A 100 Trophy Analysis

I collected 100 WOE trophy lists between the release of The Wilds of Eldraine and Tuesday, September 11th!

I collected 15 each weekday and 20 each weekend day, from a combination of Discord communities and the fabulous 17lands.com. All lists are from players ranked Mythic, Diamond, or Platinum on Magic Arena.

Magic is a game of variance, and one loss or win is not necessarily indicative of a strong or weak strategy. 

A “trophy deck” is one that achieved seven wins before three losses in the Premier Draft Event game mode in Magic the Gathering Arena. I analyze these because a deck with seven wins is a stronger indicator of which cards, combinations, and strategies are finding success at high levels of draft play.

Here’s the raw data from the decklists I collected, and here’s what I learned:

The Data!

Top 40 cards by appearance

In all the months I’ve been writing these 100 Trophy Analyses, this is by far the most exciting distribution of decklists I’ve had. Nine of the color pairs are within one trophy of the performer above it, the best deck is within outliers of the other top six, and everything seems to work. 

With so much power locked into their professed color-pair archetypes, I thought it prudent to track the decks that could operate with less obvious synergies. The Off Archetype column here refers to decks that either had fewer than 9 cards which produced/interacted with their named archetype, or didn’t require those cards to function. WOE is great in part because Edgewall Pack does not turn your deck into a rat deck the way a Tattered Ratter does, and Tough Cookie is great in any green deck compared to food finisher Night of Sweet’s Revenge. The results show that U/R absolutely needs cards that reward casting Instants/Sorceries/Adventures, but most other color pairs can get by with synergies based in one of their colors or a splash. G/W Food splashing Greta, B/W Fairy Roles, R/G Rats, and U/B Tappers all made notable appearances in the Off-Archetype section.

What’s Working?

Everything is working.

Some archetypes are stronger than others, but everything can work with the right cards.The build-around rares are being built around,bargains are being made all over the place, and uncommons are generating entirely too much value when left alone. This format is diverse, and rewards building to your playstyle and trying new things.

Splashing is powerful and relatively free, with 40% of trophy lists splashing at least one color and another nine 3-5 color decks. The multicolored adventure creatures prove to be playable when only half is easily castable, allowing nearly half of those to run them with only one or two ways to access the other half. The rest of the splashes were for removal like Candy Grapple/Witchstalker Frenzy (5 splashes in G/W!), value bombs like Ingenious Prodigy/The Goose Mother(5 Splashes in G/B!), or signpost uncommons to bridge the archetypal gap like Neva, Sharae, and Greta. Six of the fifteen most played cards in these trophy lists were colorless, red, or green fixing.

G/W Auras is narrowly the most prevalent deck among the 100 trophy lists I collected. This appears to be a result of the draft paths, rather than a result of it being the most powerful color pair. With the most powerful rares and mythics in the set, many players opened up a bomb in pack one and forced white for it, or moved into white in pack two after being ready to receive a bomb with green fixing. None of the 13 G/W Trophy Lists managed to do so without any rares or mythics.

Bargain is a very powerful general strategy, without being bound to any one color.The trophy lists indicate that this payoff is worth drafting first, and the setup can be picked up later. The first bargain card is usually free, and sacrificing a permanent at instant speed is often worth a whole card in order to fizzle an entire Gingerbread Hunter/Frolicking Familiar that was aimed at a token. Four 4-Color Bargain decks Trophied this week in my lists, all built around Brave the Wilds and aggressive fixing. These picked up fixing and cards to bargain away early, and drafted every bomb they could late.

What’s Not?

Flexibility appears to be key. The color blue appeared in 13 fewer lists than red, with the most successful blue decks being the ones that moved into it after identifying the open color pair. Blue Decks also had the fewest successful off-archetype trophy lists, indicating a lack of cards that are powerful regardless of their surrounding deck. Red is so successful not because it has the strongest cards, but because those cards fit into the most decks.

U/G and U/W are both strong, but come together less often because they have to fight for their strongest pieces. Sharae, Threadbind Clique, Bitter Chill, Up the Beanstalk, and Hamlet Goliath are all important to how these decks operate and heavily sought by every other deck in even one of those colors.

While every archetype works with rares, a few have them as a requirement. Mono-Red lacks enough burn to close out the last few points of damage through food without a major dragon or rare burn spell to close things out.

Pivoting is a key skill in WOE, with about 40 of the drafters being prepared to abandon a whole color. Many of the cards in WOE aren’t worth trying to fit in without specific cards to go around them. If you don’t know how to read signals, this is the best set we’ve ever had for learning.

Takeaways for your draft:

1. Keep track of your Setups vs your payoffs as you draft, and which are harder to get

1. Tricks provide one or two toughness, and correctly guessing which is which will help mitigate losses in combat

1. Your first bargain card is basically free. You need more for every card that requires bargain

1. Know which cards are playable without bargaining, and which aren’t

1. If you’re staying flexible, your early picks should be useful across archetypes

1. If you’re not going as fast as possible, know where your card advantage is coming from. Its ok to splash raw card draw or adventure creatures.

1. While drafting, remember to contextualize your cards and be prepared to jump ship. Twisted Sewer Witch is a reason to play rats, not a reason to play black.

1. If you don’t see a card you actively want for your gameplan, pick the cards that fix your colors

1. Put some effort into getting extra value out of your removal: Feed the Cauldron is best when you can counter a trick AND get the food. Frantic Firebolt isn’t good if its not scaling with your opponent’s threats

1. Keep track of your 1 toughness creatures as you draft,, and try to minimize them. If you have a lot, then pick something with a little more.

1. U/W Tappers needs a way to take advantage of the time you’re generating, or your opponent will eventually thaw and kill you. This doesn’t have to be strict cards, and can just be flying over them.

1. R/W needs every creature after turn 3 to trigger celebration

1. Know your thresholds, then adjust them based on card draw and how long you expect the game to go: 
1. Griffin Aerie needs 10 ways to gain 3 life
2. Up the Beanstalk needs only 4 ways to trigger it
3. Hatching Plans needs 6 cards with Bargain
4. Raid Bombardment needs 12 two-power or less attackers

1. How many 2MV creatures do you need? Redtooth Genealogist and Curse of the Werefox both require an abundance of 2-drops

1. Know which rares are worth forcing your colors for, its fewer than you might think

1. There’s a difference between a color being open and an archetype being open

End Step

This format is fantastically deep and still developing, so be sure to come back and see how things change.

I’ll update the Wilds of Eldraine full card tier list every Friday with my findings! 

If you have more questions or want to see me tackling this set all the way through Mythic in MTG Arena, stop by  Twitch.tv/ScuffleDLux or the PlayingMTG Discord any time.

Until I see you again, Happy Drafting!