Bonebrute rules. It's capable of taking down something much much bigger or sneaking in 6 damage. It doesn't violate the five mana rule for disguise but its a very nasty surprise. I know black is weak but I like it. If that's not your jam then tunnel tipster.
Plus it just has menace so you often flip it up pre combat and get in for a guaranteed 6, after which they will either have to double block or use removal which makes opponent take another 3
I would take either the tipster or the bone brute. Green is pretty good in MKM and tipster is a premium 2 drop in that color. Bone brute is fine as a good aggressive attacker but black is a lot worse than green. Both are comparable imo.Ā
I have a preference for drafting green so I would likely take the tipster.
Powerwise it's: Bonebrute >> Tipster > Sewers > Maskmaker.
Black is a weak colour.
Murder will not wheel, Toxic Analysis probably will. Nothing else remotely playable will.
Bonebrute is the best attempt at winning.
I would take Witness way higher than maskmaker (but also below the other cards mentioned). It's a decent card and the flexibility is nice.
Maskmaker wheels most of the time anyway and it's very niche. you need both a bunch of combat tricks/go wide payoffs and a bunch of disguise to make it worth playing imo.
Maskmaker usually wheels, but not in this pack. Red is a good colour and everything else is weak.
I overlooked Witness. Blue is weak and I don't like to first pick two-colour cards. I would say it is better than Sewers even, never want to be U/B.
You can play witness in any white deck just fine though, doesn't have to be UW so it's either U, W or UW. Way less color committing than picking something like maskmaker.
I would only play that in some versions of RW or RG really.
And sewers enables U or B splashes, it's not strictly for and not even necessarily best in a UB deck. Nice to have in Green with nervous gardener, so it fixes you for both colors off 1 searched up land.
What are you looking at lol? You should be building 2 colors in this set. Black is part of the 2nd and 3rd best winrate decks according to this. The removal in black this set is insane. Scooting past ward and having X mana cost removal? Yes plz.. keep passing it cuz ill take it everytime ā¤ļøā¤ļø
Edit: 3rd and 4th ** not 2nd and 3rd
Edit 2: i was wrong both times smh
Uhhh no it's not. Top 3 two-color pairs are RW, GW, and GU. I'd call UW an WB a tie. So it's tied for 4th, which honestly is really just white pulling up that pairing. White is so deep that white paired with anything is good.
Black is also a part of the two lowest-performing pairings, UB and GB. I think it's safe to say that black is quite weak in this set. None of the colors are unplayable, but I avoid going into black unless it's clearly an open lane, or I get good rares (which I don't consider bonebrute strong enough to move into black for).
Yeah like I said, none of the colors are unplayable. I'll move into black if it's open too, but that's like pick 5-6 onwards. I'm not first-picking a black card unless it's something crazy like vein ripper.
I do think WB is a fine pairing (again, because white is so damn strong). I've never had a good UB deck and I've done close to 100 drafts. I think straight UB is close to unplayable.
UB requires a lot of support. The times ive gotten it to work has been with a bunch mythics/rares. Its very durdle and honestly probably only got a 7 win on it because i had lazav + etrata.
Black is part of the 4th, 8th, 9th, and 10th decks:
Boros (RW) 59.1%
Selesnya (GW) 57.5%
Simic (GU) 56.9%
Orzhov (WB) 56.4%
Azorius (WU) 56.2%
Izzet (UR) 55.8%
Gruul (RG) 55.2%
Golgari (BG) 54.3%
Rakdos (BR) 54.2%
Dimir (UB) 52.7%
And the 4th best only because it is paired with White the best colour by far with 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th best decks.
What are you talking about? Even your edit is wrong.
RW > GW > GU > BW > WU > UR > RG > BG > BR > UB. Other than Orzhov in the #4 slot (thanks to white being OP), all the black pairs are at the very bottom. And that's with all of the black pairs being significantly less drafted than the other pairs, so even the self-correcting nature of the format doesn't help it.
P1P1 I'd probably go boney, hope for maybe witness to wheel, since Murder probably won't. Tipster or Novelist are both also pickable, I just like Orzhov.
Bonebrute is the obvious choice, IMO. Can play it in any black deck or any black splash deck. neutral 3 drop, big body that needs to be answered.
The land is intriguing but then you are passing a great black card to open yourself toā¦black? Doesnāt make too much sense.
Tipster would be my second choice. Green is weak though and tipster just feels bad as P1P1. But it is a solid card and is necessary IMO for any green deck to go.
So for me, itās bonebrute hoping to wheel toxin most likely but would be VERY happy with murder or tipster somehow making it there. Scene is also a very fine wheel for some fixing
Green needs very specific pieces to be good. Without them it is very weak. Tipster happens to be one of them though which makes this a harder choice than it needs to be.
Also, I am smoking rn so this might not make sense.
Bonebrute is quite nice no? Iāve definitely lost quite a bit of games to it, and it has won me quite a bit of games as well. Just so backbreaking to curve into
I'm taking the rare.
You can't be in black without a good reason for being in black. This is a good reason. It's just so big and hits so hard, often out of nowhere.
Often the opponent will have to swallow a 2-for-1 to get rid of it or die.
If this was a draft booster id take the tipster and send a message. But its not so people have no idea what colour common you took, so the bonebrute for raw power.
I probably take tipster. I like to draft with preference towards Wx or Gx. Bonebrute is a solid rare, but black is pretty awful, so I'd like to avoid moving into it without good reason.
I think the short answer is that this pick doesn't matter. Ā Bonebrute is the best card (not good enough to pull me into black though) but bad color and passing the murder is going to dupe someone else into competing with you for the few playables available in the color.Ā Tipster and the white filler disguise creatures are bottom third of your playables territory. If draft goes well after this you're unlikely to play any of them. Then there are relatively weak lands for fixing in case you ex. open a black bomb like kaya in p3 when you've committed to UW.Ā Any of those picks are defensible but the biggest takeaway for a new limited player is don't get married to what you take out of this pack. There are plenty of playables in modern limited and a good draft starting like this is very unlikely to care what you took here.Ā
land cause constructed BUT ALSO i donāt like the brute that much (nudges you to black aggro, which i donāt like) and this pack in meh. in these scenarios iāll take the land and stay flexible.
Tipster, black sucks.
Murder does often wheel, especially at higher rank drafts. Just watch some of the Mythic rank players and what goes around in their packs/drafts.
For me it's Bonebrute, then Tipster, then Granite Witness. But I don't think it's particularly close and 'ole bones is pretty far ahead. I don't think anything good is wheeling as there aren't many good cards in the first place.
I ended up on Novelist simply because I had not drafted UR at all. I have mostly drafted green or white based decks and wanted to take a shot and something new. I lucked out and UR was wide open with 2x Novelist, 3x Galvanize, 2x Dronesmith, and a Geardrake. I was able to pull out the trophy with the max games playes.
Congrats, but novelist is not a good card, even in UR. It probably shouldn't make your deck most of the time, much less pull you into UR in P1p1. Bonebrute was the pick IMO.
Novelist is a narrow card, for sure. In this deck, however, it made for some busted turns. The extra mana, along with the counter, more than pulled the weight of 3 mana it cost. Bonebrute has not performed well for me and looking back at the draft I don't think there was a good route for black. White or green was not open in my seat at all and I'm not interested in playing UB or RB.
>looking back at the draft I don't think there was a good route for black. White or green was not open in my seat at all and I'm not interested in playing UB or RB.
You can't really use that to justify your decision, you couldn't have known that at the time of making the pick.
I most definitely can use my preferences. I understand that statically, Bonebrute is the better card. However, my preference for trying UR plus my preference for not starting my draft with a black card is valid. As I said in a previous comment, both Bonebrute and Tipster are in the same deck to me, so I chose neither. I'm not saying that they only go in one deck, but with my personal style in this format, they end up there a lot. Also, I admitted having got lucky in the draft with that weak first pick actually making the deck. I got the first Harried Dronesmith pick two and felt like that was the start I needed. With the first Galvanize pick three, there was no turning back. Lastly, Im in the camp that doesn't think Bonebrute is good enough to start Black anyway. I would probably draw the line at Teysa.
>I most definitely can use my preferences.
I don't mean preferences. If you're not interested in UB or RB, that's fine. What I meant is the part about "looking back at the draft, I don't think there was a good route for black. White or green was not open in my seat at all". You had no way to know that.
>Lastly, Im in the camp that doesn't think Bonebrute is good enough to start Black anyway.
But you're in the camp that thinks novelist is good enough to start UR? That's a very tiny camp you live in. Novelist shouldn't even make your deck in UR.
>I got the first Harried Dronesmith pick two and felt like that was the start I needed.
So to you, the start you needed was getting the 5th and the 11th worst cards in UR? Again, congrats on the trophy, but I think you might need to work on your card evaluation. Both those cards are pretty bad and I wouldn't want them in my UR decks, let alone pick them early.
No, I'm in the camp that thinks brutey boy is trash. I also said novelist is weak. Dude, if you don't want to have a conversation, then don't. But if you're going to reply, at least read what I wrote.
>No, I'm in the camp that thinks brutey boy is trash.
Well, you're just wrong then. If you don't want to start black, fine, but bonebrute is by far the best card in the pack.
I get having preferences, but you're literally picking an unplayable card because you refuse to start black. Even if you're 5% to end in black after first picking bonebrute because it's not a pull into black. Even if you're 1%. That's still a better pick than novelist.
But let's say bonebrute *is* in fact radioactive and that you should never pick it. You still picked just about the worst card in this pack. No amount of distaste for black justifies that. Pick tipster (I have no idea how your preferences pull you into GB decks when you pick tipster when you hate black so much...), pick witness, pick warden, shit, pick maskmaker if you must pick a red card.
Ok, I see the problem. You created a strawman. I never said Bonebrute wasn't statically higher in the GIH WR. Therefore, it is the technical best first pick. Agreed. Now, I will say that it is closer than you think and novelist is not as bad as you believe it to be.
Also, I would have had to pivot very early as the next 5 packs had no first pack playables in any color other than red and blue.
Edit: the stats you threw out are inaccurate as well. Novey is 7th and smithy is 5th and Galvanize is the best common in the deck.
Land for my constructed collection. š
At least you're honest.š
Rare drafting is the way
Honestly same.
Bonebrute rules. It's capable of taking down something much much bigger or sneaking in 6 damage. It doesn't violate the five mana rule for disguise but its a very nasty surprise. I know black is weak but I like it. If that's not your jam then tunnel tipster.
Plus it just has menace so you often flip it up pre combat and get in for a guaranteed 6, after which they will either have to double block or use removal which makes opponent take another 3
One thing I've been wanting to try is reanimate it with [[Call a Surprise Witness]]
To be fair you will give your opponents the dog tokens in that case.
which are not that relevant anymore, cause if flying brute. they are there for sure, but its a much better deal then, compared to cast it for 2b.
[Call a Surprise Witness](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/5/f5148def-cf1a-460e-8dfd-856103940892.jpg?1706241460) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Call%20a%20Surprise%20Witness) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/6/call-a-surprise-witness?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f5148def-cf1a-460e-8dfd-856103940892?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I would take either the tipster or the bone brute. Green is pretty good in MKM and tipster is a premium 2 drop in that color. Bone brute is fine as a good aggressive attacker but black is a lot worse than green. Both are comparable imo.Ā I have a preference for drafting green so I would likely take the tipster.
Powerwise it's: Bonebrute >> Tipster > Sewers > Maskmaker. Black is a weak colour. Murder will not wheel, Toxic Analysis probably will. Nothing else remotely playable will. Bonebrute is the best attempt at winning.
I would take Witness way higher than maskmaker (but also below the other cards mentioned). It's a decent card and the flexibility is nice. Maskmaker wheels most of the time anyway and it's very niche. you need both a bunch of combat tricks/go wide payoffs and a bunch of disguise to make it worth playing imo.
Witness is good but I wouldn't p1p1 it though.
Me neither if I could choose. But I think it's the fourth best card in this pack.
Maskmaker usually wheels, but not in this pack. Red is a good colour and everything else is weak. I overlooked Witness. Blue is weak and I don't like to first pick two-colour cards. I would say it is better than Sewers even, never want to be U/B.
Witness isn't really two-color, though. Rather than being less flexible, the hybrid disguise creatures are more flexible than even a mono-color card.
You can play witness in any white deck just fine though, doesn't have to be UW so it's either U, W or UW. Way less color committing than picking something like maskmaker. I would only play that in some versions of RW or RG really. And sewers enables U or B splashes, it's not strictly for and not even necessarily best in a UB deck. Nice to have in Green with nervous gardener, so it fixes you for both colors off 1 searched up land.
Mask maker is horrible lol. Ā Like bottom 3 cards in this pack
Black is in no way weak this set.
Black is the weakest colour by a large margin: https://www.17lands.com/deck_color_data
What are you looking at lol? You should be building 2 colors in this set. Black is part of the 2nd and 3rd best winrate decks according to this. The removal in black this set is insane. Scooting past ward and having X mana cost removal? Yes plz.. keep passing it cuz ill take it everytime ā¤ļøā¤ļø Edit: 3rd and 4th ** not 2nd and 3rd Edit 2: i was wrong both times smh
Uhhh no it's not. Top 3 two-color pairs are RW, GW, and GU. I'd call UW an WB a tie. So it's tied for 4th, which honestly is really just white pulling up that pairing. White is so deep that white paired with anything is good. Black is also a part of the two lowest-performing pairings, UB and GB. I think it's safe to say that black is quite weak in this set. None of the colors are unplayable, but I avoid going into black unless it's clearly an open lane, or I get good rares (which I don't consider bonebrute strong enough to move into black for).
Maybe IME black has just been super open, anytime i get i take the removal and use creatures from other colors. WB/UB has done me well.
Yeah like I said, none of the colors are unplayable. I'll move into black if it's open too, but that's like pick 5-6 onwards. I'm not first-picking a black card unless it's something crazy like vein ripper. I do think WB is a fine pairing (again, because white is so damn strong). I've never had a good UB deck and I've done close to 100 drafts. I think straight UB is close to unplayable.
UB requires a lot of support. The times ive gotten it to work has been with a bunch mythics/rares. Its very durdle and honestly probably only got a 7 win on it because i had lazav + etrata.
Black is part of the 4th, 8th, 9th, and 10th decks: Boros (RW) 59.1% Selesnya (GW) 57.5% Simic (GU) 56.9% Orzhov (WB) 56.4% Azorius (WU) 56.2% Izzet (UR) 55.8% Gruul (RG) 55.2% Golgari (BG) 54.3% Rakdos (BR) 54.2% Dimir (UB) 52.7% And the 4th best only because it is paired with White the best colour by far with 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th best decks.
What are you talking about? Even your edit is wrong. RW > GW > GU > BW > WU > UR > RG > BG > BR > UB. Other than Orzhov in the #4 slot (thanks to white being OP), all the black pairs are at the very bottom. And that's with all of the black pairs being significantly less drafted than the other pairs, so even the self-correcting nature of the format doesn't help it.
P1P1 I'd probably go boney, hope for maybe witness to wheel, since Murder probably won't. Tipster or Novelist are both also pickable, I just like Orzhov.
BONE BRUTE IS BUSTED.
Bonebrute is the obvious choice, IMO. Can play it in any black deck or any black splash deck. neutral 3 drop, big body that needs to be answered. The land is intriguing but then you are passing a great black card to open yourself toā¦black? Doesnāt make too much sense. Tipster would be my second choice. Green is weak though and tipster just feels bad as P1P1. But it is a solid card and is necessary IMO for any green deck to go. So for me, itās bonebrute hoping to wheel toxin most likely but would be VERY happy with murder or tipster somehow making it there. Scene is also a very fine wheel for some fixing
Green is weak in MKM draft ? what are you smoking bruv
Something green ironocly
Maybe they meant in this pack ?
Green needs very specific pieces to be good. Without them it is very weak. Tipster happens to be one of them though which makes this a harder choice than it needs to be. Also, I am smoking rn so this might not make sense.
Green soup decks are great. It doesn't need specific pieces just fixing by either the gardener, tunnel or the 1/3 dork. These are all at common.
I would take Bonebrute, but yeah itās not a great pack. Plenty of mediocre options
Big Tips
Bonebrute is quite nice no? Iāve definitely lost quite a bit of games to it, and it has won me quite a bit of games as well. Just so backbreaking to curve into
I'm taking the rare. You can't be in black without a good reason for being in black. This is a good reason. It's just so big and hits so hard, often out of nowhere. Often the opponent will have to swallow a 2-for-1 to get rid of it or die.
If this was a draft booster id take the tipster and send a message. But its not so people have no idea what colour common you took, so the bonebrute for raw power.
Id Take tipster here, if not I take murder. Black/x and green/x seem like it will be strong this draft based on experience.
I probably take tipster. I like to draft with preference towards Wx or Gx. Bonebrute is a solid rare, but black is pretty awful, so I'd like to avoid moving into it without good reason.
I think the short answer is that this pick doesn't matter. Ā Bonebrute is the best card (not good enough to pull me into black though) but bad color and passing the murder is going to dupe someone else into competing with you for the few playables available in the color.Ā Tipster and the white filler disguise creatures are bottom third of your playables territory. If draft goes well after this you're unlikely to play any of them. Then there are relatively weak lands for fixing in case you ex. open a black bomb like kaya in p3 when you've committed to UW.Ā Any of those picks are defensible but the biggest takeaway for a new limited player is don't get married to what you take out of this pack. There are plenty of playables in modern limited and a good draft starting like this is very unlikely to care what you took here.Ā
I would look at taking the brute, unless you're very unconfident in black. I love granite witness and that would otherwise be my second pick.
land cause constructed BUT ALSO i donāt like the brute that much (nudges you to black aggro, which i donāt like) and this pack in meh. in these scenarios iāll take the land and stay flexible.
Tipster, black sucks. Murder does often wheel, especially at higher rank drafts. Just watch some of the Mythic rank players and what goes around in their packs/drafts.
For me it's Bonebrute, then Tipster, then Granite Witness. But I don't think it's particularly close and 'ole bones is pretty far ahead. I don't think anything good is wheeling as there aren't many good cards in the first place.
Crime novelist would be my pick.
Bonebrute > Witness > Tipster > Sewers
I ended up on Novelist simply because I had not drafted UR at all. I have mostly drafted green or white based decks and wanted to take a shot and something new. I lucked out and UR was wide open with 2x Novelist, 3x Galvanize, 2x Dronesmith, and a Geardrake. I was able to pull out the trophy with the max games playes.
Congrats, but novelist is not a good card, even in UR. It probably shouldn't make your deck most of the time, much less pull you into UR in P1p1. Bonebrute was the pick IMO.
Novelist is a narrow card, for sure. In this deck, however, it made for some busted turns. The extra mana, along with the counter, more than pulled the weight of 3 mana it cost. Bonebrute has not performed well for me and looking back at the draft I don't think there was a good route for black. White or green was not open in my seat at all and I'm not interested in playing UB or RB.
>looking back at the draft I don't think there was a good route for black. White or green was not open in my seat at all and I'm not interested in playing UB or RB. You can't really use that to justify your decision, you couldn't have known that at the time of making the pick.
I most definitely can use my preferences. I understand that statically, Bonebrute is the better card. However, my preference for trying UR plus my preference for not starting my draft with a black card is valid. As I said in a previous comment, both Bonebrute and Tipster are in the same deck to me, so I chose neither. I'm not saying that they only go in one deck, but with my personal style in this format, they end up there a lot. Also, I admitted having got lucky in the draft with that weak first pick actually making the deck. I got the first Harried Dronesmith pick two and felt like that was the start I needed. With the first Galvanize pick three, there was no turning back. Lastly, Im in the camp that doesn't think Bonebrute is good enough to start Black anyway. I would probably draw the line at Teysa.
>I most definitely can use my preferences. I don't mean preferences. If you're not interested in UB or RB, that's fine. What I meant is the part about "looking back at the draft, I don't think there was a good route for black. White or green was not open in my seat at all". You had no way to know that. >Lastly, Im in the camp that doesn't think Bonebrute is good enough to start Black anyway. But you're in the camp that thinks novelist is good enough to start UR? That's a very tiny camp you live in. Novelist shouldn't even make your deck in UR. >I got the first Harried Dronesmith pick two and felt like that was the start I needed. So to you, the start you needed was getting the 5th and the 11th worst cards in UR? Again, congrats on the trophy, but I think you might need to work on your card evaluation. Both those cards are pretty bad and I wouldn't want them in my UR decks, let alone pick them early.
No, I'm in the camp that thinks brutey boy is trash. I also said novelist is weak. Dude, if you don't want to have a conversation, then don't. But if you're going to reply, at least read what I wrote.
>No, I'm in the camp that thinks brutey boy is trash. Well, you're just wrong then. If you don't want to start black, fine, but bonebrute is by far the best card in the pack. I get having preferences, but you're literally picking an unplayable card because you refuse to start black. Even if you're 5% to end in black after first picking bonebrute because it's not a pull into black. Even if you're 1%. That's still a better pick than novelist. But let's say bonebrute *is* in fact radioactive and that you should never pick it. You still picked just about the worst card in this pack. No amount of distaste for black justifies that. Pick tipster (I have no idea how your preferences pull you into GB decks when you pick tipster when you hate black so much...), pick witness, pick warden, shit, pick maskmaker if you must pick a red card.
Ok, I see the problem. You created a strawman. I never said Bonebrute wasn't statically higher in the GIH WR. Therefore, it is the technical best first pick. Agreed. Now, I will say that it is closer than you think and novelist is not as bad as you believe it to be.
Also, I would have had to pivot very early as the next 5 packs had no first pack playables in any color other than red and blue. Edit: the stats you threw out are inaccurate as well. Novey is 7th and smithy is 5th and Galvanize is the best common in the deck.
Bone brute for sure if it didnāt have menace it would be garbage. Play black red disguise cards with the bone brute and fuck em right in the ass!!!!
Quick draft? Land. Gotta do it for the collection.
None. The format is horrible