Inspecting Hobbit Draft

I can usually provide some thoughts in advance of a set release because I've attended the Early Access event. However, this time Early Access was canceled, so I had to do some guesswork.

Most people focused on Sealed the first week because of the ongoing juicy Arena Direct. I had a good time playing the least balanced Sealed format I've ever participated in because the gameplay was pretty fun. There was enough card diversity combined with an excellent prize structure that made it palatable.

Hobbit Draft isn't as fun because we're not playing for anything exciting. There's an event in a few weeks for cash prizes in Hobbit Draft, so I've wanted to stay focused on it to find a nice edge.

Hobbit is a small set, and you can really feel it. One major reason is that most of the rares aren't that strong. While you can feel the strong ones, most can trade for a removal spell. As long as you have access to removal, you're usually not getting run over by a singular rare.

Below is a screenshot from a prior article where I made some educated guesses on how I felt the archetypes would shape up. I must say, I feel like a genius.

Pre-Hobbit Predictions

Black is by far the deepest color. While most consider it the best color, a lot of that feeling is from Sealed. It's incredibly deep, has access to the best removal, and has some hard-hitting creatures at common and uncommon, which is generally black's major downside in other draft formats.

Is black the best color in draft, though? I don't think so. From what I've witnessed and played, I'd position myself in blue right now. The commons work so well together. It's where I'd want to be as long as you're not fighting for the color. Specifically, Azorious, but you can have any other non-green support color.

The combination of Master's Councillors and Lakeshore Apothecary gives the necessary redundancy in the two-drop slot. Combined with all cards that either recruit or draw a card, the deck is extremely consistent and punishing.

Blue having extra cards means it's more likely to find all its land drops and hit every spot on the curve. Because of Plunder the Trollshaws, it can easily pull ahead on raw card advantage, an area of struggle for all other colors.

While blue is a little lackluster at rare and uncommon, the commons create this consistent curve out that is an excellent spot to be in if you can be one of the only blue drafters at the table.

In a world where people are fighting over the black cards, blue is where I'd want to be. This is an issue of self-correction. It's safe to draft black because it's so deep and can support so many players. It's a bigger issue in blue if you're fighting for copies of Lakeshore Apothecary. However, the deck I want most right now is Azorious, rather than a Rakdos that would seldom be fully open.

Hobbit has a real issue with color balance. Specifically, I can't find much of a reason to be in green without a lot of rares. The commons are so weak relative to the format that it seems impossible to move into green without a bomb rare pushing me in that direction. This is problematic in a small set since it's only supporting five archetypes. If one color is completely unusable, that leaves you with only three decks left. I believe this is a three-deck metagame, but it's not necessarily the supported archetypes.

The three decks you can draft are:

1) Base Blue, any supporting color (usually Azorious)

2) Base Black any supporting color

3) Boros Dwarves

Those are the only three decks I'm looking to get into. The gold signpost uncommons are mostly weak or superfluous. Bard the Bowman is fairly strong, but it's not a great reason to be in Azorious without a good supporting cast. Cards like Bolg are playable but interchangeable with other five-drops. None of the signpost uncommons pull me into an archetype. I'm mostly determining whether blue or black is open, diving headfirst into those colors, and filling out the support color later.

Boros is the only supported archetype I want to get into, usually only with a rare to start. Sometimes because blue and black are both contested, you first pick a Celebrate the Mountain-King and find your lane. I'd tend to avoid other archetypes because without an abundance of rares it'll be tough to beat the powerful common core that black and blue provide.

In a less open environment, like the cash prize event, it will be interesting to see how different it will feel. Will the player base be biased against green cards? Arena ranked draft has a massive player pool with many drafting only a handful of times. They won't be biased against green so much. If everyone's in the know, then it's more difficult to compete with eight people for the same three archetypes. Even then, I will avoid green as much as possible because I don't like more than one or two commons. They're not as good as the fourth- or fifth-best blue or black commons.

I usually advocate for staying open. In this set, you should look for one of the three archetypes I mentioned. You don't have much opportunity to play other archetypes given the set's size and restrictions, so one of these three archetypes should generally be open. It's reasonable to play green if you're a black deck. That's the only spot where I'd find myself in green, unless I was a heavy blue deck and picked up a couple of green rares to support it.

The Hobbit isn't a very fun draft set, mostly because of its size and color-balance issues. The gameplay is good and challenging. Outside of that, there aren't many hidden archetypes to draft. There's nothing that makes me want to crack another pack and keep drafting, especially without some kind of bonus sheet to hold it together. It's fine for a week or so. After that, it's basically solved, and you're just going through the motions of drafting the same couple of decks.