Hey everyone! Your eyes do not deceive you, I am, once again, writing a limited article. I’m still too burnt out to be doing the full-time release thing, but I don’t mind doing a bit of extra content here and there when time allows it. I received enough messages and requests (I truly do appreciate all of it) that I figured I’d try to squeeze at least one of these into my schedule for you.
Today we’ll be taking a good look at the archetypes of Foundations draft. That means we’ll be doing a brief description of what each archetype is looking to do in FDN as well as providing you with an archetype skeleton so that you have a good idea of what each deck should look like.
For those of you unfamiliar with what an archetype skeleton is, it is basically what an average “good” deck would be in that archetype. One that could trophy, but isn’t a slam dunk to do so. It doesn’t really help to look at a totally busted hypothetical deck because it should be really obvious when that lane presents itself.
The building limitations that I am setting for this are two rares, five uncommons, and not more than two of any common. No mythics or special guests are included because it’s far less likely that you’ll see them. For some reason, the deck builder counts Burst Lightning as a rare when it is a common in the set. You may see some counts that seem off because of this.
For simplicities sake, the mana bases will be static throughout the exercise. They will be eight of each basic land and a common dual land of those colors. I am aware this isn’t always the proper ratio for the decks. I am mostly adding this part because every time I get a few messages saying that my colored sources were off on a deck.
Foundations is a fundamentals based set so that means we’re taking a classic approach with Azorius flyers. It races in the air while deploying ways to slow your opponent on the ground. That can be from bounce, blockers, or good old-fashioned removal.
While you can easily get across the finish line by just following the flying strategy, Empyrean Eagle is a HUGE boost to making sure this deck does the thing.
For clarity, I didn’t break my rules here, Angel of Finality was downshifted to uncommon in FDN. Ignore what the deck builder says.
Orzhov is all about living that life gain life. That can get tricky because you do need a balance of payoffs and consistent ways to trigger them. All of the incidental life does give you another way to stay ahead of the race though since cards like Dazzling Angel provide it without putting too much of a strain on your curve.
You can do some serious damage if you get the Healer's Hawk into Ajani's Pridemate start. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.
Would you be shocked if I told you that Boros was an aggressive creature deck? I doubt it because Boros is pretty much always on that plan. Hey, If it works, why change it. Deploy cheap critters and smash on in with some ways to pump up the whole team.
For those of you that didn’t have the previous opportunity to play with Heroic Reinforcements, it is quite cracked in limited.
While similar to Boros in being a creature deck. Selesnya focuses on the +1+1 counters route instead of the go wide approach (though it can do that as well). Going tall can have some disadvantages, but Gnarlid Colony can prevent your giants from spending all their time in Chumpblockville land.
I’ll be honest, I was expecting more of a control theme from Dimir, but the intended plan is Threshold. Well I’m not that great at listening when someone tells me what to do. While building this one, I basically ignored Threshold (the payoffs just aren’t there for me) and went with a classic variant of a Dimir limited deck.
Izzet a spell deck again? Of course it is. Do I ever get tired of making that joke (along with every other Dad joke on earth)? Of course not.
That strategy can be successful whether you’re casting spells to get triggers or just stacking your graveyard to play a certain serpent from Tolaria on the cheap. (Remember that guy? He’s still a house.) Balmor may seem a bit odd since you’re not really going wide (outside of Mischievous Mystic shenanigans), but I can assure you that Trample is going to matter when Crackling Cyclops is cracking in for a billion.
In limited, Simic tends to just play acceleration and big creatures whenever it doesn’t have a set specific ability. That doesn’t appear to be any different here.
That game plan can have some pretty polarizing matchups since it tends to get run over by aggressive decks while durdling, but can go over the top of most of the other “normal” decks.
This does let you play Koma which will win this set’s award for the most times it causes someone to say “Wait, that’s not a mythic?!?”
The classic pile of creatures and removal spells. While it has a Raid theme, that just goes with the aforementioned plan of killing anything that gets in the way and bringing the noise.
I’d say to stop me if I get too Morbid here, but that is kind of the entire point of Golgari. To be fair, they should just change the name to Grindgari because that’s what you’re going to be doing every time you draft it..
Gruul is going to be deploying large creatures and turning them sideways. It is technically a four power matters theme, but you should usually meet that qualification if you’re playing this deck.
Josh is a member of the elite limited team The Draft Lab as well as the host of The Draft Lab Podcast. He was qualifying for Pro Tours, Nationals, and Worlds literally before some of you were born. After a Magic hiatus to play poker and go to medical school, he has been dominating Arena with over an 80% win percentage in Bo3 as well as making #1 rank in Mythic.
