

by Haibing Hu

Here’s the scoring breakdown:

10: Bomb. If I’m in the color I’m definitely taking it. If I‘m not in the color, I‘ll consider switching. Should win the game on it‘s own. (Sorin, Nighthawk, Day of Judgment.)

@metaknightmare: The Rise of a New Limited

This guest blog comes to us today courtesy of Zack Levine aka @mtgmetagame. If you’re interested in contributing, email me at bmoreno54@gmail.com. Now, enjoy the rest of the post.

Finally, it’s over.

I guess I should introduce myself first. I’m a magic player who mostly drafts, I took the break from magic almost everyone does from dissention to eventide, started drafting again with Shards/Shards/Shards, and I’m also @metaknightmare on twitter. When I started back up, I was terrible (I picked etherium sculptor over tower gargoyle once). However, eventually I became relatively good in the format, and usually ended up in the top 3 of drafts at my nearby store. I haven’t made the investment to fully get back into constructed yet, but I plan on it after my finals this year. After Shards/Alara/Reborn became M10, I started winning even more. These two formats were ones I understood, ones I could draft well, and ones I could win with.