Khans are closing in. It’s hard to say what the format will truly look like but lets talk about what we do know. Shards of Alara, Theros, and post rotation trends.
Alara was our last tri color block. It is quite likely that we could see some of the trends from back then showing up over the next year. With that in mind we are likely to see two distinct speeds of decks. The first being very fast with a low curve featuring cards, where there was
Steppe Lynx now we have
Soldier of the Pantheon. These faster decks will likely be one color or have only a lite splash of another color. The second are those that can survive these early onslaughts and then hammer down on them with the most powerful cards in the format. These decks feature more colors since they are shooting to survive long enough to acquire the needed mana to use the strongest effects.
Wizardden.com’s FNMs have already started to look like this over the last couple months. Lots of small white and red aggressive decks running up against the big red/green variants and grindy control lists. Sure there is and always will be those that break the mold and attack from a new angle but the format as a whole will likely be similar to the Alara days.
Turning our sights to what we know for sure, we take a close look at Theros. We already know that
Courser of Kruphix is stupid good with fetchlands. Not only does it negate the loss of life but being able to strategically shuffle your deck when you don’t like your top card has been proven to be very good by the Legacy format. Key cards that stand out at first glance also include
Solder of the Pantheon’s protection from multicolor,
Fleecemane Lion’s aggressive costing, and
Genesis Hydra’s ability to circumvent color requirements in an uncounterable way.
Hushwing Griff’s lock out on the Mardu mechanic Raid and
Stormbreath Dragon’s protection from many cards in three of the five clans both seem worth considering. There are many cards out of this last year that are super powerful in a vacuum yet haven’t really have a place since their release. Take some time and dig through those excess draft cards and jank rares and you may find some diamonds in the rough.
This last major factor has some general trends but is probably the least reliable source. Early weeks after rotation are spent scrambling to find what works, the problem is though with no real meta established nothing is truly well positioned. Amidst this chaos fast aggressive decks steal tons of wins. Many players attempt to do big flashy things or miscalculate their mana and end up with decks that are far too slow to stand up to the early game onslaughts.
Anger of the Gods could serve to counter this, however double red mana symbols make it harder on consistency. This chaos is always short lived though. Shortly after rotation comes the Pro Tour and with than is the newly defined format.
Here at
Wizardden.com we’re all excited to see the new set. There is a lot still up in the air, but I hope this helps you to making your plans for trading, purchases, and deck building over the next couple months. Thanks for reading.
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