Archetype: blue-white

Blue/white was in/famous in BFZ for being just a pile of cards and working really well. Gum up the ground, have some bounce, and let your sweet sweet fliers take care of business for you. Has anything changed?



Nope!

Archetype: black red

Remember the Clue

We have an on-curve, aggressive killer that appears to care about other colorless creature. You got it boss! Looking to build a 2-3-4 CABS curve out and smash through those pesky 2/3 defenses. Let's see what we have to work with.

Two Drop

    

Three Drop

     

Four Drop

  

Look at all that early colorless mana requirement! This is not a splash, you're rocking colorless as a full-on, third "color". You want to have access to repeatable colorless early and often for sure. I think this will be a huge priority:

Gets you the color you need to cast it and then switches to colorless to activate abilities.

Quality Non Devoid Options

    

Note the tension

BFZ Targets

Like before, but here you may want to fill out your four-slot.

       

Beware the double red:

 
Normally this would be a great four drop but I think the double-red is a little more prohibitive due to the colorless requirement. Note that if you have a strong ally subtheme (and correspondingly less early colorless) then it might be an advantage.The stress point is going to be a healthy mana base while still having enough early pressure. There is an interesting tension to having enough colorless to reliably trigger the 2-3 drops but really cool cards with a double-casting cost (remember, any surge card functionally has a double-mana symbol on it). I dunno.

I drafted a TERRIBLE black red deck at my first go around. Didn't have the early pressure and any way to reliably handle their early blockers. So I just sat there and lost. So maybe don't listen to me.

Oathwatch Tokens

Plant (0/1 edition)

(Nissa, Voice of Zendikar)
Dammit Nissa, would it kill you to make a useful 1/1 plant instead? It's just on one mythic, so we'll survive but it still seems needless to have both 0/1 plants and 1/1 plants in the same block. It's a reprint of Worldwake so whatever.

Draft 1-23-16: the one drop of desperation

First ever draft! And we are at Gamma Ray rocking it out. Let's see how we do.

Pack 1 Pick 1

  

Archetype breakdown: green/white support

After piloting green/white in the sealed pre-release, let's break down what drafting this might look like. Also known as a glorious excuse to theorycraft. Onward ho!

Background

First, the biggest question in any Oath of the Gatewatch deck is whether or not it cares about colorless mana. They fall into three camps: zero, sporadic, and recurring. The zero is your normal two color (or splash) deck. Sporadic has cards that benefit from threat of activation or maybe a single high end card (like a splash). Sample cards include

Oathwatch prerelease

Pre-release time! Woo!

Rare Pool

      

Pretty sweet to have three strong rares in the color. A bit unfortunate to have it be the weakest color in Battle but maybe times have changed. Sadly the Tyrant, an A-class bomb, is completely unsupported in red. Black is also weak (despite have two classy red/black golds). I winnow it down to white/blue/green. I eventually settle on trying to build an aggro "CABS" (cards that effect the board state).

Deck

    

   

   

 

 

      

So the deck construction is 5 two drops, 4 three drops, 4 four drops and some high end. 6 spells mostly removal and a combat trick or two. This is the test of whether or not support can walk the walk. Living the dream is pretty straight forward 2-3-4 as follows:

  

So on turn four, you have a 3/3 and a 4/3 that you can turn sideways and smash. Pretty brutal against a goldfish, but what happens in reality?

Game Recap

Forgot my notebook, so I'll fly by the seat of my pants for a bit. Basically my first game was against a nice fellow that tried running three colors and a significant commitment to colorless mana. So he cast very little and I ran him over. Sadly the other two rounds did not go as well, both losing 1-2 with some unfortunate mana flood and/or screw. But that's magic.

But I think the dream is real. Keeping creatures alive early to land subsequent Support works pretty well and pressures opponents lacking strong removal and/or strong defenses.

Awards

MVP

Obviously a 2/3 for 2 is going to be pretty good, but this thing is pretty close to a quadrant all-star with being a 5/6 for 2 mana later in the game. Dangerous card, good card. Definitely worth snatching early.

Biggest Surprise

Unassuming but very good smoother. Gets a land when you want to smooth a draw, otherwise grabs your best creature. Since it tosses the rest to the bottom, it's a great filter too. 10/10, would play again.