Wilds of Eldraine Draft Guide

Once upon a time, a Wilds of Eldraine Draft Guide was written. It was said that whoever read it would gain an eternal knowledge of the Eldraine draft format and win many games. Is that just a fairy-tale or a reality? Only one way to find out – by reading it!

If you’re familiar with our draft guides, you know what to expect. If you’re new – Welcome! Here’s what you can expect. First, we’re going to look at the key mechanics in the format. Next, we’ll discuss the best commons, followed by an archetype overview. At the end, everything is wrapped up with power rankings and final tips.

There’s a lot going on in this set, so we better start.

Wilds of Eldraine Mechanics

In Wilds of Eldraine draft, the following five mechanics are in focus:

• Adventures (returning)
• Food tokens (returning)
• Role tokens (new)
• Bargain (new)
• Celebration (new)

As you can see, there are two returning mechanics, both of which were used in the original set, Throne of Eldraine. To keep things fresh, three new mechanics are joining them.

In the next sections we’ll take a look not just at their rules, but how the affect the format. As you’ll see, most of these mechanics work together in synergy.

Adventures

The text box of adventure cards is box split into two halves. The left half is an instant or sorcery with subtype adventure. The right half is a permanent, typically a creature.

If you cast the left part, the card goes into exile. It’s now considered “on adventure.” You can then cast the right part for its regular mana cost. The other option is to ignore the adventure part, and just cast it for its regular cost from your hand. Here’s an example:

You can simply pay six mana, and put Beluna’s Gatekeeper, a 6/5 creature, in play. However, with most adventure cards you’ll want to first play adventure part first, to acquire more value out of them. So, you first pay two mana for Entry Denied. The card goes in exile (“on adventure”), from where you might cast the 6/5 for six mana.

Cards with adventure can be found in all five colors.

Effect of Adventures

Lots of adventure cards give you a 2 for 1. (That’s when you squeeze 2 cards’ worth of value from a single card.) With some cards, such as Beanstalk Wurm, that’s more of a 1.5 for 1, but that’s still good.

So, you can expect that both you and your opponents will be able to make plenty of value plays. If your deck contains a lot of adventures, there’s plenty you can do with your mana. In that case, you might want to play an additional land, as there’s less risk of flooding flooded. Being stuck on lands, will probably be a bigger concern in Wilds of Eldraine draft.

Since adventures typically comes with a built-in card advantage, draw spells become slightly worse. Adventures pack two cards into one, and they affect the board, which draw spells don’t.

Multicolor Adventures

One final thing, before we move to the next mechanic. As you can see below, there are cards with different colored adventure part.

Sure, these cards are obviously the best when you can access both colors. However, if one of the parts is good enough on its own, you can play it even, if you can’t cast the other half.

For example, Decadent Dragon is still a house in a red-green deck.

Food Tokens

Many cards create Food tokens. This are predefined artifacts, that can gain you three life. (By paying 2 mana, tapping and sacrificing them.)

The cards that make them are in black and green. These two colors enable additional synergies with them, with cards like Greta, Sweettooth Scourge, but more about that in the Archetype Breakdown.

Additionally, 7 out of 10 archetypes receive access to accidental life gain. This is very important. Imagine that you can sacrifice two Food tokens in a game. Your starting life total is essentially 26.

That’s bad news for aggressive deck, since 70% of the decks can stabilize after the early onslaught. Thus, most games will play out longer than usual. With that in mind, you should build your deck in a way that it’ll perform well in the late game.

Role Tokens

Role tokens are created by various cards in all five colors. These are predefined Aura tokens, and there are seven different ones, each with their own effect:

*The Virtuous Role token only appears in Wilds of Eldraine Commander decks, so you won’t be able to play it in draft.

There’s one important thing to know about Role tokens. Only a single Role token controlled by the same player can be attached to a creature. If a creature gets more than one Role token attached to it by the same player, only the newest Role remains on it. Any other Roles go to the graveyard, and cease to exist, as they’re tokens.

How Good are Role Tokens in Wilds of Eldraine Draft?

It’s hard to evaluate exactly how good Role tokens will end up being. Their value changes based on the type of a Role, and on your deck.

Your deck might care about enchantments, with cards like Warehouse Tabby. That’s a slight improvement of Role tokens.

If your deck contains beefy creatures, then Monster Role becomes better, as trample significantly improves them. In a deck without many removal spells, you’ll at least want access to Cursed Role, to resize them. Young Hero Role only does something if you’re attacking.

As you can see, there’s a lot of parameters that will change a value of a single Role token. To start with, you should assume it is worth around a half of a card. Once you play out some games, you’ll be able to more precisely evaluate them.

This mechanic is probably the most complex of the new ones. If you want to know more about it, check Role Token rules.

Bargain

Spells with bargain allow you to sacrifice an artifact, enchantment, or token when you cast them. If you do, you unlock a bonus.

For example, when you cast High Fae Negotiator, you can sacrifice an artifact, enchantment, or a token. If you do, your 3/5 flyer also drains your opponent for 3 life. On the other hand, if you don’t want to sacrifice anything, you can still play it as a five mana 3/5 flyer without additional effects.

The bargain cards can be found across all five colors, with most of them in black. You can find more in-depth Bargain rules here.

Enablers

Some of these cards are good even without the bargain effect. However, for the most part, you’ll want to enable them. Thankfully, there are a lot of ways to do so. The previous two mechanics we talked about both support it. You can sacrifice Food and Role tokens, without too big of a loss.

On top of that, there are various token makers, such as Voracious Vermin, as well as disposable enchantments like Hopeful Vigil.

How many enablers you’ll want depends on your bargain cards. If the bonuses are small, you don’t need to work hard to include many enablers. Vice versa is also true. If the bargain bonus is significant, you’ll want to consistently enable it.

Celebration

The final major mechanic is celebration, which can also give card a bonus effect. That happens if two or more nonland permanents enter the battlefield under your control in a given turn.

For example, Armory Mice is a mediocre card, as a two mana 3/1. However, if you can consistently put two nonland permanents in play, it becomes a 3/3, which is a real deal.

Since all celebration cards are in white and red, we’ll discuss more details in the white-red archetype section. The main idea is that you want cards that can enable celebration by themselves, such as Unassuming Sage and Edgewall Pack.

The mechanic is quite straightforward, but if you want to know more about it, you can read our Celebration Rules article.

Best Commons for Wilds of Eldraine Draft

White

1. Cooped Up

Alas, Pacifism is power-creeped. How can Magic ever recover from that?

Jokes aside, this new take on the iconic white removal is actually quite strong. The ability to remove a creature for good is a major improvement. But that’s not all. There are some additional synergies that improve it further.

First, it’s a cheap permanent, which can help trigger celebration. Second, it’s an enchantment and there are synergies with that. Third, there’s a neat trick with bargain instants.

You activate the ability, and hold priority. You respond to the ability by casting Rowan’s Grim Search and sacrificing Cooped Up. You paid the bargain cost, and the creature will still be exiled.

So, this enchantment is a cheap removal, with more synergies than in a regular set, which makes it a great card.

2. Archon’s Glory

This might be a hot take, but it’s hard to be more efficient that this. In the early game, +2/+2 will be enough to win any combat. It’s also cheap enough that you can cast two spells in a turn, which is a great way to do well.

In the late game, triggering bargain should be easy. In most late-game scenarios, lifelink can swing a race in your favor, while flying might just end the game on the spot.

You can really ask much more for a single mana card, thus this combat trick is certainly going to bring you some wins and glory.

3. Hopeful Vigil

Every deck needs two drops, so your opponent can’t easily run over you with an aggressive start. A two mana 2/2 isn’t that exciting, but this card is much more than that.

It’s a cheap way to trigger celebration with only one card. You can use the leftover enchantment for bargain, and still scry 2. Your other cards might synergize with enchantments leaving play. As you can see there are lots of uses for this card. Additionally, you can just pay three mana and sacrifice it to setup your next draws.

All in all, Hopeful Vigil is a card that does more that it looks at first sight. It’s entire possible that it’ll move up in our rankings as the format develops.

Honorable Mentions

Savior of the Sleeping needs just a single counter to be well above rate. However, once you can consistently trigger it multiple times, it becomes a major threat.

If you can consistently trigger celebration, Tuinvale Guide can be a nice payoff.

We talked about how two drops are necessary. Unassuming Sage fills the role, and it’s actually a relevant card later in the game too.

Kellan’s Lightblades can be a cheap removal spell. However, you can remove a blocker before combat, so that limits its potential in an aggressive deck.

Blue

1. Obyra’s Attendants

Neither -4/-0 instant for two nor 3/4 flyer for five is exciting. However, adventure cards are greater than the sum of their parts. When you can access to both, it’s easy to squeeze some value out of them.

If you manage to eat one of your opponent’s creatures thanks to the trick, you’re going to feel like you got away with something.

2. Vantress Transmuter

Another adventure card, that can be a 2 for 1. This one also comes with mediocre body, but the Adventure part is a removal spell of sorts. Against decks with big creatures, the Cursed Role will be especially powerful.

3. Diminisher Witch

This one can also curse opponent’s creature. When the Cursed Role isn’t going to do much, just don’t sacrifice anything. Just play you’re three mana 3/2, and it’s going to be fine.

Honorable Mentions

Spell Stutter is a fine counterspell, particularly, if there are Faeries in your deck. The presence of adventures improves the power of counterspells. You’ll know when your opponent is about to cast a big adventure creature, so you’ll know when to hold two mana up.

Merfolk Coralsmith comes with okay stats, and wears Role Tokens well. It’ll typically die in the mid to late game, where scry 2 is actually close to drawing a card.

Black

1. Candy Grapple

If this card was a two mana instant that just gave -3/-3 it might still be the best black common. Without any help, it kills 75.1% of creatures in the format. (If we limit it to just non-rare creatures that percentage goes up to 84.5%.)

The bigger creatures can be killed in combat, by using it as a combat trick. The other option is to bargain it. In that case, the percentage goes up to 95.8% for all creatures, and 97.3% for non-rares.

As you can see, you can remove almost anything. For measly two mana that’s an incredible deal, and you should pick this venomous apple very highly.

2. Feed the Cauldron

Next up, here’s another removal spell. While it costs a mana more, at least a Food token comes with it. You can also destroy just 62.6% of all, or 61.9% of non-rare creatures.

Nevertheless, this doesn’t make Feed the Cauldron bad. Instead, it just highlights how powerful Candy Grapple actually is. However, it’s likely that once players figure it out, Grapple will be highly drafted, so you’ll also want to include a couple of the less efficient removal spells too.

3. Voracious Vermin

This card brings two creatures into play, for three mana, and that’s typically good. Sure, the Rat token isn’t particularly strong, but it does grow the Vermin when it dies. On top of that, it can be used to pay bargain costs.

The card also triggers celebration by itself. It does just enough of little things that it’s likely going to be better than it looks.

Honorable Mentions

2/3 menace for three mana is already a borderline fine card. Add a Wicked Role token to the mix, and Conceited Witch becomes a great common.

Warehouse Tabby can generate a lot of value during the course of the game for a one drop. It can also acquire deathtouch, and is thus a great blocker. You can really ask for much more for a single mana. Of course, it’s also a Cat, which is a big plus, although that doesn’t affect the game play.

Barrow Naughty‘s stats are useful for a two drop. It can block well, and once there’s another Faerie in play, the life gain starts adding up.

Shatter the Oath is somewhat clunky removal, but you can also destroy a problematic enchantment, and it comes with a Wicked Role. It might be just enough to make it into a powerful card.

Red

1. Torch the Tower

This is an incredibly efficient removal. It kills 44.6% of creatures in the format, and bargain brings that up to 75.1%. (For non rares that number is 42.4% or 84.5% with bargain.)

If that’s not enough, the card also exiles, which is relevant. If you bargained it, you can also scry 1.

The presence of Role tokens is both a disadvantage and a benefit for this card. Of course, if the Role token makes the creature too big to destroy, that’s not great. On the other hand, imagine your opponent uses something like Price of Beauty on a smaller creature. With your one rad mana, you burn, it essentially countering the whole adventure card, and killing a creature. That’s a great deal for you.

The power in this one mana card is certainly high.

2. Cut In

This is another strong red removal spell, but it will play out completely different. It cost four mana, and is a sorcery. However, the four points of damage is a lot. It takes care of 91.0% of all creatures or 92.0% of non-rare ones.

In lots of situations, you’ll be able to take advantage of the Young Hero Role token. Imagine your opponent’s creature are a 3/3 and a 2/2, ans yours just a single 2/2. You deal four damage to the 3/3, put a Young Hero on your 2/2, and attack with it. This will be a great tempo play, as your creature is threatening to grow even bigger next turn.

3. Edgewall Pack

This is your bread-and-butter red common. Although it’s not particularly exciting, you can’t really mess with it. For four mana you put two bodies into play, thus triggering celebration.

3/3 menace is annoying to block, while the 1/1 Rat can be used for all sorts of things, as we already talked about.

Honorable Mentions

Here’s another card that can trigger celebration and that at instant speed. You’ll really want to first cast the adventure part of Ratcatcher Trainee. This way you’ll get three bodies from a single card, which is an amazing deal. This card might deserve a spot in the Top 3, but there are just so many good red commons.

For example, Frantic Firebolt is yet another great red removal. You’ll typically want the total damage to be at least three, but that shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish. Occasionally, you’ll be able to deal five damage with it, at which point, it’s going to be insane.

Redcap Thief triggers celebration, and gives you an artifact you can bargain. Of course, you can also use the Treasure to play an expensive card ahead of schedule. As a 2/3 for three mana, this card will play nicely.

If you want to be aggressive you need two drops that can attack well. As we’ve seen there are lots of red commons that can trigger celebration, and Grand Ball Guest is here to take advantage of that.

Finally, Grabby Giant and Minecart Daredevil are two solid adventure cards. Both halves of each card can be useful.

Green

1. Curse of the Werefox

Green’s fight spell this time around is amazing. While sorcery speed isn’t that great, there are other things going for it. The Monster Role token is a permanent buff. It provides trample, and enchantment synergies, both of which are relevant. On top of that, the three mana is a fine price for this effect.

Of course, you must time it wisely. If you try to fire it off, and your opponent removes your creature in response, you’ll be in big trouble and inclined to curse. Don’t do that, and don’t play it into open mana. Also, include some beefy creatures in your deck, so you’ll be able to deal with anything.

2. Hamlet Glutton

Speaking of big creatures, here’s one for you. Seven mana for a 6/6 trample that gains you three life, is just below rate. Typically, those cards cost six mana, and play very well.

However, if you can bargain it, it costs just five mana. For five mana that’s an insane deal. It’s going to be the biggest thing on the table, and your opponent won’t be able to easily remove it. Most of the best common removal spells can’t deal with it on its own. Even if your opponent manages it, at least you got three life back for your trouble.

This card will also play well in multiples. Following one Glutton after another is going to be backbreaking for your opponent. You just need to ask yourself whether you’re going to be or not to be triggering bargain consistently.

In most green decks, that shouldn’t be too big of a problem.

3. Ferocious Werefox

If you can time Guard Change so your creature wins a combat, then this card becomes an amazing value play. Even if the combat trick is used to help you trade up, it’s still great.

Just keep in mind that if the creature you’re targeting is removed in response, your Werefox is also gone.

Honorable Mentions

Similarly to red, lots of green commons are strong. For example, Hollow Scavenger might deserve a higher spot. It provides you Food, which can be then use by itself or to put Hamlet Glutton in play on turn five.

If you control another creature when you cast Redtooth Genealogist, that’s a great deal.

Return from the Wilds does enough of little things that it becomes perfectly playable.

Rootrider Faun can block well, it ramps you even more efficiently that the previous card, and can also somewhat fix your mana. What’s not to like?

Beanstalk Wurm is just a fine five drop. It can block annoying flyers, and it’s an okay attacker. With enough lands in hand, you can Plant Beans to play it and other cards sooner.

That’s a wrap for the commons, now it’s time to explore…

Wilds of Eldraine Draft Archetypes

As far as the color go, draft archetypes in Wilds of Eldraine seem to follow the stock formula. There are 10 of them, one for each color pair. While splashing a third color is possible, for the most part decks will stick to two colors.

Below you’ll find short descriptions of what each archetype is trying to do. Of course, these are just general guidelines, and it’s possible to deviate from them. However, for the most part, this is what the deck are supposed to be doing, at least early on in the format.

Blue-White: Flyers & Tapping

Our first archetype, blue-white is the classic flyers tempo deck with a tapping subtheme. That’s quite a mouthful, so let’s break things down.

Flyers Tempo Deck

Flyers are quite self-explanatory. You’re using creatures with flying to go over opponent’s defenses. There are plenty of them in both white and blue across all rarities. Tuinvale Guide and Archive Dragon are just a couple of examples.

The tempo part is a bit tricky to explain. In general cards that temporary remove opponent’s creatures gain you tempo.

Let’s say, you cast Freeze in Place on an opposing creature. You’ve spent a card, but your opponent still controls their creature, so you’re actually down a card. However, you gained tempo – you spend just three mana for that creature not to matter for three turns. If you manage to win before that creature untaps, it doesn’t matter that you’re actually down a card.

So, tap effects and bounce spells (effects that return creatures to their owners’ hand) are key parts of tempo decks. You’ll disable the biggest opponents treat, then attack with flyers.

Tapping

Then there’s the tapping subtheme. Tapping already rewards you by disabling creatures to participate in combat. However, in this set there are also three uncommons that give you additional rewards:

• Sharae of Numbing Depths draws you a card.
• Solitary Sanctuary puts counters on your creatures.
• Icewrought Sentry pumps itself.

Then there are also a bit less obvious rewards, such as Rip the Seams. All of these cards are perfectly playable on their own and improve further with additional tap effects. There’s also plenty of those, such as Frostbridge Guard, Plunge into Winter, and Bitter Chill just to name a few.

We shall see how good of a theme this will end up being, but if you open Hylda of the Icy Crown in your first pack, you should probably try to build around it. Otherwise, it’s fine to just play a solid blue-white flyers tempo deck, with some incidental tap synergies sprinkled in.

Black-White: Bargaining Enchantments

This is another fresh take on an archetype. This color pair can access all five mechanics. While it takes advantage of all of them the key one is bargain, which allows you to sacrifice enchantments. Why would you want to do that? Because there are plenty of cards that rewards you for cards going to the graveyard.

All of them are at least playable, with the majority being quite good if you can trigger them consistently:

• Knight of Doves can make you a flying army
• Ashiok’s Reaper draws you cards.
• Neva, Stalked by Nightmares is an absurd value engine.
• Savior of the Sleeping can grow into large threat.
• Warehouse Tabby creates Rats.
• Wicked Visitor does its best.

Sacrifice Fodder

So, what enchantments will go to your graveyard? Well, any of the Role tokens will do.

Then there’s stuff like Hopeful Vigil, Cooped Up, Hopeless Nightmare. Sagas such as The Witch’s Vanity also work, as you sacrifice them by the end of the last chapter.

Most of these come with a built-in way of going to the graveyard. Role tokens go there when your creatures die in combat. Plus, you can put a new Role token on the same creature, to make the older one go tho the grave. Any card with bargain will also help you do so. Furthermore, Dutiful Griffin is yet another way of sacrificing enchantments for value.

As you can see, there are lots of crossover synergies here. You want to build your deck so it contains a nice mix of both enablers and payoffs, as well as a respectable mana curve.

Green-White: (Roles) Midrange

Green-white is supposed to be an archetype based on Roles and other Auras. However, that aren’t that many payoffs that would make this archetype feel distinct.

Syr Armont, the Redeemer is obviously a strong payoff, but it’s also just a good card on its own, and doesn’t ask for much support. Tanglespan Lookout is the only payoff in the traditional sense. That’s unless, you count shenanigans with Cursed Courtier.

It looks like, you’ll be able to take a green-white deck into different directions. Perhaps, you could lean into enchantment sacrifice synergies, as we’ve seen from the previous archetype. You could go into more aggressive version with celebration mechanic. Food tokens, and adventures are also available to you.

There are many options to choose from. It’s possible that a successful deck will simply use cards with good rate, and just sparkle in some incidental synergies.

Red-White: Celebration Aggro

There are nine cards (4 commons, 3 uncommons, 2 rares) with celebration mechanic, all of which are in red-white. All of them are quite aggressive, so you’ll want your deck to be built with attacking in mind.

The key thing celebration unlocks are the aggressive two drops. Both Armory Mice and Grand Ball Guest can attack as 3/3s. Ash, Party Crasher can grow even bigger.

You can also play two quite useful three drops with Belligerent of the Ball and Gallant Pie-Wielder. When you curve-out, it’s going to be hard to compete with this deck. So, how hard is it going to be to trigger celebration?

Enablers

You don’t want to go out of your way to enable it. Soul-Guide Lantern can be a low-cost way to put one of the two nonland permanents. However, this is an aggro deck, so you want to spend your mana on cards that affect the board. Even something like Cheeky House-Mouse will be a better option.

Cards like Train Troops, Edgewall Pack, Hopeful Vigil and Pest Problem are all excellent enablers. You put creatures on the board, and you trigger celebration. If you want to win with this deck, this is the way to go.

Above all, remember to keep your curve relatively low, you’re trying to beat your opponent down before they could stabilize with Food tokens.

Blue-Black: Faerie Tempo

Blue-black archetype is a tempo deck with some Faerie synergies. There is no need to draft a deck full of Faeries, as the reward just isn’t there. Most of the card will give you a benefit if you control at least one Faerie.

Faerie Fencing becomes a better removal spell while Barrow Naughty gains lifelink. Ego Drain turns from card disadvantage into efficient discard spell. Free the Fae can reuse a Faerie.

The only cards that benefit from multiple Faeries are Obyra, Dreaming Duelist and Spell Stutter. Both of which will excel in this shell.

There are plenty of Faerie cards in blue and black and most of them are at least playable. Since they all fly, the deck can play out in a similar tempo fashion, as the blue-white deck that we talked about in the beginning. Instead of white creatures, you can access the premium black removal spells, which is a fine trade.

Blue-Red: Instants & Sorceries

Whoa, what a fresh an exciting take on the blue-red archetype! Since both colors are known for their efficient instants and sorceries, this archetype takes advantage of the two. Hopefully, this strategy will return someday, as there are so many possibilities with it.

Here are some rewards for including instants and sorceries in your deck:

• Johann, Apprentice Sorcerer allows you to cast an instant or sorcery from your library.
• Aquatic Alchemist receives a small buff.
• Splashy Spellcaster creates Sorcerer Role tokens.
• Unruly Catapult untaps, and can ping again.
• Hearth Elemental becomes cheaper.
• Frolicking Familiar becomes a big threat.
• Frantic Firebolt is a big removal spell.

Adventures

As you see, a lot of these are also adventures. This is a nice (albeit a little spoon-fed) way of solving the typically problem with this archetype. Having a right mix of instants & sorceries versus creatures.

One problem with that would be that cards with adventure don’t count as sorceries and instants in your graveyard. That’s why Frantic Firebolt and Hearth Elemental also count adventures.

With so many of them, this deck will likely be the one that could take the most advantage of Chancellor of Tales.

There’s also a tempo element to this archetype. The plan seems to be: try to remove your opponent’s threat, even if temporally, and safely attack your opponent.

Blue-Green: 5+ Cost Spells

Blue-green rewards you for casting spells that cost 5 or more mana. Besides casting powerful spells, which the expensive ones typically are, your rewards include:

• Galvanic Giant locking down creatures.
• Stormkeld Prowler growing into bigger threat.
• Skybeast Tracker making Food tokens.
• Up the Beanstalk drawing cards.
• Tempest Hart growing.
• Troyan, Gutsy Explorer ramping you into them.

Speaking of ramp, you need enough of it in your deck, as casting your 5+ drops a turn earlier is powerful. Return from the Wilds and Rootrider Faun are both great ways to do that. Additionally, Beanstalk Wurm can both ramp you in a right scenario, as well as serve as a nice five drop option.

Some other powerful options of expensive spells include Agatha’s Champion, Archive Dragon, and Stormkeld Vanguard.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this archetype will perform. Typically, blue-green always looks fun, but ends up a bit too weak to compete.

Black-Red: Rats

In this article, you probably noticed cards that create 1/1 Rat tokens that can’t block. All of them are in red and black.

These tokens can be a great way to enable both celebration as well as bargain. You can turn them into cards with Vampiric Rites. If you have a large number of them, you can also try to swarm you opponent with them. That can be quite viable if you buff your team with Gnawing Crescendo.

Additionally, this archetype offers you three uncommons that can all make Rats better:

• Twisted Sewer-Witch can provide a massive boost, that will really put your opponent in a hard spot.
• Tattered Ratter discourages opponent from blocking them.
• Totentanz, Swarm Piper can give them deathtouch.

As you can see, there aren’t that many payoffs. However, it’s not to hard to pick up some Rat makers with cards such as Lord Skitter’s Butcher, Voracious Vermin, and Pest Problem.

Thus, you’ll really want to draft aforementioned Gnawing Crescendo and Twisted Sewer-Witch, which are the best ways to finish a game when you control a bunch of rodents. The third option comes from the Enchanting Tales card list, that is Shared Animosity, but for that one you really need to be all-in on Rats.

Black-Green: Food Midrange

Black-green can create the most Food tokens. They can be used for bargain, or to simply give you a life cushion. Additionally, there are some cards that gives you other ways to use them.

Greta, Sweettooth Scourge is the big one. You can turn your Food into +1/+1 counters o into new cards. Tough Cookie is another great card for the deck, as it can turn your Foods into 4/4 creatures.

Then there are commons such as Sweettooth Witch and Hollow Scavenger. Both are quite fine in this archetype.

Night of the Sweets’ Revenge is the weirdest Food payoff. You really need to build your deck around it to maximize its value. It’s probably not the most successful strategy, but might be fun to try out.

If you want to win, the better idea is likely to just play good cards in this two colors, and don’t worry too much about building around Food.

Red-Green: 4+ Power Midrange

Finally, there’s red-green, which is known for its beefy creatures, and once again makes that its theme. This time around, the magical number is 4. If you control a creature with power four or greater, some of your cards improve:

• Garruk’s Uprising can be a card draw engine.
• Boundary Lands Ranger filters your cards.
• Territorial Witchstalker and Ruby, Daring Tracker becomes bigger.
• Picnic Ruiner gets double strike.

While all these cards are good, you don’t need to try much to enable them. You’ll naturally end up with four powered creatures. There are just so many good ones, that you’d play anyway. Additionally, even your 3-powered creatures can work, if you enchant them with a Role token.

As such, this is yet another archetype where you just go for the midrange deck, and let the synergies work naturally.

That was the last of the ten archetypes, so now it’s time to rank them.

Wilds of Eldraine Draft Guide: Power Rankings

Keep in mind that these power rankings are very early predictions, In a week or so, you can already expect an update with more accurate rankings. Hopefully, we figured out a lot, and there won’t be too many changes, but you never know.

Best Colors

1. Red
2. Green
3. Black
4. White
5. Blue

So, far it looks like Jund (red, black, green) colors are going to be strong. Lots of their commons are quite good. They will likely be able to support multiple drafters at the table. White and blue seem to be a tier below, but still playable.

Best Archetypes in Wilds of Eldraine Draft

1. Red-Green: 4+ Power Midrange
2. Black-Green: Food Midrange
3. Black-Red: Rats
4. Red-White: Celebration Aggro
5. Green-White: (Roles) Midrange
6. Black-White: Bargaining Enchantments
7. Blue-Red: Instants & Sorceries
8. Blue-Black: Faerie Tempo
9. Blue-Green: 5+ Cost Spells
10. Blue-White: Flyers & Tapping

The red, black, and green color pairs take the top three spots. The rest is quite hard to predict, and will certainly change once we play more games.

Additional Tips

With the main part of Wilds of Eldraine Draft Guide behind us, we’ll just touch on some final tips about the format.

How Many Lands to Play in Wilds of Eldraine Draft?

The default number for most draft formats is 17 lands. With that number, you’ll never make too big of a mistake.

However, this set offers you just so many good value cards. For example, adventures are two cards in one, and for the most part you want to cast both. As a result, you’ll flood less often that in a regular set. The bigger problem is when you’re stuck on lands with spells you can’t cast in your hand.

That’s why it might be a good idea to move your starting point to 18 lands. At least at the start of the format, this seems to be the way to go.

Of course, if you’re a more aggressive deck, or if you somehow didn’t end up with many value cards, you can still stick to 17 lands. However, even in an aggro deck, I wouldn’t go down to 16 lands. If you won’t be able to play two spells on turns four and later, it won’t be easy to trigger your celebration cards.

The one exception would be the red-blue spells deck, with multiple copies of Sleight of Hand. In such deck, you can afford to go to 16 lands.

Weird Cards and Interesting Interactions

In this section we’ll talk about some stuff that you don’t want to spend time thinking about during the draft or game play.

Extraordinary Journey

Extraordinary Journey‘s text box is so full and not easy to grasp at first. Essentially, it’s a weird bounce spell with a bunch of value tacked on. For four mana you remove one creature, for six mana you remove two, and so on. Their owner can replay it, and when they do you draw a card. (Limited to once per turn.)

Besides, whenever any player cast a creature spell with adventure, you also draw a card. All in all, this is an amazing card, and you shouldn’t mind first picking it.

Underrated Card for Every Deck

Hylda’s Crown of Winter is a type of card that some players tend to underrate. No matter your deck, if you see this card in a draft, you’ll want to pick it. It’s insanely strong even without the second ability.

Interactions

• If you bargain away The Princess Takes Flight before third chapter goes on the stack, the creature never comes back. Great value play!
• When you double Role tokens with stuff like Parallel Lives, only one Role token can remain on a creature. The rest go in the graveyard. That’s still useful if you the tokens in question are Wicked Roles or other stuff that triggers when enchantments go to the graveyard.
• Monstrous Rage combined with Two-Headed Hunter can be responsible for a ton of damage. It’s possible to just win the game on the spot.
• For some reason, lots of players think that Young Hero Role token can only buff a creature to 3 toughness. That’s not the case, and you can improve its toughness up to 4, which is is significant improvement.

More interactions will be added in the following days. If you noticed something interesting, share it with other readers in the comments below.

Check the Tier List!

Now you the big picture knowledge of the Wilds of Eldraine format should be clear to you. While we didn’t talk about every card in the format, we did grade them. You can find the early grades in our Wilds of Eldraine Draft Tier List.

Are you planning on organizing a draft with your play group? If so, you’re going to need Draft boosters, which you can order on Amazon.

Each booster comes with an iconic enchantment from Magic’s past. You can find a full list of these Enchanting Tales cards here. If you’re more of a Commander fan, you can check the two Wilds of Eldraine Commander precons.

If you don’t want to miss an update, give us a follow on Facebook or Instagram, where we post reminders for our popular articles, as well as MTG memes.

That’s it for today, there’s nothing much to say apart: “And they drafted happily ever after.”