Core Set 2021 Limited Set Review – Multicolor, Artifacts, and Lands

Drifter

I’ve been enthralled by Limited ever since I began in New Phyrexia. With a particular fondness for flashback and cube drafts, I’ve drafted more sets than I can count on every platform through wildly different eras. On Arena I draft infinitely, having profited 30k or so gems from it at this point, and have made top 100 mythic frequently. Self-reflection and critical analysis are paramount to Limited improvement, and that theme features in many of my articles, and in each session of the Limited coaching service I provide.

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Drifter: B-

My main problem with Alpine Houndmaster is that Alpine Watchdog and Igneous Cur are cards you would otherwise cut often, and there’s always the risk that you’ll draw one of those before the Houndmaster itself. Still, the highroll of drawing 1-2 cards on a 2 drop is worth the risk of including those cards, especially since Igneous Cur has some later game applications, and this does attack well by itself, as often a 3/2 or 4/2.

Drifter: B

This card represents a ton of value in Selesnya, as there are enough +1/+1 counters in each of those two colours that this should produce really a ton of value. It does take a pretty big hit because it’s not a good splash, but I suspect this is a 2 drop that they will be forced to remove a lot of the time, and would be looking to take it at low B- early on.

Drifter: C+

There isn’t much sacrifice fodder in the set, but a 3 drop that sometimes attacks for 5 with trample is good enough to merit going out of your way a bit, and it’s a fine statline even if you’re not sacrificing stuff. This is also a great combo with Traitorous Greed, but that’s one uncommon so I haven’t raised the grade on that basis.

Drifter: B

Even if this only makes a 2/2, you’re still getting good value, and many decks will be able to reach that. In a more dedicated spells deck, this could easily be a 4/4, and Izzet has a ton of spells and spells payoffs. This is a card I’m happy to splash in most decks with at least 6 or 7 spells, since it’s a really powerful late game play and that doesn’t really change with splashes, so this is a rare case where I wouldn’t reduce the rating that much early on.

Drifter: B

1/4 Flying Lifelink is a good statline to begin with, and this ability is very powerful. This is also a great card to stack counters onto, since if you can get it to 3 power then it begins to attack for 6 per turn by itself. Still, this card is a bad splash, since a lot of its power comes from its great early body, so I suspect you take it at more like high C+ early on.

Drifter: B

This combination of abilities is powerful and will win games by itself; this is a decent card to splash even if you have 4 or 5 other creatures with 4 or more power, since it counts itself so the second ability only costs 7 mana to begin with. If you can have this tap for three (and that’s only two other creatures), you can often just start shooting your opponents twice per turn, and the game won’t last very long; this card will break open board stalls and demand removal in any slower game, and is a reasonable curve play too.

Drifter: B

Lorescale Coatl is a great threat that has a lot of supoport in this set – after one turn passes, it’s already a 3/3 for 3 which is a fine rate, and then every turn it gets more and more threatening for no further investment. The Simic decks will have plenty of ways to draw extra cards, even to do it at instant speed to ambush double blocks, and they’ll be trying their hardest to get this off the board before it becomes too big, so rest assured they will block! I would take this at about B- early on, since it’s not that great a splash unless you have a bunch of draw support, which is harder to do in other colour combinations.

Drifter: C

Recurring your enter the battlefield effects is decent, especially against White and Blue which have Faith's Fetters and Capture Sphere effects, but Niambe is a pretty poor payoff for being two colours, partly because her third ability is nearly always useless, and the bounce can be pretty situational. Niambe is a very poor splash so I wouldn’t take her early at all; this is something that if I’m certain to be Azorius in pack 3, I might take at like C+, but I’m never all that excited.

Drifter: B

Free looting is fantastic in Limited, and Obsessive Stitcher combines that with an incredibly strong activated ability in the late game, that synergises well with the first ability. An 0/3 body can do a fine job of blocking 2 drops while you’re digging towards your best cards. That being said, this isn’t a great splash so I’d only look to take it at about low B- early on.

Drifter: A

Getting to play lands off the top of your deck is fantastic; it means you draw a lot more gas and far fewer bricks, and Radha has a solid statline and a great activated ability to back that up. This is a fantastic splash card, so I would take it close to this grade early on.

Drifter: F

This isn’t going to be a realistic card for most Draft decks to play, and the payoff isn’t even that great when you do play it – you’re not going to open five separate uncommons, so you won’t have six shrines in play.

Drifter: B

This card is a lot of value and a decent splash, but it is hurt by the fact that it only triggers at the end of your turn – you can’t block and trigger it, for example, and I suspect Golgari won’t be ahead in many games with the power level of Red this set. The highroll is still great, and sometimes you’ll be able to set up a trade and then immediately draw with this or just throw away a 2 drop for a card, but it’s pretty weak when you’re behind. I’d take this at high B- early on.

Drifter: B-

Watcher of the Spheres makes all your other fliers significantly better, and puts on solid pressure by itself as a 2/2 flier for 2 (which is a great statline) which buffs itself, but it’s an awful splash so I would take this only at like low C+ early on.

Drifter: F

You can’t play this card until very late in the game, at a point where you really need high impact cards, and then you have to pass the turn and untap before you can start drawing with it.

Drifter: C

I think if you have a few duplicates in your deck, this card is well worth playing, but you do want at least a couple since a 5 mana 4/4 is a poor statline. Still, the payoff is tremendous.

Drifter: D

I think a 5 mana 3/5 will actually fit some decks, such as flier and control decks, since it’s a bad statline but still blocks fairly reasonably. That being said, I don’t think this activated ability is worth much of anything.

Drifter: D+

This is an okay way to enable your 4 power synergies, and can be a mediocre curve-filler, but isn’t exciting in any role.

Drifter: B-

This card is slow, taking a long time and a large mana investment to reach its full potential. That being said, the payoff is certainly good; drawing three or four cards over the course of the game or scrying a bunch is strong, and you get some free life once you finish it off.

Drifter: D

A 5 mana Shock is pretty mediocre, and ramping to 7 is rarely worth all that much. This is a playable card in some Blue decks which have access to the many colossal sea monsters in the set, but even those should be able to do better.

Drifter: B-

Palladium Myr is a fantastic card in most decks – I don’t think it really asks much of you other than having 5 or 6 drops in your deck (card draw also works, since you can double spell a bunch then refresh your hand much more quickly), so it may not be good in a particularly dedicated Aggo deck, but those decks are rare in Draft, and all a red deck really needs is a 6 drop and a Volcanic Geyser to be happy to have it. The failcase of a 3 mana 2/2 is bad, but by no means awful.

Drifter: D

Prismite is a 2 drop when you especially need it, a fixer when you especially need it, and bad in every other deck.

Drifter: D+

Short Sword is one way to buff your creatures up to 4 power for your 4 power synergies, or to enable your attacks, but it’s not an exciting card and you’ll cut it a lot of the time.

Drifter: D

Silent Dart is a really bad rate, and without much in the way of artifact synergies, not one I foresee myself having to resort to in the quest for removal.

Drifter: C+

I like Skyscanner in many decks; it’s just good value and wears your +1/+1 counters and other buffs well.

Drifter: A-

Solemn Simulacrum is an incredibly easy 3-for-1; no matter what you do with it, you’ll get good value. While it may not be the best tempo play, the body will usually trade for something your opponent has.

Drifter: D

I don’t think a 3/4 with that last line of text is worth giving up two cards, and that’s all this card is in Limited.

Drifter: F

There aren’t nearly enough graveyard synergies, as usual. At least its successors had the decency to draw a card…

Drifter: A+

Ugin is a huge bomb, but at 8 mana, I don’t think he quite makes the S tier – many decks will have a rough time reaching that, and having a card stuck in your hand for most of the game is a tremendous cost in itself, and will straight up lose you some games. Still, Ugin gets much better with Green Ramp and Palladium Myr, is the best way to use all the mana you get from Sanctum of Fruitful Harvest in Shrines decks, and is one of the best first-picks because he doesn’t commit you to any colour; he’s especially good in Green but good enough to incur the risk of playing an 8 drop in any deck playing 18 lands. Despite not making S, it is rarely going to be a good idea to pass Ugin, at least if you’re not an aggressive or low-curve deck.

Drifter: B-

When evaluating this sort of card in a vacuum, I like to look at the commons it synergises with to ascertain how good its average case is likely to be. There are seven commons across the set, but I don’t consider Igneous Cur or Alpine Watchdog all that good, though this is a reason to rank them a bit higher among your 2s. Five is enough for this effect to be good, but not in every deck, and not in Black or Blue, as they don’t have any at all!

In decks with 4+ hits, this is an ability that can sometimes break stalls and run away with the game, and it’s on a land so it’s like having access to an additional spell. Still, I wouldn’t take this card higher than B early on, or over most B-s when I had settled on colours, as it’s slow and you are sacrificing a coloured source unless you play 18 land.

Drifter: C+

Evolving Wilds tends to be a solid card in Limited, and Fabled Passage is a little boost onto it that propels it to high C+ but isn’t good enough to push it beyond that.

Drifter: D-

If you can gain some life but not quite 3, and need ways to fill in, then I could see this card. But the vast majority of decks won’t even be close to wanting it, because sacrificing a coloured source has the potential to harm you much more than this effect benefits you, and it’s not a particularly rare sort of harm.

Drifter: C

Fixing is fairly weak in this format, so I’d take good lands for your colours over most Cs, and higher if you have splashes.

Drifter: C+

You should always play these as long as your deck has one colour they’re in, and they will add free value to your deck for no investment. I would take these at fairly high C+ early on, and then low C+ later.

Drifter

Core Set drafting often has a tendency to signpost its themes using multicolour cards, and M21 is no different in that regard. Most of the cards are a strong pull into their combination, and give a good taste of what that archetype is trying to do, but are still decent by themselves – it’s important not to railroad yourself around synergising with them, but to have a powerful well-rounded deck that can exploit their synergies. One aspect I really like about M21 is that none of the themes seem too invasive – some are stronger than others, but the cards that revolve around them often fit in multiple decks and are merely better in one or the other.

At the start of the format and really just in general, I wouldn’t recommend paying much heed to which colour is the best, and certainly I wouldn’t force myself to be in any of them. This is for two reasons: a) I don’t think any of the colours are that far ahead of each other this set (that might change, but I think colours, packages, or archetypes have to be far above the rest for forcing to ever pay better dividends than the strategy I’m about to describe), and more importantly b) I’m a firm believer in staying open and drafting the best cards early on, paying attention to signals, and allowing those cards to shape the later stages of your Draft by evaluating how much you would give up by taking the stronger card, and what you’re willing to sacrifice. I find that this maximises the overall quality of the decks I draft; my success is not based as much on what the draft offers me as what I make of it. At the end of the day, you only end up playing around half the cards you pick, so there’s a lot of room for experimentation and speculation; if you’re going to end up cutting a card anyway, why would you pick it rather than give yourself more options? This method is called drafting the hard way, as coined by hall-of-famer Ben Stark, and I’ve had by far the most long-term success in Draft through learning, tweaking, and applying it over nearly ten years, but I think any drafter can stand to improve a lot by adopting it!

Overall, having drafted in the Early Access event today, I can say that the format feels a bit more aggressive than I gave it credit; many of my ratings were on the basis of it being a bit slower than it actually is, because the formats of late have had a couple of factors in common: they are slow and, for the most part, they are great; you may have your complaints about Constructed, but know that almost every draft format of 2019-20 has been a hit, and they’ve usually been on the slower side, so I suspected Wizards would not mess too much with that strategy here either. However, Red is certainly far more powerful than we’ve seen it in a long time, and has a good claim to being the best colour. That’s not to say the format is blisteringly fast, but I see it as about as fast as Ravnica Allegiance, which is a medium-speed midrangey format. I only did around four drafts so that’s just a first impression but, if that’s the case, I’ll be reducing some of the grades I gave expensive cards and shifting up 2-drops soon! There’s still tons of room for value; you just have to construct your curve with aggression in mind and be a little less greedy than you might be used to.

Our M21 Tier List will be out soon, and I plan to amend my grades regularly, both in the form of regular written updates and on the fly, just as I did for both Theros and Ikoria. I’m a firm believer that tier lists are only as good as they are updated, so I will be diligent; stay tuned! I also plan on providing a strategy and tips guide akin to my Throne of Eldraine one a few weeks into the format, having regular Draft articles, and offering my regular coaching service.

Thanks for reading, and may your cats, dogs, and pigs win you many games over the next few months, rather than merely chewing through your computer cables and knocking over your cards as they usually do! Special thanks to Raszero and JustLola, long-time friends and fellow content creators, for our draft chats, which helped form my grades and made this long and tough process a lot of fun; check out their stuff!