Shadowmoor Draft Archetypes

Orlandu · Joined: 25 Sep 2004 Posts: 165

So, I'm wondering, is there any real reason to not try and force U/W if possible? It seems like it's far and away the best deck, having the best duo, one of the top two aura's, good aggresive drops with relavant abilities, etc. Not to mention the fact that you get access to all of G/W's creatures and what not..

Is there another archetype around the same potential power level?

kfcman · Joined: 16 Sep 2006 Posts: 665

Um yabv.

All of the archetypes, if drafted properly, are quite powerful.

My personal favorite in SHM draft is GRw. Solid aggressive drops from red and GW persist creatures and good removal, namely burn trail and firespout .

Feodoric · Joined: 27 Dec 2006 Posts: 10

Definitely.

I think U/B and R/G are as good or better than U/W.

Every archetype needs threats and ways to counter its opponents' threats. U/B has the best evasion and more removal than U/W. While Ghastlord isn't as powerful as Godhead, its still pretty good on unblockables or creatures with fear. I generally draft U/B over U/W.

R/G is also something of a powerhouse. Runes of the Deus is by far the most powerful of the god-auras. Runes on a morselhoarder, a marauders, or even a lowly r/g 3/3 wins a lot of games. Although red always seems to dry up quickly in drafts, green is generally deep and you always find more than enough playables. While red's removal isn't as 'hard' as black and blue removal, if you combine it with a little artifact/enchantment destruction from green (gleeful sabotage is great) and maybe abuse some power of fire + wither, you've got a great deck.

coolcreep · Joined: 18 Feb 2006 Posts: 264

Firespout is an uncommon, and a windmill-slam first pick. Going an archetype because it is in the format is silly. As for forcing U/W, wtfno is the only answer. UW is not "far and away" the best deck by any means. White is certainly the best colour, because it has access to all the good two-drops (safehold elite, safehold sentry, medicine runner, somnomancer) The only decent two-drops that aren't white are blue cohort, butcher (kind-of), and sickle ripper. Mudbutton cohort is ok in dedicated red decks, but even then it cant compete with the likes of the safeholds. When you consider that curse of chains and silkbind are probably the #2 and 3 commons in the set (burn trail is cleary the best), and throw in the fact that has one of the better cohorts, as well as access to 2 of the good 3 godmarks, white is clearly what you want to be in. However, you get all of this in GW as well, and blue only really brings conspired 'tows and some decent flyers to the table. This, does not by any means suggest that UW should be forced. Green/red is a very strong archetype, with access to 2 great removal spells (and seudo-removal in the form of POF) at common, the best godmark, and a solid curve (white lacks a good, aggresive 5 drop, green/red has both the godmark and green-cohort) it is certainly a powerful strategy. Also, because it is so underrated, black/red can also be a good strategy. Turn 1 cinder turn 2 B/R godmark is a beastly play that uses 2 cards that can be picked up very late. Add on the overwhelming synergy between black's wither cards and POF, as well as the aforementioned 2 great common removal spells, as well as the ability to easily conspire out giantbaiting tokens, and you have a very potent balls-to-the-wall aggro deck. There are also some sneakier decks floating around, such as heavy, even mono-blue drowner/sluice mill decks. There hasn't been a draft format where forcing was good in a long time, and that certainly holds true in triple shadowmoor.

kfcman · Joined: 16 Sep 2006 Posts: 665

gypsy · Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 785

steel of the godhead is the best aura

ManaLeak · Joined: 08 Nov 2005 Posts: 131

well if you get

say steel of godhead + augury adept in limited chance are unless they can pull something to kill it your gonna win.
since you have life gain + chance for more lifegain + DRAW!

even vs a 5/5 flyer with indestruct..

i think (my opinion not Fact) a good way to go is GWU or GWR URG since these are the 3 best imho

Green brings

Deglamer
gleeful sabotage

White brings

inquisitor's mark
last breath

red brings
flame javelin
burn trail
puncture bolt

Blue brings
consign to dream
biting tether
sinking feeling

with the god marks being so powerful in SSS

those are maindecked if possible.

dv8r · Joined: 15 Oct 2005 Posts: 122

Firstly, a disclaimer. I don't care whether or not you agree with what I say in this post, I'd prefer it if you didn't flame, and you're more than welcome to your own opinions, I'm set on mine and unlikely to change them (although I will concede that playing vs rg in the finals of a recent gpt when I was mono blue taught me that I probably massively underrate nurturer initiate, so I'm prepared to accept that I might be wrong... occassionally)

OK, firstly white has the best 5 drop creature (and 3rd best 5 drop after gloomlance and runes) in Barrenton Medic, the card is an absolute beating dominating the combat step, countering nonblack removal and letting you race in the air or otherwise. it's a 5 mana 0/4 so I didn't initially rate it, then I watched Raphael Levy destroy multiple people with it in the day 2 drafts at gp brussels, and after playing it extensively myself, I think this should now be taken over any mono white card except the cohort (this includes last breath)

Secondly, most of the most powerful wu cards are hybrid (silkbind faerie, curse of chains, somnomancer, aethertow, mistmeadow witch (u), steel of the godhead etc. etc.) this means that you can ally white with pretty much any other colour and still benefit from the "wu effect". I personally prefer going Wb or Wr as that gains you access to the best removal to pair with your efficient drops. If anything this also makes wu the WORST of the white combinations, as blue only offers consign to dream (a big loss) and briarberry cohort (an irrelevant loss considering the huge numbers of quality white 2 drops), even green has more to offer because it has a quality THREE drop (the actual mana curve weakness in wu) in hungry spriggin, although obviously cultbrand cinders and puncture bolts are much better. Of course, the logic also applies for blue, except that you lose cohort, last breath, barkshell blessing, medic and some 2 drops, for more regularly getting scarecrows that fly (and the afforementioned briarberry cohort and consign to dreams), obviously a weaker trade off, but it's often better than fighting over white.

I talked in length about drafting mono red (and I maintain that this is a solid archtype, especially if you see a late initimidator initiate in pack 1) in the podcast for gp brussels, so I'll just link you rather than go over it in depth: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgevent/gpbru08/blog1

There are other archtypes built around power of fire, and mana ramp (most of the base green builds seem to be heavily dependant on devoted druid to race fliers), but rather than going over these in depth here (this is already taking quite a long time to write) feel free to chat on mirc, I'm on quite a lot.

EDIT: oh, and the best enchantment is CLEARLY steel of the godhead, then runes, then shields (although all are high picks), invulnerability won't help you vs a wisp or scuttlemutt

Perry · Joined: 08 Sep 2004 Posts: 14

I really hope you mean best COMMON five drop creature.

I agree 100% about going white and getting the "UW effect". However, I don't really consider going blue for the same reasons, because you lose cohort (which beats most 4 drops, and simply wins games) and access to most of the 2 drops in both W and GW.

As for the best of the enchantments, while I agree that Godhead is the best, I don't think that it is so much so that I would pick it over reliability in getting a good target. (i.e. if I have 2 UW creatures drafted and 5 GW creatures, I might pick shields over it)

dv8r · Joined: 15 Oct 2005 Posts: 122

yes, 5 drop common creature. oh, and I'm wrong about that too, it's second behind cultbrand cinder (so 4th overall)

coolcreep · Joined: 18 Feb 2006 Posts: 264

Orlandu · Joined: 25 Sep 2004 Posts: 165

Yeah it does win faster I suppose, but if they all win, and they do, I can't rate a 5 mana attached to a 3 or 4 mana creature that if it's bounced, killed, whatever is basically a double timewalk higher than steel or shield ya know?

Feodoric · Joined: 27 Dec 2006 Posts: 10

mm. they don't all win, though. even though godhead and oversoul are great, they don't win nearly as fast as deus. If you play deus on a morselhoarder or a loamdragger, your opponent needs to have an answer immediately, on your turn, before combat damage resolves. Godhead and oversoul give your opponent a couple of turns. I would actually prefer a ghastlord on an unblockable u/b creature to either godhead or oversoul, but i would always prefer a deus on a morselhoarder to any of the above.

FirstType · Joined: 26 Jun 2008 Posts: 11

Another archetype you can try is Drowner Initiate - Memory Sluice.

The advantage here is that no one else drafts those cards, so you can get them really late.

Too bad Memory Sluice wasn't an instant, which would make it vastly better.