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Mtg Foundations Draft Guide Color Pair Analysis And Winning Strategies

Bonisiwe Shabane
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mtg foundations draft guide color pair analysis and winning strategies

Chandra, Flameshaper | Illustration by Mark Winters Greetings planeswalkers! We’ve had about a solid two weeks of Foundations drafts so far, and there’s an Arena Open coming this weekend, too. The core question I want to answer here is: How do you play the latest Magic set? Is there anything unexpected about this new Core Set? Or is it mostly just stock MTG?

By the end of this guide, you should be well prepared to battle this weekend. Valkyrie's Call | Illustration by Scott Murphy Foundations is the latest Core Set product that isn’t called a Core Set. It was designed as a solid introduction to the game that would function as Standard‘s backbone, and it's hands down the best MTG set to draft for beginners. Foundations cards will be legal for a full five years, which is more than twice as long as most Standard sets. The set is half new cards and half reprints and focuses on communicating tried and true MTG concepts to new players.

Crush your next MTG draft with our Foundations draft guide, including a color tier list, card ratings, set mechanics, and more. Improve at Draft and Sealed with Draftsmith, Untapped.gg’s draft and deck builder assistant. You may cast a card with flashback from your graveyard. If you do, you pay its flashback cost rather than paying its mana cost. Flashback doesn't change when you can cast the spell, so a sorcery with flashback can still only be cast during your main phase. Also, casting a spell with flashback doesn't change its mana value.

Mana value is always based on a spell's mana cost, even if you pay an alternative cost to cast it. Threshold abilities care about you having seven or more cards in your graveyard. Some threshold abilities are, like the one Crypt Feaster has, a triggered ability. Whenever Crypt Feaster attacks, its ability checks to see if there are seven or more cards in your graveyard. If there are, the ability triggers and goes onto the stack. Players can respond to this ability with instants or activated abilities.

Prowess is a triggered ability that gives the creature that has it +1/+1 until end of turn whenever you cast a noncreature spell. Any spell you cast that isn't a creature will cause prowess to trigger. Remember that lands aren't spells, so playing a land won't cause prowess to trigger. Casting a spell that's a creature and also another type (such as an artifact creature) is still casting a creature spell, so prowess won't trigger in that case either. The ultimate core set of Magic is here! Foundations is bringing experienced players that nostalgia feeling, while giving beginners a great starting point.

On top of that, it’s also draftable, and that’s what our Foundations Draft Guide can help you with. Given the nature of the set, we’ve also tried to explain some basic concepts and tricks into more details to beginners. But no matter your skill level, this guide should give you a good idea of what’s going on in this format. This way, you won’t be going in blind, but will know what to pay attention to. First, we’ll check the best commons, then we move to the exploration of different archetypes. (That’s where we’ll mention the relevant mechanics this time around, as they are fairly simple and vanilla.) Finally, there’s a Tier List with every card graded.

Let’s get to it. A 3/3 creature for three mana is okay, but not particularly good. When you get its stats split across two bodies, it becomes significantly better, for multiple reasons: As the name implies, Foundations aims to redefine and reaffirm the “default” gameplay and ideas of Magic. This modern take on a Core Set definitely seems like a Constructed-first product – understandable, given Standard players will be living in its shadow until 2029! But that also implies that Foundations sealed product will have a long run in stores, and that “basic gameplay” idea also has value as an introductory or refreshing Limited experience.

I’m not about to pass up the chance to draft a new format just because it’s got more of a “vanilla” feel than Duskmourn or Bloomburrow. Let’s dig into this Draft Guide and find out what kind of agenda Foundations is setting for Magic’s next five years! First thing to take note of if you’re browsing the cardlist at home – or if you’re trying to quickly search up what instants are available for a certain color mid-match – is that... Hundreds of cards (those with collector numbers after #361) are only printed in the supplemental Starter Collection and Beginner Box products. But the decision was made to print them with the same set symbol and classify all of them as Foundations, perhaps to avoid confusion about their Standard legality. But it makes things much MORE confusing from a Draft perspective, because if you are looking at cards on Magic Arena (or most card databases), it’s not obvious that say, Tatyova, Benthic Druid is...

This is HonestAF aka Alex Friedrichsen writing to you on a chilly Vermont mid-November day in the thick of stick season. Don’t fret! Brisk weather is yet another excuse to stay inside and fire some drafts. Magic Foundations returns to fundamentals with a core set-style draft environment that focuses on two-color archetypes and battlefield-centric gameplay. We’ve escaped the haunted, convoluted rooms of Duskmourn. Now, it’s time to slam a Serra Angel on turn 5 and hope it sticks.

Or perhaps slam a well-fed Craw Wurm on turn 6 - I’m looking at you, Quakestriker Ceratops While I appreciate complicated board states and intricate card interactions, it’s refreshing to draft a set that doesn’t demand too much complexity while bringing that cozy nostalgic feeling we all enjoy. Let’s examine what’s been winning! These decks are taken from the 17Lands repository of trophy decks for best-of-three matches (https://www.17lands.com/trophy_decks). While I’m including images of only one 3-0 deck per archetype, the takeaways synthesize information from several successful decks. We’ve all had a couple of weeks to sling some spells in Foundations, and I’ve been loving it.

I do think this is a solid set overall, and I’ve been enjoying the speed of the format. Yes, Josh is still in the basement, and yes, he is being humanely treated. Let’s talk about magic! The format is a bit on the slower side, and being on the play/draw isn’t as big of an advantage compared to other sets. Boros and Rakdos can be on the faster side, with the remaining decks feeling pretty mid-range oriented. Dimir is the best two color archetype of this set, and there are a few reasons why.

The colors are among two of the deepest, with plenty of playable commons and uncommons between them. Dreadwing Scavenger is a pretty busted uncommon, and I’m happy to first pick it. Dimir really benefits from the speed of the format, leveraging removal, card advantage, and evasive threats. Azorius doesn’t deal with threats as well as Dimir, but it has more threats with the creatures White provides. Empyrean Eagle can be devastating with small flyers like , Mischievous Mystic, and Faebloom Trick. Tier 2: Rakdos, Selesnya, Simic, Boros, Orzhov

One of the coolest aspects of Magic: The Gathering is the five colors and how each represents different strengths, weaknesses, and playstyles. That’s why, no matter what sort of gamer you are, you can find a color or color combination in Magic that aligns with your personality. Below is a section for each of the five colors, the basic concepts for each, and cards illustrating what each color can do for you in Magic! White (W): Peace, law, structure, selflessness, equality White is the color of Angels, Knights, Cats and Soldiers. The color is really good at deploying small but efficient creatures to the battlefield fast, and then boosting those creatures to make their attacks even more powerful.

White is also good at destroying things that need destroying, often in a way that hits everyone equally, such as "destroy all creatures" or "destroy all artifacts and enchantments." Felidar RetreatFelidar Retreat has two modes that really illustrate what white decks often want. Do you need an extra creature when landfall triggers? Make a Cat. Already have a few creatures on the battlefield? Put a +1/+1 counter on each of them to make them a bit bigger.

We have a Foundational set! Magic Foundations will be Standard legal for at least the next 5 years, providing a base level magic experience that will underlay anything else coming out in that time. Wizards has given us a Foundation for what Magic should be, how it should feel, and what it’s like to draft. We’re back to basics, but with a modern power level and a lot of interesting things to do. The cards are simpler and there are no tricky mechanics, but the format will still be interesting and skill intensive. There are a lot of cards coming to standard, and only about half of them are draftable.

For reference, here are the draftable Foundations cards. If you want a card-by-card breakdown of every draftable card in the set, here is the full ratings list which I’ll be updating weekly and here is the full card-by-card review where I explain... This article is for the general strategy for each color pair, and useful numbers while you’re drafting. Without further ado, let’s get started with: Here are some useful numbers for context and future reference. Learn the best MTG colors for Foundations limited with our draft tier list powered by the latest game data.

Improve at Draft and Sealed with Draftsmith, Untapped.gg’s draft and deck builder assistant. Color Combinations with 6+ wins within one standard deviation of the best archetype. Color Combinations with 6+ wins better than or equal to the average. Color Combinations with 6+ wins worse than average and within one standard deviation of the best archetype in this tier.

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