Modern Masters Draft Strategy and Set Review

My two favorite formats are draft (drafts of any stripes… from triple Zendikar to Cube) and Modern. Needless to say, the impending release of Modern Masters has me more excited than I’ve been since Khaleesi’s dragons freaked out on Astapor and Tribal Flames‘ed the hell out of it.

I’m veritably drooling at the thought of opening the fabled Goyf/foil Goyf pack, and I’ve signed up for every draft my local store let me sign up for.

The format is in a bit of a weird place though. Most people (myself included) are going to be drafting partly as a fun way to crack Modern staples. The draft format will only be in existence for a few months, and only a handful of people will qualify for the Pro Tour by playing it (at GP Las Vegas). Those incentives suggest rare-drafting will be a huge part of the format. Still, we’re all students of the game here, and we want to take part in crushing our friends while still getting as much value as possible.

To that end, I’ve put together a set review and Modern Masters draft guide. I’m no expert, and the format is pretty unprecedented – but I have a few ideas you might be able to put to use.

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Blue Gets Quality Commons in Dragon’s Maze Set Review

This is Thought Scour‘s Dragon’s Maze Set Review for blue. You can check out the review for the other colors at the main Dragon’s Maze Set Review page, and you can open our Set Review Ratings System to understand how we’re grading each card.

Blue’s has some pretty solid offerings in Dragon’s Maze, starting with a couple noteworthy commons. Runner’s Bane is a better removal spell than blue has been getting lately, an easy-to-cast conditional removal spell that fits into both tempo and control decks. Blue has some very bad commons to go along with the very good ones, but since we’ll be dipping into multiple colors in this format, I’d almost rather have it that way.

In constructed, Aetherling, a nearly unkillable curve-topping beater, is blue’s flagship card. Morphling 2.0 is a bit clunky, but could easily be a good win condition for Standard control decks for a long time to come. Uncovered Clues is a new draw spell that may not prove good enough, but is certainly interesting.

To brush up on what exactly each card’s grade means, open our Set Review Ratings System explanation, then check out the ratings:

 

The spiritual ancestor of this card was one of the most dominant creatures of all time, so there are going to be some serious expectations for Aetherling. Morphling comparisons may actually be pretty apt in this case. That versatile, shifty closer came down and strangled opponents you already had on the ropes, being basically unkillable and presenting a fast, hard-to-stop clock. Aetherling is a very similar card. It costs more mana, but it’s not like you’re trying to curve out with him anyway. When he hits the battlefield, he’s a true menace. There are basically no Magic cards in Standard that can deal with him if you have a few Islands untapped, and he can bash your opponent’s life total (or planeswalker suite) to the tune of eight unblockable damage a turn.

Things I don’t like: Aetherling is a worse blocker than Morphling. Note that Aetherling can emulate Morphling‘s pseudo-vigilance by flickering itself when it becomes tapped. However, when you have to flicker out of existence for a few phases to shrug off a removal spell, you obviously miss some combat action, which can be a pretty huge deal if you’re trying to use your six-drop to stabilize or race.

Still, I think this card is very solid and will see play as a one- or two-of in slow Standard decks that want to use minimal deck space for win conditions. Esper control comes to mind, and gives that deck a good way to ignore Psychic Spiral and one-shot opposing Jaces.

In limited this thing is pretty sweet. It won’t dig you out of a massive hole if you’re already in one, but it’s quite capable of smashing the game wide open in any sort of stall or attrition battle. I don’t think the format will be as tempo-oriented as Gatecrash, so you can view Aetherling as a pretty awesome bomb.

Sealed – 4.0

Draft – 4.0

Constructed – 2.5

This seems like a pretty low-impact card. It can help you force through an initial cipher strike by tapping down two blockers, which is nothing to be sneezed at, but not always worth a card. Then you get to make contact and most likely untap two things – maybe giving your creatures pseudo-vigilance, or maybe untapping two lands to deploy another creature. Untapping two lands is actually pretty powerful (Sol Ring…) but you have to split the mana between your main phases, meaning you can’t actually ramp up to big spells. Beyond the first tap-down, I don’t really think the utility of vigilance / bad Sol Ring makes this card all that playable, so I look at it mostly like a bad tempo spell. Maybe you want one of those spells in your tempo deck, but it’s not a high priority, and something like Lyev Decree is much better.

Dedicated cipher wasn’t a great archetype in Gatecrash, and I don’t think that’s suddenly going to change with fewer Dimir cards in the Draft, although a slower format could make room for cards like Shadow Slice to shine. Still, I don’t think this will be a big player in the limited format, and it definitely won’t see constructed play.

Sealed – 1.0

Draft – 2.0

Constructed – 0.0

Maze Glider has the worst stats of any of the maze elementals  but it has the best ability. Fat flying creatures have a strong pedigree for a reason – they are great at almost everything. Racing, blocking, suiting up with auras – you name it.

Maze Glider‘s “buddy” ability is also the most dangerous of the maze elementals. If you have a couple of 3/3 gold cards, giving them trample might not make much difference at all – but giving them flying could end the game in on the spot.

Of the cycle, Maze Glider is the one you want to pay a little bit of attention to, and once you have him, maybe even change around your pick orders a little bit. Still, what we have here is a three-power six-mana creatures, so I wouldn’t bat an eye at leaving him in my sideboard or passing him for a tempo spell or an on-curve creature.

Sealed – 3.0

Draft – 2.5

Constructed – 0.0

Cool art and concept, but Mindstatic is a pretty garbagey counterspell. It’s obviously worse than Dissipate in constructed, even in decks that have trouble getting to UU. In limited, it’s nice having access to a counterspell, but four mana is a lot to ask. Cancel is already not a great card, and adding a mana to the cost is really a kick in the teeth.

I’m sure I’ll end up running one of these in my four-color blue Draft decks every once in a while, but it will be without relish and with the intent to sideboard it out against more aggressive opponents. In Sealed, this can be useful for answering opposing bombs, and you can side it in and out as you see fit with that in mind.

Sealed – 1.5

Draft – 1.0

Constructed – 0.0

My favorite take on this card was a comment on the Mythic Spolier forums where someone just said, “Not enough mouths.”

Indeed.

Two mana is pretty cheap, and this blocks a lot of things. In constructed you can shut down everything up to and including Loxodon Smiter. Unfortunately, this doesn’t really match up well to the aggro decks, which can spit out a bunch of attackers really quickly (Burning-Tree Emissary) or build up one huge attacker very early Champion of the Parish). I don’t think it’s destined to see any play anytime soon.

In limited this isn’t that bad, blocking your opponent’s two-drop, then his three-drop, then even his four- or five-drop. Having this in your deck is seriously limited, though, and it is a depressing draw if your opponent is stumbling and you just want to put him away. If you need a roadblock while you assemble the pieces for your powerful late-game, this is a fine card, but don’t value it too highly.

Sealed – 1.5

Draft – 1.5

Constructed – 0.0

Opal Lake Gatekeepers, like the rest of the cycle, starts off as a decent limited playable – even if you don’t hit the trigger, you can always play these to hold off opposing Gore-House Chainwalkers.

When you do hit their triggers though, the gatekeepers become quite good. The question is whether your pool has on-color gates / whether you can draft a deck (perhaps three or four colors) that wants four to five gates. (Go to our set review for white and read that gatekeeper review for more analysis). If you’ve got the gates, this card is solid. Not great, but better than “playable.”

As with all the other gatekeepers, you can’t play Opal Lake Gatekeepers in constructed due to the fact that gates are basically unplayable (give or take).

Sealed – 2.0 (3.0 if you have three or four gates)

Draft – 2.0

Constructed – 0.0

This is a pretty nice Claustrophobia variant. While it can’t lock down the hugest of monsters, there are a LOT of creatures with power three or less in this set and in the block as a whole. Runner’s Bane is just as adept at shutting down a controlling deck’s Court Hussar as an aggro deck’s Ember Beast. And since it proactively taps opposing creatures when it enters the battlefield, it’s pretty good in aggro decks, as opposed to Paralyzing Grasp, which really only fit in control decks.

This unfortunately isn’t very good against bombs or creatures with static abilities like extort, but it’s cheap and versatile, so I’d call it “good” removal nonetheless.

This is a terrible choice for constructed when you have alternatives like Searing Spear or Detention Sphere, so stick to locking down creatures in games of limited.

Sealed – 3.5

Draft – 3.5

Constructed – 0.0

I understand why they have to print cards like this, but it’s not very applicable to any of the formats I play (or at least not winning in them). It’s interesting having Mind Bend as a repeatable effect, but I doubt that will make it playable anywhere. Chime in in the comments if I’m missing anything.

It’s also totally useless in limited, especially at sorcery speed.

It seems like they’d at least let you chance the color(s) of the target, so you can interact with things like Renounce the Guilds. Oh well. Just move along here, and nab any copies you see for the casual crowd.

Sealed – 0.0

Draft – 0.0

Constructed – 0.5

This one is a bit of a puzzler. One part Divination, one part Peer Through Depths, Uncovered Clues certainly has some interesting ancestors.

Divination has occasionally been constructed playable, but never good. Is Uncovered Clues better than the most baseline draw spell in the book? One one hand, it sometimes only hits one – or even zero – cards. On top of that, you have to build your deck full of instants and sorceries to leverage this. It also can’t help you dig for land drops early, which is one of the main reasons to evoke Mulldrifter, and a big deal in a control deck that wants to be progressing the game toward Sphinx’s Revelation.

On the other hand, Uncovered Clues does a great job of digging you deeper in your deck. It’s great at finding combo pieces or specific answers. It also isn’t as likely to just churn up two lands when you want gas, as Divination sometimes does. Sometimes you’ll cast this late in the game and see land, land, spell, spell, and feel like a genius.

If this were an instant I could see this card fitting into a shell like the aggro-control UWR Augur of Bolas decks, which already want to have a critical mass of instants and sorceries for their Augurs and Snapcasters. At three-mana, this card is a bit on the voluptuous side though, and as a sorcery I worry about slotting it into blue decks full of great instant-speed effects. I’m not totally sure about this card, but I’d peg it for sporadic Standard play with maybe a tiny smattering of Modern combo enabling.

In limited, this is pretty unexciting. Unless you have 15 or so instants and sorceries in your deck, this isn’t really playable.

Sealed – 0.5

Draft – 1.0

Constructed – 1.5

One of the most iconic limited creatures of all time, Wind Drake is a staple for blue mages, especially in Sealed, where evasion is worth its weight in gold. Or at least in, like, nutrient-enriched gold substitute.

In Draft, vanilla creatures can sometimes be a bit too “core set-ish” to be high picks, and Assault Griffin ended up being pretty bad in Gatecrash Draft on account of how fast and synergistic the format was. Still, I think this format will be a little more “good stuff” than Gatecrash, and we can go back to playing our Vassal Souls and being happy about it. This will be a solid, easy-to-cast pickup that doesn’t commit you to a particular set of colors.

Meanwhile, no person has ever cast a Wind Drake in constructed.

Sealed – 3.0

Draft – 3.0

Constructed – 0.0

 

From here you can go back to the Dragon’s Maze Set Review hub page. Or read our reviews of White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Azorius, Boros, Dimir, Golgari, Gruul, Izzet, Orzhov, Rakdos, Selesnya, Simic, or Artifacts, Lands, and Gold Split Cards.

 

Green’s Fatties Underwhelm in Dragon’s Maze Set Review

This is Thought Scour‘s Dragon’s Maze Set Review for green. You can check out the review for the other colors at the main Dragon’s Maze Set Review page, and you can open our Set Review Ratings System to understand how we’re grading each card.

All green’s playables in Dragon’s Maze are about one thing – beef. Green got some pretty loose combat tricks, and only one good square-jawed common in Thrashing Mossdog. There’s plenty of meat to fill out your curve if you’re looking to beat down, but it doesn’t look like the most exciting color for limited.

It’s rares aren’t raising too many eyebrows either. Skylasher is commanding a lot of attention, but I don’t see it getting much play unless Delver decks pick up some steam.

To brush up on what exactly each card’s grade means, open our Set Review Ratings System explanation, then check out the ratings:

 

This isn’t the most aggressively-costed evolver, and it doesn’t do a good job of curving out with Simic’s best two-drop, Shambleshark, as the two share a power and toughness.

I’m also inclined to believe the value of evolve creatures is going to go down as a whole (although demand for them might go up). The best evolve Draft strategy in Gatecrash was to just have as many evolvers as possible to ensure a devastating curve. With fewer evolve creatures in Dragon’s Maze and none in your Return to Ravnica pack, you’ll be evaluating evolvers more on their own merits, rather than as synergistic curve-enablers (or else scrambling to pick up every one in sight).

As a three-mana 2/1, Battering Krasis doesn’t pass the eyeball/vanilla test. Still, this guy can get pretty big, as there are a lot of high toughness cards in the format for you to pump it with. If it grows up to 4/3 or so, this dino-hammerhead will bring some serious pain, making it worth the effort.

Sealed – 2.5

Draft – 2.5

Constructed – 0.0

A cross between Stonewood Invoker and Knight of the Skyward Eye, this will be a perfectly serviceable two-drop in limited. This card is a little worse-positioned than its predecessors, but having a two-drop that can be relevant on into the late game is very nice. This isn’t going to synergize with your Draft deck particularly well or blow anyone out in Sealed, but it’s a good meat and potatoes playable. This will be a less important card that if it were in Gatecrash, where hitting your two-drop critical, but you’ll still play this pretty often in Sealed and won’t be able to count on wheeling it reliably in Draft.

Sealed – 2.5

Draft – 2.0

Constructed – 0.0

A 5/4 flier for six would be a very strong card, so a trampler, as a sort of semi-evasive creature, shouldn’t be that much worse. In practice though, that’s not the case. You can’t really take over most games with your Maze Behemoth, as a simple double-block with two gatekeepers is a one-for-one trade. The chance to give a few of your dudes trample doesn’t hurt, although that situation won’t be very common or even very important usually.

Play this card if you need a late-game steamroller, just know that your excitement and energies are better spent on your two-drops and spells.

Sealed – 2.0

Draft – 2.0

Constructed – 0.0

This is a pretty bad trick. You’re never going to get card advantage out of it. At best, you counter your opponent’s removal spell, which is pretty good but not exactly game-winning. More often though, you’ll just be “trading” your 3/3 for your opponent’s 3/3 and then saving yours. Those plays can save you some mana at the expense of leaving a Forest untapped for a few turns… but that’s really not that exciting a way to derive some minimal tempo.

That said, this is playable. In Sealed, it can help protect your bomb, and is a decent include against any deck with some of the ponderous removal spells in the format like Punish the Enemy.

I don’t think this will see play in constructed, but if you need it, it’s there. Ranger’s Guile and friends have all seen some play at varying levels, but this is much worse, failing to protect against exile effects and toughness reduction.

Sealed – 1.5

Draft – 1.5

Constructed – 0.5

This is a pretty middling version of Prey Upon. The core set classic is an excellent card, letting you remove fliers and utility creatures for just one mana. Making the ability an instant is also pretty awesome, allowing you to fizzle your opponent’s auras, etc. However, the restriction on this card is a pretty enormous blow. Whereas before you always got to target your biggest guy, now you’ll have to target whatever evolvers you have lying around – and there’s no guarantee that you’ll have and dudes with +1/+1 counters on them at all. There’s also a reduced chance that these evolvers will be as big as you need them to be at the right time.

Cards like Crocanura should grow fast enough and be plentiful enough to make Mutant’s Prey playable, but often you’ll have insufficient beaters to make this any good.

I like this a little more in Draft, where you can attempt to get all the evolve creatures in packs one and two and maybe some scavengers in pack three. But even then, this is the kind of card you’re hoping to wheel, not take early.

Sealed – 1.0 (2.0 if you have about four-five good evolvers, 2.5 if more than that)

Draft – 2.5

Constructed – 0.0

Obviously this not being an instant is pretty bad, and makes it much more conditional. The most common use for this will just be “enchanting” one of your 2/2s to force your opponent to choose between getting Searing Fleshed and getting Diabolic Edicted. Giving him a choice is the key problem there – and despite those two cards being pretty good, Phytoburst is not.

There are some uses for this though. If you have Armed / Dangerous and a boatload of mana, you can easily kill their whole team (or just your opponent) with this. In Modern, this could also be applied to infect creatures to dish out a pretty quick six poison counters (but I think it’s too expensive to actually work well). Not the worst card, but certainly doesn’t have a ton of applications. The most useful this will be is in hyper-aggressive green draft decks, which I’m not sure are going to be that easy to put together (but if you do, this card is actually good in multiples).

Sealed – 1.0

Draft – 1.5

Constructed – 0.5

This many-headed goop-dragon can quickly go all Gaea’s Anthem on your opponent’s ass if – and only if – you have a bunch of evolve guys in your deck. That configuration doesn’t really exist in Standard at the moment, and I haven’t seen a lot of cards that are going to make me want to jam Cloudfin Raptors (although I still think that card has yet to see its peak of playability). The standard for three-drops in Standard is very high already (hello Boros Reckoner) and I don’t think Renegade Krasis is going to convince anyone to shelf their Burning-Tree Emissarys to play with Shamblesharks. There are some already-good “evolve” cards like Experiment One, Gyre Sage, and Quirion Dryad, but not enough to make this guy interesting.

In limited, this really just isn’t fair at all in a Simic deck. Anthem effects are very powerful in both Draft and Sealed, and this fella lets you turn every Wall of Wood into a Travel Preparations. Pure Simic aggro won’t exist in Dragon’s Maze Draft the way it did in Gatecrash, but Renegade Krasis is probably a good reason to jump into those waters and commit to picking up a bunch of evolve guys and the occasional Slitherhead.

He’s also perfectly fine as a three-power three-drop with some upside (which is what he’ll be in Sealed), but he’s only a bomb if you can fill your deck with eight or more evolvers.

Sealed – 3.0

Draft – 4.0

Constructed – 0.0

While Saruli Gatekeepers doesn’t give you value like its white, blue, and black cousins, its ability is still quite strong. Good Magic players have been trained to think “lifegain is bad” because cards like Healing Salve and Angel’s Mercy are unplayable. But in reality, lifegain is very good. Gaining enough life is almost like killing a small attacker, and when you tack it onto a body or a cantrip, it’s one of the best ways to steal tempo back against an aggressive start. It just so happens that a 2/4 body is pretty decent for these purposes.

The Saruli Gatekeepers are not as good as some of their brothers, but they will be good in some situations. Don’t hesitate to play it, but feel free to side it out in games that will be decided by card advantage rather than tempo, and obviously don’t play it if you have insufficient gates to trigger the ability consistently and don’t need the 2/4 body.

Sealed – 2.0 (a little better if you have the gates)

Draft – 2.0

Constructed – 0.0

This reminds me of a card that would’ve been the best creature in Invasion Block or something. Since those days, counterspells have gotten a lot worse and creatures have gotten a lot better, and a Grizzly Bears just doesn’t cut it anymore, even a hard-to-kill one able to block Insectile Aberration all day long. In every format, there are better options for green two-drops that provide more raw power or more synergy with their decks, from Burning-Tree Emissary to Tarmogoyf to Scavenging Ooze. If an Unsummon-based Delver deck goes back to being a dominant deck in Standard, Skylasher could see heavy play, but I don’t think it’s an all-star or anything like that.

In limited, meanwhile, you already want Grizzly Bears half the time (although, you’ll want them less in Dragon’s Maze limited than usual). This is much better than a Grizzly Bears, skittering past blue walls and ambushing Wind Drakes in about half your matchups. Not a super early pick or a reason to play green, but a nice maindeck card that can sometimes be almost unanswerable.

Sealed – 3.0

Draft – 3.0

Constructed – 2.0

A nice Hill Giant for limited. Korozda Monitor wasn’t that impressive in Return to Ravnica (I gave it a 2.5, which was a little high, at least in Draft). But Thrashing Mossdog is easier to cast, has an arguably better ability, is cheaper to unearth, and has way cooler creature types, all of which combine to make me pretty optimistic about this card. This is best in Sealed, where it’s one of the best ways to shut down opposing fliers, occasionally a very important task.

Sealed – 3.0

Draft – 2.5

Constructed – 0.0

 

From here you can go back to the Dragon’s Maze Set Review hub page. Or read our reviews of White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Azorius, Boros, Dimir, Golgari, Gruul, Izzet, Orzhov, Rakdos, Selesnya, Simic, or Artifacts, Lands, and Gold Split Cards.