Welcome to the Midnight Hunt Draft Guide! Innistrad always had enjoyable draft formats, and this one is no different, although archetypes could be a bit more balanced. You’ll surely enjoy the draft even more, if you’ll win a lot, and that’s what we’ll try to help you with.
We’ll explore various big picture stuff about Midnight Hunt Draft format. As usual, we’ll start with mechanics, and explore how they affect the format. We’ll continue with the best commons for each color.
Then we will move to the archetypes, which you’ll encounter in the draft. In this section, we also take a look at some uncommons that preform specifically well in certain types of decks. We also rank colors in archetypes in the Power Rankings section.
Finally, we’ll wrap up with some additional tips, which will hopefully come in handy.
As you can see, there’s a lot to talk about, so let’s get started by exploring the mechanics of Innistrad, the plane of Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves and other horrors.
UPDATE: If you’re looking forward to drafting the newest set, you should read our Brothers’ War Draft Guide.
Midnight Hunt Mechanics
There are multiple things going on with Midnight Hunt mechanics. Some are very present, other less so. We’ll talk take a look at:
- Flashback
- disturb
- day / night
- other transform cards
- coven
- decayed zombies
- investigate
While not all of these are technically mechanics, it’s important that you have at least a basic understanding of them, so you won’t make unnecessary mistakes.
Flashback
Flashback is a keyword ability that can appear on instants or sorceries. If a card has flashback, you can cast it from your graveyard for its flashback cost. When you do so, you have to exile it afterwards.
You can cast Rise of the Ants for six mana from your hand. You get two 3/3 Insects and two life. Afterwards, you can cast it from your graveyard for eight mana, and you get two tokens and two life again. Then you exile the card.
You don’t have to first cast the card from your hand. You can discard Rise of the Ants, or you can mill it from the top of your library. If the card with flashback is in your graveyard for whatever reason, you can flash it back. It’s an easy two-for-one.
The more such cards you have in your deck, the better cards that mill you become. (Milling is putting cards from a library into the graveyard.) Of course, cards that exile cards from graveyards also become better, as you can get rid of your opponent’s stuff with flashback.
There are 38 cards with flashback. They are present in all colors, but most of them are in Blue and Green. That color pair also has a flashback theme, as you’ll see in the Archetypes section.
Disturb
Disturb plays somewhat similarly to flashback, but can only appear on creatures. In short, creatures with disturb can be cast from the graveyard for their disturb cost. They come into play transformed.
All disturb creatures are flying Spirits on the other side, and have a clause that they have to be exiled, if they’d be put into a graveyard.
The usual play pattern would be that you play Mourning Patrol for three mana, it dies at one point, and then you play four mana to get a 2/1 vigilant flyer from your graveyard. Once again, an easy two-for-one.
Again, disturb creatures promote self milling, as it doesn’t matter how the creature got into your graveyard.
There are 12 cards with disturb. All of them are in White and Blue, except Covert Cutpurse, which is Black. Naturally, White-Blue has a disturb theme. But more about that in the Archetypes section.
Day / Night
This is the most complex of Midnight Hunt mechanics, so bear (or should I say wolf) with me for a second.
Start of the Day
Day and night are designations that a game of Magic can have. When a game starts, it’s neither day nor night. There are two main types of cards that can start tracking day and night, when they enter the battlefield:
- Daybound cards (Tavern Ruffian)
- Cards that specifically state so (Obsessive Astronomer)
In both cases, it first becomes day. (In some rare cases a permanent with Nightbound can enter the battlefield first, and it becomes night, but that probably won’t happen in your draft game. The more common way would be to cast Unnatural Moonrise)
Day & Night Changing
Afterwards, the day becomes night, if a player doesn’t cast a spell during their own turn.
On the other hand, night becomes day, if a player casts at least two spells during their own turn.
Effects
So what happens during the day and night cycles? When it becomes day, all Nightbound permanents transform into their Daybound sides.
When day becomes night, all Daybound permanents transform into their Nightbound sides. Another important thing is that during the night, all permanents enter the battlefield on their Nightbound side.
This is a mechanic used mostly for Werewolves, and they are usually better on their Nightbound side. However, there are other cards that track night and day for various benefits, like this Component Collector.
What Does This Mean for the Draft?
Okay, so what does all this mean for draft? Well, if you’re playing a deck with Werewolves, you can put a slightly higher value on cards with flash, instants and activated abilities. The reason for this is that you’ll sometimes want to pass your turn without playing a spell, in order to transform your Werewolves. You’ll still want to use your mana, so you’ll just do it on your opponent’s turn.
For decks that will want to change night from day, cards like Consider become slightly better, as you can use them to easily play two spells in a turn. You can also transform your opponent’s big Werewolves into smaller ones when you do so. As before, the key word here is slightly. You don’t have to go out of your way to enable the Day and Night mechanic, as transforming will often happen just by playing a regular game of Magic.
Furthermore, you might have cards that become better if it’s night (like Olivia’s Midnight Ambush). Note, you don’t necessary need to have enablers yourself, as your opponent might have some Daybound cards in their deck anyway.
Other Transform Cards
Besides the day/night cards and disturb creatures, there are also some cards that transform using various criteria. While these don’t have a special effect on a format as a whole, we wanted to mention them, so newer players won’t be confused by them.
Ecstatic Awakener for example, transforms when you pay three mana and sacrifice another creature. You get a card and a 4/4 for your troubles.
Coven
Coven is an ability word. Cards with coven get better, if you control three or more creatures with different powers.
Candlegrove Witch will get flying at the beginning of combat, if you control three or more creatures with different powers. Of course, it counts itself as one of those three creatures.
In general, the coven bonuses are pretty minimal, so you shouldn’t go out of your way to support this mechanic. Don’t play bad creatures, just because their specific power is missing in your deck.
Nevertheless, you can use creatures’ powers as a tiebreaker when you’re deciding between two creatures of a similar power level. In that case, you can go with a creature that has a less prevalent power among your already-drafted creatures.
There are 16 cards with coven. All of them are in White and Green. If you want, you can find out more about coven rules here.
Decayed Zombies
In the Midnight Hunt draft, you’ll find cards that make 2/2 Zombie tokens with decayed. These tokens can’t block, and when they attack, they get sacrificed at the end of combat. This would suggest that you can only use them as one-time attackers.
However, that’s not always the case. You can use them as a sacrifice fodder for cards like Eaten Alive. There are also cards like Siege Zombie that can use decayed Zombie tokens without sacrificing them. Of course, you can also just use them for a big alpha swing, which will win you the game on the spot.
Another great thing is that most cards that make decayed tokens are pretty fairly costed, which makes this mechanic better.
There are 14 cards that make decayed tokens. All of them are in Black and Blue, except Ghoulcaller’s Harvest. Black-Blue archetype also takes the most advantage of these tokens.
Investigate
Only five cards in the set have the investigate mechanic, and only one of them is common. This means it won’t have a big effect on the format, and we just wanted to mention the mechanic for the newer players.
When you investigate, you create a Clue token. You can pay two mana and sacrifice a Clue token, to draw a card. In a way, it’s a delayed card draw.
That’s it for the Midnight Hunt mechanics, and we’re moving on to the next section.
Best Commons for Midnight Hunt Draft
Most of your deck will consist of commons, and these are the cards that you’ll see the most of during the draft portion. That’s why they’re important. We’ll take a look at the best of them in each of the five colors.
If you want a grade for each card in the set, then you should also check Midnight Hunt Draft Tier List.
White
1. Lunarch Veteran
Lunarch Veteran is probably one of the most surprisingly good commons in the set. For a very long time, one mana commons were simply bad in draft. However, in recent sets that started to change, and this card was one of the front-runners of that change.
Albeit, it’s just a 1/1 on both sides, it’s still a two-for-one. If you get in play on turn one, it can chip in for a bit of damage. The backside has flying, which enables attacking. Both sides can also gain you life.
When you combine all of that, you can see that this card can actually be responsible for significant life swings, plus you can use it for chump blocking if necessary. It also has synergies with self-mill, and some other cards, like the next one that we’ll talk about. All of this makes for a great card, that you’ll happily play multiple copies of.
2. Search Party Captain
Apparently, White creatures that draw cards are here to stay. Such creatures are almost always good, if their stats are passable for their cost. For this one to be good, you really want to reduce its cost to at least three. This probably shouldn’t be too hard, in a deck with a nice mana curve.
The usual scenario would be to play a two drop, attack with it, deploy Captain and get your card. That’s perfectly fine.
However, occasionally you’ll get Captain’s cost down to two or even one mana, at which point, you’ll feel like you got away with something. Even if you’ll have to pay four mana at some point, that won’t be the end of the world.
All things considered, this is a very nice card to have in your White decks, even in multiples. Keep in mind that the more aggressive you are, the better it gets.
3. Gavony Silversmith
At its worse, Silversmith is a four mana 3/4, which is okay, but not amazing. However, at its best you’ll curve out – a two drop, into a three drop, into Silversmith. It buffs your previous two plays, and your opponent is in an awful spot.
Usually, you’ll get at least a counter on it and on another creature. This often enables some attacks that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to make. There are also flyers in the format (like the disturbed Spirits), which get significantly better with just a single +1/+1 counter.
So, you’re virtually getting 4/5 stats of value for four mana, and half of the stats can get pseudo haste. You also won’t mind playing multiples, as following one after another is quite good. An amazing card!
Honorable Mentions
Blessed Defiance is a combat trick that does a lot for a single mana. Your creature can trade up, you get a big life swing, and you can end up with a 1/1 flyer, which is always useful.
Don’t sleep on Gavony Trapper, as these types of creatures are better than they look. It also brings the rare zero power to your deck, which makes it easier to get coven.
Candlegrove Witch is a two drop that will really benefit from coven, as 2/2 flyer for two is amazing. When you play in on turn two, you’ll often be able to speak a couple of damage in, even without coven.
White still has some nice common creatures. Mourning Patrol is serviceable, and provides an easy two-for-one. Clarion Cathars makes two bodies with different powers, which is good for coven, and makes for a playable card on its own.
Blue
1. Organ Hoarder
As we talked about, creatures that draw a card when they come into play are always good, if they have at least serviceable stats. A four mana 3/2 does affect the board, so Hoarder passes the test.
However, it doesn’t just draw you a card. You actually get card selection from the top three cards of your library! But that’s not all. The rest go into your graveyard, so if you have cards with flashback or disturb, you can get even more value.
This means you can hoard as many of them as you can get your hands onto, as this is easily the best common in Midnight Hunt draft. (Not only in Blue, but in all colors.)
2. Falcon Abomination
2/2 flyer for three mana is almost a fine card in most draft formats. However, this one comes with a 2/2 decayed Zombie, which improves the card significantly. This is another blue common, that you’d want to have in multiples.
3. Revenge of the Drowned
Another card that makes a decayed token. New players often mistakenly compare this type of effects to bounce spells. However, these are quite better. If your opponents want to get their good creature back in hand, they’ll essentially skip the next draw step.
Four mana isn’t cheap, but this card was still very nicely positioned in the Midnight Hunt draft format. Don’t go too crazy with these, but you can easily afford to play a couple of copies in your deck.
Honorable Mentions
Flip the Switch is probably on par with the previous two best commons, but there wasn’t enough space for it in the Top 3. Four mana is a lot, which makes this almost a hard counterspell, that comes with a bonus decayed Zombie, which can be useful.
Startle is another playable card, that makes decayed Zombie. All of these cards can work nicely with Larder Zombie, another fine blue common.
Swipwreck Shifters and Baithook Angler are both perfectly playable two drops. Both enable various synergies, while being good cards on their own.
Consider is a nice card that all Blue decks will like to play. It has synergies with a lot of cards in the set (flashback, disturb, instant and sorceries matter, etc.)
Black
1. Diregraf Horde
Diregraf Horde gives you two decayed Zombies, which, as we talked about, can be quite useful. On top of that, it also messes up with your opponent’s graveyard shenanigans, which is very powerful in a set like this. All in all, it gets a lot of stats on the table, and you’ll happily play all the copies you can get.
2. Ecstatic Awakener
This card is a perfect way to use decayed tokens. You get a card and a 4/4 for your troubles. One neat trick you can do is to sacrifice a creature that would die anyway, or something that was used to chump block.
Awakener plays out very nicely in Midnight Hunt draft, and is a card that you don’t want to miss in your Black decks.
3. Olivia’s Midnight Ambush
Let’s ignore the night part for a bit, and evaluate this card, as it’s just an instant that gives -2/-2. Even with this rate, you can kill around half of the creatures (48.7%). That’s quite impressive.
Add the night benefit, and you can kill everything. You don’t even need to have the day/night mechanic in this deck to make it work, it’ll do just fine on its own. Besides, if your opponent has the day / night mechanic, you can make them do the work, and reap the benefits yourself.
Honorable Mentions
Eaten Alive is basically a split card: One has the option of paying five mana, the other is to pay one mana and sacrifice a creature. Such cards are always significantly better than each separate side would be, and in this set it’s pretty easy to have sacrifice fodder lying around.
[c]Siege Zombie can be very good, especially if you have a lot of cards that make decayed Zombies. It also enables cards like Bat Whisperer, which is another fine Black common.
Cards similar to No Way Out usually aren’t that good in drafts, but this one comes with a token, which makes it a perfectly fine inclusion.
Red
1. Festival Crasher
Festival Crasher is an unusual type of card to be considered the best common in Red, but in Midnight Hunt draft, this card is basically its own archetype. The decks build around it are heavily Red, with a splash of any color. You also include a lot of combat tricks, preferably something that can give trample (Stolen Vitality for example), and cantrips like Neonate’s Rush.
This is by far the best thing Red can do in this format, and that’s why we value Crasher so highly.
2. Moonrager’s Slash
Three mana for 3 damage at instant speed is always good in draft. This one actually becomes a Lightning Bolt when it’s night, which is a nice upgrade, but the card would be perfectly fine without it. Don’t think that you have to have day / night cards in your deck to play this.
Anyway, this is an amazing card, and you should pick it very early in the draft. Don’t forget that you can also target an opponent, to potentially win the game on the spot.
3. Burn the Accursed
Five mana can be a lot, but so is five damage. It deals with a whooping 143 or 95.3% of creatures. The 2 damage to the opponent will also be relevant, since removing your opponent’s biggest blocker usually makes room for attacks, and the damage adds up quickly.
You still don’t want too many of these, but a couple of copies will do just fine.
Honorable Mentions
Famished Foragers is a very interesting card. 4/3 for four are passable stats. The ability to discard and draw for three mana, guarantees that you won’t run out of steam in the late game. Finally, if you manage to damage your opponent, you get three mana back on the turn you play it. This can enable a very explosive turn in the right deck.
We’ve mentioned Stolen Vitality and , when we talked about Party Crasher. Both cards are very good in that shell. Voldaren Stinger is another common that fits nicely there.
Ardent Elementalist can be a fine addition to your deck, but you’ll want a nice mix of differently costed instant and sorceries. Why? Because it’s great to have different options. Maybe you need a cheap spell, to quickly affect the board, or you can afford to pick an expensive one, that will swing the game in your favor on the next turn.
Green
1. Shadowbeast Sighting
For mana for a 4/4 is always a great rate. For seven mana you even get another 4/4 Beast. Simple and elegant design, and a very effective card, which provides a really easy two-for-one.
You won’t mind playing multiples of this card. If you do, consider playing 18 lands, as you’ll have things to do with your mana in the late game.
2. Eccentric Farmer
This unassuming common actually does a lot of work in green decks. It makes sure that you hit your land drops, provides self-mill, and comes with a relevant body. It still feels weird to have it so highly, but this does show that Green is pretty weak in this set. (We’re skipping honorable mentions altogether here, so that should tell you something.)
3. Duel for Dominance
Fight spells are usually quite good, but they usually come with slight modifications, so let’s take a look at how good this one is.
If you don’t have coven enabled, you get to fight two creatures for two mana at instant speed. This is very efficient, despite the fact that you don’t get a buff. However, green creatures in this set are quite beefy, so this shouldn’t be a problem.
Occasionally, you’ll get the coven ability, which gives your creature a +1/+1 counter this is relevant effect, and will certainly make the card even better in those situations.
As always with cards like this, choose your moment carefully, so you don’t get blown out (don’t cast it into an opponent’s open mana if you can avoid it).
Midnight Hunt Draft Archetypes
It’s time to move on, and explore the archetypes of Midnight Hunt Draft. In general, there are ten of them, one for each color pair. Naturally, you can always splash a powerful card in any archetype – but for now, let’s focus just on regular two-color combinations.
Black-White: Sacrifice
Sacrifice decks usually rely on three things:
- Outlets (cards that let you sacrifice creatures for value)
- fodder (creatures that you can sacrifice without a big loss)
- payoffs (cards that reward you for your troubles)
Sometimes cards fall in multiple categories. Fleshtaker, for example, is both a sacrifice outlet and a payoff. This type of card is always very important in this archetype.
Outlets
Most outlets in the set here are one-time effects:
Fodder
Your “best” creatures to sacrifice will most likely be decayed Zombie tokens.
There are multiple cards that create them, all of which are at least playable, the best one certainly being Diregraf Horde. Of course, you could also sacrifice something else, like Novice Occultist or a random 1/1 token.
Payoffs
Besides Fleshtaker, your payoffs include (sorted from best to worse):
Don’t forget that these four can also be triggered by just attacking with a decayed Zombie, as it’ll die at the end of combat.
You’ll want a nice mix of all three categories for your deck to preform well. These strategies can often be tricky to play, but very rewarding once you master them.
Blue-Black: Zombies / Sacrifice
The other side of the same coin is Blue-Black. Naturally, all the Black cards that we’ve talked about before, are still good here. So let’s take a look at what Blue brings to the table.
For the most part, it gets you access to some good card that make decayed Zombies, like:
You’ll get access to Vivisection, which is a nice way to turn a decayed token into some real card advantage. Although these tokens can’t block, Skaab Wrangler can make them useful on defense. Similarly, Siege Zombie can make them into a slow, but consistent source of damage.
Furthermore, you can convert your tokens into something big and powerful with Corpse Cobble. The nice part about this card is that it’s an instant, so you can use it in response to a removal spell.
Of course, you can just amass a ton of tokens, swing with them for the win. It doesn’t matter if they die, if you manage to win because of it.
Blue-White: Disturb Flyers
The vast majority of disturb creatures are in Blue-White. On their back side, they’re all Spirits with flying. This means that this deck often plays out as a flyers decks with a bunch of additional synergies.
One of them is with Shipwreck Sifters, which is amazing in this deck. It makes your hand better, both early and late in the game. It can grow bigger, and when you discard a card that you’ll be able to play from a graveyard, you’re getting card advantage.
All the Blue commons that make decayed Zombie tokens are also useful here, although you’ll want to pick up some payoffs like Larder Zombie also. This one also works nicely with disturb cards, which you can play from graveyard.
If you enjoy tempo decks, you’re going to like this one, as it often plays out as one – plus it has a ton of card advantage.
Black-Green: Creatures Dying / Midrange
When you look at the two gold uncommons for this archetype, you’d think that everything revolves around multiple creatures dying in a single turn. This is only somewhat true, as this is merely a subtheme, and not something you should really focus your deckbuilding on.
The biggest reason is that there simply aren’t enough payoffs for doing so. Sure reducing the cost of Diregraf Rebirth for a mana or two is nice, but it’s not like you broke it, if you managed to get a bigger cost reduction, as that’s probably in the late game anyway.
You can still take advantage of some of the previously mentioned Black cards from both sacrifice archetypes. Decayed Zombies can provide you with multiple creatures dying when you need them.
But since there aren’t that many payoffs, focus instead on building a good midrange deck. Your cards will naturally take advantage of dies-triggers, but you don’t need to build heavily around them. Just include good cards, and the synergies will be incidental.
Green-White: Tokens / Coven Aggro
Green-White has all the makings of a token deck, but when you actually play the games of Midnight Hunt draft, you quickly notice that aggro is the main game plan here. Most of your best cards benefit from the coven being active, so keep that in mind. Here are just some amazing uncommons with coven that’ll work great in this shell:
There’s really a lot to say about this one. Make sure that you have a good curve with a lot of two drops, and start attacking.
Blue-Green: Flashback
Do you like value and two-for-ones? Then this is the archetype for you!
Blue-Green is all about that flashback value, and everything you’re trying to do is perfectly represented by Rootcoil Creeper. It ramps you towards your more expensive flashback cards, it can get you value by giving you a flashback card back from exile. Finally, it also affects the board.
This is the thing, that you have to pay a lot of attention to with this deck. You want to affect the board quickly, so you won’t get surprised by an aggressive deck in the early game. Thanks to the flashback cards, you’re probably a favorite in the long game, so it’s that more important that you reach that stage.
Flashback Cards
There are various flashback cards in the set, and most of them are at least playable. Here are just some good ones that you can get at lower rarities:
Support
Phantom Carriage is a great big mana play for this archetype. You get a big flyer, and a card in your graveyard, which you can use to
Don’t forget that self-mill cards also work well in this archetype. So cards like Eccentric Farmer can really preform nicely.
Blue-Red: Instants & Sorceries
Blue-Red archetype once again focuses on instant and sorceries. These decks can often be tricky to build, as you need to find a right balance between instants and sorceries on one hand, and creatures on the other.
There’s also another important thing to note here. The best cards of this archetype are Red. This means that you can have almost a mono-colored Red deck, with a splash of any color, and it’ll do a similar thing as this archetype. So, keep that in mind when we’re talking about the other Red archetypes.
Creatures
So, which creatures will you most likely see in this archetype? Some of them are the ones that get buffs, when you cast an instant or sorcery spell:
Thermo-Alchemist will be an important part of the deck, as it can provide a lot of damage throughout the game, plus it can block some early attackers. If you get really lucky, you might get Puppet Stitcher, which is totally bonkers in this archetype. Delver of Secrets is also at its best here.
Instant & Sorceries
Some of the best cards in this category are the cheap ones that replace themselves. Consider and Neonate’s Rush would be two such examples. Card with flashback are also useful, as you’ll get to use them twice.
Don’t forget to include good pump spells, as they pair nicely with your creatures. Lunar Frenzy is amazing here. For the rest, just pick good instant and sorceries, and you’ll do fine.
Getting the Right Mix
While you’ll play fewer creatures than in a regular draft deck, you still probably want at least 10-12 creatures, as you’ll need them to actually win the game. Furthermore, with so many good removal spells in the set, you can’t rely on a single Storm Skreelix to get the job done.
If you’re playing a lot of cheap card draw, like Consider, consider going down to 16 or maybe even 15 lands. This way, you won’t risk drawing too many lands with your cantrips.
Black-Red: Vampires / Life Loss
Red-Black has an interesting theme. It’s part Vampire tribal, and part dealing damage to your opponent. Both are pretty much interwoven with one another.
Enablers
Let’s take a look at enablers first. The easiest way to deal damage to the opponent is just to play cheap attackers, so you can expect this archetype to be quite aggressive.
Falkenrath Perforator is a cheap creature that might deal some damage in the early turns. Later in the game, it can be a one-Vampire Suicide Squad to trigger your life-loss cards.
Neonate’s Rush is a nice enabler, if your opponent is playing creatures with one toughness, it’s excellent. 23.3% of creatures in the format have one toughness, so it’s pretty reasonable to have a target now and then.
While Thermo-Alchemist is not the most Vampire themed card, it will guarantee a consistent source of direct damage to the opponent. As you can see, there are quite some options to trigger life-loss cards. As always, you can also include the Party Smasher theme..
Good combat tricks like Stolen Vitality and Lunar Frenzy become even better, as they provide a nice way to push damage through.
Payoffs
Vampire Socialite is an amazing card here. First it can buff your Vampires, and thanks to the menace ability, it’s a reasonable enabler as well. All of that, for just two mana. Stromkirk Bloodthief can also buff your Vampires, but on a smaller scale.
Voldaren Ambusher is a much better card, if you can pull it off. Getting to destroy a creature, and getting one yourself, is a real beating.
Some other payoffs include:
You might even get lucky and get a rare like Florian, Voldaren Scion.
Red – White: Aggro
Not all archetypes are necessarily amazing new takes on the color pairs. Red-White doesn’t have a specific theme, apart from being aggressive and a small day / night theme.
Don’t try to maximize the day / night mechanic here, as it’s just a small portion of the archetype. Just get your curve low and efficient, and start attacking your opponents quickly. Once you run out of cards in hand, then you’ll transform your Daybound cards.
This deck will be one of the best to utilize combat tricks like:
There’s really not much else to say about this archetype, as it’s quite straightforward. It’s probably a good idea to have some archetypes like this one, as not everything needs to be built around a gimmick. If you manage to build a low curve, you can go down to 16 lands, as this deck usually won’t have that many mana sinks.
So, if you just want to smash your opponents down, this deck is a fine option.
Red-Green: Werewolves
Werewolves are a popular tribe, and it’s a shame that the archetype wasn’t better. It’s not that the Werewolf cards were that bad in a vacuum, but almost every other archetype had cards that were two-for-ones. This meant that Green-Red just couldn’t compete with the card advantage that other color pairs had. Since the cards weren’t aggressive enough, this deck was doomed to fail.
The best version of this deck is probably a Red Party Crasher deck with a splash of Green. We’d recommend you not to draft Green-Red Werewolves, if you’re trying to win. However, if you do decide to go that way, you probably want to open a powerful rare, such as Tovolar’s Huntmaster and Tovolar, Dire Overlord.
Midnight Hunt Draft Guide: Power Rankings
It’s time for the rankings. These are now pretty accurate, as we’ve done a lot of drafts. Of course, if you’re drafting just for fun, feel free to draft whatever you like, but if you want to win, keep in mind that the decks on the top of the rankings will usually win more.
Best Colors
- Blue
- Black
- White
- Red
- Green
Blue is very deep, and has good cards in all rarities, even its commons are very impressive. Black and White are close behind, both also very good. Red is certainly a step below, as it feels like a one trick pony with Party Smasher. At the end, we have Green, which is a fine support color at best.
Best Archetypes in Midnight Hunt Draft
- Blue-Black: Zombies / Sacrifice
- Blue-White: Disturb Flyers
- Black-White: Sacrifice
- Blue-Green: Flashback
- Green-White: Tokens / Coven
- Red-White: Aggro
- Blue-Red: Instants & Sorceries
- Black-Red: Vampires / Life Loss
- Black-Green: Creatures Dying / Midrange
- Red-Green: Werewolves
Blue-Black and Blue-White are the two best archetypes in the format. They have a lot of depth, and don’t even need rares in order to be very powerful. A step below them are Black-White, Blue-Green, and Green-White, all of which are still pretty good decks.
The deck on spots 3-7 are all good options. As you can see, there are a couple of Green decks quite highly. Even though Green is weak, it can be a good support color when paired with White or Blue.
Black-Red, and Black-Green, while still playable, are weaker then the rest, and Red-Green is really quite bad.
Additional Tips for Midnight Hunt Draft
Before we wrap up, here are some final tips, that might help you win Midnight Hunt Draft.
Format Speed
The games can go long, but there are fast deck present. Whatever deck you end up playing, make sure that you don’t have a clunky mana curve. There are Blue tempo-ish decks, that will punish you if your first play is on tour four with Revenge of the Drowned.
A White deck can also beat you down with a curve of Candlegrove Witch, Ritual Guardian into Gavony Silversmith. So be prepared for decks like that, or draft an aggressive deck yourself.
How Many Lands to Play in Midnight Hunt Draft?
This would really depend on your deck build, but the range would probably be around 16-18.
Your deck can have a lot of mana sinks (there are a lot of them in the format, thanks to flashback and disturb). If that’s the case (let’s say you have five or more), then you want to go up to 18 lands.
On the other hand, if you’re very aggressive, have a really low curve with not many mana sinks, or if you’re playing a ton of cards like Consider, you could go down to 16 or even 15 lands.
However, if you’re unsure, just stick to 17 lands, and you won’t get it wrong by much.
Wraths
It’s usually good to know how mass destruction spells there are in a draft format, so you know when you can over-commit and when not to.
In Midnight Hunt Draft, there are three different wraths:
When your opponent is making weird play patterns and plays White, Red or Black, you should think about maybe playing around these wraths. What would be weird play patterns? Chump blocking with their good creatures, or simply not deploying many creatures.
In such cases, you might want to consider if you can beat a certain wrath by holding a couple of creatures in your hand. (Or maybe by playing a 6-toughness creature, against Burn Down the House.) If you think you can, you can try to do so. If you won’t be able to beat anyway, just deploy all of your creatures and hope for the best.
Rare Drafting
If you plan to play a draft, while you accumulate some good rares while doing so, we have good news for you. There are quite a lot of playable Constructed cards in the set. Here are some notable ones:
- A cycle of five dual lands (Rockfall Vale etc.)
- Adeline, Resplendent Cathar
- Bloodthirsty Adversary
- Graveyard Trespasser
- Memory Deluge
- The Meathook Massacre
- Wrenn and Seven
The Hunt isn’t Over!
This is the end of our Midnight Hunt Draft Guide. However, if you want more Midnight Hunt content, there are some articles that might interest you.
First up, some news for Commander players. We got two precons with this set. One deck is built around Zombie tribal, and the other focuses on the coven mechanic. Read all about Midnight Hunt Commander decks here.
Do you want to organize a draft at home? If so, you’ll want to get a Midnight Hunt Draft Booster Box.
On the other hand, if you’re a collector, and like alternate art shiny cards, you might prefer Collector Boosters. You can explore Midnight Hunt Collector Booster contents here.
Are you playing on Arena? In that case, you’ll surely want to check out MTG Arena codes. This way, you can get various free stuff, including cosmetics, and free packs – including three packs of Midnight Hunt.
Furthermore, if you want more information about the draft, you can check the previously mentioned Midnight Hunt Tier List, where my colleague Drifter ranks every card in the set, plus shares some additional tips.
Don’t want to miss another draft guide, or the update to this one? Follow us on Facebook or Instagram. This way, you’ll get reminders for all of your favorite articles.
Until next time, have fun, and may you consistently get to the seven wins in your Midnight Hunt drafts.
Greetings! My name is Aleksey. I’m from Moscow. I Just read your guide, then tried to play innistrad traditional draft first time after that. I’ve been impressed by it’s highly successful results! It’s amazing!! I’ve got BR Vampires/Life Loss with three copies of Vampire Socialite and all other recommended cards, took 16 lands and just disintegrated whole opponents with that deck!! It was a cruel punishment!! 3 Wins – Eazy peazy, lemon sqeezy! Thanks to author(s)! <3
That’s amazing, happy to hear that. 🙂
Sure about Famished Foragers?
“Finally, if you manage to damage your opponent, you get three mana back, which can enable some really explosive turns.”
It only triggers, when they enter play.
Great review, thanks.
Yeah, what I meant was that you can get an explosive turn when you play it. I edited that part, so it should be clearer now. Thanks for bringing this up to my attention.
Sure about Famished Foragers?
– Yeah. It was turn, where I casted it, and played crossbow vampire after, wich has killed opponent’s 3/3 first strike creature!
Nice combo 🙂
The Stolen Vitality vampire looks like Andy Samberg.
Great article, it got me excited to draft Innistrad for the first time. I had some bad runs but I tried something that wasn’t mentioned here and got 7-0 — with monocolor. I did mono red vampires because I happened to keep getting great red cards and it curved out real well.
On a different run, I got trounced by mono green. I also wonder if mono black zombies could be any good but that’s purely speculative.
Congrats on 7 wins! Yeah, sometimes – albeit very rarely – you might get away with a powerful mono colored deck. I also managed to get to seven wins with mono blue of all things.