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Magic: The Gathering’sWilds Of Eldraine returns to the fairy-tale world of Eldraine, but things aren’t quite the happily ever after you might have been expecting. Plagued by a sleeping curse, many of its denizens have fallen into a deep slumber, and the forces beyond the courts and out in the wilds have started to regain some of their ancient power.
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One of the neat things about Wilds of Eldraine is its draft archetypes. Alongside the usual mechanical themes, each of the ten archetypes is also tied to a new take on a classic fairy tale. Whether you’re drafting on Arena or heading to an event, here’s every limited theme in Wilds of Eldraine, and which cards to keep an eye out for.
White/Blue: The Frost Queen – Enemy Tapping
Inspired by The Snow Queen, this archetype is all about controlling the board by tapping down your opponent’s creatures and freezing them in place. WhileSharae of the Numbing Depths is your signpost uncommon,the real star of this archetype isHylda of the Icy Crown,which gives you all kinds of additional effects whenever you tap an opponent’s creature.
To tap down creatures, keep an eye out for cards like Hyldra’s Crown of Winter, Frostguard, Icewrought Sentry, Succumb to the Cold, Snaremaster Sprite, Bitter Chill, and Blind Obedience. Even if you don’t find any of the payoffs for doing this,stalling your opponent’s attacksenough to give you time to build up your board state is always good.
Thosepayoffs can be incredibly spicy, though. Solitary Sanctuary puts +1/+1 counters on creatures you control whenever you tap an opponent’s, Threadbind Clique can outright destroy tapped creatures, and Freeze In Place can extend the time it’s tapped with stun counters and a bit of scrying to sweeten the deal.
Blue/Black: Enchanting Slumber – Faerie Control
Based on Sleeping Beauty, this hint of Lorwyn in Eldraine is the return of blue/black Faerie typal strategies. But more than just playing a lot of Faeries and hoping for the best, this archetype uses Faeries to destroy your opponent’s creatures, control the board, and drain them of life all at the same time.
Your signpost uncommon here isObyra, Dreaming Duelist, who forces opponents to lose one life with each Faerie you play. From there,you can control the flow of the gamewith counterspells like Spellscorn Coven’s Take It Back Adventure spell, or Spell Stutterto offer up a tricky to pay for counterspell for the more Faeries you control. You can also destroy your opponent’s hand with an Ego Drain.
Keep an eye out for Bitterblossom in the Enchanted Tales slot to provide a steady stream of Faeries each turn. A big bomb for this archetype is Faerie Slumber Party. At six mana it’s rather expensive, but with how many go-wide strategies there are in Wilds of Eldraine, a board wipe that then gives you a ton of Faerie tokens could be what you need to close the game out.
Black/Red: The Dark Piper – Rat Token Aggro
Black and red? Doing something that isn’t sacrifice? Yes, and no. This Pied-Piper-themed archetype is ostensibly a go-wide strategy focused on producing lots of Rat tokens, but those little critters are so expendable that sometimes you just can’t help sacrificing them toa juicy bargained spell.
Totentanz, Swarm Piperis the signpost uncommon here, turning your dying nontoken creatures into 1/1 Rat tokens you can give deathtouch to when they attack. Elsewhere, look out for Lord Skitter, Sewer King; Tangled Colony, Voracious Vermin, and Ogre Chitterlord to help make more Rats. Your biggest bomb is Song of Totentanz, an X-cost spell that can make a massive swarm of Rats if you play it at the right time.
Buffing Rats is easy peasy, thanks to cards like Tattered Ratter and Gnawing Crescendo, which gives them +2/+0, or Twisted Sewer-Witch, to give them all Wicked Role tokens that give them +1/+1.
As mentioned, Rats are a great source of sacrifice fodder. Throw them into a Lich-Knights’ Conquest, Rankle’s Prank, or a Vampiric Rites, or sacrifice them to a bargained spell like Back For Seconds or Beseech the Mirror to really get some big value off your little skittery friends.
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Red/Green: Ruby & The Wolf – Big Power Creatures
Little Red Riding Hood is fighting back in the red/green archetype. This is a pretty traditional theme for the Gruul colours, with an emphasis onplaying creatures with power four or greater, headed up by Ruby, Daring Tracker.
It’s an archetype we’ve played in other sets: ramp out mana with things like Charming Scoundrel, Redcap Thief, Plant Beans, Rootrider Faun, and Virtue of Strength, to ensure that you’vegot the mana needed to play big, smashy creatures.
Beanstalk Wurm, Hamlet Glutton, Stormkeld Vanguard, Grabby Giant, Hearth Elemental, Minecart Daredevil, and Realm-Scorcher Hellkite are all creatures with at least four power, but don’t forget about thenumerous pump spellsthat can get even smaller creatures over the line. Make sure you grab a few Leaping Ambush, Minecart Daredevil and Titanic Growth.
The payoff for this deck, beyond having big creatures to smash with, are in the numerous effects that rely on power. Things like Garruk’s Uprising and Boundary Lands Ranger for card draw, Picnic Ruiner for a 2/2 double striker (that you’re able to buff). Once you have the mana and the draw engine, it’s as simpleas keeping the pressure on to crush your opponent.
Green/White: Armont & The Beasts – Go-Wide Enchantments
Wilds of Eldraine’s Beauty and the Beast pastiche plays with one of the set’s new mechanics, Role tokens. Bygoing wide with lots of creatures, and giving each of them different Roles, it’s an interesting melding of usual token strategies with an enchantress flair.
Syr Armont, the Redeemer is the signpost for this archetype, providing a +1/+1 buff to any enchanted creatures you control, while also giving one you controla Monster Role enchantmenttoken to kick things off.
Going wide and fast is your goal here, so find cheap creatures like Cheeky House-Mouse, Regal Bunnicorn, Slumbering Keyguard, and Ferocious Werefox. You then need to find ways to enchant them for the buff from Syr Armont, sostock up on ways to make as many Role tokens as possible.
Royal Treatment is a great tool for this, as it also gives that creature hexproof for the turn. Ferocious Werefox’s Guard Change costs more for make a Monster token, and Besotted Knight’s Betroth the Beast makes a Royal Role for just one mana. Your most powerful tool here, though, is Spellbook Vendor, who gives you a way to make a Sorcerer Role and put it on a creature each turn.
Archon of the Wild Rose and A Tale For The Ages are your biggest bombs available here. Archon of the Wild Rose makes all those small creatures into 4/4s with flying,before you’ve even added the buff from their Roles.Meanwhile, A Tale for the Ages gives a straight +2/+2 buff, which turns our cheap, fast creatures into much bigger threats.
White/Black: Pale As Snow – Sacrifice
Pinching black and red’s usual theme are the Orzhov colours of white and black. The theme here is another new set mechanic, with yousacrificing anything you can get your hands on to bargain with. This archetype plays up evil queen of Snow White, with Snow White herself, Neva, Stalked by Nightmares, being its signpost uncommon.
This midrange archetype combines the black sacrifice engines given by cards like Lich-Knights’ Conquest, Rankle’s Pranks, and Vampiric Rites, with the Role tokens white makes available through things like Spellbook Vendor and Protective Parents. You caneven pick up some of black’s Roles, too, like with Conceited Witch, Lord Skitter’s Blessing, and Not Dead After All.
The goal is touse these tokens as sacrificial fodder. Throw a Role into a Beseech the Mirror to cast a spell from your deck for free, or to Kellen’s Lightblades to destroy a creature. Doing this buffs Neva with her second ability, or you can combine it with a Wicked Visitor to make each opponent lose life, Ashiok’s Reaper to draw cards, or a Rimefur Reindeer to tap down potential blockers.
As it’s in white, this archetype has access toone of Wilds of Eldraine’s biggest bombs, Moonshaker Cavalry. Drain your opponent down enough to then swing in with a flock of massive, flying creatures to take the win. This is one of the best cards in the whole set, so make good use of it.
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Blue/Red: The Magician’s Misstep – Spellslinger
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a surprising inclusion for Eldraine, but here it is in the blue/red Spellslinging deck, focused oncasting lots of instant and sorcery spells. Oddly, there’s only one blue/red legendary creature in the whole of Wilds of Eldraine, and it’s our draft signpost, the hugely underwhelming Johann, Apprentice Sorcerer.
Spellslinging in Eldraine means something slightly different to elsewhere, as you don’t have to choose between creatures and nonpermanent spellsthanks to the Adventure mechanic. You’ve got loads to work with here, like Aquatic Alchemist, Galvanic Giant, Frolicking Familiar, Scalding Viper, and, as one of its strongest beaters, Hearth Elemental. Combine them witha Chancellor of Tales to copy the Adventure, and you’ll be getting a lot of value from an already valuable mechanic.
Reduce the cost of those spells you cast with a Mocking Sprite, and verify you’re using Unruly Catapult to ping your opponent before you play an instant or sorcery to untap it and ping them again.
This is probably the least solidly defined archetype of the set, so you’ll struggle to find bombs to close the game out with. A fun one is touse Stonesplitter Bolt with Imodane, the Pyrohammer– bargain it, throw ten mana into it targeting any creature, and Imodane will then throw 20 damage right at your opponent’s face.
Black/Green: Greta, Witch Hunter – Midrange Food
One of the goals of Wilds of Eldraine was to give you more stuff to do with Food than just cracking it for life, and this Hansel and Gretal-inspired archetype lets you do just that. This time around, Gingerbrute is joined by a Greta, Sweettooth Scourge, a signpost uncommon dedicated to sacrificing Food for so much more than a quick boost of life.
First, you’ll need to make Food. Gingerbread Hunter, Scream Puff, Gumdrop Poisoner, Old Flitterfang, and Provisions Merchant are great for this, although, bar Flitterfang, these are mostly one-off effects, and the archetype doesstruggle with producing Food tokens on a consistent, turn-by-turn basis.
Using Food in different ways is key. Fortunately, Greta provides +1/+1 counters and card draw straight off the bat. But you can also use Experimental Confectioner to make Rat tokens, or use Food tokens for more Bargain spells, likeCandy Grapple, Hamlet Glutton or Thunderous Debutfor a way to get big threats out into play quickly.
Of course,using Food the old fashioned way can also be good. Gaining life works in a pinch, and if you’re lucky enough to draft a Sanguine Bond, you could use it as your primary way of winning the game, provided you have enough Food and the mana to crack them.
Red/White: Brawl At The Grand Ball – Celebration Aggro
Red and white’s Cinderella-themed archetype is all about the celebration mechanic, which gives you abilities if at least two permanents entered the battlefield under your control this turn. In most sets, this might be a tricky ability to reliably trigger, but with Eldraine’s Food, Rats, and Roles, it’s shockingly simple.
Your signpost is Ash, Party Crasher, which gets a +1/+1 counter whenever it attacks, as long as you’re celebrating that turn. It’s not a massive ability, so the goal here is to instead drown your opponent out with a huge number of triggers andbury them under the value. Grab as many celebration cards as you can, like Belligerent of the Ball, Raging Battle Mouse, Grand Ball Guest, and the heavy-hitting Goddric, Cloaked Reveler.
Making tokens to trigger celebration is easy enough.Anything that makes a Role, like Besotted Knight, Cursed Courtier, Discerning Financier, or Spellbook Vendor will help. you’re able to alsouse Rats, with Redcap Gutter-Dweller, Ratcatcher Trainee, and Harried Spearguard all helping keep those permanents entering the battlefield. Sneak Attack is a risky play because you have to sacrifice the creature at the end step, but in a pinch it could be just what you need.
Again, as you’re likely to have a fair few creatures (not to mention a lot of Rats), a Moonshaker Cavalry is a good bomb to drop in here. You can also use Fiery Emancipation to push more damage through when you swing, just to ensure every little swinger is doing their best.
Green/Blue: The Kingdom Of Storms – Big Mana Value Ramp
Finally, we’ve got blue/green doing what it does best:casting big spells with high mana valuesand lots of ramp. Unsurprisingly for the giant spell archetype, these colours are themed around Jack and the Beanstalk, and you’re going to want to grab as many giants as you can for it.
Fortunately, the signpost uncommon, Troyan, Gutsy Explorer, helps you out by tapping to produce one green and one blue. You’llwant other ramp as too, though, so grab things like Rootrider Faun, Beanstalk Wurm, Return From The Wilds, and, if you see it, a Virtue of Strength.
You then need those big mana value spells to cast. Thunderous Debut has the highest mana value in the main Wilds of Eldraine set, and can help get big creatures into your hand to cast them later on. You’ll also want things like Archive Dragon, Beluna’s Gatekeeper, Horned Loch-Whale, Gruff Triplets, and Stormkeld Vanguard.Be very careful to monitor your mana curvewhen building your deck, though, as you don’t want to stall out in the early game because you got too pulled into the mana value game.
Of course, the single best thing you can run here is Omniscience. You’ll be able to play all these spells without paying any mana, butthey’ll still count towards anything that triggers with the casting of them. For instant, Stormkeld Prowler will still pick up two +1/+1 counters, Skybeast Tracker will still make Food tokens, and Galvanic Giant will still tap down potential blockers.
Finally, it’d be a crime to mention green/blue and not mention Wilds’ most famous card: The Goose Mother. It’s an X-cost spell, so as long as you pay at least three generic mana into it, it will count as high enough mana value for your other effects. You’ll also end up with a 5/5 Bird Hydra and two Food tokens. It’s a lovely day in the local game store, and you are playing a horrible goose.
