Hello guys! Recently, I was able to reach Mythic Arena Rank 1 in April.
Best limited player on arena this season 😌
— Jérémy Dezani (@JDezani) 2019年4月30日
MTGアリーナ、今シーズンのベストリミテッドプレイヤー🌟#hareruyapros @MagicEsports @MTG_Arena ##hareruyapro pic.twitter.com/7DZP2Vvp5r
# 1 pic.twitter.com/yJx9n2Sm46
— Jérémy Dezani (@JDezani) 2019年5月4日
I am pretty proud about this and its a very good feeling to be seat at the first place. Being able to say I am the best Arena Limited player in the world is good.
In this article, I will try to give you some advices that I believe are essential if you want to have success in Limited.
1. Seat at the Draft Table with a Clear Strategy
When I am drafting, I like to already know what I prefer to play before opening the packs.
Most of the time, sets are not equal and some strategy are just better than others. People saying that they are open to anything clearly didn’t practice enough. The goal of testing a Limited format is to find the weak points in the conception of the set, what are the traps to dodge and what are the most open / best strategies.
To be able to reach the first place, I had to play in 3 different draft formats. Here are the rules I follow for these draft formats.
2. You Need to Know What Cards Are Unpopular Compared to How Good It Is
Here, there is a big difference between Arena and real life. In Arena, you are drafting with bots. This means that the popularity of the cards will not change with people or their improving at learning the format. In real life, players at your pod may have different feelings with the cards and something true this week can be wrong the next one. Anyway, on Arena this weak point is something you should use at your advantage.
For exemple, here are the cards Arena bots pick way too late:
3. Like Constructed, Limited Format Has Match-Ups
In draft, there are some colors combination that are very good against others. After understanding what is the best combination of color / the most popular, it’s pretty good to find the counter deck. For exemple, here are the best deck + counter picks in the 3 formats.
Magic Core Set 2019
Boros doesn’t generate card advantage. It’s just trying to push early damages and reach to being able to finish the game. Gaining life and block the early attack just annihilates this startegy and Orzhov can do that perfectly since the set has many gainlife cards in Black and White.
Guilds of Ravnica
Selesnya has bigger guys, can gain life and in the same time is able to attack. Boros is a very bad deck when it has to defend, mostly because the guild is base on Mentor that forces the player to attack to be able to get decent bodies. Just being able to block well is the key. You also have to deal with flying guys against Boros and Selesnya can also do that.
Ravnica Allegiance
With Azorius, you will just generate more card advantage and go over the top pretty easily against Orzhov Control. Orzhov is probably better against Aggro decks and this is exactly why it is also weaker against more controlish strategies. The only card that is scary in the matchup is 《Ill-Gotten Inheritance》, so make sure you have disenchant or you splash 《Ill-Gotten Inheritance》 too to counter it.
4. How Apllicate All These Rules in War of the Spark?
It is little early to be able to be 100% sure about it, but here is my actual strategy in the format.
Here is my colors combination pick order:
I really think aggressive strategies are worse than control ones in War of the Spark. So, whatever you are planning to do, you should be able to have a strong late game, generated by card advantage or making big guys with Proliferate etc…
I think that black is the most control color, even more than blue. You have many removals and all the Amass cards are super annoying for aggro decks. Also, I really think that red burn spells are bad against Amass decks.
Right now, I think people are not picking 《Toll of the Invasion》 early enough same for 《No Escape》. These two cards are super good when you want to fight Bombs, that are actually pretty insane in this set.
Here is the kind of deck I like to have (no rare here but you of course want some):
Click to enlarge
Having good sideboard is super important too, make sure you have a 《Kasmina’s Transmutation》 against Gods or 《Price of Betrayal》 against decks with many planswalkers. Also, having more sources of cards advantages is good for the control mirror.
5. Conclusion
Anyway, to be able to totally master a format, you need to practice.
I hope you learn a thing or two here and you will be able to applicate it in your future drafts.
Thank you for reading,
Jeremy Dezani on Twitter and Twitch
