M10 in limited: Thoughts?

[Hawk]

So, with the prerelease today, release parties next weekend, and M10 limited as the format of choice until Zendikar, what does everyone think? Here's some general thoughts:

1. White is good. No, better than that. Seriously, it's really friggin good:
It's pretty intuitive to most people that with Serra Angel, Elite Vanguard, and Harm's Way at uncommon, Pacifism and Stormfront Pegasus at common, and 4 lords for their primary creature type, white is amazing. However, white is easily the deepest limited color on top of that: I count only 6 of their 30 commons and uncommons that are un-maindeckable in limited, and several of those are very powerful SB cards (Celestial Purge, Solemn Offering). Silvercoat Lion, Safe Passage, and Siege Mastodon are not sexy cards like white's first picks, but they are solid in limited and I'd be happy to play them. I hate to say it, but in an otherwise weak pack the correct pick is probably a white card just to try and hedge a few people out of white...and with such a deep pool of playables, white can support a lot of drafters.

2. If your opponent lays an island, be afraid. Be very afraid.
Wait, what? Blue sucks, right? Wrong. Well, right, but...well, bear with me. Blue in limited is very, very shallow with precious few playables. Even their fringe critters that I would play are badly outclassed by white and often matched by black and green (Horned Turtle versus Palace Guards or Centaur Courser, for example). But blue has several "I win" buttons at uncommon, namely Sleep, Air Elemental (which is still a badass even with an angel at U), and Mind Control. So if the first land your opponent drops is an island, you should be on guard, since there are only two options:
1. Your opponent can't brain today. He has the dumb.
2. Your opponent cracked Sleep, MC, or Air Elemental or some rare bomb like Time Warp, Jace, or Djinn of Wishes, and is going to clobber you with said bomb.

Basically, against a blue opponent, you should be prepared to face a deck that has shallow threats even when supported by another color, but has the potential to one-shot you with a lethal card. For this reason, I think blue is actually still worth drafting. It does have plenty of playable (though not stellar) cards at common, and its uncommons are all "I Win" buttons that will potentially go several picks late since everyone is fighting over soldiers and lightning bolts.

3. Black is all or nothing
Black makes an awesometastic support color or splash mostly due to Doom Blade (the two common vampires, Child of Night and Vampire Aristocrat, are also fine playable men). However, black has as many un-MD'able cards as blue does by my count (8, and honestly Duress is pretty iffy in limited), so it's pretty shallow. What's worse, many "playable" black cards are at their best in a very heavy black deck: Tendrils of Corruption, Consume Spirit, Looming Shade and to a lesser extent Dread Necromancer, Sign in Blood, [card], and the regenerators. Black is brutal if you can draft a near-mono black deck, but quite poor otherwise, and since everyone is going to be happy and willing to snatch up Doom Blades and splash them with a swamp and an expanse, I'd steer clear of black. It may actually be a worse color in limited than blue just because it punishes a two-tone deck.

4. Green is probably the safest color
Green has the greatest depth: while many of its cards are iffy, it only has 5 cards that I would never, ever MD (Mold Adder, Naturalize, Bountiful Harvest, Regenerate, and Windstorm, and at least 2 of those are great SB cards). While they are far from constructed all stars, a lot of greens men outclass the other colors so badly it's dumb (Stampeding Rhino is especially outrageous as a common!). Oakenform on an evasive dude or Child of Night can be lights out if not answered with a Doom Blade. Green even has some (bad) removal with classic Giant Growth backed by newcomers Deadly Recluse (of how I wish we had gotten Thornweald Archer) and Entangling Vines, and can break stalemates, and almost all of its rares are plenty playable in limited.

So bottom line, I expect to see a lot of G/x and W/x decks (with x being often blue and sometimes black or red), red and black to get splashed a lot, and occasionally someone to break out with a near-mono Red or Black deck that gets to abuse those colors mono-color dependency and overcome their shallowness via forcing or dumb luck. As a final note, after reviewing and looking at all of M10 as a big picture, this set does look fun to draft. It asks some hard questions about color commitment and forcing that we as players haven't had to ask in several years, and has a lot of cool interactions.

So what do you guys think? Let's chat!

[rabbit]

Prerelease was kinda iffy to me seeing a lot of love for Green. So much out there that's a beast. Personally I went with a G/R deck with nothing that great and demolished people. Went 2-0, 2-0 and had to drop (had to pick up the wife from work ).

From what I saw, black was the worst performer there. It looks like it's relying on a lot of lords via the Vampire guy that gives non-flying vampires flying and boosts stats, and the zombie lord.

I didn't see much blue being played, but the ones that did really didn't play well. They're decent builders, I just didn't see anything decent being played.