My Top 8 Arena Draft Formats

I enjoyed TMNT for a few days, but the set is too small to sink your teeth into for a long time. To boot, Arena recently put March of the Machines, my all-time favorite Limited format, on for a flashback week, so I stopped playing TMNT completely. Once the ACQ is over, it will most likely be my last experience with the set.

I've always been a major fan of flashback drafts, and Arena is getting to the point where there are so many sets to look back fondly on. I had so much fun with MOM that I decided to look through all the sets to find ones I'd look forward to playing again.

My taste is slightly different from the general population, as anything too simple would be dismissed. I don't mind losing to busted rares if it means I occasionally get to play with them. I also don't enjoy hyper-aggressive formats where games don't develop much past the first few turns. I want to draft a deck that does something cool, and I have enough time in games to watch it happen.

Other lists would look much different because a lot of people like the typical Limited feel of curving out creatures, attacking, and casting a well-timed combat trick. That's not for me, at least not on repeat. NEO is an example of a set people loved, but my Arena experiences were just casting a bunch of above-the-curve one-drops, curving out, and attacking every turn. I won a lot, but it wasn't that appealing.

My list is below.

8) Dominaria

The OG Dominaria is a work of art. It brought new cards to fit into the oldest MTG world and paired them with some of the game's classics like Icy Manipulator.

The format has Kicker, one of the all-time best Limited mechanics, combined with a flat power level. The rares weren't super-toxic, and a lot were build-around style cards that could play on their own or be pushed. The Mirari Conjecture is a perfect example of a card that was strong but required you to draft in an atypical way. Speaking of, the beloved Sagas were first introduced in Dominaria.

I would bump this up a tier if I hadn't drafted it so much. Between this and number seven, it's basically a tie.

7) Innistrad: Midnight Hunt

I played Innistrad Midnight Hunt mostly off Arena, but I won a ton and did so drafting a variety of decks based on how the meta shifted. This format had an evolving Limited metagame. Dimir was the out-of-the-gate best archetype. As it became more contested, people often pivoted to Azorious as the next best archetype, aggressively drafting cards like Luminarch Veteran, which I infamously called out as being overplayed.

As the set developed, I started drafting more UG self-mill decks and any deck capitalizing on getting Rise of the Ants later than I should have.

The set's biggest strength was how well it put cards into the graveyard and how well it utilized the cards it put there.

6) Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth

I had a love-hate relationship with LOTR. Izzet was the one archetype I found very fun. Green multicolor decks were also fun but not as strong as black decks.

"The ring tempts you" is one of my all-time favorite Limited mechanics, as well as the Dungeon system from which it was derived. (Shout out to Alchemy: Baldur's Gate, which would be high on the list, but I chose not to include any Alchemy.)

Lord of the Rings is much higher for more people. Admittedly, I didn't play as much of this set as others because it was the first released when I had taken a break from competitive MTG. I stopped playing the set because it lost my interest after a bit. LOTR had a solid power level, cool flavor, and an all-time great Limited mechanic, so it does enough to get onto the list.

5) Shadows Over Innistrad: Remastered

This was hard to rate because of how one set function was implemented. There was a bonus sheet that changed weekly when it was released. Some were more compelling than others. Overall, this is a fantastic original set that was remastered to heighten the power level and made to feel more like a Masters set than a straight-to-Standard block. It also included a ton of cards from the original Innistrad, which is my number two all-time straight-to-Standard draft set.

Shadows Over Innistrad had a variety of fun archetypes. Whether it be self-mill, spells matter, or Investigate, as well as occasional Manic Scribe mill decks. There were so many unique archetypes that involved using set-specific mechanics that it still feels new, even though the original set is nearing its 10-year anniversary.

I'll always make time to do a few drafts with this set when it returns to Arena.

4) Outlaws of Thunder Junction

Many, myself included, hated calling a new set OTJ, given that the original "OTJ", called Odyssey, Torment, Judgement, was a fan favorite Limited format over 20 years ago. However, after playing the new OTJ, I was proud to call this the masterpiece OTJ.

I will note that this is a controversial take. OTJ gets a lot of flak from the general public because of how overpowered a lot of the rares were, especially some of the bonus sheet rares. The reason I like this set so much is because of its high power level. At times, some decks felt close to Cube's strength when you managed to get a Bonny Pall and an Overwhelming Forces in the same deck.

Between Breaking News and The Big Score, there were several powerful cards in the set. Crimes was also an awesome mechanic to try and draft around.

Bonus sheets are one of the best things to happen to Limited Magic. The ability to replay goes through the roof when they're present, and OTJ did bonus sheets well.

Strixhaven is going back to the every-pack bonus sheet model. I hope it continues doing that for quite some time.

3) Modern Horizons 3

This is kind of cheating, as it's technically a Masters set, which are some of the best Limited experiences you'll ever have. Nonetheless, it's a playable Arena format they occasionally revisit.

Modern Horizons 3 mostly gets to the top three of my list because it's a higher power level and recycles Magic's best Limited mechanics, such as kicker, cycling, energy, and the list goes on.

Energy decks were by far my favorite to draft. The format tempo was faster than I'd like, but it was manageable. Normally, I still felt like my chances were good when I could try to get my deck to do a cool thing.

This is a really fun set that I'm happy to play whenever it's available. I couldn't play it forever, though.

2) Final Fantasy

This is an all-time banger that is likely in my top five sets ever. Final Fantasy had a bunch of fun archetypes to draft. I even enjoyed drafting a specific type of aggro deck, Orzhov Phantom Train.

Izzet was everyone's best deck, but my best decks were often Towns decks, just not a replicable strategy.

My all-time favorite draft deck comes from this format (pictured below), so it's immediately moving up on my list.

FF Random Encounter

The set had tons of playables, the power level was fairly flat, and almost every card had a use case. Also, the flavor was on point and fun, not that I'm too big on that, but it certainly doesn't hurt.

This set was so popular that they flashed it back only a month or two after it was taken off Arena. It was too fresh for me to jump back into over a new set, but it's one I'll happily revisit when it's next available.

1) March of the Machines

MOM is the best all-time Limited format and not just on Arena. The whole reason I'm writing about this topic is how much fun I had playing MOM the past week.

There are a number of reasons why MOM is great, but I'll point out a few I noticed.

While blue was clearly the best color, it wasn't so far out of whack that you couldn't win if you didn't play blue. Dimir was widely considered the best color combination, but it corrected itself easily. You could win by drafting soup decks and scooping up all the powerful cards.

Battles are an all-time great Limited mechanic because they made it imperative to play to the board early, either to attack or defend. Attacking battles later in the game could sometimes not be worth the effort because you'd essentially be giving your opponent a large amount of life for a card. You had to use judgment to determine when it was and wasn't worth it.

The bonus sheet was spot-on, with few complete misses. It was all Legendary creatures, but this cycle also included Companions, which is one of the best Limited mechanics to ever be introduced. However, since it's only on rares, it's not a mechanic you get to utilize often.

MOM also had an almost perfect amount of mana sinks. I never felt like I lost because I ran out of things to do. Instead, if I lost, I felt it was because I made a bad choice or spent my mana incorrectly.

Incubator Tokens and the transform ability were the perfect additions, making it feel like I always had an option.

Removal was plentiful and often led to extremely interactive games. Most importantly, I felt like every draft pick and decision mattered. It's rare that either of those things is true in Limited sets, yet MOM managed to make the drafts and gameplay tough, intense, and rewarding.

This is my list of the top eight Arena Limited formats. My criteria are based on how eager I would be to redraft them at this point in time. With some Strixhaven leaks showing up, it's only a matter of time before I have to get more serious for the PT, so it was nice to take a week to enjoy what I love most about this game.