Core Set 2020 Cards I Draft More Than You Do

I've been drafting a lot of Core Set 2020 on Arena, trying to rack up Wild Cards for Throne of Eldraine  release. I have felt the things I like doing in the format are fairly disjointed from public discussion of it, as evidenced by writing about how I really enjoyed drafting White a couple weeks ago. Rather having unique specific archetype maps to follow, I think I'm following fairly different principles.

All of my views on Core Set 2020 Draft revolve around a few things:

• Past Winged Words there isn't a big card draw spell or a Salvager of Secrets.
• Murder, Pacifism, Chandra's Outrage, Sleep Paralysis, and Rabid Bite all exist at common, plus a bunch more removal.
• Most creatures don't have dynamic text, they are whatever size they are and don't have weird evasion. Even the synergies are isolated and smaller.
• Creatures scale up at a reasonable clip, but the curve up is smooth.

Going backwards from that list, here's the implications.

• You can't aggro people out, because creatures get obsoleted quickly, but there also isn't a point where creatures eclipse double blocks.
• Your creatures are largely just bashing into each other and trading at their presented rates.
• Even if you do make something massive or jump the curve with an aura, your opponent can readily answer it.
• There isn't an easily setup for a control deck where you overwhelm your opponent on cards.

Most games you and your opponent have access to similar amounts of removal, similar amounts of every creature sizing up the curve, and your goal is to force trades in such a way that you end up with a 6 drop and they don't, or such that your leftovers force lethal damage through.

With that intro, here are the cards I see myself liking way more than other people in Core Set 2020 Draft as a result of thinking of the format this way.

White:

I had some kind words for Inspiring Captain last blog post, and I've only gotten more excited by the card since then.

I had an Orzhov deck where I started with 2 Inspiring Captains maindeck and 2 in the sideboard. By the end of the draft I was just playing all 4, casting Soul Salvage for multiples, and wondering what the actual number I would play is.

Within this concept of everything kinda being static sizes, Inspiring Captain breaks that open. Your opponent's options when Inspiring Captain hits the battlefield are take a bunch of damage, or trade down for worse creatures. The reason Inspiring Captain stacks so well in multiples is that while they may be able to take one hit or trade down a once to balance life and card quality as resources, the next time they are going to be forced to make a bad choice.

And each time you cast Inspiring Captain you are still adding a 3/3 to your battlefield at an acceptable rate. That's also why it stacks so well. If you Inspiring Captain and they trade off, the next turn still looks like you are pushing through real damage.

Inspiring Charge, the instant, doesn't have this progressive upside and is way worse in a format without tons of good multiple body cards to leverage the +2 power. While Raise the Alarm and Ferocious Pup exist, they are really mediocre when you don't draw the enhancement effects. This distinction is important, I'm just curving out Moorland Inquisitor into Steadfast Sentry and getting excited to Inspiring Captain and jam in on Turn 4, Turn 5.

As of now, I think Inspiring Captain is the 2nd best White common behind Pacifism. It's worse than the "good removal" tier of commons, but once you start hitting the "solid creatures" section with Audacious Thief, Silverback Shaman, and more I think Captain fits right in with that bunch.

Blue: 

I'm not gonna lie, I'm not really sure what Blue is doing super well in this format. It has the most powerful common in Cloudkin Seer and the Arena infamous Reknown Weaponsmith plus Heart-piecer Bow setup, but the individual Blue commons don't play well on this "every card trades and you want them all to be solid per card rates" axis. Typically in these kind of formats Blue wins by breaking the card parity or having Essence Scatter type universal answers, and it can't really do either that well.

Frilled Sea Serpent at least tries to play on the exchange axis. The 4/6 size is both good against the multiple common 5/4s at the top of other high ends (Silverback Shaman and Fire Elemental) and a bit hard to double block, but importantly this is a card that plays both the aggressive and defensive sides of the late game well. If you are behind, 4/6 is going to block hard. If you are ahead, a 4/6 attacks fine and the unblockable ability threatens to close out.

Why is this important? There isn't a defined control end game in this format if you don't have Scholar of the Ages or Moldervine Reclamation, and sometimes even if you do have those in your deck you don't draw them. Building a defensive deck means you end up in board stalls where no one is advantaged your opponent might just draw kill spell plus flier first. Obviously Frilled Sea Serpent breaks those stalls slowly open, but the plan I described of getting ahead and using it as a way to close the gap on pressure is crucial. If the game plays out such that you can be aggressive, you really want your cards to be able to let you extract the life total value while you can because the format doesn't give a ton of other ways to generate tangible value of any kind.

You can't play too many 6 drops in a Draft deck, but if I had 1-2 Frilled Sea Serpents in a Blue deck I would be reasonably happy about that outcome.

Black: 

Fathom Fleet Cutthroat is the reverse Inspiring Captain. It still has the damage or trade down choice, it's just after the fact and tends to result in attrition rather than beatdown.

One key to this card is that Black has multiple lower cost common creatures your opponents really want to block: Blood Burgler and Audacious Thief. Bladebrand also exists, but your opponent might be OK trading for that if it means you don't develop your battlefield. Black's access to Soul Salvage at common is also extremely important here to both extend the profitability of trading and threaten Fathom Fleet Cutthroat deeper into games just because the card is in your graveyard. Good opponents will play around the card a bit, but there's only so much room to do that. Plus, often if they do play around it the 2/2s I mentioned have already extracted extra value before you play a normal 3/3.

Now is probably a good time to talk about how 3/3 is just a solid body size in this format. Almost nothing below five mana beats a 3/3 in combat, and very few things hit the 6 power threshold so 3/3s threaten profitable double blocks.  '

You might notice a lot of my discussion centers around 2/2s and 3/3s brawling. Heart-Piercer Bow is a real constraining factor on the Arena metagame, and both forcing your opponent to need multiples for it to do anything and not giving them time to find those are huge. Heart-Piercer Bow decks are generally lacking on quality creatures, so really that matchup is almost always the time where you are put to the test about your deck being able to play the aggressor well.

I'm less excited about Fathom Fleet Cutthroat than Inspiring Captain because it is worse in multiples, but it's on the good side of the playable filler line.

Red: 

Fire Elemental has some bad card inertia. It was not great in Dominaria and not great in Core Set 2019.

A couple things changed in Core Set 2020, and now Fire Elemental is solidly in the same good top end filler camp as Frilled Sea Serpent. The biggest and most obvious is the Elemental subtype. There aren't even a ton of Elemental payoffs, but just the interaction with Chandra's Firecat allowing a Turn 4 Fire Elemental is a game changer.

Fire Elemental also layers well with Lavakin Brawler, even ignore the Elemental type upside. While I did talk about how double blocking a 5/4 with 3/3s happens, there are only so many times that can happen because people only have so many 3/3s. 5/4 sizing pushes 2-for-1s on more common double blocks involving 2/2s. Lavakin Brawler into Fire Elemental often means both creatures are 5/4s and you can just push your opponent out of the game with beefy attacks.

The fifth power on Fire Elemental also gives Red a little more range. All the Red removal is size capped, and having some of your general sizing push above Chandra's Outrage's 4 damage can help a Red deck continue to operate through some larger threats or a boosted creature. I like Reduce to Ashes a bit more than everyone else for a similar reason.

As with Frilled Sea Serpent you can't play a ton of five drops, but if my Red deck has 1-2 Fire Elementals there I'm absolutely fine with that.

Green: 

Green gets  a double dip here because these two cards are tied to each other.

Season of Growth would be really bad in a lot of other formats (Eyes Everywhere in Ravnica Allegiance was mediocre). In this format is one of the better green plans. Season of Growth is one of the few cards that actually offers a long term engine, not making your cards better on average but just scrying lands away and giving you more spells over time. The card draw on target is largely a bonus and I wouldn't go out of my way to play a ton of combat tricks to support it. Rabid Bite is the exciting way to trigger that ability, Growth Cycle is not.

But I would play Feral Invocation regardless, and it's presence as another already good common way to draw cards with Season of Growth is a huge upside for that uncommon.

One shot pump spells in Core Set 2020 are rather unexciting. Too often the best spot for them over a game is saving a 2/2 or a 3/3 in combat, and at the end of the game spending 2 mana and a card to conditionally make another replacement level dork is not worth it. The times you get to win a fight of two big things or break open a double block are just rare.

But Feral Invocation is different. When you fire off Feral Invocation in one of these small ball fights you end up with something big that your opponent has to answer. Even if they kill your 4/4 or 5/5 later, you end up having killed their creature on curve and forcing a good removal spell out of their hand while probably getting in another good attack or two.

Season of Growth is as good a first pick as some of the second string removal like Shock, and Feral Invocation is solidly in the good playables camp below that.

Artifact: 

It should be no shock that if my premise is forcing stuff to trade up is good, equipment overperforms in Core Set 2020. Marauder's Axe solidly pushes creatures up a tier and a half, letting 2/2s attack into 3/3s and 5/4s, letting 3/3s break up simple double blocks, and letting fliers clock extremely fast. Red also lets you pull some fun tricks with Goblin Smuggler and moving the Axe around to push through extra unblockable damage.

My Simic, Dimir, and Golgari decks largely aren't trying to play this game of ensuring they can draw a 2/2 on Turn 10 and still attack with it, but anything with White or Red is. There's diminishing returns on multiple equipment since you can't have a Spear pick up a Sword, but I usually want to have 1 Marauder Axe in my White or Red decks.