Thread by @Deathsie

Welcome to my thread on drafting Dungeons and Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms! This is a set meant to replace the core set for 2021 and it's an above average set in terms of complexity/gameplay. Balance is pretty decent but has some flaws, especially in BO1 #MTGDND

Feel free to use my draft tierlist at Deathsie.com which I update daily. I'm very happy with where it's at and can be a tool for you to get a second opinion! For ease of access while drafting, the cards are ordered by mana value (not by best-to-worst) within each tier

Rule number one of #MTGDND is to go first. Going first is incredibly important in this format due to the lack of small removal and the aggressive statline of early game creatures. Going second often costs you 6-9 life from a 2 mana 3/1 and being prone to 3 mana removal spells

In terms of color ranking, red is likely the most flexible color at #1 for me. The red commons just do so much and play well with other colors. Dragon's Fire trades up with 4 and 5 drops, sometimes even more. If you're RB, Price of Loyalty is incredibly messed up with sac outlets

After red, white and black are not too far behind. These colors often rely on getting good uncommons such as Cleric Class or Reaper's Talisman to spike power, but can function mostly on commons and a good curve. Lifegain and venture are viable strategies and access to top commons

Green is the 4th best color for me which utilizes powerful commons such as Owlbear and Spoils of the Hunt. If you don't see these, probably best to stay out of green. Green plays well with other colors if you have these but has a lower density of powerful commons comparatively

Blue is probably the worst color in the set since the top tier commons rely on a combination of going first and getting lucky. Djinni Windseeker is the best common but it doesn't block 2 mana 3/1's and also dies easily to Dragon's Fire. Soulknife Spy is strong but hard to connect

Venture is an extremely cool mechanic yet also one of the most confusing limited mechanics to rate of all time. There are 3 accessible dungeons which each aim to provide relevance at different times for different archetypes. You always have access to these and need not be drafted

Dungeon of the Mad Mage: 7 floor dungeon which is extremely slow but provides the greatest amount of card advantage over time. You will almost never be starting this dungeon, but sometimes will be the 2nd dungeon you crawl after completing mid, assuming the game will drag on

Lost Mine of Phandelver: 4 floor normie dungeon. This is going to be the default ones for most decks to start out with OR if you have only a few random venture cards. Small incremental value but all the floors are meaningful and provide decent rewards. 90% of the time do this one

Tomb of Annihilation: 4 floor dungeon that is powerful when used correctly. The times when you should be looking to crawl this aggro dungeon is when you're going first, you have a strong board presence, your hand is set, and if the "value of face damage" exceeds the value of mid

The value of venture varies extremely depending on your deck and depending on your draw. Most of the time, venture will simply be used to smooth out your draw. In a venture-dedicated BW deck, venturing can be a main focus of your strategy. Venture gets better the more you have

Since the set is themed around Dungeons and Dragons, there exists a die roll mechanic which can be tilting for some players. Overall, I think the die rolls often don't matter much so I actually would have liked to see more extreme outcomes on rolls. Safe design but strong flavor

Signals in this format are actually quite complicated since you're not only looking for open colors, but you're looking for cards of that color which fit your strategy while *still* prioritizing card quality. A lot of cards are secret gold cards so focus on creating synergies

The commons in the set are weak. Sometimes at your 3rd pick and won't see any real Magic cards. Focus on drafting a synergistic deck to overcome low power level in the commons finding ways to make 1+1=3. Cards that provide you direction such as Cleric Class are extremely valuable

Aim on creating overlapping strategies and synergies with your cards. As usual, your cards should always be playing multiple roles in your deck. This creates depth in your gameplan and raises the power level even if you don't have rares. Think about how your colors work together

The best example of creating overlapping strategies are white-based decks which utilize attacking but also care about lifegain synergies capitalizing on buildarounds such as Cleric Class. You can have an attacking primary gameplan but have a lifegain subtheme

You can pair white with black to have a venture subtheme as well. A venture subtheme capitalizing on cards such as Zombie Ogre, Yuan-Ti Fang-Blade, and Barrowin lets you then utilize dungeon rewards to synergize with the lifegain theme or treasure theme with Skullport Merchant

THEN on top of that, you can make use of underdrafted cards such as Spare Dagger together with Yuan-Ti Fang-Blade and Reaper's Talisman to utilize deathtouch kills. If you have Ranger's Hawks, they can carry Spare Daggers for damage early then have venture potential later on

Splashing is quite difficult in this format for a few reasons. Outside of some black/red decks, you can't splash consistently. Access to Evolving Wilds helps but doesn't solve the problem. There's a lack cards powerful on the splash and players often make their deck weaker

Overall, the set is quite balanced and you can draft according to what's open in your seat. It's more important than ever, however, to get used to understanding which cards are relevant and which aren't in this format. For a "simple" draft format the draft portion is very skilled

I stream Fri-Tues at the moment starting around 7pm Pacific. Check out my Twitch VODs (twitch.tv/deathsie/videos) and sub to my YouTube (youtube.com/c/DEATHSIES) for additional free unmuted content. I'll be adding more to this thread if people have additional questions 🥳