We have yet another new Limited format to explore. Foundations is designed as a core set that will stick around for five years in Standard. Core sets are usually pretty boring for Limited, but Foundations hits the mark.
Foundations has that core set feeling of slightly slower and much grindier. You can still flood out and lose, as not every card you play will have some kind of value tacked onto it like we're used to these days.
There's one color I like to focus on in formats like this—blue. Right now, blue is the best color in the format because it has access to stuff other colors lack, in particular it can interact with the stack. Cards like Essence Scatter and Refute can provide huge tempo swings but also let you dictate the flow of the game.
Blue tends to have the best card advantage, which is huge in a format like this that is light on mana sinks and also light on effective early plays. Games last longer, so you get more time to card your draw spells.
Blue decks can still get run over. Ideally, you have a few counterspells, cheap removal, and specifically Tolarian Terror as your finisher of choice if you're unable to get better top-end rares. Terror stops most decks in their tracks.
Cheap removal is of the utmost importance. Terror likes you to have cards like Stab or Burst Lightning. While those are the traditional shells, you can also play UW and potentially even UG with a lot of Bushwhacks, though I haven't tested the Bushwhack theory yet and think it will be more of an outlier.
Izzet and Dimir are the easy-to-get-into archetypes I prefer. You take blue cards early, figure out which of those two colors are more open, especially for their removal, and dive in.
Here are a couple of screenshots of what these decks have looked like:
This is a classic Dimir deck with reasonable top end, card draw, and removal. It's focused on exchanging resources. This deck had a difficult time closing the door. Notice that I had no Tolarian Terrors, which can be a huge problem. I managed to squeak out a lot of close matches, many times at the bottom of my deck. This will only get worse once more people start noticing blue's power.
Here we have an Izzet deck that's basically all first picks. This may seem ridiculous, but sometimes you get decks that look this good the first few days of a format.
Thrill of Possibility, Think Twice, and Fleeting Distraction are your card draws to push out Terrors faster. Balmor is obscene in this shell since it will usually let you win in a single attack step once you've stabilized your board.
The key to these decks is having the cheap removal in Burst Lightning and Stab, which allows you to win on the draw and keep the battlefield clean until the things that matter start to hit. I generally move into either color for these two cards. I prioritize them the most out of all non-blue commons at the moment.
You can also draft a deck like this outside of these specific archetypes, but these two will be the easiest to start.
Let me share yet another trophy deck, this time, Bant:
This deck follows the exact same principles—cheap removal into effective top end. Joust Through and Luminous Rebuke fill the cheap removal role, while I use Tatyova and Guarded Heir to turn the corner. While rarer, you can still often get a pair or more of Luminous Rebuke to set this up, but I don't look to start here.
This is a replicable strategy, though the top end will vary. Maybe it's some decent on-color rares, maybe it's Terrors, but regardless, the goal is to bury the opponent in card advantage and make sure anything you can't blank on the battlefield gets managed. We're not trying to race. We're trying to put the opponent in a helpless position. White has the tools to facilitate this plan despite being potentially the most aggressive color in the format.
Aggro decks can and do exist, but to win with them, you need good card quality. The commons in this set are weak compared to modern-day sets. The uncommons are almost at par, so you need a depth of higher rarity cards.
Here's my first successful aggro deck. Ignore the stray marks since I was pointing something out on my stream and seemed to save the screenshot this way.
An extremely low curve is ideal, and while this doesn't quite hit that mark, it's good enough. I had some classic old BREAD—bombs, removal, and for once, evasion is back on the menu. Flying creatures can be necessary to deal damage when your opponent has an otherwise formidable board that lacks the ability to block them. In recent years, evasion has typically been unimportant in Limited, but it's more important when games get slowed down on the ground as we see in core sets. Foundations is no exception.
Moving forward, I want to work on green decks. I've been buried every time I've drafted green. I haven't had a good deck yet, and I struggle to see why I'd want to move specifically into green. While the cards individually aren't necessarily bad, they don't seem to lead to a winning game plan quite yet, potentially because I'm unable to pair them with blue effectively.
Foundations is surprisingly fun. I thought I was going to dread playing the format. It seemed slow, underpowered, full of reprints, and like it'd be too boring for my taste. However, I love formats that play out a bit grindier, and the slightly upscaled power level has made the core set feel more fun. I love how they're pushing the envelope on Limited, even including an infinite combo that's relatively easy to obtain if you're able to open Bloodthirsty Conqueror and find a copy of Marauding Blight-Priest.
I'll continue to focus on Limited for the time being until after the Arena Open, and then I'll dive into Standard. For now, Foundations is a big W for WotC, and I'm happy to see this set.
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