Pack1Pick2

In Reality Fracture, everyone's splashing.

Two full draft walkthroughs.

Along the way: Wrath of the Bloodmane over Proft as a first pick, why Something Worth Saving keeps coming around late, Mindseeker Oculus as the best common, how many sources a light green splash needs, the 25-loyalty zero on Jace, Reality Sculptor, and Fblthp, Impossibly Lost winning when you deck yourself. Plus Powered Cube is back on Arena, and we're staying with Reality Fracture after Star Trek arrives.

Adam's draft on 17Lands: https://www.17lands.com/draft/2d06424a9ffc4ea2a23390487b56138f

Andrew will post draft in comments

Next time: how both decks played.

CHAPTERS

(00:00) Intro

(00:16) Board wipes, and can AI design a set?

(01:36) Star Trek is coming; we stay on FRA

(04:23) Welcome: two drafts, pick by pick

(06:01) Adam's draft

(17:37) Adam's build

(20:19) Andrew's Contender Draft

(34:31) Andrew's build

Should you attack your opponent's Jace, or their face?

Adam pulled seven real boards from his own Reality Fracture games on 17Lands, stopped each one at declare attackers, and we called it before seeing what he actually did.

Along the way: Sanctum Lurker keeping Jace tokens alive at zero loyalty, Way of the Mind Sculptor turning every [-3] into draw two, the lethal Adam missed with a second Yoshimaru, Scrappy Stray (Andrew found it), Plus why Pack 1, Pick 2 is where the best drafters pull away in the 17Lands data, and why all these small Empower Jace decisions make this the most skill-testing Limited format of the year.

One we couldn't settle: spot 4. Ajani Unrelenting at four loyalty, the opponent at 9 with a freshly flashed-in Jace token at 3. Jace or face? Tell us.

Next week: more Reality Fracture.

CHAPTERS

(00:00) Intro

(00:16) Pack 1, Pick 2

(09:17) Jace or Face 1: Sanctum Lurker

(14:58) Jace or Face 2: Way of the Mind Sculptor

(18:44) Jace or Face 3: Way of the Warlord

(24:31) Jace or Face 4: Ajani Unrelenting

(28:07) Jace or Face 5: Token vs. token

(33:13) Jace or Face 6: Ghalta and seven loyalty

(36:07) Jace or Face 7: Undulating Witness

(38:35) Why Empower Jace makes this set

Sealed in Reality Fracture is one of the best Sealed formats of all time.

We dive into a sealed pool with two Chandra, Chill of Compliance, Chandra, Torch of Defiance and two Kiora of Fire and Ashes, but not enough removal or fixing to play them all. We build it four ways: blue-white, blue-black, black-red, and red-green,

Along the way: why Whiplash Wordsmith's ping does nothing when everyone is gaining life, the land cyclers as early picks, Denzilore Fatehold's double blue, The Echoverse Fulcrum as a seven-mana Wrath that loots, why Rank Rat misses when your opponent always has five cards in hand, how many Plains a splash really needs, and Way of the Cryomancer turning Hexhaven Battalion into six tokens. Plus the sealed recipe: open bombs, find removal, then make the mana work.

Tell us which one you would have registered:

a) https://sealeddeck.tech/x5uMHHq6E7 UB

b) https://sealeddeck.tech/ynexja5Hmq UW

c) https://sealeddeck.tech/7mv7KsFJvj GR

d) https://sealeddeck.tech/Rf3jh31NwQ BR

e) https://sealeddeck.tech/3kCKoSWnnt UR

Next week: back to draft.

CHAPTERS

(00:00) Intro

(00:16) Sealed week in Reality Fracture

(01:58) Pack 1 Pick 2: the land cyclers

(25:28) One pool: two Chandras and a Sphinx

(40:58) Kiora of Fire and Ashes, times two

(49:09) Building it: blue-red and blue-white

(58:02) Black-red, Temur and red-green

Is Ajani Unrelenting really the best card in the set, which Jace is the trap, and why does the little white Ajani need so much help?

Then a Pack 1 Pick 2 off a first-pick Jace, Reality Sculptor. Color power Rankings, Deck review for a few of our early shots on the format.

Along the way: why Jace tokens don't stick around the way we expected, Surveillance Phantasm against Tetsuko Umezawa and Pia, Determined Rebuilder, the Ajani's Anguish and Rescue Girl loop that ends games, a Skilled Battlecarver taken near last pick winning a double block, Fblthp, Impossibly Lost as a win condition, and Azorius and Golgari on top of the early color-pair data.

Next week: our sealed runs from the weekend, and a deep dive on an archetype.

⁠17lands.com/deck/8bb2f532394e4ab0a80656bd66ed3105/0?view=deck⁠⁠17lands.com/user/deck/1a130d68acc0483b8ddb00f339c22104/139108743/1790823476?view=deck⁠⁠17lands.com/user/deck/1a130d68acc0483b8ddb00f339c22104/139100159/1790819040?view=deck⁠

CHAPTERS

(00:00) Intro

(00:16) Day three: early 17Lands data

(01:11) Welcome: planeswalkers galore

(02:13) Ajani Unrelenting, the best card

(06:35) Two Jaces and the Way enchantments

(13:36) Pack 1 Pick 2

(21:15) Surveillance Phantasm, Tetsuko, Pia

(35:42) Ajani's Anguish is the pick

(37:48) Ranking the five colors

(44:43) Adam's black-red decks: 7-1 and 3-3

(55:03) Andrew's Dimir self-mill deck

(01:02:19) Proft, Fblthp and the best uncommons

(01:07:52) Color pairs: Azorius and Golgari

(01:10:37) Six weeks on Arena, and sealed next

Reality Fracture is on the horizon and approaching quickly. We kickoff with a Pack 1 Pick 2, the most important pick of the draft. We open a pack of Reality Fracture cold and go through it card by card. After that we decrement (1,1) to arrive at another card evaluation exercise Pack Zero Pick One: choosing the best card in all twelve slots and scoring ourselves against a month of 17Lands data and the crowd.

Along the way: why Empower Jace changes how you count what a card is worth, whether Hexhaven Battalion or No Admittance is the better first pick, the 3/4 flier that made us both rethink white-blue, how many seven-drops a ramp deck can actually afford, and a 49-to-48 split between Jiang Yanggu and Fblthp. Plus Ghalta twice, Ajani Unrelenting, and ten supported archetypes for the first time in a while.

CHAPTERS

(00:00) Intro

(00:16) Why Pack 1 Pick 2

(01:56) Pack 1 Pick 1: Reality Fracture

(11:57) Desperate Futurescribe and white-blue

(15:36) Fulminous Forte vs No Admittance

(24:11) Both Ghaltas

(26:32) The pick, and on to Pack 1 Pick 2

(52:42) Pack Zero Pick One: the rules

(01:25:59) Fatehold Charm and Azorius tempo

(01:33:42) Are we excited for this set?

Andrew drafted a mono-white deck out of a Powered Cube last week. This week we build it — and find out what he should have done differently.

Along the way: what a cube actually is and why nobody agrees where the name came from, why there's no rarity distribution in the packs, why knowing a card from its own set actively misleads you here, and why a five-drop has to win the game on the turn it lands. Plus Lurrus and the companion rule, Palace Jailer and the Monarch, and a long argument about Adeline versus Cosmogrand Zenith that comes down to one slot on the curve.

The deck is here if you want to follow along: https://sealeddeck.tech/jikKKrEgTz/

Next week we play the games.

CHAPTERS

(00:00) Intro

(00:38) What is a cube, and why that name?

(04:16) The best cards ever printed

(06:45) SealedDeck.tech vs building in Arena

(09:13) Cutting down: how many lands?

(09:48) Why expensive cards must earn a slot

(19:59) Lurrus, and the companion rule

(26:14) Adeline vs Zenith, and the curve

(34:13) Would you draft it differently?

(35:33) The Ancestral splash that got away

(36:41) Next week

Andrew takes Ancestral Recall with the first pick of a Powered Cube draft on Arena — and then never plays it. What follows is a full draft's worth of taking whichever card in the pack happened to be white, with Adam talking through every pick and Andrew explaining, pick by pick, exactly what he was thinking.

Along the way: why a land can be the right pick over a spell this early, how Fading actually works, what a 17Lands game-in-hand win rate does and doesn't tell you, why a four-mana card is close to a death sentence in a format where games are decided on turn five, and what the heck a Monarch is.

CHAPTERS

(00:00) Intro

(00:17) Why Cube, and why it's intimidating

(02:52) The draft review begins: Pack 1, Pick 1

(05:26) Pack 1 Pick 2: the most important pick

(08:07) Parallax Wave, and how Fading works

(13:08) What a 17Lands win rate measures

(14:18) Serra Paragon and the four-mana problem

(25:55) The first wheel: Batterskull and Thalia

(28:52) Pack 2, Pick 1: Sol Ring vs Strip Mine

(39:58) Wandering Emperor and land flexibility

(57:58) Why LSV and Marshall works

(58:25) Outro