For two of the three Dragon’s Maze drafts I’ve done since the set’s release, I took Putrefy pack-one, pick-one. Unconditional removal is awesome, even if it comes at the price of having to commit to a color combination early on. After all, this format is built to accommodate a bit of greed.
But how greedy is too greedy in this format?
I ended up going BUG in both those drafts. I won one almost effortlessly and went 2-1 in another, losing to wildly inconsistent draws. One of these drafts was a conventional eight-person pod, the other a six-person. I’ll give you one guess as to which was which.
Six-person pods are especially bad in this format, I feel, because the fixing just isn’t there. Not enough cards get opened at the table to support three colors, which just so happens to be the direction the first pack nudges you in. Thus, you’re left praying for a Prophetic Prism or a Verdant Haven in the second pack. And even then, there’s still that uneasy feeling that someone’s just going to put a Madcap Skills on a random dude and kill you.
But that’s Limited, I suppose. All sorts of unforeseen circumstances can arise. In my third, non-BUG DGM draft (also a pod of six), I managed to stay in two colors (it’s relatively easy when you open Advent of the Wurm and Loxodon Smiter and get shipped a Deadbridge Goliath) but still died to a four-color deck when my opponent put a Madcap Skills on a Disciple of the Old Ways. I ended up winning the match, and the pod, but it does seem to suggest that multi-color monstrosities are actually viable with the right draws. For my part, I wouldn’t go into a DGM draft looking to go above three colors (and after these three drafts, I’m definitely aiming for just two colors in smaller pods), but if the right cards show up, anything’s possible.
Another takeaway is that evasion is even more awesome here than in other formats. There are just too many X/4s to even consider pushing through damage on the ground, so I just played a bunch of gatekeepers (oftentimes for no value) to clog up the board and got there with Wind Drake and Friends.
We’re still in the beginning stages of the format, so I don’t want to pass any judgment until I’ve had more exposure. I will say that, thus far, I’ve found it to be enjoyable, if a bit clunky at times.