Hey Nicolai very solid tip about paying attention to your opponents behaviour around their manifest dread creatures. This hadn't crossed my mind but is pure gold, thank you!
I Like this mechanic sooo much in Face to Face Draft Matches because it puts an Element of Poker into the Games. This favours players who can create misleading narratives and cause Opponents to make wrong decisions.
I’ll be doing my first draft event this weekend despite picking up Magic only two months ago. Not sure I’ll get 50/50, but this set has me excited for anything!
Hope you have fun! Try to stick to the basics, 17 lands, 16-17 creatures (or spells that make creatures), 6-7 non-creatures, 2 colors. It'll serve you really well. And, hard as it is, try not to fall so much in love with a card in pack 1 that you take bad cards in that color just to play with it.
I hope you enjoy limited as much as I did when I was in your situation. A couple of things for your first draft I wish I had known beforehand: - stick with 17 lands (16 if extremely low curved, 18 if sensibly heavily curved and not very interactive, but I'd stick to 17 ANYWAYS). - take removal in your color with a priority level that probably feels exaggerated to you (you don't really get the removal hunger at the table until you feel like you're the only one not being able to assess game ending threats) - don't go below 13-14 creatures unless you really know what you're doing, having a creature-scarce board is a problem in limited much more so than in constructed formats, where you more or less EXPECT that to happen, and you're maneuvering a deck built to deal with those situations. - as a first experience, I probably suggest you to stick to 2 colors, maybe splash a bomb of a third color; only splash stuff that doesn't have more than a mana symbol worth from the color you're splashing, never splash cards you want on your board EARLY, use around 3 lands/mana sources that provide that splashed mana. I really hope this helps!
I feel Simic is going to be busted if we talk about boardstate. It's two signpost uncommons are amazing, and the Manifest Dread pay offs in blue are good too.
A powerful Room to combo with would be Defiled Crypt, as removing any card from your graveyard will give you an enchantment creature. For example, UB decks that include both Manifest Dread and Eerie will greatly enjoy combo-ing Paranormal Analyst with Defiled Crypt, as any time you Manifest Dread the Analyst will move the card you don't manifest from the graveyard to your hand triggering Defiled Crypt to give you an enchantment creature, thus triggering any Eerie triggers. As you can imagine regrowth spells and land from graveyard to play effects in green also work, as does any actual bringing back creatures to hand or the battlefield from white and black itself. It is even possible to use it as a fodder-creation engine for red-black sacrifice by combining it with Malevolent Chandelier, but as you prefer to be aggro in that black archetype this is likely the weakest combo with Defiled Crypt. #DuskDrafter
I almost put that Paranormal Analyst plus Defiled Crypt combo into the guide, so good eye on spotting it! I had already showcased the Paranormal Analyst during the Archetype Overview portion, so I wanted to give some other cards a chance to be highlighted (and combos involving multiple Uncommons in a specific color combination are a bit more niche), but I'm looking forward to assembling some sweet synergies with Defiled Crypt! As a general note, Paranormal Analyst looks incredible to me so I think it will be a premium card in a lot of Blue decks! I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
I can't remember the last time I was so sure Simic would be the strongest color combo. Soooooo many good green commons. Manifests dread will play like a 2.5-3 mana card for 2 mana, and there are so many common & uncommon Manifest dread triggers. The green common removal spell is also premium. And it feels like basically every green uncommon and rare is a bomb. So excited for this set!
I know it's uncommon but violent urge should be looked out for on combat tricks, It's very important to be able to deduce when it's safe to not block into this as you check for R available and delirium present
That Altanak combo reminds of one I used in Lost Caverns of Ixalan, Swampcycling Rampaging Spiketail and then sacrifice Soulcoil Viper, not perfect but it was good enough #DuskDrafter
I am honestly even now already looking forward to this limited format much more than to bloomburrow... seems to have a few interesting angles in stock and instill more creativity among the drafter then drafting on rails like in the last set ^^
I think the designers aim for balance, so it is just as likely to be the weakest here as in any other set. Intentionally pushing a color seems like it would lead to bad gameplay, and trust me when I say there is plenty of horror themed stuff in every color!
Good to see I'm not the only one higher on blue and lower on black going into this set's early days. If green in Bloomburrow taught me anything, it's that a color's self-synergies are important to its quality, and blue here has that in spades with all of its Eerie abilities. Also, black's commons just don't seem great to me. Murder is obviously decent, but has been getting less impressive in recent years, and I'm still not convinced about Fanatic of the Harrowing even with a couple limited-minded folks saying it's a top common. I just can't shake the feeling that a 4 mana 2/2 that makes the opponent discard isn't good enough without the looting effect, which really only feels amazing in 2 out of the 4 black decks, which makes me think it's a 2 or 3 out of 7 at best. If that's really in black's top 3 commons, then I really don't think black's going to be very good at all, when most colors have about 3 or 4 4-5/7 level commons. Anyways, glad to see you as positive as always, I really appreciate that about this channel. #DuskDrafter
I'm so glad you enjoyed my guide and have been enjoying my videos! I agree on how Murder has been decreasing in importance, which I think is probably due to the increasing value attached to creatures. It is not as impressive to kill a creature when it generated some value as it came into play. I also don't love a 4 mana 2/2 from a stats perspective (though getting some value is nice), and agree that part of the weakness in Black is that none of its Commons really feel like they reach a premium status. It has a lot of solid roleplayer cards though, so I still think good decks will come together.
Personally I'm uninmpressed with Red's archetypes so far(especially the "2 power or less matters" Boros), although it has quite a bit of "high-quality in a vacuum" cards imo Overall I'm not seeing any color being as weak as Blue was in BLB, but I have very little experience so we'll see lol
@@Controlqueen31 Black seems to have the worst singular card quality, that's fair. But Boros, Rakdos and maybe Izzet all seem weaker to me than Dimir, Golgari and Orzhov. In Red's defense, Gruul actually seems pretty good, but it might just be the Timmy in me talking
Red's archetypes being a bit lackluster is one of the reasons I put it lower in the color rankings, but there are certainly some strong individual cards that make it a worthwhile color to draft and play!
I am not a good player, but Blue looks a lot deeper than it usually is for Limited. I really think Unable to scream is lowkey super good as you can just chuck it in any stage of the game against most anything and come out ahead at least in tempo as even if the opponent gets rid of the enchantment, they will have to spend a card and more mana than you did just to free their creature.
Very skeptical of how reliable delirium will be in limited. Dread seems like the clear winner to me since it's both card filtering and plays to the board.
Delirium is the sort of mechanic that generally kicks in during the mid to lategame if you build your deck around it a little (making sure to include some different types and ways to get cards into your graveyard). I don't generally find it useful to compare the power level of mechanics, as it makes more sense to me to evaluate the individual cards that have each mechanic or the synergies with each mechanic in the set.
I always try to emphasize this, but color rankings are more of a tiebreaker than anything, and you are generally going to be more successful drafting open colors than trying to force yourself into a particular color or away from a particular color.
@@NicolaiBolas your videos are really great. I watched a lot during Wilds of eldraine and thunder junction and got high diamond in both. Hope to be getting there again 🫡
Nice Video again. I am not sure about some cards in the „best commons“ Part but this is the hardest to predict everytime. We have to see how it works out in the end. One question i have is, if its possible to react to my Opponent flipping a manifest dread creature. When is the best time to kill the 2/2? When they tap the Lands, pay the Mana and say they flip the creature, does my kill spell Target the 2/2 in response or does the activation resolve and my spell targets the creature it Flips into? So When it has ward or is a creaturetype i cant Target my spell loses its Target? Can anyone clear that up?
You actually can't respond to someone flipping a manifest dread creature. It is not an activated ability and does not use the stack. If you want to kill the creature while it is a 2/2, you have to do it while your opponent is tapped out (or hope they can't flip it into something that survives if they do have mana available).
When discussing Arabella, you said “if you can enable it to attack”… what did you mean by that? It’s a creature, so can’t it just attack whenever? The card text doesn’t mention any restrictions.
It is just an educated guess at this point. I remember some strategies that looked really good on paper fall apart in practice. But Simic (Blue/Green) looks like the early leader.
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Hey Nicolai very solid tip about paying attention to your opponents behaviour around their manifest dread creatures. This hadn't crossed my mind but is pure gold, thank you!
I'm so glad you found it helpful!
I Like this mechanic sooo much in Face to Face Draft Matches because it puts an Element of Poker into the Games. This favours players who can create misleading narratives and cause Opponents to make wrong decisions.
Great guide. I'm ready for my pre-release now!
Thanks a million Paul! I'm a big fan of yours, so this means a lot to me.
0:00 Video overview
0:20 New mechanic overview
0:30 Survival mechanic
0:42 Rooms mechanic
1:10 Eerie mechanic
1:23 Manifest Dread mechanic
1:52 Delirium mechanic
2:10 Top commons (white)
3:28 Top commons (blue)
4:36 Top commons (black)
5:31 Top commons (red)
6:36 Top commons (green)
8:09 Color ranking
8:58 Archetype overview (red/white)
9:51 Archetype overview (blue/black)
10:49 Archetype overview (green/white)
11:56 Archetype overview (blue/red)
11:48 Archetype overview (black/green)
13:41 Archetype overview (white/blue)
14:20 Archetype overview (red/green)
15:33 Archetype overview (white/black)
16:27 Archetype overview (green/blue)
17:05 Archetype overview (black/red)
17:45 Combat tricks
18:21 Traps
19:37 Combos
20:58 Mana fixing
21:49 Final tips
Solid guide. I will now use that knowledge to crush my enemies, see them driven before me and hear the lamentations of their women.
Nice Conan the Barbarian reference!
Black being the worst for a horror set is surprising tbh
Excellent guide as usual. You always help me a ton at my prerelease events. Thank you for continuing to make these!
I am so glad you are enjoying them! I appreciate the kind words.
I’ll be doing my first draft event this weekend despite picking up Magic only two months ago. Not sure I’ll get 50/50, but this set has me excited for anything!
Hope you have fun! Try to stick to the basics, 17 lands, 16-17 creatures (or spells that make creatures), 6-7 non-creatures, 2 colors. It'll serve you really well. And, hard as it is, try not to fall so much in love with a card in pack 1 that you take bad cards in that color just to play with it.
I hope you enjoy limited as much as I did when I was in your situation. A couple of things for your first draft I wish I had known beforehand:
- stick with 17 lands (16 if extremely low curved, 18 if sensibly heavily curved and not very interactive, but I'd stick to 17 ANYWAYS).
- take removal in your color with a priority level that probably feels exaggerated to you (you don't really get the removal hunger at the table until you feel like you're the only one not being able to assess game ending threats)
- don't go below 13-14 creatures unless you really know what you're doing, having a creature-scarce board is a problem in limited much more so than in constructed formats, where you more or less EXPECT that to happen, and you're maneuvering a deck built to deal with those situations.
- as a first experience, I probably suggest you to stick to 2 colors, maybe splash a bomb of a third color; only splash stuff that doesn't have more than a mana symbol worth from the color you're splashing, never splash cards you want on your board EARLY, use around 3 lands/mana sources that provide that splashed mana.
I really hope this helps!
Thank you for the advice!
I’m glad you’re looking forward to it! It’s a lot of fun, and getting better over time is a very enjoyable experience!
best Limited guides on RUclips!
Thank you for the kind words!
I feel Simic is going to be busted if we talk about boardstate. It's two signpost uncommons are amazing, and the Manifest Dread pay offs in blue are good too.
Simic looks awesome to me too! All of the Uncommons I highlighted in its Archetype Overview are great, and Manifest Dread is a good mechanic.
A powerful Room to combo with would be Defiled Crypt, as removing any card from your graveyard will give you an enchantment creature. For example, UB decks that include both Manifest Dread and Eerie will greatly enjoy combo-ing Paranormal Analyst with Defiled Crypt, as any time you Manifest Dread the Analyst will move the card you don't manifest from the graveyard to your hand triggering Defiled Crypt to give you an enchantment creature, thus triggering any Eerie triggers. As you can imagine regrowth spells and land from graveyard to play effects in green also work, as does any actual bringing back creatures to hand or the battlefield from white and black itself. It is even possible to use it as a fodder-creation engine for red-black sacrifice by combining it with Malevolent Chandelier, but as you prefer to be aggro in that black archetype this is likely the weakest combo with Defiled Crypt. #DuskDrafter
I almost put that Paranormal Analyst plus Defiled Crypt combo into the guide, so good eye on spotting it! I had already showcased the Paranormal Analyst during the Archetype Overview portion, so I wanted to give some other cards a chance to be highlighted (and combos involving multiple Uncommons in a specific color combination are a bit more niche), but I'm looking forward to assembling some sweet synergies with Defiled Crypt! As a general note, Paranormal Analyst looks incredible to me so I think it will be a premium card in a lot of Blue decks! I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
I can't remember the last time I was so sure Simic would be the strongest color combo. Soooooo many good green commons. Manifests dread will play like a 2.5-3 mana card for 2 mana, and there are so many common & uncommon Manifest dread triggers. The green common removal spell is also premium. And it feels like basically every green uncommon and rare is a bomb. So excited for this set!
#duskdrafter ! Thanks for the awesome guide!!
You are welcome! I'm so glad you liked it!
I like the pace of your videos.
Thanks!
I know it's uncommon but violent urge should be looked out for on combat tricks, It's very important to be able to deduce when it's safe to not block into this as you check for R available and delirium present
That Altanak combo reminds of one I used in Lost Caverns of Ixalan, Swampcycling Rampaging Spiketail and then sacrifice Soulcoil Viper, not perfect but it was good enough
#DuskDrafter
There are also Landcyclers in Duskmourn at Common, and those can serve as reanimation targets as well. I'm glad you liked the video!
Love how this set is more of a mystery set than karlov manor with manifest dread
I am honestly even now already looking forward to this limited format much more than to bloomburrow... seems to have a few interesting angles in stock and instill more creativity among the drafter then drafting on rails like in the last set ^^
Black being the weakest in a horror set is wild
I think the designers aim for balance, so it is just as likely to be the weakest here as in any other set. Intentionally pushing a color seems like it would lead to bad gameplay, and trust me when I say there is plenty of horror themed stuff in every color!
Good to see I'm not the only one higher on blue and lower on black going into this set's early days. If green in Bloomburrow taught me anything, it's that a color's self-synergies are important to its quality, and blue here has that in spades with all of its Eerie abilities. Also, black's commons just don't seem great to me. Murder is obviously decent, but has been getting less impressive in recent years, and I'm still not convinced about Fanatic of the Harrowing even with a couple limited-minded folks saying it's a top common. I just can't shake the feeling that a 4 mana 2/2 that makes the opponent discard isn't good enough without the looting effect, which really only feels amazing in 2 out of the 4 black decks, which makes me think it's a 2 or 3 out of 7 at best. If that's really in black's top 3 commons, then I really don't think black's going to be very good at all, when most colors have about 3 or 4 4-5/7 level commons. Anyways, glad to see you as positive as always, I really appreciate that about this channel. #DuskDrafter
I'm so glad you enjoyed my guide and have been enjoying my videos! I agree on how Murder has been decreasing in importance, which I think is probably due to the increasing value attached to creatures. It is not as impressive to kill a creature when it generated some value as it came into play. I also don't love a 4 mana 2/2 from a stats perspective (though getting some value is nice), and agree that part of the weakness in Black is that none of its Commons really feel like they reach a premium status. It has a lot of solid roleplayer cards though, so I still think good decks will come together.
I haven’t had a chance to look at the spoilers yet. Thanks for an excellent primer as always. #DuskDrafter
I'm so glad you found my guide helpful! I appreciate the kind words!
Personally I'm uninmpressed with Red's archetypes so far(especially the "2 power or less matters" Boros), although it has quite a bit of "high-quality in a vacuum" cards imo
Overall I'm not seeing any color being as weak as Blue was in BLB, but I have very little experience so we'll see lol
To me, Black is the weakest color this set. I've only check White, Red, Black and Blue, and black seems bad in general.
@@Controlqueen31 Black seems to have the worst singular card quality, that's fair. But Boros, Rakdos and maybe Izzet all seem weaker to me than Dimir, Golgari and Orzhov.
In Red's defense, Gruul actually seems pretty good, but it might just be the Timmy in me talking
Red's archetypes being a bit lackluster is one of the reasons I put it lower in the color rankings, but there are certainly some strong individual cards that make it a worthwhile color to draft and play!
@@NicolaiBolas I'm glad to see you agree with me, makes me more confident about my opinion :)
You also put it in much clearer words that I did lol
I am not a good player, but Blue looks a lot deeper than it usually is for Limited. I really think Unable to scream is lowkey super good as you can just chuck it in any stage of the game against most anything and come out ahead at least in tempo as even if the opponent gets rid of the enchantment, they will have to spend a card and more mana than you did just to free their creature.
I would leave a comment anyway
You deserve it
#duskdrafter
you make sense and that's what drafting is. appreciate the help
I'm so glad you enjoyed my guide!
#DuskDrafter I think Manifest Dread is going to be awesome. It may even make a deck in constructed it's so good.
Manifest Dread is a sweet mechanic for sure!
#duskdrafter great video with some great points I hadn’t thought much about yet. I can’t wait to draft this set!
I appreciate the kind words and I’m glad you liked my guide!
Thank You!
You are welcome!
#DuskDrafter Stoked!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
#duskdrafter can’t wait!
I’m so glad you’re looking forward to it!
Good morning everyone! Looking forward to the set 💜
I'm glad you enjoyed my guide and are looking forward to Duskmourn!
#Duskdrafter Thanks for the guide Nicolai!
You are welcome! I'm so glad you found it helpful!
#duskdrafter thanks for the video. I am so bad at drafting that it is time I got better.
I’m glad you enjoyed the video!
Very skeptical of how reliable delirium will be in limited. Dread seems like the clear winner to me since it's both card filtering and plays to the board.
Delirium is the sort of mechanic that generally kicks in during the mid to lategame if you build your deck around it a little (making sure to include some different types and ways to get cards into your graveyard). I don't generally find it useful to compare the power level of mechanics, as it makes more sense to me to evaluate the individual cards that have each mechanic or the synergies with each mechanic in the set.
#DuskDrafter Thank you.
I'm so glad you found my guide helpful!
#duskdrafter thanks for the vid!
You are welcome! I'm so glad you liked it!
#duskdrafter thanks for the vid! :)
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
Well that sucks, usually black is my primary color to stay open as the removal is usually so good
I always try to emphasize this, but color rankings are more of a tiebreaker than anything, and you are generally going to be more successful drafting open colors than trying to force yourself into a particular color or away from a particular color.
#duskdrafter im gonna be grinding this set so hard
I'm glad you enjoyed my video and are looking forward to playing the set!
@@NicolaiBolas your videos are really great. I watched a lot during Wilds of eldraine and thunder junction and got high diamond in both. Hope to be getting there again 🫡
#duskdrafter
Thanks for the job
I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
#duskdrafter Your draft guides are a must watch before a prerelease! Thanks.
That is high praise indeed! I'm so glad you're enjoying them!
Holy first time being first on a video
Your speed will go down in legend. I'm glad you enjoyed my guide!
#DuskDrafter Thanks for the guide
You are welcome! I'm so glad you liked it!
Nice Video again. I am not sure about some cards in the „best commons“ Part but this is the hardest to predict everytime. We have to see how it works out in the end. One question i have is, if its possible to react to my Opponent flipping a manifest dread creature. When is the best time to kill the 2/2? When they tap the Lands, pay the Mana and say they flip the creature, does my kill spell Target the 2/2 in response or does the activation resolve and my spell targets the creature it Flips into? So When it has ward or is a creaturetype i cant Target my spell loses its Target? Can anyone clear that up?
You actually can't respond to someone flipping a manifest dread creature. It is not an activated ability and does not use the stack. If you want to kill the creature while it is a 2/2, you have to do it while your opponent is tapped out (or hope they can't flip it into something that survives if they do have mana available).
When discussing Arabella, you said “if you can enable it to attack”… what did you mean by that? It’s a creature, so can’t it just attack whenever? The card text doesn’t mention any restrictions.
Arabella is a bit small as a 1/3, so in a lot of board states it will be hard for her to attack without dying. That’s what I meant.
#duskdrafter
I'm so glad you liked the video!
Does Ghostly Keybearer or other effects that say "unlock a door" ignore the cost to do so?
Yes, as long as it's on the field you can lock or unlock it with effects
Yes it does! You can get a big mana advantage with it if you set things up correctly.
#DuskDrafter ❤
I'm so glad you enjoyed my guide!
draft tier list :) ???
It is just an educated guess at this point. I remember some strategies that looked really good on paper fall apart in practice. But Simic (Blue/Green) looks like the early leader.
I have a card by card draft tier list posted on the NicolaiBolas Patreon page.
#DuskDrafter Thanks
I'm glad you liked my guide!
#Duskdrafter
I'm glad you enjoyed it!
#Duskdrafter
I'm glad you liked it!
#duskdrafters
I'm glad you enjoyed my guide!
#duskdrafter
I'm glad you liked it!
#duskdrafter
I'm glad you liked it!
#duskdrafter
I'm glad you liked my guide!
#duskdrafter
I'm glad you liked my guide!
#duskdrafter
I'm so glad you liked it!
#duskdrafter
I'm glad you liked it!