BFZ: The landfall deck

December 10, 2015 Leave a comment

Green is so unpopular in Battle for Zendikar nowadays that it is frequently underdrafted. This opens up opportunities for those who are less biased against the color and are willing to move into it under the right circumstances. I’ve written about G/W Allies previously; today, we’ll try to determine whether there’re enough cards to support a landfall deck in a typical 8-person draft, and identify the cards that should draw you into the archetype.

Let’s start by looking at 2 categories of cards that are important in this deck: cards with landfall, and enablers (cards that allow you to find/play additional lands). Within each category, cards are organized by rarity and converted mana cost. The highlight indicates the color of the card, with some exceptions: no highlight (white background) is used for lands, grey highlight is used for colorless/artifact cards, yellow highlight is used for white cards, and gold is used for multicolor cards. Unless specified otherwise, monocolored cards require one colored mana. In the Landfall table, the text in parenthesis after the card name describes the landfall trigger, and bold indicates creatures whose trigger makes them larger without additional mana. In the Enablers table, the text in parenthesis describes the effect that allows you to find/play additional lands, and bold is used for cards that let you trigger landfall more than once a turn.


R/G has access to 5 commons, 8 uncommons, 2 rares, and 3 mythics with landfall. Excluding Jaddi Offshoot and Omnath Locus of Rage, which are not good fits with the otherwise aggressive cards, a R/G deck has access to an average of 19 cards with landfall in an 8-person draft. While the other colors offer 1 splashable common and uncommon each, those cards are not good fits for an aggressive deck, with the exception of Retreat to Emeria.

All the commons in the first table except Belligerent Whiptail are creatures whose landfall trigger makes them larger without additional mana. There are also 2 uncommons (Scythe Leopard and Grove Rumbler) and a rare (Undergrowth Champion) that have such abilities. These cards are bolded because they usually form the core of most landfall decks, and are quite strong in aggressive decks.

Next, let’s look at the cards that help you find/play additional lands. They are all colorless or green, except Kiora Master of the Depths which is G/U but can easily be splashed. There are 3 commons, 1 uncommon, 1 rare, 1 mythic, and 10 expeditions (bolded) that let you trigger landfall more than once a turn, for an average of 8.7 such cards in an 8-person draft (some of these also help you find a land to play). And there are 2 commons, 3 uncommons, and 1 mythic that only help you find lands, for an average of 7.7 such cards in an 8-person draft.

It seems there are enough cards to enable 1-2 R/G landfall decks in an 8-person draft. However, that doesn’t mean the deck is necessarily good, and it certainly doesn’t seem popular or particularly strong. This is because the format contains a plethora of cheap 4-, 5-, and 6-toughness creatures: Fortified Rampart, Kozilek’s Sentinel, and Benthic Infiltrator at common, and Tide Drifter, Vile Aggregate, and Herald of Kozilek at uncommon. W/U skies, U/B exile/process, and U/R devoid all have access to more than one of these, so aggressive decks need to have a plan for getting past them.

Even if you trigger landfall once each turn, an X/4 blocker can safely block all the common landfall creatures except Valakut Predator, Belligerent Whiptail, and Territorial Baloth, while X/5 and X/6 blockers neutralize everything except the Baloth. Red and green don’t have removal that can kill high toughness creatures in the early game, so we have to consider other options. We can use pump spells like Sure Strike and Swell of Growth, global pump effects like Tajuru Warcaller and Retreat to Emeria, or we can find ways to trigger landfall more than once a turn (most landfall abilities are cumulative; only Belligerent Whiptail doesn’t benefit from additional landfall triggers).

I believe that in order to combat the powerful defense available in this format, landfall decks have to have a number of these cards. Swell of Growth, Evolving Wilds, Blighted Woodland, and Nissa’s Renewal need to be picked especially highly. If you have a few of the bolded creatures from the first table in play, the additional landfall triggers act like a mini Overrun. Similarly, you should snap up any Tajuru Warcallers you see, even though there aren’t any Allies with landfall (the closest is Retreat to Emeria). And don’t always crack your Evolving Wilds and fetchlands (if you were so lucky) immediately; the threat of activation can sometimes be more powerful than getting in for a few extra points of damage right away.

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BFZ: Deconstructing W/U skies

November 30, 2015 Leave a comment

There’s been some hype about the W/U skies archetype. However, the fliers in this format are relatively inefficient compared to recent sets and there are no good 2-drop fliers for the deck. Let’s crunch some numbers to determine whether there are enough cards available to support this archetype in a typical 8-person draft, which of these cards you’re competing with other decks for, whether there’s a need to prioritize flyers/defense/removal, and whether we need to focus on any particular converted mana costs while drafting the deck.

Let’s start by looking at all the colorless, white, blue, and W/U cards that I think are good options for this deck. The cards are divided into 4 categories, each with it’s own table: flying/evasion, defense, removal/tempo, and other (primarily cards that help you win faster or survive longer). Within a category, cards are organized by rarity and converted mana cost. The highlight indicates the card’s color(s): gray is used for colorless/artifact cards, yellow is used for white cards, blue is used for blue cards, and light blue is used for W/U cards. Monocolored cards require only one colored mana of their color unless indicated otherwise, so you can determine the mana cost of a card based on its color and converted mana cost. Cards with awaken have both costs indicated but are usually listed in the column for their awaken cost; since they are all in the removal or other categories, they are rarely cast on curve anyway. A thick border indicates that a card is playable by all other archetypes that share this color, a thins border indicates that a card is playable by some but not all of those archetypes, and no border means that the card will usually only be played by W/U skies.


From the table, we see that an 8-person draft has an average of about 17 fliers (plus Angelic Gift and Coralhelm Guide), 19 defensive cards, 20 removal/tempo cards, and 14 other cards. Let’s assume that there are 3 people in each color but that no one else is drafting W/U skies. In that case, we can expect to get roughly a third of the cards with thick borders, roughly half of the cards with thin borders, and most of the cards with no border. Adding up the numbers gives us “E(in final pool)”, the rough number of cards we expect to end up with given our assumptions: 11 fliers (plus 2-3 copies each of Angelic Gift and Coralhelm Guide), 11 defensive creatures, 11 removal/tempo spells, and 7 other spells. So it is possible to draft enough cards for a W/U skies deck, possibly even if you’re competing with another W/U drafter.

There are many flyers and defensive cards that cost 5+ mana, so you should focus on 2-, 3-, and 4-drops when drafting, especially since you want to start casting spells for their awaken cost once you have 5-6 mana available. There are no good 2-mana flyers in this format, so you should try to pick up some defensive 2-drops or, in their absence, any other playable 2-drops.

Why is W/U skies a powerful deck in this format even though the fliers are not that efficient? I think it’s because the deck can take advantage of spells with awaken better than most of the other decks in the format. With an aggressive draw, it can cast them without awaken for tempo. If the games goes longer, the 3/3 or 4/4 bodies are not that impressive on offense, but can gum up the ground long enough for your flyers to finish the job.

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BFZ: W/B lifegain vs. W/B Allies

November 24, 2015 2 Comments

Battle for Zendikar has a number of lifegain cards, as well as cards that get better if you have lifegain, primarily in white and in black. Are there enough such cards for a lifegain archetype in this format? To what extent does the archetype overlap with W/B Allies? And is W/B the only possible color combination for the archetype?

Let’s start by listing the lifegain cards in the set, as well as those that get better with lifegain. Cards in yellow highlight are Allies and cards in bold provide repeatable lifegain. Each card is preceded by its cost and followed by the cost/description of the effect (no cost means the effect occurs when the card is cast).


All the lifegain in the set is either incidental (i.e., it does something besides gain you life) or repeatable. All cards that care about lifegain are creatures, most of which get bigger or gain an ability when you gain life. Kalastria Nightwatch is perhaps the most powerful non-rare among these since it’s essentially a Dragon if you have enough lifegain effects, while Nirkana Assassin is the worst since its lifegain trigger is unimpressive. Felidar Sovereign is the only one that cares about the amount of life gained.

Most of the lifegain cards in the set are white, and most of the cards that care about lifegain are black, so the deck will almost always be W/B. (Green has 3 lifegain cards but none of them are common.) If you draft a powerful white card from the list above, you may want to take a black card over a similarly powered card in another color, and if you draft a powerful black card from the list, you may want to lean towards drafting white as your second color. In a typical draft, white and black will each provide access to about 12 cards across the 2 categories, so the deck is likely to be balanced between the 2 colors and can include cards with WW or BB in their mana cost.

A W/B drafter at an 8-person draft has access to an average of 19.5 lifegain cards and 8.3 cards that care about lifegain. If you exclude the unimpressive Nirkana Assassin, the latter category has only 5.9 cards, making it difficult to reliably draft this deck, so you should only enter this archetype if you already have a couple of cards that care about lifegain, and you should prioritize them when drafting the archetype.

In a typical draft, 28% of lifegain cards and 80% of cards that care about lifegain are Allies, so even if a lifegain deck does not have any rally effects, it will almost certainly have a number of Allies. Conversely, 23% of W/B Allies have lifegain effects and 28% of them get better with lifegain, so a W/B Allies deck will likely have some cards from the list above, even if there are no synergies around lifegain. This means that if you’re drafting either W/B lifegain or W/B Allies, you can take cards for the other deck since you’re likely to have enough support for them. Looking beyond the numbers, Kalastria Healer, Drana’s Emissary, and Zulaport Cutthroat are quite powerful in both decks, so it’s clear that there is a significant overlap between the 2 decks.

Given the small number of cards that get better with lifegain, these cards are more likely to be drafted as a subtheme in a W/B Allies deck rather than as a separate archetype. When a draft has enough cards to support a dedicated lifegain deck, it is likely to look like a Skies deck, with Drana’s Emissary, Malakir Familiar, and Courier Griffin attacking in the air while Stone Haven Medic stalls the ground, and Kalastria Nightwatch switching between these roles as necessary. In that deck, lifegain can also buy you time, while life drain effects provide reach if your opponent manages to neutralize your fliers.

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BFZ: Allies

November 17, 2015 Leave a comment

Battle for Zendikar has Allies in each color as well as several powerful multicolor Allies. Consequently, it seems like Allies decks should usually be 3-, 4-, or even 5-color green, especially since green also provides access to Tajuru Warcaller and Tajuru Beastmaster, which are powerful finishers. Let crunch some numbers to determine whether this is the case.

Let’s start by looking at all the Allies and Ally tribal cards in the set by color, rarity, and converted mana cost. (Cards in parentheses are not Allies but can create Allies or have an Ally tribal ability.) Especially strong cards are bolded, and those with tribal abilities are highlighted in yellow.

Some observations:

  • White has the most Allies, followed by black and red which have roughly equal numbers. Green has only 4 Allies, although Tajuru Warcaller and Tajuru Beastmaster are both quite strong. Finally, blue has only 2 Allies, neither of which have Ally tribal abilities. 8 of the 9 multicolor Allies are W/X: 3 are R/W, 2 are G/W, 2 are W/B, and 1 is W/U.
  • Next, let’s determine the average number of Allies available to the 2-color Allies decks that seem most probable.
    • W/B has access to an average of 25.9 Allies in an 8-person draft, 9.0 of which are especially strong (bolded).
    • R/W has access to an average of 25.6 Allies, 8.5 of which are especially strong.
    • B/R has access to an average of 19.5 Allies, 3.9 of which are especially strong. This color combination does not seem very promising.
  • A R/W/B (Mardu) Allies deck seems unlikely because:
    • several of the best Allies in these colors are early drops, which are more difficult to cast on curve in a 3-color deck,
    • a third of the black and the red Allies require 2 colored mana,
    • most of the black Allies have a lifegain subtheme, which interacts well with white but not with red, and
    • there are only 2 non-rare ways to fix your mana if you’re not playing green: Evolving Wilds, which is likely to be taken early, and Pilgrim’s Eye, which does not help you cast your 2- and 3-drops on curve and is not an ideal turn 3 play in an Allies deck.
  • 18 cards have Ally tribal abilities:
    • 8 are Allies with “When ~this~ or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, creatures you control gain X.” These abilities are not cumulative, i.e., the second trigger each turn does not confer any additional benefit.
    • 2 are Allies with “When ~this~ or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, creatures you control get +X/+X”.
    • 4 are Allies with “When ~this~ or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, X”, where X is one of {tap a creature, drain 1 life from opponents, make a 1/1 token, or scry 4 for Allies}.
    • Angelic Captain and Veteran Warleader are Allies that get more powerful as you have more Allies.
    • March from the Tomb reanimates Allies in your graveyard with a total converted mana cost of up to 8.
    • Ally Encampment makes it easier to cast Allies of different colors and can be sacrificed to raise a dead Ally.
  • 13 of these 18 are especially strong (bolded): 2 commons (Kalastria Healer and Tajuru Beastmaster), 6 uncommons, and 5 rares. Let’s break these 13 cards down by color:
    • White: 2 uncommons + 2 rares = average of 2.6 in an 8-person draft
    • Black: 1 common = average of 2.4
    • Red: 1 uncommon = average of 0.9
    • R/W: 1 uncommon + 2 rares = average of 1.7
    • Green: 1 common + 1 uncommon = average of 3.3
    • G/W: 1 uncommon + 1 rare = average of 1.3

    Among 2-color combinations, G/W has access to an average of 7.2 strong Ally tribal abilities, followed by B/G with 5.7, R/W with 5.2, and W/B with 5.0.

White has the most Allies and the most Ally tribal abilities, so it is likely a necessary color for any Allies deck. I believe there are 3 primary Allies decks:

  • An aggressive R/W deck that relies on cheap Allies backed by removal and combat tricks to underrun its opponent. Key cards include Kor Bladewhirl, Firemantle Mage, and perhaps Chasm Guide. The deck has access to several finishers, including Retreat to Emeria, Kor Entanglers, Resolute Blademaster, and several 4- and 5-mana rares. It’s possible that Cliffside Lookout is playable in this deck since it is a 1-drop that can trigger Ally tribal abilities and act as a finisher if drawn late.
  • A W/B lifegain deck. The key cards are Kalastria Healer and Drana’s Emissary, followed by Stone Haven Medic, Retreat to Hagra, and possibly Vampiric Rites and Zulaport Cutthroat. This deck could potentially splash green for Tajuru Beastmaster, and perhaps even Retreat to Kazandu. I’ll explore this archetype in more detail in my next post.
  • A base G/W token deck that uses Unified Front, Grovetender Druids, and Retreat to Emeria to create tokens, green and white combat tricks to push through early damage, and Tajuru Warcaller, Tajuru Beastmaster, and Retreat to Emeria as finishers. It also uses green manafixing (Natural Connection, Blighted Woodland, Sylvan Scrying, Fertile Thicket, and Seek the Wilds, the last of which can be used to find key Allies or bomb creatures instead of land) to splash bombs and removal, and to maximize spells with converge (Unified Front, Tajuru Stalwart, Skyrider Elf, and Bring to Light).

A B/G control deck may also be possible since both colors have a strong Ally tribal effect at common. However, these colors don’t have specific synergies, so it probably makes more sense to instead draft a W/B Allies deck that splashes Tajuru Beastmaster, or a base G/W Allies deck that splashes black for bombs, removal, and maximizing converge.

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BFZ: Converted mana costs of colorless cards

November 4, 2015 Leave a comment

A U/B exile/process deck I recently drafted had more 5-drops than I would have liked, so I’d like to determine whether there’s a glut of good 5-drops for that deck. Almost all my cards in that deck were colorless, so we’ll just look at colorless cards for the purpose of this analysis. Since there are also 2 other archetypes that rely on colorless cards (U/R devoid and B/R aggro), we will also examine those.

The 3 tables below list the most important cards for each of these 3 archetype by converted mana cost and rarity, with bold indicating that a card is particularly strong in the archetype. I’m more concerned about the first few turns of the game, so the lists do not include splash cards and finishers. I’m hoping this analysis will help me decide which converted mana costs I need to focus on for each of these 3 archetypes in order to end up with a good creature curve.


Some observations:

  • U/B exile/process does not have an unusually high number of colorless 5-drops, it was my deck that was unusual (it had 2 Oracle of Dust and an Ulamog’s Reclaimer, plus a Windrider Patrol).
  • In addition to Mist Intruder and Culling Drone, U/B exile/process decks also have access to 2 uncommon 2-mana non-creature spells that can exile cards (Horribly Awry and Transgress the Mind). Similarly, it has access to Complete Disregard, Grave Birthing, and Spell Shrivel (all commons) at 3 mana. Unlike ingest creatures, these only exile a single card, but they can nevertheless get your first processor online.
  • All 3 archetypes have 4+ playable 3-drops at common, so you should prioritize 2-drops when drafting. This is especially true for U/R, which has another 4 playable 3-drops at uncommon, especially since a number of its common and uncommon 3-drops are particularly strong.
  • All 3 archetypes also have a number of strong mythics and rares that cost 6+ mana that you will rarely pass. However, U/B has a number of strong uncommons at that mana cost, so you probably shouldn’t prioritize those cards unless you really need a win condition.
  • Sludge Crawler is the only playable colorless 1-drop (Salvage Drone is unplayable, and Endless One will rarely be played as a 1/1). It fits in both the B/X archetypes that want colorless creatures, but I don’t have enough experience with it yet to determine how playable it is.

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BFZ: The exile/process deck

October 28, 2015 Leave a comment

I recently drafted a U/B exile/process deck with 6 ingest creatures, no other exile effects, and 7 processors. Here’s the decklist:

Creatures (18):
– 2cc: Fathom Feeder, 3 Culling Drone
– 3cc: 2 Benthic Infiltrator, Eldrazi Skyspawner, Hagra Sharpshooter
– 4cc: 3 Murk Strider, Mind Raker, Silent Skimmer
– 5cc: Ulamog’s Reclaimer, 2 Oracle of Dust, Endless One, Windrider Patrol

Non-creatures (4):
– 1cc: Clutch of Currents
– 2cc: –
– 3cc: Swarm Surge
– 4cc: Dampening Pulse
– 5cc: Demon’s Grasp

Land (18): 9 Islands, 8 Swamps, 1 Blighted Fen

I thought the deck looked strong, but I had several opening hands with no ingest creatures. Other times, my opponents would prevent me from getting my processors online by trading with or killing my Culling Drone. I still managed to go 4-1 with the deck, but only because many opponents had slow starts, which allowed me to stall the game using my X/5’s and then use Fathom Feeder, Oracle of Dust, Hagra Sharpshooter, and/or Windrider Patrol to win the long game. I also managed to curve out in a couple of games and then cast Swarm Surge for the win.

I realized that 6 exile effects is insufficient for this archetype. While the expected number of exile effects in my opening hand is 1, there’s a 29% chance of having none. Here’s a table showing the probability of having 1+ and 2+ exile effects in a 7-card hand (assuming a 40-card deck).

# exile effects in deck 1+ exile effects in hand 2+ exile effects in hand
4 55.22% 13.43%
5 63.93% 20.40%
6 71.14% 27.86%
7 77.09% 35.50%
8 81.95% 43.06%
9 85.90% 50.35%
10 89.08% 57.23%
11 91.63% 63.60%
12 93.65% 69.40%
13 95.24% 74.60%
14 96.47% 79.18%

Given these numbers, and given that opponents may be able to kill my ingest creatures, I’d like to have 9+ exile effects the next time I draft this archetype. Let’s take a look at the playable exile effects in the format to determine whether this is a reasonable expectation. The table below categorizes them, as well as process effects, by rarity and whether the effect is reusable. Within each category, cards are sorted by color and then mana cost. Exile effects with a strikethough are ones I believe can’t be relied on to exile a card; for one-time exile effects, they also need be able to exile a card on curve (i.e., once you have the mana needed to cast the card).


Some observations:

  • The best exile and process effects are both in blue. While most exile/process decks will usually be U/B or U/b, a U/r deck is possible if you get multiple copies of Touch of the Void, Vile Aggregate, and Processor Assault. A monoblue deck may even be possible on occasion since 8-person drafts have an average of 13 exile and 10 process effects that are blue or colorless.
  • I was not impressed with Culling Drone in this deck, so I would prefer to have Mist Intruder instead when I draft this archetype next, even though it is less playable in the absence of process effects. Since U/B exile/process decks should be heavier blue, this should also reduce the likelihood of having a 2-drop ingest creature that you cannot cast because you don’t have the right color of mana.
  • An 8-person draft has 6.5 reusable and 11.6 one-time exile effects that are playable in U/B. If you want to have 9 exile effects in a U/B exile/process deck, you have to play either some reusable exile effects that are unreliable and/or some one-time exile effects.
  • Most process effects are one-time, and the reusable ones are less impressive, so it should be okay to run a number of one-time exile effects. (Reusable exile effects are still better, since a single one can enable multiple one-time process cards.)
  • There are fewer process effects than exile effects (14 vs. 18 playable ones for U/B). While it makes sense to draft exile effects before process effects, you should not usually draft exile cards over powerful processors like Murk Strider with the expectation that you will be able to pick up the processors later.

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BFZ: Observations on removal

October 20, 2015 Leave a comment

Some observations on the removal in Battle for Zendikar:

  • There are 8 global removals spells. Boiling Earth is common, Rising Miasma and Breaker of Armies are uncommon, Void Winnower is mythic, and the rest are rare. Boiling Earth, Breaker of Armies, Gruesome Slaughter, and Void Winnower are not symmetric, while Rising Miasma, Radiant Flames, Aligned Hedron Network, and Planar Outburst are. The black and red spells kill creatures with toughness 1-3, while Planar Outburst and Void Winnower don’t care about a creature’s power or toughness. Half of the global removal is colorless.
  • Most of the reusable removal requires a land to enter play, an Eldrazi to attack, a creature to be sacrificed, or a significant mana investment. Some of the other themes in the set also have 1 associated piece of reusable removal: a colorless creature or an Ally entering play, a card being processed, or reuse based on the number of colors of mana used to cast the spell.
  • There are only 3 removal auras: Tightening Coils, Stasis Snare, and Quarantine Field. (The latter 2 are not actually auras, but function very similarly to them.) Apart from those, Aligned Hedron Network and Void Winnower are the only pieces of removal that have to remain in play for the effect to continue.
  • Looking at removal by color:
    • There are 9 colorless removal spells: 4 are global removal, 2 affect multiple targets, and 3 are reusable.
    • White has 1 global removal spell, 2 spells that affect multiple targets, and 1 reusable removal spell. Its removal suite includes 2 spells that can only be used during combat and 2 more that don’t care about the creature’s size (Sheer Drop and Stasis Snare). Many of white’s removal spells are better in a controlling deck since an aggressive deck prefers spells that remove untapped creatures before they can block.
    • Blue has only 1 removal spell that affects more than 1 creature, but has 6 reusable tap effects, which is usually the domain of white. It has only 1 permanent creature removal spell (which steals a creature), and doesn’t have the usual aura that can keep a creature tapped. Unlike in most sets, there are no instant-speed bounce or repulse effects.
    • Black has 1 global removal spell, 1 spell that affects multiple creatures, and 2 reusable removal spells. Black can kill larger creatures than in some other sets. Demon’s Grasp kills 5-toughness creatures, and Bone Splinters and Grip of Desolation don’t care about a creature’s toughness.
    • Red has 2 global removal spells, 2 spells that affect more than 1 creature, and 5 reusable removal spells. Most red removal that does a fixed amount of damage usually does 1-3 damage; the only exceptions are Serpentine Spike (4 damage) and Processor Assault (5 damage, but it also requires processing a card). In addition, Outnumber does damage equal to the number of creatures you control, Stonefury deals damage equal to the number of lands you control, Rolling Thunder deals X damage, and Barrage Tyrant deals damage equal to the power of another sacrificed creature. Borrowing creatures at instant-speed is back, this time at 5 mana.
    • Green has a fight spell, a flyer removal spell, and an artifact/enchantment/land removal spell, all at common.
    • There is only 1 multicolor card that affects more than 1 target, a rare that resembles Jilt with kicker. All multicolor removal spells require either blue or green mana.

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BFZ: List of removal

October 13, 2015 Leave a comment

This is a list of all the removal in Battle for Zendikar, divided into permanent creature removal, temporary creature removal (such as bounce, tap, and falter effects), non-creature removal, and off-battlefield removal (hand, stack, and graveyard). The column labeled T (to the right of the permanent creature removal column) indicates how tough a creature the removal can handle; if there is no number in that column, the removal is independent of the creature’s toughness. Conditional removal is indicated after the card name.

Italics indicates that one or more permanents have to remain in play for the effect to continue. Bold indicates a reusable or ongoing effect. Yellow highlight indicates that multiple targets are affected. Red highlight indicates mass removal that you may be able to avoid overextending into. Within each color/rarity, cards are ordered by how tough a creature they can kill, then by converted mana cost.

Unlike the list of tricks, this list does not try to provide an abbreviated description of the effect, but just references how it affect the targeted permanents/players. Here’s how to interpret those effects:

  • Abbreviations used: A (artifact), attkr (attacker), blkr (blocker), borrow (untap & gain control until end of turn; the permanent gains haste), bounce (return to owner’s hand), bury (destroy & it cannot be regenerated), C (creature), CMC (converted mana cost), counter when used as a verb (counter a spell), dmg (damage), draw X (draw X cards), E (enchantment), ETB (enters the battlefield), flicker (exile, then return to the battlefield), flyer (creature with flying), freeze X (tap X and it doesn’t untap next turn), gain X (gain X life), GY (graveyard), I (instant), L (land), loot X (draw X cards, then discard X cards), lose X (lose X life), mill N (put N cards from a library into a graveyard), opp (opponent), opp’s X (X controlled by opponent), P (player or power, depending on context), prot (protection), PW (planeswalker), raise (return card from your graveyard to your hand), reanimate (return card from the graveyard to the battlefield), redirect X dmg from A to B (next X dmg that would be dealt to A is dealt to B instead), regen (regenerate), S (sorcery), sac (sacrifice), steal (gain control of permanent), T (toughness), your X (X you control).
  • Effects (+X/+Y, -X/-Y, hexproof, first strike, prot from a color, etc.) last until end of turn unless specified otherwise.
  • Effects only target creatures unless otherwise specified, e.g., X dmg without any qualifiers means that the effect does X damage to any creature. If the effect also targets players, that won’t be mentioned here.
  • Descriptions sometimes mention other spells to avoid lengthy descriptions.

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BFZ: Memorizing the instant-speed tricks

October 6, 2015 1 Comment

I usually memorize the tricks in draft formats I play, so I can quickly determine what plays are available to my opponent given the mana they have open. I typically break tricks down into 5 categories:

  • Instant-speed creatures: Flash creatures, token generators, and spells that let you play reatures at instant speed.
  • Creature removal: This includes bounce, tapping, and other temporary removal.
  • Pump/protection: Pump spells primarily affect combat by giving a creature +M/+N, while protection spells are primarily used to save a creature from removal by giving it hexproof or protection from a color. However, +M/+N can save creatures from removal, and protection from a color can help creatures survive combat, so I’ve combined them.
  • Sideboard cards: This includes color hosers, artifact and enchantment removal, and conditional removal (e.g., Plummet, which only kills flyers). You don’t usually need to play around them in game 1.
  • Other: Everything else, including counterspells, card draw, and life gain. You may want to play around counterspells on occasion, and you may sometimes want to play around lifegain if you’re planning an alpha strike, but you don’t usually need to play around the rest.

This table shows the count of tricks in each category by color. Note that this count combines all rarities, since the primary purpose of this table is to help you quickly enumerate the relevant tricks in a given game situation. If a card belongs to multiple categories, it will be counted in the leftmost column, e.g., Plummet is listed under Sideboard Cards, even though it is also a removal spell. One exception is that spells with awaken are listed twice, once in the column they belong in when cast for their usual mana cost, and again after a “+” sign in the Instant-Speed Creatures column.

TOTAL Sideboard Cards Instant-Speed Creatures Creature Removal/ Bounce Pump/ Protection Other Spells in “Other” Category
Colorless 2 2
White 8+1 0+1 4 4
Blue 7+1 1+1 1 5 = 4 counterspells (Dispel, Horribly Awry, Spell Shrivel, Scatter to the Winds) + 1 card draw (Anticipate)
Black 4 1 2 1 = Altar’s Reap
Red 5 1 3 1
Green 5 1 1 2 1 = Natural Connection
Multicolor 2 1 1
TOTAL 33+2 3 2+2 13 8 7

Let’s examine this table and see what we can learn. We’ll ignore the Sideboard and Other categories for most purposes, since they are encountered less frequently.

  • There are 25 relevant tricks in the set: 13 removal, 8 pump/protection spells, and 4 instant-speed creatures (2 of which are instants with awaken). Of these, a counterspell with awaken and a multicolor removal spell are the only rares, while the rest are commons and uncommons.
  • White and red each have a relevant 1-mana trick. White has 2 relevant 2-mana tricks, while red and green each have 1. All of these are commons. Blue’s only board-affecting instants cost 4+ mana.
  • Looking at tricks by color:
    • There are 2 colorless tricks, both of which are removal.
    • White has 4 removal spells and 4 pump/protection spells, one of which has awaken.
    • Blue has only 3 tricks that affect the board, 2 of which create a creature.
    • Black has 2 relevant tricks, both of which are removal spells.
    • Red has 3 removal spells and a pump spell.
    • Green has a removal spell and 2 pump spells.
    • There is 1 multicolor instant-speed creature and 1 multicolor removal spell.
  • There are only 4 instant-speed creatures in the set (not including Grave Birthing, which will usually be a sideboard card). 3 are uncommons and 1 is a rare, so there are only expected to be about 3 instant-speed creatures in an 8-person draft, so you usually don’t have to play around them.
  • There are no instant-speed removal spells that do a fixed amount of damage to a creature outside combat. The set has 3 unconditional removal spells (at 3, 6, and 7 mana), and 3 more that depend on the creature’s power (<= the power of a revealed colorless creature, = 4). Of the 13 removal spells in the set:
    • The 2 colorless removal spells include a 3-mana uncommon that also requires you to reveal a colorless creature whose power is greater than or equal to the power of the creature you want to exile, and a 7-mana unconditional removal spell.
    • White has 4 removal spells: 2 deal 4-5 damage to attackers/blockers, 1 destroys creatures with power >= 4, and 1 is a removal aura with flash.
    • Blue has no spells in the Creature Removal/Bounce column. (While Adverse Conditions does freeze up to 2 creatures, it also produces a 1/1 and so is included in the Instant-Speed Creatures column instead.) Notably, there is no instant-speed bounce in the set.
    • Black can exile a creature with power <= 3 for 3 mana or kill a creature and a land for 6 mana.
    • Red can deal damage equal to the number of creatures you control for 1 mana, damage equal to the number of lands you control for 5 mana, or borrow a creature for 5 mana. It has been a while since we’ve had an instant-speed spell that lets you borrow a creature, so it may take people a little while to learn to play around this.
    • Green has an instant-speed fight spell for 3 mana. (There’s also a flyer removal spell included the Sideboard column.)
    • There is a rare multicolor removal spell that resembles Jilt with kicker, but it can bounce a spell instead of a creature and can do 2 damage to a planeswalker instead of a creature.
  • The pump/protection spells can be divided into 5 groups:
    • White and green each have a 1-2 mana common that gives +2/+2 and also has an additional effect. The green one can also trigger landfall abilities. (In addition, there’s an instant-speed Rampant Growth, which can also trigger landfall abilities.)
    • Red has a 2-mana common that gives +3/+0 and first strike.
    • Green has a 4-mana uncommon that puts 1-4 +1/+1 counters on a creature (depending on the number of colors used to cast the spell).
    • White has 2 commons that give multiple creatures +M/+N, where M + N = 3. One of those is 2 mana and gives 2 creatures +1/+2, while the other is 4 mana and gives all your creatures +2/+1.
    • White and blue each have a spell that reduces/prevents damage from opponents’ creatures. (The white spell can also be cast with awaken to turn a land into a 2/2.)
  • The 3 Sideboard tricks include a spell that removes a card from a graveyard, a land destruction spell (that can also kill awakened creatures), and a flyer removal spell.
  • The 7 Other tricks include 4 counterspells, 2 card draw spells, and an instant speed Rampant Growth.

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BFZ: Expected numbers of copies of a card

September 29, 2015 Leave a comment

Battle for Zendikar has 101 commons, 80 uncommons, 53 rares, and 15 mythics. This means that an 8-person BFZ/BFZ/BFZ draft will have an average of 2.4 copies of a given common, 0.9 copies of a given uncommon, 0.4 copies of a given rare, and 0.2 copies of a given mythic.

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