Innistrad for everyone!
Hello and welcome back! It’s finally time to get away from boring tournament reports and into some real content. I figured I’d write about Innistrad limited this week, since… well… drafting is sweet!
I have to say that I really love this set. It MIGHT be my all-time favorite, but let’s not be too hasty. One of the wonderful things is that unlike stupid Llorwyn (where if you first picked a white merfolk or a black treefolk you had 0 more relevant choices), in Innistrad every colour pair is viable, and thus reading signals is actually as beneficial as it should be. To prove it, I thought I’d do a rundown of how I generally draft each pair, along with what you can expect to see late and how your picks should adjust to build a deck instead of a pile of cards.
I’ll work my way from least to most favorite, which is subjectively combining a large number of factors including how open it usually is, how powerful, play preference and of course a little bit results oriented. Let’s be real who isn’t? Note that I have personally tried all of these, and each one has the potential to 3-0 a draft even without the help of bombs. I’ll also add that the archetypes suggested are by no means the only way to draft each colour pair, though in some cases there are very few alternatives.
10. RW (aggro)
There aren’t too many options for RW other than aggro. Fortunately throwing a [card]Furor of the Bitten[/card] on a [card]Chapel Geist[/card] sometimes wins games on its own, and any deck that stumbles is usually crushed. There isn’t anything too fancy in the pick orders, you just need to prioritize low drops as much as possible (with the exception of [card]Rage Thrower[/card]…he reads “5R win the game”)
Cards that increase in value:
[card]Ashmouth Hound[/card]
[card]Reckless Waif[/card]
[card]Spectral Rider[/card]
[card]Chapel Geist[/card]
[card]Voiceless Spirit[/card]
[card]Rage Thrower[/card]
Cards you can expect to pick up late:
[card]Furor of the Bitten[/card]
[card]Nightbird’s Clutches[/card]
[card]Selfless Cathar[/card]
[card]Rally the Peasants[/card]
9. RG (werewolves)
This one is pretty obvious when you are doing it in person but there is almost always someone at the table who will give it a try. Another of the less fancy options and most of the picks are pretty obvious here. You typically need 9 werewolves at a minimum so go in to pack 3 accordingly. The normal wolves get better since they interact favorably with [card]Moonmist[/card]. This is the one deck where I like [card]Spidery Grasp[/card] since not only do you sometimes want to pass your turn to flip your guys, it also helps against this deck’s biggest weakness: fliers.
Cards that increase in value:
[card]Gatstaf Shepherd[/card]
[card]Villagers of Estwald[/card]
[card]Village Ironsmith[/card]
[card]Spidery Grasp[/card]
[card]Darkthicket Wolf[/card]
[card]Kessig Wolf[/card]
Cards you can expect to pick up late:
[card]Moonmist[/card]
[card]Full Moon’s Rise[/card]
[card]Grizzled Outcasts[/card]
[card]Tormented Pariah[/card]
[card]Feral Ridgewolf[/card]
8. WB (dying humans)
This deck is kind of hard to put together since in order for it to be good you need your first few picks to be the right type. For example you would rather get a pick 5 [card]Thraben Sentry[/card] than [card]Voiceless Spirit[/card], but you don’t really have much control over that. Without a ton of synergy WB is often relying on bombs, which is not as bad as it sounds since if you didn’t open some sweet white and black cards anyways, why are you WB in the first place? Also note that [card]Fiend Hunter[/card] is even better here than he normally is due to the sacrifice triggers. There will be a few times when I put first picks in the “cards that increase in value” pile but it usually just means that when you first pick those cards you might want to look into this archetype, not vice versa.
Cards that increase in value:
[card]Fiend Hunter[/card]
[card]Butcher’s Cleaver[/card]
[card]Mausoleum Guard[/card]
[card]Doomed Traveler[/card]
[card]Morkrut Banshee[/card]
[card]Thraben Sentry[/card]
[card]Elder Cathar[/card]
Cards you can expect to pick up late:
[card]Village Cannibals[/card]
[card]Unruly Mob[/card]
[card]Altar’s reap[/card]
[card]Sharpened Pitchfork[/card]
[card]Selfless Cathar[/card]
[card]Disciple of Griselbrand[/card]
[card]Rebuke[/card]
7. BR (aggro)
While some number of vampires are usually present in BR, only sometimes can the pure vampires deck become realistic. This deck is extremely hard to pull together, and even when it does it’s not amazing or anything. If you don’t have at least 11 vampires, please don’t play [card]Vampiric Fury[/card], and even if you do, don’t take it over real cards (you will pick up one or two easily). [card]Bloodcrazed Neonate[/card] is pretty bad, but can make an appearance in this deck IF YOU ARE SHORT on cards, or desperate for two drops. Getting [card]Vampire Interloper[/card]s 6th-10th pick is always nice here, since most black decks don’t really want them but you sure do.
Cards that increase in value:
[card]Vampire Interloper[/card]
[card]Rakish Heir[/card]
[card]Diregraf Ghoul[/card]
[card]Reckless Waif[/card]
[card]Typhoid Rats[/card]
[card]Falkenrath Noble[/card]
Cards you can expect to pick up late:
[card]Bump in the Night[/card]
[card]Nightbird’s Clutches[/card]
[card]Bloodcrazed Neonate[/card]
[card]Walking Corpse[/card]
6. UB (self mill)
This deck is one of the more obvious ones, and is almost always reasonably powerful since even if it goes wrong your deck is still full of “real” cards. All that’s really left to do is figure out pick orders and how gimmicky you want your deck to be. I’ve seen decks running a million zombies along with super late [card]Unbreathing Horde[/card]s and [card]Endless Ranks of the Dead[/card] but those are few and far between. What I really want here is typical alchemy/skaab/mauler/etc stuff to fill your graveyard and profit. I like this deck less than most people since I find it is often over drafted and there are very few cards in the “expect to pick up late” category since there are almost always at least 2 UB drafters per table. When it is open it is very powerful, only being surpassed by GW travel prep. The easiest way to mis-build this deck comes in deciding when it’s right to include stuff like [card]Ghoulraiser[/card] and [card]Corpse Lunge[/card], since as simple as it seems to fill up your graveyard, you will hate the times you sit with an uncastable drake in hand. This happens more often than you’d think (especially against [card]Silent Departure[/card]…oof!).
Cards that increase in value:
[card]Stitched Drake[/card]
[card]Makeshift Mauler[/card]
[card]Armored Skaab[/card]
[card]Forbidden Alchemy[/card]
[card]Think Twice[/card]
[card]Deranged Assistant[/card]
Cards you can expect to pick up late:
[card]Selhoff Occultist[/card]
[card]Ghoulraiser[/card]
[card]Corpse Lunge[/card]
[card]Zombie Goliath[/card] (if you are with good drafters. In non self mill this guy is almost unplayable but most people don’t realize it)
5. UR ([card]Burning Vengeance[/card])
UR decks can almost always find a way to play Vengeance if it sees one in packs one or two, but it’s always important to be sure you have a real deck if things don’t work out. When drafting UR, I tend to pick [card]Geistflame[/card]s, [card]Think Twice[/card]s, and other flashback cards that are good enough on their own more highly just in case. Then the other half of the deck should either be filled out with creatures (a real deck) or last picks (dedicated Vengeance). There are actually a ton of variations on Vengeance, including playing white, splashing black, planning to mill the opponent and more. You usually want to be the only one at the table playing UR, since if you can’t get Ravings/Vengeance past 5th pick or so it’s not worth the effort. The most common scenario is to have a couple of Vengeance and 8+ flashback spells, usually including a few [card]Dream Twist[/card]s to fuel the engine.
Cards that increase in value:
[card]Burning Vengeance[/card]
[card]Geistflame[/card]
[card]Think Twice[/card]
[card]Village Ironsmith[/card]
[card]Rolling Temblor[/card]
[card]Forbidden Alchemy[/card]
[card]Armored Skaab[/card]
Cards you can expect to pick up late:
[card]Dream Twist[/card]
[card]Runic Repetition[/card]
[card]Desperate Ravings[/card]
[card]Curse of the Bloody Tome[/card]
[card]Ghoulcaller’s Bell[/card]
4. GW (aggro)
The strongest deck. Wins games it has no business winning on the back of travel preparations. Imagine you have a pretty average, perhaps even underwhelming start of turn 2 [card]Silverchase Fox[/card], turn 3 [card]Village Bell-Ringer[/card]. Both those cards are marginal playable cards. Then turn 4 you play and flashback [card]Travel Preparations[/card] and suddenly they are dead in a few turns! GW really wants to keep its curve as low as possible and keeps all the other decks honest. However, again every table will have at least one or two GW drafters, and without the [card]Travel Preparations[/card], that turn two grizzly bear turn three horned turtle looks really embarrassing.
Cards that increase in value:
[card]Travel Preparations[/card]
[card]Avacyn’s Pilgrim[/card]
[card]Doomed Traveler[/card]
[card]Orchard Spirit[/card]
[card]Voiceless Spirit[/card]
[card]Darkthicket Wolf[/card]
[card]Chapel Geist[/card]
Cards you can expect to pick up late:
[card]Selfless Cathar[/card]
[card]Silverchase Fox[/card]
[card]Village Bell-Ringer[/card]
[card]Unruly Mob[/card]
[card]Hamlet Captain[/card]
3. UW (fliers)
More often than not my UW decks end up on the control side of things, running a few [card]Fortress Crab[/card]s to lock up the ground, but in nearly all cases the wins come through the skies (unless you are one of those jerks running [card]Invisible Stalker[/card] for free wins…). If you decide to go humans instead be sure you are aware the two decks have different plans and it is better to commit to one than to go half/half. If you decide to go humans then prioritize synergy above the fliers and ignore this list, since for some odd reason very few humans fly…
Cards that increase in value:
[card]Moon Heron[/card]
[card]Chapel Geist[/card]
[card]Voiceless Spirit[/card]
[card]Moment of Heroism[/card]
[card]Battleground Geist[/card]
[card]Silver-inlaid Dagger[/card]
Cards you can expect to pick up late:
[card]Fortress Crab[/card]
[card]Feeling of Dread[/card]
[card]Sensory Deprivation[/card] (people are starting to catch on here though)
[card]Lost in the Mist[/card]
2. BG (morbid)
This deck is sweet. For both this deck and my #1, you get a ton of cards that go way later than they should, and although I strongly claim not to force anything in this format, it was no surprise to me that both my drafts at worlds ended up BG based. The most important thing to identify in the morbid deck is how aggressive your deck will turn out since most of the morbid cards are better in control decks but easier to trigger if you are the one attacking. The cheap removal spells are very important to this deck, as are the “bombs” that other people aren’t interested in. You pretty much need to have at least one of either [card]Morkrut Banshee[/card], [card]Spider Spawning[/card], or a morbid rare to want to draft this deck, but the nice thing is those cards often go 5th or even later sometimes.
Cards that increase in value:
[card]Prey Upon[/card]
[card]Dead Weight[/card]
[card]Morkrut Banshee[/card]
[card]Spider Spawning[/card]
[card]Festerhide Boar[/card]
[card]Blazing Torch[/card]
[card]Ambush Viper[/card]
Cards you can expect to pick up late:
[card]Woodland Sleuth[/card]
[card]Altar’s Reap[/card]
[card]Brain Weevil[/card]
[card]Rotting Fensnake[/card]
[card]Demonmail Hauberk[/card]
[card]Somberwald Spider[/card]
1. UG (self mill)
Sadly for me this deck is catching on. Still for those who don’t know about it, listen up because this deck is real. It can also be done to the extreme, which I saw a great example of during deck construction at worlds sitting across from Gerry Thompson. From what I saw at a glance, he had a pile full of [card]Deranged Assistant[/card]s, [card]Boneyard Wurm[/card]s, [card]Splinterfright[/card]s, [card]Mulch[/card]es and even included a [card]Memory’s Journey[/card] but the version I prefer is more of an aggro deck. The best card for the deck is [card]Silent Departure[/card], no matter whether you are milling it or have it in hand.
Cards that increase in value:
[card]Silent Departure[/card]
[card]Prey Upon[/card]
[card]Makeshift Mauler[/card]
[card]Stitched Drake[/card]
[card]Deranged Assistant[/card]
Cards you can expect to pick up late:
[card]Gnaw to the Bone[/card]
[card]Mulch[/card]
[card]Boneyard Wurm[/card]
So there’s a handy primer for Innistrad draft and be sure to try these out and let me know if you think I’ve left anything out. Innistrad is a wonderful set full of great opportunities and a ton of interesting “build around me” strategies. I didn’t include any rares in my analysis but some of them fit like gloves into existing decks while others can spawn new decks on their own. I hope this helps keep you alive in such a ghastly environment! Ok ok that was bad…I’ll stop.
Thanks,
Marc Anderson
Marc Anderson is the current Canadian National champion. At the most recent World Championship, he was able to add a 12th place finish to his resume.