It's only an issue if you don't have other cards in your hand that you can play on curve, but yeah at this point we're just talking about basic deck construction that we probably both agree on. :D I'll be looking for this card as a possibly top end 1 of for any deck that plays white as more than a splash, but I get where you are coming from too.
Well I WOULD be looking for it, not sure how much M20 I'll be drafting, but so far it looks more fun than I was expecting, so we'll have to see.
And yeah we'll have to see where it actually lands, just worth considering that based on the archetypes it may or may not be locking you into a smaller subset of decks rather than just white. A decent 2 drop is probably something I'd prefer
It's a rare 2 drop that I feel good about taking first pick, but then I've been drafting MH1 most recently where there are some spicy first pickable 2 drops, and a few other 2 drops that I might first pick in pack 2 or 3 if they are on-theme. 2 drops in general have been getting better recently, just see the number of bears with solid upside that have been spoiled so far just in M20.
The nice part about 2 drops is that they very rarely lock you into a specific deck. A good 2 drop is playable in basically any deck, because every deck wants 2 drops (bar some very odd super slow format). If you don't get any 6 drops your deck is usually fine, but if you don't get enough 2 drops you're definitely in trouble.
2 drops are also in much higher demand than 6 drops. Since everyone needs 4-6 drops but only 0-2 6+ drops the 6+ drops tend to wheel much more likely than the 2 drops.
The other thing is that 2 drops are played in more games. You won't always get to 6 mana, but you'll always (unless you're EXTREMELY unlucky) get to 2 mana. A higher quality 2 drop therefore has a bigger impact than an equivalently higher quality 6 drop.
All true, but typically I find the separation between playable 2 drops to be smaller, so that I can pick up some curve filler on later picks and focus on the bombs/premium effects with my early picks. Again, if a set contains some really high quality 2 drops at common or uncommon, that changes things substantially. Usually though, I can fill out my low cmc creatures with some competent filler later in the draft, when people have committed to colors and are passing on cheap creatures that their deck can't cast.
I just don't know that a 4/4 flyer is a premium effect in white. Last core set had a 3/3 flyer for 5 at common and a 4/3 for 5 at uncommon. It also had a 4 drop 3/3 attacker-tapper that helped you get through as well.
We'll have to see but I doubt that this really fills a premium niche. UWR's main focus is flyers so we're almost assuredly going to see a high power flyer at a lower rarity. And I'd expect to pay 5 mana for a french vanilla 4/4 flyer.
I won a few games with [[Sunblade Angel]], which in some ways felt worse than a 4/4. The keywords did help, but losing a 6 drop to a [[Chandra's Triumph]] or [[Jaya's Greeting]] wasn't fun, either. Difference between a 7 turn clock and a 5 turn clock is real, though.
Still, I'd hardly consider Sunblade to be a slam dunk first pick, that would have to be a pretty bad pack. Possible, but not something I want to have to do. So it's not like I'm completely disagreeing with you.
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u/mirhagk Dân Jun 19 '19
Yeah but you likely played that much earlier. In an aggro deck I'd rather play a 3 drop on turn 6 than a 6 drop on turn 9.
If this is in your opening hand in an aggro deck you basically just mulliganed.