“I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone.' I should think so — in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!”
- The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
Put away your commander decks and bring out the sleeves, we’re going on an adventure!
Early format metagames often favor low-to-the-ground aggressive strategies with clean interaction.
Two drop. Three drop. Kill your thing. Kill your thing. End the game.
The power and use cases of control or combo cards depend on the specific threats the meta presents, and during the early meta, picking just the right answers can be a lot of guess work.
Which pieces of interaction are the best? We don’t know yet. And we don’t know if removal will necessarily even be favored in this set of value-loving, adventuring creatures.
If you don’t take my word for it, consider the words of everyone’s favorite biochemist, Sierkovitz:
“The containment strategies are harder to figure out. They’re not going to be so intuitive. You know, curving out one, two, three is relatively easy. Containing a curve out requires knowledge of the format which makes it that more difficult and requires knowing which kind of interaction spells are important.”
To make matters worse, The Hobbit appears to be the most aggressive set we have seen over the last year. Consider the following:
Turn one Tidings of War into turn two Goblin Plate Mail means we are attacking with a 3/2 menace on turn two entirely at common, and this combo curve out is available to both the black red goblins deck and the red white dwarves.
Turn one Nasty Little Rabbit into Desolation Prowler means we have a 2/3 attacking on turn two that will grow turn over turn. Turn one Nighthowl Pursuer into Desolation Prowler means we are attacking for three with menace on turn two.
And again, no rares needed.
Turn one Dwarven Mauler or Bofur, Reliable Guardian into turn two Dwarven Mattock means the mauler attacks for four and Bofur attacks for three with lifelink on turn two.
Sheesh.
No matter where we end up, we need to be ready to get on board early and race.
Let’s Draft
Pack one, pick one our rares appear underwhelming. The Master of Lake-town is a difficult to cast three-mana 3/2 deathtouch that only sometimes draws a card or two and only when it dies. Last Light of Durin’s Day does not appear to be for limited play at all.
Looking for cards that get us on board for a race we see Nasty Little Rabbit as one of our aggressive combo starts, Bard the Bowman as a defensively statted creature that grants lifelink for races, and twin removal spells in Pinecone Strike and Stir Up Trouble.
For now, we will ignore the expensive or durdly cards that don’t align themselves to ending games.
As we are looking to curve out and attack in this early metagame, we land on Bard the Bowman as one of our picks. Lifelink, +1/+1 counters, and a reason to draw cards are all upside for us. To pair with the bowman, we pick up an Uneasy Partings as removal.
Pack two we see a Gollum, Silent Stalker and a Goblin Plate Mail if we decided to go the black red route.
But for us, we are happy to see a Master’s Councillors as a creature that wears +1/+1 counters and lifelink well and a Nori, Teller of Tales to help get attacks in.
Though the difference in power level here is showing us exactly why black red is the most winning deck.
Pack three we are happy to see a Lakeshore Apothecary and lock it in as one of our picks. A two drop that grows and has vigilance sets us up to play on the early game aggressive axis that the format suggests so far.
To pair with the apothecary, we see Thrandull’s Decree, Velvetwing Butterflies, and Lake-town.
In an aggressively slanted metagame, the decree appears worse than it would be in most sets. Lake-town Toymaker also seems underwhelming, leaving us with either the butterflies or the land.
Blue white appears open, so we pick up the land to improve our mana with the expectation that we will make playables and likely need to cut cards around the power level of the butterflies in the end.
Blue white is definitely where we should be.
The Mountain King’s Return is an excellent draw two enabler that gives us plenty of value over three turns. Three mana for a 1/1, a three drop, and a +1/+1 counter? Yes, please.
To keep our curve low and aggressive, we pair the saga with Dwarven Provisioner.
Not too much for us here. We pick up Lake-town Lookout and rare draft a Last Light of Durin’s Day, though it is kind of crazy to see a Stir Up Trouble here.
At the time, I was focused in on the supported color pairs. But maybe this should be a sign that black white was open for our seat?
Future drafts should definitely explore the unsupported color pairs. (Currently, black white is the second most winning deck in the format!)
Still not seeing the black white train, we pick up Dwarven Provisioner and Iron Hills.
As the second best common in black, Gollum, Silent Slinker was absolutely the pick here.
White is definitely open, but we still don’t really want Lake-town Toymaker or Thorin’s Last Stand.
After pack one, we are looking like a low-to-the-ground blue white recruit deck in need of more recruit.
Thinking of where we could have been, we can imagine cutting our four blue cards for Stir Up Trouble and Gollum, Silent Slinker. We lose out on our current strongest card, Bard the Bowman, for commons in the strongest color.
Roads Go Ever, Ever On would have been an excellent card for the slow and grindy world of Marvel Super Heroes. As a way to hit our land drops turn over turn, I am willing to try it out here, but worry that it does not line up well with a format that rewards getting creatures on board.
Even with recruit, we are hoping to discard nonlands, so the extra lands aren’t doing much to support our direction.
Patient Instructor is an excellent common for the blue white decks, and we are happy enough to pick it up here while eyeing the Bilbo’s Deadly Slice and the black white deck that could have been.
The Arkenstone looks fantastic—+1/+1 for our team and a second card drawn every turn for our draw two synergies. This is an easy pick up and makes up for our underwhelming first picks.
Alongside The Arkenstone, we pick up Plunder the Trollshaws as a solid card to recruit away in the early game and to keep our resources flowing late.
Onfusticate
Still looking like the only white drafter, we happily pick up a second copy of The Mountain-king’s Return.
Alongside the saga, we have the option of Nori or Confusticate and Bebother. While we would prefer to play to the board as much as possible, having multiple copies of legendary common creatures does not seem like it will work out well for us.
We pick up a copy of Confusticate and Bebother with the hope of curving out on the play then countering our opponent’s spells that try to halt our aggression. (Seems overly optimistic, eh?)
For science we pick up another copy of Roads Go Ever, Ever On and Thrandull’s Decree. If the format is slower than we imagine (it’s not) and if we are able to stall games (spoilers, we aren’t), maybe then these control pieces are better than just picking up Patient Instructor? (They aren’t)
Flashy rares and uncommons were a trap this pack, and the data suggests that Patient Instructor alongside a Roads Go Ever, Ever On would have been the best pick ups for us.
Not much here that lines up well with the format. We take Lake-Town Toymaker and Confusticate and Bebother.
Dwarven Provisioner seems fine as a two and we hope to never play Esgaroth Garrison.
Hey look, Nori’s here.
While white blue seems open for our seat, the powerful cards for our archetype are lacking overall. We are happy to have picked up The Arkenstone and a second copy of The Mountain-king’s Return, but are still liable to getting run over by three-power creatures attacking on turn two.
And our pack-three, pick-one is basically a blank for us. If we were red, we’d be happy to pick up a Bothersome Noisemaker and a Smaug here, but other than that we are set up for failure with this pack.
After feeling sorry for our luck, we pull ourselves together and pick an Eagle of the Great Shelf and Lake-town Lookout.
Ok, ok, redemption. Lakeshore Apothecary into The Mountain King’s Return is the best two drop into three drop start that we are reasonably hoping to get with this deck, even if it lags behind the strong one drop, two drop starts the other archetypes present.
As things stand, a lot is hinging on our Bard the Bowman doing early work for us to scale our team and buy us time.
20
Ooo, interaction. We snap up a Magnificent End here and combine it with another recruit enabler in Plunder the Trollshaws.
Our last new pack, we pick up a second copy of Lake-town to solidify our mana and a copy of Moment of Glory to improve our recruits and push damage on a wide board.
Wrapping things up, we pick up Elvenking’s Harper as an evasion-granting two and The Misty Mountains Cold to improve our rare collection.
Not much to see here. Rage into the Valley reminds us that black white could have been a path, though in the end we didn’t see much (outside of strong commons) that would have rewarded us for going that direction.
You know, Tidings of War into Goblin-town Flunkies is another way to attack for three on turn two.
Where we end up is reasonable, but has a little too much science to it to have high expectations for wins. We are very glad to see double Lakeshore Apothecary and Bard the Bowman beside triple The Mountain-king’s Return and The Arkenstone, but the less impactful half of our deck with double Roads Go Ever, Ever On, Eagle of the Great Shelf, and Thrandull’s Decree is ultimately a liability.
If we could, we would hope to trade off our Roads and Decree for Patient Instructors to really lean into the on-board recruit synergies.
Cleanup Step
“So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings.”- The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
And even at the end of this journey, we know there will be a sequel. And the sequel will be a trilogy.
We will be back to explore the less-worn, unannounced archetypes to improve our draft night fight.
If you are looking for wins, focus on the strong black curve-out decks and leave durdly, gem-burning exploration to others.
