Introduction & Prep
Going to skip match results here, not a lot to say. Don't keep too few or too many lands, play good cards, try not to flood.
Lorwyn Eclipsed has been a really fun set for me. Five tribes/typal bases, an overarching multicolor vivid theme, and five off-color combos with varying degrees of playability. Draft is a little bit on rails, though it's really interesting to navigate it when the lane isn't open + build priority order + understand what is/isn't a signal
Approximate ranking of archetypes (draft mostly):
- GW Kithkin, UR Elementals, GB Elves, UW Merfolk
- RGx or UGx Vivid, BW Counters
- RW Counters - trickier than BW
- BR Goblins
- UB Faeries - very hard to find this lane
One of our locals was qualified for PT Richmond ECL so we had a few limited meetings discussing archetypes and insights. Some scattered thoughts
- Merfolk in draft is easy to assemble, lot of commons. Lean a lot on Gravegill Scoundrel & Tributary Vaulter
- In draft you want to plant your flag around P1P4 or 5. If you haven't found a lane at that point you're in trouble.
- Many cards have significantly better WR in certain archetypes.
- Bark of Doran is a Merfolk card.
- A lot of the -1/-1 counter synergies work better in BW, RW, or even BG because they need big butts which BR is short on. This also increases the value of 2 mana 1/3 gobbos.
- Kithkin midgame leans on 4 mana Mistmeadow Council. This can allow you to get a free attack or tempo swing on T3
- Picking Changelings early is good for banking vivid & upping tribal/typal count. At the cost of playing weak statted creatures ex. Feisty Spikeling
- Prismatic Undercurrents is better than Tend the Sprigs though you need to invest a bit into off-color & mana sinks
- Your deck & its creatures need to be able to hold the board down by T3. This is why Gnarlback Elm & Reluctant Dounguard are so far down the priority pick list.
- Tricolor rares are even more bomby than other rares - Maralen, Doran
- Rooftop Percher is a perfectly fine card to jam into any deck, with the exception of Vivid since it doesn't contribute strongly to the color plan
Spotlight Open - Pool 1
- Holy moly mythics. Two planeswalkers, Soul Immolation bomb, Doran bomb, roleplayer rares.
- Color balance - rough. Green is deepest by a mile, blue has some hard-hitters, then cards are scattered all over the place. Not much "real" fixing
- What I built - Abzan Doran. Puca's Eye was not worthwhile, basically I'm just hoping to play my rares and ride them to victory. Gnarlback Elm underperformed, Mutable Explorer also quite meh
- Pulled the deck up after day 1, group consensus was to play Temur. Basically Mono G with some side splashing, playing all the fixing I have, not bending over backwards to play W&B.
Limited Championship Qualifier aka Limited Tournament Qualifier - Pool 2
- This pool is insane. Fixing, both 7 mana mythic giant bombs, and packing some serious power in the colors.
- What I built: Abzan rares
- I got fairly lucky throughout the day, honestly I should have been on 16 lands imo. The deck has so many ways to find land I need just a little more juice.
Conclusion
Loving ECL. Maintained about a 66% WR across the weekend, which is pretty good in a vacuum. Lost an ODE draft to the person who won the whole Spotlight later in the weekend lol
Great times in the 9-count Airbnb, 3-0d the in-house draft
On Arena I've done 21 Traditional Drafts, 3-0 trophying 7 times, 2-1ing 11 of the other times for a total of 48-15 overall match WR of 76.2%.
I've been trying to snapshot my tabletop draft pick orders which has been really good for review.
As a whole, I think our group built a pretty good idea of the format though variance didn't always line up for us. Got to play vs some stone-cold killers and lost to some Kinbindings. Hope to play more Limited in the near future!
