Hey guys, I am very happy to bring you a new article and this time the topic is Kaladesh Limited. Most of us have played and enjoyed the new cards from the world of Kaladesh and the format seemed great to me at first sight.

After week one I am currently 9 Drafts deep and still think the format is explicitly good! Today I will give you an overview how the format works and which cards you should look to pick up early.

Once again we have an Artifact Block, but it does not really feel like the old Mirrodin or Scars Draft. In those old formats 《Shatter》 was a first pick, this time around I would be very sad if I had to pick up one out of my first pack, that is probably the reason why it’s not even in the set.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of Artifacts in the set and a lot of boardstates are flooded with artifacts, but there are at least 1 or 2 drafters on the table that run hardly any artifacts or none. In my opinion it is fine to run one artifact removal spell maindeck, but I would not if I had better cards in general. You still should prioritize them during the draft, as you would want them in the sideboard against artifact heavy decks.

There are only 15 multicolor cards in the set and I would be willing to splash for almost all of them if my deck can afford it, thats how strong they are this time. We have 2 Planeswalkers, 3 Rares and 1 Uncommon Card in every color combination to work with and the only weak one is 《Hazardous Conditions》, as its very costy and not really the place you want to be in the format. I also would not splash for 《Contraband Kingpin》 as it’s just a very good 2 Drop and same goes for 《Veteran Motorist》and 《Voltaic Brawler》 but the others are just absurd.

A pimped 《Mulldrifter》, a bigger 《Gravedigger》, a 《Terminate》 and all the other cards are all great, so watch out for them. If you open one of them in pack 2 or 3 and have another strong card there still is a chance that you might wheel the multicolor card, as not every deck is interested in splashing because of the inherent tempo of the format.

When I first elaborated on the spoilers I had the feeling that it, once again will be on the faster side of formats and that’s certainly the case. It’s not as fast as the original Zendikar, but no format in Magic ever was, but I would rank it somewhere between our last block Shadows over Innistrad and Zendikar. There is just such a high density of quality 2-Drops, which usually leads to aggressive Formats. Every Color has their quality, aggressive Drops besides blue, where we are on the slower side of things but still find a very good 2 Drop in 《Aether Theorist》.

The vehicles also increase the tempo as you basically play 2 turns without blockers in early stages of the game (the turn where the vehicle comes into play and the turn afterwards where you crew with you newly cast creature). The high tempo also makes combat tricks better, because they help you get through the bigger blockers of the format.

The Vehicles are interesting and a cute new thing, I really like what they came up with here. Not all of them are great but from my first experiences one of them might be the best common in the set, 《Renegade Freighter》. Attacking with a 5/4 Trample on turn 4 should not be a thing you would expect of a common, but we got there and this card is certainly interesting for every deck.

《Sky Skiff》 is fine since it’s flying and only needs one creature to get things going. As I said before, not all are great, but they all are playable to some extent with the worst beeing 《Demolition Stomper》 as it requires a lot to drive it. Usually we can say that the higher the crew and mana costs are, the worse the card gets, just like in all other parts of Magic.

The Synergy in most of the really good Draft Decks is massive which leads to rares being downgraded a little bit in general. If you are all in Energy you just need any card to get value out of it, there is no need that this card has to be a rare. Same goes for all kinds of strategies and I only felt really bad playing against 2 cards, 《Nissa, Vital Force》 and 《Skysovereign, Consul Flagship》. These two cards are crazy good and you can hardly do anything against them. They both come down and the damage is already done. Sure, you can beat the flagship with an instant-removal and Nissa with an army of flyers, but that’s not how it’s going to end, you will most of the time just lose to them. All the other rares and mythics are super strong, but none of them felt unbeatable to me yet, even though 《Verdurous Gearhulk》, 《Fumigate》 and 《Marionette Master》 made quite an impression.

So if you need a specific creature, a combat trick or removal for your Deck, it is perfectly fine to pass up on cards like a 《Bristling Hydra》. Now we are moving forward to the color combinations and key commons for each archetype. There is one thing you should try to remember while visiting the world of Kaladesh: Color combinations are not as strict as they usually are, because of the artifacts you could end up with an almost mono colored deck, just splashing for 3 cards or you could have a deck with even 3 or 4 colors if you are based around artifacts and have a few 《Prophetic Prism》.

I am not entirely sure how this deck should look like, but this was the combination that had a wider gameplan and more often contained 3 or even 4 colors. So you try to generate value and card advantage and win with small, slow bombs or a bunch of Servo Tokens. Everything is possible in this combination, especially because they are the 2 deepest colors.

Top Commons: 《Prophetic Prism》, 《Die Young》, 《Peema Outrider》

Classic Boros stategy, go fast with small creatures, have some haste creatures and removal to have a shot in the lategame and finish your oppontent off with 《Inspired Charge》. The only thing that makes it different than in other formats is that it aches for vehicles pretty badly.

Top Commons: 《Sky Skiff》, 《Propeller Pioneer》, 《Thriving Grubs》
Sidenote: this can also be the Combo Deck consisting of 《Salivating Gremlins》 and 《Cogworker's Puzzleknot》

Flyers and groundcontrol. Nothing fancy here, besides that one card I find particularly interesting, 《Ninth Bridge Patrol》. As this guy reads “when leaves the battlefield” it works with all your bounce and blink effects that should be in your deck and therefore you can generate a quick clock and a good defense. You just need to find a good way to really stall the ground as your clock is usually slower than your opponents.

Top Commons: 《Impeccable Timing》, 《Wind Drake》, 《Aether Theorist》, 《Sky Skiff》

Now we are talking energy! This combination can really use energy at its best and has draws where you basically can’t loose as you are always one turn ahead as you curve from energy into energy creature. But you can also draft a Blue/Green Deck that hardly uses any energy. You can draft artifacts with some fabricate creatures to get the full power of 《Gearseeker Serpent》.

Archetypes are very powerful, even though you have to prioritize your spells very high, as there are not many you can actually use.

Top Commons: 《Thriving Turtle》, 《Thriving Rhino》, 《Hunt the Weak》 or 《Gearseeker Serpent》, 《Peema Outrider》, 《Narnam Cobra》

This is your real artifact control deck. You try to stall the board as best as possible and break through with either flyers, 《Gearseeker Serpent》 or 《Dhund Operative》. The more artifacts and fabricate creatures you get during the draft, the better your deck usually looks. As you want 《Prophetic Prism》in your Deck, there’s a real opportunity to splash other colors.

Top Commons: 《Dhund Operative》, 《Gearseeker Serpent》, 《Prophetic Prism》

This is also one of the energetic archetypes of the format. Try to get as much energy as you can get and outtempo your opponent. Flyers are very welcome in this archetype and haste creatures are also quite welcome. In this archtype 《Spontaneous Artist》 shows his full potential as you can really mess with your opponents gameplan.

Top Commons: 《Spontaneous Artist》, 《Aether Theorist》, 《Thriving Grubs》

This archetype also works like in most other formats as you might not care about artifacts that much. Just try to overpower your opponents with your big creatures and pair it with some removal, hasty creatures and combat tricks. This deck also relies a bit on energy, but it does not really focus the energy plan that hard, it’s more like a thing that happens organically as most of your creatures produce energy for themselves.

But there is also a possibility to end up in a more artifact based deck with 《Salivating Gremlins》.

Top Commons: 《Thriving Rhino》, 《Thriving Grubs》, 《Hunt the Weak》 & 《Welding Sparks》

This is the archetype I like the most so far. You can choose from a variety of possible gameplans from going either super aggressive or playing the control shell with a lot of fabricate or just settle for somewhere in between . 2 Drops are very important and here you have a lot to choose from. Both decks could work with or without artifacts, so just try to find out what suits you the most, I am not entirely sure what I like the most yet and therefore I will not post any Top Commons.

At first I thought this archetype just tries to push through with green creatures and support it with some white flyers. This is true to some extent, but there is also a lot of energy in play and one of your key creatures is 《Eddytrail Hawk》 as it plays both roles. It produces and works with energy, it’s flying and it helps your big green guys to fly. This archetype is very aggressive and has a lot of reach and powerful rares and uncommons.

Top Commons: 《Eddytrail Hawk》, 《Hunt the Weak》, 《Kujar Seedsculptor》

Last but not least we have Red/Black and it does what it usually does, play some small creatures, use a lot of removal on your opponents creatures and try to get to the finish line. There is no real synergy between both colors so just try to create as much velocity as possible. Vehicles are great at that, so prioritize them in your draft as you have a lot of payoff cards with artifacts. So draft quality 2-Drops, removal and some vehicles and you should be fine.

I hardly listed removal in this list, as it usually is what your deck is looking for and tried to be more specific about certain cards for the specific archetypes. I also did not list 《Renegade Freighter》, as it goes into any deck and drives away with games pretty quickly.

I hope I was able to give you a good overview for what you should aim to do in your next Kaladesh draft and wish you the best of luck!

Oliver Polak-Rottman

Oliver Polak-Rottmann
A powerhouse player who was the Champion of GP Utrecht 2014 with Mono-Blue Devotion and another 4 GP Top 8’s to his name and countless Pro Tour appearances. Always on the forefront of reading the Standard metagame of any given season, he continues to travel and find success at events all over the world.

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