Introduction
Hello everyone,
Modern Horizons 2 is about to be released in stores. While it is definitely going to shake up the Modern format, I found the draft format with lots of high power level cards and lots of synergies particularly fun.
In this article, I will talk about my favorite draft archetypes in terms of enablers, payoffs, and the general concept of drafting the decks along with a draft walkthrough. Please note that there are lots of rare drafts, yet these decks are perfectly fine with a good signal reading.
RB Madness
Enablers
《Cabal Initiate》 is not preferred.
Payoffs
RB Madness is the aggressive deck of the format. 《Viashino Lashclaw》 into 《Hell Mongrel》 is one of the best starts in the format. It is fairly easy to overrun your opponent with a stream of hasty Madness creatures. I dislike 《Cabal Initiate》 as an enabler as the ability is not relevant to being aggressive, but if you are short of enablers I wouldn’t mind playing it.
For the payoffs, while 《Skophos Reaver》 and 《Hell Mongrel》 are fine when cast the honest way, 《Kitchen Imp》 and 《Revolutionist》 are quite overcosted. It is fairly easy to pick up these payoffs later in the draft. Also, most of our enablers and payoffs are commons which means it’s very easy to support two Madness drafters in a pod.
Sample Deck List
Click to Wide
Here is my picks for the draft.
In this draft, we opened 《General Ferrous Rokiric》, which is also an extremely broken rare. We then spotted a Pack 1 Pick 3 《Hell Mongrel》 which indicated the archetype is open for at least two seats. I picked 《Hell Mongrel》 to keep myself open to the possibility of switching to RB Madness.
We then got another Pack 1 Pick 6 《Hell Mongrel》 while wheeling 《The Underworld Cookbook》. Here we can fairly safely assume we are the only RB Madness drafter in the pod. The rest of the two packs is kind of an easy job for us with lots of good payoffs and removals.
UWx Artifact
Enabler
Also Artifact Lands. Cheap Vanilla Artifact creatures are not preferred.
Payoffs
UWx Artifact is indeed a very typical flying deck. We get lots of good flying creatures at 3 cost like 《Burdened Aerialist》, 《Chrome Courier》, and 《Etherium Spinner》. On the other hand, we are trying to defend with some big but cheap affinity creatures where all our low drops are able to create Clues, Foods, and Treasures.
We could also include 《Marble Gargoyle》, 《Soul of Migration》, 《Guardian Kirin》 and 《Aeromoeba》 as some easy to pick flying finishers in common.
With picking up artifact lands at high priority, I personally like splashing green for 《Wavesifter》 where it could be a good source of artifact counts at the early game and very powerful card advantage resources at the late game.
Splashing Red is also an option with powerful cards like 《Arcbound Shikari》 to pump up the team or 《Slag Strider》 to machinegun our opponent’s creatures and life total.
Sample Deck List
Click to Wide
Here is my picks for the draft.
In this draft, we started with 《Urza’s Saga》 (Money!) and try to build an artifact deck surrounding the most broken card in the format. I aggressively picked up 《Hard Evidence》 by Pack 1 Pick 4 and Pack 1 Pick 6 to set up a good source of cheap artifacts. In Pack 1 Pick 8, I picked 《Razortide Bridge》 over 《Aeromoeba》 as I value the synergy over a random flying finisher.
Pack 1 Pick 9 is the biggest surprise to me as we tabled 《Ethersworn Sphinx》. Looking back Pack 1 Pick 5 with both 《Sojourner’s Companion》 and 《Steelfin Whale》 still in the pack provided some tells that the pod did not feature many artifact-focused drafters.
Pack 2 was kind of funny to me. I picked three 《Cabal Coffers》 in Pack 2 Pick 2, Pack 2 Pick 3 and Pack 2 Pick 4. There was a point where I thought I had just failed to click on the card as there is a 《Wavesifter》 in all three of those packs until I found out I do have four copies of the mythic card in my sideboard.
Once again we are in an extremely open position even though we rare-drafted 4 slots in pack 2. We tabled 《Sojourner’s Companion》, some 《Wavesifter》 and a last pick 《Sweep the Skies》 to get enough payoffs to the deck.
In pack 3 we are able to pick up double 《Etherium Spinner》 and a couple of on color artifact lands to finish the deck.
UGx Domain
Enabler
Payoffs
And any Rare/Mythic Bombs.
5-color is always always a powerful deck type in a high-power level draft format. We try to pick up some off-color bombs from other players when most players settle on specific colors at the later stage of the draft.
Green provided extra good mana fixing in terms of 《Rift Sower》. Land cyclers are especially great in Blue and Green. 《Mental Journey》 also fills up the mana fixing role nicely in the early game and helps in digging out our powerful spells in the late game.
《Orchard Strider》 provided a nice way to recover our life total where our early game is mostly setting up our mana especially when you paired it up with a turn 4 《Late to Dinner》. And that’s the reason I put 《Late to Dinner》 at the payoff once you picked up two 《Orchard Strider》.
The treasure-generating commons like 《Jewel-Eyed Cobra》 and 《Burdened Aerialist》 are also nice as we do not need a repeated color source for some of our one-of off-color splashes.
For artifact lands, I prefer partially off-color green/blue-based land as we can utilize the main color while being able to add up some goods.
In a domain deck, we want around two to three game finishing cards. 《Junk Winder》 and 《Combine Chrysalis》 are particularly good as they are uncommon.
Sample Deck List
Click to Wide
Here is my picks for the draft.
In this draft, we started with Pack 1 Pick 3 《Rift Sower》 and Pack 1 Pick 4 《Terramorph》. Along with our Pack 1 Pick 1 《Verdant Catacombs》, we are nicely set up for a good domain deck. With Pack 1 Pick 6 and Pack 1 Pick 9 《Orchard Strider》, we could almost guarantee a good mana base for any bombs in the format.
Pack two we are able to pick up 《Karmic Guide》 and triple 《Late to Dinner》 which works well with 《Orchard Strider》. We also got a Pack 2 Pick 6 《Junk Winder》 which works well with other token generators. So in pack three we picked up 《Hard Evidence》, 《Jewel-Eyed Cobra》, 《Etherium Spinner》, and 《Wavesifter》 to finish the deck.
It is not hard to see there are lots of the same cards shared between the UWx artifact and UGx domain. And that is why you will always see me picking up 《Hard Evidence》 over some good cards as it glues up cards in different deck types really well. While I listed them as two different archetypes, it is not hard to draft a mix of two deck types.
So here is what I have for today. I wish you luck in opening 《Urza’s Saga》 and 《Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer》 during the weekend. And most importantly, Happy Drafting!
