It’s draft night!
In Mavel Super Heroes draft, it pays to be good. When given the opportunity to be a hero, take it.
True to Marvel lore, mid-format 17lands data shows the heroes winning 7.3% more often than the villains in premier draft, and 8.8% more than the five-color decks that have a flat 50% win rate. The average win rate of 17lands users hovers around 54%. Everything below that threshold is actively bad.
Pick-two drafts tell a slightly different story.
The heroes still win, this time with an 8.1% lead over the villains. But, when powers combine and are skewed by small sample sizes, five color takes the trophy at a startling 64.7%.
But Why?
At the start of a recent Marvel Super Heroes draft, disciplined, level-headed drafter Paul Cheon said, “Removal, removal, card draw, value. That’s what we want.”
When we play five colors, that’s what we get.
In the world of pick-two draft—where decks are less focused with ten color pairs shared by four players and where color combinations are abandoned by drafters sticking to two-color paradigms—setting ourselves up to capitalize on the least drafted colors and color pairs allows us to make use of late pack gifts.
And, as a format with relatively low-impact-and-easy-to-invalidate early plays, we can take the first few turns to set up our mana without falling behind the damage race. This is compounded when our single four drop can invalidate the majority of our opponents’ two- and three-mana plays.
And, when drafting at the kitchen table with three of our best friends, if we take all the removal, they won’t have any. Our bombs will survive. Theirs won’t.
Let’s Draft
Ok, ok. Fast forward.
We prioritized removal, picked up value, and picked the best card in each pack. But we unfortunately ended up with a very strong, very streamlined blue-white aggressive deck—a good version of the best deck in the format.
We’re not here to draft blue-white aggro with heaps of value and very high card quality.
Burn the gems, we’re out.
Let’s Draft Again
Fast forward.
Bombs, removal, value.
With double Dark Deed, a Widow’s Bite, and a HULK SMASH!, we have an incredible Loki Laufeyson package to leverage alongside our double Ares, God of War to grind out our opponents through a long game.
Or we have a Vision Quest to grab a hasty M.O.D.O.K. and end the game in a hurry.
Not what we’re here for.
Send it back.
Our Compliments to the Chef
A week ago, every pick-two draft ended up being a clean path to five-color without exceptions. Today, we are struggling to get into the lane and are being bullied into very strong, streamlined decks.
Maybe the secret is out already?
Let’s try again.
Pack one, pick one, we are determined to stop burning gems and stop resigning strong decks.
Monica Rambeau is always one of our picks here. An early play that speed bumps our opponents and turns into an unanswerable late threat that accrues incremental value is everything we need. A deck full of removal and a Monica will win most games of Marvel Super Heroes draft.
Alongside Monica, we have the options of picking Justice, Vance Astrovik to push into the aggressive blue white deck, Hero in Training to stay the white course and feel out what’s open, or a Lightning Strike as early interaction.
We want to play five-color control. We want removal. Lightning Strike it is.
Pack one, pick two, we pick up a Widow’s Bite as the only removal spell available to us and a Hell’s Kitchen to start working on our mana base.
Other options could have been Arnim Zola, Bio-Fanatic as a late value engine or Borough Backup as the best of the landcyclers. Futurist Forge as card draw or We Say Thee Nay! as early interaction are both interesting, but we are very happy with our colorful start.
Vision Quest is a strong, strong card. Picking up a copy this early means that we now have our top end win conditions locked up.
Alongside Vision Quest, we have the option of picking She-Hulk, Jade Defender, H.E.R.B.I.E., Scout Unit, or Los Diablos Missile Base.
After some consideration, and some cowardice, we end up picking H.E.R.B.I.E. as a flying value artifact creature to lock in for our Vision Quest. She-Hulk is much stronger combination of brawn and removal and, in most cases, is a better pick up for us.
But, we take the coward’s choice and add H.E.R.B.I.E. to our pile.
Hydraulic Helper has been surprisingly good. A two-mana 2/3 slows the early game down, protecting our life total and invalidating many early plays. And, the mana ability’s restriction does not stop the Helper from activating power-up abilities.
For example, we pick up a Pet Avengers alongside Hydraulic Helper, and can ramp out the powered-up pets.
Surveillance Room is another reasonable way to use the Hydraulic Helper’s mana. Once washed, we can use it for anything.
But, we are still cowards and want this Vision Quest to do it all for us.
In a racing situation, sometimes we will want a S.H.I.E.L.D. Deployment Drone to drop off a blocker for us while smashing in the air.
Alongside the drone, we pick up a Birnin Zana Plaza as another gain land to increase our colored sources count.
If we were drafting a normal aggressive blue white deck splashing red for our Vision Quest, Political Triumph and Deployment Drone could have been great here.
K’un-Lun Warrior has been a decent early game play in the red-based versions of five color control. It allows us to discard extra lands or uncastable spells to get our card selection to a functional point in the game.
Alongside the Warrior, we pick up an Iron Man, Master of Machines with an off-chance that we end up building an artifact subtheme.
Last pick Giant Growth and Powerful Broker.
At the end of pack one, we know how we win. Monica Rambeau and Vision Quest will handily finish most games.
Going into pack two, we are looking to pick up removal and fixing to fill out our deck.
Ok, ok. The Mind Stone would be sick if this were a paper draft with our friends and would be an automatic pick. It combos with both our H.E.R.B.I.E. and our Deployment Drone. And, if we were dedicated blue white flyers, we would absolutely take it here.
But, we are forcing five-color control. We need removal and fixing. We pick up Gleaming Bastion and Hour of Defeat.
Our best friend sitting to our right picks The Mind Stone. Lucky.
Removal, removal. Pack two, pick two, we pick up a Murdock’s Crusade and a Frozen in Ice as the most flexible options to add to our removal pile.
Fixing, fixing.
Following up, we get a Dependable Quinjet and a Subterranean Cavern to smooth out our mana.
With three removal spells and three sources of mana fixing, pack two is going just as we hoped.
Pick four, we add a Hidden Lair to our mana fixing.
Nothing else stands out as something we particularly want to play, but there is a world in which we pick up more bomb heroes and villains in pack three and Decoy Ploy becomes something we are interested in. Likely not, though.
On the wheel we pick up a Helicarrier Strike as another early removal spell.
We already have one Hydraulic Helper and are not interested in playing two. The Kree Commandos are strong in aggressive flyers decks, but we aren’t doing that.
The Restorative Technique is likely not going to make the deck despite being five color fixing, but if we end up base green and light on options, it might come in. We take it here.
Pick six, we pick up a Punishing Punch, AKA a late gift, on the wheel. The five color control decks end up being pretty creature light, and, as a result, cards like Punishing Punch and Go Nuts! tend to underperform, but we are happy to pick up removal regardless and, in game, will just have to fire it off when we can.
We are unlikely to play either Guerilla Gorilla or Agent Maria Hill. We pick up Maria as a way to draw cards in case we end up teamwork heavy.
Aerial Doombot is a wild one to add to our pile this late and will likely make the final deck.
Rewrite History, as enticing as it is to rebuy removal spells, just doesn’t look worth the work.
Pack two delivered exactly as we were hoping. We managed to pick up five removal spells and four more sources of mana fixing. Our deck is looking like it will reliably remove or invalidate all of our opponent’s threats throughout the game.
Going into pack three, we are just looking to continue picking up removal and fixing where we can. Notably, we haven’t picked up any landcyclers yet, and would like to get at least one, if not two.
Pack three, pick one, we see The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, but unfortunately will not be able to cast it. With only two green dual lands so far, it will just be too much of a stretch.
Lots of other good cards in this pack, but for us, we get a Frozen in Ice as a solid removal spell and an A.I.M. Scientists as our first landcycler.
Removal and fixing. We get what we ask for.
Value. Value.
Value is the axis that we are lacking the most at this moment. When we have the means to destroy all of our opponent’s creatures, having reliable ways to draw extra cards gives our deck a degree of inevitability.
Baxter Building as mana fixing and a repeatable source of card draw is an easy choice.
As cheap 1/3 that can invalidate early attackers and draw us cards later, Bold Biochemist is our second pick from this pack.
We are looking like our base color will be blue and Stature, Size Shifter is great in any deck. As an unblockable threat, Stature whittles our opponents down starting on turn one, then powers up for a final hit late in the game. Or, as needed, Stature powers up into an enormous blocker and keeps the game at a standstill while we wait for Monica Rambeau.
Alongside Stature, we pick up a second copy of Dependable Quinjet. The Quinjet really does it all for us. Ramp. Fixing. And when we need expendable bodies, crews up to trade with Brave Brawler.
Last time we were faced with the choice between Surveillance Room and S.H.I.E.L.D. Deployment Drone, we took the drone.
This time, we are looking good on playables and our Vision Quest is well supported. We pick up a Surveillance Room and a Subterranean Caverns to improve our mana.
Pick five, we have a truly interesting option. If we ended up base green, we could make an argument for Doc Samson, Ant-Man’s Army, or the Savage Land Dinosaur, depending on the synergies available in our deck.
As it stands, we are looking to minimize the amount of green we will be playing this time.
We add H.E.R.B.I.E. and Wiccan to our pile as an additional value engine that gums up the air.
Not likely to play anything from this pack, but we pick up a K’un-Lun Warrior and a Super Suit for consideration while building.
Last pick we get a Hellcat, Undying Vigilante and a Super Strength.
We got there. Five colors, eight removal spells, two late game bombs, and card draw engines. No resigning this time.
Justice.
Heroes win.
Clean-Up Step
Sheeeesh.
Early meta drafts indicated that drafting five-color control would be both easy and profitable. But today, it took some real work and dedication to get the inevitable trophy.
Sitting down at draft night with three of your best friends, feel empowered to take all the removal, bombs, value, and fixing. If you get it all, they won’t have any. (Though they may get The Mind Stone.)
As always, Table for Four believes in fun, kitchen table magic and burning gems to prove to your friends that five color is real.
