Hello, friend! A new draft format is upon us… Well, perhaps not brand new, as it consists of reprints from mostly Shadows over Innistrad and Eldritch Moon. Nevertheless, some cards are missing, some have changed rarities, so the experience will be different, yet familiar – at least for the more experienced players. Anyway, whether you’re a beginner, or if you just need a refresher, our Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered Draft Guide is here to help you win more games.
First, we’ll take a look at the most prevalent mechanics that you’ll encounter, and talk about how they’ll affect the format. Afterward, we’re moving to the best commons for each color. We continue with the archetype overview, and wrap things up with a discussion about the Shadows of the Past cards, which change every week.
We’re now in the second week, so the article got a big update, based on what we learned in the first week of drafting SOI Remastered. Anyway, there’s quite a lot to talk about, so let’s get right to it.
Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered Mechanics
You’ll encounter various mechanics in this set. We won’t talk about each and every mechanic, in order to not get too long, but instead the focus is going to be on the four most common mechanics, that will have the biggest impact on the format. Those mechanics are:
- Delirium
- Emerge
- Investigate
- Madness
Delirium
Cards with delirium get better if you have four or more different card types in your graveyard. (Creature, land, sorcery, instant, enchantment, artifact, etc. are card types.) For example, let’s take a look at Thraben Foulbloods.
IT’s a three mana 3/2, but if you have 4+ different card types in your graveyard, it becomes a 4/3 with menace.
Cards with delirium appear in all colors, although most of them are in black and green.
In order to get the most value out of the delirium cards, you’ll have to include some support for them in your deck. The easiest card types to get are creatures, instants and sorceries, as they get into your graveyard over the course of the game naturally. Enchantment, artifact, and land can be a bit harder, so make sure to include cards like Vessel of Nascency in your deck, if you have lots of good delirium payoffs.
You’ll notice that there are quite a lot of incidental cards that get you a hard to get card type into your graveyard. For example, Dead Weight gets you an enchantment, while Angelic Purge can get you a land. The cards that discard cards for value also work nicely here. Speaking of which, let’s take a look at the next mechanic, which also plays nicely with discard.
Madness
If you would discard a card with madness, you get the option to cast it for its madness cost instead. This way, the card doesn’t get discarded, but you actually get to use it.
You can cast Weirded Vampire for four mana. However, if you were to discard it for whatever reason, you could cast it for three mana instead. Playing the cards with madness cost gets around timing restriction. So, if you discard a creature or a sorcery with madness during your opponent’s turn, you can still cast it. This can lead to some unexpected plays, which can give you an advantage.
In order to take advantage of madness, you’ll need to include discard outlets in your deck. These are cards like Call the Bloodline and Furyblade Vampire.
Cards with madness appear in black and red.
Investigate
Some cards instruct you to investigate. This means that you create an artifact Clue token, which you can sacrifice for two mana in order to draw a card. For example, when Drownyard Explorers comes into play, you investigate – so you get a Clue token.
How to evaluate card with investigate? Well, a single investigate trigger is a bit worse than drawing a card. Some cards offer further synergies with Clues and investigate, such as Graf Mole, but we’ll talk more about them in the green-blue archetype section.
Emerge
The final important mechanic is emerge, which appears on seven creatures. These are cards that you can either cast for their regular mana cost (which is usually quite high), or for their emerge cost. If you cast a card for its emerge cost, you need to sacrifice a creature when you do so. The emerge cost is then reduced by as many generic mana as was the mana value of the sacrificed creature.
Wretched Gryff can be cast as a seven mana 3/4 flyer. When you cast it, you get to draw a card. (All emerge cards also have beneficial cast triggers.) However, let’s say you’ve sacrificed a random three drop, and cast it for its emerge cost. In that case, you’d only need to pay three mana. (Its emerge cost is 6 minus the mana value of the sacrificed creature, which is 3.)
To support emerge cards, you’ll want to include cards that you won’t mind sacrificing. For example, Exultant Cultist would be one such card. Sadly, the mechanic doesn’t really fit in the format as a whole, and seems a bit out of place.
That’s it for the mechanics, at least for the major ones. Now it’s time for the…
Best Commons for Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered Draft
Commons are the bread and butter of every draft set. These are the cards that you’ll see the most of, so it’s important to know which ones are the best ones.
White
1. Thraben Inspector
This is a card that was always near and dear to my heart, so I’m incredibly sad that I didn’t have enough faith in it, and only put it in honorable mentions in the first version of this article. However, after playing with the card again, and checking data from 17Lands, it’s clear that it’s the best White common, and perhaps even the best one in the whole set.
A one drop that replaces itself is just so great. It’s a great draw both on turn 1 and on turn 9. Getting an extra card in the early game makes it less likely for you to miss your third or fourth land drop, which can be a difference between victory and defeat. While the body is not the most amazing one, you can augment it in many ways, which can make Inspector a relevant board presence.
You should pick Inspectors relatively highly, and play as many as you get in your white decks.
2. Bound by Moonsilver
This card used to be one of the best uncommons in the original Shadows over Innistrad set, and is now a common. It’s the usual three mana white removal effect, with the bonus that you can move it around.
In the late game, it shouldn’t be a problem to sacrifice a land in order to move it to their best creature. This means that you can easily use it early, as you don’t have to worry about running out of removal for their biggest threat.
3. Angelic Purge
Another three mana removal spell makes our list of the best White commons. This one has a steep cost of sacrificing a permanent, so you won’t just fire it off on turn 3. This is more of a late game removal, but it can deal with a variety of problematic permanents, which is great.
The exile clause is very relevant, as many creatures can get value from the graveyard.
Honorable Mentions
Getting two creatures in one card is good if they have relevant bodies. A 3/2 for three mana is fine, and getting the flyer later is useful. Thus, Dauntless Cathar is a solid three drop.
Strength of Arms is a nice combat trick, as it’s so cheap, and it can often leave a body behind. You’ll want to have some equipment in your deck, to get the full value from the card.
Another rarity downshift is Drogskol Shieldmate. It used to be an uncommon in Eldritch Moon, but it’s a common in the Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered draft. It can swing a combat in your favor, especially if you aren’t prepared for it. Even if you aren’t playing white, you should keep this card in mind, so your opponent doesn’t completely wreck your board.
Sigardian Priest is a great cheap tapper. Newer players might not appreciate just how good of an effect this is, as Wizards don’t make such cards anymore. Sure, it can target Humans, but there are plenty of other creature that it can take care of. If you’re beating down, you can use it at the end of your opponent’s turn, then again on your turn, to remove two potential blockers. Good stuff.
Apothecary Geist can be a good four mana play, provided you have enough ways to get another Spirit into play.
Blue
1. Drag Under
A bounce spell that replaces itself is a great card to have access to, and you won’t mind playing multiples. You can use it in tempo decks to get a blocker out of the way. On the other hand, you can use it just to buy some more time for your control deck, so you’ll be able to get to your finisher in Rise from the Tides.
2. Drownyard Explorers
Another card that replaces itself. A 2/4 for four mana is relevant enough, and although you have to invest two mana to get the card, it’s still a fine deal. Besides, it’s also an okay creature to sacrifice to an emerge card, particularly if you get some of the rare ones.
3. Ingenious Skaab
Skaab looks like the card best suited for the blue-red spells deck, and while it does excell there, it’s also just a very solid three drop in most blue decks. The combination of both abilities and its stat line makes this card both hard to block and hard to attack into.
Honorable Mentions
The first copy of Take Inventory is a bit clunky, but if you manage to get multiples of it, you can bury your opponent in card advantage. Just make sure that you’ll have enough defensive tools to survive the early onslaught.
If you’re playing a tempo deck with Spirit synergies, you’ll want to have some Tattered Haunters to put pressure on the opponent.
Jace’s Scrutiny is a nice trick that replaces itself.
Imprisoned in the Moon isn’t as great, as was expected from this ex-rare, but you can still get away with playing a copy or two, if you’re lacking removal spells.
Black
1. Gisa’s Bidding
This card used to be an uncommon, and a pretty good one at that. Four mana for two 2/2 bodies would already be a fine deal in this format, but the cheap madness cost is what pushes it over the rest of black commons.
You get value both from your discard outlet, and you can get the two Zombies during your opponent’s declare attackers step, thus surprising them with two blockers out of nowhere. This is an amazing card, but you should include some discard effects in your deck to get the most value out of it.
2. Dead Weight
Here’s a card that doesn’t need any help from your other cards, and might even be the best black common – depending on how the format plays out.
Anyway, there are 73 creatures with just one or two toughness. Given that there are 154 total creatures in the set, this means that Dead Weight cleanly deals with almost half of the creatures in the format (47.4% to be exact). It regularly trades up in mana. (If you spend one mana to destroy a three mana creature, you’re trading up in mana. This allows you to play multiple spells in a turn and gain tempo advantage.)
On top of that, even if a creature is bigger, you get to at least make it smaller, at which point you can likely handle it with your creatures.
This is also an excellent way to get an enchantment into your graveyard for the delirium synergies.
3. Olivia’s Dragoon
Two mana 2/2 that can get flying in a pinch is nice, but what this card really excels at is being a repeatable discard outlet. This enables all of your madness cards, such as previously mentioned Gisa’s Bidding.
Honorable Mentions
Another card that you can pair with Dragoons for a nice one-two punch is Weirded Vampire. Opponents might not expect a 3/3 out of nowhere, and it can often eat a creature in combat. However, you really don’t want to play this if you don’t have a lot of discard outlets.
Ghoulcaller’s Accomplice is a fine two drop, as it can give you some extra value in a longer game. It can also work in a madness deck, although that is not necessary for its inclusion in a deck.
Certain Death is a clunky removal spell by today’s standards, but in this format it’s actually perfectly playable. You should include too many of them, but you’ll usually want the first copy in your black decks.
Grotesque Mutation is a kind of combat trick that can easily swing the race in your favor, if you time it correctly. Another fine combat trick is Borrowed Malevolence, which can even grant you a two-for-one in a perfect scenario.
Red
1. Incendiary Flow
Two mana for three damage is an efficiency that’s rarely beat in draft. This one is a sorcery, but it does have the exile clause, which is, as we mentioned before, very relevant.
It deals with 114 out of 154 creatures in Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered draft, which comes to 74.0%. For two mana this is an absurdly high rate, and it does make your red deck flow smoothly.
2. Galvanic Bombardment
This is another great removal spell. It only costs a single red mana, and deals with almost half of the creatures in the format. (Most of the stuff that we said about Dead Weight applies here.)
However, if you have multiples it gets even better, and you will be able to deal with even bigger creatures. Once you get the first Galvanic Bombardment, you might want to pick next copies over Incendiary Flow.
3. Alchemist’s Greeting
Another damage-based removal spell is in our Top 3. There are 24 cards with four toughness, which means that this spell kills 89.6% of creatures in the format.
The big power of this card comes from its madness cost. In the right scenario, you can cast it for two mana, at instant speed, and get value from your discard effect. If you manage to do that, you’re going to feel you got away with something.
Honorable Mentions
Howlpack Wolf has nice stats for the format, as a 3/3 for three mana. The small downside that doesn’t affect it much. If you get multiples of it, you even won’t have to worry about the downside, as having two in play, means that they can block.
Bloodmad Vampire is another good three drop, but you’ll want to have discard outlets in your deck in order to get a full value out of it.
The single point of damage from Make Mischief can kill 33 creatures (21.4% of all creatures), and the Devil token can trade with creatures with two toughness, which makes it a useful card.
Conduit of Storms, a fine three drop, which used to be an uncommon. If you can make a safe attack with it, it will ramp you, and you’ll be able to quickly transform it into a big beater.
Green
Green has such an array of amazing commons, that it was really hard to pick the best three. As we’ll play more of the Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered draft, we’ll get a better grip on the format. The positions of the best – not just three, but – six green commons might change. For now, you can’t really go wrong with any of them.
1. Rabid Bite
This is a really cheap removal spell, and it works most of the time, as there isn’t that much instant speed removal spells, and you’re playing green, which has big creatures. Your creature doesn’t get any buff, but at least it won’t take any damage.
This kind of efficiency is hard to beat, and you’ll happily include multiples Rabid Bites in your green decks.
2. Obsessive Skinner
Skinner is another card that used to be an uncommon. At its worst, this is a two mana 2/2. It’s get little better when it can come into play, put the counter somewhere else and enable you to get a beneficial attack in.
However, once you have the delirium active, it gets an enchantment-like effect, spewing +1/+1 counters on your creatures, giving you more and more advantage. That’s a very high power level for a common that only costs two mana. You’ll have to build your deck in a way that allows you to consistently hit delirium, but there are enough tools to make it work.
3. Gnarlwood Dryad
Another delirium card is Gnarlwood Dryad. A 1/1 deathtoucher for a single mana is already a perfectly fine card in this format, and this one can grow into a 3/3, which is a very relevant bonus. It’s yet another card that used to be an uncommon. It was very good in its original format, and it’s also great in Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered draft.
Honorable Mentions
Three mana 3/2 that would draw you a card would be an insanely powerful card. Byway Courier is a bit worse, but not by that much. It gets even better if you have investigate synergies, but it’s already a good card on its own.
Hinterland Logger is a fine early play, which can steal games on a play if an opponent misses a two drop. It also helps you get to the critical mass of Wolves and Werewolves, so you can put Moonlight Hunt in your deck.
Cheap mana dorks are great if they also come with an upside. Ulvenwald Captive most certainly does. First, it’ll ramp you, and in the late game, you can make it into a 4/6, which will be relevant in just about any board. Don’t forget, that you can use its mana to pay for transform.
Confront the Unknown is a combat trick that replaces itself, which is quite good. Obviously, it gets better if you have multiple investigate cards, but it’s already quite good on its own.
Intrepid Provisioner is a nice tour four play, provided you have enough Humans in your deck to consistently get use of its ability.
If you’re looking for ways to enable delirium, Grapple with the Past is a nice way to do so. Now, the best commons are also a thing of the past, so let’s move to the…
Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered Draft Archetypes
There are ten more-or-less supported archetypes here, one for each color pair. You can also splash, but for the most part your decks will remain in two colors. When you’ll start drafting the set, you’ll notice that there’s a lot of overlap between the color pairs.
For example, you might be able to use some investigate synergies that we’ll discuss in the Blue-Green section, in your Blue-White deck too. The archetypes aren’t set in stone, as they might be in some other sets, so keep that in mind during your drafts.
For that reason, we won’t go into that many details for each archetype, but we’ll just touch on the basics of what each color pair is trying to do for the most part. Remember that you could potentially draft a deck that would rely on secondary synergies, or just on simply good cards.
Blue-White: Flying Spirits
Blue-White has a small Spirit subtheme. It just a small one, since there aren’t many payoffs for having many Spirits in your deck. Outside rares you have Apothecary Geist, Dauntless Cathar, Spectral Shepherd, and Nebelgast Herald. On the rare slot, there’s Rattlechains and Mausoleum Wanderer.
As you’ll see, there’s no need to go out of your way and pick every Spirit you can get your hands on to. You’ll naturally end up with lots of Spirits in these colors, and you can pick up some incidental payoffs for them. Don’t forget that both Dauntless Cathar and Nearheath Chaplain are good cards that can make Spirits from your graveyard.
For the most part, you can focus on the fact that the Spirits have flying. Flyers are good in this set, and you’ll be able to consistently push damage through. This deck is a nice home for cards like Drag Under and Spontaneous Mutation. They help you stall the board, while you’re attacking in the air.
Green-White: Humans Midrange
Another somewhat similar archetype is green-white, as it also has a tribal component. However, the payoffs here are a bit better, and you might lean more onto the tribal aspect, than you would with the Spirits.
How heavy you’ll want to lean into the tribal component, depends on how many Hamlet Captains you managed to get your hands on. The more you have, the better your Human tribal synergies are going to be. On rare, and mythic slot, you have two amazing payoffs in Heron’s Grace Champion and Sigarda, Heron’s Grace.
Some other useful payoffs include Courageous Outrider, Intrepid Provisioner, Veteran Cathar, and True-Faith Censer.
If you don’t get that many good payoffs, you can still go for the good ol’ midrange route, and you’ll probably still do fine.
Red-Green: Wolves & Werewolves
Here’s another tribal deck. It’s a more aggressively slanted midrange deck, that takes advantage of some synergies with Wolves and Werewolves. The biggest non-rare payoff is Howlpack Resurgence. If you have multiples, and appropriate creature types, your opponents will have a hard time winning.
This deck also makes the best use out of Moonlight Hunt, which will be a 2-mana kill-anything-spell for the most part. Ulrich’s Kindred is also a great card to have, making your attacking Wolves and Werevolves a nightmare to block.
Of course, there’s also Pack Guardian, but that card has such an absurdly good rate, that it’ll get play in just about any green deck out there.
This color combination can also support the 2-card combo of Rush of Adrenaline + Uncaged Fury. Sure, any red deck, can use these, but you have the enormous green creatures. Casting this on a big creature can kill your opponent from a very safe life total, and both cards are perfectly playable on their own.
Blue-Black: Zombies
Another tribal deck is blue-black with Zombie synergies. However, this one is clunkier, as some of the previously mentioned ones. There just aren’t that many non-rare payoffs for this tribe.
Drunau Corpse Trawler and Graf Harvest are both great, but that’s pretty much it. In order to really build around the tribal synergies, you’ll want to open a rare like Diregraf Colossus or Gisa and Geralf.
When you don’t have these cards, you can build your deck in various ways, but most of them will be more on the controlling side. You can support emerge cards, as there are five in these colors. You could use self-mill and plenty of instants and sorceries to cast a big Rise from the Tides. Furthermore, you could also use madness cards to help you get value with Advanced Stitchwing.
There are plenty of options to choose from, so this archetype probably won’t be the easiest one to draft properly.
Blue-Red: Instant & Sorceries
This is the typical blue-red archetype, which cares about you casting instants and sorceries. Note that this cards won’t work with any noncreature spell, which was the case in some recent sets.
It hurts a bit that Thermo-Alchemist is now an uncommon. However, you still have Pyre Hound on common slot. Combine it with Mercurial Geists, and your opponent is going to be in all sorts of trouble. Uncaged Fury also pairs nicely with both creatures, as it can be responsible for a lot of damage.
There’s also another component to this deck, thanks to Rise from the Tides. You can get a ton of Zombies with this card, and suddenly you aren’t just going tall, but also wide.
For the noncreature part of your deck, you really want to include only instants and sorceries, as to trigger all of your cards. The best ones are removal and bounce spells, followed by card draw, and there’s plenty of those in these colors. Take Inventory will probably be at its best in this shell
Blue-Green: Investigate (Emerge)
Here you actually have two different mechanics that are supported. The more important one is investigate. You have plenty of cards that investigate from Byway Courier to Ongoing Investigation.
Some of your payoffs include:
If you are lucky, you might even get the best Magic card of all time (at least in my opinion) – Tireless Tracker.
This deck has an incredibly good long game, so it’s important that you have enough defensive tools to survive long enough. That’s why Graf Mole is incredibly essential here. It blocks well, and provides you with a life cushion.
Emerge
The other path you have is to focus on the emerge mechanic. However, there are only three non-rare emerge cards: Drownyard Behemoth, Mockery of Nature, and Wretched Gryff. That’s why you shouldn’t go all-in on this theme from the start of the draft. However, if you end up with some of these creatures, you might want to also include some that you don’t mind sacrificing for value.
This subtheme plays pretty nicely with the investigate theme, as Byway Courier and Drownyard Explorers are both perfectly fine creatures to sac.
Black-Red: Madness Vampires
This archetype combines two themes even more seamlessly. You have ways to discard cards for value, and madness cards to further abuse this. Most of these cards also plays nicely with the Vampire tribal subtheme.
For example, Call the Bloodline is one of the best discard outlets, and it makes Vampire tokens. Another discard outlet is Insolent Neonate, which is a Vampire. Falkenrath Gorger gives all your Vampires madness, although some of them, like Insatiable Gorgers already have them. Stensia Masquerade is a Vampire tribal payoff which has madness.
As you can see, most of the cards do two jobs. Even some that don’t, like Indulgent Aristocrat, are quite good.
All in all, this deck has some great synergies, and card that support them perfectly, so it’s likely that it’s going to be one of the best things you can do in a Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered draft.
Black-Green: Delirium
This archetype will want you to enable delirium in order to get lots of value from your cards. Some of the best cards that can help you achieve it are:
Almost every card with delirium in these two colors is at least playable, if not good. The only exception to the rule might be Pick the Brain, which isn’t quite there.
On the other hand, you have stuff like Kindly Stranger, which can straight up destroy a creature. Deathcap Cultivator stops being just a mana dork, and can become a great blocker. Obsessive Skinner or tow can take over the game.
With so many good payoffs, this archetype actually rewards you for you going out of your way and doing the thing. So you’ll want to include a good mix of payoffs and enablers here. Just don’t go too heavy on the enablers – if you’ll spin your wheels too long, other decks might beat you down before you set everything up.
Black-White: Midrange
This is archetype doesn’t have one specific theme that it focuses on. Instead, it plays like a midrange deck, which “borrows” themes from other archetypes.
The most common one will probably a mix of graveyard, madness, discard, and potentially even life gain synergies. You have the black discard outlets like Call the Bloodline, and the strong madness card in Gisa’s Bidding. For your discard fodder, you can also use stuff like Dauntless Cathar, which can give you some value from your graveyard.
In an odd draft, you might get multiple Lone Riders, so you’ll try to focus more on lifelinkers. This will also allow you to numerous Anguished Unmakings, which are now uncommons, and no longer occupy the rare slot.
As you can see, there are different ways you could build a black-white deck. For the most part, though, you’ll want to include good value creatures, pair them with good removal, a couple of good rares, and present everything in a nice mana curve.
Red-White: Aggro
This archetype is similar to black-white in that it doesn’t have a specific thing that it wants to build around. You can use some madness synergies, but for the most part you want to just turn your creatures sideways.
There’s no need to be fancy. Get cheap efficient attackers, and pair them with combat tricks, and removal spells. You’ll have an abundance of each of these cards in these colors, so that shouldn’t be too hard. Have a good curve, and prey on opponents who might stumble or try to do something too clunky.
Shadows of the Past
This time around, the draft comes with a twist. Each pack has a special slot for a Shadows of the Past card. These cards will change from week to week, which will impact the draft format slightly. The themes will change in the following four weeks, and you can see the schedule here:
| Theme | Date |
|---|---|
| Creature Type Terror | March 21–28 |
| Fatal Flashback | March 28–April 4 |
| Morbid and Macabre | April 4–11 |
| Abominable All Stars | April 11–18 |
Currently, we’re in week 3, and the theme is Morbid and Macabre. We will explore other themes a day before it goes live, so make sure to check back then.
Week 1: Creature Type Terror
The following 18 cards appeared in the Shadows of the Past slot in the first week:
As you can see, the theme of the week was tribal. This means that for the first week, all the decks that focus on the tribal synergies got a significant boost. You were more likely to do better if you try to draft one of the tribal archetypes.
However, if everyone thinks that way, there might be an opportunity to draft something like red-blue instants & sorceries, as it could be underdrafted. If you’re doing multiple drafts this week, you’ll get a better feel for what other players are doing, and you might benefit from drafting a less supported archetype. On the other hand, if you’ll do just a single draft or perhaps a couple, you should lean into tribal decks and take advantage of the additional support.
Week 2: Fatal Flashback
On the second week (March 28 – April 4), the following 18 cards will be offered in the Shadows of the Past slot:
As, you can see, the theme of this week are cards with flashback. However, before we start to talk about cards that are added, it’s important to take a look at the cards that got removed, as that will also affect the format.
Omissions
A lot of tribal support is now gone. It looks like the White-Blue Spirits will take a big hit from Drogskol Captain and Battleground Geist leaving. While other tribes will also get some less support, most of them still have a lot of other payoffs to lean into.
The only other very impactful cards leaving are Avacyn’s Collar and Butcher’s Cleaver. If you’ll want to rely on Equipment to buff your Humans, you’re now left with True-Faith Censer, which is weaker.
Good Cards
However, there are many powerful cards in this week’s selection that can buff some archetypes. Since we were just speaking about Humans, which are mostly centered in white-green, let’s mention an amazing uncommon they’re getting with Travel Preparations. You need to play two creatures on your first three turns, then on turn four, you cast Preparations twice, and you swing in with two enormous creatures which are near impossible to block.
Another amazing card is Lingering Souls. You’d always play it in any white deck, even if you don’t have access to black. However, you’d be better with splashing a single Swamp, so you can flash it back in the late game. Naturally, the card is going to be particularly astounding in any white-black deck, as will Unburial Rites.
Silent Departure might not look like much, but the card is a lot better than it looks. It always over preforms, and you should pick it highly and play it in every blue deck, even in multiples.
Spider Spawning
This card was one of the most popular buildarounds of all times. It creates a whole archetype around it. You play a ton of creatures, and a bunch of self-mill. You survive till the late game, where you cast Spider Spawning. If you have two copies, you might be able to cast it four times, and overwhelming your opponent with numerous Spiders.
This deck will be mainly green-black, but it could dip into white or blue in order to get even more graveyard synergies. Gnaw to the Bone is another card from Week 2 that you can use in this archetype to stay alive for longer. While pure life gain cards are typically weak, this one might be an exception due to the fact that it gives you a ton of life, and your deck often has inevitability.
It’s going to be interesting to see how often this deck will come together and if many players will fight for it.
Final Thoughts for Week 2
So, tribal synergies look a bit weaker this week, and there’s going to be more graveyard based stuff. As talked about last week, you don’t necessarily need to go fighting for a graveyard deck just because there’s more support for them. You can leave that to others, and just go for an aggressive red-black Vampires deck, and beat down the opponents that are spinning their wheels too much.
Or you can draft a good midrange deck, and compliment it with a good flashback card, such as Lingering Souls or many others that we mentioned before.
Nevertheless, I’d recommend you try to build a Spider Spawning deck at least once this week, as it can be insanely fun.
Week 3: Morbid and Macabre
On the second week (April 4 – April 11), the following 18 cards will be offered in the Shadows of the Past slot:
The theme of the week is sacrifice, and to the lesser extended morbid. (That’s a mechanic which rewards you if you use it on a turn during which a creature died.) We’ll talk about that in a second, but first let’s take a look at what’s being removed from the previous week.
Omissions
Everything that we talked about in-depth for Week 2 is now gone. There’s no more Spider Spawning, and lots of good flashback cards were also removed.
This means that self-mill is much less powerful than it used to be during the previous week. In this one, the format will fell much more familiar to Week 1, albeit with fewer tribal synergies.
Red & Black
The biggest additions for this week are centered in red and black colors. Both of these get some good tools that are particularly useful in a sacrifice shell. If you’re drafting this color combination, you might want to lean into that theme. Traitorous Blood is particularly strong, as you can steal an opposing creature, hit them with it, and then sac it with something like Bloodflow Connoisseur.
You could also add white, which gets you a perfect sacrifice fodder in Doomed Traveler. Then you could either go white-red or white-black. Both archetypes are viable.
Other than that, you can still pretty much do everything else that we talked about in the archetype section.
Conclusion
That’s all about the Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered draft. If you have any questions about the format, let me know in the comments below, and I’ll get back to you. If you’re looking for some further reading about future Magic sets, you can check the following articles:
Until next time, have fun, and may you win 7 wins in your very next Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered draft!