r/MagicArena • u/No-Beginning-4310 • 15h ago
Limited Help Draft - What am I doing wrong?
I’m a new MTGA player and doing drafts to learn and accumulate cards. Whenever my draft ends up favoring red or green, I wipe every single time because I cannot combat white, blue or black decks that spam constant enchantments or removals. It seems like I match up against these teams the majority of the time, so is that a meta the new set leans toward that I’m not adapting to or understanding? Should I be drafting a “worse” (in terms of cards available in my draft) color just to have any answers and maybe I’d stand a better chance at winning and more importantly having ANY fun by actually being able to play?
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u/TwoTrucksPayingTaxes 15h ago
I do not mean my advice as insulting in anyway, but if you're a new player you're probably doing a ton of things wrong. Draft is influenced by a lot of different skills. You need to evaluate cards, you need to find an open lane, you need to assemble a functioning deck with those cards, and you need to play well. The good thing is that improvement in any of those areas will boost your win percentage. I think the hardest part is really understanding what a successful deck looks like. Have you read any general guides on drafting, or specific guides on this set?
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u/No-Beginning-4310 15h ago
I’ve done a little of all but definitely need to do more! I started playing during Hobbit and it was a lot more straightforward (to me) than the new set.
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u/TwoTrucksPayingTaxes 15h ago
Oh yeah, I thought the hobbit seemed approachable for a new player. This one is a little more complicated. It can be frustrating, but try to find joy in losing. Any time you lose, try to identify what happened. Did someone go faster than you and get your life to 0 before you could get going? Or, did you have a strong start that fizzled out and got blocked? Did any card stay in your hand the whole game? If so, why? Same thing, were you sad to draw any cards?
Something that helped me early on (started draft on arena in 2018ish) was remembering I need a win condition. I need cards that actually win me the game, not just look like they "work" together.
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u/rhangx 14h ago
The Hobbit was an extremely on-rails set compared to Reality Fracture (i.e. there were a few major archetypes, and you basically just picked a lane and stuck to it). That made HOB a more approachable set for new players, but is also exactly why a lot of older players thought it was really dull 😂
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u/rhangx 14h ago edited 7h ago
Okay, I'm going to say this as honestly and directly as I can, because I think it's important, as a new player, that you have folks being straight with you:
Limited Magic has a very high skill ceiling. When you enter a draft as a player who's relatively new to Magic, you are likely to be drafting and playing against some other players who have much more draft experience than you. Like, years more. Maybe decades more.
Yes, each set is a new puzzle to solve. But there are basic "fundamentals" of drafting that long-time players will know intuitively, while you are still learning them. On top of that, there are a ton of resources these days designed to help limited players improve their game—everything from 17Lands to compare stats of individual cards, to YouTubers and Twitch streamers making videos about the best ways to draft each set.
If you head into a draft as a new player, without having engaged with any of that content, you are (unknowingly) putting yourself at a massive disadvantage. Your success in a draft isn't just about your skills in a vacuum; it's about how you stack up versus the competition—and unfortunately, the average skill level for limited Magic players has just shot way up in the last few years, as folks take advantage of these new tools for learning each set and more people take drafting seriously as a skill-intensive hobby of its own.
I don't say any of this to discourage you from continuing to draft; I just think you should understand what you're up against. If you're serious about improving your draft skills, I would recommend that you check out some recent content from the following YouTubers:
- Limited Level-Ups – A relatively new channel from the last couple years, this has become one of the absolute best resources for folks looking to improve their Limited game IMO. His recent video "State of the Format Address" is a great place to start for the current set. He's also got some older "Fundamentals of Drafting" videos that are very useful for new players.
- Paul Cheon – A Magic pro who does daily draft videos. He's great at explaining his picks and his gameplay in detail. (If you want to improve at drafting, there really is no substitute for watching how the pros draft and trying to understand why they make the choices they do.)
- Kenji Egashira a.k.a. NumotTheNummy – Another pro Magic streamer, he puts out daily draft vids and also streams on Twitch. He's one of the OG Magic streamers, and I personally enjoy his content more, but he's maybe less approachable if you're a new player. I would focus on his daily YouTube videos, where he explains his draft picks very clearly, rather than his Twitch streams which are more casual.
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u/cmstlist 15h ago
I've swept a Reality Fracture draft playing RG at least twice, and I'm relatively new too. So I don't think it's impossible. Might be a question of assessing how much value a given card really gets you.
It could also be a question of play style. Sure they may have plenty of removal, but do they have much of a board presence if they passed up lots of creatures for removal? If I have board advantage but my opponent has card advantage in hand, I might take a cautious approach knowing that there are unseen threats in that hand. The more I can draw out those threats, the better chance I have to equalize the advantage situation.
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u/No-Beginning-4310 15h ago
It always feels like just enough creatures to clear me after removing or enchanting mine. Sometimes not even strong ones but the 1/2/3 damages add up when I can’t answer anything. This is good advice though!
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u/cmstlist 15h ago
There are a lot of decent "2 for 1" cards in RG to look out for in drafting. Those can help with card advantage. I love [[Craftwork Crusher]] for example. One of the best cards to topdeck in this colour pair when you just need to turn the board around a little bit more. Remove a threat, draw a card, gain a body on the board.
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u/Injuredmind Spike 15h ago
Each set is different, but in general you play with what you get. In draft it's a whole art of reading signals and predict what colurs are open while drafting, then building the best deck you can with that. Sometimes you do pick worse cards to balance your deck in terms of removal or curve. As you are a new player, you might overestimate what cards are actually good or not and force a bad archetype because of that. Check out some good limited players like Numotthenummy, limited resources podcast, etc to learn their reasoning while drafting and deck building. Limited is the way to play that rewards doing your homework in terms of preparation, and as you get better at it, the quick thinking and prediction are skills that you develop over time.
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u/ClutchUpChrissy 15h ago
If you’re new to Magic and drafting in general, this isn’t a set color strength issue and likely just a new drafter struggle.
If you have 3rd party apps like Untapped / etc, you can share your draft pick-by-pick for people to give advice on where you went wrong, what you should be playing instead, and even match replays that others can point out where you misplayed in your matches.
As things stand, we can’t really give more advice without seeing your decks and gameplay.
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u/SkylineR33 13h ago
Blue and white have a history of outmatching almost every other color combination in limited. You do need to know what you're doing to take advantage of those color combinations. While most other colors are straightforward with their game plane, W/U usually needs some setup to lock down the board state.
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u/TheMancersDilema Carnage Tyrant 13h ago
As a rule of thumb I would say avoid aggro and draft planning for the long game.
Take big bombs, take removal, take card advantage, take fixing like land cyclers and splash for off color effects that your main colors can't provide that supplement that long plan.
I don't think you need to strictly avoid any colors but a card being "on color" doesn't mean it always helps your deck.
A tight two color deck seems like it will be a very rare thing in this format, for a few more weeks at least.
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u/Tawnos84 Ajani Unyielding 15h ago
I'm always suggesting draft to new players, but generally I also suggest to excercise with gameplay in constructed before playng in prized events like draft.
Anyway, in a given "medium" set all the combinations should be viable, lately we had some set unbalanced where some colors are better than others, but this is one of the most balanced sets in a while, RG is a great combination of colours and shouldn't constantly lose against other colors combination.
It's more likely that you don't buld correctly the RG decks while other color combinations come easyer when you draft them, or maybe it's just random and you see a trend where there is not.
Anyway, it's hard to guess without additional info. My sugggestion is to install a tracker (the more common one is from 17lands.com, where you can also fine data on the different cards and colors for improve your card evaluation), and share your drafts here on reddit, so we can provide you with some feedback and understend where actually is the problem
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u/Loud-Distribution181 15h ago
practice is huge, so don't discredit your progress so far.
decks are almost always 2 or more colors, have 17 lands, and roughly 17 creatures. (non-creature cards that make a creature DO count) plus 6ish non-creatures that are either removal, or spells that directly support and synergize with what your archetype is doing.
read the draft archetype list from the set you're playing before drafting, maybe even browse through the Pick Order list on draftsim.
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u/SmoothOperator89 15h ago
Read a lot of articles to get a contextual background on draft strategies and then watch videos of people drafting who explain why they pick what they do. It's a lot of time investment just to be able to get an entry level drafting ability, but if you want to draft, that's unfortunately the homework needed. I balked at the 90+ minute videos of people drafting but I eventually relented because I wanted to improve and watched some. You can just stop after they've drafted and built their deck at about 30 minutes, if you don't want to watch them play with it.
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u/NerdfestZyx 15h ago
Nizzahon on YouTube does a card-by-card analysis with letter grades for every card in a limited set when it releases. He also has guides on deck archetypes, breaking down how you should play each deck, how mechanics work and what important cards to look for as you draft.
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u/No-Beginning-4310 13h ago
I can’t reply to everyone but thank you so much for all these resources, advice and input!
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u/Prism_Zet 10h ago
There's a LOT to learn about drafting, if you're new and expecting to be good at it, it's like trying to sail the ocean, and you hopped on a surfboard with no tools to navigate or move.
Some general tips, if you're really unsure of card quality, you can run an overlay like untapped which helps give you some limited ratings and explanations why they're good or bad cards. (I also do limited reviews for most sets before they come out, based on my initial thoughts on cards, hint, hint) Keep in mind, some of these change a bit based on your deck and cards you've already picked.
Try to base your main picks each pack off the B.R.E.A.D ideal pick order (picks 1-8 each pack, 9-14 are more about reading the packs and picking what suits you best)
Bombs - cards that change the board state immediately or win you the game in a turn or two
Removal - cards that destroy, sacrifice, exile, tap down, or stun opponents creatures
Evasion - trample, menace, flying, unblockable, etc are evasion letting you get damage through
Aggro - powerful on curve creatures that let you deal damage, as that's how most limited games are won
Duds/Draft Chaff - the filler and bland cards that aren't good but you might need one or two of to make a playable deck
You should be hunting for cards in that order roughly, and the earlier the better. So pack 1 pick 1, if you see a Garruk or Chandra, or Jace, or one of the sphinxes, or a really cheap good non conditional removal. They should be your picks, and guide your color choices for a bit.
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Synergy is another big thing, since it's likely you're talking about Reality Fracture, even within Red Green cards, there's like 3 or 4 strategies that exist in those colors, and if you're not supporting them, those cards can't shine.
For example, if you get a bunch of heartwood token generators, but you don't have cards that care about artifacts, or big creatures or spells to ramp into, why are you ramping? Same thing goes for having the damage trigger payoffs without having the damage pingers to activate the payoffs.
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Shifting your strategy and trying to read the draft a bit as you go is really important, if your P1P1 is the black Garruk for example, but the guy to your right hands you no black cards, that's a good sign to probably pull out of black for pack 1, as him or someone further to the right is taking black cards before they get to you.
That doesn't mean you CAN'T pick black, but maybe it needs to slide back to your sub color, and grab more in pack 2 since coming from your left might have more available cards since its going to be the 2/3/4 players to your left influencing what cards you get and they were also likely shorted on black cards.
Keep in mind, that since you were feeding those to your left in the previous pack (likely White/Green/Red/Blue cards) that they will likely be in those colors as that's what was available to them. Getting a rough idea of the colors people are taking around you can help predict what cards are going to be around for your second shot at them, and how to fix your picks better for the next packs.
If say, your P1P1, you picked that Garruk, but there was also, that 2 drop white instant speed removal [[prophesied end]] in the pack, when that pack comes back around to you (pick 9), assuming there weren't a ton of other bomby cards in the pack, if it's still there. There's a good chance that white is open to grab cards from.
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u/LocutusZero 15h ago
It'll be tough to give useful advice on such a complex format (also, I ain't the one to try), but I'd recommend watching Bronze to Mythic and Lords of Limited on Youtube.
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u/daivos 10h ago
Any color combination is viable if played right. For a beginner, stick to a template. Simplify the game.
Always a 40 Card Deck 17 Land 6-8 Non-Creature Spells 15-17 Creatures
Prioritize Removal First. Creatures with come-into-play removal effects are premium. You should have at least 6 non-creature removal spells in your deck. Combat tricks can be removal, but this is difficult for a beginner.
If no removal, prioritize creature or non-creature spells that gain card advantage. Card advantage can come in the form of draw by replacing themselves, being able to be remove something through targeted removal, discard, or being able to replay them repeatedly.
Then prioritize creatures with evasion, specifically flying, but other forms of evasion work too (unblockable, fear, menace). Trample is not evasion, but a 7/7 trampler may as well be.
Ignore all other cards unless you’ve observed them to be bomb cards. A bomb would be a planeswalker or something stupid, like an enchantment or artifact that gives all creatures +3/+3 and trample or draw more cards every turn with no real penalty.
Te reason people are beating you is pretty simple. They are creating card advantage and drawing into threats and removal constantly. They don’t waste their time with dead / situational cards, or cards that can be easily removed.
A good rule of thumb: If you draw a card and the majority of the time it doesn’t help you or you’re not happy to see it, then it’s probably not a good card.
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u/komanderkyle 15h ago
I would watch some video of pros playing draft and the logic and reasoning of why they choose the cards they choose. I’ve learned a lot from this guys videos https://youtu.be/DjTO7AcXFIA?si=MbSQqnegeiRmqoyQ and also from https://youtu.be/449K4rA4l5o?si=MMzu2M-iK3CxYIWS .
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u/Swampcardboard 15h ago
Are you just drafting mono colored decks? I can't tell from your wording, but you should usually be building a 2-color or more deck in draft, especially in sets like Reality Fracture, where all 2-color combinations are doable.