mono red is fastest by just because of BTE and burn. I guess you could make it RG to play rampager but splashing a color is not that easy, you'd basically trade mutavaults for forests and be stuck with some scry lands probably. Either way doesn't make a huge difference but it's definately the fastest deck and a decent one at that.
W/G is basically the only other aggro deck. It can be white weenie splashing for voice,lion and smiter (fastest), green based and playing elves, boon satyr etc. or even splash red and go up to the dragon.
W/R doesn't make much sense now, boros doesn;t really provide much power cards making it worth instead of just straight up red or naya.
I don't know you but I have to ignore everything you say from now on after the Caryatid comment. This blocks EVERYTHING in RDW and ramps you into fatties which RDW cannot win.
Know what deck is usually the most tuned and best deck in the format after roation? RDW is.
RDW is the bar to beat for decks week 1. If you cannot beat that deck you are on the wrong build.
All you have to really prepare for is RDW and Supreme verdict. Anger of the gods is good but isn't consistent enough to rely on. Decks are running 4 tougness 3 drops and 5/5 4 drops. It is going to catch much less things than people are hoping for. It is really the pyroclasm of our time. Pyroclasm is good but always remained narrow. Anger of the gods is no different.
What a nonsense that RDW is the only deck, G/W is another easy front runner that is very easy to build but only withheld by being much more expensive to assemble. Caryatid isn't that bad but just slightly not good enough to see much play. It's good against RDW but it's nothing special against G/W and especially underwhelming against control. It's a rampant growth with sometimes upside but more often a big downside, especially as the rampant growth deck would likely want to play a sweeper itself.. If something like jund midrange would be viable now it could work but such a deck sucks at the moment.
Problem with most heroic cards is that their base stats are too low I think and the heroic trigger just buffs themselves. They still get blown out by removal in response.
The heroic cards get better if the heroic trigger doesn't affect themselves, if they are not vulnerable to removal and most importantly if their basestats are good.
The best heroic commons/uncommons therefore are I think:
Wavecrash triton, very good trigger that is quite safe to go for and 1/4 by itself isn't the worst. I only find blue not so great a color for heroic enablers.
Wingsteed rider, 2/2 flyer for 3 is fine by itself and the heroic trigger just puts it over the top. Works especially well with the two white common bestow guys.
Triton Fortune Hunter, very lackluster body but the trigger is really good and totally safe. Once again don't think you'll often have much good heroic enablers in blue but if you do or specifically draft for it he is great
Phalanx leader, at least affects potentially many other creatures
Battlewise hoplite, 2/2 for 2 is ok and the ability makes him quite good.
Problem still with most though is that the early triggers will have to come from enchantments often, since wasting a trick just for a trigger is often not worth it. Bestow often costs a bit much to trigger them early and the ordeal cycle or draw a card enchantment cycle are both very risky to get 2 for 1'ed. Every color except green basically has a 2 mana common removal for almost all these guys (pharika's cure, lightning strike, voyage's end and last breath), thus against open mana it's almost never comfortable to go for it.
can someone explain to me why merchant is significantly better than bleak coven vampires? A card that would routinely wheel and is basically the exact same card?
It's a good card but it's nowhere near read the bones or lash of the whip in my mind. It's a five mana 2/4. Five mana 2/4s with decent abilities are playable but there's no way they'll ever be the best common in their color in the entire set I feel like it's the hands of binding of this set - a few people did OK at the prerelease (in a fake format, mind you) and then decided it's the greatest ever due to extremely limited testing. I would never, ever take it over a removal spell, period.
Bleak coven vampires was as i recall way too hard to activate as metalcraft and black didn't synergize. Merchant is basically at least drain 2 and in the black deck usually quite a bit more (and i believe you want to be heavy black or not at all). I'm not very certain about these lists and spots can easily change but most black cards have just been very dissapointing in testing so far letting me put merchant on top.
@ smellyrebel,
black tends to play defensive/controllish which makes me prefer good defensive cards. Mogis' marauders defends terribly and black doesn't really need much help winning stalls which don't occur too often. Stalls won't occur too frequently anyway I think.
@magicmerl
courser synergizes fine with the mechanics, it's a very good target to bestow for example. Vanilla guys vary a lot in strength from set to set, in theros I like courser but any of the 5 or 6 mana vanilla guys suck quite hard. If you can force a coordinated assault when you block with courser alone on turn 3 it's not a bad deal. Not many 2 mana 2/2s around which are the most worrisome to block potentially.
Wavecrash triton can be very good but I found that the blue decks I had rarely had that much to enable heroic in a way I want it.
From the blue commons/uncommons I only really want to target my own guys with a few cards Ordeal of thassa, triton tactics, maybe fate foretold (but i rather not play that) and bestowed nimbus naiad or thassa's emissary. Most of those are uncommon or i rather not have in my deck, triton tactics is actually better on other guys as it already does the same thing as wavecrash triton and bestow doesn't come up too often (both nimbus and thassa are often better not bestowed).
So usually i found I needed the good heroic enablers for him from other colors but I don't really like the heroic archetype, most of the heroic cards are very fragile. There may not be that much removal but for small guys which most heroic cards are there actually is.
Wavecrash triton is often just a 1/4 as well, ie made for blocking, and I don't like that at all in this format. So many cards blow you out when trying to block or simply make it impossible to block with 1/4s.
It may end up being good but I definately don't want to pick it too early as too much needs to happen for the deck to make it good making me prefer picks i'll always like.
As for black, read the bones is sweet but paying tempo and life to draw cards feels like a losing proposition too much. Especially for black which is already really slow that I feel the other cards are more important.
Nessian courser is really good I think. Against aggro it blocks quite well because most tricks are +2+2, +3+1 or that sort. So if a 2/1 attacks into courser there are hardly any tricks that give you a bad trade, and even against a 2/2 you can often block well. He can also attack into all common/uncommon 4 drops and fights very well against almost every other 3 drop. Just very well positioned considering he avoids almost all cheap removal too.
Feels like 18 for sure, so many manadumps and scry makes it even better to play more land as you can scry away landfloods while it's harder to scry yourself into land when you get screwed (since you have to be able to play the scry spell in the first place and preferrably want to play it).
Tempo is king and lands are crucial in winning that, you're also more likely to face tempo cards like bounce spells than lots of removal enforcing the idea that not getting screwed is more important than not flooding.
Still 17 and lots of acceleration also seems viable for some decks. as long as you have enough mana going
I was wondering what everyone's opinion on the colors in Theros draft is.
Things that are apparent after some drafts of Theros is that the format is quite tempo driven. There are many manaoutlets making curving out and not falling behind in tempo quite important. Card advantage feels weaker as there are plenty of things to do with mana and scry helps prevent flooding too later on. Tempo cards however feel much stronger just because effectively wasting someone's turn or locking down a card that is bestowed is huge.
Removal is almost all conditional and slow. There is a fair number of removal for killing small guys and only very expensive removal for the higher end cards.
Creature buffs and tricks are quite good, partly because the mechanics are very safe (you don't get 2 for 1'ed often when trying to buff your creature) and mostly because removal is easy to spot and calculate for. Blocking however is quite difficult with many different good tricks existing.
All these leads me to think being proactive and especially good 2-3-4 mana plays are very important. I'm rather the proactive deck trying to get there, the higher mana plays compete with stuff like montrosity and bestow a lot.
Anyway here is my current evaluation of the colors so far with a list of the top commons and uncommons in the order I currently see them. Most of them are pretty close though and obviously it's hard to tell exactly yet how it works out.
Blue is the strongest color in my opinion. Flyers are very good and the plan of stalling while winning with flyers works very well. Nimbus Naiad is one of the best bestow creatures because it's very good in both modes, many other bestow creatures suffer the problem of 1 mode being far weaker. Blue 'removal' only buys tempo but it's practically the only non-conditional instant creature removal, all others can be hugely blown out by the various buffs that exist but blue is just reliable. Griptide especially is just great against monstrosity guys or just bouncing a small dude if you know your opponent missed a land drop. Chimera was weaker for me then it looked at first just because there is a lot of competition at 5 mana (like bestowing) and it get's blown out by buffs a bit too easy for my liking. Overall though blue has a great combination of creatures and tricks. An aggressive deck with some evasion and huge tempocards like triton tactics and sea god's revenge to win any race feels like the best place to be.
Green is the second strongest color in my opinion. The order of these commons is very debateable as they are all quite close. The power in green is just that it has great creatures and lots of good guys to play at the low end as well. Scorpion is the only 1 cmc guy I like playing and just a great defender while also getting in for a few. Feral invocation is one of the best tricks that can easily be a blowout against stuff like lightning strike, pharika's cure etc. The power of green is just solid guys at all the early spots on the curve and ramp also plays very well with the montrosity or bestow there is. The removal is almost nonexistant ofcourse but green is quite good at getting on the board early and just using buffs to overpower any blockers that might come. Feels like a color you'll often take second but rarely firstpick as you get the real quality cards from your first color, it's not really outstanding at uncommon but quite deep at common level.
As often is the case red has the best common removal and then a sharp drop in quality afterwards. Still I like red as it has some good removal, and good buffs and decent creatures higher up curve. They lack some quality guys at 2 and 3 mana but getting those from an other color or using tricks to push through can help. As a color most reliant on buffing their guys to get through but that plan is not so bad in this format and the first or double strikers can get very dangerous with some buffs. Most quality is uncommon and higher though making me end up with few reds but of good quality often.
White has some very solid cards and wingsteed rider is an excellent card for taking the 'build your own baneslayer' path to victory. The overall problem with this color though is that many cards are too defensively minded which is not the place I want to be with tricks etc out there. The aggressor usually has the advantage of having mana open while the defender oftne just played a guy and that leads to many blowouts with the quality buffs around here. So basically I like the color when it's fairly open and I can get ignore all the 1/3s, 3/5s and whatnot but a control build can work like U/W flyers or W/B with lots of removal. A lot of white cards do work a lot better if you're aiming to win in a late game, especially divine verdict, last breath and a lot of the higher toughness guys.
Black can be good but you have to be dedicated or rather devoted to it. The only color which really benefits from being the main color a lot more. The devotion guys are good and the removal is alright. The problem with black I feel is that it lacks good creatures early on and is very slow. Lots of cards hurt yourself or both players but can't defend well nor can you come out of the gates quickly. Success to the color seems to be the lifegain and making sure you have enough early plays so you can handle the few cards that hurt yourself. A lot of cards in theros limited function of you having creatures but with black that is often difficult as the early plays are just really bad. Playing lots of removal and lategame bombs is normally a good plan but in Theros the removal just feels too weak. Overall though black can be really good if you do get a bigger amount of the good dudes because the devotion mechanic makes them enhance eachother. The harder color requirements and the need for more cards make this a poor color to splash though hence I prefer to only move in if it's open or gamble it when I opened a bomb in the color.
As far as color combinations go every combination feels playable. Black and white are most defensive and seem to combine better with eachother but certain color combinations only have marginal advantages it feels. Many of the cards with offcolor activations aren't even that good if you do play that those exact colors.
Anyway wonder how others feel about this format. It feels very fun to play and the dominance of tricks and the wide range of viable ones make it harder and interesting.
Control works but more in a tapout fashion and less focussed on removal. The removal is all a bit too conditional and too much stuff can get past it. But a bunch of removal, roadblocks, mnomic walls, and high end stuff can still work. It's more about outtempoing them with stuff like griptide, voyage's end and buying time for your bombs to work then really grinding them out on card advantage though.
Tempo is crucial in this format I feel and draw spells or counters that are difficult to hold up are worse because of it. Dissolve felt poor unless you have lots of instants just because it's so difficult to hold up, and if they see it and have the option of montrosity you can still do nothing.
True elspeth has many outs, but ashiok too.
Ashiok is great if you can defend it but that's pretty hard. It's like a reverse sweeper. Sweepers are awesome if you are defending and they are more on the board but do little if you want to be aggressive, ashiok does practically nothing if you're defending but it's very good if they don't have board presence. Coming in blue/black it's not the easiest to defend I find, i'd put it on about the same level as elspeth.
I do think it would be a bit too good. The problem with these sort of cards is that they are insane in R/W and useless pretty much everywhere else (maybe some R/x deck with unicorns etc. would play it). Thus you can get a lot of these if you're the RW player since nobody else is taking them. Akroan hoplite is also one of the better of the uncommon golds and R/W already work well together because there is a good heroic archetype in it.
I think a format is much more fun drafting if almost every color combination can work. Small incentives for certain pairs over others is good but just having dominant pairs/archetypes makes it too worthwhile to just force those color combinations after the first few picks, the more open it is the more reading signals and waiting to see what flows works out which makes the drafting experience harder and much more interesting. Those drafts where you open a gold bomb and just force that combination are not as fun and more luck driven (it flows and you have an insane deck or it doesn't flow and you can neither switch nor get a good deck out of it).
Fabled hero isn't too bad, plenty of stuff to stop it. It costs 3 so by the time you are buffing it most removal is already on. Pretty easy to deal with.
There isn't really an i win card because everything can be raced pretty well with buffed guys. I don't see any cards that are super defenders and impossible to remove.
The biggest bomb by far is elspeth, only card that really get you back from staring at a board of 3 guys.
edit: actually fleecemane lion comes pretty close. On the play that can be super hard to remove as most removal is for x/2s or comes online by turn 5/6.
The ordeals matter quite a bit against which colors you play as well, alot of the removal in the set is conditional and can't kill high toughness guys. Against green and black the ordeals are pretty good because it's really hard for them to get the 2 for 1 before the guy grows out of control, against blue which was probably most popular, it's a lot risker with voyage's end and griptide unconditionally ruining the party. Overall though the red and blue one are really good, green ok and the white and black one pretty bad. Black itself lacks good guys to put it on and by the time you get it off the effect is likely not to matter anymore.
A lot of the black removal is underwhelming I find.
Lash of the whip is slow and lots of playable pump spells make it difficult to time. Instead of getting 2 for 1s i find it's get's negated more oftne actually.
Big vanilla guys are also underwhelming I found, like the 6/5 trample for 6 in green or the 5/3 for 5 in red. At 5 and 6 mana there are so many ways to boost the multitude of 3/3s etc that those vanilla big guys tend to suck. They can't defend well and often you rather bestow or montrosity your own guy than play a 6 drop.
The common bestow cycle is also very differing in strength, the black one sucks and the red one isn't too great either but the green one rocks for example. White and blue are fine too.
These reviews are too positive regarding how playable stuff is.
Polukranos is not good, just too costly. Too much stiff competition with rampager and advent of the wurm (monogreen won't be a thing). His ability is just really slow and guys with these kind of stats generally need evasion, trample lifelink or something to prevent being chumped too much.
Basically only boon satyr is good for constructed, sylvan caryatid is close but dying to both popular sweepers and not being big enough to block that well just kinda suck.
Funnily enough vine trellis would maybe be better now, being able to block fleecemane lion and not dying to anger of the gods would be pretty big.
W/G is basically the only other aggro deck. It can be white weenie splashing for voice,lion and smiter (fastest), green based and playing elves, boon satyr etc. or even splash red and go up to the dragon.
W/R doesn't make much sense now, boros doesn;t really provide much power cards making it worth instead of just straight up red or naya.
What a nonsense that RDW is the only deck, G/W is another easy front runner that is very easy to build but only withheld by being much more expensive to assemble. Caryatid isn't that bad but just slightly not good enough to see much play. It's good against RDW but it's nothing special against G/W and especially underwhelming against control. It's a rampant growth with sometimes upside but more often a big downside, especially as the rampant growth deck would likely want to play a sweeper itself.. If something like jund midrange would be viable now it could work but such a deck sucks at the moment.
The heroic cards get better if the heroic trigger doesn't affect themselves, if they are not vulnerable to removal and most importantly if their basestats are good.
The best heroic commons/uncommons therefore are I think:
Wavecrash triton, very good trigger that is quite safe to go for and 1/4 by itself isn't the worst. I only find blue not so great a color for heroic enablers.
Wingsteed rider, 2/2 flyer for 3 is fine by itself and the heroic trigger just puts it over the top. Works especially well with the two white common bestow guys.
Triton Fortune Hunter, very lackluster body but the trigger is really good and totally safe. Once again don't think you'll often have much good heroic enablers in blue but if you do or specifically draft for it he is great
Phalanx leader, at least affects potentially many other creatures
Battlewise hoplite, 2/2 for 2 is ok and the ability makes him quite good.
Problem still with most though is that the early triggers will have to come from enchantments often, since wasting a trick just for a trigger is often not worth it. Bestow often costs a bit much to trigger them early and the ordeal cycle or draw a card enchantment cycle are both very risky to get 2 for 1'ed. Every color except green basically has a 2 mana common removal for almost all these guys (pharika's cure, lightning strike, voyage's end and last breath), thus against open mana it's almost never comfortable to go for it.
Bleak coven vampires was as i recall way too hard to activate as metalcraft and black didn't synergize. Merchant is basically at least drain 2 and in the black deck usually quite a bit more (and i believe you want to be heavy black or not at all). I'm not very certain about these lists and spots can easily change but most black cards have just been very dissapointing in testing so far letting me put merchant on top.
@ smellyrebel,
black tends to play defensive/controllish which makes me prefer good defensive cards. Mogis' marauders defends terribly and black doesn't really need much help winning stalls which don't occur too often. Stalls won't occur too frequently anyway I think.
@magicmerl
courser synergizes fine with the mechanics, it's a very good target to bestow for example. Vanilla guys vary a lot in strength from set to set, in theros I like courser but any of the 5 or 6 mana vanilla guys suck quite hard. If you can force a coordinated assault when you block with courser alone on turn 3 it's not a bad deal. Not many 2 mana 2/2s around which are the most worrisome to block potentially.
From the blue commons/uncommons I only really want to target my own guys with a few cards Ordeal of thassa, triton tactics, maybe fate foretold (but i rather not play that) and bestowed nimbus naiad or thassa's emissary. Most of those are uncommon or i rather not have in my deck, triton tactics is actually better on other guys as it already does the same thing as wavecrash triton and bestow doesn't come up too often (both nimbus and thassa are often better not bestowed).
So usually i found I needed the good heroic enablers for him from other colors but I don't really like the heroic archetype, most of the heroic cards are very fragile. There may not be that much removal but for small guys which most heroic cards are there actually is.
Wavecrash triton is often just a 1/4 as well, ie made for blocking, and I don't like that at all in this format. So many cards blow you out when trying to block or simply make it impossible to block with 1/4s.
It may end up being good but I definately don't want to pick it too early as too much needs to happen for the deck to make it good making me prefer picks i'll always like.
As for black, read the bones is sweet but paying tempo and life to draw cards feels like a losing proposition too much. Especially for black which is already really slow that I feel the other cards are more important.
Nessian courser is really good I think. Against aggro it blocks quite well because most tricks are +2+2, +3+1 or that sort. So if a 2/1 attacks into courser there are hardly any tricks that give you a bad trade, and even against a 2/2 you can often block well. He can also attack into all common/uncommon 4 drops and fights very well against almost every other 3 drop. Just very well positioned considering he avoids almost all cheap removal too.
Tempo is king and lands are crucial in winning that, you're also more likely to face tempo cards like bounce spells than lots of removal enforcing the idea that not getting screwed is more important than not flooding.
Still 17 and lots of acceleration also seems viable for some decks. as long as you have enough mana going
Things that are apparent after some drafts of Theros is that the format is quite tempo driven. There are many manaoutlets making curving out and not falling behind in tempo quite important. Card advantage feels weaker as there are plenty of things to do with mana and scry helps prevent flooding too later on. Tempo cards however feel much stronger just because effectively wasting someone's turn or locking down a card that is bestowed is huge.
Removal is almost all conditional and slow. There is a fair number of removal for killing small guys and only very expensive removal for the higher end cards.
Creature buffs and tricks are quite good, partly because the mechanics are very safe (you don't get 2 for 1'ed often when trying to buff your creature) and mostly because removal is easy to spot and calculate for. Blocking however is quite difficult with many different good tricks existing.
All these leads me to think being proactive and especially good 2-3-4 mana plays are very important. I'm rather the proactive deck trying to get there, the higher mana plays compete with stuff like montrosity and bestow a lot.
Anyway here is my current evaluation of the colors so far with a list of the top commons and uncommons in the order I currently see them. Most of them are pretty close though and obviously it's hard to tell exactly yet how it works out.
Blue
(common)
1. Nimbus Naiad
2. Vaporkin
3. Griptide
4. Prescient Chimera
5. Omenspeaker
6. Voyage's end
(uncommon)
1. Triton Tactics
2. Sea God's Revenge
3. Thassa's emissary
Blue is the strongest color in my opinion. Flyers are very good and the plan of stalling while winning with flyers works very well. Nimbus Naiad is one of the best bestow creatures because it's very good in both modes, many other bestow creatures suffer the problem of 1 mode being far weaker. Blue 'removal' only buys tempo but it's practically the only non-conditional instant creature removal, all others can be hugely blown out by the various buffs that exist but blue is just reliable. Griptide especially is just great against monstrosity guys or just bouncing a small dude if you know your opponent missed a land drop. Chimera was weaker for me then it looked at first just because there is a lot of competition at 5 mana (like bestowing) and it get's blown out by buffs a bit too easy for my liking. Overall though blue has a great combination of creatures and tricks. An aggressive deck with some evasion and huge tempocards like triton tactics and sea god's revenge to win any race feels like the best place to be.
Green
(common)
1. Nessian Asp
2. Leafcrown dryad
3. Feral Invocation
4. Nessian Courser
5. Sedge Scorpion
6. Voyaging Satyr
(uncommon)
1. Nylea's Emissary
2. Nemesis of mortals
3. Karametra's acolyte
Green is the second strongest color in my opinion. The order of these commons is very debateable as they are all quite close. The power in green is just that it has great creatures and lots of good guys to play at the low end as well. Scorpion is the only 1 cmc guy I like playing and just a great defender while also getting in for a few. Feral invocation is one of the best tricks that can easily be a blowout against stuff like lightning strike, pharika's cure etc. The power of green is just solid guys at all the early spots on the curve and ramp also plays very well with the montrosity or bestow there is. The removal is almost nonexistant ofcourse but green is quite good at getting on the board early and just using buffs to overpower any blockers that might come. Feels like a color you'll often take second but rarely firstpick as you get the real quality cards from your first color, it's not really outstanding at uncommon but quite deep at common level.
Red
(common)
1. Lightning Strike
2. Ill-Tempered Cyclops
3. Borderland minotaur
4. Titan's strength
5. Spearpoint Oread
6. Rage of Purphoros
(uncommon)
1. Magma jet
2. Coordinated assault
3. Stoneshock giant
As often is the case red has the best common removal and then a sharp drop in quality afterwards. Still I like red as it has some good removal, and good buffs and decent creatures higher up curve. They lack some quality guys at 2 and 3 mana but getting those from an other color or using tricks to push through can help. As a color most reliant on buffing their guys to get through but that plan is not so bad in this format and the first or double strikers can get very dangerous with some buffs. Most quality is uncommon and higher though making me end up with few reds but of good quality often.
White
(common)
1. Wingsteed Rider
2. Observant Alseid
3. Divine Verdict
4. Hopeful Eidolon
5. Gods Willing
6. Battlewise Valor
(uncommon)
1. Dauntless onslaught
2. Heliod's emissary
3. Phalanx Leader
White has some very solid cards and wingsteed rider is an excellent card for taking the 'build your own baneslayer' path to victory. The overall problem with this color though is that many cards are too defensively minded which is not the place I want to be with tricks etc out there. The aggressor usually has the advantage of having mana open while the defender oftne just played a guy and that leads to many blowouts with the quality buffs around here. So basically I like the color when it's fairly open and I can get ignore all the 1/3s, 3/5s and whatnot but a control build can work like U/W flyers or W/B with lots of removal. A lot of white cards do work a lot better if you're aiming to win in a late game, especially divine verdict, last breath and a lot of the higher toughness guys.
Black
(common)
1. Gray merchant of asphodel
2. Baleful Eidolon
3. Lash of the whip
4. Pharika's Cure
5. Read the Bones
6. Sip of Hemlock
(uncommon)
1. Keepsake Gorgon
2. Erebos's emissary
3. Insatiable Harpy
Black can be good but you have to be dedicated or rather devoted to it. The only color which really benefits from being the main color a lot more. The devotion guys are good and the removal is alright. The problem with black I feel is that it lacks good creatures early on and is very slow. Lots of cards hurt yourself or both players but can't defend well nor can you come out of the gates quickly. Success to the color seems to be the lifegain and making sure you have enough early plays so you can handle the few cards that hurt yourself. A lot of cards in theros limited function of you having creatures but with black that is often difficult as the early plays are just really bad. Playing lots of removal and lategame bombs is normally a good plan but in Theros the removal just feels too weak. Overall though black can be really good if you do get a bigger amount of the good dudes because the devotion mechanic makes them enhance eachother. The harder color requirements and the need for more cards make this a poor color to splash though hence I prefer to only move in if it's open or gamble it when I opened a bomb in the color.
As far as color combinations go every combination feels playable. Black and white are most defensive and seem to combine better with eachother but certain color combinations only have marginal advantages it feels. Many of the cards with offcolor activations aren't even that good if you do play that those exact colors.
Anyway wonder how others feel about this format. It feels very fun to play and the dominance of tricks and the wide range of viable ones make it harder and interesting.
Tempo is crucial in this format I feel and draw spells or counters that are difficult to hold up are worse because of it. Dissolve felt poor unless you have lots of instants just because it's so difficult to hold up, and if they see it and have the option of montrosity you can still do nothing.
Ashiok is great if you can defend it but that's pretty hard. It's like a reverse sweeper. Sweepers are awesome if you are defending and they are more on the board but do little if you want to be aggressive, ashiok does practically nothing if you're defending but it's very good if they don't have board presence. Coming in blue/black it's not the easiest to defend I find, i'd put it on about the same level as elspeth.
I think a format is much more fun drafting if almost every color combination can work. Small incentives for certain pairs over others is good but just having dominant pairs/archetypes makes it too worthwhile to just force those color combinations after the first few picks, the more open it is the more reading signals and waiting to see what flows works out which makes the drafting experience harder and much more interesting. Those drafts where you open a gold bomb and just force that combination are not as fun and more luck driven (it flows and you have an insane deck or it doesn't flow and you can neither switch nor get a good deck out of it).
There isn't really an i win card because everything can be raced pretty well with buffed guys. I don't see any cards that are super defenders and impossible to remove.
The biggest bomb by far is elspeth, only card that really get you back from staring at a board of 3 guys.
edit: actually fleecemane lion comes pretty close. On the play that can be super hard to remove as most removal is for x/2s or comes online by turn 5/6.
Lash of the whip is slow and lots of playable pump spells make it difficult to time. Instead of getting 2 for 1s i find it's get's negated more oftne actually.
Big vanilla guys are also underwhelming I found, like the 6/5 trample for 6 in green or the 5/3 for 5 in red. At 5 and 6 mana there are so many ways to boost the multitude of 3/3s etc that those vanilla big guys tend to suck. They can't defend well and often you rather bestow or montrosity your own guy than play a 6 drop.
The common bestow cycle is also very differing in strength, the black one sucks and the red one isn't too great either but the green one rocks for example. White and blue are fine too.
Polukranos is not good, just too costly. Too much stiff competition with rampager and advent of the wurm (monogreen won't be a thing). His ability is just really slow and guys with these kind of stats generally need evasion, trample lifelink or something to prevent being chumped too much.
Basically only boon satyr is good for constructed, sylvan caryatid is close but dying to both popular sweepers and not being big enough to block that well just kinda suck.
Funnily enough vine trellis would maybe be better now, being able to block fleecemane lion and not dying to anger of the gods would be pretty big.