How many times have you been on pick 8-13, and you see [[card_link: Wrangle]] floating there? I bet often. Many people pass this card, and I often passed it as well. It just doesn't seem that good. 1R take a creature with a power of 4 or less, just for a turn? [[card_link: Hijack]] comes to mind from the last draft set, and even that wasn't great. Why should this be any different?
Over the past week I have been drafting a lot of BR aggro style decks. Generally, both colors are open and deep enough where you can get a lot of cards you want. Black isn't the greatest in this set, and is often paired with another color to be worthwhile. Let's take a look at 4 different draft decks I've had that fell into the RB aggro shell, and all went 3-0.
The key is the [[card_link: Threaten]] effect. All of these decks are very aggressive, with many low CMC creatures to keep the pressure up. This results in an overwhelming amount of damage produced in the first 5 turns with minimal resistance due to [[card_link: Wrangle]] and removal.
[[card: Defiant Salvager]] [[card: Reckless Racer]]
These are our two highest priority picks when trying to draft this style of deck. [[card_link: Defiant Salvager]] allows you to sac the opponents creature, which basically turns our [[card_link: Wrangle]] into a 2 CMC "deal x damage, destroy opponent's creature, put a +1/+1 counter on Salvager". The tempo swing from that alone tends to decide a game quickly. [[card_link: Reckless Racer]] allows us to dig for our threaten effects, and since the curve is generally very low, it allows us to pitch any lands that we may draw.
You may also notice that 3 out of 4 of these decks run 15 lands. While this is risky at times, 16 lands tends to flood out more. Your curve essentially stops at 4 mana more often than not, so drawing excess lands tends to be an issue. [[card_link: Implement of Combustion]] is quite good in this shell as well, as it draws a card on its own, can be sacrificed to [[card_link: Defiant Salvager]], and activated the "Draw a Card" from Resourceful Return.
While I have yet to encounter a deck I have a lot of trouble against, I did notice a relative weakness to counter effects and bounce spells like [[card_link: Alley Evasion]] and [[card_link: Select for Inspection]]. While both may be more common in the UW flyers shell, we are often fast enough as it is to just win outright. [[card_link: Leave in the Dust]] can also be an issue, but them wasting a turn to return a creature to our hand typically isn't the end of the world.
Good luck drafting, and enjoy this archetype as much as you can. I know that this has become one of my preferred draft choices, and look forward to more success with it.
[[published_at: 4 Mar 2017, 3:00 pm]]
[[category: Limited Archetypes]]
[[preview_content: Take a look at possibly one of the most often passed cards in Draft]]
[[preview_image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaKeMsWTIonlqU7-o59I-RZC4z5UafnIh0eZiQJxrbu2YWF4AYEU8oMYxnym6WyllCRScC6bHMssNbfRfWj4tmsGlMA6rjPqcGip9vjFWhYLmGD_xC5Q67V6VOm-sPqrIZIYlWhZa8ly9N/s1600/Wrangle.JPG]]
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