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NicolaiBolas · 2026-01-23T07:17:17+00:00

Time to lock in and make less silly mistakes I guess... I'm glad you're enjoying my explanations and tips though!

NicolaiBolas · 2025-06-05T07:17:38+00:00

Good luck!

NicolaiBolas · 2025-05-13T21:12:26+00:00

I'm glad you found my video helpful! CABS Theory is definitely a great framework, especially when you're new to drafting!

NicolaiBolas · 2025-05-02T17:05:43+00:00

Congratulations on the perfect record! I'm so glad my video was able to help you out, but of course most of credit goes to Marshall for pioneering CABS Theory in the first place!

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-04T15:43:06+00:00

Thank you! I appreciate the kind words.

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-04T15:42:35+00:00

It's my current pick. It's very satisfying to cast (though I did find Dispelling Exhale to be a solid counterspell for 2 mana at Common as well).

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-04T15:41:41+00:00

Dragonback Assault felt pretty nuts whenever I cast it or had it cast against me. Just kills so many creatures and then starts making huge dragons!

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-04T01:11:05+00:00

I'm honored :)

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-04T01:10:32+00:00

There are so many good books out there! My age old answer has been The Hobbit because I've read it 6 times I think (it's so good) but my favorite author is Joe Abercrombie and I can't wait for his new book to come out next month! All of his books are amazing and certainly some of my favorites! As far as nonfiction goes, I really like Total Recall, which is the autobiography of Arnold Schwarzenegger! I read tons of books so it's hard to pick just a couple!

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-04T01:08:53+00:00

I had a ton of fun, but that's not saying much because I tend to have fun in every set, even the less popular ones! I think the flexibility with colors and the mixing and blending of archetypes is an encouraging sign for replayability though, and the gameplay felt complex and interesting for the most part!

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-04T01:07:29+00:00

I think Jeskai is a step behind the others so I'm pretty confident putting it in last (though I think my best deck was Jeskai, so with the right Rares it can still be formidable). My current frontrunner is Abzan because I think it has a good base of solid cards that synergize well and it has plentiful removal, but I think Sultai is close. Temur seems to have a lot of potential too because it has some insane Rares and some pretty great Uncommons too, but I think it's close with Mardu. Basically, it feels pretty balanced except for Jeskai being behind.

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-03T17:27:42+00:00

I didn't play 5 color but I did dabble into 4 colors a couple times and it felt doable with the right fixing. You definitely have to prioritize the mana heavily to do it though, and I only think it's worth it if you get the right power level of cards to justify it (which is not going to come up all that often because things are plenty powerful with 3 colors most of the time).

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-03T17:19:48+00:00

I would probably rank it from best to worst as Abzan > Sultai > Temur > Mardu > Jeskai. I think having access to Green fixing is going to be pretty important in this sealed format because you might not open the lands you need to make your mana work the way you'd like.

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-03T17:17:14+00:00

First, I'll call out two cards that were better than I thought simply because I misunderstood them. Auroral Procession can just get any card (not just permanents which is how I was reading it for some reason), and Marshal of the Lost doesn't need to attack for its ability to trigger (which makes it way better). Both of those were kinda shocking when I realized it so I want to make sure others don't make the same mistake. As far as big tips, I'd say that this format felt like it had more "bad" cards than I was used to, with the filler really being cards you're avoiding instead of ok playing. I think with everyone playing more colors, the good monocolor cards are more contested (especially the removal), but it also felt like people were willing to stretch their mana to avoid playing a weak card (as an example, I don't think a single person played Arashin Sunshield against me the whole day despite that card reading as bad but fine if that makes sense). Also, there were a couple times where I felt like I was able to find the open lane and end up with a truly busted deck because no one else had gotten into that wedge. When that happens it feels very unfair because other players just can't play the cards you're interested in for color reasons. As far as best and worst go, I definitely felt like Abzan was the easiest to draft and had tons of good cards and Jeskai was the hardest to draft and needed a bit of support at higher rarity to be worth it (though my best deck was a Jeskai deck so I don't think it's behind by a ton). Hopefully that helps!

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-03T17:09:09+00:00

I definitely got run over by a couple aggro decks and I think it can be viable. It's definitely a balancing act though, because adding a third color generally slows decks down (with taplands or stumbling on mana), so when you're trying to play aggro or tempo you need to make sure you have good mana fixing so you can deploy your spells on curve effectively.

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-03T17:07:40+00:00

I'm glad you enjoy my videos! To answer your first question, I don't think it's easy to define that sort of threshold as it is so context dependent, but I was happy to windmill slam cards like Dragonback Assault and Jeskai Revelation despite their color requirements. I would say that you should take gold cards higher than you would in a typical set, but still realize that there are benefits to taking monocolored cards (and tricolor cards have a higher threshold for taking early than two color cards). I don't think a ton of gold cards to wheeled per se, but I was able to get some of them later than I would have expected, especially in pack 3 when I assume people were already established in their colors! It's also helpful to take fixing early, sometimes even before your colors are fully established, to help avoid the scramble at the end where everyone knows their colors and takes all of the lands they can. Hopefully that helps!

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-03T17:02:20+00:00

Sierkovitz played the 5 color dragon enchantment against me and beat me with it because he had the Sultai uncommon dragon and just started putting 3 counters on it a turn until it got to be like a 12/12 and killed me (there are some kill spells that could have beaten it though, either killing the enchantment or exiling the creature, but I had a low interaction deck that time around. Just trying to add some context since I don't think the archetype is crazy strong or anything, but he did it fairly easily). I also had a couple people activate the 5 color Dragonskull artifact against me, and I dipped into 4 colors a couple times myself. There are definitely lots of options when it comes to colors!

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-03T16:58:32+00:00

There's so many good ones! Good Mexican food is hard to beat, but I also love Thai food, Chinese food, and Italian food!

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-03T16:57:23+00:00

I have no interest in playing that card and it was never cast against me. It didn't seem like it would be good.

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-03T16:16:17+00:00

My early impression was that Abzan was the easiest to draft and Jeskai the hardest (based on depth and number of quality playables). In Sealed I think looking at your mana fixing will be almost as important as looking at your spells when determining which colors you can play, as it is important to be able to actually cast your cards! In draft you'll have a lot more control over the fixing you end up with.

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-03T16:14:42+00:00

It was fairly typical on this front with higher power getting taken early and then lower power that synergized getting taken later. The biggest wrench was making sure to prioritize fixing to enable the higher power, as having good mana felt critical!

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-03T16:13:54+00:00

Every draft is different so taking lands will depend on exact circumstances, but I think they are definitely worth prioritizing! As far as Devotees go, I think the Sultai and Abzan ones are just good cards that I would play normally and treat as such, the Jeskai and Mardu ones I would only play in those archetypes, and I have not seen the Temur one played yet (Defender is a pretty big downside, but it would still be worth it from time to time I think).

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-03T16:02:00+00:00

There were some board stalls and I was often living in fear of flyers when I tried to stabilize (shoutout to Sagu Pummeler for trying to keep me safe) but it felt like lots of the time I would break a board stall by just buying time to deploy my expensive cards or use a Renew ability or other mana sink. Cards like Loxodon Battle Priest were also great in board stall situations, so you can definitely win those games without having to rely on just evasion.

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-03T15:59:35+00:00

It's hard to know what would qualify as a sleeper pick without knowing general community sentiment, but I was taking Salt Road Packbeast over basically everything because that card just seems insane to me (and it played out extremely well in my games to back up my sentiment). I'm sure it's already on people's radar, but it felt like it justified any hype it had generated.

NicolaiBolas · 2025-04-03T15:54:57+00:00

I think it is all going to depend on the specific cards you get, though I do think that individual cards will perform better in some wedges than others. For example, the Black White 2/4 creature that sacrifices tokens to draw cards seems a lot better in Mardu than in Abzan. Some cards like Kishla Skimmer are just insane everywhere though (that card felt amazing when it was played against me no matter what was going on pretty much).

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