Prerelease Primer - Aether Revolt
Aether Revolt Brings Synergy to B.R.E.A.D.
To begin, let's discuss B.R.E.A.D., an acronym that represents a reliable order of cards to make a great limited deck. In order, these go bombs, removal, evasion, aggressive, and dregs. Generally, you can use this simple acronym to succeed in limited up to a certain point. However, with the release of Aether Revolt, this limited format has become much more focused on synergy play. Many powerful cards in this set rely on other, less powerful cards in order to succeed. There is even an entire mechanic built around this idea in the form of Improvise, forcing you to have a certain number of artifact cards, good or bad, to cast cards with powerful effects ahead of curve. Therefore, for the Aether Revolt prerelease, lets change the acronym to B.R.E.A.D.S. so that we can add synergy to our decks and make sure that we're pumping out the strongest abilities on curve.
Speaking of curve, I want to take a moment to explain what a good curve should look like. When discussing a 'curve' in Magic, this refers to the amount of cards that you have of a specific converted mana cost. In order to successfully cast cards, you need to have some cards at each mana cost but not too many. In my experience, the appropriate curve should look something like this:
1 CMC (Converted Mana Cost): 1-2 Cards
2 CMC: 3-5 Cards;
3 CMC: 4-6 Cards;
4 CMC: 3-5 Cards;
5 CMC: 3-5 Cards;
6+ CMC: 1-3 Cards
Lands: 16-18 Cards.
Of course, the exact number of cards that you play in each slot will vary based on the type of deck that you're building and what types of cards you're including. For example, an aggressive red and white deck may run six two-mana creatures and spells in order to ensure that they're going to hit the board early whereas a controlling blue and black deck with a lot of removal may only run three two-mana spells because they know they will be able to catch up later. So when you're building your Aether Revolt sealed deck, be sure your deck lands somewhere in the above mentioned curve if you want to maximize your chances of victory.
Now that we've cleared up a good curve for your deck, it's time to take a closer look at each piece of the acryonym B.R.E.A.D.S. within the world of Aether Revolt and see how each of them can take you to victory at the prerelease.
Bombs
Bombs can come in many shapes in sizes but they all have a unifying aspect: they will win you the game if they're not dealt with by your opponent. These are the cards that you want to see when you crack open your packs this weekend. If you take a close look at the cards above, you'll notice that six of these cards have flying. This is no coincidence and it can't be understated that flying, evasive creatures with big bodies are extremely dangerous if left unchecked. When you first open all of your prerelease packs, identify and separate your biggest bombs and see whether or not you can support them with the rest of your cards. Uncommons can also be bombs with cards from Aether Revolt such as Ridgescale Tusker and Untethered Express jumping to mind. One of the best ways to judge whether a card is a bomb is to imagine a game where that card is played against you and you don't have a removal spell to deal with it. Then answer the question: How do I not die to that?
Removal
Removal is the next major key to any successful limited deck. Being able to stop your opponent's threats is a huge priority when deckbuilding. All of the cards above except Pacification Array are common ways to remove a card from the battlefield. The more efficient, permanent, and direct a removal spell is, the better it becomes. For example, if a card says 'Destroy target attacking creature', then that card is strictly worse than a card that says 'Destroy target creature'. Similarly, effects that shut down creatures such as those on Caught in the Brights or Ice Over are not as powerful as those that remove a card permanently from the battlefield. Another consideration is the speed of the card. If two cards say 'deals 2 damage to target creature' but one is an Instant and one is a Sorcery, the Instant is always better as it allows you to interact on your opponent's turn. With all of this being said, you want to be able to play about 4-7 pieces of removal in your sealed deck for the Aether Revolt prerelease. Also, remember that this set is stacked with artifacts so you should absolutely always maindeck at least one piece of artifact removal. Another important thing to remember is that Aether Revolt has not one, but two common removal (Shock and Cruel Finality) spells that care about a creature's toughness being 2 or below. This means that you should prioritize creatures with a higher toughness than that to try and avoid those spells.
Evasion
I briefly touched on the power of evasion when I was speaking about bombs but the point can't be overstated: creatures with evasion are better. This doesn't just mean flying either even if flying is the most obvious example of this. Creatures with Menace require two creatures to block them when they attack allowing for them to 'evade' single creatures early in the game. Also, there are creatures with conditional abilities that allow for only certain creatures to block them. This is another form of evasion as you can utilize removal to clear a path for those creatures. When considering cards with evasion, any card that has a high power relative to it's casting cost should be considered highly. Sometimes those cards left unanswered will just win you the game.
Aggressive
The words 'aggressive' here is a bit of a misnomer in my opinion. Rather than meaning literally aggressive, as in it attacks well, I believe that this means 'aggressively costed'. The distinciton is mild but relevant. For a controlling blue and black deck, a 1/4 for two mana is aggressively costed despite its inability to pressure your opponent's life total. Any card that has a combined power and toughness that is equal to or higher than double the mana cost is an 'aggressive' pick. For example, a four mana 4/4, or a three mana 3/3, or a two mana 2/3 all qualify. Regardless, this does also mean that cards that favor attacking are included on this list. Many times, special keywords can bring otherwise mediocre cards into being aggressive. First strike on a 2/1 or trample on 4/4 make those cards more aggressive and more aggressively costed. For Aether Revolt, there are a ton of creatures like this in the set and I'd recommend avoiding any creature that doesn't fulfill these simple requirements unless they are accomplishing some other goal that your deck has (like upping your artifact count).
Dregs
Time to fill out that curve. Dregs are the last cards that you should put into your deck and are there to essentially fill out your curve and take up space. If you can glean some incidental value out of them, then that's great but the primary goal of the dregs is to make sure that you can play your better spells on time. Within the limited world of Aether Revolt and Kaladesh, you should always prioritize dregs that have some even minor synergy with your overall deck plan. If you're trying to make a bunch of energy, check to see if you have cards that make energy. The same goes for Revolt enablers, Servos and +1/+1 counters all of which have plenty of synergy in the format.
Synergy
The last and certainly not least of the newly minted B.R.E.A.D.S. acronym is synergy or cards that work well together. Synergy is being injected full bore into the limited metagame and it's incredibly important to note if you want to be successful at your prerelease. There are four major synergies going on in Aether Revolt: Improvise and artifacts, energy production, +1/+1 counters, and Revolt.
First off, let's tackle Improvise and the importance of your artifact count. Improvise allows you to play powerful cards before they would be otherwise provided that you have enough artifacts to tap to pay for one mana. If you open the monsterous Herald of Anguish, then you'll be wanting the ability to play this guy on turn five. In order to accomplish this, you'll need to have two other artifacts on the battlefield. Since on turn five you're likely to have seen 12 out of 40 cards and you want to have 2 artifacts out, you'll need to have approximately 8 artifacts in your deck, all of which that are four mana or cheaper. Figuring out exactly what you want the ability to do is important before you even begin putting cards into the deck.
For Revolt, finding easy, cheap sacrifice outlets and blink effects such as Renegade Map and Aviary Mechanic will be effective. However, you'll also be able to use combat as an opportunity to trigger Revolt so creating some cheap Servos to run into your opponent's blockers provides another chance. Revolt as a mechanic also fits well into any of the other synergy based decks such as artifacts or counters as many of their abilities overlap.
The energy decks actually didn't get a bunch of common and uncommon enablers that are worth forcing. However, if you've opened one of the broken monster bombs such as Aetherwind Basker or the mythic uncommon Longtusk Cub, you can find a fair amount of quiet but effective enablers in Aether Revolt. Basically, you'll want a couple of really good reasons to go into an energy deck and if you get them, then go ham and take all of the random energy creatures in that color.
Finally, the +1/+1 counters deck got a bunch of love in this set with some truly quality bomb and enablers. During Kaladesh, drafting +1/+1 counters deck was always a long shot but now, you'll definitely be able to 'get there'. For the Aether Revolt prerelease, I think you'll definitely want at least 8 cards that produce or care about counters to make it an effective strategy.
Finally, let me leave you with some powerful synergies that you can utilize during the prerelease. If you get these cards in combination, then I certainly wouldn't ignore their potential.
Powerful Combinations
For one mana and a card slot for the Implement, I'll draw a card, put a +1/+1 counter on this guy and kill your creature over there. Seems good.
Nothing like the old 5/5 for five that puts two +1/+1 counters on every creature you control thanks to the Snake and enables an instant speed trick to put ANOTHER two +1/+1 counters on every single creature you control. Oh, what's that? Go to game two? Thought so.
When I first reviewed this set, I was wondering why Servo Schematic was an uncommon. Because turn three Wind-Kin Raiders, that's why. Nothing like playing a card three turns early.
Honestly, if you open this rare, with Attune and the turtle, it shouldn't be that hard to pull of the turn two 3/4 elephant.
Ensoul Artifact was one of my favorite cards in M15 simply because of the shenanigans it caused. Now, they've reprinted it with a harder mana cost and some weird text about returning it to your hand. Either way, putting some pants on your Ornithopter (it keeps flying) is a huge play so look out for these two in sealed pool.
Okay, if you happen to open both Animation Module and Metallic Mimic, you have some of the best luck on earth but you also have one of the most broken limited combos. From that point on, as long as you have sacrifice outlet or put a counter on something, you can make as many one mana 2/2s as you have mana available. Turn 5, sacrifice a Servo, end of turn, put a 1/1 Servo into play, put a +1/+1 counter on said Servo, trigger Animation Module, pay one mana, put a 1/1 Servo into play, put a +1/+1 counter on said Servo, repeat 4 times. Eight power on the board for four mana.
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