MTG Foundations has now been available on MTG Arena for roughly 10 days, and we’re starting to see how the Draft metagame has developed. This format is certainly on the slower side, as games don’t tend to snowball quite as quickly. This is a great change of pace when compared to most of the premier sets of the last year.
Foundations Draft really does feel like classic Limited, as it isn’t quite as heavily driven by mechanical synergies. In some ways, this is a blessing, however, MTG Foundations Draft does have one flaw: it’s surprisingly unbalanced.
It’s not easy for sets in general to have a perfect balance between all five colors. In fact, we mentioned that the black commons in Duskmourn fell noticeably short compared to the other colors. However, the gap between white and the rest of the pack is rather detrimental to the Foundations Draft experience.
The Best Commons by a Mile
A huge part of the reason why drafting white is so appealing in Foundations Limited is because the white commons are extremely strong. According to 17lands.com, a site that tracks MTG Arena user Draft data, the six commons with the highest win rates when maindecked are all white. Furthermore, the top four are all simple creatures that go into any deck.
At the top of that list is Dazzling Angel. Dazzling Angel is an extremely simple design. In a set like Foundations, though, it does everything you want. It’s great in racing situations, it has evasion, and you’ll even get some nice bonuses with your life gain matters cards, such as Ajani’s Pridemate.
Healer’s Hawk is very similar. Anytime you can play it turn one, you’ve gained a pretty big advantage. It has the upside of pairing perfectly with Felidar Savior, which is a rather pushed common in the set.
Beyond just creatures, white also gets elite removal in the form of Banishing Light and Luminous Rebuke. As such, you aren’t forced to be an assertive beatdown deck when playing white.
If you fill your deck with copies of Helpful Hunter (the white common with the second highest win rate, believe it or not), Sun-Blessed Healer in the uncommon slot, and cheap removal, you can easily win by out-valuing your opponent. It’s hard to go wrong when you have access to all of these commons in one color.
Supporting Multiple Gameplans
The versatility of white in Foundations also makes it easy to pair with pretty much any other color. According to 17lands.com, the color combination with the highest win rate overall is actually mono-white with a splash. The uncommons and rares you open and get passed help guide you down a specific path, but it’s hard to go wrong with white as a base.
Blue is definitely the strongest color to pair with white, in large part because of the strength of the fliers. Empyrean Eagle isn’t just the best uncommon in the set, but it has the fourth-highest win rate when maindecked of any card at any rarity. Buffing your Healer’s Hawks and Dazzling Angels presents an easy path to victory. Throw in some copies of Mischievous Mystic and Faebloom Trick, and you’re golden.
Empyrean Eagle isn’t the only strong multi-color uncommon that can give you a good direction, though. Both Heroic Reinforcements and Fiendish Panda are solid uncommons to splash.
With Heroic Reinforcements, you might want to pick go-wide elements like Resolute Reinforcements more aggressively than normal. This makes Fiendish Panda, Healer’s Hawk, and Dazzling Angel incredible pickups. White’s ability to bolster all these different gameplans makes it very hard to stray away from if it’s even remotely open in your seat.
Ending Up in Other Colors
At the end of the day, while Foundations Limited is certainly unbalanced given how strong white is, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t merit to playing other colors. Naturally, as the format progresses, players will catch on and start picking these white cards more aggressively in Draft. If you can find an open lane outside of white while others fight each other for the color, you can end up in a good spot.
For instance, both red and black have premium removal spells at uncommon. If you are seeing copies of Burst Lightning or Stab fourth pick, that’s a great signal that red or black is open.
There are also some elite uncommons to pull you away from white. Micromancer is excellent on power level, but it’s at its best when you can tutor up efficient removal spells like those listed above. By contrast, white doesn’t have one-mana removal at common, so drafting Micromancer may push you down an alternate path.
Of course, you can also open or get passed a busted rare or mythic rare that incentivizes you to prioritize a color other than white. Scavenging Ooze is a great example as it’s one of the best rares in the set. In order to fully abuse it, though, you need a lot of green sources in your mana base.
Interestingly, despite the fact that green is quite a weak support color in the set, mono-green is an archetype with an astonishingly high win rate (just barely behind mono-white and mono-white with a splash). Cards like Scavenging Ooze can pull you in this direction.
Overall, Foundations Limited is still an enjoyable environment. Nonetheless, white’s dominance definitely detracts from an otherwise awesome format. We’re still quite early in the format, so hopefully, things will self-correct over time.
