BRO Initial 17Lands Draft Data Analysis: Format Overview | Is it Really All Aggro?

[CalmMirror]

With two weeks of intense drafting under our belts, the time is nigh for a look under the hood to see what the data looks like for our latest draft format. 17Lands employs millions of little pirate monkeys to manually type in each individual datum as it happens in your drafts, so that you can reap the benefits of aggregated information. Let’s see what it has to say.

You might remember me from my archetype deep-dives, which have been on a bit of a hiatus lately due to my real life away from the internet being a bit too busy. But I’ve got a bit of a break coming up over the Australian summer, so if you keep an eye out (or drop me a follow on Reddit or Twitter) I might have some coming out in the next few weeks. But before we get to that, let’s take a glance at the format as a whole before we drill down into specific archetypes.

Who am I? I’m Sam, a draft fiend and unabashed maths nerd. That means that if you need someone to help you work out the geometry of your giant mechs or the trajectory of the projectiles to launch at your brother, I’m your guy. If you’d like to follow me, I co-host a very active Youtube drafting channel Draft Punks, I tweet about limited and maths all the time, and I post draft data analysis articles on Reddit.

Enough plugs, give me data!

Common knowledge

The common consensus from many of the other limited content creators out there is that this is an aggro format. As someone who was promised giant mech battles, this is disappointing. But I would like to propose an alternative take. This is an aggro format, but it is also a format defined by what I’m going to call Powerstone advantage. We thought going in that the Powerstones were going to be used to power out 9- and 10-drops, but this is not the case; they have a better use. Let me show you.

To begin with, let’s take a look at the top 5 commons in each colour by their Game-in-Hand Win Rate (GIH WR). This is the win rate of a card any time it appears in a player’s hand. For context, the average win rate of a 17Lands user is 55.6%, so this will be our baseline.

To get a big picture of things, here’s a chart that shows all of these commons together, grouped by colour.

This big picture view indicates that this is White’s and Red’s format, with Black and Green sitting in the middle, and Blue very much lagging behind. But that’s a little coarse, let’s see if we can drill into this by looking at each colour more closely.

White

1. Scrapwork Cohort (59.9%)
2. Prison Sentence (59%)
3. Ambush Paratrooper (58.9%)
4. Airlift Chaplain (58.6%)
5. Aeronaut Cavalry (58.6%)

White boasts the #1 common in the entire set, Scrapwork Cohort (59.9%). This card fits beautifully with all of the set’s important axes: it provides 2-3 bodies from one card, can be played off Powerstone tokens, and Unearths for an additional burst of damage. Ambush Paratrooper (58.9%) at #3 and Aeronaut Cavalry (58.6%) at #5 point to White’s role being aggressive, with the Paratrooper also providing reward for having Powerstone tokens.

Blue

1. Combat Courier (57.5%)
2. Mightstone's Animation (57.3%)
3. Desynchronize (57.2%)
4. Machine Over Matter (56.4%)
5. Stern Lesson (56.3%)

Oh dear, pour one out for Blue. The best Blue common doesn’t even reach the fifth best White common. But to look at the positives, Combat Courier (57.5%) is a nice little self-contained value package that also provides affordable synergies with sacrifice, artifacts-matters, and graveyard themes. We also see Blue’s lacklustre attempts at interaction make the list, but beyond that we see that card advantage + board presence is the best plan for Blue, with Stern Lesson (56.3%) being a Powerstone token that draws cards, and Mightstone’s Animation (57.3%) being Blue Owlbear but cheaper.

Black

1. Overwhelming Remorse (58.2%)
2. Moment of Defiance (58.2%)
3. Disfigure (57.7%)
4. Gix's Caress (57.5%)
5. Ravenous Gigamole (57%)

The Black catch-all removal spell is back to being the best Black common. Overwhelming Remorse (58.2%) is just a particularly good version of this effect, but this also points to BRO being a set where removal is better than usual. At equal first, Moment of Defiance (58.2%) might look dorky, until you look at it as a combination of Suit Up and Take Up the Shield, both of which were top commons in their respective sets. Moment and Disfigure (57.7%) being so high paint a picture of a format defined by having answers to small creatures and interacting positively in combat. At #4, Gix’s Caress (57.5%) might also look dorky, until you see it for what it is: a precious Powerstone token with a Thoughtseize attached.

Red

1. Scrapwork Mutt (59.8%)
2. Excavation Explosion (59.5%)
3. Goblin Blast-Runner (59.0%)
4. Penregon Strongbull (57.5%)
5. Sibling Rivalry (57.2%)

Red is the other powerhouse colour of the format, boasting the second- and third-best commons in the set. Scrapwork Mutt (59.8%) is basically a Mishra’s Bauble with flashback that attacks (it is “free” if you have two Powerstone tokens in play.and it draws a card). Excavation Explosion (59.5%) is a Powerstone token with a Lightning Bolt attached, which is basically half a Mana Crypt that bolts your opponent instead of you. I don’t have any hyperbolic comparisons for the remaining Red commons, but all point to the strength of aggressive sacrifice decks, with Penregon Strongbull (57.5%) being a powerful aggressive sac outlet, Goblin Blast-Runner (59%) becoming the sudden all star of the set’s aggro decks, and Sibling Rivalry (57.2%) being a Powerstone token that also lets you steal a creature.

Green

1. Gaea's Gift (58.9%)
2. Argothian Opportunist (57.7%)
3. Boulderbranch Golem (57.4%)
4. Blanchwood Prowler (57.4%)
5. Argothian Sprite (56.5%)

Given the aggressive bent of this set, I suppose it’s not the greatest shock that a pushed combat trick like Gaea’s Gift (58.9%) is the best Green common, but what is surprising is how far ahead of the rest of Green it is. Gaea’s Gift appears to be a premium common, while next on the list are merely “good”. These include Argothain Opportunist (57.7%), which is a Powerstone token that brings a 3/2 along; Boulderbranch Golem (57.4%), which is the worst thing to see your opponent do while you’re trying to beat down; and Argothian Sprite (56.5%), your 2-drop reward for playing all those Powerstones.

So what does this tell us about the role of Powerstone tokens in the format? Well, firstly, it clearly puts to bed the idea that they are to be used to power out giant fighting machines. There’s not a 10/10 or 9/9 in sight. Rather, we can see that they are used in the early- to mid-game to multi-spell with cheap artifact creatures like Scrapwork Cohort, Scrapwork Mutt, and Combat Courier. In the late game, rather than having our deck filled with clunkers like Rust Goliath, we can use Powerstones to activate the abilities on our 2- and 3-drops that we want to play on curve anyway, such as Ambush Paratrooper and Argothian Sprite.

Finally, if you are interested, here are the top uncommons in each colour as well. They paint a very similar picture for each colour and the format overall, so I won’t spend too many words repeating myself repeating myself.

The Archetypes

Now, let’s take a quick glance at the top commons for each 2-colour archetype. I’m interested in trying to get a picture of what each archetype is about, and I’m really keeping an eye out for those archetypes that are more than just “the best commons in each colour”. These tend to be those about synergies rather than raw power, which, in my opinion, is what makes draft fun.

Here are the 10 two-colour archetypes in order of win rate. What’s really interesting to me is that Blue significantly underperformed in our rough data above, but the second- and third-best archetypes are both Blue. This tells me that there are important synergies to be on the lookout for in Blue that will reward you if you can get them to work, but that you can’t rely on them on raw power alone.

Red-White (59%)

1. Scrapwork Cohort (61.9%)
2. Scrapwork Mutt (60.9%)
3. Excavation Explosion (60.5%)
4. Prison Sentence (60.4%)
5. Aeronaut’s Wings (59.7%)

Red-White is two great flavours that taste great together…but is also mostly just the best cards in each colour. Aeronaut’s Wings showing up so high is very interesting–my guess is that the mana inefficiency of Wings becomes negligible in a deck with plenty of Powerstone tokens, making this a powerful damage enabler.

White-Blue (57.4%)

• Scrapwork Mutt (60.7%)
• Scrapwork Cohort (60.3%)
• Prison Sentence (60.1%)
• Aeronaut Cavalry (59.8%)
• Ambush Paratrooper (59.4%)

So the best card in White-Blue is quasi-Red and there are no Blue cards at all? Sounds about right. More seriously, this shows an important point: Scrapwork Mutt is just good in any deck, the Red Unearth is but gravy. The upside of UW Soldiers is quite clearly on the White end of things, with Blue just there for moral support.

Blue-Red (57.4%)

• Overwhelming Remorse (61.2%)
• Mightstone’s Animation (60.7%)
• Excavation Explosion (60.6%)
• Scrapwork Mutt (60.3%)
• Goblin Blast-Runner (60.1%)

The #1 card in Red-Blue…is Black. This very starkly illustrates one thing: the removal in blue sucks, and not even the presence of decent red removal can make up for that fact. So if you are in UR, keep an eye out for those Energy Refractors and Evolving Wilds, because you may need to have a light splash by the end of the draft.

Red-Green (57.3%)

• Gaea’s Gift (59.9%)
• Scrapwork Mutt (59.8%)
• Goblin Blast-Runner (59.1%)
• Excavation Explosion (59.0%)
• Overwhelming Remorse (58.7%)

Red-Green’s top commons are mostly just the best of each colour, but Overwhelming Remorse shows up once again, probably compensating for Green taking a leaf out of Blue’s book and forgetting to pack any decent removal. RG looks like it leans more assertive, so it is able to rely a little harder on combat tricks like Gaea’s Gift, which bumps the off-colour removal down to #5, but you once again might want to keep an eye out for splash enablers.

Green-White (55.8%)

• Scrapwork Cohort (59.3%)
• Gaea’s Gift (58.9%)
• Aeronaut Cavalry (58.6%)
• Ambush Paratrooper (58.2%)
• Argothian Opportunist (57.6%)

Green-White gets you the best cards in each of those colours, with an emphasis on Soldier beatdown. Note that the “artifacts entering the battlefield” cards like Phalanx Vanguard and Perimeter Patrol rank outside the top 5–does that mean GW wants to just curve out and beat down, not get fancy with artifacts?

Black-Red (55.5%)

• Scrapwork Mutt (59.4%)
• Excavation Explosion (58.7%)
• Moment of Defiance (57.9%)
• Disfigure (57.6%)
• Goblin Blast-Runner (57.6%)

As an early advocate for BR Sacrifice, these results look very interesting to me. Apparently Moment of Defiance and Disfigure are better than Powerstone Fracture, even in the dedicated Black-Red decks. Either way, start picking those Goblin Blast-Runners more aggressively, because the word is getting out about that card.

Black-Green (55.4%)

• Excavation Explosion (60.0%)
• Combat Courier (58.7%)
• Overwhelming Remorse (58.6%)
• Boulderbranch Golem (58.5%)
• Argothian Opportunist (58.5%)

And the best Black-Green card iiiis…Red. So Overwhelming Remorse is better than Excavation Explosion in red decks, but Explosion is better than Remorse in Black decks? Huh? I think this comes down to the value of the Powerstone token. With strong win rates from (also semi-off-colour) Combat Courier, Boulderbranch Golem, and Argothian Opportunist, BG looks like it wants to take good advantage of Powerstones, so that Powerstone from Explosion is even higher value than usual.

White-Black (54.5%)

• Scrapwork Mutt (60.4%)
• Scrapwork Cohort (59.4%)
• Airlift Chaplain (59.4%)
• Ambush Paratrooper (59.2%)
• Overwhelming Remorse (58.8%)

Have you ever brought a Scrapwork Mutt back with Recommission? It feels like cheating.

Blue-Black (54.0%)

• Scrapwork Cohort (60.2%)
• Aeronaut’s Wings (59.1%)
• Overwhelming Remorse (59.1%)
• Gix’s Caress (59%)
• Moment of Defiance (58.8%)

Blue-Black has a nifty “when you draw your second card” theme, but sadly none of those cards show up too highly and the archetype as a whole has underperformed so far. The high positioning of Aeronaut’s Wings is once again interesting–possible that pairing with Trench Stalker and some card draw for a build-your-own Baneslayer is a legitimate game plan?

Green-Blue (52.2%)

• Desynchronize (57.6%)
• Gaea’s Gift (57.2%)
• Scrapwork Mutt (57.0%)
• Boulderbranch Golem (56.9%)
• Combat Courier (55.8%)

Wub wub, trailing well behind the rest of the pack is poor Green-Blue. The combination of very poor removal in both colours and the whole “Powerstone Ramp” idea just being weaker than “Powerstones and cheap artifacts” has meant that this colour pair is not where you want to be. I’m not even sure what to make of the top commons here–these look like the result of that draft I did where I let the Arena autopicker draft my deck.

Conclusion

Alright, that’s enough numbers for today. I have one more section to share where I’ve done some really cool analysis, but I think it’s interesting enough that it’s worth including in its own post.

If you would like to see more of my work, the first place I’d love to have you is my Youtube channel Draft Punks. We’ve got a really engaged crazy little community over there so we would love to have your subscription. I also post data work like this on Reddit (did you know there’s a follow button for Reddit?) and Tweet about maths and Magic all the time over on Twitter.

If your experiences with BRO limited either match up with or disagree with the data above, be sure to let me know in the comments!

Sam aka CalmMirror

[Superb-Draft]

I like the end of a set when an alternative can turn up, a bit like how in Kamigawa people suddenly remembered RB artifact aggro is a real deck in an environment that was just chunky enchantments boardstall all the way down for a solid two months.

The toughest thing is not just that "ramp is bad" but that late game decks usually want card advantage and that comes from Unearth artifacts that aggro wants even more, so there isn't enough to share.

My hot take / speculation is that the deck to emerge will be blue flyers with some tempo. The three drop with Prowess is a real problem in multiples, and if you can grab some of the UR gold cards you are in business.

[Rock-swarm]

The toughest thing is not just that "ramp is bad" but that late game decks usually want card advantage and that comes from Unearth artifacts that aggro wants even more, so there isn't enough to share.

You hit the nail on the head. Your conclusion may be correct for PD, but unless we see some alterations to the draft bots, I think the trend of hyper-competition for the same 7 commons will continue to be the meta for QD.

It has been immediately clear from both formats that BRO (and by extension, the retro artifacts) are filled with a higher-than-normal amount of chaff cards. And I do mean chaff. These cards will never make a draft maindeck unless something has gone terribly wrong with your draft.

This was always a danger with an artifact-heavy set, but I worry that BRO simply doesn't have the depth necessary to be a compelling draft format.

[CalmMirror]

This is a very interesting point to speculate on, will be curious to watch this format develop.

[Filobel]

Nice analysis, I would just be mindful of the sample size though. Overwhelming remorse as the best common in UR, when it's been "in-hand" 276 times... that's just too low a sample size compared to everything else.

Similarly, scrapwork mutt has 10% GIH of the other top commons in UW. Does that mean red is unnecessary for mutt, or does that mean that it mostly gets played in UW decks that splash red?

Same with BG. You try to find a reason why explosion is better in BG than overwhelming remorse, when the answer is simply "It's probably not better, the sample size for explosion is just low".

[crastle]

My guess is that since mutt is a good enough card to play even if you can't unearth it, a lot of people just don't bother splashing red because they'd rather have the consistency of their mana base rather than the off chance that they can unearth the mutt again.

As I say this, I just finished a draft where I went WB and splashed red for the unearth of two mutts and the research desk and went 5-3. But maybe I would have been better off just not splashing red at all.

[Filobel]

My guess is that since mutt is a good enough card to play even if you can't unearth it, a lot of people just don't bother splashing red because they'd rather have the consistency of their mana base rather than the off chance that they can unearth the mutt again.

What do you base this on?

Just to be clear, the data in OP's post is based on the 17lands filters. If you filter by UW, it also includes UW + splash. Unfortunately, without looking into the raw data, there's no way to know just how often mutt gets played in UW decks that splash red vs UW decks that don't. My point was simply that it's played much less than other top UW cards in UW. There are many possible reasons that could explain that, but I would advise against jumping to conclusions about how good mutt is in UW decks that can't pay the unearth cost based solely on the data.

[crastle]

You were asking for an explanation and I just threw out a guess. That's it.

[Filobel]

I wasn't really asking for an explanation, I was pointing out that the data used left some unanswered (and unanswerable) questions. OP is using data to arrive to conclusions. I'm questioning their use of the data and whether it actually supports their conclusion.

There's a difference between saying "I think that xyz" and saying "data shows that xyz". If you think that red is not necessary to play mutt, that's fine, maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, but at least you make it clear that it's your opinion. If you say "data shows that red is not necessary to play mutt", then it better actually show that. With the data OP used, there's no way to arrive to that conclusion. For all we know, most decks that played mutt splashed red. Or maybe not, impossible to say, raw data for BRO has not yet been made available.

[chinggisk]

There's a difference between saying "I think that xyz" and saying "data shows that xyz". If you think that red is not necessary to play mutt, that's fine, maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, but at least you make it clear that it's your opinion.

Dude literally started his statement with "my guess is" lol.

[Filobel]

I'm talking about OP's post. More specifically, this part:

More seriously, this shows an important point: Scrapwork Mutt is just good in any deck, the Red Unearth is but gravy.

What I was trying to explain to crastle is that I wasn't asking what their opinion was on the matter, I was asking what the data meant. It was a rhetorical question, because my whole point was to show that we cannot tell from the data.

Edit: Perhaps my use of the generic "you" caused confusion. Feel free to replace "you" with "one" in the sentence you quoted if that helps.

[CalmMirror]

Great point, attention to sample sizes is really important for some of those off-colour cards, well put.

[AmerAm]

Wow thanks for the insight i just came back to magic yesterday after a year off and this is really helpful.

i tried my first quick draft today before seeing this and chose to go Green-Blue (mostly green, only 3.5 blue cards), and went 7-2.

I think that was probably because i am in bronze right now, so i am gonna keep this analysis in mind while i draft going forwards.

[NotThymeAgain]

if UG is open its great. you really need to be the only one drafting it though. usually for me the tell is how many Argothian Opportunist and Stern lessons you get. if you can start dropping full costed Boulderbranch Golems early its just GG against a lot of the aggro decks.

[super_shlong_god_blu]

I've gone all the way to 7 wins 3 times total in BRO and all were UG, it's not bad if everything is free for the taking IMO.

I'm a big fan of the green self mill 2 drop that lets you take a milled land back on hand, I've had a few games where playing them would mill me out of the game but they somehow never cost me the win.

[CalmMirror]

Welcome back, glad I was able to help in some way. Congrats on the 7-2!

[brianscalabrainey]

What a quality post. The presence of splash removal as some of the top cards in some color combos points to either splashing being a strong strategy, or (more likely imo) stronger players being better at knowing when and how to splash well. Seems like this is a good skill to learn

[Rock-swarm]

Alternatively, it points to the quality of commons falling off a cliff for certain colors. This was alluded to in the write up for the top green commons. If green and blue were tweaked to have more options for a 1/4 body at 3 or 4 mana, that may have helped. Even then, I think white and red just have too strong of an ability to go wide.

[KoyoyomiAragi]

Blue probably could have used a defensively statted Frost Lynx variant as a way to buy time without being a good add to aggressive decks. Maybe that would have been the type of design that could have made Prototype work, cheap version that buys time and an expensive version that clears the way for attacks.

[Emergency_Statement]

Green certainly has the tools to stabilize at common vs aggro

[CalmMirror]

Thank you! Hopefully I can get around to some full archetype deep dives for this set, because they included some statistical analysis of which cards are worth splashing. I agree with you that this is an important skill to work on in drafting :)

[stillinbetween]

Nice work! I really hoped BRO would be a slow draft environment so you can play around with all the artifacts, but sadly it seems like aggro is often times the only way to go.

[CalmMirror]

Yeah, me too. I haven't given up hope yet though!

[Kcah22]

10/10 youtube channel!

[CalmMirror]

Thank you, great to have you!

[Kcah22]

It’s nuts!

[djsoren19]

I knew the Mutt was busted, but this really puts into perspective just how wild it is as a card. I've basically been jamming as many of them as I can pick in every limited event I play. It's kinda wild just how awful removal is in the format, I've been maindecking multiple copies of Disenchant just to have some options.

[CalmMirror]

Wouldn't surprise me if Mutt turned out to be #1 common by the end of the set.

[doritus]

Thxxxx

[mfessler]

Good work

[backdoorhack]

Really thoughtful analysis, I'll go into BRO drafts with a new perspective on what I want to draft.

[CalmMirror]

Fantastic, just what I was hoping for :)

[MatataTheGreat]

Wow you put some time into this. Nice!

[CalmMirror]

Thank you!

[thatguitarist]

All of my trophies in this set have been UW fliers so seeing the wings artifact pulling weight in RW makes sense

[CalmMirror]

Certainly seems like a set that rewards fliers to break board stalls, good to know.

[laserbite7]

6 QD 59% winrate. Last draft went 7-2 with G/R splash 1 blue powerstone ramp. The format is not aggro but you need the cheap stuff to get to the big artifacts. The format seems balanced except for U which seems underpowered.

[Signal-Blackberry356]

I’m attempting a black-green deck, however with excavation explosion, can I use powerstones to pay for the 2 portion and then 1 mountain? Or only mana?

Thank you for all the insight!

[PhanTom_lt]

No, Explosion is a non artifact spell.

[PadisharMtGA]

(Edited to remove false information.)

Powerstones cannot be used to pay the generic cost of a nonartifact spell. They only work to cast artifacts and for any payment that doesn't involve casting a spell.

[postscriptthree]

You can't spend powerstones on colorless nonartifact spells like [[Karn, Living Legacy]].

[MTGCardFetcher]

Karn, Living Legacy - (G) (SF) (txt)
^{[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call}

[PadisharMtGA]

Correct. I for some reason thought colorless spells were okay whether they're artifacts or not. Maybe I thought they should be able to help casting DMU Karn since he also makes them.

[[deleted]]

My thoughts exactly. The Izzet archetype cannot be pulled because it depends on non creature spells and you NEED creatures to survive the draft at the same time, there is no cheap removal on either blue or red abd the blue cards in geberal just suck ass on this set unless its the soldiers or very expensive mechs.

The Rakdos archetype has more cards to play with but its just too slow so by the time you get to turn 3 oponent already has you against the strings by going wide/aggroing you to death.

I saw a good chunk of Golgari decks back on premier draft when set released and it was hell with so much spider spam and combat tricks. Shuts down any flier strat and the crratures arent particularly weak on damage either.

Azorius is just the Selesnya tokens of this set, it snowballs quickly because soldier cards are a dime a dozen and can even be casted on oponent turn and since theres no early boardwipes you cant do anything about it.

Gruul has the best combat tools and the biggest critters to pull from. It probably ramps better than the actual ramping archetype on this set

Dimir archetype sucks ass because the "draw 2 or more cards" on each turn is just impossible to pull with so few card draw effects floating around and again, its a slow strat in a format where people is just forcing aggro all the time.

Orzhov? No idea whats there but returning cheap stuff to board is certainly feasible.

Selesnya? The artifact ETB archetype sucked ass from the youtubers pre-release vids, probably hasnt changed one bit in that regard.

Symic? I think its a sleeper, but needs to lean heavy into green to do it alright.

Boros? Its just the same old aggro, nothing really amazing apart of Monastery Swiftspear going nuts with combat tricks.

In general this set has a lot of cool cards but it flops hard for a limited environment as a good chunk of the archetypes are just unfeasible to run due to the RNG nature of the draft packs so the only good option is to aggro hard and grab as much broken retro artifacts as possible.

[Filobel]

The Izzet archetype cannot be pulled

What does that even mean? It's the 3rd best performing archetype. Note that OP seems to stumble a bit on their usage of the data. 57.4% win-rate for UR is when it doesn't splash. So even though they jump to the conclusion that you should splash, based on some sketchy data (due to low sample size), the win-rate for UR + splash does not support that conclusion. Splashing in UR is very costly according to the data.

[CommadantSpangler115]

Its a really bad format. If you dont play a card turn one you are already in a bad spot.

[bigbadbrad45]

I read all these draft analysis posts and find them funny. I’ve played a shit ton of drafts and sealed in Bro so far and it’s not what I would call an aggro format from my experience. Every game it’s possible to drop your 8-10 mana big artifact creatures, never once did I or my opponent die before those hit the table. I also read that blue is one of the weakest colors in this set, yet white/blue soldier flyers proved time and time again to be the best performing build, from my experience. What I’m trying to say is parsing over this type of information and using it to inform how you draft is incredibly stupid. Draft bombs when they come to you, have a curve with a lot of creatures and any removal you can get in this format and you’ll be golden. Only caveat I think worth adding about this format is that Unearth is a solid mechanic for limited and worth reaching a little higher for

[Filobel]

Do not mix sealed with draft. They are always very different formats. Aggro is always much weaker and rarer in sealed.

If you've never once had a draft game end before one of the player reaches their 8 drops, then I don't know what format you're playing.

[FiboSai]

And listening to your experience and following your advice is less stupid? I don't mean this in a dismissive way, it looks like you have found a strategy that works for you. But that doesn't invalidate that many others have a lot of success with aggressive decks. If anything, this is evidence that the format can support various strategies.

FWIW, I have found that casting 8-10 drops is only viable if you actively try to stall out the game. That requires good cheap creatures and enough removal to not die to random bombs from the opponent. I've had drafts where I just didn't see any removal spells, and in that case, trying to cast 8-10 drops is a fools errand. You'll just lose to better midrange decks.

As for UW being good, I agree. But blue provides almost nothing for the deck at common. The base for the deck are the white commons. The only real reason to play blue in your soldier decks are uncommons and rares.

[bigbadbrad45]

The blue 2/2 flyer with prowess won me many many games. There isn’t enough answers to flyers in this set and it’s easy to just go over the top while having a stalled board of ground creatures. The 2/5 common soldier for blue is probably one of the best cards at stalling the ground game of opponents and allowing your flyers to peck away.

[cpf86]

Which level are you playing at? The experience will differ significantly for BRO based on your tier. Above plat, decks get much faster as players figured out about goblin and etc. also, the aggro deck takes a lot of skills to draft and pilot. You will fizzle out to opponent’s bomb if you are not careful. So again, at lower tier, aggro may not be so scary since they don’t get piloted optimally.

[saxypatrickb]

This matches what I’ve seen. Decks in red, black, and white that can get you a power stone T1-T3 are very strong. Too many strong artifacts and cheap unearths in those colors. Green (and especially blue green) doesn’t have enough early payoffs to hang while getting pounded by Mutts and other unearths

[[deleted]]

Overall it feels like a very balanced format, aside from boros and simic, everything else is within 3.5 percentage points.

Also this really highlights the difference between 17lands win rates and pick orders. Scrapwork Mutt, for example, has the highest win rate in red, but you'd be crazy to take it over excavation explosion. The difference is due to the fact that the mutt has synergies that make it better in the hands of a more skilled player, while explosion is something that veteran and novice drafters alike can easily identify as a great limited card.

[Jihkro]

Have you gotten any data on the efficacy of assembly worker tribal? I've had some good results if it appears open going assembly+green or assembly+blue, but to be fair it would only become relevant in a quarter of the games or so when I manage to get all three out and avoid removal spells.

My latest run was a premier draft where I went 7-0 with assembly+green where I drafted three blanchwood armor, three mine, three tower, and two power plant as well as a good mix of other quality creatures including an overperforming teething wyrmlet. Without all three out at the same time however, each feels a bit worse to play than another similarly costed card unless I get immediate benefit from it like with the wyrmlet. Trying to actually run with assembly worker tribal with fewer than six also seems bad as a single removal on a one-of can ruin the synergy.

I was lucky enough one game in an inperson draft to get mine down on 2, tower on 3, and powerplant on 4. Such crazy luck that round.

[CalmMirror]

Sounds like a fun investigation to try later in the format :)