Drafting Shadowmoor, Magic the Gathering's Newest Expansion Card Set

Color Matters

With every new Magic the Gathering expansion set, there are new strategies to apply and new combos to discover. Shadowmoor, the newest set, was recently released on May 2, 2008 and one of big things Magic players are realizing in Shadowmoor draft is the importance of color. Color matters in the new Shadowmoor environment. Whereas the overarching theme in the previous sets (Lorwyn and Morningtide) was tribes, color now takes center stage.

Mono-colored Decks

Shadowmoor has many cards that are much more effective if you take note of color considerations. For example, the Cohort common cycle encourages drafters to build mono-colored decks or decks with many cards of the same color. Here is one of the Cohorts.

Briarberry Cohort
Cost: 1U
Type: Creature - Faerie Soldier
P/T: 1/1
Rules Text: Flying. Briarberry Cohort gets +1/+1 as long as you control another blue creature.

Briarberry Cohort is mediocre unless you have at least 7 blue creatures. However, the more blue creatures you have, the more effective Briarberry Cohort becomes.

The common Initiate cycle is similar. Let's look at Intimidator Initiate.

Intimidator Initiate
Cost: R
Type: Creature - Goblin Shaman
P/T: 1/1
Rules Text: Whenever a player plays a red spell, you may pay 1. If you do, target creature can't block this turn.

If you play Intimidator Initiate, make sure you have a lot of red spells. Otherwise, Intimidator Initiate will just be a vanilla 1/1. And vanilla 1/1s are never good in draft.

There are also uncommon cycles that lead drafters in picking many cards of the same color. The creatures in the Mentor cycle give an ability to other creatures you control of the same color. For example, check out Corrosive Mentor.

Corrosive Mentor
Cost: 2B
Type: Creature - Elemental Rogue
P/T: 1/3
Rules Text: Black creatures you control have wither. (They deal damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters.)

Each of the colors has an uncommon creature that gets bigger depending on the number of permanents you control of the same color as the creature. Here is the white creature in this cycle.