Get ready for tribal fun - Lorwyn block drafts starting on MTGO. Discuss strategies before and after you draft.
Personally, I've only ever had success with treefolk (which is weird). Merfolk seem to be always overdrafted due to the strength of their commons/uncommons. Also, from personal experience, 1 of every 3 players will have Ajani Goldmane (maybe it was just MTGO punishing me).
The only decks I liked were U/W Merfolk and U/B Faeries.
In triple Lorwyn, I liked the Elvish Handservant deck & Elementals, but not in LLM. I liked triple Lorwyn quite a bit better than LLM, really, but that's not really relevant here, I suppose.
I always had a thing for the RW Giants/Goblins deck, although I guess it's more of an LLL deck than an LLM deck. Not the best deck in the format, but definitely a lot of fun to play.
Blue is by far the best color. Stuff like Mulldrifter made the color play as smooth as butter, all the other colors feel much less consistent in comparison. Also, the ability to win without ever really dealing with an opponent's ground army means that some games feel a lot like you just can't lose.
I consider Elves, Merfolk, and Faeries to be the "good" strategies. The other strategies are either under-powered (Kithkin, Goblins) or require specific enabling cards to be good (Stinkdrinker Daredevil for Giants, Smokebraider for Elementals, etc). I forgot Treefolk were even a tribe -- I consider them honorary Elves because that's the deck they usually wind up in.
Basically if you're not drafting one of the stronger races, you need a way to power out your creatures early to make up the difference.
One of the interesting things about Lorwyn draft is that the rares and uncommons are quite good, so often you'll get locked into your tribe early -- and it's pretty much correct to do so. Great stuff might come around late if a particular tribe is being ignored, but for the most part you're going to get your best cards in the first 1-4 picks out of each pack and the rest is just filler to get to 40.
There's not really a generic "good stuff" deck. There's so much synergy in this block that you have to capture some of it. You can't just grab 5 creatures from each of 3 different tribes and hope for the best. Removal is quite good of course because you'll find yourself needing to break up combos quite often.
I will also echo the comment above that Triple Lorwyn is a much better format than Lorwyn-Morningtide. All Morningtide does is break up synergies and make 90% of the format's card pool less interesting.
Yes, Morningtide significantly hurt the format, as LLL was way better than LLM. Morningtide has an overall low power level, and a bunch of "synergies" that aren't supported enough to work.
White aggressive Kithkin decks were pretty good if I recall. U/B faeries were strong, especially if you could get Latchkeys.
Man, Morningtide is another in a long run of terrible small sets that damage draft formats. I think the RtR model is the best they can use going forward (Large, Large, small), even though they bungled it with poor designs for both RtR and Gatecrash the first time around.
I've done a number of Lorwyn drafts on Cockatrice, and a couple last year when they were flashbacked. Here's my ranking of tribes, divided into three tiers, for those new to this format. Of course, this will vary on what is open and the meta-game of what tribes are popular or not to draft.
Top Tier:
1) Merfolk (U/w): I'll describe this one in detail because it's my favorite. Merfolk is by far the most synergistic tribe, especially through the tapping of your own creatures mechanics, and the only one that allows you to win through unconventional means (milling through Drowner of Secrets; flooding the board with Summon the School). Best commons include Silvergill Douser, Stonybrook Angler, Streambed Aquitects, Judge of Currents, and Stonybrook Schoolmaster in Morningtide. The self-tapping uncommons, Fallowsage and Veteran of the Depths, work well with the other top uncommons - Drowner of Secrets and Summon the School - and with Springleaf Drum. Merfolk is also in blue, the best color. The only downside is that it WILL be overdrafted.
2) Elves (G/b): Just as strong as Merfolk if you can get the right uncommons and rares, especially Imperious Perfect. Has good ramp and strong removal if you're lucky in black. Will also be overdrafted.
Mid Tier:
3) Faeries (B/u): Has great removal if you're lucky, though Faeries relies on kill spells and counterspells more than Merfolk which has tappers/dousers. You should draft this with Morningtide's Rogue class lords and Prowl cards in mind. Obviously your damage will come from the air, and tempo plays are quite good. I personally don't love Spellstutter Sprite, but if you manage to get enough faeries out it's a killer.
4) Giants (R/w): Stinkdrinker Daredevil and Thundercloud Shaman make this deck. The first to reduce costs, the second (uncommon) to sweep the board. But if you don't get your Stinkdrinkers out, you can easily be overwhelmed before your expensive giants come out. This is often the most underdrafted tribe, which is why it's this high in my rankings.
5) Elementals (R-base, 5-color possible): I like this tribe a lot, but it can be tricky because you really need the Smokebraiders to accelerate and color-fix, and to reach its maximum power you need to play more than 3 or more colors. Lorwyn's Mulldrifter, Shriekmaw, and Briarhorn are all great, and Morningtide has some decent elemental creatures. You'll also be able to pick up more Changelings, which should be picked highly in any tribe, by the way.
Bottom Tier:
6) Goblins (R/B): Goblins have strong removal, both in spells and in creatures like Hornet Harasser, and can come out of the gate with some fast starts; but its creatures get outclassed in the mid and late game. Fodder Launch is an amazing kill spell and finisher. There's good synergy, but in my opinion it doesn't make up for the sub-par creatures.
7) Treefolk (G/b/w): More of an auxiliary tribe, this has some strong uncommons and rares, but it's not deep enough to be your only tribe in general. It's most often paired with Elves, but your elves won't be as strong as they could be if you didn't have treefolk.
8) Kithkin (W/g): This is the ultimate trap tribe. Yes, there's some good creatures like Knight of Meadowgrain, and white does have decent removal in Oblivion Ring, Neck Snap, etc. But even worse than Goblins, Kithkin creatures get outclassed very quickly by other tribes. You basically have to win or have the opponent near-dead in the first 6 turns, or you will almost certainly lose. I'd only go Kithkin if I open a top white rare like Ajani, and even then I'd try to get myself into Merfolk or Giants.
That's my 2 cents - would be interested to see how you all agree or disagree with this ranking.
I remember this format. Three real picks at the start of the draft followed by 42 automatic choices. Games were fun but drafting blew chunks. I'll stick to cube this week methinks.
EDIT: apparently cube single elim pays out in LLM draft sets so I guess I'll have to endure some of these. Still better than BTT.
First round, I barely beat out a giants deck. Lignify on Brion whatshisface (4/4 lifelink chuck effect) probably bought me the win.
Round two, I faced a brutal Faeries deck. First game, I bricked on land. Second game, I was struggling to keep up with the fliers and couldn't draw enough gas to gain any sort of board.
In conclusion, Elves plays out great, but make sure you have a way to close out a game, be it overrunning with 1/1s or something evasive (deathtouch trample is my personal favorite).
Nath's Elite is a good common finisher for Elves, by allowing you to swing with your team. Back it up with some pump or deathtouch for extra effectiveness. Elves usually does fine against Faeries, as long as you have some guys with reach, because the Faery deck's removal can't keep up with the token generation of Elves. What Elves really struggles against is Merfolk. The tappers, life gain (Judge of Currents), and -X/-0 Dousers make that matchup my worst when I go Elves.
If I remember Lorwyn correctly, it's the powerful cards that make for a more powerful deck. Before you look for a race, look for good cards. After the good cards have been taken, the race will be chosen for you, and that determines your later picks.
Some races are stronger than others because there is a larger density of more powerful cards in those races. Tribal synergy usually comes from one or two powerful cards that benefit from the race rather than having a density of all the same tribe. Look for these lynchpin cards when your opponent is playing and neutralize them before they get out of control.
In a game between two good decks, the player who experiences mana flood first loses.
Last night I pulled this off with Whirlpool Whelm in response to a kill spell, exercising the rarely-used option to NOT put the creature on top despite winning the clash. I suppose it was also the rarely seen "Clash I had literally no interest in winning."
I've won my last 2 Lorwyn drafts. I'm not saying this to brag but rather because Lorwyn is by far my best format in history based on performance. Even when it was the set du jour, I used to take down a remarkable number of queues. There's just something about it -- I guess it clicks with how my mind processes a game of Magic. There's this amazing balance of synergy + instants that break up synergy that we rarely see anymore for some reason. Maybe it received the dreaded "too complicated" label from R&D after the fact because there were too many interactions on the board to keep track of? I dunno but what I do know is that I enjoy the tension of figuring out the order to play out your creatures and picking just the right moment to decide to start breaking up your opponent's tribe. There are just so many hidden opportunities for value and I love that.
Last night I pulled this off with Whirlpool Whelm in response to a kill spell, exercising the rarely-used option to NOT put the creature on top despite winning the clash. I suppose it was also the rarely seen "Clash I had literally no interest in winning."
I've won my last 2 Lorwyn drafts. I'm not saying this to brag but rather because Lorwyn is by far my best format in history based on performance. Even when it was the set du jour, I used to take down a remarkable number of queues. There's just something about it -- I guess it clicks with how my mind processes a game of Magic. There's this amazing balance of synergy + instants that break up synergy that we rarely see anymore for some reason. Maybe it received the dreaded "too complicated" label from R&D after the fact because there were too many interactions on the board to keep track of? I dunno but what I do know is that I enjoy the tension of figuring out the order to play out your creatures and picking just the right moment to decide to start breaking up your opponent's tribe. There are just so many hidden opportunities for value and I love that.
This is TPF and Scars block for me. I'm normally a pretty average 1750-1800 drafter for most sets, but give me TPF or NMS and it skyrockets for the week I get to play. Then back to reality
I just lost to Notorious Throng. Wow is that card broken in Limited...I have no recollection of it because Morningtide was such a downgrade from Triple Lorwyn, I didn't play much of it so I never saw most of the rares. I'm guessing that's the sort of spell that you never lose after Prowling it. Just suicide in for max damage, get a bunch of Faeries, take another turn, kill 'em with the Faeries and whatever's still standing.
All of the above are game-endingly ridiculous. I mean, have you ever tried to beat a turn 2 Bitterblossom in limited on the draw without removing it? That's not even mentioning the X-spell with buyback or the air elemental that returns half your bin to play when it dies. Nice. Cards.
I never got to play all that much with Morningtide. I was essentially a Modo-only player back then (with big events like Nationals being the exception), and soon after Morningtide's release online, Modo went dark for over a month as it transitioned from v2 to v3. When it went up again, Shadowmoor was released.
My most recent draft did give me an opportunity to exercise my favourite synergy from Morningtide: sticking Thornbite Staff in a deck with zero Shamans and paying retail to equip it to Stonybrook Schoolmaster. Shenanigans ensued.
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Personally, I've only ever had success with treefolk (which is weird). Merfolk seem to be always overdrafted due to the strength of their commons/uncommons. Also, from personal experience, 1 of every 3 players will have Ajani Goldmane (maybe it was just MTGO punishing me).
In triple Lorwyn, I liked the Elvish Handservant deck & Elementals, but not in LLM. I liked triple Lorwyn quite a bit better than LLM, really, but that's not really relevant here, I suppose.
Blue is by far the best color. Stuff like Mulldrifter made the color play as smooth as butter, all the other colors feel much less consistent in comparison. Also, the ability to win without ever really dealing with an opponent's ground army means that some games feel a lot like you just can't lose.
Basically if you're not drafting one of the stronger races, you need a way to power out your creatures early to make up the difference.
One of the interesting things about Lorwyn draft is that the rares and uncommons are quite good, so often you'll get locked into your tribe early -- and it's pretty much correct to do so. Great stuff might come around late if a particular tribe is being ignored, but for the most part you're going to get your best cards in the first 1-4 picks out of each pack and the rest is just filler to get to 40.
There's not really a generic "good stuff" deck. There's so much synergy in this block that you have to capture some of it. You can't just grab 5 creatures from each of 3 different tribes and hope for the best. Removal is quite good of course because you'll find yourself needing to break up combos quite often.
I will also echo the comment above that Triple Lorwyn is a much better format than Lorwyn-Morningtide. All Morningtide does is break up synergies and make 90% of the format's card pool less interesting.
Because I'll be going Merfolk.
White aggressive Kithkin decks were pretty good if I recall. U/B faeries were strong, especially if you could get Latchkeys.
Man, Morningtide is another in a long run of terrible small sets that damage draft formats. I think the RtR model is the best they can use going forward (Large, Large, small), even though they bungled it with poor designs for both RtR and Gatecrash the first time around.
Top Tier:
1) Merfolk (U/w): I'll describe this one in detail because it's my favorite. Merfolk is by far the most synergistic tribe, especially through the tapping of your own creatures mechanics, and the only one that allows you to win through unconventional means (milling through Drowner of Secrets; flooding the board with Summon the School). Best commons include Silvergill Douser, Stonybrook Angler, Streambed Aquitects, Judge of Currents, and Stonybrook Schoolmaster in Morningtide. The self-tapping uncommons, Fallowsage and Veteran of the Depths, work well with the other top uncommons - Drowner of Secrets and Summon the School - and with Springleaf Drum. Merfolk is also in blue, the best color. The only downside is that it WILL be overdrafted.
2) Elves (G/b): Just as strong as Merfolk if you can get the right uncommons and rares, especially Imperious Perfect. Has good ramp and strong removal if you're lucky in black. Will also be overdrafted.
Mid Tier:
3) Faeries (B/u): Has great removal if you're lucky, though Faeries relies on kill spells and counterspells more than Merfolk which has tappers/dousers. You should draft this with Morningtide's Rogue class lords and Prowl cards in mind. Obviously your damage will come from the air, and tempo plays are quite good. I personally don't love Spellstutter Sprite, but if you manage to get enough faeries out it's a killer.
4) Giants (R/w): Stinkdrinker Daredevil and Thundercloud Shaman make this deck. The first to reduce costs, the second (uncommon) to sweep the board. But if you don't get your Stinkdrinkers out, you can easily be overwhelmed before your expensive giants come out. This is often the most underdrafted tribe, which is why it's this high in my rankings.
5) Elementals (R-base, 5-color possible): I like this tribe a lot, but it can be tricky because you really need the Smokebraiders to accelerate and color-fix, and to reach its maximum power you need to play more than 3 or more colors. Lorwyn's Mulldrifter, Shriekmaw, and Briarhorn are all great, and Morningtide has some decent elemental creatures. You'll also be able to pick up more Changelings, which should be picked highly in any tribe, by the way.
Bottom Tier:
6) Goblins (R/B): Goblins have strong removal, both in spells and in creatures like Hornet Harasser, and can come out of the gate with some fast starts; but its creatures get outclassed in the mid and late game. Fodder Launch is an amazing kill spell and finisher. There's good synergy, but in my opinion it doesn't make up for the sub-par creatures.
7) Treefolk (G/b/w): More of an auxiliary tribe, this has some strong uncommons and rares, but it's not deep enough to be your only tribe in general. It's most often paired with Elves, but your elves won't be as strong as they could be if you didn't have treefolk.
8) Kithkin (W/g): This is the ultimate trap tribe. Yes, there's some good creatures like Knight of Meadowgrain, and white does have decent removal in Oblivion Ring, Neck Snap, etc. But even worse than Goblins, Kithkin creatures get outclassed very quickly by other tribes. You basically have to win or have the opponent near-dead in the first 6 turns, or you will almost certainly lose. I'd only go Kithkin if I open a top white rare like Ajani, and even then I'd try to get myself into Merfolk or Giants.
That's my 2 cents - would be interested to see how you all agree or disagree with this ranking.
EDIT: apparently cube single elim pays out in LLM draft sets so I guess I'll have to endure some of these. Still better than BTT.
First round, I barely beat out a giants deck. Lignify on Brion whatshisface (4/4 lifelink chuck effect) probably bought me the win.
Round two, I faced a brutal Faeries deck. First game, I bricked on land. Second game, I was struggling to keep up with the fliers and couldn't draw enough gas to gain any sort of board.
In conclusion, Elves plays out great, but make sure you have a way to close out a game, be it overrunning with 1/1s or something evasive (deathtouch trample is my personal favorite).
Some races are stronger than others because there is a larger density of more powerful cards in those races. Tribal synergy usually comes from one or two powerful cards that benefit from the race rather than having a density of all the same tribe. Look for these lynchpin cards when your opponent is playing and neutralize them before they get out of control.
In a game between two good decks, the player who experiences mana flood first loses.
Last night I pulled this off with Whirlpool Whelm in response to a kill spell, exercising the rarely-used option to NOT put the creature on top despite winning the clash. I suppose it was also the rarely seen "Clash I had literally no interest in winning."
I've won my last 2 Lorwyn drafts. I'm not saying this to brag but rather because Lorwyn is by far my best format in history based on performance. Even when it was the set du jour, I used to take down a remarkable number of queues. There's just something about it -- I guess it clicks with how my mind processes a game of Magic. There's this amazing balance of synergy + instants that break up synergy that we rarely see anymore for some reason. Maybe it received the dreaded "too complicated" label from R&D after the fact because there were too many interactions on the board to keep track of? I dunno but what I do know is that I enjoy the tension of figuring out the order to play out your creatures and picking just the right moment to decide to start breaking up your opponent's tribe. There are just so many hidden opportunities for value and I love that.
This is TPF and Scars block for me. I'm normally a pretty average 1750-1800 drafter for most sets, but give me TPF or NMS and it skyrockets for the week I get to play. Then back to reality
All of the above are game-endingly ridiculous. I mean, have you ever tried to beat a turn 2 Bitterblossom in limited on the draw without removing it? That's not even mentioning the X-spell with buyback or the air elemental that returns half your bin to play when it dies. Nice. Cards.