Exploring Lorwyn Draft

Lorwyn Eclipsed has been out for some time now, and as far as Limited is concerned, it's been a bit of a rollercoaster. Initially, I was not really enjoying the format. However, I've developed a liking for it as I've played and learned, finding more cool interactions that make me want to fire off the next draft.

While the typal decks can be fun, many of them at their peak are boring to play with or against. The games are a cakewalk when you get hit with every good uncommon and rare during the draft because they're so much stronger than alternatives.

Most decks aren't like this, as there are fewer archetypes in this set than typical. Boros, Gruul, Orzhov, etc., aren't real archetypes.

The biggest mistake is forcing an archetype, even after you open a strong rare of a specific type. For instance, let's say you open a good merfolk rare and get passed a good merfolk uncommon with a rare missing and pick-three. You can take a replacement-level merfolk or a good elf uncommon signpost card. I typically stay the course and take the merfolk to cut my archetype. In reality, the player on your right has more control over you and your ability to pivot out if your archetype isn't open. For that reason, you should speculate on a Golgari Gold card. Even if it's worse than the two cards you have, you need to read the next several picks carefully to give yourself the best chance. My worst decks are always a deck like Elves, where I first pick an elf rare and HODL until I realize too late that unless I open a bunch of really strong cards, my deck is never going to be any good because my archetype is overdrafted.

Because of this, I like to take strong removal early picks over solid uncommons that have typal synergy. This allows the draft to come to me, and I can benefit from getting an underdrafted archetype at the table.

This set reminds me of Spider-Man in that it's important to cooperate with your table rather than fight against them, at least as far as Arena is concerned. It's more zero-sum in actual pod drafts. Letting everyone else at the table have very strong decks can be to your own detriment.

As far as the best archetype is concerned, Elves is my early frontrunner, mostly because of its consistency. Even if it's better, it's not too much better than anything else. You shouldn't go into a draft looking to draft anything. It's balanced well enough that just getting the most good cards in an archetype is more important than fighting for the best color combination. This is generally true for most Limited formats, though there are some outliers.

Blight Goblins and Vivid are my current favorite archetypes to draft. I am skeptical of the vivid mechanic because it requires you to have stuff on the battlefield to get the effect of your other cards. However, I've warmed up to the archetype because of two cards, Shimmerwilds Growth and Shinestriker. They work so well together that the archetype is exciting to draft if it's open.

Blight Goblins

As you can see in this Blight Goblins deck, I didn't focus on beating down the opponent. I used cards like Boggart Mischief and Lasting Tarfire to slowly grind out my opponent. Gristle Glutton was key to this deck. While I didn't have card advantage, I played almost all long games and never would have more than five or, rarely, six lands in play. They all provided discards to find more gas. Gristle Glutton is important to this style of gameplay. I like to get at least two copies if I'm planning on playing Lasting Tarfire, which has been surprisingly good in this deck type, where it can trigger on both your and your opponent's turns with relative frequency.

Izzet Elementals is a weaker archetype. It can be solid, but the commons collectively don't amount to a playable deck, so it almost requires a massive density of rares and uncommons to work. It's unlikely that an archetype will be functional if its mechanic is casting spells that cost four or more mana. Convoke helps, but it's not enough to make this mechanic consistent. If you fill your deck with four-mana cards, it's going to hurt. Often, rares and the notably strong uncommons will pull you into an archetype. However, it's challenging to take removal early from weak packs and land in Elementals because many of the uncommons aren't strong enough to put me into the deck. It was my favorite archetype in original Lorwyn, and I'll continue to draft it because I love playing Izzet more than any other color combination in Limited. Regardless, you should tread lightly when drafting it, as you'll often splash in this archetype to take advantage of Vivid.

Here's an example.

Vivid Izzet

My initial reaction was that this set wasn't for me because I don't like just curving out and attacking, but I think this format has developed in a way that I can appreciate. I'll give it another week or two as well because I focus purely on Standard in preparation for the Arena Championships next month.

If you think typal sets aren't for you, you may be disappointed and find reasons to dislike this set. If you approach it with an open mind, then it's worth your while.

I'll be back next week to discuss Lorwyn Limited more, hopefully with a complete understanding of the format.