Drifter’s Core Set 2021 Limited Tier List Update + Strategy of Fast Draft Formats

Core Set 2021 (M21) Limited Tier List

Hi folks! This is my belated write-up for all the updates I’ve made to my Core Set 2021 Limited Tier List (click the link above) since its initial launch (or at least those I noted down/can remember!). As usual, I update on the fly frequently, so the Tier List has mostly reflected my thoughts and experiences of the format throughout, as they’ve evolved and changed.

Expect to see more grade changes than usual, just because there’s been a much longer time-gap since its release and this first written update; apologies, I’ve had a lot of other work to do on the site, including my Jumpstart Constructed Set Review, my weekly event brews, and just my role as the site’s main editor – you might see hints of my language and mannerisms in other articles because the vast majority of them go through me for touch-ups! Even so, I’ve drafted the format plenty at this point, and have maintained a decent winrate of 71%, though that is a couple of percent shy of my Ikoria and Theros winrates – I think I had a bit of a bad start since I kept trying to draft sweet slower decks like Rakdos Removal Pile and Shrines, with varying success!

M21 is a fast format. But what does that mean?

Click here to skip to the grade changes, if you’d like to see those first!

As I’m sure many of you know by now, this format is faster than any we’ve seen in the last year or so, and I’m going to talk in-depth about that. For reference, I think Guilds of Ravnica was the last fast Draft format in Magic, though the average deck there was faster even, since Boros and Dimir were so far ahead of the other guild pairs and Boros was a dedicated aggro guild and Dimir was tempo-oriented. I’m pleased to report that M21 is a much better fast format than Guilds, which I wasn’t very fond of, since most of the colours are reasonably balanced and even Black, the worst colour, is one I often go into because it’s very underdrafted and I am often passed the great Black uncommons like Sanctum of Stone Fangs or Malefic Scythe much later than I should be. That being said, Black’s creatures are pretty garbage and Grasp of Darkness being its removal spell of choice means that the strategy of be mainly a different colour and have Black as a secondary colour for removal and support options leads to some pretty wonky mana bases. M21 is a format where I take and speculate on good fixing (which, at common or uncommon, just means gainlands if I’m already in those two colours) highly, and that’s part of why, though more because there isn’t much of it and because I’ve found I almost always have more playables than I need in this format.

Getting back to the point, yes the format is fast, but that isn’t the end-all be-all. I see people frequently say things like “6+ drops are unplayable in M21”, “White and Red are the only colours you can draft”, “You never want to play more than 16 lands”, or “I can never win games on the draw” and all of those statements range from patently untrue to ridiculously exaggerated as far as I’m concerned. There is a huge difference between saying stuff like that and “White and Red are the best colours” or “6+ drops are usually worse, and you want fewer of them” (both of those statements I would agree with). People tend to exaggerate the effects of a format being fast for several reasons:

a) They extrapolate from the phrase “fast format” and apply features of Constructed fast formats, not Limited – i.e. the format is dominated by aggro decks, you die on turn 5 or 6 a lot, and there’s burn everywhere so your life total is paramount (there is more burn in M21 and your life total can matter against Red, but it’s still a resource that you should be exploiting, not something you should safeguard heavily i.e. you still don’t want to be chump blocking very often, and I see people do it way too much). Draft by nature is very midrangey and that’s no exception here – the fast things people are actually doing in this format are loading counters onto their midrange creatures and attacking for loads of damage, having more evasive creatures and there being less answers to those, snowballing their early plays into victories more, or just curving out better than they ordinarily would. In Draft, it’s pretty common to miss points on your curve, and what fast format actually means is that it’s far more punishing to do that, not that you’re going to lose half your games on turn 6. Play/draw does matter more, but the difference between them is still much smaller than in Constructed. Another big thing is conflating the terms “fast format” and “aggro format” – it’s very rare for a Draft format to be aggro because dedicated aggro decks are almost never that common and certainly not more so than the midrange decks. M21 isn’t even close – look to original Zendikar if you want an example of an actual aggro Draft format. It’s fairer to say that Guilds of Ravnica was an aggro format, but even that doesn’t quite make it in my mind – Boros was literally the only guild dedicated to proper aggression, as in playing a low land count, tons of 1-3 drops, not much high end, and burn.

b) They take a few bad losses which stick in their mind and warp their perceptions – sometimes you do lose extremely one-sided games against one of the dedicated aggro decks of the format (which are still quite rare), but it really doesn’t happen that often. People have a natural tendency to dwell on bad times more than good, and it’s important to keep the bad beats from messing up your whole experience. There are some questions you can ask yourself when you do lose badly, such as “how likely was that draw from my opponent? Is that really an average draw?”, “how bad was my draw? Maybe I should’ve mulled?”, or “What commons could better prepare me for that draw next time? Should I have been prioritising those more?” and those are all really useful. Just going “wow this format sucks, I guess every game is like that” isn’t helpful to your learning or fair until you’ve drafted it a bunch – you’ve still only lost one game, no matter how much you lose by. Everyone gets annoyed at bad losses sometimes, but you shouldn’t let yourself pour on too much salt and mess the whole meal up!

c) They forget that Draft is to a large degree self-correcting – it’s very rare for strategies to be so much more powerful than others that you’re supposed to force them, because people will realise that they’re better and they’ll be overdrafted as a result. White and Red are the best colours and Black is the worst, and that’s why I was talking earlier about how underdrafted Black is and how I actually end up going into it a lot – I will usually end up with a better deck in allowing the people around me to fight over the better colours if they’re clearly not open – because if two people before me are taking all the Red cards, I’m not going to see nearly as many good ones as if I’m seeing all the best Black cards – the difference will be more than enough to overcome . That doesn’t mean I won’t draft White and Red highly if they are open, but if I’m just not seeing cards in those colours and I’m seeing a bunch of cards in Green much later than they should be, like Llanowar Visionary is wheeling even (it’s true that Llanowar Visionary is a lot worse in this format than it would be in say Ikoria, but it’s still good, just not as good as Seasoned Hallowblade, perhaps), then I will be Green. Side note: you only end up playing 23 of the 45 picks you make in Draft, so leaving yourself open in pack 1 and just taking the best cards early on is the best strategy, and that applies just as much to M21 – don’t be afraid to speculate on things and “waste” picks!

d) People search for broad conclusions a lot; it helps them find meaning and an axis on which to draft based around, and that’s great! The problem is that even if something is true to some extent, it’s not necessarily an anchor to which you need to latch all your perceptions on – the degrees to which the conclusion is true matter as much as whether the conclusion is right itself. M21 being a fast format doesn’t mean it’s night and day compared to slower formats like Ikoria and Theros – draft is draft, and the tenets of good drafting do carry over from other formats. Black being worse than Red and White, even if it’s by a significant amount, doesn’t mean it’s anywhere close to undraftable or that you should only really be Red or White; in fact, I would argue White-Green is probably the best colour combination in M21, not White-Red, just because of the power of its synergies and because Drowsing Tyrannidon is a messed up card.

I’m going to move on now but if anything I’ve said is unclear or you don’t agree, please leave a comment; I love to talk about draft! What I just described is calling “drafting the hard way”, which Magic Pro Tour Hall of Famer Ben Stark coined in this great article back in 2012, and if you’d like to learn how to apply these drafting techniques through more than theory, consider investing in one of my coaching sessions.

Update: Here is a 7-0 I got shortly after making this update, which I thought people might enjoy a look at!

So it’s entirely possible this deck ran better than it actually was, but I do want to note how powerful Sanctum of Stone Fangs especially can be, and how important I feel it is for Black as a colour this format. In this deck, Sanctum converted all the 1 for 1 trades I was making into advantage, it bought me enough time to set up some really busted Enthralling Holds, it meant I could afford to take some time off playing slower cards like Skyscanner, and that every turn my opponent couldn’t get through all my blockers was a turn in which I was winning. I honestly think I wanted to draw Sanctum each game more than Sublime Epiphany, which sounds absolutely insane. Obviously, the double Shrine combo was also nuts when I drew them both and I won many games off the back of it, but I just wanted the Black one.

Anyway Black and slower strategies are unplayable, folks, not sure if you knew! Note how many off-colour cards I had in my sideboard – I spent quite a while trying to choose my colours, well into pack 2, and I was rewarded for staying open to Black rather than simply being an Izzet deck, the better colour pair, after I wheeled several good Black cards.

The differences between M21 and a slower format:

Note: M21 Sealed is an example of a slower format, so this doesn’t apply to that – check out my M21 Sealed Strategy Guide if you like!

• White and Red (but more White) are good enough that you should tiebreak early picks using them, say if cards are on a very similar power level, but not so good that you should force them at all – if I see a solid B-tier card like Grasp of Darkness in Black and a B- in White, I will always take the Grasp (I consider Grasp a high B, but I would take low B’s over Grasp if they were White). In a colour that’s closer in power level to White, like Red or Green, it really just matters how high in the tier I consider the specific cards – I might take a high B in White over a low B+ in another colour, but not a mid B over a low B+, for example. At lower tiers, like the C range, I will almost always just take what I consider the best card is in the pack in early pack 1, unless I have say a bomb in one colour and really want to prioritise that.
• 6 and 7 drops are worse, it’s true, but I still like having some. This is mostly because, even in slower decks, other people have lower curves, so your high end will be able to beat them even if you don’t have much of it, and often you don’t even need high end to do that. Most of my decks do not look to prioritise the just okay ones, unless I have good ramp, (there isn’t much but say, Llanowar Visionary or Palladium Myr – sadly, this is not the greatest format for the Myr but I do end up playing it a decent amount, even if I only take it at C+ these days) but even if I don’t, I take the good ones highly, like Warden of the Woods or Goremand. Green is naturally good at blocking and stopping early aggression this set, so I take a card like Colossal Dreadmaw higher because it’s Green (and because I factor in 4-power synergies). It’s worth noting that 7 mana is a lot more than 6; I am only really happy to have one 7 drop in any deck without ramp or that’s not doing something weird like Dimir Reanimator is.
• It’s more important to have a plan this format than in most – I don’t really ask myself that much in formats like Ikoria and Theros how I’m planning to win the game since at some point, I’ll just get far enough ahead and it’ll happen. In this format, that sort of thinking plays right into your opponents’ burn and reach (this refers to your opponents’ ability to win the game in a stalled board and deal the last few points of damage, not the keyword). You need to be able to pressure and kill them quickly, because you’re likely to stabilise on a lower life total here, and if you’re giving them draw step after draw step, they’re likely to find something like a flier or a burn spell to finish you off. You can avoid this by asking yourself “how do I kill them fast once I’ve stabilised?” and answers like “I’ll just draw my high end and win” are less likely to be acceptable unless you have life-gain or the high end really does kill quickly, like Hellkite Punisher or Goremand.
• Generally in Draft, you don’t mulligan very much since being a card down is a bigger deal than in Constructed, where some cards and synergies are capable of such absurd swings that their good case is completely game-winning, whether you have fewer cards in hand than them or not. That being said, in fast formats, you need to mull more aggressively – you still shouldn’t go crazy, but the risk of being punished for keeping a really slow hand is much greater. You need to be aware of how good your cards are at stabilising when you keep slow draws too – I would keep most hands that start on 3 mana on the draw, but if I’m just playing Teferi’s Tutelage or Siege Striker on 3, rather than a card that can block and stabilise the board, I might consider mulling (especially since Siege Striker implies I’m a deck looking to beat down, so my cards and the plan of my deck in general might lead me to be bad at stabilising anyway).
  Even so, be cognisant of your deck – if your deck is very 2 and 3 drop heavy, it can be fine to keep slower hands, because the chances are so high that you’ll draw an early play. Meanwhile, if your deck still has plenty of expensive cards to draw, that is a huge reason to mulligan.
• For more, check out my actual grade changes below; I rated with a slightly slower format in mind, one that was faster than Ikoria or Theros but not quite as fast as this, so many of the reasons I give will reflect or build upon these differences!

Grade Changes

• Most of these changes I made on the tier list over the three weeks since the set came out, not right this minute.
• If I already talked about a card in my analysis above, I won’t repeat myself in the descriptions below!
• Check out the Legend first, if you aren’t already familiar with the tier list!

Bad Deal C -> D+
Conclave Mentor B -> B+
Concordia Pegasus C -> C+
Cultivate B- -> C
Drowsing Tyrannidon C+ -> B-
Gainlands C -> C+
Garruk’s Uprising B- -> C
Goblin Wizardry D+ -> C-
Goremand B+ -> B-
Library Larcenist C -> C-
Griffin Aerie C- -> D
Llanowar Visionary B -> B-
Palladium Myr B- -> C+
Pursued Whale B -> C+
Sanctum of Stone Fangs B+ -> A-
Sanguine Indulgence C- -> D
Seasoned Hallowblade B- -> B
Secure the Scene B- -> C
Siege Striker C+ -> B
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon A+ -> A-
Unsubstantiate C -> C+

Bad Deal C -> D+

While Bad Deal would be decent in most other sets, it’s a really bad deal here – the 2 life matters a huge amount when your opponents are so likely to be able to pressure you early on, discarding them isn’t as valuable when they’re going to be playing cheaper spells than in most formats and so will have an emptier hand by turn 6, and your 6 drop plays really need to have good potential to stabilise this set. This can be an okay playable in a Golgari deck that’s good at stabilising or an Orzhov deck that has a lot of lifegain, but is never very exciting. This is a good sideboard card against slow decks, so do keep that in mind if you’re playing best-of-three.

Conclave Mentor B -> B+

I’ve reached the point where I take Conclave Mentor highly even pack 1 pick 1, which doesn’t go for most Gold cards – I believe Selesnya is the best colour combination, and Conclave Mentor so often just dominates the game if allowed to live for one turn that I am willing to speculate on it over most high B-‘s and below (I will mostly take cards in the B tier and above p1p1 over Conclave Mentor, if they are single-colour). Everything is absurd about this card; even gaining a bunch of life when it dies makes it much easier to race, and even curving it into something as innocuous as Trufflesnout will often be gamewinning, to say nothing of Wildwood Scourge!

The Mentor still isn’t splashable; it is a B+ in Selesnya only.

Concordia Pegasus C -> C+

This is a great set for this statline; it’s very easy to load buffs onto things, and Concordia Pegasus is one of the best targets, while blocking well in the early game and chipping away on stalled boards. It might seem strange that I have the Pegasus at C+ and Fetid Imp at C, but that’s because White can make much better use of the body than Black, and I consider blocking well without having to use 1 mana or be already buffed a nice upside.

Cultivate B- -> C

This is just not the set for Cultivate, which is normally a great card – the splashes available are mostly 5 mana removal spells, which you don’t want too many of since they’re not that exciting and you don’t want them clogging up your hand. Splashes in general are worse in fast formats, since you don’t have time to draw into mana sources for the splash cards, or time to be casting Cultivate unless the board is already well-stabilised. There’s just too much risk of your opponent just snowballing out of control with something like Basri’s Acolyte if you aren’t putting stuff on the board on turn 3. Additionally, Green tends to beatdown quite a lot, especially when paired with White, and those decks never want Cultivate.

I’m still not going to give Cultivate too low a grade, since there are some good gold uncommons to splash, it’s okay in slower decks with expensive cards that stabilise well, and it’s true that Green is good at stabilising this set. Ultimately though, you pay a big cost in putting this card in your deck and I usually would rather have gainlands.

Drowsing Tyrannidon C+ -> B-

I love Drowsing Tyrannidon this format – I’ve even begun to take it over Llanowar Visionary, which would just be an insane thing to do in other formats. This is the best green common, because it’s so hard for them to attack into and then hits hard once turned on – and it’s trivial to turn it on, since there are +1/+1 counters everywhere and it only needs one, and cards like Short Sword, Setessan Training, Rousing Read, and Hunter’s Edge all help greatly as well.

Gainlands C -> C+

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As I said in the opening paragraphs, good fixing is hard to come by and this is a really high playable format which is dominated by the gold uncommons – that means you’re likely to find a pair and stick to it earlier than you would in other formats (but you still shouldn’t force and it can definitely be correct to abandon a gold uncommon if it’s not splashable and the colours are clearly not that open). As a result, I take gainlands higher than in most formats, will speculate on them over weak playables a lot, and if I already have some good splash cards will take them quite highly. While this format is more hostile to splashes than other recent ones, just because fast formats punish mana screw more and the games don’t go as long so you’re less likely to eventually draw your splash card, it’s not so fast that splashing a Conclave Mentor or Indulging Patrician can’t be gamewinning if you have good synergy with those.

Gainlands do get worse in decks with 1-drops, but there still aren’t tons of good ones this format.

Garruk’s Uprising B- -> C

This is a really mediocre set for this card, because most creatures don’t have 4 power naturally so it doesn’t trigger off them, whereas something like Furious Rise would. It’s much more common to buff creatures up to having 4 power, which doesn’t work for this card. Additionally, it’s a piss-poor curve play and puts you pretty far behind. You don’t need as much high end to win the late game this set – Green is good at doing that anyway because it just has bigger creatures and overwhelms its opponents; it doesn’t need to draw cards very much, especially not in such a high variance way.

Goblin Wizardry D+ -> C-

I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of Izzet decks actually want Goblin Wizardry, rather than their having to be really dedicated to spells; it represents a ton of damage with any random spells you cast, and Izzet has a lot of good ones. Cards like Opt and Crash Through, that Izzet already wants since they’re so good at buffing Spellgorger Weird, are premium with Goblin Wizardry.

Most other decks still don’t want this, so I leave it at high C-, but I would take it at low C+ in Izzet, which is a pretty big surprise to me!

Goremand B+ -> B-

I’m sad to say Goremand’s big grade change is one I probably should’ve seen coming – it’s not just about costing 6 mana but because the format has precious little to sacrifice, and Goremand by virtue of being 6 mana doesn’t combo with cards like Traitorous Greed at all. Furthermore, in fast formats, you tend to be forced to trade off your creatures more and Black almost always has worse creatures than the other colours so you’re usually behind on creatures by turn 6, through having to double block or use removal rather than play more to the board. Goremand is still good, but not nearly as exciting an early pick as it would be in other formats.

Similarly, I take Temples highly early – probably more at B- than C+, but I’ve left them at C+ because they get a bit worse as picks later – a lot of their power is in allowing you to remain open, because you play a Temple in your single-colour decks too since the scry is well worth having a tapland.

Griffin Aerie C- -> D

I’ve tried to make Griffin Aerie work a bunch, but the sad fact is that it’s just not well-supported enough, and you’re better off staying away. You need a pretty extreme deck to get two Griffins out of it, at which point it’s been reasonable. Here’s one of the few I had where Griffin Aerie performed reasonably (not even spectacularly even though I had so much stuff for it), and you can see how much I had to patch together stuff to actually reach 3 points of life-gain here; that’s because you can gain 1 or 2 life pretty easily this format, but 3 is very hard.

Library Larcenist C -> C-

This is a pretty bad format for the Larcenist; putting counters on anything is valuable this set, and you tend to have more good targets than good ways to buff things. There’s a lot of good early removal that deals with Larcenist even after you buff it up, and until you do it’s like you’ve wasted a bunch of mana and are down a card – at best, it will keep one of their 2 drops from attacking for fear of letting you draw (not Alpine Watchdog!) and at worst, they just won’t care. The Larcenist + Rousing Read combo is pretty slow, so that’s not much of a saving grace either.

I do tend to like Larcenist more in Izzet decks with lots of cheap removal like Shock and Scorching Dragonfire, since that means you can immediately convert the card advantage into tempo.

Mind Rot C- -> D-

Fast formats are the worst possible for Mind Rot because a) you don’t have time to cast it and b) by the time you can afford to cast it, they’ll probably have emptied their hand anyway since decks will be lower curve than in other formats. Save this one for Sealed, where it’s still reasonable; I wouldn’t play it unless I was really desperate this draft format. It’s a reasonable sideboard card for best-of-three, so keep that in mind and take it over plain bad cards there.

Pursued Whale B -> C+

7 mana is a lot to pay right now. Pursued Whale wins many of the games in which it is cast, but the risks associated with having it stuck in your hand the entire game are too high for me to take it that highly, and it doesn’t do anything against fliers or burn. Sometimes you can loot it away, but you won’t have as much time to be activating Teferi’s Protege rather than putting more stuff on the board this format, and there aren’t too many other decent looters. I’m probably more happy with Waker of Waves than Pursued Whale this format, even if the latter has a potentially much more powerful effect – far fewer games come down to board stalls this format than in Ikoria or Theros

Sanguine Indulgence C- -> D

Sanguine Indulgence is garbage when it costs 4; you just won’t have the time to use it or really need it in a fast format. It’s also hard to gain 3 life this set, and life-gain is by no means an archetype so much as a small package in some decks, so Sanguine Indulgence has been really mediocre all in all.

Seasoned Hallowblade B- -> B

Seasoned Hallowblade is a card that’s fantastic without any kind of support; likely the premier 2 drop at common or uncommon in the entire format. The card is great on offence or defence and resists most removal in the set, since trading your worst card in hand for a huge swing in tempo or to gain a mana advantage is worth it so often. When you do support it, it wears any buff fantastically, and with a couple of these even a card like Dub becomes a solid inclusion in your deck, since auras are worth a lot more when the risk of getting 2-for-1’ed is so much smaller.

There is more removal that can hit it in this set than most, since Black’s best common is Grasp of Darkness, so you do want to keep that in mind – a smart opponent will block, make you discard, and then Grasp, so you may not want to attack with it if they have BB up early in the game. If they do spend premium removal killing a 2 drop, you’re not unhappy with that exchange, as long as you don’t let them blow you out.

Secure the Scene B- -> C

5 mana removal sucks in White this set, and this card sucks even more. As a high C (a card high within the C tier, but not a C+), it’s a playable I’m happy to pick up late, reasonably happy to run the first copy, but not something I ever really prioritise. Giving them a 1/1 is really annoying, because that tends to be a good buff target or gives them free sacrifice fodder (which is hard to come by this set).

Siege Striker C+ -> B

Siege Striker is a card that has continuously impressed me this format. It’s a colossal threat with just a single +1/+1 counter, something White is exceptionally good at providing it, it combines fantastically with myriad cards from Rousing Read to Setessan Training to a mere Short Sword, or you can just tap one creature and it’s a nightmare for them to block. The best thing about it is that its potential to just win the game out of nowhere is colossal – many times I’ve done something as innocuous as use Gale Swooper’s flying ability on it then tap my ground team to hit them for 10, or used a card like Sure Strike to hit them for an additional 6 because my opponent didn’t want to chump with their 2/2 or whatever. These two abilities combine superbly and will have your opponents living in fear; this is the ideal set for Siege Striker and it will so frequently demand removal that I often find myself holding it as the final 3 drop I play, since it’s still good later in the game.

Siege Striker can still be mediocre in decks that aren’t looking to beat down that much, but most White decks are this format.

Ugin, the Spirit Dragon A+ -> A-

How the mighty fall from grace! While Ugin is still an incredibly powerful card, I don’t think he’s that fantastic a first pick this format; this is mainly because rather than being a colourless card, he basically commits you to Green immediately since 8 mana is such a colossal amount, which often takes multiple more turns to cast than 7 mana, and Green is the only colour with ramp this format (unless you can pick up a Palladium Myr, which can be sort of hard since it’s an uncommon).The Green ramp isn’t even all that good – Llanowar Visionary is the only good ramp card. The problem with 8 drops, a problem that is exacerbated by this being an aggressive format, is that there’s a huge risk of having them stuck in your hand throughout the game. In a format like Theros or Ikoria, a lot of the games get very grindy and come down to topdecks, and Ugin is absolutely absurd there, well worth taking the risk. However, if a lot of games are ending before you reach 8 mana, Ugin is like skipping a draw step or mulling an additional time if you happen to draw it. I still like taking Ugin highly, but there are many other cards which will likely perform better as a first pick.

Unsubstantiate C -> C+

While it usually leaves you a card down unless you’re casting it in response to a removal spell, Unsubstantiate is such a versatile card and this is a format where tempo matters so much that I’m happy to pick it early.

Thanks for reading!