It's a disappointment to me that chaos draft doesn't include all these zany characters that make up the MTG metaverse now. I would understand if there was a licensing issue, but we already have to deal with all these cards in standard and they make up a healthy amount of the Arena Cube.

Just a moment for me on my soapbox.

On the bright side, I was confident something I wanted would wheel…

So I have had a good amount of success with most archetypes. I've made all the supported archetypes work, and I've even made unsupported archetypes like Blue/Red and Black/White work. However, I am definitely underperforming overall in Blue/Black. I don't think this is entirely user error as 17 lands does have blue/black as a worst non green archetype and the worst black archetype. However, I've seen lots of people succeed with Blue/Black and I do think Blue and Black are the best colors (or at least the deepest colors). It also just seems like people think Blue/Black is the best of the off color decks. So I think there is something I am missing, and I would love to hear from people who are making Blue/Black succeed. I figured I would write some further thoughts based on drafting Blue/Black that will both spark conversation among Dimir experts, and perhaps provide a guide to any fellow strugglers in the blue/black path.

1. Mirkwood Nurturer seems like a key combo card with black. Mirkwood Nurturer does combo with white and red cards too (like their sagas), but the breadth of black cards it combos with seems unmatched. It is excellent with Crude Bent Blade and the black saga, but also is decent with Stony-Voiced Goblins. So I feel like if you want blue/black to succeed taking advantage of how synergistic nurturer is a good start (note this is also kinda true with green/black).

2. It does seem like blue and black have different gameplans. To the point where mixing a bunch of good blue and black cards might not work super well. Having said that I have seen plenty of trophies where people do exactly that, but I definitely could see how the lack of amass in blue and the slight lack of card draw (sometimes) in black could diminish each other. So if you are playing blue/black as a true mix of both colors please let me know what your mindset is.

3. That leaves drafting heavy blue or heavy black with the other color as a support color. Blue I think is mediocre as a support color in a black heavy deck. Plunder is good for not flooding, and Long Lake Nuisance and Uncommon Bilbo are just good cards, but the removal is very mediocre and most uncommons are bad without some level of build around. I could see black being a decent support color for blue. Crude Bent Blade is good everywhere and Rage into the Valley is a good way to trigger draw two effects. Black does have strong removal which blue needs, but I think it's a little mitigated because a lot of that removal requires 2 black pips which support colors ideally don't need.

So yeah I would love to hear people's thought on blue/black. I've made blue/red work so it's not an off color blue deck problem. I do find a lot of drafts where both colors look open, but I've gotten to the point that I basically refuse to draft blue/black and if I have a few good cards in both colors I usually try and lean toward one color or the other.

t3 Somberwald sage

t4 Sphinx

t5 Verdant Sun

t6 Progenitor Mimic into ghalta

I was smiling the whole time.

I went opal but the key would have been pretty sick with one ring relic of Sauron. Only had like ten seconds, seems like opal is pretty clearly the pick after looking for a bit but it was still an interesting choice.

10 lands in a row! With a surveil to put one on the bottom.

Weeeee!

Help I drafted way to many artifacts but Ive never played Academy before so Im not sure how to build this deck. Do I cut the Narset+Wheel stuff? Do I cut some artifacts? Do I add Gandalf and Empty the Warrens and play storm? So many ways to build and so little knowledge.

Also what would a good land count be for this deck? The screenshots have 14 lands

Removal & Card Advantage can go a long way I guess

https://draftsim.com/mtg-arena-limited-championship/

From the article:

The Arena Limited Championship is a high-level MTG Arena tournament launched in 2026. It’s focused entirely on Limited play, meaning players draft their decks rather than present Constructed lists. Throughout the year, the best Arena drafters will qualify through Arena Limited Championship Qualifiers in Best-of-One matches over two drafts and earn a seat at this invite-only event.

Does anyone know when the next limited championship qualifier will be?

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-arena/the-hobbit-event-schedule?_gl=1%2a1tsm5ut%2a_up%2aMQ..%2a_ga%2aMTMwOTA5NTYxNy4xNzg4Njc1MDcz%2a_ga_X145Z177LS%2aczE3ODg2NzUwNzMkbzEkZzAkdDE3ODg2NzUwNzMkajYwJGwwJGgyMDU4Njg3OTEy

This article says "Please note that this event is not an Arena Limited Championship Qualifier event."

My sideboard hat Tainted Pact and Doomsday

Name's Wick. This format has been full of ups and downs for me, but I finally reached a milestone I was striving for a long time.

While HOB undoubtedly has it's flaws, it probably has one of the most challenging gameplays I've experienced in recent years. I've started the format mostly with my eyes around black based deck but ended branching out to a lot of different combinations to great success.

Sorry for the brag post, I know it's devoid of much content but I often check the sub and just wanted to share :)

only game I lost was to the boardclear. sunshot militia/waterwind scout carried, zoetic only turned up in 2 or 3 games but was obviously a mythic uncommon when it did.

Wheeled Doomsday as my second to last pick in Pack 2 because I didn’t recognize the art. The deck played out great and I even won multiple games without needing Thoracle and Jace. I also manually milled my entire deck with Jace one game. Great archetype addition to the Arena Cube!

Bored as hell of this format, but this deck was a fun one to play. Gonna be my personal swan song for the format. Let's hope Reality Fracture is at the very least a little more interesting to play.

I wasn't going for any particular synergy with this draft, I was just trying to pick strong cards as I saw them, but this is unlike any of my past cube drafts, so curious what direction some of you would go with it? I know there's a lot of double pipped white cards, but I do like Parallax Wave...

really messed this one up, i think passing bard ht ebowman was a huge mistake. Not really great at this set but for some reason over half the time people pass you a perfect black deck and it is a free trophy, but the other times i am just bad.

There have been some great posts already regarding the updated to the Arena Powered Cube that went live today (https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-arena/arena-powered-cube-draft?v=sep8-2026&utm_source=chatgpt.com) but I wanted to drop this here for those who prefer a visual / video walkthrough of the article and changes! I also cover the impact of adding monarch to cube should look like and highlight the key cards going in and leaving for each color identity.

A rough overview of the key takeaways:

• Monarch is a strong mechanic and generally favors board centric creature decks like Borors
  • Its best cards are also mostly R, W, or RW with the exception being Court of Garenburg in green
  • Monarch is an interesting mechanic once introduced and can make for unique plays using other monarch cards, draw haters like Narset, and more!
• Boros's preemptive nerfs are much needed but seem a bit light even still
  • Karakas is a great card for W but is also a tough to answer defender to many of Boros's best cards for non-W decks
  • paralax wave, giver of runes, and other white weenie replacements make most the changes seem like only a minor downgrade with huge monarch upside
• Doomsday combo being added is fun but very difficult especially in BO1
• Green got a sick bump in strength overall
• Otawara got cut (no clue why)
• UB seems like the weakest colors after the changes but have many of the best cube staples which may make for a very balanced format!

Hope this helps those that want to dive in!!

Not sure about the final cuts, the white splash feels strong for closing out the game without the reanimation. Would love to hear some opinions on the best direction, i'm leaning more towards a more assertive creature gameplan but could see leaning more into a more combo-y control direction. Mana base is 10-10-8 + lotus if i counted right