MtG: Hour of Devastation Draft
Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2017 4:27 pm
So there's a new set coming out, and that means a new draft format. This will be drafted with 2 packs of Hour of Devastation and 1 pack of Amonkhet. So let's talk a little bit about Amonkhet drafting and how things are going to be different.
The first thing to note about Amonkhet is that the equilibrium was based around fast decks. Turn 1 and Turn 2 plays were really important and slow durdly decks were not very good. You could play the control and win, but you needed to invest in your own set of early plays so that you could block and trade in the early game and not just fucking die. A deck drafted with a normal sort of curve and some pretty decent cards would just get smashed to bits by high quality bears. This is a format with Cycling, but the cost of cycling is really high because your opponent is packing a bunch of 2 drops with upside.
Shit like this is essentially unplayable in Amonkhet Draft, which is surprising because in most draft formats it would be an all star.
Now with added Hour of Devastation, things undeniably are going to slow down, which means that big dumb hippos and shit are a lot better than they used to be. The primary reason is the lack of 1-drops. In the Amonkhet packs there are playable 1 cost creatures in every single color. At common. In fact, White got two 1-cost creatures at common, and Black and Red got a 1-cost creature at Common, Uncommon, and Rare. Hour of Devastation does not have those. Only White, Green and Blue get 1-cost creatures at all, and the White one is hot garbage. So while the effective number of 1-cost creatures for Green/Blue decks has gone up substantially, every other color is looking at basically having 66% less access to 1-drops in any pod.
Now there are still plenty of 2-drops (there are 2 separate common 2-cost creatures in every color except Black that gets 3, and most of them are good at attacking). Hour/Hour/Amonkhet is still a format where you'll want to beat face, play a tight curve, and have 16 lands in your deck. But remember that there are literally no Fanbearers or Festering Mummies until pack 3, so the format simply cannot be as fast as Amonkhet was in the hands of skilled drafters. But you still can't plan to survive to play a 5 or 6 cost haymaker without playing early blockers or removal.
Another thing to note is that Blue is simply a lot better and a lot more aggro than you remember it. The new blue commons are super aggro and high quality. Blue is also the proud owner of the only 1-drop creature you don't feel stupid about playing in the first two packs.
Amonkhet is a larger set than Hour of Devastation. And while that has various effects on the chances of drawing any particular rare, it is most felt in the commons for Draft. There are 75 Commons in Hour of Devastation and 116 Commons in Amonkhet. So while in triple Amonkhet an eight person pod would open an average of 2.07 copies of each common, in Hour/Hour/Amonkhet the same 8 player pod opens 2.13 copies of each Hour Common and only 0.69 copies of each Amonkhet Common. So an average table in Amonkhet draft would open 6.21 blue common creatures of cost 1 or 2, but in Hour of devastation the table opens an average of 8.47 blue common 1 and 2 drop creatures. That is the difference between the table supporting "maybe up to two Blue drafters" and "definitely two Blue drafters and maybe three." On the flip side, known super-deep color White used to have an average of 10.3 1 and 2 cost creatures in a pod, and now is down to 9.85 (7.78 if you don't count the 1 cost 0/4). Which pushes White down from "usually supports three drafters" to "may support three drafters."
Anyway, on to the archetypes:
White/Blue
Before:Tokens
Now: Go Wide
White/Blue was hard to make work because Blue was the worst color. I don't think that's true anymore. You're still looking to play cheap critters and/or tokens and load them up with auras and equipment. But now you have more access to cheap aggressive creatures from the blue side.
White/Black
Before: Zombies
Now: Zombies
White/Black Zombies was a great archetype because it could play both sides of attack and defense easily and well. That still appears to be true. You get early blockers if you want them and some grindy card advantage stuff, or you can just bring the beats. An important thing to note is that most of the Zombie tribal bonuses in Hour of Devastation only work while attacking, so despite getting a 0/4 for W that gains you life, the archetype should probably be a bit more likely to want to be the aggressor in any matchup.
White/Red
Before: Exert Aggro
Now: Exert Aggro
It's just harder to make an ultra-low curve Red/White deck because there are less agrro white creatures and less aggro red creatures being opened. This archetype is still real good, but my guess is that it will probably continue to be overdrafted for a bit because of how much better it was than other archetypes in triple Amonkhet. With less high impact low cost creatures, the deck has to rely more on combat tricks and burn.
White/Green
Before: Stuff
Now: Go Wide Stuff
White Green lacked an identity, and while you could make good White/Green decks, they were usually fairly eclectic piles of cards. I drafted a super sweet token spam deck with Annointer Priests and Sacred Cat and shit, and it was basically like Sam Black's deck except much shittier because it was draft. But the Green in the deck did not contribute very much that was on-theme. It was there for some extra cheap creatures and a couple of bombs.
And to be honest, Green/White is still kind of like that. But your uncommon Gold card is now a big more focused on going wide and your Green cards are a bit better in the early game.
Blue/Black
Before: Cycling Control
Now: Cycling Midrange
Blue/Black was the deck that came together least frequently in Amonkhet. Which is another way of saying that it was the worst archetype. Blue/Black Cycling might still be the worst archetype, but it's a lot more likely to come together. The big difference is what your Cycling payoff cards look like. Where before they tended to be big dumb creatures you wouldn't survive to cast, now they have a tendency to be 2 and 3 cost creatures that get modest bonuses to attack power for cycling. It's a much more plausible game plan, though still unlikely to be great.
Blue/Red
Before: Prowess
Now: Prowess
Blue/Red was the hardest deck to put together in triple Amonkhet. It was a delicate blend of combat tricks, counters, removal, and agile creatures. Decent when it worked, but you had very little control over how many Enigma Drakes got opened. Blue/Red in Hour of Devastation is much the same, but the addition of common Red and Blue creatures with Prowess that are also hard to block profitably makes this archetype much better.
Also it's important to note that decks that run a lot of instants get better when you have two sets mixed together, because it becomes harder for your opponent to guess what tricks you have up your sleeve when you have two sets to draw from.
Blue/Green
Before: Ramp or Evasion Rush
Now: Same Choice
There were two main Blue Green decks in Amonkhet. The one you were most likely to end up in was Blue/Green Ramp. That deck is mediocre even when you get good ramp targets. The better one was an aggressive deck with evasion and card draw. Slither Blade plus Sixth Sense is OP.
You are presented with the same choice in Hour of Devastation. The aggro evasion deck looks like it's a little easier to draft because Green and Blue have the only aggressive 1-drops in the first two packs, but the fact that there are less Cartouches and Slither Blades probably means the ceiling is a bit lower. Ramp looks better, because the new bridge card is a 4 mana 2/4 that can exert for 2 mana, so a turn 5 Hippo or Sandwurm is totally reasonable.
Black/Red
Before: Empty Hand Aggro
Now: Regular Aggro
In Amonkhet they pushed a "Heckbent" mechanic where cards would go off when you had one card in hand. The rarities on the good ones were such that it was honestly rarely a thing that came together. In Hour of Devastation there aren't any heckbent synergies, and while there are a few Minotaurs who get bigger when you discard (and thus Neheb is even better if you get him in pack 3), you're mostly just a standard aggro deck with a bunch of removal. This is a perfectly fine place to be, and I think the archetype will be better.
Black/Green
Before: Wither
Now: Control
Black Green was the best controlling archetype in Amonkhet. And it still is. The wither tokens are pretty much all in Black, so you can do Withering stuff as Black/Red or whatever, but there are still some payoffs in Green. Teh self damaging Green cards are nowhere to be seen in the first two packs, so it'll be less often that you can go off with Nest of Scarabs in this format.
Red/Green
Before: Stompy
Now: Stompy
Red Green is almost always a midrange deck with a lot of oversized tramplers and some damage based removal. That has not changed.
-Username17
The first thing to note about Amonkhet is that the equilibrium was based around fast decks. Turn 1 and Turn 2 plays were really important and slow durdly decks were not very good. You could play the control and win, but you needed to invest in your own set of early plays so that you could block and trade in the early game and not just fucking die. A deck drafted with a normal sort of curve and some pretty decent cards would just get smashed to bits by high quality bears. This is a format with Cycling, but the cost of cycling is really high because your opponent is packing a bunch of 2 drops with upside.
Shit like this is essentially unplayable in Amonkhet Draft, which is surprising because in most draft formats it would be an all star.
Now with added Hour of Devastation, things undeniably are going to slow down, which means that big dumb hippos and shit are a lot better than they used to be. The primary reason is the lack of 1-drops. In the Amonkhet packs there are playable 1 cost creatures in every single color. At common. In fact, White got two 1-cost creatures at common, and Black and Red got a 1-cost creature at Common, Uncommon, and Rare. Hour of Devastation does not have those. Only White, Green and Blue get 1-cost creatures at all, and the White one is hot garbage. So while the effective number of 1-cost creatures for Green/Blue decks has gone up substantially, every other color is looking at basically having 66% less access to 1-drops in any pod.
Now there are still plenty of 2-drops (there are 2 separate common 2-cost creatures in every color except Black that gets 3, and most of them are good at attacking). Hour/Hour/Amonkhet is still a format where you'll want to beat face, play a tight curve, and have 16 lands in your deck. But remember that there are literally no Fanbearers or Festering Mummies until pack 3, so the format simply cannot be as fast as Amonkhet was in the hands of skilled drafters. But you still can't plan to survive to play a 5 or 6 cost haymaker without playing early blockers or removal.
Another thing to note is that Blue is simply a lot better and a lot more aggro than you remember it. The new blue commons are super aggro and high quality. Blue is also the proud owner of the only 1-drop creature you don't feel stupid about playing in the first two packs.
Amonkhet is a larger set than Hour of Devastation. And while that has various effects on the chances of drawing any particular rare, it is most felt in the commons for Draft. There are 75 Commons in Hour of Devastation and 116 Commons in Amonkhet. So while in triple Amonkhet an eight person pod would open an average of 2.07 copies of each common, in Hour/Hour/Amonkhet the same 8 player pod opens 2.13 copies of each Hour Common and only 0.69 copies of each Amonkhet Common. So an average table in Amonkhet draft would open 6.21 blue common creatures of cost 1 or 2, but in Hour of devastation the table opens an average of 8.47 blue common 1 and 2 drop creatures. That is the difference between the table supporting "maybe up to two Blue drafters" and "definitely two Blue drafters and maybe three." On the flip side, known super-deep color White used to have an average of 10.3 1 and 2 cost creatures in a pod, and now is down to 9.85 (7.78 if you don't count the 1 cost 0/4). Which pushes White down from "usually supports three drafters" to "may support three drafters."
Anyway, on to the archetypes:
White/Blue
Before:Tokens
Now: Go Wide
White/Blue was hard to make work because Blue was the worst color. I don't think that's true anymore. You're still looking to play cheap critters and/or tokens and load them up with auras and equipment. But now you have more access to cheap aggressive creatures from the blue side.
White/Black
Before: Zombies
Now: Zombies
White/Black Zombies was a great archetype because it could play both sides of attack and defense easily and well. That still appears to be true. You get early blockers if you want them and some grindy card advantage stuff, or you can just bring the beats. An important thing to note is that most of the Zombie tribal bonuses in Hour of Devastation only work while attacking, so despite getting a 0/4 for W that gains you life, the archetype should probably be a bit more likely to want to be the aggressor in any matchup.
White/Red
Before: Exert Aggro
Now: Exert Aggro
It's just harder to make an ultra-low curve Red/White deck because there are less agrro white creatures and less aggro red creatures being opened. This archetype is still real good, but my guess is that it will probably continue to be overdrafted for a bit because of how much better it was than other archetypes in triple Amonkhet. With less high impact low cost creatures, the deck has to rely more on combat tricks and burn.
White/Green
Before: Stuff
Now: Go Wide Stuff
White Green lacked an identity, and while you could make good White/Green decks, they were usually fairly eclectic piles of cards. I drafted a super sweet token spam deck with Annointer Priests and Sacred Cat and shit, and it was basically like Sam Black's deck except much shittier because it was draft. But the Green in the deck did not contribute very much that was on-theme. It was there for some extra cheap creatures and a couple of bombs.
And to be honest, Green/White is still kind of like that. But your uncommon Gold card is now a big more focused on going wide and your Green cards are a bit better in the early game.
Blue/Black
Before: Cycling Control
Now: Cycling Midrange
Blue/Black was the deck that came together least frequently in Amonkhet. Which is another way of saying that it was the worst archetype. Blue/Black Cycling might still be the worst archetype, but it's a lot more likely to come together. The big difference is what your Cycling payoff cards look like. Where before they tended to be big dumb creatures you wouldn't survive to cast, now they have a tendency to be 2 and 3 cost creatures that get modest bonuses to attack power for cycling. It's a much more plausible game plan, though still unlikely to be great.
Blue/Red
Before: Prowess
Now: Prowess
Blue/Red was the hardest deck to put together in triple Amonkhet. It was a delicate blend of combat tricks, counters, removal, and agile creatures. Decent when it worked, but you had very little control over how many Enigma Drakes got opened. Blue/Red in Hour of Devastation is much the same, but the addition of common Red and Blue creatures with Prowess that are also hard to block profitably makes this archetype much better.
Also it's important to note that decks that run a lot of instants get better when you have two sets mixed together, because it becomes harder for your opponent to guess what tricks you have up your sleeve when you have two sets to draw from.
Blue/Green
Before: Ramp or Evasion Rush
Now: Same Choice
There were two main Blue Green decks in Amonkhet. The one you were most likely to end up in was Blue/Green Ramp. That deck is mediocre even when you get good ramp targets. The better one was an aggressive deck with evasion and card draw. Slither Blade plus Sixth Sense is OP.
You are presented with the same choice in Hour of Devastation. The aggro evasion deck looks like it's a little easier to draft because Green and Blue have the only aggressive 1-drops in the first two packs, but the fact that there are less Cartouches and Slither Blades probably means the ceiling is a bit lower. Ramp looks better, because the new bridge card is a 4 mana 2/4 that can exert for 2 mana, so a turn 5 Hippo or Sandwurm is totally reasonable.
Black/Red
Before: Empty Hand Aggro
Now: Regular Aggro
In Amonkhet they pushed a "Heckbent" mechanic where cards would go off when you had one card in hand. The rarities on the good ones were such that it was honestly rarely a thing that came together. In Hour of Devastation there aren't any heckbent synergies, and while there are a few Minotaurs who get bigger when you discard (and thus Neheb is even better if you get him in pack 3), you're mostly just a standard aggro deck with a bunch of removal. This is a perfectly fine place to be, and I think the archetype will be better.
Black/Green
Before: Wither
Now: Control
Black Green was the best controlling archetype in Amonkhet. And it still is. The wither tokens are pretty much all in Black, so you can do Withering stuff as Black/Red or whatever, but there are still some payoffs in Green. Teh self damaging Green cards are nowhere to be seen in the first two packs, so it'll be less often that you can go off with Nest of Scarabs in this format.
Red/Green
Before: Stompy
Now: Stompy
Red Green is almost always a midrange deck with a lot of oversized tramplers and some damage based removal. That has not changed.
-Username17