Discover

Discover is the ability that called my attention the most the first time I looked at the cards of this edition, as it works just like an improved Cascade, where you can choose to cast or keep the card revealed with the Discover ability in your hand.

This is generally a really good ability, as you will always have at least a 2 per 1 card advantage when you cast a card with Discover. 《Geological Appraiser》 is a good example of this powerful mechanic and also an awesome card for Limited.

Craft

Crafting consists in a mechanic where you can activate an ability that will allow you to take advantage from cards by exiling another card of the required type you control from play or from your graveyard. 《Spring-Loaded Sawblades》 is a card with craft that can be used both as a removal spell and later on can be transformed into a 5/5 vehicle.

Descend

Descend can work in 2 ways: as a trigger when a permanent you control is put in your graveyard or it works pretty much like Threshold where you have to have a certain number of cards in your graveyard to cause a bonus of your card to be active. The difference here is that those cards have to be permanent cards.

Descend is a key ability in many archetypes and it is fundamental for understanding the limited of this edition. 《The Mycotyrant》 is a card with Descend that can allow you to create a lot of power in the board.

Map Tokens

There are some cards that create an artifact called Map token, you can use it at sorcery speed to explore targeting any creature you control.

A tip here for all who are going to play with these mechanics for the first time would be that map tokens do not trigger the descend ability as they leave the battlefield. 《Sentinel of the Nameless City》 is a very strong example of a map token generator for only 3 mana.

White

White has a decent set of removals in the common slot. 《Petrify》《Cosmium Blast》 and 《Quicksand Whirlpool》 are the cards you should be looking for when drafting or opening your sealed pool. 《Petrify》 is pretty much a better version of 《Pacifism》, while 《Cosmium Blast》 and 《Quicksand Whirlpool》 are both instant removals that can also work as combat tricks. 《Quicksand Whirlpool》 has a bonus of exiling a creature which is pretty relevant when facing creatures that might come back to play, like the new god cards that we will talk about further on.

《Oltec Cloud Guard》 and 《Soaring Sandwing》 are very solid creatures in this color, both have flying; and evasion is very important for resolving a possible board stall in the limited format. 《Oltec Cloud Guard》 gives you a token to also defend yourself and 《Soaring Sandwing》 has plainscycling which is essential to make sure you draw enough land cards in the early game while also having a solid late game. 《Glorifier of Suffering》 is another creature worth mentioning, there are a lot of cards with descend that can benefit from the sacrifice in exchange for the two +1/+1 counters.

Blue

Blue is all about evasion and tempo. 《Didact Echo》 is a really good card by itself, being a creature that enters the battlefield and draws a card it shines even more when you have Descend 4, which is when it also gains flying.

Talking about flying, 《Waterwind Scout》 is probably one of the best commons of this color, if not the best, being a 3 mana 2/2 flyer that creates a map token when entering the battlefield. 《River Herald Scout》 is also a card to look for as it goes really well with the explore mechanic.

Talking about some combat tricks and other interactions, Blue lacks a little bit in this category, but 《Brackish Blunder》 can be a good pick for giving you some extra time while also generating an advantage with the map token. Who needs to interact with creatures if you never let them resolve in the first place? 《Out of Air》 can work pretty much as Counterspell for dealing with those big creature spells.

Black

Talking about common creatures that this color has to offer, 《Skullcap Snail》 is an improved 《Ravenous Rats》 that makes an opponent exile a card from his hand; In addition, it is always nice to exchange 1 card for 1 card while leaving a creature in the battlefield.

《Broodrage Mycoid》 is a card that might be able to generate you some extra tokens while also having decent power and toughness. 《Rampaging Spiketail》 is another card from the “Cyclers Cycle” that will be played a lot in Limited.

As for the removals that Black has to offer, 《Join the Dead》 is one of the best removals of the edition in the common slot, it can basically kill most of those big creatures at instant speed. 《Ray of Ruin》 is also a really good pick as it exiles creatures and also let you scry, which can be really important in the late game.

Another very interesting pick for black is 《Fanatical Offering》, it works pretty much like 《Deadly Dispute》 but it generates a map token instead of a treasure which might be even better for Limited in some situations.

Red

Red in this edition is pretty strong, but its strength is more in the uncommon and rare slots than in the commons. It definitely has really good removals like 《Abrade》 and 《Rumbling Rockslide》. Another good card with craft ability is 《Idol of the Deep King》.

I think the way they tried to balance out Red was to reduce a bit the number of good commons. In the creature slot, 《Burning Sun Cavalry》《Dinotomaton》 and 《Seismic Monstrosaur》 are the cards that I would be mostly looking for in a dinosaur-based deck, but that can also work well in other strategies.

Green

Green has two main strategies in this edition. The first one is all about playing big dinosaurs and ramping them. 《Poison Dart Frog》 is a good pick to help to cast your dinos as early as possible and 《Cavern Stomper》《Nurturing Bristleback》 and 《Colossadactyl》 are some of the creatures you are hoping to ramp into.

The second strategy that green is trying to do involves exploring. Some cards like 《River Herald Guide》 that can get you advantage in the game by drawing an extra land card or checking the top of your library. 《Pathfinding Axejaw》 is a card that can be really good in both strategies by being a dinosaur and also exploring.

Talking about removal spells, 《Huatli’s Final Strike》 is an awesome pick for Green because you are likely to have some huge creature lying around so you can target them.

Lands

I decided to also talk about the lands of this edition as they are a big part of the Limited format. The Lost Caverns of Ixalan is all about exploring these caves, and the common land cycle that they designed for this set is pretty good for Limited.

《Hidden Courtyard》《Hidden Cataract》《Hidden Necropolis》《Hidden Volcano》 and 《Hidden Nursery》 are all lands that can be cashed in for that discover 4 late game and give you some extra advantage.

Another land that is important to mention is 《Captivating Cave》 that works as mana fixing for those greedy splashes, while also giving counters to a creature in the late game.

Black-Red Descend

This archetype is all about triggering descend at the end of the turn. 《Zoyowa Lava-Tongue》 is a card that represents this archetype well. It is already pretty good as a 2 mana 2/2 deathtouch but it also makes the opponent discard a card, sacrifice a permanent or take damage, which is a nice bonus.

《Enterprising Scallywag》 and 《Stalactite Stalker》 are the cards that should be on your radar if you are trying to play small aggressive creatures while removing opponent’s creatures from the game.

Black-Green Descend

This is a pretty solid archetype as you can both work with the big creature power of Green and the great amount of removal spells of Black. It is a mid-range strategy and 《Akawalli, the Seething Tower》, is a card that represents this archetype well as you will be also trying to trigger descend as much as you can.

In this color combination, you should also pay attention to some reanimate mechanics with cards like 《Soulcoil Viper》 and 《Defossilize》 that are able to get you back the basic land cycle creatures like 《Nurturing Bristleback》 and 《Rampaging Spiketail》.

Red-Green Dinosaurs

Red-Green Dinos is very strong in the early-mid game as it tries to put big creatures in the board as fast as possible. 《Itzquinth, Firstborn of Gishath》, is the multicolored uncommon of this archetype and it is pretty good as you can choose another big dinosaur you control to deal damage to an opponent’s creature and there is plenty of big ones.

《Scytheclaw Raptor》 and 《Earthshaker Dreadmaw》 are some of the beefy creatures you are looking for while 《Ixalli’s Lorekeeper》 and 《Poison Dart Frog》 can help you to ramp them.

Red-White Tap

This is one of the aggressive archetypes of the edition. The idea here is to spread a bunch of creatures so you can use them for cards like 《Caparocti Sunborn》 and 《Guardian of the Great Door》. 《Tinker’s Tote》 and 《Geological Appraiser》 might help you to achieve that permanent count you need to make this strategy work.

Blue-Black Descend

This archetype is trying to control the game and extract as much of the descend mechanic as possible. 《Uchbenbak, the Great Mistake》, is a very strong card as it can exchange with almost every creature in the format and comes back from the graveyard when you have enough permanents to reach descend.

《Chupacabra Echo》 and 《Stinging Cave Crawler》 are the cards you want to get into a deck like this, that is all about extra cards and extra advantage.

Green-White Buffers

This strategy is trying to cast tough and solid creatures and then change their power with some buffing effect or +1/+1 counters. 《Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar》, is a card that shows what this strategy is all about as you can use cards like 《Malamet War Scribe》 and 《Ironpaw Aspirant》 to make it work. 《Sovereign Okinec Ahau》 is also a card that you should be looking for that fits really well with this strategy.

White Blue Artifacts

Here you are trying to control the board as much as you can by playing some removal and stalling the board so you can take advantage of the craft mechanic and close the game. 《Master’s Guide-Mural》 is a card that shows exactly what this archetype wants, time enough to craft cards like this. 《Clay-Fired Bricks》 and 《Spring-Loaded Sawblades》 might be some cards to help you win the late game while also helping you to get there.

《Unstable Glyphbridge》 is another card that you should grab if you have the opportunity to as mass removal effects can swing the board advantage by its own. It might not look like it, but cards like 《Hermitic Nautilus》 can be a good idea in these slow archetypes, because they can stop the aggressive strategies while also being versatile enough to exchange with a bigger creature later on.

Green-Blue Explore

This would be one of the mid-game archetypes of this format. What it tries to do is playing creatures that will become bigger and bigger by exploring, while improving the quality of your draws, taking away those extra lands from the top of your library.

《Nicanzil, Current Conductor》, is a card you will be looking for when playing these colors. 《Cenote Scout》 and 《Twists and Turns》 are some other great picks for these strategies, the idea is to get as many cards with explore and extracting the most advantage from them as you can. 《Merfolk Cave-Diver》 and other creatures with evasion might also be a good idea to help you resolve the board stalls.

Blue-Red Artifacts

I decided to call this archetype UR Artifacts but it might as well be called UR Pirates. 《Captain Storm, Cosmium Raider》 is a card that represents both of these strategies as it puts counters on the pirates you control for the artifacts that enter the battlefield under your control. 《Goblin Tomb Raider》 and 《Breeches, Eager Pillager》 are the cards you are looking for in this Archetype, Blue-Red is pretty fast and agro so you are trying to finish the game as fast as possible.

White-Black Sacrifice

This strategy is trying to gain an advantage by sacrificing some permanents you control. 《Bartolomé del Presidio》 is a multicolored card that explains what this archetype is trying to do by being a sacrifice outlet while you can use cards like 《Synapse Necromage》 and 《Visage of Dread》 as sacrifices for it. 《Vito, Fanatic of Aclazotz》, is what you are searching for in a deck like this as it can kind of make a combo with the sacrifices you make.