Today, we will draft with the new set: Dominaria!
I simulate the 8 first pick of a draft and asked to 4 Hareruya Pros Players what they would pick.
Here are the 4 gentlemen who accepted to participate in this experience:
You can see their profiles, more in details, here: Hareruya Pros
This draft was done before Dominaria Prerelease. It will be interesting to see if they will do the same choices or not.
PICK 1
Sebastian Pozzo
Pick
The pack doesn’t look like something really special. With Kicker in a lot of playable commons I think seems like a very good start to me, so I would lead with that.
Dmitriy Butakov
Pick
would be a solid first pick, it is a good token generator and utility engine at the same time, but I really hate 1st picking multicolored cards. is the second option, the wizards are considered “premium archetype”, so it probably would have attention of the other drafters and itself is not that good to start drafting a deck with it. I will make a conservative pick of – it’s always nice to play some beef like Baloth Gorger a turn earlier, but the Kicker mechanic makes mana acceleration useful in the late game.
Kenta Harane
Pick
This is my first experience in the Dominaria draft. I do not have any information about which cards have synergy and what kind of architype there are in this format. looks like a card that has an important role in a specific architype, though we do not know now.
Having this said, we will picksince this card is strong by itself. Having a great mana curve and can become a green color beatdown deck can at least have an expected performance at any environment.
Oliver Polak-Rottmann
Pick
While I am not a huge fan of multicolor firstpicks, this card seems fairly strong to me. The format seems rather slow at first glance and a lategame bomb like this I would not like to pass.
Player’s Choice:
PICK 2
Sebastian Pozzo
Pick
Wow, the person passing to us must have taken some other foil bomb. A 3/4 flyer for 3W is already very good, so all the other text is just a nice bonus. Besides it goes well with the elf we have. From here on, I want to force white as much as I can. The also looks apealing but i think it has less power level.
Dmitriy Butakov
Pick
Probably we should expect some foil from the previous drafter, because is just a bomb – it’s cheap, splashable if we stay green and both its abilities could be devastating, I like very much, but these two cards are not even close.
Kenta Harane
Pick
A very strong rare so I am happy to pick this. Activating this will need a green mana though we have picked in our first pick and should go along together. Another good thing is that the picks we have can be decided very simple. catches my attention though a card that can lead to straight victory looks very attractive to me.
Oliver Polak-Rottmann
Pick
While this card is also at it’s best paired with green, the card is just very strong and should not be in the pack anymore.
Player’s Choice:
PICK 3
Sebastian Pozzo
Pick
Interesting, I see 3 good white cards and would like to pick a removal. In Green-White removals are usually a priority. I’m not sure which one is better in the dark, since we have the elf I would go with . This looks like a not very aggro format, but I could be wrong and the reproach could be better.
Dmitriy Butakov
Pick
Any removal is of high value for Green-White. Also you can kill Sagas with it, killing some before it wipes out the board sounds pretty sweet.
Kenta Harane
Pick
I want to make sure we use the rare we got in the last pick, so picking a white removal is decided at this point. A hard choice between. Since we do not know how fast this format is, I will pick because it is a removal that can also touch enchantments. When we play this format and feel that this format is much faster, we will be picking in the future.
Oliver Polak-Rottmann
Pick
It’s not a great card but it is an early removal and we are likely going to play white after our second pick.
Player’s Choice:
PICK 4
Sebastian Pozzo
Pick
It might be the best card in the pack and it’s in our colours. So now I guess we take legends slightly higher.
Dmitriy Butakov
Pick
is ok, but, like the previous time, I’d like to pick as many removal spells as possible and since green and white creatures are usually bigger the board, fight effects are almost a 100% removal as long as you play around opponent’s tricks.
Kenta Harane
Pick
It’s not bad for a low mana cost card. At this point we have a target that we want to defend(angel) and that is an upside to this decision.
On turn 5, playing the angel and this together, then activating it’s ability on turn 6 is a beautiful curve and a strong play.
Oliver Polak-Rottmann
Pick
I like the design of the card. It is either a bear or a , can’t wish for much more.
Player’s Choice:
PICK 5
Sebastian Pozzo
Pick
This pack is very weak. I would pick to have a big body.
Dmitriy Butakov
Pick
The pack is pretty bad for us, 7/6 without any evasion could find its place in the sideboard sometimes, but I doubt we will have problems picking it later. allows you some Saga shenanigans, but the good Sagas are rare and I doubt I’d like this creature in my main deck so far. is a great aggressive card in an aggressive archetype and I definitely don’t want to race it.
Kenta Harane
Pick
Picking this at this point is not satisfying but there were no motivations that wanted me to change the colours to proceed.
We have started this draft with a mana creature so U wish to play something like a Green-White ramp deck so I added a finisher to go along with this plan.
Oliver Polak-Rottmann
Pick
I honestly can’t tell how usefull the body will be or how important ramping will be, but I like the idea of the card.
Player’s Choice:
PICK 6
Sebastian Pozzo
Pick
Nothing that really stands. I would take to fill our curve and helping potential splashes.
Dmitriy Butakov
Pick
A mediocre card that would allow us not to lose 2 good cards if we decide not to play white as a main color or even splash some off-color bomb.
Kenta Harane
Pick
As I said in the pick before, this looks like a card that will help my plan.
To be honest, this is a strategy that I do not like, though we can find a finisher and some cards to help my ramp all in common, I think it is worth giving it a try.
Oliver Polak-Rottmann
Pick
This is not, but it will fix our mana and we are not passing on a lot here. With having 3 different colors I appriciate a bad .
Player’s Choice:
PICK 7
Sebastian Pozzo
Pick
We already have 5 mana card. So I rather have an utility land, it looks like a nice bonus if the format is slow enough.
Dmitriy Butakov
Pick
I’m always happy to play a couple of tapped lands with some abilities, and in Green-White you should be able to find something good in the top 5.
Kenta Harane
Pick
Green-White ramp decks tend to lack in facing flying strategies. Therefore, creatures that have Reach are very important reasons behind.
It is a little mana heavy though we picked a mana ramping spell before and I think it will work out.
Oliver Polak-Rottmann
Pick
I could also see us picking here, but is Green.
Player’s Choice:
PICK 8
Sebastian Pozzo
Pick
seem like the best card in the pack. However we are commited to Green-White with maybe a splash. I would take another for the same reasons above. They are for now our only 3 drops that could be useful if we want to splash. Also hoping for some legends makes fixing important. Cards that we passed like , or even could be good in our deck.
Dmitriy Butakov
Pick
Splasing something is not an “A” plan right now and 3/2 for 3 is not that exciting, so a maindeck pick again.
Kenta Harane
Pick
Ramp decks have problems fludding. Preparing some outs for this problem is something worth to do. Not like Cycling lands, we can prepare mana at the early stages of the game amd during the late game, we are able to activate the abilitiy so we do not have to think hard on playing this.
Oliver Polak-Rottmann
Pick
I could be totally wrong by not picking here, but we have no artifact yet and seems pretty medium.
Player’s Choice:
The 8 Picks Together
Sebastian Pozzo
Dmitriy Butakov
Kenta Harane
Oliver Polak-Rottmann
Conclusion
The 4 players decided to draft White and Green cards in priority due to there green first pick and the presence of , but they did not pick the same cards each time. It is little early to have a clear pick order for each color, future will tell us who did the best choices.
Thank you for reading,
Jeremy Dezani