I’m finding myself agreeing more and more with the idea that Limited is the most fun way to play Magic. I just finished another SOS draft—my first one this week and my seventh overall—and I had an absolute blast!
I think I drafted well, striking the right balance between taking the strongest cards and taking the cards that best fit the deck that was taking shape. I ended up with a Jeskai build, closer to the Prismari school than Lorehold. In fact, white was mostly limited to my removal package ( Erode , Ajani's Response , and Stand Up for Yourself ) plus a few multicolored spells, while the deck’s mechanics revolved around Opus and Converge. The deck performed far better than I expected and, in fact, I kept discovering new interactions as I played.
The first match was probably the weakest. My opponent was playing Witherbloom and applied some early pressure with small creatures while using efficient removal on mine, but they never really got their life-gain engine going. Meanwhile, Pursue the Past helped me improve my hand and control the board. Eventually, a single attack from Transcendent Archaic was enough to convince my opponent to concede.
The second match had a similar feel. There was a bit of back-and-forth in the early turns. I cast Transcendent Archaic again, but it was removed immediately. On turn nine my opponent cast Antiquities on the Loose for full cost and put four 3/3 Spirit tokens onto the battlefield, but with my smaller creatures plus Ajani's Response and Heated Argument I managed to clear them out, forcing them to waste a Bulk Up . On the following turn I cast Visionary's Dance , and my opponent conceded after drawing.
In the third match my opponent started aggressively. Technically they were Temur based on their mana base, but in practice I don’t think they actually cast any green cards. In any case, the game turned into a race that they eventually won with Burst Lightning .
In the fourth match I was the one on the offensive. Even on the draw, I took the initiative, gained tempo, removed blockers, and attacked every turn with Charging Strifeknight . I think my opponent made a mistake by not leaving their Spectacular Skywhale back on defense. Closing out the game would have been much harder otherwise. In the end, Colorstorm Stallion and Heated Argument finished the job.
Things got really interesting in the sixth match. Sitting at 4–1, I played Sanar, Unfinished Genius // Wild Idea on turn two and started generating Treasure every turn, helped along by Goblin Glasswright // Craft with Pride . On turn five I was able to cast Wild Idea, the spell available once Sanar is ready, which let me find Together as One —one of the format’s S-tier bombs.
The following turn, thanks to the Treasure tokens, Together as One let me kill my opponent’s best creature, gain 5 life, and draw 5 cards, while still leaving me enough mana to cast Practiced Scrollsmith , returning Together as One to my hand. On turn seven I played Colorstorm Stallion and copied it with another Together as One for X = 5. At that point, the deck felt unstoppable.
In the final three matches, of which I only won one, I once again tried to maximize Sanar, Unfinished Genius // Wild Idea (a card generally considered B-tier but one that performed exceptionally well for me once I learned how to exploit it). All three games were incredibly close and lasted 13, 14, and 12 turns respectively.
I finished the draft at 6–3 feeling very satisfied, with the sense that I had played well and almost euphoric about how much fun the event had been. Even better, I came away with a net profit of 300 after accounting for the 1 I used to enter.
Next week I’ll finally get to draft Final Fantasy (FIN) , which many people are calling one of the best Limited formats of the last few years… I’ll let you know how it goes!