One Drop, Two Drop, Red Drop, Blue Drop

One of my big memories in drafting M15 was how it was defined by one toughness. With so many one power creatures running around, whether or not a creature could profitably interact (e.g. win) was a major defining valuation. Recall the sad fate of the Oreskos Swiftclaw. Well Khans is clearly defined by morphs: 2/2 creatures landing on turn three with extremely high reliability. As such, the efficacy of your creatures boils down to 'how does this interact with a 2/2 bear?' Does it win, lose, trade, or draw? This analysis can be brought into sharp relief by the batmobile:





On the surface this looks like a great value play: three abilities, one of them evasion, with a reasonable mana cost. Sign me up! But the bat is basically useless against 2/2s, It can't block them and the 1 power puts basically no pressure on the Villain. Imagine the Swiftwing in a set with tons of enchants floating around, like Theros. The 'French Vanilla' test (accounting for the bargain trio of abilities) would bestow a generous grade reflecting its high performance as two-drop with good upside. But here in Khans? What am I going to do, drop a Siegecraft on it? Gross.

Or to look at it another way, we have solved the mystery of not one but TWO Elmers in the set.

 

Let the 2/2s beware!



Before going into the 2/3/4 drops I want to look at a very interesting slate of highly defensive creatures.



  
 
 
 

Oh sure they try to fool you by throwing in some Jeskai and Temur watermarks but make no mistake: these cards are built for the grindy Abzan and Sultai engines. You can't Outlast without other creatures providing defenses and Sultai usually needs several turns of setup with Scout the Borders and Bitter Revelation before dropping some Delve advantage. This is the threat that 'regular' aggro decks face: strong defenses that don't overwhelm easily that buy time for the superior board presence or card advantage play.

Oh, and the common mono-color morphs?

 

DE-FENSE (clap clap) DE-FENSE (clap clap). While these guys munch 2/2s, these are last-choice morphs for a Temur or Mardu deck.

Playable One Drops 

The "2/2 hypothesis" is further supported by the one drops. All of these are capable of drawing with a 2/2. It might take a trick or some mana pump, but the value is here in a way that it is not for the Swiftwing. Also the colors are almost the complete inverse of the 'defensive slate' above:

 
 

Playable Two Drops

  

 


   

    
 


Disqualified: the defensive slate, Gurmag Swiftwing. Also not including any rares or mythic rares since they are universally first-pickable

Three Drops & Vanilla Morphs

  

 
   
  
   
 



Omitted: Ainok Tracker and Witness of the Ages for kinda sucking. The Blazebringer is borderline but qualifies under the "aggro decks will take 3 mana for a 4 damage lava axe" rule.

Also of note, the five common clan morphs: Abzan Guide, Efreet Weaponmaster, Abomination of Gudul, Ponyback Brigade, and Snowhorn Rider. All of these are awesome but they are limiting in the sense that they commit you to a single clan

Is there a point coming?

Uh, maybe. The distributions are kind of interesting though! For the three aggressive clans, here's the breakdown of 2-drops and 3-drops, common & uncommon.

	2-C	2-U	3-C	3-U
Mardu	5	6	4	4
Temur	5	5	7	2
Jeskai	5	4	6	3

The two-drop accessibility is pretty smooth but things start to get a little wild in the 3-slot. Remember that's including morphs! I do find it a little striking that the Mardu 3-drop slot is short two commons.

	2-C	2-U	3-C	3-U	M-C	M-U
White	2	1	1	2
Black	1	1		1	1
Green	2	2	1	1	1	1
Red	2	2	1	1	1
Blue	1	1	1		2	1
"Orzhov"		2
"Simic"						1

Both black and blue are short aggro 2 & 3-drops. This makes sense as the slots for those defensive cards mentioned above had to come from somewhere. So, if you're going to force me into making a conclusion, it may be this: black and blue are your splash aggro colors because it'll be harder building a 'spine' with the paucity of drops.