It's an exciting time to be a Limited player! After a week of drafting and a couple of prerelease events of Zendikar Rising, the format is shaping up to be one of the most complex we've had in a while, mostly on the back of MDFCs completely changing the way we think about mana bases.
If you follow any content creators, I'm sure you've already heard them singing praises of the MDFCs, and I am no different. We expected them to be great, but I don't think anyone really anticipated how good they actually are. Even the worst ones like are C+ level cards and should never be left out of a deck in their color. So, how do the MDFCs impact your mana base? I'm going to borrow a general outlook that Ethan Saks (alias LordTupperware) posted on Twitter:
Here's my current heuristic for thinking about how MDFCs affect deck building:
- These cards replace lands one for one (no matter if you want to cast them more often than not).
- If you have one to three, run eighteen lands.
- If you have four to five, run nineteen lands.
- If you have six-plus, run twenty lands.
- Don't cut on-color MDFCs from your deck.
- Don't run fewer than twelve basic lands.
These guidelines are what I'll continue to use for my mana bases in the format — unless there occurs a new breakthrough in technology for the MDFC-laden builds. And really, you should be striving to get as many MDFCs as possible into your deck. That can even include off-color specimens. For example, if you get two for your white-blue deck, you can run these as two colorless lands that are sometimes spells. This is possible because you can play the first one as a land and then will be able to cast the second copy should you draw it. That's another whole extra free spell in your deck! How awesome is that? Not to mention that they might serve as fixing to splash another card and that a drawn later could allow a Bog to pay for its own front side.
The MDFCs protect against both mana screw and mana flood and make your deck overall just much more consistent. They are all fantastic cards and a slam-dunk mechanic. Pack one, pick one, I take any of them over every single uncommon except and even over a lot of rares!
Overperformers
There have been quite a few overperformers in the format for me, but here are three I would like to highlight.
—While unsuspecting at first glance, and not hugely impactful when it comes down, this quickly grows into a formidable attacker and blocker. Bonus points if you have a few ways to put down extra lands, but even without that, I'm always happy to include at least one of these in my white decks.
— This is a card I completely missed on in my first article. The little guy is so good in all of the tribal and party decks. It makes it a lot easier to assemble a party, along with triggering your and . It also fixes for potential splashing of already discounted spells such as as this discounts any party cards by one mana all by itself, basically making it into a effect on a stick for them!
— This card was not on my radar before drafting and watching other players draft. It is downright oppressive in Blue-Red Wizards where more or less every single spell in your deck triggers it. Combined with creatures being pretty small in general — 2 damage killing about 60% of creatures and 3 damage 85% of creatures — this can easily be a two- or three-for-one! Pick the Amulet highly if you find yourself in the blue-red archetype!
Underperformers
— Oh the landfall decks that could have been. Alas, the designers seem to have eased off on the landfall theme at common, making this guy way too dependent on fellow uncommons to really get going. The red-green landfall aggro deck is strong when it comes together, but as stated, it is very difficult to get all the pieces lined up.
— In a similar fashion to Brushfire Elemental, Murasa Rootgrazer underperforms because landfall isn'twell supported at common. White does have access to a few of the better landfall commons in and , and green-white is a strong deck when everything falls into place. But like the red-green deck, it often falls just short due to its reliance on uncommons.
— My preemptive pick for top white common sadly didn't pan out very well. While I still sometimes play the Adept in my white decks, the format is way too slow for this to be a good card. If you are a heavily aggressive deck this is a fine card, but the aggro decks in this format tend to come together a lot less frequently than for example in M21. Thus, Farsight Adept is welcome to stay far out of my sight.
Key Commons Revisited
W/U – Party Tempo
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Compared to my preliminary rankings, Shepherd of Heroes is moved up to number two among the key commons and Tazeem Roilmage down to number three, but the number three slot is a shared one depending on the composition of your deck. If you are more inclined toward spell and/or party synergy, the Roilmage will be a higher pick than the Raptor. However, the Raptor moves up massively in value the more MDFCs you have.
B/U – Rogues
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is knocked out of the Top 3 in favor of Bubble Snare. While good, it is somewhat clunky, and in a heavily tempo-focused deck cheap interaction is key. Most of your threats in this archetype are going to be evasive, which usually leads to racing. In these situations Bubble Snare becomes a one-mana removal spell, which is absolutely insane for the strategy. That said, the first (and sometimes second) copy of Seafloor Stalker is an auto-include in the deck for me as well, but it falls just short of making my key three.
B/R – Party Beats
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As evident from the key three here, black-red is truly an inherently aggressive deck. Malakir Blood-Priest continues to impress me and moves up to the number two slot, and Fissure Wizard knocks fellow Wizard off the third place.
You might ask yourself why I'm not including among these, and while this is probably the best removal spell for this deck, it experiences some diminishing returns due to the color combination having access to so much good removal. You don't want to overload on removal, and while I'd play up to three Alliances in any black deck, I'd run any number of the three above in my black-red decks. This leaves Deadly Alliance an honorable mention, but just out of the Top 3.
R/G – Landfall Stompy
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Red-green is a tough archetype to evaluate, but if you get the good uncommons along with a few MDFCs, it can be hard to beat. Kazandu Stomper moves up to the number one spot over my previous number one . Sadly, colorshifted is not the threat that we (or at least I) had hoped it would be. But a that draws up to two cards? Now that's what this deck wants. Stomper lets you play your MDFCs as lands freely, as you know you can pick them up later on, and generates massive value that way.
Pyroclastic Hellion makes the list for the same reason as Kazandu Stomper, picking up MDFCs along with providing some reach damage on a good body.
G/W – Landfall Midrange
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Green-white has, like red-green, been a disappointing archetype. Landfall is not heavily supported at common and falls (pun intended) a little short in general. If you get uncommons like and for multiple land drops in the same turn, you have a good deck, but it doesn't come together as often. Kazandu Stomper sneaks into the key three, replacing for the same reasons mentioned above: it just slots perfectly into any green deck.
W/B – Clerics
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is knocked out of the key three and replaced by Marauding Blight-Priest, while Shepherd of Heroes sneaks into a shared spot. Like with white-blue, the ranking between these two depends on the question whether you are leaning into lifegain/Cleric or party synergies. Neither is a bad inclusion regardless. But the more lifegain you have, the more Marauding Blight-Priest makes a very good impression and does a magnificent job at pressuring the opponent's life total.
U/R – Wizards
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Honorable mention here goes to as an efficient combat trick that at times can act as a one-mana cantripping . This does require you to have a density of Wizards to be really good, but luckily these colors are all about that! When the deck comes together, I think it is one of the stronger archetypes in the format, with some really excellent commons and uncommons to play with. Expedition Diviner moves into my key three over as one of your key beaters in the deck that will likely have the death trigger online as long as you have another creature out.
B/G – +1/+1 Counters
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Everyone's favorite bat moves into the number two slot in favor of . It is excellent early as well as late and a 3/3 flier is surprisingly big in the format and worth spending six mana on most of the time. It synergizes with both kicker and +1/+1 counters, like Gnarlid Colony, and is an excellent target for additional counters.
R/W – Aggro
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Three different number threes? Well, yes, but actually no. This slot once again depends on what synergies you are leaning more heavily into. Red-white is highly flexible in this regard. Warriors, party, and landfall are all directions you can go, and these key cards slot into each one respectively. The same goes for Bug-Catcher versus Raptor: if you gravitate toward Warriors or party, this slot belongs to the hungry, hungry Goblin, and if you have a more landfall-heavy deck or a lot of MDFCs, the Raptor is too much value to pass up on.
But what's that at the top you ask? Why is a medium-looking equipment top dog among the key commons? Well, flying is just really, really good in this set! There are only two creatures with reach at common ( and ), none at uncommon or rare, and only . also sports reach and is possibly the only really playable card among the commons, and barely at that. This means that few decks will be running reach creatures, and if you can keep opposing fliers at bay (of which there are also fewer at common than normal) you will have a good and flexible way to grant what is close to unblockability to your creatures. I probably don't have to tell you that this is extremely important for an aggro deck to close out the late game.
An honorable mention in the landfall/MDFC-leaning decks again goes to , for the same reasons as Tazeem Raptor as well as being a huge beater.
G/U – Kicker
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This is the first archetype where I don't feel like changing anything for the Top 3. However, there are a lot of honorable mentions because these colors (especially blue) are very deep! , , , and are all excellent and more or less auto-includes in the kicker decks. The composition of the deck changes the pick orders as always, but the green-blue deck has a wealth of commons at its disposal as well as making the best use of contender for mythic uncommon of the set .
That's all I have for now, but I'll be back soon with a re-evaluation and discussion about the uncommons and rares of the set after getting a few more Drafts under my belt. Happy drafting!
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily Cardmarket.
